Taken (Ava Delaney #4) (4 page)

Esther stared
after her, chewing on a badly bitten thumb nail. She glanced at me.
“What do you think?”

I shrugged.
“She could be wrong.”

“Or Illeana was
working on something she didn’t feel she could trust me with.
Why?”

How was I
supposed to answer that one? “Well, Aiden’s your brother, and
he’s—”

“I got this job
because I’m good at it, not because of my brother,” she
snapped.

I held up my
hands. “I was going to say that he would have to report everything
to someone higher up. Maybe she didn’t trust whoever that might be.
Maybe she didn’t want to get you into trouble. Maybe this really
was something dangerous. If you didn’t know who to trust, who would
you
tell?”

I didn’t tell
her that I was on essentially the same mission as Illeana. I didn’t
tell her how strange I thought that was. We could have worked
together and gotten things done a little quicker. Unless I was on a
dead-end mission that Gabe already knew would lead to nowhere.

“What are you
going to do?” I asked before I could let my temper get the better
of me.

She drummed her
fingers on the table, then nodded. “I’m going to figure out what
she was doing and try to finish off the job when I get back.”

“Get back?”

“The Council
are sending an entourage to check on the situation in England.
They’re a little nervous about more beasts turning up. Not that
you’d catch them admitting it. Anyway, they’re sending rookie
Guardians, so I volunteered.”

A shiver ran
through me. “Be careful over there, but… could you check in on them
for me?”

“Who?”

“The twins.
Remember?” I showed her my wrist. “Apparently, this is going to
keep happening until I help them escape. If you could just let them
know I’m still trying, but that it’s harder than I thought.”

She held onto
my wrist for a couple of seconds, staring at the scarred skin. “You
help me, and I’ll help you. I’ll go through the paperwork and see
if there’s anyone you can talk to, someone with information on
whatever it was Illeana was really up to. I’ll go visit those twins
and see if I can get them on a flight home with me.”

“That might be
dangerous, Esther.”

“Yeah?
Likewise. But you’ll still do it, won’t you?”

I grinned. “Too
right I will.”

She turned her
head slightly, the corners of her eyes crinkling with worry. “Uh
oh. Here comes the big boss man. Wonder who he wants.”

We both watched
as Gabe made his way across the dance floor. He stood out amongst
the dancers, allowing his inner light to glow around him. A
beautiful man with dead eyes.

When he reached
our table, he nodded at Esther. “I hear your brother isn’t happy
about your next assignment.”

She snorted.
“He doesn’t own me. Thankfully. Seemed stupid to send a gang of
newbies across the water when I could lead them.”

“Is that what
you’re looking for? Another promotion?”

She glared at
him. “I’m trying to do my job. We can’t afford to lose any more
Guardians.”

“Then you
should go and prepare yourself. I need to speak to your partner in
crime here.”

I covered my
groan with a cough.

Esther
hesitated, then stood to leave. “I’ll call you, Ava.”

Gabe sat across
from me, and I had the eeriest feeling I was about to be grounded.
The longer the silence, the more I twisted in my seat, feeling the
need to run. His dark brown eyes held my gaze, but there was no
emotion there, only a blank mask. He was the epitome of
attractive—tall, broad, dark, great features—but it was a shell
that hid his true face.

“You know what
I’m going to ask you.”

I threw a
glance heavenward, wishing he would find his way back up there. Our
priorities tended to settle on different issues, making our working
“relationship” difficult. My main concern was the slave market,
while his was Eddie Brogan. The Féinics and possible rebel cause
were the unclear wisps in the background, the thing neither of us
quite believed in.

“I don’t have
any news,” I responded.

“None at
all?”

“Nothing that
would interest you. Except, why did you have Illeana running around
doing the same things as me? Why not have us work together?” He
covered his surprise well, but I caught it anyway. “You didn’t? So
who did?”

His gaze fell
over the bar. “That’s what I’d like to know. Any other
insights?”

