Ever After

muttered as I shifted to stand shoulder to shoulder with Trent. No one ever asked my opinion of a crime scene. Reconsidering, I glanced at Trent. At least not before the vacuuming guys were done.

If I didn’t know better, Felix had taken Quen away intentionally so Trent and I could talk. The feeling strengthened when Trent glanced at me and turned away, making me feel as if we were two wallflowers at a dance, left by our respective dates so we could “get to know each other,” Trent in his three-piece suit that cost more than my car, and me in a slinky tawny number I’d probably never wear again ever.

Then the woman on the couch began sobbing again, and the feeling died.

“This is ugly,” Trent said. The mask was gone.

He hadn’t asked what Quen and I had been doing, and my shoulders eased. “How serious is the I.S. treating this?”

Trent’s breath came out a shade too forceful, the small tell ringing through me. He was worried—a lot. “Not seriously enough.”

That I could tell already, but Trent wouldn’t be out here for just this. “How many babies are missing?” I said, wincing as the mother balled up her tissue in a tight, white-knuckled grip, her eyes red-rimmed and drained. “Other than this one, I mean. The press said three.”

His gaze somewhere across the room, Trent whispered, “Eight total across the United States, but the I.S. is only admitting to those that get leaked to the press. The one just before this was a set of twins from a prominent political figure. They were over a month old. The parents are devastated. They don’t know why their babies were surviving. Most of the infants abducted are male, which is odd since the female gender has a naturally higher resistance.”

That was why he was here, and my eyebrows rose as he faced me, whispering, “It’s not me. Someone has been giving them the enzyme that blocks the destructive actions of the Rosewood genes or they would never have lived even this long. Now that whoever is doing this knows that it works, he or she is coming back and stealing the infants who have been treated.”

A sick feeling stole over me as I looked into the living room with its pain and guilt. “HAPA?”

He shook his head. “Felix says no.”

That info was questionable at best, but I’d go with it until I heard otherwise. “Well, who else knows what these babies are capable of invoking?”

Trent gracefully turned to look down the hall as if wanting to leave. He was tired, but it was only because he was letting his guard down that I could tell. “Anyone can piece it together—now that it’s common knowledge what you are.” His gaze came back to me, an empty regret in them. “The sole survivor of Rosewood syndrome happens to be a demon? Perhaps we were lucky it took this long. That an enzyme can keep them alive, though?” His lips pressed together. “A handful know that, and most of them work for me.”

Silent, I forced my arms to relax at my sides, the silk of my dress whispering.

“This isn’t good,” Trent said so softly I barely heard him.

“You think?”

A silence grew, not companionable, but not uncomfortable, either. The news teams seemed to be packing it up, and the I.S. operatives were getting noisy, a last-ditch effort to get the cameras on them before they left. I looked at Trent’s jiggling foot and raised my eyebrows.

Grimacing, Trent stopped fidgeting. “You look nice tonight,” he said, surprising me. “I can’t decide if I like your hair more up or down.”

Flushing, I touched the loose braid Jenks’s kids had put my hair in, still damp from the mist. “Thanks.”

“So did you and Quen have a nice dinner?” he asked, pushing me even more mentally off balance. “Carew Tower, yes?”

“As a matter of fact, it was drinks at the bar, but yes, it was Carew Tower.” Flustered, I gripped my clutch bag tighter. “How did you guess?”

His feet scuffed, the small move telling me he was satisfied—and yet still ticked. “You smell like damaged brass. It was either Carew Tower or the deli down on Vine. The one with the old bar footrest?”

I blinked, lips parting. Wow. “Oh,” I said, trying to decide what I could say. “Yes. We were at Carew Tower.” I looked down at my dress, clearly not suitable for a deli.

Trent moved to stand next to me, so near I could smell his aftershave under the broken-green smell of him. Together we watched the newscaster finish her interview with a nurse, and him being that close was almost worse than his accusing stare. “You were discussing me,” he said, his voice a shade high, his attention fixed determinedly across the room. The scent of spoiled wine and cinnamon joined the mix.

“Quen asked me to fill in for him when your schedules don’t mesh,” I said. “He knows you’re planning the conflicts—did you think he would do nothing?”

His eye twitched, that’s it, but I could see right through it. “Give the man a break,” I said, and he finally gave up his false indifference to glare at me. “Quen cross-checked your prom date and took you to the DMV office for your license. He worries about you, okay?”

Unwilling to believe, Trent frowned. I could feel the reporters watching. His eyes flicked to them and slowly his hands unclenched. Exhaling, he forced a fake smile, but I didn’t think he was fooling anyone now. He was ready to walk, and I took his elbow.

“Trent, I told him no,” I said softly, and his gaze shot from my grip to my eyes. “I told him you don’t need a babysitter. I told him he was selling you short and that you had the skill and dexterity to take care of yourself. He’s trying to wrap his mind around it, but after a decade of keeping you safe, it’s hard. You might want to ease up on the rebelliousness for a while.”

Trent’s anger vanished. “Rebelliousness?” he said, and we both moved sideways as the vacuum guys trundled out past us. “Is that his word or yours?”

“Mine,” I said, relieved that I hadn’t tried to lie to him. “I know rebelling when I see it. Come on,” I cajoled, my hand slipping from him. “Let the poor guy come to grips with your independence before you go forcing it on him. That’s kind of cool, you know? That he loves you so much.”

Again he started, clearly at a loss. “Thank you,” he said as his gaze canvassed the room behind me, but his smile was honest when it returned to me. “I never saw it like that.”

My heart thumped when Trent ducked his head to rub his chin ruefully, and a funny feeling went to my middle. Behind me, the bright lights of the news crews pinned down the human tragedy like the African sun, exposing it in a distasteful savagery akin to lions ripping the underbelly of a gazelle. It was just as hard to look away.

I took a breath to tell him if he ever wanted someone to watch his back to give me a call, but I chickened out. Instead, I nervously shifted to stand beside him again. A wisp of separation drifted between us. “You’re leaving.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, clearly surprised. “That newswoman has been eyeing me, and I don’t want to give an interview.”

I nodded in understanding. As soon as he left, I was going to beat a hasty retreat in the other direction in search of Nina. Maybe they’d let me into the crime scene if Felix asked them to.

“Rachel,” Trent said suddenly, and I brought my attention back from the empty hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms. “Be careful. It might be HAPA even if Felix says it isn’t.”

Angry, I nodded. Whoever was doing this knew I was a hard target, so they’d abducted babies instead. Cowards.

Trent was rocking forward to leave, and I stuck out my hand. “You be careful, too. If whoever this is knows about the enzyme, they’ll know that you’re the only one who can make the cure permanent.” Could I ever work for him? I wondered as he looked at my hand and I recalled the satisfaction of bringing in Cincinnati’s HAPA faction with him and the two-hour-long conversation with him over pie and coffee afterward. It had been wonderful, but I didn’t think I could stomach taking direction from him, and I doubted he would ever learn to be anything other than what he was. I didn’t know if I’d like him if he changed. Damn, I liked him, and it kind of hurt admitting it.

Trent eyed my hand for a half second, taking it only to pull me toward him. Surprised, I almost fell, my breath held as he gave me a quick, professional hug, our shoulders touching. My free hand went around him for balance, and the memory of kissing him flashed through my mind as my hand slid from his waist. “Thank you, I’ll be careful,”