26. Raegan
Chapter twenty-six
Raegan
I spend my afternoon running through shops to expand my wardrobe. I can only borrow so many bright, glittery, or sequined clothes from Portia before enough is enough. I’m still low on funds, so I buy a couple things here and there and then steal the rest.
I’m not proud of it, but a girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do. Especially when she doesn’t exist on paper to ever qualify for a legitimate job. That and because holding a job for more than a month usually equals GE finding me.
I use my gift to remove the tags and anti-theft devices and stuff the stolen goods into my existing bag from the store. Once I’ve snagged enough outfits for a week, I call it quits. I’m not greedy and that’s more clothing than I’ve owned in a long time. I also hate shopping.
As I’m walking down the sidewalk back toward Hype and my apartment, the distinct feeling of being watched creeps between my shoulder blades and up my neck. I cautiously check my surroundings, but only see people going about their day.
It’s late afternoon and the streets are still busy .
I frown and keep walking as I scan around me to look for anything out of the ordinary. If I am being followed, the last thing I want to do is lead them back to where I’m staying. Better to draw them out and get rid of them first.
I take a few side streets away from Hype just in case, zigzagging and making sure the feeling of being watched doesn’t subside. Then I twist down a less popular shopping district with no cars and walking paths only. There’s no one around, so I drop my bags and ready my gift in both hands.
Something moves out of the corner of my eye, and I jerk my head toward it.
Sitting on top of a light pole is Jackson. He’s in his usual gear. Hood up, so I can’t see his face, one knee bent and foot on the pole while the other dangles off of it.
He lifts a knife and whips it at me.
I’m shocked for half a second before self-preservation kicks in, and I duck and cover. It sails behind me.
“Jack, what—” I start after he misses, then look up in time to see three more knives shooting my way. I drop to the ground and then jump when I hear a thud behind me.
The knives are frozen in the air about a foot off the ground. The air shimmers, and a man lies there. Each knife is buried deep in fatal locations.
Was he the one following me all of this time?
I bend over to get a better look at the guy, but he’s not familiar. Then I swing back up and around to chew Jackson out for the knives and my nose brushes against cotton. I startle backward, my foot tripping over the guy, but Jack grabs my arms and pulls me back upright.
“Excuse me, little one.” He straightens me out and shifts me to the side. He then waves his hand and the body lifts a foot off the ground. Jackson turns and walks down a tiny alley between two shops with the body floating after him.
I follow too. Because I’m owed an explanation, damn it.
Jack drops the guy to the ground and squats to start rummaging through his pockets. The stench of death punches me in the nose and I cover my mouth before I choke on it. It’s only after he’s down that I see the other bodies already here. Four, including the previously invisible guy. But it looks like the others aren’t so fresh.
“Do you mind explaining what’s going on here?”
He slides his knives out of the body and wipes them on the guy’s clothes, then tucks them away wherever they go beneath his hoodie. He walks back to me, then nudges me to keep walking with him out of the alley. “Come on. It’s best not to hang around dead bodies during the day.”
“Well, no shit. Are you just going to leave them here?” I argue, but my body does exactly as he directed anyway.
“For now. I’ll come back for them later if someone else doesn’t find them first.”
“Wouldn’t that be a problem if someone does exactly that?”
He shrugs. “Not really. There’s nothing to lead cops back to us.”
We’re back on the shopping street and Jackson angles us back to my bags. He uses his gift to lift the bags and holds his hand over his shoulder until they gently fall into it .
“What about GE? They’ll know it was us.”
“They know we’re here now. No point hiding anymore.”
I cross my arms and study him. I feel like there’s something else I’m missing that he’s holding back on. His piercing blue eyes are twinkling back at me through the shadow of his hood, and the angle’s just right in the sun that I can see his smiling face. “Okay, well, throwing the knives at me like that was not appreciated.”
His smile stretches as he chuckles. “I was testing your trust in me.” He turns and starts walking away. With my bags. “It still needs a lot of work, by the way,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Hey! Where are you taking my stuff?” I call and hurry after him.
