The Barter System Companion: Volume One Read online

  Inhaling carefully, she looked around at the others. “Hi. I’m Savine. I’m not used to people. I’ll be awkward but I hope it will get better.” To Hollow she asked, “Can I work on the laptop here?”

  “You need to eat.”

  “I can eat and work.” Dropping off the stool, she ran to the room and disconnected the laptop on her desk. Back at the bar, she opened it, signed in, and started to fly over the keys.

  To her, manipulating technology was like playing music. You had to do everything in the right steps to make it pretty.

  Zoning out, she jumped when Tawny put a bowl of curry chicken and rice beside her. “Eat, Savine.”

  Nodding, she ate a few bites and went back to the search that was finally ready to launch. During the long flight, she’d worked on the initial code.

  Hitting the enter key, she sat back with a smile. “There it goes.” Glancing up, she realized the men were staring at her. Hollow’s smile was gentle. “Did I…miss something?”

  “They realize now you’re different. You’re not just another rescue.”

  “Do you rescue people a lot?” she asked him.

  “Not enough.” Seeming to shake off a sad thought, he said, “Let’s do a test. Run a search on Finnan Brodie.” He spelled it. “Tell me where he was born and when.”

  Savine stared at the screen for three seconds without moving then typed rapidly for ten more. “Initial report popped with Dublin in 1978. Sounds wrong. Secondary deeper search gave me Carrickfergus in 1982. That one feels right.”

  “Why?”

  “The first has too much information. Like it’s staged. Like my file with the state. Packed full and no one even knew my last name. Anyway.” Glancing up, she met Finn’s eyes where he stood beside Hollow. “How did I do?”

  “Ye’re right, lass. Haven’t seen anyone get me place of birth in under a minute before. Damn good. Terrifyingly good.”

  “It’s easier than it looks.” She picked up her curry and ate quietly while she watched information from her original search scroll down the screen. “I estimate it will take at least a day for all the algorithms to compile.”

  “Are you still hungry? Is there anything you’d like to do?” Hollow asked.

  “I’m good. I’ll read and get some sleep.” He took her bowl and she looked around at everyone as she stood. “It was nice to meet all of you. Goodnight.”

  In her room, she locked the door, removed her shoes, and stretched out on a bed that didn’t seem real.

  She planned to read but knew she was too tired. It hit her all at once. The last thought in her head was the photo of Finnan Brodie as an injured little boy, being pulled from a pile of bodies massacred by gunmen believed to be linked to the IRA.

  It made her feel better to know he had wounds in his past. Maybe he would be her friend.

  She’d never had a friend before…not a real one.

  Interaction

  The café offered free Wi-Fi and Savine liked the atmosphere. For almost a year, she’d been coming here to work.

  It was work she could do anywhere because of the special upgrades to her laptop. She was a long way from the outdated computers she’d once used in the public library.

  She stared through the windows at the busy street beyond and remembered the day her life changed. Within hours, her existence went from a place of fear to a place of justice.

  The organization of ragtag men and women were dear to her. She loved them deeply and they always looked out for Savine.

  Sometimes a little too much.

  Within months of moving into Hollow’s warehouse, he gave her a new identity and became her legal guardian.

  All her education was online. Though she had no real diplomas or degrees, Savine would pit her knowledge against most who graduated schools in the United States.

  For the first few years, she never left if she wasn’t wearing a disguise. Tawny was her favorite person to hang out with. The woman possessed unlimited energy and never failed to send her into fits of laughter.

  When any of them came back injured from a mission, Savine experienced a full-on panic attack so they started hiding their wounds.

  If there was a way to keep her friends, her family, out of danger, Savine was certain to find it and take it to Hollow.

  Researching better ways to complete their assignments and keep them safer resulted in a sharp drop in fatalities and severe wounds.

  For seven years, she spent her time living and working in hiding. The only friends she had came and went, always with no guarantee they’d return.

  There were never guarantees in life.

  As a result, she didn’t have friends her age. Most of the members of Hollow’s organization still saw her as the quiet twelve-year-old girl who first joined them.

  No matter how she grew, how she matured, she feared some of them would never see her differently.

  A beautiful man with laughing brown eyes drifted across her mind and she shut the image down. Some things weren’t meant for her even if she wanted them badly.

  “Can I get you a refill?” a voice asked beside her.

  She glanced up and smiled at the barista who always made her coffee. “I’d love one.”

  He took her cup and returned a few minutes later. “You’re always working. What do you do?”

  “Marketing,” she replied without hesitation.

  “I thought so. I’m Peter.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Shelly.”

  Gesturing at the seat across from her, he asked politely, “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  So many warnings blared in her brain but he was cute, close to her age, and sweet. “Sure.”

  Every day for weeks, he allowed her to work for a while before asking to join her. Their conversations were surface and that made them comforting.

  Savine liked pretending to be normal.

  Then one late afternoon, as she stood to leave before the café closed, he blushed as he asked her to dinner.