“Eddie’s
getting pally with that witch consultant. Other than that, nothing
has actually happened in the five minutes since you last asked me
for an update.”

“Don’t
exaggerate, child.”

“That might
have a little more impact if you weren’t vain enough to portray
yourself as a hot young man while you said it.”

He frowned.

I couldn’t
resist the temptation to push him further. “Any updates on the
formula yet?”

The corner of
his mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “Touché. No, there haven’t
been any updates. The candidate is still alive. Safe and well.”

“Still in the
cells, you mean.”

He shrugged.
“The heart still beats.”

“And what about
the other candidate? The one that went missing? Gideon come up with
the goods yet?”

“He claims it’s
a false rumour, that there was only one candidate other than Becca.
Talk of another was merely a mistake made by one of the Guardians.
Of course, they’re dead now, so we can’t exactly clarify it.”

“Convenient. A
lot like the way he got off scot-free after everything he did.” I
glared at Gabe, still annoyed by the fact that the vampire Gideon
had managed to avoid his own trial, all because he had helped out
during the Becca fiasco. As if he hadn’t been the one to unleash
her on the world. As if he hadn’t used the vampire formula to
create a monster. And it wasn’t as though he actually helped get
rid of her.

“Not everything
is in my hands,” he said, but he looked pretty pissed at the
reminder.

“Can I go, or
do you have any other orders for me?”

He pinched my
wrist, right on the burn, until I squirmed from the pain. “What did
you promise them?” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“Safe passage.
I don’t plan on standing by and watching slavery happen.” I
wriggled out of his reach. “I’m doing what you should be
doing.”

“As long as you
stay alive long enough to repay the favours you owe me, too.”

He let me go
and allowed me to storm out as if I had stood up to him. I hadn’t.
We both knew I said what he let me say and did what he let me do.
Of everyone, he really did own me because he held my life in his
hands. He also held other lives in his hands. He had made it clear
more than once that he would happily send me back to the cells if I
didn’t do his bidding.

One day, I
would be free, too. That was the deal I made with myself.

Two nights
later, I ordered some Chinese takeaway and tidied up a little
before the others came over. Esther had gotten the information she
needed from Callista, and she wanted to come up with a plan with
Peter and Carl. She couldn’t turn to her own people; she had to
keep secrets, and we were the secret keepers of late.

She arrived
first with two cardboard boxes full of stuff and dumped them in the
corner of my living room. “Food first. I could eat a horse.”

“I really hope
you don’t know anyone who can shift into a horse,” I teased.

She laughed,
and I realised it was the first laugh I’d heard from her in a
while.

“How are you
doing?” I asked.

She shrugged.
“Keeping on. I might as well be a trainee Guardian lately.”

I handed her a
tray of noodles. “How do you mean?”

“It’s like they
don’t trust me now. They haven’t demoted me, but my Circle’s still
down two members, we’re not getting any of the meaty assignments,
and even my own brother can’t look me in the eye. I’m sorry.” She
shook her head. “I shouldn’t be unloading like this. I’m just
frustrated.”

I bit my lip.
Where was Carl when I needed him? “Maybe Aiden’s trying to go easy
on you, to make sure you’re okay.” Her over-protective,
shifter-alpha, Council-consultant of a big brother hated my guts,
but I couldn’t deny that he cared about Esther.

“I’m already
okay,” she insisted. “Look, let’s just eat and go through the stuff
Callista gave me.”

I opened my
mouth to try again, but Carl and Peter arrived and took over the
conversation. After we ate, we went through the boxes together.
They were filled with scribbled notes, mostly coded, along with
photographs, newspaper articles, maps, and some books that seemed
eerily familiar. Only when Carl lifted one did I remember that the
exact copy was in Eddie’s shop. Or had been once. The book was the
one Carl had hidden from me, as it contained information about the
more negative aspects of my tainted nephal heritage.

“Sell that
recently?” I asked Carl.

“I didn’t. But
I haven’t seen it lately. I’ll check the inventory on Monday and
make sure.”