“To your apartment. Isn’t that where you were headed with them?”
“You’re coming back with me?”
His head tilts to the side as he looks over at me. “Do you not want me to?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…usually, you pop in and out. Or you’re apparently there and I have no idea,” I add with a look .
Jackson laughs softly.
“About that…I appreciate you looking out for me and saving me three times now.”
The time at the docks, when Gordon appeared, and now today.
There’s a tiny smirk at the corner of his lips and now I’m wondering if it hasn’t been more than three times. I haven’t been attacked since the docks other than today. Have there been more I don’t know about?
Shit. I hope not. Here I was thinking how well I was doing even after they discovered I’m here and now I’m doubting everything I thought I knew.
“Anyway, I lasted five years without any help. I swear I can take care of myself. I’m sure you have other things to do…” I drift off as we enter Hype and I wave at the staff cleaning and preparing the club to open soon.
We head up the stairs to my apartment and I open it to let us both inside. Thankfully, I’d cleaned the mess this morning that had been made last night.
Ugh. Don’t think about it.
Jackson brings my bags right into my room and sets them on the bed. I’m not sure if nerves make me feel like he stares at the missing headboard, because when he turns back, he doesn’t say a word or look confused or curious.
I hope he didn’t notice.
Fuck me.
“Raegan.”
Jackson’s suddenly standing right in front of me, his hood down and cerulean gaze locked on me. It’s almost disconcerting how he looks at me so intensely. Like the rest of the world doesn’t exist anymore, and I’m the one and only thing he sees.
His hair is as black as his clothes, which only makes his eyes pop that much more.
“There is nothing more important to me than you. I will do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe.” His fingers push my blonde hair behind my ear and continue down my neck. A shiver snakes from my neck directly between my thighs at the sensual contact and his words.
“I’ve been looking into how Gifted Enterprise found you here. I’d been careful to cover up any trail of you and yet they showed up anyway. Between that and eliminating the smaller units they sent in to take you, I’ve been a bit busy. So, I’m sorry if I haven’t been around much.”
His hand settles against my neck and his thumb strokes over my pulse like he’s desperate to feel it beat and push against him.
I reach up to place my hands over his and close my eyes. I sigh and lean into his hand. “From the sounds of it, you’ve been around me plenty,” I start softly, thinking both of him going behind my back to kill people for me as well as watching over me when I’m unaware. “But I’d rather see you when you’re around or know that you’re there.”
I open my eyes as he smiles and pulls his hand away to dig into his hoodie pocket. He extracts a paper crane and then gently fixes its shape and holds it in the palm of his hand. He blows behind it and it lifts and flies the short distance to me, where I catch it.
“I’ll send you one of these if I’m around then, but can’t be seen.”
My chest aches as I caress the little paper crane and all of the good memories it brings back. “I’d prefer you in person when you can, but I like this if you can’t.”
Smirking, Jackson whispers in my ear, “I doubt you’d want me to interrupt if you’re in the middle of something with Kellan.” He shifts back just enough to see my face and his smirk deepens. “Or Aiden,” he adds in a teasing tone .
Fuuuuuuck.
I push him back and turn away from him to stare at the kitchen counter. My face feels like a hundred degrees, and internally, I chide myself for it. What am I embarrassed for? It was just sex. Aiden was…well, that was a mistake. But he kissed me first. Did Jackson see that? Why do I care so much that he saw all of that?
Ugh. I’ve been going around dancing and having sex while Jackson’s been protecting me for weeks . I feel like a complete asshole. What does he see in me, after watching all of that, that he sees worth protecting?
My hair is dragged over the front of my shoulder, exposing my neck. Jackson’s breath warms my skin as he chuckles behind me.
“Did you watch?”
“No.” I turn my head over my shoulder to look at him expectantly for more. He just shrugs and smiles at me. “I wasn’t invited,” he adds, like that explains everything.
