Last Ascension
A Story of The Capes
By
Rebecca Royce
Last Ascension
A Story of The Capes
By: Rebecca Royce
Published by Fated Desires Publishing, LLC.
© 2014 Rebecca Royce
ISBN: 978-1-62322-174-4
Cover Art by Fiona Jayde
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Last Ascension
Lael Hudson has had enough. He made a terrible mistake years earlier and has never been able to forgive himself. His brothers don"t trust him and life seems like a series of pointless encounters—one after another, all meaningless. Until he makes a decision—leave the Guardians forever. Start a new life, one of his own making.
Margot Fox woke up one day in a small apartment in a city she didn"t recognize without any memories at all. She has one piece of paper in her pocket warning her of danger. What is she to do? When the little money she does have runs out she has no choice but to seek help outside, which is when she runs smack into Lael Hudson.
Despite his decision to stay out of Guardian affairs, Lael can"t deny his super human powers make him want to protect the woman who is convinced she must have been abducted by aliens.
Together, they will discover the truth is more heinous than either of them could have imagined and that they will have to face the truth of their pasts if they ever to have a future.
Chapter One
The air conditioning buzzed, cooling the inside of Powers, Inc. from the heated misery of the soaring temperatures cooking the city. New York in the middle of August was not a picnic.
The news listed the humidity at ninety percent while the thermometer read ninety-nine degrees.
Anyone unlucky enough to have to spend time outside was baking and broiling.
Inside his brother"s office, however, Lael Hudson fumed so hot his internal body heat could rival the sun.
“I"m going to fucking kill you.” He crossed his arms and stared at the unyielding figure his older brother Draco Powers presented. Once upon a time, he"d found the other man intimidating.
Hell, who didn’t? But now? Nothing much scared Lael, particularly not a scowl from either of his Guardian brothers.
“Don"t use course language with me. It"s disgusting.” Draco shook his head before
indicating that Lael should sit in the chair in front of his desk.
Lael didn"t budge. He didn"t want to sit; he wanted to pound. His brother cursed enough to make a sailor blush on a regular basis, and criticizing Lael"s language didn"t change the fact that, once again, Draco had massively screwed Lael with this assignment.
Draco, dark haired and harder looking every year, finally sighed. “It can"t be horribly bad.”
“Oh, yes, it can be, and I"m not doing it.” He shook his head. “Try and make me.”
His brother ignored his challenge. “You work for me, little brother. This is the job. Powers, Inc. took the request from the chancellor this morning. This is your assignment. Get the details from your Handler. End of story.”
Lael leaned over, feeling the heat rolling off Draco. The sensation might have been intimidating if they didn"t share the same genetic tendency toward scorching. “I quit.”
His older brother"s sharp intake of breath betrayed his surprise. Good. He hadn"t said the words simply for effect. He meant them. No way, no how could he continue to perform what amounted to glorified babysitting assignments. This had gone on long enough, and it had become downright insulting.
“You can"t quit.” Draco bellowed, slamming his fist through his oak desk. The piece of furniture shattered into two separate pieces, splintering onto the floor. In the ten years he had been visiting Draco in this office, Lael had always admired the now-destroyed desk. It filled the room, as large a presence as the man who ran the company himself. Now it was firewood, at best. Garbage maybe.
He raised an eyebrow. “Temper, temper.”
The door burst open, and into the room strode Wendy Powers, Draco"s wife and one of Lael"s favorite people in the world. Hands on her hips, she stared at the remnants of the broken desk.
Damn it, why couldn"t she have stayed home from work? Quitting on his brother was one thing; letting Wendy down was an entirely different situation.
“What are you two doing?” She pointed at the mess. “Who broke the desk?”
Even though he wanted to kill his brother, Lael couldn"t help but be impressed with the depth of love shining in Draco"s dark eyes whenever he stared at Wendy. Ten years hadn"t diminished his brother"s adoration for his wife. A decade spent protecting their secret life together. It would never be safe for anyone to discover they were married or had three children.
Lael sighed loudly. “Your husband took his frustration out on the furniture.”
Wendy pointed at the mess. “For years the desk has stood there. And now it"s…gone.”
Draco threw his hands in the air. “It"s furniture. We can replace it. Let"s not act as if the walls are crumbling around us. I broke the desk. Everyone get over it. Lael threatened to quit, and I overreacted.”
Lael shook his head and shouted at his brother. “You can"t order people to get over things.
That"s not how it works. If Wendy wants to be worked up about the desk, she gets to be upset.”
Wendy looked between them, and when she spoke it was in a tone no louder than a whisper.
“I"m surprised about the desk, but I"ll get over it. Why are you quitting?”
“Because, for the last two years, Draco and Ace have done nothing but stick me in shitty assignments where I can"t use any of my skills ever. And they do it because they"ve never stopped thinking of me as a kid they need to boss around. But I"m not. I"m a full-fledged Guardian, and I deserve to be treated as an equal. I told you, when I finished babysitting the ambassador"s thirteen year old son last time, if you didn"t start giving me real assignments which mattered, I was done.”