  In a shocking turn of events, she said yes.

  They agreed to meet at the Indian restaurant across the street and she took a winding, confusing route home to the warehouse. The moment the door closed behind her, she shouted for Tawny.

  The redhead slid into view. “What? You okay?”

  Suddenly embarrassed, she said, “I…have a date. Help me.”

  Rubbing her hands together like an evil movie villain, Tawny cackled gleefully. “Yesss, my precious.”

  An hour later, she left the house wearing makeup and clothing that belonged to the woman similar to her in size.

  It was the first time she really felt normal.

  The News

  “I’m pregnant.”

  There was a long pause and Savine didn’t fill it.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Peter stared straight ahead for almost a minute without a word. Much as she had when the doctor confirmed her suspicion. Time to process was necessary.

  “What do you want to do?”

  A sick feeling grew in her stomach. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you should move in with me.”

  It was not what she expected him to say. “Why?”

  He blinked and turned to meet her gaze. “If you decide to keep the baby, I’d like to help because I’m guessing there’s a lot involved.” Another pause. “If you decide to end the pregnancy, I know you have to recover and I wouldn’t want you to be alone with your thoughts.”

  She played the words over in her mind, suddenly unable to think past their one-night stand that featured several hours of the best sex of her life and one broken condom.

  “You don’t know me,” she reminded him quietly.

  Inhaling slowly, he nodded. “I can get to know you.”

  Confused, she asked again, “Why?”

  “You weren’t alone when you got pregnant and something tells me you don’t have a lot of people to talk to about all this.”

  He looked around he
r cover apartment and she knew he saw the lack of photographs.

  When she’d taken the biggest risk of her life and ended up at his place after their first real date, his walls were filled with pictures of his parents, siblings, and friends.

  Getting dressed to leave the morning after, she found herself fascinated by them.

  “I can do it alone. I’ll be fine. I…struggled about telling you. I didn’t want to. I thought maybe I should but I’m not sure. I’ve never been in this situation before.”

  The way he looked at her was something she could feel in a way no other person inspired.

  She wasn’t sure she liked it.

  “When the doctor told you, what was your first thought?”

  “Oh no. Now what do I do?” she answered honestly. Focusing on a small sculpture on her side table, she added, “Then I wondered why. Why you…why now?”

  “Any answers come to you?”

  “Not a single one.”

  Turning slightly, he took her hand. “The night you spent with me spun me out for a few days. I’d seen you at the café for months before I got up the courage to talk to you. You seemed…unwilling to engage with anyone around you. I didn’t want to intrude. You work while you eat.”

  His thumb made lazy circles on the back of her hand. “I’m glad I finally approached you. That we became friends. That you agreed to go on a date with me. I was glad for our night together. I’m nervous about your news but not afraid.”

  Frowning, she asked him, “What would you do? If you were me, what would you do now?”

  The smile that made her say yes to his invitation of dinner, made her say yes to a walk through the moonlit park, made her say yes when he asked her home with him lit up his face again.

  “I’d see what happened next.”

  For a moment, debilitating fear that haunted her entire life threatened to drown her. With great effort, she calmed her mind and looked into eyes that were kind and intelligent. She saw the possibility of things as well as the reality of them.

  Then she nodded and he pulled her closer for a kiss. It didn’t feel like the kiss of a man Savine didn’t know.

  Alone

  She wandered the rooms of the apartment they’d lived in together since she told him the results of their night of passion.

  It was in this apartment where she lost the baby in her third month. It was where he’d held her as she cried and where she’d made love to Peter when she was cleared by her doctor to thank him for his gentleness and kindness and patience.

  They decorated it together, laughed and loved here.

  It was funny to feel so alone in such a place that held so many beautiful memories. She wasn’t a person who needed attention but the isolation seemed worse now than before she’d met him.

  Back then she hadn’t cared.

  Then he entered her life and changed everything. Woke her up and made her question why she’d been happy, satisfied moving through her days on autopilot.

  It was the kind of question he inspired regularly through the two years they had together.

  Until the day they walked the streets of the city together and a man jumped from an alley, sprayed Peter in the face, and ran away. The ambulance was pulling to the curb when her cell phone rang.

  “Get off the street, Vine!” Hollow was panicked.

  “Peter…”

  “He knows where you are…”

  “I don’t care, Hollow! Peter was sprayed by something. He can’t breathe and keeps seizing. Help me or get off my phone.”

  She hung up and climbed in the back of the ambulance. Until they took him away from her, she didn’t let go of his hand. She kept talking to him gently, reminding him he was loved.

  Pacing the corridor, she chewed her thumbnail to the quick. As it started to bleed, she stared at the white wall of the waiting room with a frown, thinking.

  “Savine.” Hollow’s quiet voice directly behind her evaporated her calm. He gathered her in his arms as she broke and held her tight while she cried. “I’m sorry, pretty girl. I’m sorry.”

