“I’m getting sick of this bloody dodging bullets bullshit.”
I choked on a laugh, shaking my head as I met Kate Berkshire’s glower head-on. “That’s because you’re not getting any better at it.”
“No, I’m definitely getting worse,” the Irish soldier snapped, then swore, glaring at the medic to her left. “What was that for?”
“Stop your bitching,” Joshua Talmadge growled, not looking up from his work. He’d unwound the bandages from her left arm and there was blood and gauze everywhere. “You’re lucky it looks like it’s just a through and through. If it was any worse we’d be at U of C Medical trying to explain how you happened to wander in front of a bullet and oh no, please don’t involve the police, there’s no need to report anything it’s just a silly mistake no real harm done—all while you’re bleeding on a freaking gurney.”
“I’m sure you could pull it off, Josh,” I said, patting the doctor on the shoulder. “You’d be surprised at your own powers of persuasion.”
He snorted humorlessly and shook his head. “Don’t patronize me, McConaway. You’re ill-suited to it.”
“I don’t know, I think she’s pretty good at it.” Kate smiled weakly, then looked at me. She seemed tired all of a sudden. “Just a scratch.”
I grinned ruefully, knowing the words were half lie, half jest, as my phone started to vibrate in my back pocket. I dug around for it as I answered her. “You could be bleeding out with your intestines falling out of a hole in your gut and it’d be ‘just a scratch.’”
“Popular today, aren’t you?” Kate waved me away with her good hand. “Go take it. I’m not going anywhere until the good doctor’s done with me.”
I nodded slightly, glancing at the screen. Don’t recognize that area code. “It’s probably a wrong number anyway. I’ll be right back. Try not to piss off Josh while I’m gone, huh?” I ducked out of the infirmary and into the hall. We’d been back in the Portal Corps headquarters in downtown Chicago for maybe fifteen minutes, returned from yet another off-world foray that had probably resulted in more trouble than it was worth. I glanced down at my phone again and shook my head as I answered. This had better be quick. I don’t have time to break away from refereeing right now. “This is McConaway.”
“Hello, Dr. McConaway? My name is Brigid O’Connell, and I have some news about your brother.”
My heart stopped and I froze in midstride. Brigid O’Connell had been the name of the woman who’d led the search after my brother and fiancé had disappeared over the deserts of Iraq almost three years ago. They’d found Mat’s plane but no trace of him in it. There had been no sign of my brother.
How could she have information about Tim?
What could she possibly know? She’s not with the Corps. I’d know if she was.
“Doctor? Are you there?”
“Of course. Of course. I—I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to will my heart to slow down, to force my guts to cooperate. My thoughts scattered as I slumped against the nearest wall. “I’m here. I—what do you have to tell me, Miss O’Connell?”
“It’s Lieutenant O’Connell, actually, and…he’s here.”
“It’s nice to—wait, what?” This has to be a dream, some kind of hallucination. I got shot instead of Kate. That’s it. I’m hallucinating because I’ve lost way too much blood and I’m dreaming this.
This is impossible. We came close a few weeks ago. No one knows where he is. The Cabal lost him. No one knows where he—
“Here, you talk to her.”
“What? Wait a sec—”
It was his voice, unmistakably my brother. My heart thudded against my breastbone and every breath was a battle. The sound of a phone changing hands barely registered.
The Cabal lost track of him weeks ago. Is this why? Could this be why?
How did he get back? When? How is he—where is he? There was a tremor in my voice as I dared to speak his name. “Tim?”
He sighed into the phone. “Hey AJ. Are you okay?”
“No. No, not okay. Where are you?”
“Virginia,” he said. “Alexandria. Where are you?”
“Chicago. Where else would I be?” I squeezed my eyes shut. How had he gotten to Virginia without us knowing? Was there another Portal somewhere near there that we didn’t know about? Somewhere beyond the monitoring of the Corps? There must have been. It was the only explanation.
Goddammit, there’s too much we don’t know.
There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask him—chief among them was how the hell he’d ended up in Virginia. How had he escaped? How was he back without us knowing? I couldn’t ask that over the phone, though, especially not with O’Connell there with him, not without knowing what she might already know about him, about what he’d been through, where he’d been. I squeezed my eyes shut, sagging against the wall. It was the only thing holding me up.
“Sis? You there?”
“I’m here,” I said, voice coming choked from a throat so tight I could barely breathe. “Are you safe?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
I caught a hitch in his voice and shivered. We both know why—but do you remember that I know, that Kate knows?
He said that he wouldn’t. He was going to make himself forget so he could protect us. Damn it all.
