Out of Reach Read online

  Chapter 2

  “If you take your shoes off, I will put you through that window.” I glower at Zafir to emphasize my point.

  His internal debate is visible on his face as he weighs his odds of out maneuvering me in the small space of the cab.

  “You have my word, Z—you won’t like the outcome.”

  “Fine,” he huffs, crossing the trees he calls arms across his chest before resuming scowling out the window. Conversation the last few hours has been light, thankfully. Being introspective by nature, I thrive on quiet times to think. I usually don’t get many of those around Z. The guy isn’t so much a conversationalist as a one-sided monologue. When you talk with Z he literally does all the talking.

  “Pull over.”

  “What, why?”

  Turning a vicious eye my direction, Z says, “Because I have something in my shoe.”

  “What are you, a child?” I admonish.

  “Look, you have to stop soon anyway to make a report. Do it now so I can stretch my legs.”

  Taking in his bowed shoulders and incessant foot-tapping, I admit to myself he looks pitiful—well, as pitiful as a brick shithouse can look.

  “Alright, next exit.” Half a mile later we pull off the freeway and into the first gas station we see. Tossing Z the keys I head back behind the building, seeking a little privacy for the phone call I’m about to make.

  Tapping the phone against my thigh, I hesitate, kick a rock across the pavement, and run a hand through my hair. Punching the contact, I wait. Glancing behind me I see Zafir in his socks shaking out his boots and choke off a laugh as the line crackles to life.

  “Kade.”

  “Adil ... Phoenix was a bust. There’s nothing happening there.”

  “I’ve heard nothing new. Makeen and Rashid are tracking a potential candidate in London. Maybe they will have better luck.”

  Gazing at the clouds, I release a deep breath slowly. “Yeah, maybe they will.”

  “Where are you headed now?”

  “Back to San Diego.”

  Adil’s unease is palpable through the phone. “Still chasing that lead, brother?”

  “It’s not your concern, brother.” Dropping the phone into my pocket, I trek back across the parking lot, pausing only to fill the Yukon up with gas. Zafir heads into the convenience store.

  “I forbid you from buying Funyuns, Z!” I shout. Rolling his eyes and shaking his head he shoves his way through the front doors. Slamming the nozzle back into its resting stand on the gas pump, I grab my receipt and climb into the cab to wait.

  A few minutes later Z emerges from the convenience store sporting a lopsided grin, arms full. Z pompously ambles across the parking lot. Rolling down the passenger window, I lean across the center console and shout out the window, “Really, at your age?”

  Dumping his cornucopia of Hostess crap onto the passenger seat, he steps back, stretches his arms wide, and shrugs his shoulders. “What? It looks great.”

  “Seriously, you’re thousands of years old.” Unable to look any longer at the red, brazen beer logo taking up real-estate on Z’s skull, I rest my forehead against the steering wheel. Still full of himself, Z relocates his stash and swings himself into the cab, pulling the trucker’s hat down tighter to his head as he does. In the air between us hangs a big no comment.

  Straightening up, I stare ahead through the bug encrusted windshield. A random thought teases a wry smile out of me.

  “Do something about the glass. I can barely see to drive,” I say.

  “Uh huh,” Z replies, exiting the vehicle again. Biting back my laughter, I watch as what can only be described as an olive skinned-redneck-wrestling-trucker wields a modern day magic wand to scrape the corpses of dead bugs off our windshield. I completely lose it when a poorly calculated fling of the squeegee slops dirty water all over Zafir. Adding the dynamics of a wet t-shirt contest to the ridiculous display in front of me is just too much.

  Grumbling, Zafir stalks back to the car door, rips off his graphic tee, tosses it over the seat, and climbs into the cab.

  “Without that shirt, all you need is a mullet, brother,” I say, convulsing against the steering column. The well-placed right hook I’m expecting never falls.

  Instead Z barks, “Drive!” His voice is dripping with venom. No further prompting is necessary and we hit the freeway in a flash.

  “What did Adil say?” Zafir asks a little while later.

