His answering look scathed her with its sharp edge. I work alone. And you don't know what you're asking for. Besides, we've already covered this ground.
I can learn. I want to learn. Please, Tegan. I need to learn.
And you think I'm the one to help you?
I think you're my only hope.
He scoffed at that, shaking his head. When he moved away from her, Elise marched toward him, undaunted, as if she could physically keep him from leaving. She caught herself a mere hairbreadth from contact, and let her hand fall to her side. Don't you think I'd go to someone else--anyone else--if I could?
He was silent for a moment, considering, she hoped. But then he exhaled a curse and reached for the door. I gave you my answer.
And I gave you that journal. That's worth something, isn't it?
He barked out a cutting laugh and whirled back on her. You seem to think we're negotiating here. We are not.
If that book contains insight into current dealings with the Rogues, I'm sure the Darkhavens would be just as interested in it as you are. All it would take is a single call to any of my husband's Enforcement Agency connections and I could have the Order's compound swamped with agents within the hour.
It was true. Quentin's rank within the Agency had been at the highest level, and as his widow, Elise's own political status was considerable. She personally knew a great deal of influential Darkhaven inpiduals. Quentin's name alone would open ten times as many doors if she felt the need to use it.
Tegan didn't need her to explain that fact. Anger flared in his normally icy gaze, the first hint of emotion she'd seen in him.
Now you're threatening me. His brittle chuckle put a knot of fear in her throat. Female, I give you fair warning: you are playing with fire.
Elise's skin went tight with anxiety, but she couldn't back down. For too long, she had been kept in a neat little box, coddled and protected. And if it meant stoking the temper of a warrior--even a lethal Gen One like Tegan--in order to help her break out of that box, then she would simply have to brave it and pray she would come out the other side in one piece.
Whether you approve or not, I am part of this war. I didn't go looking for it; the Rogues brought it to my door when Camden died. All I'm asking is that you show me how to be more effective. I should think the Order would welcome any allies they can get.
This isn't about the Order and you know it. This is about revenge, an eye for an eye. Your emotions have been on a hard boil ever since you watched your Rogue son get smoked in front of your eyes.
Tegan's harsh words cut into her like glass, the reality of what he said like acid poured into the wounds.
It's about justice, she told him sharply. I need to make this right! Damn it, Tegan, do I have to beg you?
She shouldn't have touched him. She'd been so desperate to make her point that before she could stop herself, she had reached out and put her hand on his arm. Tegan's hard muscles flexed beneath her fingertips, going as tense as the expression on his unreadable face.
He didn't snatch his arm away from her touch, but his cold green eyes flicked past her to the stereo that was playing in the background. It went silent on his mental command. In the resulting quiet, the dark stirrings of Elise's psychic talent began to wake.
Voices swelled in her mind, and from the piercing glint of Tegan's gaze, which fixed on her now in stony, watchful purpose, she knew that he was reading every nuance of her distress. He was absorbing it, she realized, feeling him siphon in her reaction through the point where their skin touched.
Elise fought the awful storm that battered her mind, but the voices were growing louder. She nearly staggered from the obscenity and corruption that filled her head.
Tegan merely watched her as he might study an insect under glass.
Damn him, but he was enjoying this, driving home his point with each passing second of emotional assault that she tried to endure. As their eyes locked, Elise began to understand that he was somehow controlling the painful barrage that was beating at her skull. He was amplifying the input in much the same way that he was able to mute the music and television.
My God, she gasped. You are so cruel.
He didn't even try to deny it. Expressionless, maddeningly stoic, he broke contact with her and stood in silent contemplation as she backed away from him, more wounded than she cared to let him see.
Lesson number one, he murmured coldly. Don't count on me for anything. I will only let you down. He was a prick and a bastard, but it would have been less than honest of him to let Elise think any differently. Leaving her looking at him from across the small apartment, her gaze stung and despising, Tegan headed out into the hallway to make his escape.
Maybe he should feel guilty for treating her so roughly but he frankly didn't need the hassle. And she was far better off looking to someone else for whatever she needed. He hoped to hell she would.
With the book held against him under his coat, Tegan's pace was brisk as he walked out into the dark night. Curiosity made him cut along a side street, then up onto the one that would take him past the FedEx store. Elise's description of the Minion and all that had transpired there had been informative, but part of him wondered if he'd find out anything more if he went by and questioned the clerk himself.
Not a hundred feet from the place, he realized he wasn't the only one interested in checking things out, and he'd gotten there too late.
Tegan smelled fresh spilled blood. A lot of it. The store was dark inside, but Tegan could see the motionless body of a clerk lying behind the counter. The Rogues had already been there. On a closed-circuit monitor in the corner, a single frame from a video feed was frozen onscreen. It was a blurry but recognizable shot of Elise, caught in mid-motion, the package in her hands.