He was about two-thirds of the way done explaining everything to Rosa and Tim when Jessamyn and Rita arrived. “Sorry,” Rita said. “We were up by Kenmore when you called and the D line is also delayed.”

“Our key hasn’t arrived yet, so you didn’t miss much,” James said as lightly as he could manage. 

“Oh good,” Jessamyn said. “So what’s going on now?”

Once he was done telling the story a second time, James looked at all the people gathered in this small hallway. He needed to get out of here for a few minutes. It was too much. Not only was he suffocating with embarrassment, he was sure they were minutes away from getting caught and questioned by a real resident of the building. Whichever college kids lived here would want to know why the hallway around the weird unit was so full, and James wasn’t thinking quickly enough right now to come up with something that sounded realistic.

But also, he needed some fresh air or he was going to make things far worse by throwing up his coffee right here on the scuffed, dirty linoleum.

“I’m going to go down and wait for the intern,” he said to the hall at large. “Just to make sure the kid doesn’t go to their other secret apartment or something and leave us here longer.”

Bradley looked like he was about to say something, but James wasn’t sticking around to hear it. Not that he had the right to be angry, but he wasn’t even sure what his emotions were doing right now and he needed to get away. He ducked around Rosa and hurried down the stairs.

There was no way the intern was anywhere near their location yet and maybe the others knew that too? But he sat down on the front stoop and looked out over the empty street. 

He spotted a couple pushing a baby stroller on the other side of Commonwealth Ave, coming out of one of the small side streets. They went into a laundromat across the way and James was alone again until a car slowly rolled through. He thought maybe it was the intern, but it passed right by.

Normally, he’d pull out his phone and check one of the endless parade of messages he was always meaning to get back to. But not right now. The sky was empty, a dizzying blue that made his eyes hurt if he focused on it too hard above the buildings. The street was quiet right now, even though it was a major throughway. Or, there were cars passing by, but there was nobody walking up here near him. Either magic or the fact it was the middle of the workday. And James badly wanted it to be the end of the workday so he could go home and never speak to anybody again. 

Had he been doing that with everyone? Being so overbearing and trying too hard to fit in and act like nothing had changed? He was captain now, of course his team wanted boundaries. And now he was second guessing every interaction he’d had with them all year.

Were they all doing the same thing? The rest of them were nicer than Bradley, most people were. But maybe they were rolling their eyes when he walked away. Or just laughing at his jokes to make him leave them alone faster. James was the one with the power in these interactions, yet he acted like he was the same as them still.

He really wanted to call Amelia and talk to her about it, but wasn’t that the whole point of this? Maybe she was sick of him too. And he’d signed up for a lifetime of it by not saying no when the Foundation assigned him the captaincy. He could have said no. The consequences would have been terrible and the Foundation would have absolutely retaliated in some way. But James could have turned it down. Maybe he’d traded in his chances of actual connection with anybody else for this job he now felt obligated to keep.

It wasn’t even about dating, he didn’t want to date anybody on the team. And a relationship would be nice, sure, but it wasn’t his priority and never had been. But maybe he should have worked harder to hang on to friendships outside of the team and the Foundation. Even his last date had been someone who worked with the Foundation and that was years ago. The family members he spoke to on a regular basis were either working in the Foundation or knew all about it. His entire life revolved around the Foundation for Paranormal Studies.

The process had already begun, and he’d had no idea.

“Any sign?”

Rosa’s voice behind him broke through his thoughts. He looked up and could tell from her face that he looked miserable.

“What’s up?” she asked, sitting down without an invitation.

“Nothing,” he lied. 

“There’s no way you’re this stressed over a fight with Bradley.”

“How did you know about that?”

“Because he’s being a wicked bitch up there and I think Tim might actually hit him soon.”

James almost laughed. “Nah, it’s me,” he said. “I think maybe I misjudged what would happen when I became captain. And maybe I’m…trying too hard to still be friends with my team.”

She looked at him for a moment, the wind blowing her long hair around her face. “Are you friends with your team?” James asked, feeling pathetic.

He didn’t like the way the silence lasted. A car blew past them, the bass heavy as cigarette smoke poured out the driver’s side window. They both watched as it blew through a red light, then disappeared around a curve. Finally, Rosa sighed.

“I don’t know if I’d call it that?” she said. “We have a good relationship, but there’s definitely a strong chain of command in our team that’s always been part of the culture. I had to kind of figure that out when I started, especially since I’m younger than some of the others. There’s definitely a change, and like,  it sometimes sucks. But my situation was different, you know? It’s not like I got a choice, really. But my captain retired for health reasons. Yours tried to kill you all and you got thrown into it.”

For a second, James wondered if Amelia told Rosa absolutely everything that happened at Headquarters. “Yeah,” he said dully.

“I know Amelia doesn’t feel any different about you, if that helps.”

It did, but also that meant they’d had that conversation before? He looked at Rosa, who shrugged a little. “Yeah,” she said, answering the unspoken question. “But it was when she was thinking about taking that job in Hillsborough. She had the same concern.”

That fucking place. He was so glad she hadn’t taken it. “Do you like being captain?” James asked.

