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Chapter Thirteen

  I don’t remember being close to crossing the line between sleep and wakefulness, but I must have slipped over it at some point because I startled awake, unsure what had woken me. The door to the hotel room opened then, and I heard Brian’s voice. London pulled the duvet up to my chin just before the overhead light blinded me.

  “Yeah, I think that we should...oh. Sorry,” Dylan said.

  I burrowed further under the duvet, hiding my face under pretense of blocking out the harsh light.

  “We’ll just...” Brian stammered.

  “Go,” Dylan finished. “We’ll just go.”

  The mattress shifted as London turned away from me to look at our friends.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Just give us a few, okay?”

  “Yeah,” Brian replied. “We’ll just wait outside.”

  I heard the door open and shut. I felt the bed shift again, felt London moving away from me, and I peered over the duvet to watch him as he pulled on the clothes we’d scattered across the room. I marveled at the angry red claw marks that I only vaguely remember leaving on his back. Ouch.

  When he was mostly dressed and I still hadn’t gotten up, London turned to look at me.

  “Are you okay?”

  I wanted to point out that the question was kind of silly, since I knew he could tell how I felt. I opted for tact instead, or maybe I just couldn’t summon the energy to be a smartass.

  “Sure,” I told him, though I wasn’t at all certain it was true.

  “Elizabeth—”

  “I’m okay,” I said, cutting him off. “I just need...can I...” I sighed, not sure how to ask for what I needed. I felt numb and sort of disconnected. I didn’t want to have to talk, about anything, and I didn’t want anyone worrying over me. “I just need to be alone for a bit,” I said at last.

  He looked at me for a moment, and then nodded and headed out into the hallway, still barefoot. Once the door closed behind him, I forced myself up out of the bed. I contemplated my discarded clothing for about two seconds before deciding to ignore it in favor of a hot shower.

  The warm, stinging spray didn’t jolt me out of my near-stupor the way I had hoped it would. Reality still seemed distant, my emotions walled away. I wondered if I might be in shock. That possibility should have worried me, but I didn’t feel much of anything.

  I thought about how I’d been overwhelmed by emotions just a short time before, resulting in my embarrassing meltdown. Relief, horror, guilt, love, lust, fear, joy, sorrow, confusion, suspicion, and grief had all flooded into my consciousness at once. I hadn’t had a chance to sort through them, to make sense of them and process them. They’d just come sweeping in out of nowhere and tried to drown me. Without London there to anchor me, they might have succeeded.

  London. God, how he must have felt. But he’d pushed it aside to take care of me.

  And just like that, emotion began to creep back in, starting with concern for his well-being. The relief of having Dylan safe followed close behind.

  By the time I dragged myself out of the shower, I felt a little more like a real, living, breathing, feeling human being.

  I dried my hair, washed my face, and brushed my teeth. Since I hadn’t thought to grab my PJs, I wrapped a towel around me and stepped out of the bathroom, prepared to be somewhat embarrassed. I lucked out, though; Dylan was the only one waiting for me.

  “So what the hell did you do to poor London? He’s kind of freaking out.”

  Okay, maybe not so lucky. I flipped the security latch on the door, dropped the towel, and started pulling on clothes while I considered my answer.

  “How much did Brian tell you about what’s been going on? About London, and how we found you?”

  “Everything, I guess.”

  “So you know about the whole empathy thing.”

  Dylan nodded. “Yeah, I know. And I know you well enough to know he’s not freaking out because you got all lovey-dovey on him during the afterglow.”

  I sighed and flopped down on the bed. “What afterglow?”

  “You can’t expect me to believe that you two didn’t hit it,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest.

  “Oh, we had sex. We had really amazing sex.”

  “And?”

  “And I completely freakin’ lost it, Dylan. I don’t even know what happened. But instead of euphoria and afterglow, we got meltdown and crying jag.” I sighed again, pulling my feet up to sit cross-legged on the bed. “My feelings were this overwhelming, jumbled up mess. If London had to feel even a fraction of what I was feeling, then I’m not surprised he’s freaked.”

