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“I have no idea,” Jazz admitted. “Combine delusions with an actual weird ability, what do you get?”
“Something scary. Something very scary.”
“No shit.” Jazz mussed her hair again, and saw Lucia grimace. “What? Don’t I just look like the hottie of the month?”
“You look like you could use a bath,” Lucia said, with brutal honesty. “And another haircut. I’ve never seen anyone who can grow out of one as quickly as you.”
But Jazz could tell that Lucia’s mind wasn’t on fashion and hair, not anymore. She looked stone-cold serious behind the frivolous words, and her mind was racing a million miles an hour. This was the Lucia Jazz knew and liked.
The one who could shoot the eye out of an ant at a hundred feet.
“Precautions,” Lucia said. “First things first, you don’t go anywhere without Kevlar. They’ve taken shots at you before, they will again. Also, we start with standard risk-assessment protocol. You never get into a car without it being checked for explosives or sabotage—”
“Lucia, come on. Seriously.”
“I’m being perfectly serious. You never get into a car with anyone you don’t know. We upgrade security on your apartment…no, scratch that, we abandon your apartment and move you someplace safe. No forwarding address.”
“Safe? Like where?”
Lucia’s smile flared impossibly white and gorgeous. Whatever she’d been about to say was interrupted by the arrival of Pansy, who poked her head around the door and waved a good-natured hello, then opened it wider as she said, “Guess who’s here?” She looked like a canary-fed cat. A well-satisfied canary-fed cat.
Standing with her, shuffling his feet uncomfortably and looking desperately as if he wanted to be anywhere else on earth, was Ma
“Ma
“Yeah,” he mumbled, raised his muddy green eyes to hers for a bare second, and then looked down. “I, um, was just—on my way to—”
“Ma
“Pretty much everything,” he agreed, without any arrogance. “Why?”
“Jazz needs secure accommodations.”
Ma
Careful, Jazz thought, wishing she was telepathic. If she was going to be so god-awful special, she ought to at least have some particular power beyond getting thumped on and kind of enjoying it.
“Jazz has somebody after her,” Lucia said. “I don’t think she’ll be safe in her home as it is right now.”
Ma
She sighed. “Yeah.” Any second now, there would be a cloud of dust and an end to her relationship with Ma
“You can stay with me,” he said. A simple, declarative statement. No shifting, no stuttering, no nervous flutters. He was rock still, his eyes steady and his face set. “There’s no place safer in this city than mine.”
Oh, God, Jazz thought, and a wave of hilarity cascaded over her. She saw Lucia bite her lip, eyes wide. Ma
“I won’t let you down,” he said, and suddenly all of the fu
Somebody who’d always been there, underneath all of the panic and worry and tics.
“I won’t,” he repeated, and took a step toward her. “Jazz, let me do this. I want to help you.”
She had no idea why he was offering. “Ma
He swallowed hard. She saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down convulsively, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He was trembling a little, but only a little, and he jammed hands into the pockets of his tan raincoat to hide it. “Fine,” he said. “Just, you know, leave it outside. Don’t bring it in.”
Lucia stepped smoothly into the silence. “You set the time and method for us to move her,” she said. “Just let us know.”
“Hey!” Jazz said. “Don’t I get—”
“No,” Lucia answered without looking at her. “It’s Ma
Jazz’s temper—never far from the surface—flared into bubbling lava. “I’m not living like a prisoner!”
The window behind her exploded in a shower of bright, sharp-edged glass, and she felt a rush of wind that blew her hair forward violently. Lucia was heading toward her, but she was already diving for the carpet, squirming to get under the desk, twisting on her side to see if anybody else had been hit.
Ma
She took the Sig Sauer and scrambled to join Lucia at the window. They sat there together, backs to the wall, guns ready, and exchanged a look.
“Now,” Lucia said, and rolled right, over the broken glass, coming up on one knee and aiming out the open window. Jazz angled to cover her own side. There was a second’s tight silence as they searched for targets.
“Clear,” Lucia a
“Yeah, here, too.”
“If he’s any good, he’s already gone,” Lucia said. “Snipers don’t hang around waiting for a second chance. They take the shot and go without seeing how it came out. If it doesn’t work, they come back for another try.”
Jazz nodded jerkily and narrowed her eyes against the glare, still looking. The morning looked bland and bright. Traffic crawled along outside without incident. Nobody seemed to have noticed a thing, so far, though there was a nice glittering spray of glass on the sidewalk below.
“Get out,” Lucia said, still maintaining a rigid focus outside the window, gun at the ready. “Stay low.”
There wasn’t any reason to argue about it. Jazz did a combat-crawl across the floor, keeping close to the wall, and when she was far enough, rose to a crouch and moved fast out into the darker area beyond. Ma
“Over here!” Pansy whispered, and gestured her urgently on. “Get down!”
“There’s no reason to keep your voice down, they’re not stalking the halls with Uzis,” Jazz said in a normal tone, and straightened up. “Also, there’s no way they can see in here from any of the windows. We’re fine.”