Draco crossed to Wendy and pulled her against his side. “This is the job. We work for pay.
Powers, In c. is a company. Sometimes the jobs aren"t save-the-world, stop-the-bomb, rescue-the-princess stuff. Sometimes it"s just a matter of taking a paying job. Sometimes you have to guard a Chancellor"s daughter on her shopping trip around Paris or dig through garbage in a third-world country until you find the name of a kidnapper. It"s the nature of our work.”
A reasonable argument if Draco wasn"t so full of shit. He"d watched his brothers for years.
They"d been his whole world. Draco had rescued him from a life on the streets after his mother had gone crazy and aligned herself with an organization trying to kill Draco. Then they"d discovered they were half-brothers.
The entire direction of his life changed the moment Draco Powers stepped into it. Lael owed Draco and Ace everything.
But enough was enough.
“Not so long ago, all I did was watch you and Ace. I could tell what you were feeling even before you knew.”
“Lael….”
> He raised his hand, asking for silence, and, amazingly, his brother closed his mouth. “You don"t lie very much. Ace lies more. You"ve both acted your parts since before you met me. He has no choice. His wife lives in the public eye. Makes things tricky. They have to hide themselves. Use secret entrances and exits. Really go the extra mile. Most of the time, no one tries to follow you home.”
“If you have a point, get to it.”
Wendy elbowed Draco in the side. “Let him talk.”
“As I said, you don"t lie often, but, when you do, you have a tell. You"re familiar with the phrase, aren"t you, Draco? A tell?”
His brother rolled his eyes. “As in poker. But I call bullshit. I"d have been dead years ago if I did.”
“It"s not something others can see. Not even Wendy senses it, but I have these nasty Guardian genes. The ones which make it so hard for me to sleep at night, to not hear the woman screaming for her boyfriend to stop raping her ten blocks away.”
Draco nodded, sympathy in his dark gaze. “I get it. I have the same problem. My kids do.
Ace. Our family. Hell, every Guardian here.”
“I hear your heartbeat, big brother. And every time you lie, it speeds up. Every single time.
You can hide the truth from everyone, but I can tell. Now, why don"t you tell me why you keep giving me these shitty cases? Why you are wasting me year after year? Giving lesser talents bigger cases?” He took a deep breath. “Tell me the truth, damn it. Don"t insult either of us any more by acting as if this is just the nature of the job.”
“You"re a loose cannon.” Draco released his wife and walked toward him. “Because even though I believe you"re incredibly talented, I don"t trust you. Hell, Lael, you can fly, you shoot lasers with your eyes, and you even restarted Ace"s heart when he died. You can bring people back to life.”
Lael knew what was about to come out of Draco"s mouth before his brother spoke. He
cursed himself for bringing up the topic, but it needed to be faced. Dancing around the issue had not gotten them anywhere. He set his jaw and waited for the pain that had brought him to his knees five years ago.
Draco finished. “And, five years ago, you killed a girl. I get it was an accident. Everyone understands what happened. We sympathize. But I can"t let it happen again.”
Wendy cried out, covering her mouth with her hand. His sister-in-law"s pain during the whole ordeal had been hellish. Then and now. “Draco, he was nineteen years old. And, as you say, it was an accident.”
Lael nodded. “That"s what I thought.”
His voice cracked, but he ignored it. His family disliked large displays of emotions.
Breaking furniture was the least of their problems. As Draco said, he"d killed a girl. He shouldn"t have been in the situation—shouldn"t have taken her into the situation. When he"d lost control, she"d paid the price.
Draco"s shoulders sagged. “Lael.”
“Don"t. I asked for the truth. I got it. Thank you. If it means anything to you, there isn"t a day I don"t think about what happened—to June. I"d do anything to go back and change it. Why couldn"t I bring her back from the dead? I ask myself all the time, and I never get any answers.”
He shook his head. “This job, being a Guardian, working with all of you whom I respect so much, it was supposed to be salvation. Maybe I don"t deserve any.”
“Don"t you get it, kid?”
Draco hadn"t called him that in years, and he tried not to remember how much he had liked it when his big brother had nicknamed him. He"d finally felt at home.
“I can"t trust you. Ace can"t either. Because you don"t trust yourself. We keep waiting for you to grow some balls and show us your Guardian genes. Until you acknowledge what
happened, accept that the loss, and stop letting it cripple you, I won"t give you the assignments you want. Sorry, but it takes arrogance to do this job. I used to see it in you. Now, you"re just all over the place. A dangerous weapon who doesn"t have it anymore.”
“Lael.” Wendy surged forward and wrapped her arms around him. After his mother had
died, Wendy and Alice, Ace"s wife, had done their best to quasi-mother him through his teenage years. But he wasn"t their son and never would be.
He hugged her gently. “It"s all right, Wendy.”
