Null Set Page 12

  “Cas,” Rio said. “Where is he?”

  “Where’s who?” I asked.

  “Simon.”

  A funny clang sounded through my head. My worlds colliding.

  Rio, how is she?

  As well as can be expected.

  “I don’t know,” I said, through stiff lips.

  “But he has contacted you.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He is now missing.”

  “I—I don’t have anything to do with that.” The last time I’d seen him was at the warehouse. Maybe security had gotten him after all.

  “Your friends do. They did not include you?”

  The ground shifted underneath me. His words weren’t making sense. “What? No, you’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” Rio had raised his voice slightly, and before I could answer, Arthur spoke from behind him.

  “She was compromised.” He limped into view from down the hallway, still using a crutch to keep his weight off his injured side. “We didn’t have a choice.”

  He and Rio stared at each other. “Take me to him,” Rio said.

  “What the fuck,” I said. “Take me to him.”

  Arthur sucked his breath through his teeth. Then he did what I never would have expected. He turned to Rio and said, “You’re immune to these guys, right?”

  “I am given to understand that, yes.”

  “Then find out what he wants, and fix this,” Arthur said. “You seem to be on Cas’s side, Lord only knows why, but if you are, fix this.”

  “It is far more complicated than you know,” said Rio.

  Arthur snorted. “I don’t care, man. Do it.”

  “Take me to him,” Rio repeated.

  * * *

  THEY’D LOCKED Simon in an empty warehouse Arthur maintained as a temporary bolt-hole. Checker, Pilar, and Arthur had all been in on it.

  I decided I hated all of them.

  Of course, Arthur insisted on updating Checker and Pilar before we left for the warehouse, and he came back out to tell us both of them were coming, too. I was suspicious the real reason for that was Checker wanted to be near enough I could protect him, rather than waiting it all out in a location Rio knew about and might come back to without me.

  I’d told him that wasn’t going to happen. I’d have to yell at him again later.

  Rio had a black Hummer. I drove with him, as I was still too furious at the rest of them. Of course, I couldn’t decide whether I was furious at Rio, too.

  He knows something for sure, Checker had said.

  And now he had come asking about Simon. He had known to come asking about Simon.

  We pulled into a deserted parking strip off an alley that would fit about five cars and was well hidden from the street. Arthur pulled in next to us with Checker and Pilar and got out to unwind the heavy, padlocked chain over the warehouse door. He hauled the door open.

  The inside was cold and utilitarian, with not even a mattress, just a pallet of bedding in one corner. Simon had been sitting cross-legged on the blankets. When we came in, he scrambled to his feet, his face going slack with shock.

  And then his expression clouded over, and he marched straight at Rio.

  “You hung up on me,” he accused. “What did you think was going on here? You don’t ever hang up on me! Not about this!”

  Well, that was not what I had been expecting.

  Simon jabbed a hand at Arthur, the gesture encompassing Checker and Pilar, who had piled in behind him. “None of you have the slightest idea what you’re playing at! Your friend could die, and I’m the only one who can help her, and none of you will get over yourselves enough to see what’s staring you in the face!”

  “Wait,” I said. “What friend?”

  “You, Cas,” said Checker.

  Right.

  Simon poked a finger right up a few inches from Rio’s eyes. “I do not contact you unless it’s an emergency. When I contact you, you take it seriously, no questions asked. Do you understand!”

  “I’m here, am I not?” said Rio, with a small bite of humor.

  “So you two know each other,” I said.

  “Yes,” answered Rio.

  “Unfortunately,” spat Simon.

  Rio raised an eyebrow at him.

  “You call this protection?” ranted Simon. “Her job? Where did she learn to do that, huh? And you halfway across the globe—”

  “If that’s what you’re concerned about, she’s fine,” said Rio. I again didn’t connect what he was talking about until he continued, “Cas can take care of herself.”

  “Hold the phone,” I said. “Stop talking about me like I’m not here, and explain before I start shooting.”