“Just making sure,” I whispered. “I…I need to see you. I need an address.” Kate would want to come with me. Scott and Sierra would be expecting a report from us on the last run. There wouldn’t be time to write one before I—before we—left.
A thought struck me. Had they known he was back? Had he somehow shown up while Kate and I were on a run and they just hadn’t told us?
No. No, they wouldn’t keep a secret like that from us. If they tried, it would be a cover up of epic proportions. Bryn would say something. There’d be no hesitation. If she knew, we’d know. End of story.
Scott and Sierra couldn’t have known—no one connected to the Corps knew. That was for certain. He couldn’t have come through HQ—but then that brought me back to the question of how. Last we’d known, he was missing, list somewhere among the Portals and the countless worlds. Even the Cabal had seemingly lost track of him, though they hunted for him—he was a valuable asset as far as they were concerned. They were probably still looking. He wasn’t a prize they’d give up easily.
Tim rattled off an address. I wrote it on my hand, struggling not to drop my phone as I did, both hands shaking so badly I wasn’t even sure the writing would be legible. My heart was going three times its normal speed and it was hard to breathe.
“You’ll be there?” I asked with a tremor in my voice I couldn’t quell.
“I don’t know where else I’d go,” he said. “If I’m not there, I’ll be here. Call this number if you need to.”
“Absolutely,” O’Connell’s voice said in the background. “I’ll help her find you if you’re not already here.”
“Not like I’ve got anywhere to go,” he said, his voice a little muffled.
My eyes stung. You could come here. You could come home. I glanced toward the door to the infirmary, biting down hard on my lower lip. Why hadn’t he come here? Why hadn’t he come home?
There must be a good reason. I’ll find out what it is.
Could it be fear?
“I’m coming there,” I said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll be there tomorrow, as early as I can. I promise. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you.”
“Tim?”
“Yeah?”
“I missed you,” I said in a bare whisper. “We all missed you. I…I’m glad you’re back.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line before he said, “Yeah. So am I, AJ. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Love you.”
“I love you, too. Be careful.”
He hung up and I stood there in the hall, staring at the wall without actually seeing it in front of me. My brother was back on Earth. He was home.
Why hadn’t anyone told us before now?
Who had known?
I knuckled my eyes and exhaled a shaky breath, counting to ten before I straightened. Shoving my phone into my pocket, I headed back into the infirmary, hoping I didn’t look half as shaken as I felt. Josh had a suture kit out and was still working on Kate’s arm. She watched him like a hawk despite both of us knowing that he was good at what he did.
“That was a long wrong number,” Kate said before her gaze met mine. When she saw the look on my face and all good-humored teasing evaporated. Her expression grew serious. “What’s the matter?”
“It wasn’t a wrong number.” I closed the door behind me. “I just talked to Tim.”
“Tim? My Tim?”
“He’s my Tim, too,” I reminded her. “He was my Tim first.”
Her complexion was ashen. “Whatever. You talked to him? How is that even possible?”
“Should I be here for this?” Josh asked, glancing up from Kate’s stitches. “Because I can go if this is classified six feet above my ass.”
“It’s not,” I said, even though I wasn’t actually sure of that. “It’s fine. Just finish up.”
“He wants me to go get some x-rays,” Kate said with a slight glower. “Something about getting lucky if I didn’t nick the bone.”
“I just said it was a good idea,” Josh said. “You told me it hurt more than the last time you got shot and it hurt deep. That means bone or deep tissue damage. Do you want to be safe about this or not?”
“You’re the one who was moaning about U of C Medical.”
“It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Would you two stop bickering for twenty seconds?” I snapped. “Kate, I’m driving to Virginia. I’m driving tonight. Are you coming?”
“Why—oh. Is that where he is?”
“That’s where he said he is.” My lips thinned. “How the hell did he get back to Earth without our knowing?”
Josh frowned. “Is he one of those ones the Cabal nabbed a few years ago?”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “He’s practically the only one we’ve ever had a chance of bringing back, too.”
I could still hear the pain and regret in her voice when she talked about that missed opportunity, even though it had been the better part of two years ago—two years this coming June. It wasn’t that it frustrated me any less, but she’d been clinging even tighter to the hope of bringing him home in those few days than I had. She’d convinced herself it was possible and then it hadn’t happened. It had hit both of us hard—her harder than me.
He’d asked her to keep a promise and I’d never quite been able to bring myself to ask her what that promise was. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
There’s no way that she’s just going to stay here if he’s back, if he’s within reach. There’s no way. I just stared at her, waiting for the answer I knew was coming.
