Author:
Nestra
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Date Posted: 19:45:46 11/25/02 Mon
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Silence has become our only currency.
You pay me, and I'll be sure to pay you back.
--Jonatha Brooke
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I got back to my apartment at about eight that night after a long and boring day tracking down potential telepaths and telekenetics. Most of the time, broken crockery indicates a hormonal adolescent, not undeveloped psychic power. But try telling that to parents eager to see their little Susie become the next Miss Cleo. They don't exactly take it well.
I tossed my briefcase on to the sofa, made sure Darla wasn't lurking in a corner, and headed into my bedroom, where I kept the spare cell phone. The one I hoped the firm didn't know about. Just in case, I swept it for bugs – supernatural and technical – then dialed Angel's number.
"I need to talk to you. It's ur-"
Click.
"Fucking coward," I muttered as I hit redial. Apparently confrontations only happened on Angel's schedule.
The phone rang four or five times until the answering machine finally picked up. "Hi, you've reached Angel Investigations. We help the hopeless. Leave a message and we'll get right back to you." Still the perky girl's voice on the machine. I was a little surprised that he hadn't changed it, but then I tried to imagine Angel recording his own message.
"Angel, pick up." Silence. "Goddamnit, quit being stupid and pick up." I waited another thirty seconds, but he still didn't pick up the phone. "Fine. I'm coming over."
I heard him pick up and say, "Wait a minute…" before I hung up on him.
It took me longer than I expected to get to the Hyperion. I had to spend forty-five minutes ditching the guy tailing me, and then ditching the backup. Wolfram and Hart's normal routine didn't include in-person surveillance, but I had a feeling that I might have moved up the priority list. I knew they'd find out eventually that I'd gone to see Angel, but as long as they didn't hear what we talked about, I didn't care. I probably wouldn't have time to.
He'd left the front door open, and I got halfway into the dark lobby before I had to stop for fear of tripping over something. "Angel?"
"What do you want, Lindsey?" The voice came from somewhere in the shadows, but I couldn't pinpoint it.
"That's kind of a complicated question, isn't it?" I replied, turning to face the general direction the voice had come from. "It might be better if we took this outside."
"Outside?"
"By the fountain."
I listened intently but didn't hear anything, even when I saw him emerge from a corner and step into the dim light cast from the door leading to the courtyard. He pushed open the door, and I followed him outside into the mild night air.
The fountain bubbled away, and I hoped the noise of the water would be loud enough to mess up any bugs the firm had planted inside the Hyperion. He didn't make any move to sit down, and I didn't need him looming over me any more than he already did. So we stood there, staring at the fountain, until I got bored. Took about twenty seconds.
"Last night…"
"I don't want to talk about last night."
I sighed. Everything always had to be a battle. "We don't have to talk about the elevator. But I've found out a little more about what Darla and Dru are up to. Maybe you didn't believe me when I warned you last night…"
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shrug. "I believed you. Darla's always plotting something. It keeps her entertained. I just don't know why you're telling me instead of helping her. "
I huffed in bitter amusement. "She's not real happy with me right now. Neither is my boss, and I bet Lilah's already measuring for curtains in my office."
"That still doesn't tell me anything, Lindsey. Why are you so convinced that there's a big, dangerous plan?"
I shoved my hands into my pockets. "Darla came to my office last week. She wanted a list of contacts--clients of the firm that could help her, give her access to power."
"And you gave it to her." He didn't sound surprised.
"Of course I gave it to her." I shook my head, marveling at his naivete. Or maybe it was stubbornness. "What was I supposed to do, Angel? If I hadn't given it to her, she would have killed me and gotten it from some other source."
"So you gave her a list, and she told you all the details of her evil plan?"
"No," I said. "She just gave me some hints. You know she can never resist that. She and Dru are excited about this, whatever it is. But Angel, that's not how I know they're serious. I thought they were trying to stay under Wolfram and Hart's radar. But they're not. They're working with Wolfram and Hart. They have the firm's full backing -- money, personnel, everything."
For the first time since I'd arrived, he looked at me. I smirked at him. "Got your attention?"
"They're working with Darla? They don't care about what happened at Holland's house?"
I shrugged. "Collateral damage. Big picture. We work in a dangerous field. If they think Darla can help get them what they want, then they'll back Darla."