  “Cas does what she likes,” said Rio. “If that is what disturbs you, then you have wasted my time.”

  “And why does she like it? I suppose you’re the one who called her Cas in the first place, aren’t you?”

  “It’s what I prefer.” I raised my voice and waved my hand in between them. “What the hell are you two on about? And why do you,” I added to Simon, “think you have any say in the way I live my life, or what Rio calls me, or anything else?”

  “Apologies, Cas,” said Rio. “I believe I traveled here in error. If you have time for a meal before I depart, your company at dinner would not go amiss.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Dinner would give me a chance to pick his brain and get some questions answered. “I’ll see you then.”

  “Wait,” said Simon.

  Rio paused in the midst of turning to go.

  Why would he still care what the man had to say? Why had he cared in the first place?

  “I swear to you this is serious.” Simon’s voice was so intense it shook. “Something happened, didn’t it?”

  I was about to mock the ridiculous vagueness of his question until Rio answered, “Yes.”

  “I’m standing right here,” I said.

  “We need to talk,” said Simon to Rio. “As soon as possible. Now.”

  Rio didn’t say anything, but he turned his head a fraction back toward Simon and then swept out the door, his duster swirling as he left. Simon took the invitation and hustled to catch up. None of us tried to stop them.

  I considered following, but even I couldn’t track Rio if he wanted to lose me.

  “I think we might be out of our league,” murmured Checker.

  “You want to know what I think?” I said, whirling around to them. “I think every single fucking one of you needs to stop messing with my life. I told you—”

  “You’re not the only one who was in danger,” Arthur cut in. “We didn’t know what this guy would do.”

  “So what was your plan? Keep him locked up here forever?”

  “Well, we hadn’t figured that out yet,” Pilar said. Checker glared at her. “What? We hadn’t!”

  “If someone can manipulate minds, you’re always going to second-guess what you do with them,” Checker pointed out, in his I’m-trying-to-sound-reasonable voice. “For the record, we kicked ass kidnapping a psychic. It took some ingenuity. A little respect might be in order.”

  “Right now you’re lucky I’m not pitching you out a window.”

  “We were just worried about you,” Pilar said.

  “And ourselves,” added Checker. “Don’t worry, we didn’t try to interrogate him about anything that—about you, or anything that would bother you, or, uh, anyone else.” His eyes darted at Arthur. By “anyone else” he definitely meant Rio. “But having this guy out there following you? Poking in on all of us? Acting like he has some kind of interest? Look at the life you lead, Cas. You can’t ignore something like that. The fact that you were willing to is—it’s suspect.”

  “So just the presence of a psychic turns you all against me,” I said. “He doesn’t even have to do anything.”

  They all shifted uncomfortably.

  “You might think I’m a weak-minded idiot, but these guys can’t get to Rio,” I said. “Whatever he says to do
about Simon, you listen.”

  “It’s not about being weak-minded,” Arthur tried to argue. “Dawna got me doing all sorts of—”

  “Whatever Rio says to do, you listen,” I repeated. “And don’t you ever go behind my back like this again. Not unless you have concrete, iron-clad evidence I’m being manipulated. I was in perfect possession of my faculties when I said to stop looking into Simon, and you did it anyway. Don’t feed me that line about thinking the rest of you were in danger, either, because that would necessitate one of you actually having to be in danger from him. I was the only fucking person he talked to.”

  “We don’t know that—” Checker tried.

  I glowered at him.

  “Cas,” Pilar said soberly. “Whether that’s true or not—and you might be right—but it doesn’t change us all being super worried about this. Worried for you, and worried for us. You can’t blame us.”

  Even if she was right, I wasn’t about to admit it. “I sure as hell can,” I said.

  thirteen

  RIO AND Simon came back in. Simon was pale, and his arms were wrapped around his body as if something had scared him badly. I really hoped that something was Rio.

  God, I was furious at everybody right now.