She didn’t meet my gaze as she said, “I’ll cover for you. Call your uncle and get going.”
“You’d bet—what?” Wait, she’s not coming with me? “Kate—”
“Scott and Sierra are going to need a report and I can make it for both of us,” Kate said quietly, finally lifting her eyes to meet mine. There was a familiar pain there, the deep one that I’d seen in snatches and glimpses since the day we’d left my brother on Mydiar. “I had days with him back then. You had five minutes. Go. Go see him and make sure it’s real. Make sure we’re not going to lose him again.”
My throat tightened.
She doesn’t want to come with me because she’s afraid that it’s not going to last—that we’re going to lose him all over again.
Truth be told, I was afraid of the same thing, but I had to believe that this time he was back for good. I didn’t know how he’d managed it, but I was sure as hell going to find out.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m positive.” Kate glanced down at her knees, shaking her head. “I’ll fly out tomorrow or the next day. Call me when you get there and I’ll call you about the flight or…or whatever. Go call Chris and tell him you’re going out of town and then get going before Scott or Sierra show up and stop you.”
“It’s going to be a lonely drive,” I whispered. I was sure she’d come with me. I didn’t plan on doing this alone.
“You’ll be fine,” Kate said. “Go.”
I shivered, nodding. This felt far too familiar. “All right. I’ll call when I get there.”
“Drive safe.”
I gave her and Josh each a tight smile and slipped out into the hall, heart thudding leadenly against my breast. Kate was right. I needed to get out of headquarters before Scott Andrews or Sierra O’Rourke caught up with me—otherwise, I wouldn’t be getting out of the city anytime soon. Reports and paperwork and questions I didn’t have answers to yet would ensure that. It was time I didn’t think I could afford to waste.
I booked for the stairs that would take me up to the rehabbed print shop’s foyer and Printer’s Row beyond. If I was quick, I’d be able to make it to the L in time to be home before the sun went down. I needed to swing up to the house before I made the long drive.
It was out of the way, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed clothes and the least I could do before driving east was let my uncle know that I’d be doing it. He’d come to terms with what I did every day—he knew about half of it, anyhow—but I knew it went hard on him when I was away.
I was all he had left. His brother—my father—was dead and the two boys Christopher McConaway had raised alongside me were missing and had been for three years.
Do I tell him, or do I play the waiting game and spare his heart like Kate’s asking me to spare hers? My lips thinned as I stepped out into the gloom of a February afternoon in Chicago, grimacing as I realized I’d left my coat downstairs. It was still hanging on the back of my chair in my office, the one I shared with Carson Matthews, a cultural anthropologist whose father had been one of the ones kidnapped three years ago the same way Tim and Mat had been. Carson was newer to the Corps, had only been with us six months, but he was catching on fast.
Not going back down there. If I go back down there, I’m going to get waylaid. There’s no doubt about that. I shivered in the wind and shook my head as I felt around in my pocket for my keys and found them. I’ll just make a run for the station. I won’t freeze to death if I hurry.
Sucking in a deep breath, I sprinted for the stairs to the Red Line station a block from where I’d been standing, hoping that my wallet was in the bag I was still carrying from the off-world run and that I hadn’t left it with my coat.
Too late now. Already made the run for it.
I stumbled down the concrete steps and into the warmth of the subway tunnel, already shivering from the late winter chill. It had been a relatively mild winter here in Chicago, but that didn’t mean it was much warmer than bitter cold—especially not this close to the lakeshore. I dug around in my bag, hoping to find my wallet and eventually locating it in the deepest, darkest corner of the bag as I made my way to the turnstiles guarding the entry to the train platforms.
I breathed a sigh of relief as my fingers closed around my CTA card. Small favors. That’s all I can ever ask for.
I took the train from Harrison and hit my connections—Red Line to Blue all the way to Rosemont where I’d left my car. I stared out the windows of the train, at the city and at tunnel walls, fingers tapping against my knee in agitated impatience, all the way from the station where I’d gotten on the Blue Line to Rosemont, where my insane life with the Corps and UNSETIC had begun. It felt like a long time ago.
How am I going to tell him? How am I going to break that news?
I wasn’t sure if I was trying to figure out how to explain this to my uncle, or how I was going to break the news to Tim that our other uncle, our mother’s brother Peter, was dead. I didn’t know which one would be harder.
I closed my eyes and sighed. Dammit.
The train stopped at Rosemont and I got off, went hunting for my car. Somewhere between there and home, I’d figure out how I was going to tell Uncle Chris.
I really didn’t have much choice about that.
