The Wicked City (21 page)

“Let’s go down,” Robbie said. “We’re too exposed up here.”

The rocks were icy, and June carefully picked her way down. Robbie, despite his passenger, descended easily and deposited Micha on a stone bench near the water. Micha slumped over, head hanging, arms limp in his lap. The wind off the water was the coldest June had ever experienced in her life, like they’d accidentally stumbled into Antarctica. When she reached the bottom, she pushed her hands deep into her jacket pockets and ducked her head.

“Damn this
sucks
,” she said through chattering teeth.

“I’ll go back up and watch.” Robbie dragged a hood up out of his coat and over his head. He bounded swiftly back up the revetment.

“So creepy,” June muttered.

“It’s his power,” Micha said.

She turned. He was sitting upright.

“Gives him a sort of force field. He slides around on it.” He sounded lucid again.

June walked over and sat down next to him. The seat was like a slab of ice. Micha wobbled, and June steadied him. His hands and face were bright red. She worked his hands into the pockets of his coat for him. Despite the cold, his skin still felt unnaturally warm.

“You gotta be all right,” June said. “I can’t live with the guilt if you kick the bucket.”

Micha's eyes were heavy-lidded but focused. “I met Rose when I was passing out fliers in front of the Institute.” His voice fell softer. “She mistook me for a normalist, spreading propaganda. Then she took me to lunch.”

Micha’s eyes were vivid blue against the dull light, but everything behind them had gone black.

“You remember her, don’t you?” June asked.

The wind whipped around them, ruffling Micha’s hair, revealing layers of gold and brown. He nodded and looked out at the water. “She’s dead,” he whispered, and the anguish in his voice, more than his words, confirmed his memory had returned. “And I soon will be.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I had faith,” His voice was hollow, the way Rose’s was. “Faith in the Institute. She had her vampires. I had my cause.”

June was afraid to speak, fearing if she said the wrong thing, agitated him, or caused a burst of emotion, he might topple over dead.

Micha closed his eyes and slumped against June’s side. She slipped an arm around him. A certainty blossomed inside her, huge and terrible.

“It’s not my power doing this.” She looked out over the water, as if she could find an answer there. “There’s no way it can be. But what the hell is it?”

“I wanted to prove I could be just as good a crusader as she was.” His anguish intensified. “I wanted to make an impact, the way she did.”

“Judging from the things I’ve heard about you, you did.”

“I wanted to help people, show the normalists that paranormal people really have worth, like my mother did.”

“It was noble. It’s not your fault the Institute betrayed everyone. It’s not your fault at all.”

“I shouldn’t have been trying to compete with her.” His voice remained strained. “I shouldn’t have let envy cloud my judgment. She was brilliant, and I loved her for it. She wasn’t trying to be a better person than me. But I was trying to outdo her with my stupid crusade.”

June recalled the picture on Micha’s phone, the one where they were both smiling. Maybe more tension existed between them than attraction. June had judged their entire relationship based on one image, filled herself with guilt over some imagined love story that might not have been so glamorous after all.

“Micha.” She fumbled for words. She’d never been good at consoling. “This isn’t because of you being envious. It isn’t your fault any of this happened. Those bastards are way beyond any of our control.”

“This is my fault.” His voice broke. He clamped a hand over his eyes. “If I had stopped being jealous of her, none of this would have happened. I would have seen what they were doing a long time ago.”

June gripped his hand and pried it from his face. Her fingers were numb. “You’re not any more to blame for this than I am for my sister’s death or my parents’ divorce.”

Saying those words caused something disgusting and slimy to come loose inside her, something that crawled up her throat, and she now needed to spit it out.

Micha's eyes were wet. Glistening trails were frozen on his cheeks.

“I hope you and your brother get back home,” he whispered. “I hope you make it.”

She stroked his cheek. “I’ll keep in touch with Cindy.” Her voice caught. “I want to know what happens to you. And I’ll find you again someday. Maybe you can come to California. Maybe you’ll be safer there.”

“I’m not angry at you for what happened between us. I promised you I wouldn’t be. Thank you for looking out for me.”

