Chapter 2

Anna watched as Paycen and Deuce worked diligently on trying to heal Arin. Arin had been her partner since she had gotten out of the academy. He had been the one to recommend her for sheriff when the old sheriff had announced his resignation. She had made him her deputy and they had run the 16th San Diego Precinct for the last three years.

Arin had been running patrols when he had been attacked. He had called it in but not by normal means. A long time ago he had confided in her about his secret life as a member of the Silver Court. At first she had been confused about what he was talking about, but then she heard his voice in her head. It had freaked her out a bit but working with him showed her he was a good guy. They worked well together.

Deuce wiped his forehead on his shirt and squinted as he went back to work. He looked as if he was about to keel over from exhaustion. She didn't blame him. He had been working three days straight on healing their fallen. Sometimes she wondered why he did it, but the look on his face when someone stood up was worth it. He enjoyed doing his job. Slowly but surely she was learning the ways of these people.

Arin had even been teaching her six year old daughter Shawn how to respect them. When Keldin had found out that the two of them knew about the Silver Court, he made sure they were sworn to secrecy. Shawn was even associating with kids that were born from the supernatural humans and their mates. She was learning what the children were learning and it was good for her.

They had been good to her and her family. They took care of her. When she asked why, they had explained that they took care of those they considered family. She hadn't understood what they meant so they had explained that since she had helped one of them she was now family.

At first it had made her uneasy because she didn't like taking charity. When they proved she wasn't their charity case, she eased into their lifestyle.

They had finally opened up about who worked where. She hadn't realized so many of them worked side by side with regular humans. They were firefighters, doctors, nurses, police officers, military, teachers and many other respectable jobs. They were normal people with extra powers. She really hadn't understood until Arin had told her what he went through on a daily basis. After seeing that he could control his power and knowing that he didn't eavesdrop, she was much more at ease.

Paycen nudged Deuce out of the way and took over as the primary healer. He didn't look as tired as the Sector 7 Healer. Then again, Deuce had been working for three days healing her officers. She watched as his hands glowed gently. She wondered if all of their hands did that when they healed.

"We're all different based on our Level," Deuce said.

She jumped then looked at him in shock. He held his hands up and she eased her hand off her weapon. Her officers being attacked had her a little on edge.

Deuce lowered his hands and accepted the bottle of water a deputy handed him. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Why are you reading my mind?" she demanded.

He swallowed the large gulp of water the screwed the lid on the bottle. "Telepathy is kind of like human radio waves. They float around in the air until they bounce off a receptor. In this case you're the one broadcasting and we're the ones receiving."

"He's right," Paycen said from the cot. He placed a hand over Arin's eyes and pressed gently. The other man sighed deeply. "We're both on the receiving end of your mental onslaught. Your daughter's really beautiful by the way."

Deuce stifled a laugh with the back of his hand. Anna glanced at him for a minute then chocked it up to him being tired and overworked. She looked back at Paycen and was blindsided by his looks. He was red headed and green eyed like an Irishman out of a story. He reminded her of her great-grandfather. He had the same looks because he had an Irish background. His father's father had come from Ireland in the mid 1800s.

The Sector Healer looked to his good friend. He was watching the silver hue play about him. It was coming from both of them, but Paycen's was stronger. To the untrained eye, it simply looked like the lights were shining on him in an interesting way. Anna wasn't able to see it yet, but when Paycen made his move, her eyes would be thrown open. She thought she knew their world. She was in for a rude awakening when she realized how dangerous they really were.

Paycen watched his friend's face closely. They had made an agreement between all of them that when they were together, they never read each other's minds. He had to make due with body language. Deuce's said he was highly entertained yet waiting for something to happen.

"Why don't you tell me what's been going on so I can help piece together who might be after you," he said.

Anna frowned. "You think they might be after me? Why?"

"You work side by side with six Silvers and a Gold. Of course people who think we should die would hate you."

"People think you should die?"

Deuce began ticking things off on his fingers. "Die, be subjected to medical testing, be locked up, sign a form that keeps track of us, quit our jobs, and a whole lot more fun things that I would never do."

Paycen shook his head. "He's always making things sound a little bit better than they are. The truth is there are plenty of people who would come after your officers simply because they work with us. It's a hazard of coming public with our existence."

