Chapter Fifteen

Theron was waiting when I got back.

Sitting on the floor with his back against my bed, he flipped a quarter into the air and caught it. His eyes widened as he looked up at me. “Wow,” he said. “You look nice.”

“Coming from you that must mean I look fantastic,” I replied.

He flipped the quarter again. “You look…semi-fantastic,” he admitted with a smile.

I passed him on my way to the dresser and caught his quarter midair. “Thank you, cuz,” I said, tossing it back to him. “Did you watch the video?”

“Sort of,” he replied. “There was a complication. Your boyfriend is on the way up. I’d rather explain it to the two of you at the same time.”

“Okay,” I said, getting my pajamas out of the drawer. “I’ll change while we wait.”

I’d just stepped into the living room when Ian came striding into my suite.

He pulled up short, blinked, stared, and blinked again. Remembering my reflection in the mirror earlier, I realized why. I looked a lot more grown-up than usual and pretty hot. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like for girls at Fillmore who made guys drool. I generally had some power over Ian…in that moment I had all the power.

Butterflies took flight in my stomach and adrenaline made my heart pound fast as he came toward me. He pulled me to him, and held my hand so the Vs in our palms overlapped. He kissed my lips and then my neck as delicious sparks of energy flowed between us.

“Hey,” Theron called from the other room. “I can feel you two mingling energy and creeping me out. If you could cool your hormones until I’m gone, that would be super.”

From behind Lillian’s closed door, I heard her tired voice say, “I agree.”

Blushing from my toes to my forehead, I left Ian staring after me and continued to the bathroom.

After changing into my pajamas, I returned to find Ian trying to pry the lid off one of the crates in my room. He wasn’t having much luck.

“I hope you don’t mind me opening your stuff, Alison,” he said. “Curiosity is killing me.”

“Feel free,” I replied. “but all the lids are nailed down.”

“You’ll need a pry bar to get it off,” Theron remarked.

“I’ll ask Logan for one tomorrow,” he said. “I won’t be defeated by a crate.”

“Aim a little higher, man,” Theron said.

Ian rolled his eyes and grabbed my hand. Pulling me toward him, he started to lead me in a waltz. I stepped on his shoe and stumbled. Laughing, he spun me under his arm, and then close to him again.

“If you infants can spare a moment,” Theron said, “I’ll tell you what I found on Valentine’s computer.”

“Right,” Ian said, letting me go. “Back to business.”

“Among Valentine’s home movie crap,” Theron began, “I found an encrypted video file. I couldn’t crack it with the program running on my phone, so I downloaded the file. The code is a work of art. I’ve only dealt with one like it before. That pain in the ass Ashlee Stentorian wrote it.”

“Who’s Ashlee Stentorian?” Ian asked.

“A computer genius like Theron,” I replied. “She’s the one who reported his hack into the NSA. He has a nerd crush on her.”

“I do not,” Theron grumbled. “I’ve never met her. She could be as old as Lillian and likenessed to a donkey. Come to think of it, I hope she’s likenessed to a donkey.”

“Even if you couldn’t see the video, at least we know one person on the other side of this mess,” Ian said. “That’s progress.”

Theron shook his head. “She might not be involved. All we know is that someone used an encryption program she probably designed. I hate her with the fire of a thousand suns, but I’ll reach out to her. Maybe I’ll be able to get some idea who she’s done freelance work for recently.”

“Will she give you the code to decrypt the file?” I asked.

He choked out a laugh. “No way. She’ll take it with her to the grave. I can’t blame her. I’d do the same thing.”

“Can you break the encryption yourself?” Ian asked.

“Yes, but I’m going to have to tweak some of my current algorithms and run them against the file.”

“And…you’re going to need actual computers to do that,” I added.

“I have two laptops with me,” he replied. “They’ll do the trick.”

“You travel with two laptops?” Ian asked.

Theron shrugged. “I work when I’m on the road. If we’re lucky, it will take me a couple of hours to break the code. If we’re not, it will take a couple of days.”

“The roundtable is the day after tomorrow,” I remarked. “I was really hoping to see the video before then.”

“Which is my cue to get to work,” Theron said, rising to his feet. “Keep your fingers crossed for luck.”

We watched him leave, and then Ian sat next to me on the bed. With a smile that was almost shy, he said, “You looked really beautiful tonight. I mean, you’re always beautiful, but you looked a different level of beautiful in that dress.”

“Thanks,” I responded with a blush. Wondering why we were suddenly acting like we were on an awkward first date, I remarked, “I suppose it’s as close to a prom dress as I’m going to get.” Thinking about it, I pulled a face. “Which means your parents were my prom dates.”