  Dylan’s forehead furrowed in contemplation. “He seemed fine when we walked in on you two, but when he came out into the hall he was pretty upset. I thought maybe you had to give him the ‘just friends’ speech or something.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t, though. All I said to him was that I wanted a few minutes alone.”

  “There’s something else going on,” Dylan said. “There has to be. Maybe Brian can drag it out of him, if he ever gets off the damn phone. Correction, if they ever get off the damn phones.”

  “Speaking of phones, I guess I better let Alex know you’re okay and that he doesn’t need to file that missing person report.”

  “Done. I borrowed your cell while you were in the shower. He and Blas had already left San Antonio. They were up around Georgetown. But at least I caught him before he had my face plastered on the side of a milk carton,” she said. “And you so owe me one for listening to him rant instead of making you do it.”

  “Maybe we can call it even. You know, the whole rescuing-you-from-evil-Jessica-Rabbit thing.”

  Dylan laughed. “I knew you’d see the resemblance, too! That bitch has issues.” The smile slid from her face. “What happened back there, Em? Do we need to worry about her tracking us down?”

  I looked away, trying not to remember the sight of flames crackling over Julia’s skin and the sound of her pained, terrified shrieks. “I don’t really know. London might, but I’m not sure we should ask him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think...I think he might have killed her, Dylan.”

  “Good. She needed killing,” Dylan replied. Under any other circumstances, I would have been astounded. Joking about offing someone is one thing, but saying it and meaning it is something else. Still, all I could do was agree. The woman had been torturing me, and she’d probably done the same to Dylan. She’d hurt London, too. And I figured what we knew was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. If she hadn’t hurt more people and done worse things in the past, she would have at some point further on down the line.

  I knew, though, that London’s feelings would be a lot more conflicted. After all, he’d loved Julia once. He’d wanted to marry her. Somehow, he’d missed the fact that she was a sociopath. That or something had changed her after their breakup. I wasn’t sure it mattered, but I also couldn’t help but be curious. Likely, I’d never have an answer, so I pushed the question aside.

  “I’m going to hit the shower,” Dylan said, scooping a plastic Wal-Mart bag up off the floor. “I feel gross.” She made it as far as the bathroom door before she turned back. “Oh, crap. I forgot. Brian talked to Adrian. The rest of the tour entourage is in town, and we’ve got—well Brian and London have got—rooms at the Hard Rock. We decided to move over there, since four people in a room with one king bed is not only breaking all sorts of rules but also just not likely to end well.”

  Dylan stepped into the bathroom and shut the door, leaving me alone. I pulled jeans on over my boxers and starting repacking, only to be interrupted by one of the boys trying to get into the hotel room. I had forgotten to disengage the safety latch.

  “Sorry,” I said to London as I let him into the room.

  He gave me a little smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re feeling better?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. That’s good.”

  He
paid little attention to me as he gathered the few things of his that needed to be repacked. Five minutes later, I’d had all the uncomfortable silence I could stand. I couldn’t ignore what had passed between us anymore.

  I reached out to touch London’s hand, intending only to get his attention. He jerked away and took a few quick steps backward.

  “Don’t.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered, feeling stupid.

  “It’s not—” he turned away and slammed his palm against the wall. “Dammit. It’s not your fault, okay? Any of it. I just never really learned how to shield, how to protect myself. And with all the magic I’ve been slinging around, my defenses are pretty much nonexistent.”

  “It’s overwhelming you. Confusing you. Like when you were in high school,” I guessed.

  “A little. It’s easier now to separate my own feelings, at least. But it’s worse, too.” He leaned forward, resting his weight on his arm against the wall. “It’s not just that I can’t keep other people out, now. I also can’t seem to control the whole projecting thing.”