Except it explains nothing and has my heart hammering in my chest. Is he saying he wants to be invited? With the others? What does he mean?
But I’m too chicken shit to ask and swallow the questions down.
As if he can sense my nerves on the entire topic, he steps back to give me some breathing room and tucks his hands away into his hoodie pocket. It’s like a foot comes off my lungs and they can finally expand to full capacity again. Jackson’s relaxed demeanor lulls me back into feeling calm.
I can do this.
Push that knowledge to the side for later so I don’t act like a complete idiot in front of him. With the others, I’m like my usual strong and confident self. But with Jack, all my walls come down and I’m just a girl in a big world trying to survive one day at a time. I want to bury myself under that hoodie and hide away from the world with him, where I know he’ll keep me safe.
“I was actually on my way to you to bring you something today.”
“What is it?” I ask, curiosity piqued.
Jackson reaches under his hoodie and whips out a folded paper. And now I’m convinced he must have all sorts of hooks and pockets and things on the inside of it. Or he’s a magician.
My hand closes over it, but he doesn’t let go right away.
“I found out who told GE you were here.”
“Who? You mean someone ratted me out?” I thought I’d slipped up somewhere.
Jack nods slowly and then releases it.
I stare at it, then unfold it. It’s an article in some fancy newsletter I’ve never heard of, but the main picture grabs my attention first. It’s of Elias and I walking into the gala.
Shit. I should have worn a mask the moment we left Hype.
The article barely mentions the photograph. What it does include is my name . How would the photographers have gotten my name? I was just Elias’s date that night.
I skim through the rest of it and check the back, then look up at Jack in confusion. “Who gave them my name?”
“Dane.”
My heart seizes and the article crumples in my clenched fist.
I can understand him hating me and trying to get his revenge. But to involve them ? To put everyone else in this city at risk? Hype? Aiden’s Guild? His brothers?
Going after me is one thing.
Putting everyone else I care about at risk, and other innocents around them, is going too far. Even if Jackson foiled his first attempt at taking me out, did he become a coward in our time apart that he would resort to having his enemy take the revenge for him?
A cold hand grips the back of my neck, and I shudder. I didn’t realize I’d closed my eyes and begun to shake with rage at Dane’s selfishness. My eyes open. Jackson’s watching me. Waiting to see what I’ll do next.
“You’re sure it was him?” I growl out.
His eyes clock mine, like he’s reading my every emotion deep down in my soul through them. “It was him,” he confirms without an ounce of doubt.
My gift stirs and grows heated in my gut. I feel it trying to force its way out. To consume me in it so I can destroy everything and everyone around me until my fury is abated. I struggle to keep it contained, even as the darkness in me crows about justice.
I’m sure now that he’s the reason behind the attack on the beach. The reason that Congressman Joe was assigned to bring me in. Why Gordon showed up at the Tower.
He’s so far gone in his need for revenge that he’s stopped caring about who else he hurts. He’s become a danger to Jackson and the others. To this city and the other gifted people hiding in it.
“Would you stand by if I killed him?” I ask Jackson. He says he has my back. That I’m the most important person to him. But would he stand by my side if I went after one of his brothers ?
He doesn’t seem shocked or upset by my question. His expression hasn’t changed at all aside from looking…interested. In me. In whatever I’m about to say or do. He cocks his head to the side. “Is that what you really want?”
“Just answer the question,” I snap back. Because I have no fucking clue what I want to do right now.
His eyes darken, and he closes in on me. I take a half step back, but he’s faster and takes my face in his hand. His fingertips are ice against my heated skin. I’m sure he can feel my gift burning beneath the surface and so close to coming out that a flicker of worry pierces through the rage at him touching me right now.
“I know you, little one. Perhaps better than you know yourself right now.” I open my mouth to argue, but he continues before I can get a word in. “I will stand by you and whatever you decide to do.”
He kisses my forehead, and my heart stutters out of its raging beat.
It’s not as clear-cut of an answer as I’d hoped for, but I suppose it’s enough.
“Let’s go, then.”