  Well, except Rio.

  “Cas,” said Rio. “Please allow this man to read you.”

  And there went the last person I didn’t want to punch in the face.

  “What?” I exploded.

  “It has been brought to my attention that Dawna Polk’s attack on you last year may have been more harmful than we knew at the time.”

  A sick uneasiness sloshed through me at the reference to Dawna Polk. I’d barely been able to acknowledge the true strength of her attack to Arthur, let alone myself. I definitely didn’t want it confirmed by some two-bit telepath with no claim on my life. “I’m fine,” I insisted. “Why would this guy have anything to do with that anyway?”

  “As I believe you have already deduced, he is like her,” said Rio.

  “Which is why I’d like very much to smash his head in for following me,” I said. “Only he won’t let me.”

  “Cas,” said Rio. “I do not believe him a threat.”

  “Rio—”

  “Besides which,” he continued, “he could already have examined you without your permission, and has refrained. I do not like him, but he is no threat.”

  I was suddenly, acutely embarrassed that Arthur, Checker, and Pilar were in the room. You were the one who said you’d go with whatever Rio suggested, I reminded myself mockingly.

  But I hadn’t expected this.

  “Rio,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

  He looked down at me, his expression unreadable. “Trust me.”

  It was weird. I’d never had Rio ask that of me before. I did trust him, but …

  I looked back at Checker. He ducked his face away.

  “Wait,” said Pilar.

  Rio turned to her, very slowly, the way a mountain might reposition itself before it falls on someone. Pilar swallowed and backed up a step. “I just. I wanted to ask, um—why can’t Cas have an explanation? Why so, uh, so mysterious?” Her back hit the wall, and she swallowed again. Rio hadn’t moved.

  He turned back to me. “Cas. Trust me.”

  Fuck.

  “Fine,” I said. I turned away from Checker and Pilar and Arthur and looked Simon square in the face. “You do anything other than what Rio says you can, I will fucking end you.” I ignored the fact that I had no idea either how I would know he was overstepping or how I would make good on such a promise.

  Trust me, Rio had said.

  Simon inhaled deeply, and his eyes drilled into mine. Intense. Liquid. The weight of a thousand years in his gaze. I tried to break the stare and couldn’t—

  A cottage in the woods, a desert sun, cold and darkness. Stars, pain, danger, a crowded city, racing through the night until our lungs burned—

  “Rio,” I choked out.

  Rio’s arm whipped around Simon’s throat, and he levered the other man around and slammed him face-first into the cement floor of the warehouse like he was pile-driving him. Then he stood over him.

  “Cas,” said Checker behind me, urgently. “Cas, are you all right?”

  I didn’t answer. Strong hands gripped my shoulders supportively. Arthur.

  “Cas?” ventured Pilar.

  Simon coughed, curling on the floor. He didn’t seem to be able to form words. “Done?” said Rio.

  “What—the hell—” Simon spat out. Drops of blood sprinkled the ground. Rio must have busted his nose against it.

  “Walk with me,” said Rio.

  “Rio, I want to know—” I started, but he shook his head.

  “Trust me, Cas.”

  Simon pushed himself to his feet. None of us helped him.

  “What the bloody hell was that!” he screeched at Rio. Flecks of blood spattered his shirt as he shouted.

  “Did you see what you needed to?” asked Rio.

  “You don’t lay hands on me, you hear? You do not—”

  Rio drove out one arm and grabbed Simon’s throat. His words cut off in a strangled choke.

  Rio didn’t even try to push him backward, just stood there with his hand on the man’s neck like a vise, almost blandly. Simon pawed at his arm, but it was like pushing against an iron bar. His face went pale. His eyes flickered to me for a moment.

  I said nothing. I trusted Rio.

  Simon’s movements started to lose articulation. His hands fell. The lids of his eyes got heavy.

  Rio let go.

  Simon fell again, gasping, his hands shaking a few inches from his bruised throat. “Good,” Rio said. “You passed.”