  Unease trickled down my spine even before his words sank in. When they did, when the full weight of what he was saying hit me, I began to see my earlier meltdown in a new light. Some of the feelings I hadn’t understood surely had been his emotions instead of my own.

  Doubt came creeping in on the heels of the relief that realization had brought. If the guilt and grief I’d felt earlier had been London’s, then what about the unexpected and overwhelming desire? What about the more tender feelings I’d had for him? Were they mine, or his? Or worse, were they maybe Brian and Dylan’s feelings for each other refracted through the prism of London’s powers?

  London turned around, leaning back against the wall, but he couldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  I didn’t know what to say, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. London pushed away from the wall and fled the room before I had the chance to say a single word.

  When the door opened again a few minutes later, I had finished my repacking, found and put on socks and shoes, and was sitting on the bed, hugging the battered old teddy bear I’d fished out of my suitcase. My mind, heart, and body were all exhausted, and I wanted nothing more than to be curled up safe and sound in my own bed, under my own blankets, with my oldest, truest friend, Benny. I don’t remember where he got his name, and neither does anyone else, but Benny the bear had been the one constant in my life since I’d gotten him. In nearly thirty-five years, he had never let me down.

  I must have looked pretty pathetic sitting there cuddling my archaic bear, because the second that Brian managed to drag his eyes away from the closed bathroom door, he made a beeline for the bed. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, facing me, and opened his arms. It was all I could do to not fling myself at him. Instead, I inched forward until he could wrap me and Benny in a comforting hug. Oddly, it wasn’t the first time I’d found myself in this same situation, but with my mind in the state it was in, I couldn’t remember why we’d ended up like this before.

  Dylan emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later. From the look on Brian’s face when he turned to look at her, it was obvious that all he saw was the woman he was head-over-heels in love with, not the baggy AC/DC shirt and cheap yoga pants or the way her wet hair stuck out in all directions like she’d had an accident involving a fork and a power outlet. She joined us for a much-needed group hug that I ended soon after, not wanting to be selfish. Brian and Dylan held on to each other for a while longer before she let him go with a chaste kiss on the lips.

  “Where’s London?” she asked.

  “Waiting in the hallway,” Brian replied, reaching out to capture her hands. “He wants us to stay together as much as possible. He says Julia’s furious, and he’s afraid she’ll come after us.”

  “Not dead, then,” Dylan said. “More’s the pity.”

  Brian pulled her down to sit on his lap, the position awkward since he was perched on the edge of the bed. “You said earlier you didn’t want to tell your story more than once, that you wanted Elizabeth to hear it when I did.”

  Dylan shook her head. “Not fair to leave London pacing the hallway while we talk about this. I’ll tell you in the car.”

  I glanced around at all of the suitcases and wondered how we’d manage to get the four of us and our luggage into the rental car. The trunk had been pretty full before without Brian’s gear. I had a feeling it was going to be a cramped, uncomfortable ride across town. At least the streets should be clear of traffic this time of night.

  Brian kissed Dylan again and then patted her hip to tell her to get up. Dylan rounded up all the toiletries and whatnot out of the bathroom while Brian and I made a final sweep of the hotel room, making sure we had everything packed and ready to go. That done, we carted everything out into the hallway. Dylan dragged the boys’ rolling cases, and Brian tried to juggle his and London’s carry-ons as well as his guitar. I shouldered my backpack, took London’s from Brian over his protests, and dragged my own rolling case out behind Dylan, leaving Brian to glance over the room one last time and shut the door behind us.

  London sat on the floor in the hallway, back to the wall, knees up, head buried in his hands. As we spilled out of the hotel room, he raised his head just enough to peer up at us. I expected him to get up, but he just sat there looking defeated. It should have roused my sympathy and concern, but all I felt was vague annoyance. Not knowing whether the feeling came from my own exhaustion or was some echo of London’s emotions ratcheted the annoyance up to irritation. I knew it wouldn’t take much to push me over the edge to pissed off, so I dropped London’s backpack beside him and kept walking.