“Good. If Eddie
sold it to her, then he might have found out why she wanted it.” I
was certain of that. He hadn’t wanted me looking at the book
without his permission, so I highly doubted he had sold it
willingly, unless he knew he was getting something out of it.

“Why would she
tell that man anything if she couldn’t tell her own Circle?” Esther
asked.

“You don’t
understand. He can get the truth out of anyone.” I knew that better
than anybody else.

Esther shook
her head. “We were like sisters. A Circle is a family. Nobody gets
left behind.” Her chin trembled. “I should have been left
behind.”

Carl squeezed
Esther’s hand, a gesture of comfort that hadn’t even occurred to
me. I had no idea how to help people, even though I felt their
emotions more than I should. What use was empathy if I didn’t even
recognize how to make the pain go away?

“Illeana made a
choice,” Carl said firmly. “Don’t try to take that away from her.
She did what she did because she considered you family. You have to
see that. What Ava meant was that Eddie uses magic against people.
He makes them talk, and they don’t even realise they’re doing
it.”

She leaned
against him for half a second while I sat frozen with awkwardness.
Peter was still rummaging amongst the paperwork, apparently
oblivious.

Esther picked
up another piece of paper. “This looks like a phone number. I’ll
add it to the list.”

The list was
any kind of random numbers or letterings that we thought might mean
something. We spent the next few minutes trying to come up with
ideas of how to break the codes.

“Maybe Callista
would have some idea. Some clue,” I said, stretching. My back was
killing me from hunching over scraps of paper.

Peter’s glass
dropped to the floor, where it cracked into jagged edged chunks. He
lifted a piece of paper, his hands trembling visibly. “This… this
is it. That night. That…
thing
. This is it.”

He thrust the
paper toward me, and I saw it was a sketch of a creature, a
monstrous-looking thing with scaled skin. If it had been in colour,
it would probably have been green.

“This is the
thing that took your son?” I asked. It didn’t look real.

Esther snatched
the page out of my hands. “I’ve never seen anything like this
before, Peter.”

“But someone
else did. Someone else saw what I saw, because I sure as hell
didn’t draw that. She had to have spoken to someone. Maybe someone
who knew something.” Then his voice faltered. “You said she was
going after the slave markets. My son… was taken to the slave
markets.” He looked at me, aghast. “This is what he was talking
about when he said my son went to hell.”

“No,” I said.
“He was bullshitting us, Peter. He had to be.”

“He’s a slave,”
Peter whispered.

“We don’t know
that,” Esther said. “We don’t know what this means. I mean, you’re
human. His mother’s family was human. What would they want with
him?”

Most of the
instances of the market that I had heard about involved
half-blooded children. Part human, part… something else. But there
were others, like Eloise. She had been human, a special human, but
still, just human. So human children had been taken, too. What was
different about Peter’s son? Could he be alive? Could he be trapped
somewhere, tortured and abused? Could he have become as evil as the
things that had taken him?

Peter left, and
I couldn’t stop him. He was in his own space, guarded against
everything else in the world. That hand-drawn image had gotten
under his skin, pulling out memories he would have as soon locked
away for eternity.

Carl and Esther
quickly sorted through the rest of the stuff, but I couldn’t
concentrate, so I focused on cleaning up the mess Peter had made
and comforting myself with numbers. I had to come up with
something, and soon. Illeana had gotten further than I did. But
how? Who had she found to talk to her? How had she known where to
look?

“So she has to
have some kind of informant or contact or something, right?” I said
out of the blue, startling the others.

“That picture
might not mean a thing,” Esther said.

“You saw
Peter’s face. It meant something. It’s the ‘what’ that I’m worried
about. Do you think she came across someone else who had seen what
Peter saw? Or someone who works with them? Someone playing both
sides?”

Esther
shrugged. “There are a lot of stories here about kidnappings and
such. Maybe she tracked down the survivors.”

“Maybe,” I
said, disturbed by how let down I felt.

Carl pointed at
the article in Esther’s hands. “There’s a name on the back
there.”