Jim Montgomery

Max scrolled the list shaking her head. “No.” Max continued to look at the list but frowned. “No. All teams knows things. You can’t ask someone from NERVOUS or BALL something about SKIN and expect them to know. Just like you can’t expect me to know that human shifters being able to shift genders isn’t common knowledge. You think people know everything and every team that’s not there own? You’re sorely mistaken. Even as liaison, some need to know information has been kept from me on the principle that someone thought I already knew.”

“I’m not trying to justify myself but I do need you to understand that I’m tired of being at odds with you. Yes, Churchill can change into a female. Yes, I’ve seen Vincent’s other face and may have heard him mention a few personal things of brunch. And yes, I will rake my mind and write it all down but can you stop? Please?“

Jim wanted to remind her that she shouldn’t need to know anything because she shouldn’t be speaking to them. But they were at a cross roads that he wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d budge on. “I understand.”

Max sat patiently in the passenger side while she waiting for Jim to catch over the rental. The color drained from Max face when Jim asked her about Churchill’s female face. “Yes,” she nodded. “African American female, about 5′2 in height, late 20s or early 30s with light-skin, dark eyes and shoulder length dreads.” Max voice was automatic and she was waiting for Jim to snap or lose his temper. “Shit. Jim, I’m sorry. I thought everyone knew… ”

“I met with someone different then his usual liaison shift but we’ve seen him shift into it before. We meaning me and the other liaison. He calls it his killing face. I’m sure it’s just a joke and he uses it to intimidate people.“

Jim’s phone dinged with the file Jax sent over and he scrolled through, looking for any possible matches. Handing it over, he showed her the list. “Anyone on here?” Jim grunted and held his tongue. “That’s why we have teams, so that the information one does have is shared to everyone.”

“Good. You can drive.“ Max didn’t wait for an answer as she tossed the eyes to him and started towards the passenger side. “How can you be so sure she’s a woman already? Freaked me out the first time Churchill walked up to me in female form… Maybe that’s also something SKIN should share with everybody instead of keeping it to themselves. I was freaking out for weeks afterwards.“

Jim grabbed the keys, pausing at her words briefly before getting into the car. As he sat down, Jim ran his hand around the car, checking for bugs in the places Churchill put them before. Once he was somewhat satisfied, he turned on music and leaned in closely towards Max to keep their voices under the sound of the music. “Churchill has a female face? Can you describe it?” He shot off a text to Jax, asking him to send him an unknown females they’d been tracking. “We never had confirmation on that. It was suspected, but we weren’t sure where the limitations fell.” He ran a hand through his hair, his blood rushing at the possibilities he saw with Max’s personal knowledge. “Which face did you meet when you met with Vincent?”

Max looked horrified and walked to her side view mirror to check out her makeup. Her waterproof mascara failed and her eyeshadow was smeared. “Retail therapy can wait,” she mumbled, taking wipes out of her purse and going for a makeup free look. “We can go back to your place. Did you drive?”

“Actually, no. I was tracking a new woman who came to town. We believe she works as one of the DAs and I have Finneas tracking her from a distance in the mall.”

“I don’t think Nick would spread this around like some school girl. Neither would anyone he put on the task to find out more information.“ Max felt comfortable in his arms and didn’t care anymore that they were out in the malls parking lot like this. “I don’t think I have the courage to lie to you or to forgive Churchill, anytime in the future. It won’t happen again. I swear it.“

He gave her one more tight squeeze before pulling back and changing back into his usual straight-laced persona. “Do you still need to go into the mall? If so, you may want to check your make up in the car mirror.”

“I love you too,“ Max sniffled. Being in his arms made the situation more real but she melted against him. “I will follow your lead on this one.“

Wrapping her arms around him Max pulled Jim down for a kiss. It was short but passionate. “I’m sorry, James.”

“That is unless other people know and I suppose we’ll have to figure it out from there.” It was a joke, but he knew the person who would take a swing at him would not be Nick.

“I want you to say that you’re still interested in me and that we can work this out,“ Max eyes started to water. Her heel were suddenly interested as she played around with a pebble. “But I can’t be the one who tells him. Not alone. I don’t want him to drive me out into the middle of nowhere again.“

She listen quietly to his story and felt like a kid again. She was reminded of Jim’s age and experience which she never thought about intimately. She knew she didn’t care about his age but forgot just how much older he was. It was worst then when Nick raised his voice with her and she begun to cry silently. Max wasn’t sure the last time she cried in front of anyone but she was definitely still a teenager and it was probably to Ray, Ben or Mills. What could she say after Jim unloaded on her. Wiping her face, Max kept her head down and remained silent.

“I love you and I don’t want this to end.” Jim walked towards her, pulling her into his chest and wrapping his arms around her. “I’m firmly in the camp that we out wait Nick. But if we do tell him you’re not going in alone, and I’m not going to let him try to abandon you again.”