  What? “Rio?” I said.

  “Cas,” he said. “This is important. Did you feel any urge to stop me?”

  “What? No. Grind his fucking face into the ground.”

  “Good,” Rio said again.

  “You—you—” Simon’s voice rasped. “You—”

  Rio raised an eyebrow.

  Simon stopped trying to talk. He pushed himself up, still coughing, and barely staggered upright before he wheeled to find the wall and braced his hands against it, trying to breathe. Eventually he slid back to the ground and sat.

  Rio waited. I followed his lead.

  Simon buried his face against his hands. “It’s bad,” he murmured.

  Rio stiffened. Then he swept down, yanked Simon up by the elbow, and dragged them both outside again.

  “Fuck,” Checker said weakly.

  It’s bad. What did that mean?

  “He was testing him, wasn’t he?” Pilar said. “Seeing if he would get Cas to, uh—interfere or something? Save his life.”

  That did seem like something Rio would do.

  “What did he mean by ‘it’s bad’?” she asked.

  “Pilar,” growled Checker. “None of us know.”

  He’d said that for my benefit, I was sure. We might not know, but we could suspect.

  Fifteen months ago, Dawna Polk had royally fucked me up. Even more than we’d known.

  Well, wasn’t this fun.

  Checker must have been thinking along the same lines. “Doesn’t this invalidate the deal she made with, um, with Rio? She was supposed to—supposed to—”

  “Put everything back where she found it?” I said, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly.

  “You mean as part of the ‘she doesn’t come after you, you don’t go after her’ thing?” Pilar asked.

  “It was more like ‘she doesn’t come after us, Rio doesn’t go after her,’” I corrected. She’d beaten us handily. Of course, we’d beaten her, too. The reminder gave me a jolt of good cheer.

  Until I remembered what our victory had cost the world. I thought of Pilar’s cousin and brother, and wondered if she would have agreed with the choice we’d made.

  Maybe we should never have gone up against Pithica at all. So what if
they murdered a few innocent people every so often? After all, so did Rio. So did I.

  “Well, if this guy’s like Dawna, maybe he can, uh—fix you, or something,” Pilar ventured.

  I took it as a mark in the “better person” column that I didn’t punch her. She quailed back from my expression anyway.

  Arthur was markedly silent. I avoided his eyes. After all, Dawna had fucked with him, too.

  Rio and Simon swept back in. Or rather, Rio swept, and Simon stumbled at his side. Rio still hadn’t given up the grip on his elbow. “Cas,” Rio said.

  “Yeah.”

  “How is your sanity?”

  I choked. “My what?”

  “I told you,” said Simon, “even if she hasn’t noticed it yet, this is a problem—”

  “Cas,” Rio said again.

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot.

  Failing, was the honest answer.

  I wasn’t sure anyone but Arthur suspected that yet. Checker and Pilar might know something was wrong, might know I had a defunct memory with more shreds tearing through all the time, but they didn’t know how dangerous those shreds felt. How much power they had to fracture me … or how scared I was of losing to them.

  “Cas?” Checker asked, and Jesus, it sounded like he was about to cry.

  “What does this guy want?” I said to Rio.

  “To help you,” Rio answered.

  “Help me how?”

  “You know what he does,” Rio said. “Cas. You need assistance.”

  Stay with him, whispered a stray memory. He’ll help you.

  I ignored it.

  “You want him to go in my head,” I said slowly. “You want him to … to what, rearrange me?”

  “You aren’t well,” Simon said earnestly. “It’s all— It’s going wrong. Please. Let me fix it.”

  “It,” I echoed. “You mean my brain. Me.”

  Simon winced. Rio simply met my eyes, his gaze level.

  “No,” I said. “No.” The world was collapsing around me, the warehouse too cold and too empty and too full of watching eyes. The prospect of hands reaching into my brain, wrenching around the pieces of me I was having so much trouble keeping a hold of already—