  Halfway down the hallway, I felt a hand on my arm. I knew it was Dylan even before I turned my head to glance at her. She’d ditched London’s suitcase, I noticed. I also noticed that she didn’t look annoyed or irritated or pissed. Maybe it really was just me.

  “We should probably wait for the boys,” she said.

  I nodded, and we both stopped to wait. I looked back to see Brian crouched down beside London, talking to him in a tone low enough that his voice didn’t carry down the hall. He didn’t look irritated either. Guess I was just feeling bitchy. Good to know.

  After a moment, London nodded, rubbed his eyes, and let Brian help him to his feet. He slung his backpack over one shoulder, took hold of the suitcase handle, and followed Brian down the hall. He still wouldn’t look at me, but I suppose I’d kind of given him a reason, now.

  Brian and Dylan led us out to the car, making small talk about the hotel along the way. The place was still beautiful, still luxurious, but I knew I’d always associate it with the frantic search for Dylan and everything that went along with it. Maybe one day I would be able to look back and find good memories tucked in among the bad ones, but with the way things were going right now, I kind of doubted it.

  Once we were crammed in the rental car, with a pile of backpacks between London and me in the backseat and Brian’s guitar riding between Dylan’s feet, Brian asked Dylan again to tell her story.

  “I’d like to start at the beginning,” Dylan said, “but I don’t remember the beginning.”

  “What do you mean?” Brian asked.

  “I remember getting on the plane. I remember landing. I even remember riding the little train from the gate to the main building in the airport. But then there’s a big blank space.”

  “Like a blackout?” I asked.

  Dylan nodded, and then said, “Yeah, pretty much. The next thing I remember, I’m sitting in a chair in a room that looked like Walt Disney threw up. I don’t think I ever want to see Mickey Mouse again.”

  “I can imagine,” I told her.

  “Anyway, they kept me bound and gagged most of the time. Sometimes I was tied to the chair and sometimes just tied hand and foot and left on the bed or the floor. They would move the gag to feed me or let me have water, and they’d untie me to let me use the loo, but otherwise not so
much. Three days of not moving sucks.”

  “Did they hurt you?” Brian asked, reaching for her hand.

  Dylan threaded her fingers through his, resting their joined hands on the console between them. “Sometimes the redhead would mess with me. She wanted me to know what she was capable of, Vanessa said, though I’m not really sure why.”

  “She wanted you afraid,” London said, his voice rough with emotion. “She wanted us to know you were scared.”

  “But you weren’t,” I said. “Not much, anyway. At least not that we knew about, not until right before we showed up.”

  “The redhead—”

  “Julia,” Brian interrupted.

  “Whatever. She wasn’t around much at first, and as long as it was just Vanessa, I really didn’t see any reason to be scared. I guess I didn’t believe she’d do anything to hurt me,” she said, reaching up to touch the knot on her head. “Still can’t believe she did, actually.”

  “You never said what happened to her,” I pointed out.

  “Brian did this crazy wrestling move thing on her until she passed out.”

  “I hope you at least kicked her on your way out the door.”

  Dylan made a small, amused sound. “I would have if I’d been sure I could do it without falling down. I tried to rescue my necklace from her and nearly fell on my face. Took a little while to get used to the whole upright-and-mobile thing again.”

  “You should have said something,” Brian added. “I’d have been happy to help you out with that kicking thing.”

  Dylan laughed, and Brian answered with a smile. They were so freaking cute it should have made me ill, but I was way too happy for them to mind.

  “You did get your necklace back, right?” I asked. Brian had bought the necklace—a delicate rose gold pendant—for Dylan just after they’d met, during the day we’d spent in Key West. It was one of her most prized possessions.

  “Brian got it back for me,” she said, reaching up with their joined hands to touch the necklace through her shirt.

  “Good,” I said.

  We all lapsed into a brief, easy silence for a few minutes before London asked, “What Julia did to you...what was it like?”

