Code Name: Aries by Janie Crouch

29

Ian

“We need to talk to Wavy. She’s been back a month, and she hasn’t had a single law enforcement debrief.”

Callum had been calling me every day for the past week. I’d finally taken his call today because I couldn’t put off his calls forever. Definitely not because I had any intention of letting him near Wavy.

“She’s not ready yet,” I told him.

“I know she’s talking.”

I ground my teeth together. “How do you know that?” Nobody in my organization should be talking about Wavy at all.

“Simmer down there, Aries,” Callum shot back. “I know because I’ve talked to Wavy’s family, not because any of your people are feeding me secrets.”

Wavy was talking, and every word out of her lips felt like a minor miracle. She was painting too, and if she never left this penthouse, as long as she talked and painted, I would consider my life a success.

“She doesn’t remember anything, Callum. You coming in and putting a lot of pressure on her is not going to help her mental health, and to be honest, that’s the only thing I give a fuck about right now.”

“She’s not the only one involved in this situation. You can’t keep acting like she is. We know she was being held with other people. We need details.”

“No.”

There was no way I was letting him talk to Wavy. If she decided she wanted to talk to law enforcement down the road, that was fine, but I was not going to ask her to do it.

“Goddammit, Ian, I am running interference for you left and right. Do you think that there are no repercussions when dead bodies rack up around you? First Varela, then the two at the lab, then Dr. Tippens. I’m happy that your girlfriend made it out alive, but somebody has to be held accountable for the dead people.”

“Are you trying to say that Wavy is responsible?” I would burn the world to the fucking ground before I’d let someone suggest she had anything to do with any of this.

“No,” he responded, “of course not. What I’m saying is that she may have information that would allow us to figure out who they were, how they died, and who is responsible. We know it’s Mosaic, but we don’t know more than that. I’ve got to give my bosses something. Especially now that—” He cut himself off.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I let out a sigh. “Don’t start holding out on me now, Webb.”

“How come that sentiment only goes one way? You have no qualms about leaving me out of the loop when it suits your fancy.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face. “It’s not you. When it came to Wavy, I wasn’t willing to wait for things to go through a committee. There was too much at stake, and time was always of the essence.”

There was a moment of silence before Callum spoke again. “I’m not in the inner loop here anymore. I’m pretty sure I’m one dead body away from getting fired.”

I winced. “Fuck. I didn’t know—”

“I’m a big boy, DeRose. I can take care of myself. What I was going to say is that we’ve had some other intel come in about this brainwashing concoction Mosaic is developing. Turns out the end goal isn’t human trafficking at all, at least not in the traditional sexual sense.”

I sat up straighter in my desk chair. “What is the end goal?”

“Human weapons.”

My curse was vile, even by former Navy SEAL standards. “How do you know?”

“We got intel on an assassination plot on a senator. We were able to stop it, but the perp committed suicide in the process. This perp had the same genetic mutations as the two bodies found in that lab. Same type of gene editing attempted on Wavy.”

I rubbed the back of my neck at the knot of tension forming there. “Sadly, that makes so much more sense than Mosaic going to all this trouble to develop glorified sex slaves.”

“This is next level now. We need to question Wavy.”

I couldn’t stand the thought of anything reversing Wavy’s tentative progress. “I’ll talk to her therapist and see what she thinks about presenting Wavy with the option of talking to you. That’s all I’m willing to promise.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that. She’s a material witness to multiple murders and may know something more about potential crimes. There will be subpoenas if she’s not willing to talk to us voluntarily.”

“Don’t do that, Callum.”

“It’s out of my hands. My bosses aren’t asking my opinion anymore. I’m working other angles as best I can.”

“What other angles?”

“If it amounts to anything, I’ll let you know. Right now, the best thing you can do is let us talk to Wavy. If she comes in voluntarily, that gives you more options. We could come to you instead of her having to come into a law enforcement facility. You could be with her the whole time.”

Neither option was going to happen, not until Wavy was damned well ready for it. I didn’t know if Callum had tipped his hand to me on purpose, but he’d provided me with important info I was definitely going to act on.

I would keep Wavy safe from anything, good guys included. Nothing was going to cause her pain again as long as I had any say in it.

