Shattered (The Protectors 11)

I glanced at my watch, then my phone to make sure I’d set my watch ahead enough hours. It was five minutes after three.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

Caleb pressed into me a little more. Enough that I’d feel it but not enough that anyone would really notice. We were sitting on a park bench by a river that had numerous little boats traveling up and down it. Tourists went about their business while I tried to remember the last time I’d seen Maggie.

I’d been seeing her and her boyfriend off at the airport. I’d spent a good five minutes rattling off warnings about staying safe when she’d wrapped her arms around me and said, “I’ll see you soon.”

I could feel tears stinging my eyes, but I managed to stem them. I did end up closing my fingers over Caleb’s, though, homophobes be damned. I needed his touch to keep me from completely losing it.

Caleb pulled my hand up to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to my knuckles.

When another ten minutes went by, I turned to Caleb. “Maybe we’re not in the right spot.”

Caleb was about to respond when his eyes shifted away from me. “Jace,” he said softly. He nodded at something behind me. I turned to see someone standing about a dozen feet from us. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman because the jacket they were wearing had a hoodie that hid their hair. The weather wasn’t quite cold enough for the heavier jacket, but I suspected that wasn’t the reason the person was wearing it anyway.

I stood, pulling Caleb to his feet, and automatically stepped in front of him.

The figure remained in the same spot for a moment, then slowly began walking toward a cluster of trees just behind us. I followed, pulling Caleb along behind me.

The figure stopped by the trees. He or she didn’t remove the hood, so I still couldn’t see their face.

“What did your sister give you for your twenty-seventh birthday and what color was it?”

I couldn’t be sure from the voice alone, but if I’d been forced to guess, I would have said the person before us was a man. The mention of my sister had my heart in my throat.

“Where is she?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me and when he turned to leave, I quickly said, “A butterfly. She gave me a butterfly.” When the man didn’t respond, I pulled the collar of my shirt down to reveal part of my tattoo. “It looked like this.”

There were several beats of silence before he said, “Come with me.”

“No, tell me where she is!” I said sharply.

But he ignored me and turned away. I fought the instinct to grab him because there were too many people around. If he managed to get away from me, I’d never see him again. I knew we could quite possibly be walking into a trap, but there really was no choice. I didn’t have time to try and convince Caleb to stay behind in the park, and I knew he wouldn’t have, anyway. I kept his hand in mine as I followed the figure across the street. We walked for a good twenty minutes, the neighborhood becoming a little more run-down and seedy looking with every block that went by. The figure remained a few feet ahead of us and refused to engage with me when I asked questions. Warning bells were going off in my head that this could all be a trap, but I was too desperate to call the whole thing off.

“Caleb—”

“Don’t,” Caleb said softly. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said as he clutched my fingers tighter.

I ground my teeth together. It’d been wishful thinking. And for all I knew, we were being watched and the second Caleb and I separated, someone could grab him. At least I was armed. It was something.

I had no clue what part of the city we were in. The figure kept scanning our surroundings, and when we reached a brick building that looked like it could come down at any moment, he ducked into the alley next to it. I forced myself to remain calm as we followed. About halfway down the alley was a chain-link fence that had been cut open. We followed the guy through the fence, then to the back of the building and through a back door. The building was dark and smelled bad. I could hear blaring televisions and people fighting as we walked past the doors on the first floor. The man led us to a set of stairs, which we took to the fourth floor of the six-story building.

He stopped outside a door near the top of the stairs and knocked once, then used a key to open the door. An older woman stood just inside the door and I stiffened when I watched the man give her some money. The women ducked her head as she hurried past us and went up the stairs, rather than down them.