“Yeah,” Rosa said. “It has its tough parts, but I like it. But I was like Amelia, I was working toward it. And when the temporary position became permanent, I got used to it. Do you like it?”

“No,” James said without even having to think about it.

Something loosened a little in his chest at even admitting it out loud. Part of him wondered if the Foundation could hear him somehow, but most of him didn’t give a shit. Not after how terrible the past couple days had been. “I would have been happy as second in command for my entire career,” he continued, tugging absently on the string of his jacket. “And I didn’t think that far ahead, like after Robin retired. Maybe by that point Amelia would have wanted it. Or we would have gotten someone different. But Jesus, no. I don’t want this job.”

“Are you going to quit?”

“No, I don’t know what else I’d do.” James said. “Or who would take it. I know Amelia doesn’t feel ready and I wouldn’t want to just toss this on her either. And I appreciate that she doesn’t feel like things have changed, but maybe they have. I’m in charge, so I have to be the one to not step on people’s boundaries or whatever.”

“Maybe, yeah,” Rosa said. “And that’s part of the job. You have to do what’s best for your individual team.”

“I just need to get through this case,” James said, resting his hands on the scratchy, cracked concrete stair.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Fine. I’ll just get beyond the fact that the Foundation screwed this up so bad. And they’re trying to make us believe it’s a test.”

He was being unnecessarily snarky and he knew part of it was that he was angry at her for things he had no right to be angry about. But Rosa didn’t react and in her cool composure, he could see exactly what a captain was supposed to be doing right now. “We’ll get through it,” she said. “We’ll play their game and finish up so that no one else gets hurt. And we’ll let them know that we see right through them.”

The sarcastic response was welling up inside of him, but he swallowed it down. “Yeah.”

“And then we leave Foundation headquarters, clock out, and leave it all behind for the night. I’m going to go out and get piss drunk in Boston.”

James laughed. “With your girlfriend?” he asked, bracing himself.

If she noticed anything weird about it, she didn’t give any sign. “Yeah,” she said. “With my girlfriend. She’s meeting me at North Station.”

“Is she Foundation?”

“Nah.”

“You’re dating outside the field?”

“I never said that,” Rosa said with a grin. “She’s freelance.”

“Ah.”

“What are you doing after?”

“Sleeping,” James said. “Driving home first, then sleeping until my nine AM shift tomorrow.”

“That’s fast. Can you get coverage?”

“Amelia is working approximately a triple so that I could do this shit.”

The mention of Amelia didn’t bring any reaction and, for a moment, James wondered if maybe he’d read their relationship wrong. He knew Amelia liked Rosa and it had seemed pretty mutual considering how affectionate Rosa sounded on the phone. But maybe that had faded. Or maybe that was Rosa’s personality with everyone.

No, he remembered Madelyn saying Amelia was scared to say something. She must have waited too long. And now she was going to be so hurt when she found out. 

“Maybe it’ll be a quiet day,” he added.

Rosa looked like she was about to say more, but then a far too young looking man walked up to them. James hadn’t even seen him coming. “Are you Mr. McGovern’s team?” he asked.

James looked at him. This kid had to be sixteen. “Yes?” he said.

The kid held out an old brass key. “He sent you this. But I have to bring it back with me.”

Oh for Christ’s… “Thanks,” James said.

“Where’s the apartment?”

He stood up and dusted off his pants. “Follow me.”

They went through the main door and the kid looked around the old lobby with a kind of innocent wonder. “Cool place,” he said. “This is the kind of place I’m looking at for next year.”

Was the Foundation hiring high schoolers now? James had been out of college before they’d even look at him. “So you’re an intern, huh?” he asked, trying to keep casual.

“Yeah.”

“College?”

“Yeah, first year.”

“They’re paying you, right?”

“They are!” the kid said excitedly. “Well, a stipend. But it’s such a good experience. I’m doing this and working at Market Basket so that I can get an apartment with my buddies next year. I’m with my parents right now, but it’s cool.”

All the other personal information aside, James wasn’t sure he wanted to know how much the stipend was, not when he was already this pissed at the Foundation. So instead of asking anything else, he led the kid up the stairs. 

“Intern’s here,” he said, breaking up whatever conversation was happening among the others.

He accidentally caught Bradley’s eye as the kid moved toward the door. “What is he, twelve?” Bradley muttered as the kid unlocked the door and unsuccessfully tried to push it open with a fair bit of effort.

“They’re hiring college students as interns,” James said neutrally

Bradley looked at the kid with a closed off expression and James knew it was because Bradley hadn’t finished college before joining the Foundation. He didn’t even need to ask any more inane bullshit questions to pick up on that. James didn’t know the story behind it and would have never asked that particular question, even before the reality checks of the past couple days. That he’d been able to get the fact that Bradley returned to school out of him had been a miracle in itself.

“Alright,” the kid said, pushing the door open. “You’re in. Need anything else from me?”

Maybe to sit him down and make him reconsider his future, but that wasn’t James’s place. So instead, he smiled and thanked the kid, who hurried down the stairs. Then they headed into the apartment.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 16