  For several minutes, Dylan stayed quiet. When she answered, her voice was low, so quiet that her words were almost lost beneath the hum of the engine and tires on the road.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

  “You don’t have to—” Brian began, but Dylan cut him off.

  “Yeah, I do. I do have to,” she said. She took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “She started out small and worked her way up, but even at the beginning it was scary because it didn’t make sense. Magic isn’t real, or at least that’s what we’re taught. But I got to experience it up close and personal.”

  “What do you mean she started out small?” I asked.

  “What she did was she made me feel things.”

  “Emotional things?” Brian asked.

  Dylan shook her head. “Physical.”

  “Pain, in other words,” I said.

  “Not just pain,” Dylan answered, turning to stare out the window at the neon lights.

  Not just pain? Oh. Oh, yuck. I know I wouldn’t want to feel pleasure at Julia’s metaphysical hands. I thought again about the overwhelming desire that had landed me in bed with London, and wondered if Julia had used that pleasure-inducing ability in their fight. The thought that magical lust had pushed us to have sex made me want to hurl. Or punch Julia in the face. Or maybe hurl in Julia’s face.

  “So, yeah,” Dylan continued. “First it was just this creepy-crawly sensation, like caterpillars walking all over me.”

  “Ew.” I shivered. I’m not a girly-girl, but bugs are so not my thing.

  “Yeah, exactly. She moved up to itching, which was really annoying. And then to aches like you get with the flu. Then she switched gears, and that’s when I started to get scared. I think that might have been this morning.” She was quiet for another minute or two, watching the city go by. “Tonight was the worst though. I’m not even sure how to describe it.”

  “It’s kind of like a really bad electric shock,” I said.

  Dylan turned to look at me. “That’s what she got you with?” I nodded, and Dylan frowned. “But it didn’t hit me nearly as hard as it did you.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe for me she turned it up to eleven. One point twenty-one gigawatts of pure pain, all at once, all for me.”

  London startled all of us with a strangled laugh. “You nearly fucking die, and instead of poetic reminiscences about white light and heavenly beings, you describe it with one of the geekiest, most mixed-up quotes I’ve ever heard.”

  Brian glanced at London in the rearview mirror and flashed him a smile. “Told you,” he said.

  “You did,” London admitted. His smile faded then, and he turned again to look out the window.

  I wondered what it was Brian had told him, but I knew better than to ask. What I did know was that whatever it was had made London close himself off again and brought gloom crashing back in to replace his momentary cheerfulness. And when London ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

  Emotional darkness squeezed its way into the car, making the last few miles of our drive seem endless. Days later, we made it to our hotel. Brian texted Adrian to let him know we were there, he and London picked up their room keys, and then a helpful bellman took charge of our baggage and led us up to our rooms. London stayed as far away from all of us as he could, even insisting on taking a separate elevator. Brian, of course, wouldn’t let him go alone, so Dylan and I accompanied the bellman and left the boys to follow.

  We stepped out of the elevator to find Adrian waiting for us. He and Dylan had met briefly a couple of months before when the band’s tour had taken them through Dallas. I’d been swamped with school and hadn’t been able to make it up to see Brian and meet his friends. Dylan had only gotten a handful of hours with her boyfriend and a few minutes with the rest of the band and crew.

  Despite the brevity of their previous contact, Adrian greeted Dylan like an old friend, with a brief embrace that didn’t quite count as a hug. He introduced himself to me, and we shook hands. Dylan used Brian’s key card to let the three of us into his room, where we had the bellman leave all the luggage. Soon after the bellman disappeared back downstairs, London and Brian showed up. A few minutes later, Kent, or Kenny as the boys tended to call him, joined us, too.

  London still kept his distance, all but ignoring his friends. Watching him, I noticed that he was concentrating hard on regulating his breathing, a tried-and-true trick for controlling the emotions.

  Adrian leaned against a wall, arms folded tightly across his chest like he was cold. He listened to our conversation—small talk, mostly, with a couple of questions about everyone’s well-being—and even chimed in a time or two, but he never took his eyes off London. Maybe ten minutes passed before he interrupted Kent in the middle of some story.