June pressed her lips to his and they were cold, but behind them, the furnace-like heat inside his body still raged, burning him up. Tears slipped from her own eyes and were quickly dried, as if for once, the city was trying to help her by hiding her weakness. June pressed her forehead to Micha’s and closed her eyes.

“You’re not going to die,” June whispered.

Micha clutched her arm and whispered back, “Neither are you.”

Minutes passed, not slowly, but faster, and faster, building to a terrifying crescendo. June considered her last cigarette in her jacket pocket, but she was actually too cold, too scared, too heartbroken to want it.

The tension snapped when a voice from above called out, “Hey!”

June jerked her head up. Micha lifted his as well. Robbie stood at the top of the revetment, a black figure against the gray sky, his coat whipping around him. June’s pulse raced, sending heat into her frozen limbs.

Robbie bounded down the steps. “Let’s go.”

June couldn’t move for the fear in her, a solid mass holding her in place.

Robbie reached the promenade, his pale face peering out from his hood. “Your brother’s here.”

A stillness filled June’s chest, her heart seeming to have stopped. For a moment she was on the verge of doing something melodramatic, like bursting into tears, a lot of them, so many the wind couldn’t dry them.

Instead she whispered, her voice shaky, “Thank God.”

“You have to go.” Robbie jerked his head toward the revetment. “Ethan is waiting at the field house.”

Micha was sitting up now. His lips were dark from the cold. June understood of course, for better or worse, no matter her promises, she might never see him again.

“You stay strong.” She clasped his cold hands. “None of this is your fault.”

“It’s not your fault, either.”

June was cemented to the cold bench, push-pinned in place by Micha’s beautiful blue eyes, the last beautiful thing she might ever know. Robbie moved into the corner of her vision.

“You have to go,” he said. “Ethan is waiting.”

Somehow, she managed to stand, cold and stiff, not ready, but fully aware the time had come to act regardless. She looked up the revetment, four steps into the unknown, her brother seconds away. Uncertainty, danger, and possible disaster were also seconds away.

“Good-bye, June,” Micha said.

“Good-bye,” she whispered.

She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath to numb her aching lungs, and plunged forward.

The lonely vulnerable walk to the field house terrified her. She kept looking around. She didn’t see anyone, but the back of her neck crawled, like someone was watching her. She focused on the building, driven by the knowledge Jason was inside. Alive. Waiting to be rescued. Through tall latticed windows, she could see lights and people.

A man stood at the back of the building, near a doorway. June slowed, cautious. Ethan.

“Eric Greerson just started talking,” he said, when June reached him. He huddled into the fur trim of his long tan coat, an errant lock of hair dangling in front of his forehead, glasses reflecting the light. “Sam is trying to keep him busy, but you need to get in there.”

“Jason’s in there?” She needed to hear it confirmed.

Ethan nodded. “He doesn’t look good, but he’s there.”

Alarm bells went off in her head. What did “doesn’t look good” mean?

“Come on,” Ethan said. “Time to tantalize the masses.”

They went inside, entering a short hallway with a plank floor and stone walls. The warmth was glorious, but she had no time to bask. Light shone from a doorway to the right, casting shadows from the room beyond. A man spoke, his voice amplified, and it sounded like Eric Greerson.

“I have to get in there,” she said.

“Wait for a good spot to come in. The stage is to the right.” Ethan turned and disappeared through the doorway.

June swallowed thickly, wide-eyed and terrified. She wanted to run back outside, but she couldn’t flee. Jason needed her.

Eric was currently extolling the virtues and moral standards of the Institute. June leaned against the wall, trying to hear over her pounding heart. She had no idea what a “good spot” might be, or what she should say when she entered. The only things she could come up with were asinine exclamations like, “Say hello to my little friend!” followed by whipping out Cindy’s gun. But she couldn’t shoot up the place, no matter how much she wanted to. That wouldn’t ensure their safe escape at all.

Then she heard Sam’s voice.

Even without a P.A., he was loud and clear. He didn’t keep his offense bottled. “You treat us like guinea pigs! The paranormal community is an intelligent, prolific, well-organized entity. No matter what crap you try to spoon-feed the public to make them believe we need their help, we don’t. How
dare
you, Mr. Greerson, come here and spew your holier-than-thou rhetoric. How
dare
you.”

