Trance. Part 10

"Grayson was hiding something, I'm just not sure what. I could smell his fear, Teresa. He's afraid of us."

"So is most of the planet." I debated my next words, unable to take them back once they were said, and realized I meant them. "I think I trust Agent McNally, Gage. She seems to genuinely want to help us."

"I agree she wants to help."

"But?"

He shook his head. "I'm not sure. She was so careful with her reactions, so controlled."

"Like she'd practiced her answers in antic.i.p.ation of meeting you?"

"Maybe."

Huh. It didn't mean she was lying, but it did give me pause. Made me think. I picked up the woman's business card. Home and cellular numbers, plus her extension at the ATF satellite office building in Burbank. I slipped the card into my back pocket. It felt odd to want to give my trust so easily to a woman I'd known less than fifteen minutes. Just as I'd given it to Gage, Renee, Dr. Seward, and my other fellow Rangers.

Should I give it or withhold it?

We were back at home in a place where we'd grown up and been trained for what we were doing now. I didn't know what my teammates' lives had been like for the last decade; they didn't know about mine. Would they still look at me like a leader if they knew I was a felon? Did it matter? I wasn't her anymore. We weren't who the MHC had made us when they sent us away. We were Rangers, and we couldn't do this if we didn't let ourselves trust each other.

I had to let myself trust them. Not so much the agents. Not until they earned it.

"Still want to know what's happening in New York?" Gage asked.

I nodded. "More than ever."

Thirteen.

Interlude Renee's blue face filled the monitor, obscuring my view of the room behind her. She blinked, frowned, and then stepped back to reveal the Manhattan Island Penitentiary's main control room. Serious-looking armed guards walked to and fro. Some carried files or paperwork, others nothing but an angry expression.

"Hey, T, you look a lot better," Renee said.

"Thanks." I stood in front of the monitor on our end, Gage by my side. It had taken the MIP guards almost thirty minutes to locate one of our people. Renee and William had been inspecting Bane activity in the north, among the remains of Harlem, when we called. Gage teased me incessantly about my lack of patience until someone finally rustled up Renee.

"Not a lot to report here," she said. "So far, the Banes aren't making much effort to escape the island. They're mostly keeping to themselves. Only a few have actively engaged their powers, but not against us or each other. One guy trans.m.u.ted dirty water into sparkling clean water."

"That seems odd, doesn't it?" Gage asked.

"Pretty odd, yeah, but I'm not knocking a good thing. Disinterested Banes are ones we don't have to fight. They just seem ... I don't know, out of sorts."

"What do you mean?"

"Kind of dazed, I guess. Like they got their powers back, only they don't remember what they're supposed to do with them. You think it's some sort of radical rehabilitation program that actually worked?"

"Dunno," I said. "Have you tried talking to the warden about it?"

"Repeatedly, but he doesn't have time for me or Caliber. I don't think he realizes that we're not the same as those guys he's been babysitting for a decade and a half. He sees blue skin and big muscles and thinks the worst of us."

"I know the feeling." Grayson had been no different in his judgment. At the moment, I didn't care why the Banes were so apathetic about their powers, as long as it kept them from all-out rebellion. Once we had Specter under control, maybe life wouldn't be as hard as I imagined.

"Just be careful out there, Flex," Gage said. "An ATF agent is doing a press conference today in Los Angeles, announcing our return. Once people know who we are, our anonymity is out the window."

Flex giggled. "He says to the girl with blue skin. Take a look at your team, Cipher. Most of us don't fit in at a family picnic. Although I can see Trance's look becoming a popular fashion statement."

"I hope not," I said.

"Purple contact lenses will be all the rage."

"Shut up, Flex."

"Remember, Flex," Gage said, "you're our eyes and ears out there. If you see anything suspicious, let us know immediately. We both got funny vibes from one of the agents they sent to watchdog us, and I don't think everyone is on our side. You and Caliber need to watch each other's backs."

"We will," Renee said. "In fact, I'll be watching his back very seriously. Remember in school he used to hate my powers, and I'd tease him with them? You know what he told me? He had a crush on me the whole time. What do you think, T? Do you see s.e.x in our future?"

Gage grunted.

I coughed. "I'd rather not let my mind go there, if you don't mind."

She giggled again, and then sobered. "You do the same, okay? Watch each other's backs, I mean. And maybe go have s.e.x or something, you both look tense."

She cut the call short before I could muster a reply. I settled for staring at the blank monitor. Gage blew hard through his nose, lips twisted in a strange grimace.

"What?" I asked.

"Renee Duvall and her casual conversations. She's unbelievable," he said, an odd layer of annoyance in his voice.

"She keeps you on your toes."

"Something tells me Agent McNally will, too."

"I won't be her poster girl for Ranger support, Gage. A few photos with schoolchildren and old folks smiling won't erase decades of violence."

"No, it won't, and there's no reason to expect it to. We have to earn back that trust and not from politicking."

"So what, then? We keep a bus full of kids from toppling off a bridge into the river? Pull orphans from a burning building? Stop a mudslide in Malibu?"

He turned until he stood toe to toe with me and tried to act stern. Humor still peeked through. "Okay, you do realize that the unspoken rules of superheroing states that one of those events will magically occur within our immediate vicinity?"

"Well, good," I said, flashing him a bright smile. This close I could smell a hint of shaving cream and something else. Something decidedly male and uniquely Gage. "We can get that step in our careers over and done with, and move on to more important matters."

"Such as?"

"Picking out uniforms?"

"I'd rather wear my jeans."

"I don't know." I quirked an eyebrow and gave him a once-over. "I think you'd look good in something skintight and leather."