As quickly as he could, he extracted himself from her embrace. Right then, he didn"t want hugs. Most of the time, he couldn"t stand to be touched at all. Over the years, he"d gotten better at faking his response to casual encounters, which couldn"t be helped, but hugging hurt him.
“As I said, Draco, I quit.”
“You don"t have to.” Draco stared at him from across the room. “Maybe we"re wrong.
Maybe it"s time for Ace and I to revisit the subject.”
Lael didn"t reply. If Draco had really thought it was time to think about him differently, he"d have done so. Nothing ever stopped his brother from doing what needed to be done. In five years, Lael had never warranted reconsideration by his brothers; ergo he never would.
He had to leave. He couldn"t stay in Manhattan watching his brothers and the other
Guardians flying to work every day. His days of flying needed to be behind him. No one could find out he had super human powers. No one could be allowed to use him for nefarious intentions, and he refused to be blackmail material for his brothers.
“Where will you go?” Of course, Draco followed the direction of his thoughts. There were limited options for people like them.
“Not sure.” He really didn"t.
“Lael….” Sadness laced Wendy"s tone.
“I dropped her, Wendy. I took her up in the air to show off. I called myself Justice as if I had a Guardian name. She shrieked and held onto me, calling me a god, and I let her. And then I dropped her.”
Draco shook his head. “To be fair, you both plummeted toward the ground together. I think you held on most of the time. But you survived the impact, and she couldn"t. You were actually shot from the sky by a ray gun”
“I never should have taken her up in the first place.”
He"d heard Ace and Draco yell at him over and over again. Don’t make poor choices. Don’t show off what you can do. Someone will get hurt.
“You couldn"t have known, sweetie.” Wendy wiped at her eyes. “You didn"t know the man would shoot the horrid device in the air, disabling all of you from flying—even temporarily. It took Ace weeks to bring him down.”
“If I had been up there alone, as I should have been, June would still be alive today. It was an accident I could have prevented.”
And now he had to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. He looked at Draco one more time before he left.
“It"s been five years. Will I ever not hear her screaming?” He"d been unconscious when he"d hit the ground. He couldn"t actually have heard her and yet….
“No, Lael. You"ll always hear her.”
When the poor girl died, she"d taken the part of him that should have been a Guardian with her. Now he had to figure out— and I’m probably five years too late—who he was and who he could be. No more time to waste.
****
Margot Fox zipped up her sweatshirt and put her hood over her head. She had to get off the streets or they would find her. She bit down on her nail. One problem, she had no idea who they were. They were coming. She knew it. She did.
The neighborhood was terrible. She didn"t even understand why she had to live there. Her life had been a big blur until a few weeks earlier. But she had to go. Or they would get her.
But why did they want her? She had no idea.
Margot rushed out of the convenience store with the small bag of beef jerky she had purchased. It had been her last two dollars and fifty cents. Where she had gotten the money she did have was questionable. The cash had been in her pockets. So how she earned more remained a mystery.
One of many. She only knew her name because of the ID card also in her pocket. There, beneath her picture, were printed the words "Margot Fox."
The card also said she was from New Jersey. But she didn"t remember New Jersey or anywhere else for that matter. And the whole thing looked glossy, making her wonder if it had been faked.
The apartment she had hid in all week was two blocks down and on the right. To call it small was an understatement. It was one room and maybe four hundred square feet. It didn"t even have a fridge, and she"d not dared try the stove for fear of fire or, worse, letting the apartment fill with gas where one spark could blow everything—and her—up.
She"d spent every night in the closet with the door closed, barely sleeping while she heard every creak, yell, and curse screamed down the hall in various languages. One time she thought she heard a gunshot. But maybe it was a car backfiring or someone had their television on too loud. The closet seemed the best option at the time.
The sun had begun setting on the horizon, and soon darkness would sweep in, pushing out the welcoming sun. Margot hated the dark.
Whatever was happening to her, whatever had happened to strand her in this private hell, she knew one thing for sure. She was alone, and no one deserved to be as lonely as she had been for the last two weeks.
Had it always been this way? From her pocket, she pulled the note that had been her one source of hope for the last weeks.
Don’t trust anyone. They’re coming.
Someone gave her the note. Somewhere in the world existed a person who cared what
happened to her. Margot had to believe in the possibility. The alternative was too horrible to consider because, if no one out there cared, then she was just a girl with no memory, no money, and likely a mental illness making her paranoid.
No. Someone had cared. She had an ID card, a key to an apartment, and, although it was all gone, one hundred dollars in hard cash meant someone had cared.
She crossed the street fast, keeping her gaze on her feet. Margot had no clue what city she"d landed in. The majority of the cars possessed Michigan license plates. The temperatures were mild, but if the lack of heat or snow meant it was autumn or spring, she couldn"t tell. If winter were on the way, she needed to get warmer clothes. Did her apartment even have heat? Maybe she could get a blanket to put in the closet with her.