Call Out (17 page)

I smiled, too. Seeing my soul sister happy
made me happy – it’s just that simple.

A knock on the door drew us out of our
musings, and I went to peek out the peephole. It was Ashe, so I
opened the door. Only after the door was open did I realize that
another man stood in the doorway, out of sight of the peephole. I
went on alert, that good old fight-or-flight response kicking
in.

“Stand down, princess,” Ashe said. “He’s with
me.”

I shook it off and stepped back to let the
two men into the room.

Ashe shut the door behind them, and then
turned to me and Dylan. “Are you two ready to get this trainwreck
on the road?” The other man elbowed him. “Yeah, yeah. Ladies,
Quinn. Quinn, ladies.”

“Quinn?” I asked.

“Robert Quinn,” the man said, offering me his
hand.

“Elizabeth Morgan,” I replied, giving his
hand a firm shake.

He introduced himself to Dylan as well, and
then I asked again, “Quinn?”

Quinn laughed. “I get that a lot,” he
said.

I could only imagine. With his golden skin,
glossy, deep brown – or was it black? – hair, and dark, tilted
eyes, he couldn’t have looked less like a ‘Quinn.’ Maybe a Nguyen,
but not a Quinn.

“My mom’s Korean,” he said, “and Dad’s a
Scot.”

“If show and tell is over,” Ashe interrupted,
“I’d rather not leave London alone any longer than is
necessary.”

“I take it you didn’t have much luck teaching
him to shield,” I said.

“He picked it up just fine, but I want to be
near to hand, just in case.”

I knew he was in a hurry to get back, but I
was tired of having questions and no answers. “He said he had a
hard time learning the shielding thing before. But it worked
today?”

Ashe sighed and rubbed his temples with one
hand. “Every practitioner has different abilities – you’ve seen
enough to have guessed that. Now, what I’m about to tell you goes
no further than this room.” He met first my eyes and then Dylan’s.
I knew he was deadly serious.

“Different people have different abilities.
Mine are pretty much limited to empathy, pyrokinesis, and the
ability to erect shields. London’s a natural empath, and he seems
to have some natural ability with foresight.”

“And the pyrokinesis thing,” I added.

“No. That’s not his. I’m afraid that one is
my fault.”

“What do you mean your fault?” Dylan asked
before I could.

“London’s what we call a mimic.”

“And what does that mean, exactly?”

It was Quinn who answered. “You know how
everyone jokes about learning by osmosis? Mimics can more or less
do exactly that. They aren’t limited to their own natural
abilities, but can learn new ones, usually just be seeing them
performed.”

“Wait, whoa. What?”

“When you came to Key West, I showed London
my abilities and told him a little about my past. I didn’t know
then what he is,” Ashe explained.

“So you showed him how to do the fire trick
and...he could just do it?”

“Emergency situations tend to bring magic
into play unconsciously,” Quinn said. “That’s often how someone
finds out he or she has abilities.”

“I figure London’s magic gave him what he
needed to save you,” Ashe added.

I shuddered, remembering the pain.
Remembering how I’d thought I would die, and that I would welcome
it because it would make that pain stop.

Dylan hugged me, and I wrapped my arms around
her for a minute.

“So...what’s her name? Shelley. She didn’t
know how to do the shield thing, and that’s why London couldn’t
learn it?”

Ashe shook his head. “For most people,
shielding is just learning to control your powers, to open and
close your mind. That’s a hard thing for a teenager to learn under
the best of circumstances. It’ll be easier for London to learn now
that he’s older and wiser. Hell, he’s already making good progress.
But it’ll take time. We needed a quick fix.”

“Ashe has a fairly unique ability,” Quinn
added, “in that he can put up metaphysical walls. He can shield
himself from outside influence, and he can shield others from third
party influence.”

“You showed London how to do that,” Dylan
said.

“Yes and no. I showed him, but until he’s
worked with it quite a bit he won’t be able to protect himself or
others from another practitioner. But he can use the shields to
keep his empathy in check.”

“So he’ll be okay tonight.”

Ashe snorted. “Between the shields and all
the other precautions I have in place, he might be able to get
through the night without making too much of a mess of things. Now,
do you girls want to keep talking metaphysics, or do you want to go
watch 3,000 screaming women drool over your boyfriends?”