  “Makeen and Rashid are working a possible lead in London. Nothing new has crossed his radar.”

  “We’re headed back to san Diego,” Z states as fact, not a question.

  “I know what I saw, Z.”

  “I’ve never doubted you. I’m not going to start now.”

  The unwavering conviction in his eyes is more overwhelming than his verbal declaration. I break eye contact, deeply humbled.

  “Thank you, my brother.”

  Z’s faith in what I saw that day has never wavered. My belief is enough for him. I can’t say the same for the rest of the twelve, who view my continued stay in San Diego as a waste of time. After all our fruitless assignments, like this one to Phoenix, Z always returns with me to San Diego without complaint. I am undeserving of his devotion.

  We both fall silent and the monotonous rhythm of the SUV as it hums down the highway soon lulls my partner to sleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Emotions unintentionally dredged up by Z have me reliving a scene long since past.

  Wanderer business had me posing as a college student in San Diego. Not ready to call the operation a complete bust, I took it upon myself to scout out the other Nephilim around campus, hoping to find one with the old powers.

  I was ensconced on one of the observation decks in the library, people watching, when I saw her. Hair the color of sunset cascaded down her back like a river of fire. Tall and lithely built, she was exquisite. Bright eyes some indistinguishable shade of green entranced me. I was halfway down the front steps of the library before I realized I was following her. She had picked up a blonde shadow along the way and the two headed in the direction of the science buildings across the quad. I trailed the duo, but hung back a ways, careful to camouflage myself from view. Their destination was the chemistry building. Stealthily I pursued, following them to a large lab located on the second floor.

  Three other people were already present and they seemed to be working on some group experiment. Circling around the hallway outside of the lab, I observed the group through the tiny rectangular windows cut into the lab’s many entrance and exit doors. Seizing an opportune moment when everyone was distracted, I slipped inside and hid behind one of the lab benches.

  Evidence supporting my suspicion that this group had been here for some time was strewn about. Chemical reagents, lab apparatus, empty pop cans, cookies, and fast food containers littered the surfaces adjacent to the experiment in progress. Tempers were high and, in my assumption, the red-haired beauty was close to snapping.

  She stood elegantly, head down, leaning over the countertop. From my vantage point, a heated discussion was being waged between two of the men directly behind her. That’s when it happened.

  The look on her face was a potent mixture of intolerable rage and passion. It’s not a combination I’d ever seen cross the face of one so lovely. To the rest of the group, it would have looked as if she smacked the empty pop can with her hand, sending it sailing through the air. But her hand never left the table.

  The power she’d used to send that can spinning out of control wasn’t physical. Even she didn’t appear aware of what had transpired. I watched, teeth clenched, a chill creeping down to the base of my spine, hoping to witness another display of her power. But the only other event I was privy to that night was the tongue-lashing of the century as she publicly dressed down her arguing constituents. She could give lessons to a drill sergeant.

  The next day I enrolled as a student at UCSD, integrating myself into her world, tracking her every move, knowing she may be our
only hope. There is power in her but a physical manifestation of that power has never occurred again, which is why my brothers doubt my sanity, perceiving my continued surveillance of Gwen as a colossal waste of time.

  “Fuck me, will you look at that!”

  Jolted from my reverie, the Yukon swerves slightly as I quickly overcorrect, startled by Z’s sudden outburst.

  “What!” I scream at him.

  “Soccer mom at two o’clock. Do you see it? Kade, do you see it?” Straining to see around my agitated partner is futile. I’d have better luck staring through a stone wall. Z’s exasperation is being projected as a full body fit, his arms and hands gesticulating wildly.

  “See what, you oaf! I can’t see anything when you’re dancing around in the seat like that,” I holler at him.

  Leaning back against the headrest, he points out the window to the blue minivan in the next lane.

  “Right there on the bumper ... ‘Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly.’” Reading the sticker, I glance back at Z.

  “So? She isn’t exactly speeding.”

  Checking the odometer I estimate the van’s speed to be about sixty-five miles per hour. Smacking himself in the forehead, Z laughs.