“And what now?“ Max asked, visibly unsure and scared. “Do we break this off or go public?“

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I was trying to help. We have so many targets on our back I thought if I took one down it’ll be better for everyone. My days blended together and I lost track of what I said and what I was planning to say. I’ll speak with Nick personally about this being my fault and my stupid idea. James, I am sorry. I’m sorry I put you in a shit position and that I might have lost your trust but it was never my intention,“ Max sighed and lend against her rental. “I know what happened to you. I’ve heard all of the stories. This was a stupid mistake on my part. Churchill and Vincent seemed so eager. I thought as liaison, putting away the basis of SKIN and BOND, that I could broker some type of agreement.“

Jim watched her, wanting to go over to her, but not being able to make his feet move. “I suspect Nick is waiting for one of us to bring it up. So what do you want to do?”

“Nick knows,“ Max repeated slowly. She felt her stomach drop and an instant migraine. “How does he know… What did he say?“

“You’re mad at me and you’re within your rights to be. But I would rather us put everything on the table and work through this than deal with your hostility.“

“He hasn’t said a word to me personally, but he had CTRL track you, us inadvertently. Helo gave me the photos after reporting to Nick. It’s the only way I know.”

“James. Please.“ Max pleaded, turning towards him and pausing. “What would you like me to say? How do we start this conversation? Should we sit in the car while we do it?“

“Nick knows.” Saying it out loud felt once again like someone walloping him on the side of the head. “I don’t know what conversation we should be having.”

“Okay. Talk,“ Max waved at him as she grabbed her purse from the back seat and locked her doors. 

“That’s a lot of attitude for someone in your position.” There was a slow fire building in Jim, one that had started weeks ago. 

“We found bugs in her car,“ Helo answered without hesitation. “Police issued. I handed off the report at the SKIN headquarters. It should have worked its way to your desk already. Nick wanted a report too which included surveillance. Like I said, he must have saw something I missed because he asked me to look into you and Max.“

“I’m not going to tell anyone. I just wanted to let you know what I found. It’s none of my business what happens with the information after I get it. I’m sorry, man.“

That made Jim truly see red. “I’ll have to see who hasn’t been pushing things up the chain of command. Perhaps once she gets her new car there should be regular sweeps. Perhaps check Ray’s too to see if they were targeting her or both liaisons.”

“Max has the tendency to do that does she,“ Vincent stated. He had put down his fork and used his napkin to wipe off his hands before picking up his drink. “No more rat in any precinct. They’re off limits. She mentioned something about giving a little to get a little. Once you’ve confirmed that its not a joke we can talk about the rats trying to get Sirius location. Sirius, Churchill and my place residents should be add as off limits too.“

“We’re honestly don’t have the time to discard them all. They’re all public figures and last I check a complete police reform wasn’t happening. We’re giving you alot of information just to keep our cords from getting chewed up and to offer privacy to those supernatural who put their trust in us. If the shenanigans stop, we can negotiate keeping you updated.“

“She does.” He frowned slightly, not liking the reminder of the contact she had with Vincent, Churchill, and who knows how many others. “Agreed. Though they will be posted outside the precincts.” Jim nodded to the other arrangements. “Will you be confirming suspected residences as well?”

“He claims to have information on one named Richard Frank. That I should send Jaxson up and a large lump sum to aid him in cleaning our mistake. He’s blowing steam. It was a clear threat telling me knows what happened to Jo and if Jaxson isn’t sent home, it’ll probably happen again.“

“No. Let me rephrase. I want his entire pack gone and anyone with close associations with him. Find each one of his bastards and kill them.“ Nick replied, slowly but still in Garman to rid of any misunderstanding. Nick looked around before switching back to English. “I’ll be joining you. If nothing goes wrong in the next two days I want to move out a team quickly and quietly.“

Jim’s lip pursed and nodded, understanding the message clearly. “Do you want Jaxson to come? Or any of the young ones? We have all of BOND if we need to tap them in.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Jax need to go Nick. Close the wound that Cadmus ripped open. If he’s going to run something on his own one day, he needs to do this.”

“I’m sorry,“ Helo frowned and nodded his head yes. He had wanted to warn Jim that he would be telling Nick but Nick was his leader and that would undermine everything he worked for. “Nick wanted the report on Max accident. Few days later he asked me to look into your relationship. He must have pulled something from the video that I missed. I gave him a full CTRL report a couple of hours ago. I wanted to tell you but it wasn’t really my place… I swear I would have done the same thing even if it was Louis or Hanna.“

Jim briefly contemplated throttling the young rat, but realized it wasn’t his fault. “Did he say why he wanted the report on the car accident? There shouldn’t have been any reason for him to look into that.”