  “London, what’s going on?” he asked.

  London, who’d sunk down into an armchair in the corner, just shook his head.

  “It’s been a hell of a day,” Brian said. “He’s having a hard time of it.”

  “I can tell. He’s bleeding.”

  Brian and I both turned to look at London, who looked fine except for the tenseness and exhaustion he’d been carrying since we left the Dolphin.

  “Uh. Magic. He’s bleeding magic.”

  “Shit,” London breathed. “I forgot.”

  I looked back and forth between London and Adrian, then glanced at Dylan. She looked as confused as I felt. “Forgot what?” I asked.

  “Adrian’s a sensitive,” London said, pushing himself up out of the chair. “He can sense magic.”

  Adrian shrugged. “What he said. I knew he was a practitioner the first time I met him. I can tell when he uses his abilities, which has happened maybe twice since I’ve known him. And right now, I can tell it’s, like
, radiating off of him.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “If you can sense all that, how the hell did you not know about Julia?”

  “Not know what about Julia?” Adrian asked, his forehead crinkling in puzzlement.

  Silence reigned for a moment before Brian answered. “She’s the one who took Dylan. And she has some seriously scary magical abilities.”

  Adrian’s eyes widened, and Kent let out a startled, “What?”

  “I’ll explain everything,” Brian promised, “but first I think we need to get London to bed.”

  “I’ll second that,” London said, but he made no move to leave.

  “It’s okay,” Brian said, gesturing for London to come forward. He levered himself out of the chair, paused for a moment, and then took first one tentative step toward us and then another. When he drew near, Dylan shivered, I moved nearer Brian, and Kent took an involuntary step backward. Adrian seemed baffled.

  “What am I missing?” he asked.

  Brian looked at Adrian, tilting his head a little to the side in a contemplative pose that reminded me, oddly, of the dog in the old Victrola ads. God, I needed sleep.

  “You don’t feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  London turned and looked at Adrian for a moment. A moment later, he stepped forward and rested a hand on Adrian’s shoulder. Adrian laid his own hand on top of London’s. His expression never changed.

  “You don’t feel sadness, like a heavy, waterlogged blanket?” I asked.

  Adrian looked at me like I’d grown an extra head. He opened his mouth, probably to ask me what the hell I was talking about, but he was distracted by London wrapping him in a bear hug. Adrian hugged him back, not asking any more questions, at least for now.

  As the only one unaffected by London’s bleeding magic, Adrian volunteered to help London move his gear to his—London’s—room across the hall. While they were gone, the rest of us discussed sleeping arrangements. Kenny offered to let Brian bunk with him so Dylan and I could have Brian’s room, but I knew Dylan would want to be in Brian’s arms tonight. He also offered to move in with Adrian and let me have his room, but Brian vetoed the idea of my being alone. We were discussing the dubious merits of a rollaway bed when Adrian knocked and Brian went to let him in.

  “London okay?” Kenny asked.

  Adrian nodded. “Modern medicine is an amazing thing. He’s out cold.”

  “That was fast,” Dylan said.

  “Yeah, but he was dead on his feet. The sleeping tablet was probably overkill, but now would not be a good time for him to have to fight with his insomnia. And he figured if he was all the way under, maybe he’d stop leaking magic all over the place.”

  Brian and I both spoke at once. He asked, “Did it work?”

  At the same time, I asked a different question. “Why does it matter? It can’t affect us if we’re not in there with him.”

  “Yeah, it worked. And even though he never came right out and said it, I’m pretty sure that London assumed he wouldn’t be sleeping alone,” Adrian said, giving me a meaningful look.

  “I guess that settles the question of sleeping arrangements,” Kenny added.

  I sighed. I didn’t mind sleeping in the same bed as London, but the idea of waking up beside him kind of worried me. Still, it was the best option. For everyone else, at least.