“Well, when you put it that way....let’s
go.”

Chapter Sixteen

I’d never been backstage at a concert before,
and I felt a little giddy as we wove our way past security and
techs and who knows who else to make our way to the green room.
Kent, Brian, and some men I didn’t know were deep in conversation,
but I didn’t see Adrian or London anywhere. Brian turned around as
if he could sense us, his eyes going directly to Dylan. They
widened a little at the sight of her in the dress.

Dylan went to hug her man, and I turned to
ask about London. Either Ashe knew where my mind would be or he
felt my concern, because he answered my question before I could ask
it.

“They’re in one of the dressing rooms. London
needs the quiet time, away from people, and Adrian’s keeping him
company.”

“Can I....” I began, but Ashe cut me off.

“Probably not the best idea, princess.
Distraction isn’t what he needs right now.”

“I just kind of need to see him. Like,
literally see him. Just to know he’s okay.”

Ashe nodded. “Keep your distance, you
hear?”

I agreed, and Ashe led me to a nearby room. I
peeked inside to find London and Adrian roughhousing. Boys.

Much the same way Brian had, London knew I
was standing in the doorway even though I hadn’t made a sound. With
Brian it had been some sort of soulmate thing, but with London I
knew it was his magic, his empathy. He looked up at me, and I gave
him a little wave.

Adrian disentangled himself from whatever
faux wrestling move London had him in and headed for the door,
surprising me with a hug on his way past. He surprised me even more
by getting Ashe to leave the room with him, without even saying a
word. He just touched Ashe’s arm in a ‘come with me’ gesture, and
Ashe followed. I wondered if Adrian had some superpowers of his
own.

The door closed behind the men, and I just
stood there, not sure what to do or say. I finally settled for
asking, “Are you sure about this? Playing tonight I mean?”

London sighed, plopped down on the sofa, and
leaned his head back against the wall. “You’re like the
100
^th
person to ask me that. I’m absofuckinglutely sure,
okay? Can everyone just stop fucking asking me that?”

His reaction didn’t really do much to
reassure me. “Okay. Sorry. I’m just a little concerned is all.”

“You and everyone else. I’m fine. I can do
this. I want to do this. Playing live is the best part of what I
do. It’s who I am.” He crossed his arms tight across his chest.

“And you don’t want the metaphysical stuff to
get in the way of that.”

“No. It’s not that I don’t want it getting in
the way, it’s that I can’t let it get in the way. I play music.
It’s who I am. Without that...I don’t even want to think about it.”
He hugged himself a little harder, and I could see his blunt nails
making crescents on the pale skin of his arms.

“I get that,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean
you have to play this show, tonight. It’s not too late....”

“Yeah. Yeah, it really is,” he said, cutting
me off. “I really need you to go now. I can’t seem to keep you out
of my head, and you can’t be there right now. I know I scare you,
and that’s not what I need right before I go on stage.”

Scared of him? I wasn’t scared of London. Was
I? He didn’t give me a chance to think about it.

“Please just go,” he said, his voice little
more than a whisper.

I went.

Ashe met me at the door, disapproval written
across his face. He brushed by me and went to do damage control.
Adrian, who’d been waiting with him, hugged me again.

“I don’t know what happened in there, but by
the look on your face it was nothing good.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure what happened,
either. But I have a bad feeling about tonight.”

“It’ll be okay,” Adrian promised. “We’ve got
backup plans for our backup plans. We’re gonna go out there and
play a great show, and everything’s going to be just fine.” He
sounded like he believed it, and that helped me to believe it,
too.

We went to join the others, and Brian greeted
me with a hug. I held onto him a little longer than might be
considered appropriate, but neither he nor Dylan minded.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I lied with a big smile. Brian
gave me a look that said clearer than any words that he wasn’t
buying it. “Okay, I’m not fine, but it’s nothing to worry about.
Besides, you have other things to deal with.”

“Yeah. It’s almost that time.”

Ashe joined us a moment later. “He’s all
right,” he said to me before I could ask. “I’m going to keep an eye
on him during the show and stay close by in case of emergency. You
girls go with Quinn. He’s your bodyguard tonight, just in
case.”