I expected him to laugh; I didn't antic.i.p.ate his completely blank stare. c.r.a.p. "Sorry, that wasn't-"

Gage interrupted my retraction by cupping my chin with his free hand and lowering his head. My heart threatened to beat right out of my chest. He brushed his lips across my mouth so gently I thought he missed. Just the lightest of strokes that set my nerves on fire.

Indecision forced me to pause. Knowledge of a turning point. He wouldn't talk about Oregon, but he'd offer tentative kisses. Our conversations skirted deeper pain, while remaining surface and casual. If words couldn't bring us together, maybe something else could.

Not knowing how many more "laters" I had, I captured his lips in a crushing kiss. Arms circled my waist, hands tangled in my hair. His mouth, his tongue, his intense heat and flavor and scent-all surrounded me and forced a soft moan from my throat.

He broke the kiss, but didn't pull away. Every inch of his body seemed to vibrate. His intense, silver-flecked eyes drilled into me, trying to see past the lavender exterior. The intensity of it was overwhelming. "You frighten me, Teresa."

Confusion overpowered my tumultuous emotions and I tensed, stifled by his tight embrace.

He must have read something in my expression. "I just meant I've never felt like this after knowing someone for only a couple of days. Like I've ... I don't know."

I thought I did. "Like you've found something you didn't know you wanted in the first place? Or is that kind of corny?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, it's corny?"

"No." He traced the side of his thumb down my cheek. "The other part."

"And you're afraid of messing up and losing it, like you've lost everything else?"

His face hardened, the once-open emotions shuttering. Shutting down.

Concerned, I splayed my fingers against his chest. Felt his heart beating there. "Sorry, I was just remembering something a shrink said to me during one of our multiple sessions dedicated to my inability to commit to a relationship." A topic I felt awkward broaching with Gage or anyone else-one that would probably have to be broached before we went any further with ... whatever it was we were doing.

"Gage, what is it about me that frightens you? I'd really like to know." When he didn't respond, I gave him a hint. "Is it what Dr. Seward said about my potentially dying?"

"No, that's not it." His body thrummed with tension. "The potentiality of your death does frighten me, Teresa. It terrifies me. But your powers are stronger than anyone else's here, maybe stronger than anyone else active, and they're not yours. You have them for a reason that no one knows or is sharing, and it scares me to death."

"I'm not going to explode, Gage." I thought of yesterday's episode and cringed. "At least, I hope not."

He rested his forehead against mine. Our height difference made looking up awkward, so I closed my eyes. His breath was sweet, warm, and his mouth so close. The b.u.t.terflies in my stomach stirred.

"Please talk to me, Gage. About anything."

"Teresa, I-"

Whatever statement he meant to make was cut off by an obnoxious blaring noise, filtered into the room through a loudspeaker in the ceiling. We pulled apart.

"What is that?" I asked.

The computer monitor opposite us blinked to life. Live news coverage filled the screen. Half of a large complex was flattened, the street littered with dust and rubble and debris. The scroll at the bottom read "Inglewood Demolition Goes Wrong, Workers Trapped."

Just a few miles from our headquarters.

"Should we let the fire department handle it?" Gage asked.

I sensed a challenge in his words. The building had done more than simply collapse. If the news reporter was correct, it had also trapped half a dozen workers beneath the rubble. It could take the fire department hours, if not days, to safely reach them. Using our powers together, we could get there faster.

"I suppose there's no better time to introduce ourselves to the world," I said. "Let's call Onyx and Tempest. We've got our first team mission."

Fourteen.

Demolition For all of my bl.u.s.ter about a team mission, the scene presented enough unique challenges to tempt me into giving up before we began. The building was an abandoned apartment complex, standing on half of a city block in the s.h.i.t hole that was Inglewood. Most of the neighborhood had been abandoned six years ago after a petroleum fire razed twelve square blocks to the ground. That section stood cut off by police barricades and cement K-rails. The skeletal remains of LAX were only a few miles west.

Our site stood within view of the empty blocks, themselves still littered with rubble long ago picked clean by thieves. Fire trucks, police cars, and emergency vehicles crowded the street, making it impossible for our copter to land. We competed for sky s.p.a.ce with several news crews, one of which finally took notice of us when I pushed open the door and poked my purple-streaked head out.

Gage grabbed my wrist to anchor me in the copter, but I had no intention of falling.

"Hey, Tempest!" I had to shout over the roar of the copter blades. Tempest sidled up next to me. "Think you can get us down there?"

He peered over the edge of the copter floor. "As long as you don't mind a slight free fall."

"Do not worry for me," Onyx said.

Over my shoulder, Onyx peeled out of his coveralls until he sat there in only those special briefs. He closed his eyes. His skin darkened as his body shrank. Feathers sprouted. His nose lengthened, and his arms disappeared into his body. Still fascinated by his shapeshifting, I watched until he had transformed completely. The raven blinked glowing green eyes at me, and then flew out the door.

"Show-off," Gage said.

Tempest grabbed my right hand with his left, and Gage's left hand with his right. Before I could ask what we should do, Tempest leapt from the copter and pulled me and Gage out with him.

Terror seized me as we free-fell toward the city street, less than three hundred feet below. I squeezed Tempest's hand, too frightened to scream. A rush of wind circled us, roaring in my ears, and our descent slowed. Grime and dirt swirled into a funnel cloud, and we floated through the center, toward the ground.

We must have made quite a sight.

I didn't let go of Tempest's hand until my feet hit pavement. The cyclone ended immediately, and the roar was replaced with shouting voices. Rescue workers backed away, creating a circle around us. Onyx swooped down and landed, remaining in raven form.

"Warn a girl next time," I said.

Tempest winked.

"Who's in charge?" I asked the nearest fireman.