  “Guardian angels, ha! What a load of horseshit. When’s the last time you saw an avenging angel out protecting humans?!” He let the rhetorical question hang in the air a brief second before carrying on.

  “I’ll tell you when, never. Frankly I don’t think they fancied God’s pet sheep any more than the rest of us did.” Slumping down in the captain’s chair next to me, Z rambles on.

  “And where are they now, you ask? That’s right, they’re gone. And who did they leave to do the dirty work, Kade?” Jabbing a beefy thumb into the center of his chest, he answers, “That’s right, us. Oh wait, I forgot it was a divine blessing to be named Earth’s Janitors.”

  Running a hand through my hair I take a deep breath. “Are you finished?” I shoot an exasperated look at Zafir,

  “I know my history, Z. I don’t care for the angels any more than you do.”

  “Angels ... meddling assholes. Who needs them.”

  Chapter 3

  Gwen

  I look up from my workbench and scowl. My eyes hurt; I’ve been absentmindedly staring at the semi-reflective sheen of the table top for the last several hours. Originally I’d been reviewing my notes, but why bother really—I know they aren’t about to yield any new clues to my current dilemma. The tabletop, on the other hand, is stainless steel and has a fascinating way of reflecting the brilliant fluorescent lights. I am closer to going blind from those lights than I am to solving the equation in front of me.

  Putting my pen down, I let my gaze travel around the lab, my lab. Two thousand square feet of perfectly ordered and maintained equipment. We’re talking state of the art. A nerd at heart, the sight always brings a smile to my lips, although today, sadly, my grin doesn’t extend any farther than that.

  To be completely honest, I share the lab, as well as the leadership responsibilities of my 15-member team, with Joe. An experienced, patient, and brilliant chemist, Joe makes an excellent partner and I’ve learned a lot. Still, I consider it my lab. We’ve been working together for almost a year now. It’s the company’s way of mentoring younger project managers, while letting older managers know their days are numbered and they should be thinking about retirement in the near future. Joe’s patience is what I wish I had a little bit more of these days. While I have refrained from actually throwing equipment across the lab, mentally I have broken a lot of windows recently.

  The last three years of my life have been devoted to the drug research and development department of Preston-Ward Pharmaceuticals. While one of the smaller companies in the game, Preston-Ward still ranks among the leaders in drug development for genetic disorders and degenerative diseases. To a glorified geek like me, the whole gig sounded sensational from the get-go, right down to the white lab coat and glasses.

  Ha! I think to myself. If I only knew then what I know now—no job is as good as it seems on paper.

  They always forget to mention the pitfalls, like while you will be screening hundreds of new or modified compounds each year, only one or two may show enough potential to move into the drug development and testing phase, from there a mere handful will possess the promise to move into human trials and then maybe one day make it to the drug market. Over-achiever that I am, I assumed I’d have cancer cured by now, or at the very least irritable bowel syndrome (for my grandmother).

  It irks me that I can still recall with perfect clarity the elation I felt the day I got the call offering me a job at Preston-Ward.

  Despite having finally finished my doctoral program at Boston University and officially becoming Gwen Matthews, Dr. Smarty Pants, I had no job prospects and no idea if I wanted to continue living in Boston, move back home to California, or travel the world. For the summer, I had been working on campus, having begged a former genetics professor to take me on in his lab. Grudgingly I had forced myself to submit a few job applications, mostly to labs around town, all of which had been recommended by Kade, a friend from undergrad, but nothing had come of it. One of my problems was that I looked great on paper but had no real work experience. School had been my job for a long time, and I had excelled at that. Probably my biggest problem was I wasn’t excited about any of the jobs and nothing kills an interview like an apathetic applicant.

  So there I was drinking coffee and hoping for divine job inspiration from my Internet search when my purse started vibrating. Fishing out my phone, I managed to answer before it went to voicemail.

  “Hello. This is Gwen ... Uh huh … Thank you ... Uh huh ... I would love to ... Yes ... Yes, I’m looking forward to it.” And just like that I had accepted my first job at Preston-Ward in sunny San Diego.