"And they want me," Angel said.
"They want you on their side. That's why they…we…brought Darla back." I heard him shift slightly. Maybe he was looking at my prosthesis and remembering the night I'd helped resurrect her. "If you slept with her and achieved perfect happiness, they had you. If she died from the syphilis, and you fell into some kind of incapacitating despair, they had you. Even if she just managed to knock you out of commission, one way or the other, at least you weren't interfering with any of their plans."
"So what happened when you gave Darla this client list?"
"I pressed her for information about what she was gonna do. She wouldn't tell me, of course, but it has to be something new. Something they haven't tried before." I curled my toes inside my shoes, digging into the sole. A nervous habit, and one that I'd never bothered to break, since opposing counsel doesn't usually look at your feet. "And then last night, in the elevator…" I trailed off, and he interrupted before I figured out how I could possibly finish that sentence.
"I *don't* want to talk about it." The emphasis in his voice pissed me off, like he thought if he just made it into an order, I'd obey.
"Of course you don't want to talk! That's half of the reason we ended up fucking on camera in front of Wolfram and Hart's entire security staff!"
"What?" Shocked and angry. More entertaining than bored, at least. "I disabled the camera."
I finally gave in, unbuttoning my jacket and sitting down. "They had a backup camera I didn't know about."
"Of course you didn't," he sneered, stepping closer to tower over me. "Did you really think you could blackmail me with this? That I'd care that much?"
"Damnit, Angel, I didn't know about it. You think this situation is doing me any good? I've got my boss breathing down my neck, Darla threatening to kill me, and no idea what the fuck's going on in your head."
He shook his head slightly and stared past me at the water in the fountain.
"Besides," I said, "people give into blackmail to protect their reputations. In the past few weeks, you've left fifteen people to die, abandoned your friends, set Darla and Dru on fire, and screwed me in an elevator. What kind of a reputation do you think you have left?"
He didn't say anything, but he sat down next to me and rubbed his hands over his face.
"Listen," I said, my voice barely loud enough to carry over the sound of the fountain. "They're forcing me to choose. I've got no other way to go at this point. They know about last night. They know I warned you. I don't know why they haven't killed me yet, but they've basically put Lilah in charge of Special Projects. You can either work with me, or you can wait for them to put their plan into motion. They'll come after you no matter what, and without me, you've got no one on the inside."
In essence, I was offering to throw my career away. To choose his side.
He raised his head and looked at me, his gaze searching. I wanted to touch him, but it would probably the stupidest thing I'd done since …well, since last night. Maybe if he accepted my offer…if we actually worked together…maybe…
Finally, he shook his head. "I think you should go."
The rush of disappointment and disbelief slammed into me. "What?"
"What am I supposed to do, take care of you? Make sure your evil employers and former allies don't hurt you?" Despite the words, his tone was almost gentle, and it made me want to punch him.
"You're supposed to work with me, asshole. We're in this together."
He shook his head again. He didn't seem angry. More like regretful. Not that his regrets did me any good. "Look, last night…shouldn't have happened."
Fuck his pathetic attempt at patching things up. "I don't need you to tell me that."
"It…complicated things, but I have to stop Darla. And I don't trust you to help with that."
Of course he didn't. There was no reason he should. "I don't trust you either, but I'm trying to keep both of us alive. You can't do this without me."
His expression hardened. "Watch me. You're a liability, Lindsey. Stay out of my way."
"You're the one making me a liability instead of an asset, you know." I stood up, surprised at how shaky I felt. I guess I'd thought that I'd really had him, this time. That he'd have to let me help him, and be grateful for it, instead of spitting in my face yet again. "I want to stay alive, if that's even possible any more. If you get in my way…"
He looked up at me. "Do what you have to. I'm going to do the same."
I wanted to continue the conversation, keep arguing, but I knew it wouldn't get me anywhere. Angel hardly ever changed his mind about anything. Certainly not me. But I could at least get in a parting shot. I headed for the entrance back into the hotel, then turned back to face him. He was still sitting by the fountain, watching me go.
"Just so I have this straight. I'm good enough for a quick fuck, but I'm not allowed to save your life?"
He flinched at that, but I didn't feel any sense of triumph. I just left.
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