"Didn't you have to do it though?" she asked. "I heard that it was a deliberate move to make sure no one was blamed for something that happened down in the South."

"We were brought to the public to keep one of our own from being killed," Deuce said, "but there are only a select few of us out in the public eye. Each Sector Leader and Healer is known to the public and those who work in the military. Other than that we're able to decide what we want to do."

"Are the two of you out to the public?" They nodded. "What about Arin?"

The men shared a look over her head then Deuce placed a hand to her back. "Let's go to your office. We'll have to discuss this without an audience."

Anna stopped. "What about Arin?"

"He'll be fine. I just sent him to sleep," Paycen replied.

Happy that her friend and deputy was all right, she led the men to her office. She walked around her desk and sat down in her chair. She figured she might as well because she was not going to like what they had to say.

She watched as Paycen shut the door and pulled the blinds. Deuce leaned against the exit and crossed his arms. He was going to let his friend take the lead on this. It was no wonder the other man let him do it. Paycen commanded the room. She had watched her rookies and deputies and other officers give him a wide berth as he came through. His friend Emery had stayed long enough to find out what was going on then he was gone to make a report. She had no doubt the two had stayed in contact.

"Emery did some research. The seven that were attacked were all cops and were on duty when it happened. Now our records of those in the military are public for all to see, but those in law enforcement who don't want to be public are kept under the strictest confidences. The seven who were attacked didn't want to be public," he said.

"How were they found out?"

"Someone must have been listening in. Our servers are designed by our best and brightest technicians. No one has ever tapped into the Silver mainframe. The Golds, on the other hand, have been hacked multiple times. No one should have known where the six Silvers worked," Deuce said.

"Tyler is working hard to figure out how and if they were hacked. When he finds something he's going to let us know. We need to know if you've talked to anyone about these people," Paycen said.

Anna racked her brain to remember if she had told anyone. The only people who she had talked to about the Silvers were the ones she was in contact with. That was at Shawn's daycare only. Her daughter was under the strictest protection at the school. She had chosen the daycare because it was tolerant of the supernatural.

She looked up at Paycen. "You heard my thoughts?" He nodded solemnly. "What if they go after her?"

"The only way we're going to know where they got their information is to find who hacked into the system and track it back. It may be a burner but it's what we have to go on for now. We're going to do background checks on all of the people who work in this building. Anyone could have heard anything. We're not going to take any chances," Deuce said.

"We'll also post a guard around your daughter's school. We can't rule out that she was the one who said something to you out in public," Paycen said. He watched Anna's face as it clouded over. "I know it is hard to believe your daughter might be involved, but we don't want to take any chances. If we can save people we will."

Anna nodded. They were sincere. They didn't know her and yet they were concerned about her daughter's safety. She wondered how Louis would have thought about all of this. If he had survived the fire that night, he would have gotten the chance to watch his daughter grow up with these people. He would have been tolerant of everyone so she had no doubt he would have jumped head first into the fight.

Shaking her head about days long past, she looked up into the faces of the men who were trying to protect everything she knew and loved. It scared her that they were so calm but someone needed to be calm in this situation. She wasn't calm on the inside but that was all right for the time being. When she lost that cool is when people started to die.

"When will we know what Arin saw?" she asked.

"He'll be in a recuperative coma for a few days. I'll check him a couple of times a day and when I feel he's healed enough, I'll pull him out of it," Paycen replied.

She looked past him at his friend. "Can you do that?"

Deuce shook his head. "No, I'm not that powerful. Arin's a Windler and Paycen has worked closely with one before. I could only heal the external wounds due to my being depleted and most of them were internal. Paycen's had more experience with healing comas. I'm learning though."

Paycen turned his head slightly. "Just be careful. I had a few nosebleeds doing learning it. It wasn't easy. You may need help."

The other man nodded his head and didn't argue. Even though he was the Healer in this Sector, he was stepping aside and letting someone who had more power and knowledge take control. Paycen wasn't stepping on any toes, or trying not to.

"What do I need to do?"

Deuce sidestepped and the door swung open. Emery and a black headed guy walked through the door. They were followed by the entire Sector 7 team. Everyone nodded their hellos and got to work.

"I guess you need to listen to what he says," Paycen said.

Anna sighed and steeled herself to the fact that she was going to be swamped with Silvers in the precinct taking over this job. Luckily, Keldin walked over and began to talk her through his plan.