“Ladies,” Quinn said, with a slight nod.
“I’ll show you to your seats.”

“Seats?” Dylan and I asked in unison.

“Who the hell sits at a rock show?” I
asked.

“You do,” Quinn replied. “At least you do
tonight. General admission area is too risky, too hard to watch.
We’ve got you in a box.”

“But....” Dylan started to protest.

Brian stepped forward and cupped Dylan’s face
in his hands. He looked her in the eye and said, “I’ll be able to
see you, and you’ll be able to see me. And you’ll be safer.” He
leaned in and kissed her, a soft press of lips that silenced any
protest.

From her, at least. It didn’t do a damned
thing to shut me up. “And what about keeping you guys safe? How is
the stage somehow safer than the crowd?”

“I’ll be near to hand,” Ashe said. “Besides,
anyone would be a fool to try something with 3,000 pairs of eyes
focused on the stage.”

I still wanted to argue, though I wasn’t sure
why. Even if I were close to the boys, there wasn’t much I could do
if danger did rear its ugly head. With a feeling of foreboding, I
followed Quinn and Dylan to the box that had somehow been procured
for us. We found our seats and settled in for what I suspected
would be a very stressful night.

There isn’t a lot to do while you’re waiting
for a rock show to start. You can listen to whatever canned music
is blaring over the sound system. You can people watch. If you’re
there with friends, you can talk about the band and what songs you
hope to hear.

In my case, I didn’t care about any of that,
so my mind reverted to its favorite pastime – worrying. I thought
about what London had said in the dressing room, that he knew I was
scared of him. That meant he felt fear coming from me. What had I
been afraid of in that moment?

I closed my eyes and tried to remember
everything I’d thought or felt – not an easy task. Bit by bit, it
came back to me. I had been concerned about London, unsure whether
his shields would hold under the emotional weight of thousands of
people. I had been both frustrated by his stubbornness and admiring
of his courage and determination. I had also felt a tenderness
toward him that I hadn’t let myself feel for any man in a long
time. As I realized and accepted that fact, I knew why London had
felt fear from me. He was right; I was afraid of him. More to the
point, I was afraid of the feelings I’d developed for him in such a
short period of time. I was scared to death that I was falling in
love with him.

Before I had a chance to fully process that
realization, the canned music went away and our boys took the
stage. I tried to push my thoughts and emotions aside and lose
myself in the music, but it wasn’t easy. Music is emotional and
thought-provoking under most circumstances, but more so here and
now. Somehow, being unfamiliar with the songs made it worse.
Hearing some of the lyrics for the first time in this setting under
these circumstances gave them more impact and made me see them in a
different light than I might have otherwise. It also didn’t help
that Brian kept looking up at us, as if to make sure that we were
still there.

With every song the guys played, I felt a
little more hopeful that we would all make it through the set
without any kind of catastrophe. Though Quinn maintained a constant
vigil, there seemed to be no trouble on the horizon. On stage,
London seemed fine, feeding off the energy of the crowd no more
than any other musician might.

Just a little over halfway through the show,
Brian said something to Adrian out of reach of the microphones and
then made a little hand sign to the other boys. As soon as the song
they were playing ended, most of the band left the stage, leaving
Adrian alone with his guitar for a solo acoustic number. Near the
end of the song, the rest of the band came back – all except
London. Jimmy took London’s place behind the drums, and I fought
down a wave of panic as I turned to Quinn.

“Where is he? What’s going on?”

“I’m sure he’s just backstage with Ashe,”
Quinn said. “This was all part of the contingency plan.”

“I take it he told Jimmy then?”

“Yeah. Kid took it pretty well. Started
calling London a jedi.”

I shook my head and turned my attention back
to the stage, trying to keep my worry down to a manageable level.
Whatever was happening, there wasn’t a damned thing I could do
about it. The song ended, and Adrian took a minute to talk about
something or other. I’ll never know what he said, because London
walked back out on stage just then. I guess some of what I was
feeling must have been obvious, because Dylan laid her hand on my
shoulder in a gesture of comfort and concern. I flashed her a smile
to let her know I was okay.