Page 44 of Heir of Ashes

Was that it? I resembled the man she had once loved and lost too much? Or was it because I had inherited his other nature? Or both? How could a mother, no matter how freakish the child, dispose of her like it was nothing? How could a mother carry a child for nine months, care for her for twelve years, then just let her go? Didn’t I mean anything to her? Couldn’t she just have fought for me, then left me to the streets to fend for myself? Anything was better than the torture … But what if she didn’t know? Didn’t know where I was, how to find me, what was happening to me?

She served them custody papers …Tommy’s words came back to me. But my father was dead. Wasn’t he? Could he still be alive out there somewhere, have gained guardianship and, without Mother knowing, sold me to the PSS? After all, he was a monster. He’d send postcards of exotic places in my name to her. She’d have no reason to think about all the horrors I’d been through. Especially if she knew nothing about the world of the preternaturals. But my father was dead. Otherwise, Logan would have said something. Wouldn’t he?

I glanced at him, at his watchful expression, and looked away. He hadn’t denied anything, but he hadn’t confirmed either. He’d told me he was going to check his information, nothing else. Should I pressure him? What if what he told me was wrong? What if he suspected my father was alive, but wasn’t sure?

I needed to talk to my mother. I needed to hear it from her. I was aware of Logan’s eyes on me, reading the slideshow of emotions on my face. I wiped my expression as cleanly as I could and straightened my posture.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly. “Let it out. You don’t have to hide from me.”

“What do you know? Your mother didn’t throw you away like yesterday’s garbage and start a new life without you.” The words came out sharp, surprising even me.

“I never met my mother. The woman who raised me died when I was … incapacitated.”

“That’s not the same, so don’t patronize me.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t you dare look at me with pity in your eyes,” I snapped, ready to strangle him. “Even you are holding back information that’s important to me.”

“I don’t want to. Would you rather I tell you something and find out later on, after you build your own conclusions, that I was wrong?” I didn’t answer, and he went on. “I know how it feels to be unwanted. My mother,” he smiled thinly, his eyes suddenly cold, “literally threw me out like garbage. Archer found me with the rats, wrapped in blankets beside a garbage bin, in mid-December in New York. I learned at a young age I was better off without her.”

“You’re lying,” I said, but there was no conviction behind it.

Logan turned back to the laptop and logged out. I had a feeling this wasn’t a topic he usually talked about and wasn’t going to bring up again.

“Is he the man you’re going after? This Archer, the person you’re risking your life for?”

Logan jerked his head in a nod.

We didn’t talk about our pasts after that. Logan ordered food, and we discussed our next steps while we ate. The plan was simple. Logan would drive me to the Sierra Oaks Vista address later that night and take me to a spot at the back of the house where we’d be concealed, and security would be easier to disarm. He’d then create a distraction for the PSS guards posted a few blocks away. Logan suspected they had rigged the house’s security to their monitor’s feed, otherwise, they’d have been posted within sight of the property.

After that, I was on my own. I had around forty-five minutes before the PSS realized they had been duped and returned to their post. It was a simple plan, but I was suddenly full of doubts. So many what-ifs, so much could go wrong.

***

I glanced at Logan from the corner of my eye. His grip on the steering wheel was hard, evident from his white knuckles, and his jaw was clenched. Was he regretting our bargain?

On the backseat were the rolled-up prints I’d given him, along with his laptop and a few belongings. After we parted tonight, we wouldn’t be seeing each other again. He had paid for three more nights at the hotel to give me some time to figure things out after my meeting with my mother. He’d also paid me ten thousand dollars in cash and promised to FedEx a new driver’s license and passport to the Plaza Hotel in a week. He’d have started the process of creating a new identity for me, but that was Archer’s expertise, so I’d need to lay low until he could rescue him. Compared with the sketches I had handed him in exchange for the exorbitant payment, I knew he was coming out on the losing end of our deal, regardless of his repeated reassurances.

I had explained the layouts to him first, quizzed him about the locations of specific facilities and labs before going over the prints with him one by one. I had shown him possibleplaces his friend could be found at different hours of the day, then quizzed him on that too. Though he answered everything correctly, I still wondered if it was enough.

We parked a good fifteen-minute walk away from the Sierra estate and trekked on foot to the back of the house, where Logan went to work on the cameras with a wireless handheld device. He explained to me about scramblers, image freeze, and satellite interference as he worked, but I wasn’t really listening.

The night was cold and quiet; no animals were about. The trees rustled with stray winds, and the dark night was made even darker by the clouded sky. To our left was the ten-foot wall, to our right a shallow ditch full of decaying leaves, a few dozen semi-skeletal trees beyond that. It was the perfect horror movie set before everything went horribly wrong and plunged into Hell.

Why was I so unsettled?Because I was about to confront my mother after ten years? Why was Logan upset then? His jaw wasn’t clenched anymore, but there was this tangible tension rolling off him in waves. He was still dressed all in black, and the stubble on his cheek shadowed his profile. Did he know that? He’d approved of my dark sweater and new coat but suggested I change my jeans to something darker. To blend with the night, he’d said. The pitch-black, silent night.

“Don’t storm the PSS alone,” I blurted.

He stopped fiddling with his device and looked at me. His eyes were dark, of indistinguishable color, his expression unfathomable.

“I’ve been trying to reach a friend, but so far all I’ve got is his voicemail.” He looked back at the device in his hand and murmured, “I’ll wait a day or two, and if he doesn’t respond, I’ll have to go. It’s been a few weeks now.”

It took Logan about seven minutes to block the receptors and freeze the camera feed. “Mark five minutes before youjump the wall. Remember, you have about forty-five minutes.” He searched my face. “I know it’s not enough time but try to schedule a meeting place somewhere—somewhere crowded next time.”

I nodded once and waited for the next instruction. But all he did was squeeze my shoulder, and then he took off, running into the dark, to draw out the PSS surveillance van.

Despite the grim situation, I couldn’t help but watch and admire his grace, the predatory way he moved through the trees. A predator alone in the woods at night, accompanied by the whistle of the wind like the lament of a lonely ghost. It suited him. It suited him perfectly.

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