Stephenie Meyer - The Chemist

Kevin’s gun lowered slowly, and he started to look less confident as he was confronted with her practicality.

“I didn’t believe her, so I came to check,” he admitted, suddenly sheepish. “I wasn’t planning on Danny ever knowing I was here.”

“Her?” Daniel asked.

“Val… she said you two were together. She was so sure of herself. I said there was no way in hell .” His voice was outraged again by the end.

Daniel exhaled, irritated. “Well, I hope you made some kind of bet. With a very humiliating consequence for losing.”

“This is punishment enough,” Kevin grumbled.

“In all seriousness,” Daniel said, “get out, Kevin.”

“I can’t believe this, Danny. What are you thinking? After what she did to you?”

Daniel was still between Alex and Kevin, so she couldn’t see his face, but she could suddenly hear a smile in his voice. “You’re supposed to be so tough, so dangerous. And yet you’re saying you’d let a little pain come between you and the woman you wanted? Really?”

Kevin rocked a step back and took a few seconds to respond. “But why? Why do you want her? ” The anger had vanished; when he looked at Alex, there was only bewilderment.

“I’ll explain it to you when you’ve grown up. Now, for the last time, get out, or” – and he reached one long arm around Alex’s body and pulled the gun from her back – “I’ll shoot you.”

He pointed the gun at Kevin’s torso.

“Um, the safety is off on that,” Alex murmured.

“Counting on it,” Daniel replied.

Kevin stared at them – Daniel holding the gun steady, Alex watching from behind his arm – and then his shoulders squared.

He pointed at Alex with his free hand. “You. Just… stop…” He waved his hand in a big, inclusive gesture, taking in the two of them and the bed. “All of this. We leave in fifteen. Be ready.”

His hand shifted to Danny. “I…” He blew out a deep breath, shook his head, and then turned and walked out the door. He didn’t bother closing it. “Damn it, Val!” he shouted as he headed through the dark hall, as if all of this were somehow her fault. Einstein barked from upstairs.

Alex sighed and stretched. “Well, that went about exactly as I thought it would. No shots fired – this was the best-case scenario, I guess.”

“Where are you going?” Daniel asked.

“To shower. You heard the man. Fifteen minutes.”

“It’s the middle of the night!”

“All the better to hide my face. You’re not tired, are you? I think we’ve been asleep for nine hours, at least.”

Daniel scowled. “No, I am not in the least bit tired.”

“Well, then…” She started toward the bathroom door.

“Wait.”

Daniel jumped up, ruffling his hair as he walked to the bedroom door. He shut it and then locked it again.

“What’s the point of that, really?” Alex asked.

Daniel shrugged. “Touché.”

He walked to her and wrapped his hands around her upper arms, holding her securely. “I wasn’t ready to get out of bed.”

“Kevin’s not going to knock,” she reminded him. “He probably won’t even give me the full fifteen.”

“I don’t like letting him call the shots. Not only was I not ready to get out of bed, I was not ready for you to get out of bed, either.”

He bent his head down to kiss her, his hands running slowly up her shoulders till they were cradling her face. She knew that under normal circumstances, it would have taken very little convincing on his part to get her to agree. But these were not normal circumstances, and the idea that Kevin might walk into the room at any moment – probably with gun in hand again – tempered her response.

She pulled back. “What about a compromise?”

The look he gave her was less than thrilled. “I categorically refuse to compromise in any way for Kevin’s sake.”

“Can I please at least make my case before you dismiss it?”

He kept his expression stern, but she could tell he wanted to smile. “Do what you have to do, but I will not be swayed.”

“We have limited time, and we both need to clean up. That shower-slash-lap pool in there will easily fit two – well, actually it could fit twelve – and I was thinking we could multitask.”

The hard-line expression disappeared. “I immediately withdraw my opposition and offer my full cooperation.”

“I thought you might see it that way.”

“Because there’s no reason for you to go,” Kevin objected.

Kevin stood in front of the elevator doors, blocking the call button, arms crossed over his chest.

“Why not?” Daniel demanded.

“You’re not going to be a part of the offensive, Danny, so you don’t need to be a part of the preparation.”

Daniel’s lips mashed together into a scowl.

“It doesn’t hurt anything for him -” Alex began mildly.

“Except someone could see his face,” Kevin growled.

“You mean your face?” she countered.

“ I’m smart enough to keep my head down.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “I’ll ride in the trunk if you want.”

Kevin evaluated the two of them for a long second. “Are you going to let me focus?”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked.

Kevin closed his eyes; he seemed to be calming himself. He inhaled through his nose, then looked at Daniel.

“Here are my requirements for you to join us on this very boring, standard recon exercise: No one will speak of what happened this morning. I will not be forced to remember the nauseating things I witnessed. There will be no discussion that might allude to said nauseating things. This is business, and you will conduct yourself appropriately. Agreed?”

Daniel’s neck started to flush. She was sure he was going to mention the fact that if Kevin hadn’t broken in to a locked room in the middle of the night, he wouldn’t have seen anything. Before Daniel could object, Alex said, “Agreed. Appropriate businesslike behavior.”

Kevin glanced back and forth between them, measuring again. After a second, he turned and hit the call button.

Daniel gave her a Really? look. Alex shrugged.

“None of that!” Kevin commanded, though he still had his back to them.

“What?” Daniel complained.

“I can feel you two silently communicating. Stop it.”

It was a quiet drive in the average-looking black sedan. She didn’t know if it was Val’s car or something Kevin had acquired. It didn’t seem like Val’s style, but maybe she liked to be incognito sometimes. Alex appreciated the heavily tinted windows. She felt less exposed as she sat with her ball cap pulled low over her face and stared out at the still mostly sleeping city. They were early enough to beat the morning rush.

Kevin drove through a seedier section of town – more the kind of neighborhood she would have expected his hiding place to exist in. He pulled in at a storage facility that seemed to be mostly enormous cargo containers. There was no guard posted, just a keypad and a heavy metal gate with razor-wire coils on top. Kevin drove them to a spot near the back of the fenced lot and parked behind a dingy orange container.

The lot appeared to be empty, but Alex kept her face down and her walk unfeminine as they moved to the wide double doors that made up the front wall of the container. Kevin plugged a complicated sequence of numbers into the heavy-duty rectangular lock, then pulled it out of the way. He opened one door just a few feet and waved them inside.

It was black when Kevin pulled the door shut behind himself. Then there was a low click, and rope lights lining the ceiling and the floor glowed to life.