  Not twenty seconds later I was on the phone again. “Hello, Melanie? It’s Gwen. Pack your bags, girl, ‘cause you’re helping me move home to California.”

  “You got the job!” she screamed.

  “Yup, I got the job.”

  Truth be told, my application to Preston-Ward was a fluke. One night, just after graduation, my then-roommate Stephanie had been helping me complete online job applications. On a whim, she had sent out several applications for high profile jobs like the one at Preston-Ward, jobs that I was in no way qualified for but she thought sounded cool. I never imagined I’d be considered as a serious candidate for any of those positions, but Preston-Ward had called a week later to set up a phone interview with me.

  Two weeks after accepting the position, everything I owned was stuffed into the back of my car and well, the rest is history.

  “Hey, Gwen.”

  Pulled from my thoughts, I look up to find Joe gesturing for me to join him at the central worktable.

  “Coming.” I grab my pen and drag myself across the floor to see what all the fuss is about.

  “We’ve managed to maintain stability for five minutes and counting,” Joe announces with a smile. I laugh when I notice he’s also got his fingers crossed behind his back. Catching on to the guy’s enthusiasm, I reach for the plate.

  “Okay, let me see.”

  I no more than put my hand on the plate when the briefly stable compound begins to break down, and then vaporize completely. Ugh, I think to myself.

  “Sorry, guys, I must be bad luck.”

  “I just don’t understand it!” Joe exclaims. “It shouldn’t be this hard to maintain stability at room temperature.”

  “Well, we can always market it as a freezer pop,” I say.

  Laughing, Joe looks at me. “I can see the headlines now: ‘Two children dead after ingesting Grandma’s Alzheimer’s medication because they thought it was an Otter Pop.’”

  I shrug. “Okay, so frozen food marketing is out.”

  Continuing around the counter, I head back to my workstation, grab my spiral-bound notebook, and rejoin Joe and Charlie.

  “Tomorrow we are going
to have to review our available stabilizing agents again.” Meeting Joe’s eyes, I continue, “I know what you’re thinking, but everything else about the technique looks sound, and Charlie’s a pro.”

  This earns me a half smile from our head technician. I rarely give out praise. It’s not that I’m a bitch, or don’t believe in giving credit where it’s due—I just expect excellence from everyone, myself most of all.

  “Right then!” Joe continues raising his voice to be heard above the hum of equipment. “Gather up, everyone.”

  Through the converging bodies and over the scraping sound of chairs being pushed around, I glance over at Joe, eyebrow raised, and flash him my You’ve got this! look. He nods, shooing me away with his hand, and proceeds to begin our evening staff meeting. It’s become a habit since Joe and I started working together. Every day at 4:30p.m., thirty minutes before quitting time, we regroup to review our progress and strategize for the next day. It was actually an exercise recommended by management for Joe and I because of some difficulties we had working together in the beginning. When I started at Preston-Ward, I worked in Lab 1A under another team leader. When I was elevated to my current position last year, I moved into Joe’s lab, 4B. He and I had never worked together before and we both had our own way of doing things. I didn’t delegate or communicate well in the beginning. I worked independently and, by the end of the first week, Joe realized I was completing tasks he had either delegated to a technician or was working on himself.

  I had to learn to become a team player, and fast. So we started meeting in the mornings to discuss our current project and outline who was going to do what, then we would regroup at 4:30p.m. to map out what needed to be done the next day. It worked so well we started involving the whole team, and now it’s become a daily ritual.

  But today I’m done. I linger in the lab long enough to clean up my things and then head back to my office. I know Joe has everything in order and there’s nothing new for me to contribute. Exiting the lab, I hang a right and head straight toward the elevator. I slip inside the second the doors open and enjoy a silent respite on the short ride down. The office floor is busy. People are scrambling to complete last minute details so they can head home for the day. I bypass the commotion unnoticed, round the first corner, and enter the sanctuary of my office.