“Thanks for your call, Callum.”

“We’ll be in touch soon. Do the right thing.”

I would do the right thing. It was time to see if Wavy was interested in going on a little field trip.

* * *

Wavy

Once I started painting, I couldn’t seem to stop for three solid days. It was all I wanted to do. Ian had to see the finished products because he was the one who’d made sure I had all the supplies I needed.

For the first day, it was all black and white. But by the second day, my grays were tinted silver and blue. I’d added the hues without being aware of it because I’d needed them to capture my feelings on the canvas. Then it became easier to add other hues.

They still weren’t colorful by any means, and definitely nothing like what I’d painted before my abduction, at least in their final appearance. But in other ways, they were the same. They were still expressions of my emotional state—of what my mind and heart and soul were feeling.

For three days straight, I painted every spare moment until my fingers cramped up, then crawled into bed at night with Ian. I think we both slept better together, even though we hadn’t done so much as kiss. We slept, limbs wrapped around each other like we were clinging to one another for survival, which was probably accurate in my case. Maybe his too.

I’d spent every morning talking to Dr. Rayne for at least an hour via video chat since she’d gone back to Wyoming. I was frustrated that I hadn’t had any progress with my memories. None whatsoever.

She kept saying the same thing: that they would come when they came. But with every passing hour, that became less and less acceptable to me. I needed to remember. I didn’t know why I needed to remember, but I knew that I did. I wasn’t going to heal until I did.

But it wasn’t just about me. There was something I needed to remember. Or maybe . . . someone. But that didn’t make sense. Dr. Rayne had told me I’d been alone when they’d found me. And I was a little too scared to push for more details.

I’d told her I felt like I got the closest to remembering when I was painting. I kept having those flashes. But were they real? Dr. Rayne encouraged me to keep painting and let my subconscious sort it out. She wasn’t going to get any argument from me, but still, the frustration built.

So when Ian came out of his office and smiled at me, it was a welcome distraction. “Want to go on a field trip?”

I had not been expecting that. I hadn’t left the penthouse since I’d arrived almost a week ago. “Together or by myself?”

He walked over to the kitchen where I was making dinner and leaned against the counter. “Together.”

That already sounded better. “Where would we go?”

His smile widened. “If I told you, that would ruin the fun. And besides, it’s not necessarily a set destination.”

I paused over the salad I was tossing. Our nights had been easy—I crawled into bed with him after I was done painting for the evening, and we wrapped around each other. But our days weren’t so easily defined. We’d been circling around each other, neither of us knowing how to make the first move or what the first move should be.

But I think we both wanted to.

“How long will we be gone?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Why? Do you have an appointment somewhere?”

I liked it when he teased me. It made me feel normal. “Maybe. Maybe I have all sorts of social engagements you don’t know about.”

He gave me a little laugh. “Okay, Miss Social Butterfly. I’ll make sure you’re at any social engagement you let me know about. As long as I can come too.”

I nodded. “You can.”

“Good.” He stepped closer. “So, the field trip is on?”

“Can I paint?”

“Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think you’re going to find you want to paint even more.”

I looked down at my feet before looking back up at him. It was okay to ask this question I knew, but it was still hard. “Can I still sleep with you on the field trip?” That wasn’t worth giving up. No matter where he took me, if I couldn’t sleep in his arms, it wouldn’t be worth it.

He walked over and tilted my head up with his thumb. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

A smile formed on my lips before I realized it was happening. It wasn’t forced. It wasn’t thought through. It was natural. His eyes widened and he inhaled. “There it is.”

He bent down and kissed me. The softest, most feathery of kisses, like he wanted to catch my smile with his lips.

He leaned back, about to say something, but I wasn’t done. I put my hands on his shoulders and pulled him closer, kissing him again, this one much more than soft.

He seemed happy to oblige me, his hands falling to my waist, keeping me tucked against him.

So we stood there in the kitchen and kissed and kissed and kissed, for I didn’t know how long, like a couple of teenagers. Or like two people getting to know each other again.

We kissed until our lips were chapped and our stomachs were growling.

And it was everything I wanted and needed.