Ever After (Rachel Morgan)

creased in anger. “That’s not what I’m doing,” he said, but there was a whisper of concern in his denial. “I simply don’t want him out there alone. There’s nothing wrong with someone having your back. He can stand on his own without having to be alone.”
    Behind him, the TV was showing the front of Cincy’s hospital, lit up with lights and security vehicles. Have his back?
    “I won’t bring it up again,” he said, shifting away from me, suddenly closed off. “I think our table is ready.”
    Confused, I slid from the stool, shimmying until my dress fell right. If I was there, Trent wouldn’t see it as me watching his back. He’d say I was babysitting him. Quen had it wrong.
    Didn’t he?
    “After you,” Quen said sourly, gesturing for me to follow the man standing before us with two huge menus in his hand.
    God save me from myself, maybe Quen was right. “Quen . . .”
    But then my gaze jerked up to the TV over the bar as I caught a familiar phrase, and my thoughts of Trent vanished. With a sudden flash, I recognized the new Rosewood wing behind the newscaster on the scene. The Rosewood wing was simply a fancy name for the three comfortable houselike facilities they’d built for the terminally ill babies suffering from Rosewood syndrome. The cul-de-sac was damp from the earlier rain, and lights from the I.S. cruisers and news vans made everything shiny. The thought of THIRD ABDUCTION echoed through me, and I jerked to a halt. Behind me, Quen grunted in surprise.
    “Turn it up!” I exclaimed, turning back to the bar and shoving past Quen to get closer.
    “. . . apparently abducted by a kidnapper posing as a night nurse,” the woman was saying, and I felt myself pale. “I.S. officials are investigating, but so far they have no leads as to who is taking the failing infants, and why.”
    “Turn it up!” I said again, and this time, the bartender heard me, aiming a remote and upping the volume. I felt myself pale as Quen rocked to a halt beside me, both of us looking up. A phone buzzed, and Quen jumped, his hand fumbling to a back pocket.
    “Because of baby Benjamin’s miraculous progress in fighting the lethal disease, officials are not hopeful for a ransom demand—they fear that he was taken by unscrupulous biogenetic engineers trying to find and sell a cure.”
    “Oh my God,” I whispered, fumbling in my clutch bag for my phone. They’d killed all the bioengineers during the Turn. It was a tradition both humans and Inderlanders alike gleefully continued to this day. That I was alive because of illegal tinkering didn’t make me feel any better.
    “Let’s hope they find them soon,” the woman was saying, and then the headlines shifted to the latest Washington scandal.
    Head down over my phone, I punched in Trent’s number. It would go right to his private quarters, bypassing the switchboard. I felt hot, then cold, my grip on my phone shaking. He wouldn’t have abducted the baby, but he’d have a short list of who might have. The Humans Against Paranormals Association, HAPA, maybe, now that they couldn’t have me. Trent had once promised that he’d give the demons the cure to their infertility, but after suffering through the chaos wrought by his father’s saving me, I couldn’t believe that Trent was looking to increase the number of survivors just yet.
    The busy signal shocked through me, and I glanced up at the shadow of a man standing too close: Quen, his brow furrowed as he looked at his phone’s screen. Blinking, I remembered where I was. Quen’s lips twitched, and he held out his phone. It was smaller and shinier than mine. “He’s on my line,” he said with a thin, distant voice. “You talk to him.”
    Fingers shaking, I took the phone. “He’ll know we’re together, that we talked.” Oh God, I didn’t want Trent to know that Quen doubted him. He looked to him as his father despite the monthly stipend.
    Quen shrugged. “He’ll find out anyway.”
    Mouth suddenly dry, I answered the phone and put it to my ear. “Trent?”
    The hesitation was telling, but he caught his balance quickly. “Rachel?” Trent said, clearly surprised. “I’m sorry. I must have hit the wrong button. I was trying to reach Quen.”
    I held the phone tighter, my pulse pounding. His voice was beautiful, and I felt glad for turning Quen down. “Ahh,” I said, glancing up at a stoic Quen. “You hit the right number.”
    Again Trent hesitated. “Okay?”
    “We were having