Endless

Poison | Nick

Damn, I needed a smoke. My lungs burned to light up, but people frowned on it these days. For good reason, yeah. I just didn't care about those. Right now, I needed a smoke more than I needed to not have someone in my face about it. I shoved aside the witness testimonies on my desk and lit a cigarette. The first inhalation went down as smooth as good vodka. Romano scowled at me and leaned his hips against his desk.

"Do you really need to kill yourself like that?"

Yes. Other than having another griffon kill me—not a good idea—smoking was the best way I could think of to speed up my demise. Not that I could say so to Romano. If I mentioned my real name and age he'd have me institutionalized. It would be a disaster of epic proportions. I'd either have to escape and have the Firm track me down, or I'd have to phone them to break me out. Both options sucked. Better off not having people realize I hadn't aged for centuries.

I closed my eyes and took another long drag. "Craving, are we?"

"No. My former partner got me to kick the habit ages ago."

I grinned. "Then I don't see why this bothers you."

"Because I don't want to watch you die too." Romano sent me an I'm-so-not-in-the-mood glare and dug into his pile of statements from air crash survivors. His partner had been killed when one of the Twin Towers collapsed. No possible terrorism case we ever had to investigate ever removed his survivor's guilt. This crash...it hit too close to home for him.

His eyes shot from side to side as he read. "Interesting. This one says two guys jumped up and prepared to C4 the cockpit when a woman in first class got up and kicked their ass."

"A woman?" That really made my day, knowing two terrorists had their asses handed to them by a girl. "Did she make it? I want to buy her some flowers."

Romano cracked a grin. Much better. "Good idea. Although it's unlikely she survived the explosion and the crash if she wasn't strapped in. Still, I'd like to know her name. She deserves a medal or something." He rifled through more statements. "A few witnesses say she was seated on 8C."

Good. I searched for the passenger manifest and brought up the name. Aleria Tyson. My heart thudded to a complete stop. Oh... Fuck. I inched my fingers to the cigarette pack and took out another, lighting it with the previous one's cherry. By some miracle, I managed not to shake. Romano lifted an eyebrow in question anyway.

I let my breath fan out slowly, calming myself down. It didn't have to be the Aleria. And thank God for that. It'd be hard going to explain how I had a five hundred year history with someone. Still, that Aleria was kick-ass too. But what would she be doing in the U.S.? As far as I knew, phoenix protectors centered around Britain unless they were on assignment. They also never traveled alone, so if it was her on the plane, there would have been three of them and the terrorists would have been fucked.

"Nothing. Her name's Aleria."

Romano nodded and rounded his desk. "Let's go give our plane's guardian angel a face." He bashed some keys with his forefingers, calling up her I.D. photo. He whistled. "Our girl's a hot one. British."

I sucked in way too much smoke. My eyes watered while I fought not to cough.

"British Hottie," I said, reverting to form out of habit. Nothing to do but look. It couldn't be her, but it would kill me not to know. So I rolled my chair over and rotated his screen to see.

And fuck. I needed a third cigarette. Long, straight, golden-brown hair. Serious blue eyes that sparkled like a frozen lake when she laughed. Beautiful mouth; wide enough, full enough. Perfect, really. I couldn't stop staring if I wanted to. In fact, I didn't want to. It was her. My Poison. Alya. She was an addiction I'd gone cold turkey on. I'd spent the past two hundred years trying not to think about her, and now she was smack bang in the middle of my case.

Romano turned the screen back and typed some more. "Always did like them classy."

My gaze flitted to my crumpled pack of cigarettes. Why was she here? I couldn't face her again. Not ever. Griffons and phoenixes tended not to get along. The two of us used to be an exception. Then I fucked up. Now she'd probably kill me. She'd be right to. Because she was alive. Another thing about protectors: They didn't die easily. Not even with a griffon around to suck out their life force. She was out there somewhere. We'd meet again. We'd have to act like we never met before.

"She's unaccounted for," Romano said, sighing softly. "Fuck, I hate those bastards."

We all hated terrorists. The FBI. Our task team investigating the plane crash, Romano in particular. I lightly patted his shoulder. Part of me yearned to go find Alya. A stupid, stupid idea. A stupid, necessary idea. She was an important part to the puzzle. Only she had gotten close enough to I.D. the two terrorists. With her help, we could nail whoever was responsible, because for some reason, none of the terrorist organizations we knew were claiming responsibility.

I was so screwed.

Poor Nick. Just when he feels like he can sorta deal with his life, Aleria messes it up again. Let me know what you think of the story so far. What do you think of Nick?

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