He laughed at the idea. “When this is over, I’ll take you to a real prom,” he said, recovering his old confidence.

“Sure you will,” I replied. “And which high school will we be crashing?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he assured me.

“How was your date with Rose?” I asked.

With a devilish smile, he replied, “It had one glorious moment.”

“Why do I suddenly feel bad for her?” I asked suspiciously.

He chuckled. “When she leaned in for a good-night kiss, I faked a juicy sneeze,” he replied. “My aim was perfect. It hit her right in the mouth.”

“Ugh…disgusting,” I muttered.

“From her expression,” he responded. “I’d say that’s exactly how she felt about it. I wish I’d thought of it sooner. Every time she sees me, she’s going to remember that sneeze hitting her full force. I think I’m finally free.”

“That’s sort of genius,” I remarked.

“I think so,” he replied proudly.

The next morning, Ian drove Phoebe, Theron, and me into town to have breakfast. The pub we stopped at was a lot like The Gull except the fish smell wasn’t as strong, and it had a dartboard in the back.

“Come on,” Ian said after I’d won three games of darts. “What’s your secret?”

I shrugged. “I’ve just always been good at it.”

Theron let a dart fly. It missed the bull’s-eye by a ring. “These must be weighted wrong,” he grumbled. “No one ever beats me.”

Heading back to join Phoebe at our table, I said, “I’ll leave the two of you to lick your wounds. Let me know when you’re ready to get beat again.”

I sat down, and Phoebe sighed. “They’re so beautiful,” she said. “I could watch them play this stupid game all day.”

I silently agreed with her. Ian and Theron were opposites in a lot of ways, but both were great to look at. Ian was tall, fair, and handsome with a positive outlook on life and a magnetic personality. Theron was a tall, dark, and handsome cynic with an edge that was irresistible to some girls.

“How long have you been dating Ian?” Phoebe asked.

I choked on a sip of my soda. “We aren’t dating,” I said when I’d recovered. “We’re just friends.”

“You’re definitely more than friends,” she responded with a knowing smile.

My shoulders slumped. “How did you guess?”

“I was suspicious when the two of you knocked on my door looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” she replied. “The way he watched you as you walked over here confirmed it. I can see why it works. He has a lot of energy. I’m guessing it’s pretty intense, even for him. When you’re close to him, it kicks down a notch. You have a calming effect on him, and he makes you smile and shine. The two of you are a great couple.”

I watched my boyfriend pull darts out of the corkboard and drew a deep breath. “I wish it were that simple,” I said. “I’m terrified he’s going to likeness with someone else.”

“Maybe destiny will smile on you,” she suggested.

“That would be a first,” I whispered. Louder, I asked, “What do you think of Theron?”

She stirred her drink with her straw. “He’s a bit prickly,” she replied, “but I’m guessing there’s a lot more to him under that. I recognize his signature. He was with you when we met.”

I nodded. “Remember I told you I was staying with my grandmother,” I said. “I was actually staying with him. He was sort of…keeping an eye on me. If you haven’t already guessed, I can’t essence fight.”

She nodded. “I figured. When my uncle Maxwell attacked you with his energy, you didn’t respond.”

For a relatively peaceful people, the dewing fought a lot. It was tradition for boys and girls to learn combat skills as well as how to fight with their mind energy, something called essence fighting. I was crap at it. The most I could do was defend myself.

“You got a couple of good punches in,” she remarked with admiration.

“Thanks to Ian,” I replied. “He trained me.”

“I’ve been working on essence fighting,” she said. “I’ve gotten a lot better since Maxwell abducted us. I still suck at physical combat, though.”

We watched the boys throw another round, and I asked the question that had been burning in my mind, “What’s going on Phoebe? What’s causing the deaths in your clan?”

Probably trying to decide how much to tell me, she played with her straw for a moment. Then she sighed and said, “We can’t be sure yet, but we think it’s some kind of virus.”

I shook my head at the idea. “It can’t be. We don’t get sick…at least not for long and never seriously enough to kill us.”

“It should be impossible,” she agreed. “But the dewing who died had high fevers, headaches, and chills. They were dead within two hours of the symptoms first appearing.”

“Holy crap,” I muttered, thinking it through. “If it’s a virus…it’s also contagious.”

“Yes,” she responded, “but we aren’t sure how it’s spread.”

“What are you going to tell the clan chiefs?”

“Everything I know about it,” she replied. “I don’t have operational labs, so I need to send blood samples to theirs. We have to figure out what’s going on and how to stop it.”

I nodded agreement.