He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the lack of details, but I managed to convince him that I wasn’t going out looking for Zayne alone.
It took a while.
“Did you really stay in last night? You didn’t go back out there?” he asked. “Honestly?”
“You saw what kind of condition I was in. I was dragging. I slept all night,” I told him as I picked up my dirty clothes, dropping them in a small hamper.
“Yeah, you definitely were dragging.”
Wondering exactly how bad I looked to others and then remembering what I looked like in the mirror, I frowned.
Dez was quiet for a moment but then I heard his heavy sigh, and I knew something I probably didn’t want to hear was coming. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Zayne, Trinity. A lot of thinking I would rather not be doing but needed to. I think we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that he...that he may not return to us.”
Stamping down the rush of anger, I placed the hamper by the stacked washer and dryer. “He’s in there, Dez. I know he is.”
“I want to believe that. More than you probably think I do, but who we saw in the park wasn’t Zayne.”
“He’s still in there,” I repeated, tossing a detergent pod in with the clothes as I thought about what Zayne said before he left. The thing that’s taking up a part of me will hurt you.
“Trust me, I know he is. I’m going to get him back.”
“We just need to be prepared,” Dez replied. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“I know.” I slammed the laundry door shut hard enough that it would’ve scared Peanut if he was nearby. Peanut. Something occurred to me. “Can you ask Gideon to check on something for me?”
“Sure. What you need?”
“I don’t know if he can even help or not, but there’s a girl that lives in this apartment complex. Her name is Gena,” I told him. “I don’t know her last name or who her parents are. All I know is that she’s on a lower floor. I need to know what apartment she’s in.”
“That’s going to be hard with just a kid’s name, but some apartments require all occupants to be listed at the manager’s office. I’ll see if Gideon can crack into their systems.”
“Perfect,” I said, knowing it was a long shot.
“Do I want to know why you want this information?” he asked after a moment.
“It involves a ghost, so probably not.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
As I walked over to the fridge, there was one other thing that randomly popped into my head. “There’s something else I was wondering. Gideon seems to know a lot about the history of Wardens and even the Trueborns, right?”
“He knows more than any of us,” Dez said.
I nibbled on my thumbnail as I stared at the fridge. “I was wondering if he could find out if...if it was documented that any Trueborns had ever, you know, given birth?” I cringed. “I mean, like any record of them ever getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant.”
It was so quiet on the other end I could probably hear a cricket sneeze.
Then Dez cleared his throat. “That was a very unexpected question, Trinity.”
My entire face scrunched up. It was a random question, one I really didn’t want to have to ask, but asking Dez was far better than calling up Thierry or Matthew and asking them. “I’m just curious.”
“Or asking for a friend, right?” His tone was as dry as the desert.
“Yeah. Definitely asking for a friend.” I turned and bent over, gently knocking my head off the cool granite of the counter. “So do you think Gideon would know or could find out?”
“I can ask,” he said, and there was a pause and what sounded like a door closing on his end. “Look, um, I don’t know how to say this without just coming out and saying it.”
I stopped beating my head off the granite, leaving it resting there.
“But if Trueborns and Wardens are biologically compatible, I don’t think after what you went through with Gabriel that any, uh, pregnancy would be...viable,” he explained while sounding like he wanted to scrub his brain with a wire brush. “I’m just saying, you know, in case you’re thinking that, but if you’re worried, there’s this thing called a pregnancy test, which can be picked up at just about—”
“Oh my God, I know that.” I lifted my head. “And I know that after what happened with Gabriel, there’d be no chance of that being an issue.”
“Then why would you even...?” His inhale was audible through the phone. “Trinity.”
I cringed again. “Okay. Well, I need—”
“Don’t you dare hang up that phone,” he interrupted. “You saw Zayne again, didn’t you? What in the Hell happened? What—?” He cut himself off with a curse, and when he spoke again, his voice was uncomfortably gentle. “Did something happen? Did he do something?”