  “The spray…”

  “Focus on Peter right now. We can figure it out later.”

  By the time one of the doctors came out to talk to her, Tawny, Finn, and Roark arrived to keep her company.

  “Miss Cardington?” She nodded at the fake name. “The news isn’t good. We’ve managed to stabilize him…”

  There was a pause and Savine pressed, “But?”

  “Miss, there’s no brain activity. I don’t know what he was sprayed with but it appears to have severely damaged his frontal lobe when it was inhaled.”

  The truth trickled into her mind like a horror movie. “Are you telling me it gave him a fucking lobotomy?”

  “I…that’s the closest to what we’re dealing with and we don’t see the damage as reversible. I’m so sorry.”

  Heart pounding, mind reeling, she tried to speak coherently. “I want to take him home.”

  “Ma’am, he’ll need around the clock care…”

  “I give no fucks. I’m taking him home.”

  “It would be more humane…”

  She snapped, grabbing the doctor by his lab coat. “He’s not a goddamn puppy with cancer. He’s Peter and he deserves to be at his home with the person who’s invested in him.”

  “Certainly. It’s just, it will be incredibly hard for you.”

  “I’ve been through worse so don’t patronize me. Bring me whatever I need to sign and make a list of all necessities. I want him home by tomorrow.” The middle-aged man hesitated and she barked, “Now.”

  She started to shake and Hollow held her painfully tight. “Don’t tell me it’s a mistake. I couldn’t bear it.”

  He leaned back and stared at her with his pretty pewter eyes. His palm lifted to cup her face. “A mistake? Never, Savine. Loving is never a mistake. I’ll help with whatever you need.”

  Then she started to cry and for a while, she didn’t think she’d ever stop.

  The Time After

  Savine knew her time with Peter was limited so she held his hand every chance she could. Raked her fingers through his hair the way he once loved. Whispered to him about every memory they shared.

  Not a person who’d ever cared so intimately for another human being, she did it anyway.

  The nurses helped her, answered her questions, even when she asked them more than once because she wanted to get it right.

  His family came, his friends. They asked for answers and she told them the truth on record.

  A random act of violence. No motive, no suspects.

  They wanted to find fault but in the end, they said their goodbyes, thanked her for caring for him, and told Savine to call if there was any change.

  She loved him, still loved him, even though he didn’t recognize her anymore. He didn’t talk. He couldn’t eat.

  She loved him and she wandered the rooms thinking how strange it was to be alone when he was in the next room.

  * * *

  After Peter’s death, Savine removed her belongings from the apartment and had the rest packed and shipped to his parents in upstate New York.

  When she left the cemetery, she allowed Hollow to take her back to the warehouse.

  “Being with your friends, your family, will help you heal. Not right away. It will take time.”

  He sat beside her on the couch and let her cry out all her pain and loss on his chest like the father figure he’d been for her from day one.

  Then he told her to sleep. “When you’re ready, when you’re healed, you fight.”

  With a kiss on her forehead, he left her at the door of her old room and she crashed for a long time.

  The next morning, before dawn, her thoughts jarred her awake. The near-epiphany begun in the emergency room settled fully into her brain.

  Rising, she typed furiously until the full truth was revealed. Staring at the screen of her laptop, at the final evidence that the man who loved her was targeted for a horrific death to
punish her.

  It was retaliation for her part in deconstructing his empire one brick at a time. For helping in the rescue of his tortured wife. For halting his business operations, while they fought the virus she’d planted in his organization.

  Peter, though he’d never know the truth, died because of her. Had he never met her, he’d still be alive, laughing and running his coffee house.

  She didn’t blame herself.

  She blamed a monster who’d killed many loved ones, taken many happy lives, stopped the laughter of men, women, and children around the world.

  Savine inhaled carefully. “I will kill every person involved in taking Peter from me. None of you will ever be safe again.”

  Wake-Up Call

  Chicago - April 2007

  How many nights had she sat here like this? Waiting for him to come home smelling like another woman while he tried to be charming and lied to her face?

  She was stronger than this. Better than this.

  How did she get to this place? Why had she done everything he asked? Slowed the growth of her business, moved to this city so far from everything she loved, and put him in a higher place than everyone else – including her?

  When all the while, she’d known...known he could never love her more than he loved himself?

  She'd lost friends who didn't get it. Family rarely talked to her because he wasn't even discreet.

  Still she'd waited. Knowing it would never change and every day made her look even more of a fool.

  Until today.

  Today, she realized the makeup sex they enjoyed on vacation resulted in the one thing she always thought she didn't want. Suddenly there was someone she loved more than she loved him. A reason to stop lying to herself immediately.

  After four excruciating years, she stopped pretending, stopped excusing him, stopped loving him. Like ice water thrown in her face, she realized she didn't need him and she’d never needed him.

  Now there was someone who needed her and she couldn’t spend one more minute in a relationship that took everything and provided nothing.