“Mr. Haain.” Eric sounded less reticent than before. “When our founders brought the Institute of Supernatural Research to fruition over a decade ago, their intent was not to study anyone like guinea pigs. The paranormal is a vast and revered subject. Study and advancement in the field will only benefit all human kind. We only seek to—”

“You seek to oppress us!” Sam overrode him. “Your lies and immorality will be the end of—”

“Mr. Haain, if you cannot control yourself, I will have security remove you from this conference.”

“
Remove me
?” Sam barked out a laugh. “Do you know where you are right now?”

“I know where I am. I’m well aware of the treaty between your organization and the SNC. However, I belong to neither.”

“Where is the other twin?” Sam demanded. “Why do I only see one of them? Where is June Coffin?”

This was her cue.

A murmur rose. June touched the gun under her jacket. Before she could lose her nerve, she lurched away from the wall and walked through the doorway.

“June Coffin is—” Eric began.

“Right here,” June said, startled by the power and clarity of her own voice.

The murmurs hushed as all eyes turned to her.

Her bravado was embarrassingly short lived. She froze, cemented in place with terror. Oh. Fuck.

The long, wide room looked like a banquet hall, with the same stone walls and plank floor as the hallway. Intensely bright light from an array of TV cameras left no inch in shadow. A huge crowd was packed into the room, all looking at June with eager, curious expressions. Sam stood in the front row of the crowd. To June’s right, a raised platform held Eric Greerson standing before a podium and dressed in a charcoal gray suit, his silver hair perfectly upswept. Behind him, sitting on folding chairs, were John McKormic and a few other researchers. All of them stared at June in thinly-veiled horror.

At the end of the row and farthest from her, sat Jason.

He wore black jeans, a white T-shirt, and blue Chuck Taylors—the last outfit she had seen him in. He didn’t look good, his skin ashen and dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t look like June’s twin, either. His face was rugged and square, his eyes brown, and his shaggy hair sandy blond, though that was also the natural color of her hair. When he saw June, he sat up straight, eyes wide, mouth falling open.

June swallowed back a fierce surge of emotion—rage, relief, anguish—and strode toward the stage. This was the hardest walk of her life, but it was the only direction she could move in.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” She ascended a short flight of steps up to the stage. “I was on the phone with our mother in California.” She walked up to the podium, up to Eric.

Eric gave her a small but kind smile. “It’s all right.” He clearly didn’t know what the nervous group behind him did. “Would you like to say something?”

“Sir.” John McKormic leapt to his feet. “I think we should conclude this conference. I believe we’ve said—”

“Let her speak!” Sam yelled. “Have you got something to hide?”

Two hard-eyed security guards hovered near Sam, watching him. Muse stood next to him. Flashes went off. Voices rose.

“Of course she may speak,” Eric said. “Both of you may, if you like.” He looked around at Jason. “We have nothing to hide.”

John McKormic's eyes were huge behind his glasses. June glowered at the scared little man. For the first time in over a week, she had the upper hand. This fact gave her courage.

“I
would
like to say something,” she said.

Jason sat stiff in his chair, his throat working. He had his hands clenched in his lap. Red marks marred his wrists. She wanted to plunge her fist into John McKormic’s face.
What have they done to him?

“Go right ahead.” Eric stepped back, gesturing to the podium.

June turned toward the microphone and looked out at the sea of keen faces and waiting cameras. Shouts erupted, hands waving, microphones thrust forward. Everyone wanted to ask a question.

“I just wanna—” she said into the microphone.

The crowd barely quieted.

“I just wanna say something,” she said louder.

The commotion died to a murmur.

Sam looked around, glaring, before focusing on June.

“As you can see,” June said, “we’re both alive.” She still had no idea what to say, but she realized, looking out at the attentive crowd, what she
couldn’t
say. In her anger, she could easily rattle off a litany of wrongs and horrors they’d been subjected to. But if she did, the chance of walking out peacefully would be minimal.