Firewall (Magic Born) by Sonya Clark Page A

Virginia for training. You impressed a lot of girls with that act.”
    “Got me laid a few times, I admit.”
    “A few times?” She scoffed. “New recruits would study our missions in the classroom and rumors of your extracurricular exploits over beer.”
    “My extracurricular exploits were never as exciting as people made them out to be. How could they be? I couldn’t have the woman I really wanted.” The admission tumbled out before he could stop it. Not that it was a secret. She’d known all along. He’d just never said it out loud before. Doing so should have made it more real, but all it did was make him sad.
    Tuyet placed her hand on his and squeezed gently. “Dale, I—”
    “God damn it, I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” He didn’t want to talk about what might have been. It hurt worse than any of the cuts and bruises on his body, worse than any of the old wounds that had left scars. “Look, we both know this time-out can’t last forever.”
    “So what are you going to do?” She took her hand back and he regretted his outburst.
    The number of regrets he had concerning Tuyet Caron was far into the double digits, verging on triple. “Tonight, not a damn thing. Got a spare pillow?”
    The shock on her face would have been funny if he’d been in the mood to laugh. She said, “You can’t be serious.”
    “No way am I going back out into the middle of a police action. I’m extending our time-out until tomorrow.”
    “I don’t remember negotiating any time-out with you.”
    “That’s because I issued a royal fiat and said nobody’s arresting anybody or beating anybody up for a while. Is that soup really all you had to eat?”
    “I did have a nice little stash of chocolate, but someone stole it.”
    Hayes scratched his chin. “I did you a favor. That was some subpar chocolate.”
    The sound of sirens penetrated the thin walls of the building, punctuated by yelling and screaming. Tuyet stood and took out a phone. She connected it to a small sound dock on one of the bookshelves and called up music. “It helps to drown out the noise on Friday nights.”
    A woman’s sultry voice filled the room. It was deeper than most female singers but had an ethereal quality that he found relaxing. Turned him on a little too.
    Okay, maybe that was the woman actually in the room. How the hell had he ever even for a second thought he could arrest Tuyet and bring her in to face charges? She belonged out in the world, free.
    “I don’t have a spare pillow,” she said.
    “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slept on bare floor.” Hayes closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The music did a good job of camouflaging the sounds from outside, but it did nothing to cover the noise in his head.
    There had to be a way out of this, a middle path that would keep them both free. He just had to find it.
    If he thought of it tonight, it would have to come to him in his dreams. Between the soft music and his exhaustion, he was asleep in minutes.

Chapter Eight
    City councilwoman Sheila Copeland had an office in one of the quieter areas of her Rockenbach district, but on Saturday afternoons she and a handful of others gathered in a private dining room at the back of an Indian restaurant several blocks away. Tuyet attended infrequently, preferring to get caught up to speed on anything she needed to know from Jason later. This time, she decided not to wait. She slipped out of the apartment before Hayes woke, taking a chance on the length of this time-out between them.
    The hostess recognized her, so she was able to slip into the room without any trouble. Sheila was speaking so Tuyet stayed by the wall and listened.
    “Thirteen people were admitted to hospitals last night. The clinic was overrun with way more than that. Chemical burns, tear gas exposure, all sorts of various injuries from running and fighting with the police. Today, supplies are depleted and Rose is dealing with cops who want the names of people that were