Revival (The Variant Series, #1)

  * * *

  Alex couldn’t help but feel guilty.

  “Are you sure the others will be safe with Aiden?” she asked.

  Leaving her best friend and her former love alone in Oregon while Brandt was still on the loose really didn’t seem like such a great idea.

  “Hon,” said Kenzie, putting an arm around her shoulders. “There’s no safer place for them right now than with Aiden. Trust me on this one.”

  They were standing on a lamp-lit sidewalk. The street was deserted.

  Alex wondered what it was about Aiden that had Kenzie so confident in his ability to protect them.

  Then again, he was her cousin. Bearing that in mind, the odds were good that Aiden was a Variant, too.

  “You’re sure this is the right parking garage?” Declan was staring up at the massive concrete structure looking less than pleased. “It’s huge. This is going to take us forever to search.”

  “Yeah. This is the same one he used the last time we stayed at the Plaza,” said Nate. “And you know Grayson.”

  “Creature of habit,” Declan agreed. “Okay, guys, start walking.”

  Their trip to the Plaza had been a bust. Grayson’s room had already been cleaned and no one on the night shift could remember having seen him. That’s when Nate came up with the idea of searching for his rental car. It was a long shot, but they had no other leads left to pursue.

  “What are we looking for again?” asked Kenzie as they made their way inside the garage at ground level.

  “According to the guy at the rental agency, his car was a black BMW 6 Series Coupé,” said Nate.

  “And the guy tries to lecture me about flying under the radar,” Declan mumbled. “Could he have picked a more conspicuous car?”

  “Sure,” said Nate. “He could have sprung for the convertible.”

  Declan sighed and stopped walking. “You know what? This will go a lot faster if we split up. Alex and I will start at the top and work our way back down. Call us if you find it.”

  Before anyone could speak a word in protest or suggest a better plan, Declan took Alex by the hand.

  “Now I don’t want you to freak,” he said slowly, his tone patronizing. “But I’m going to teleport us to the elevators. See the elevators? They’re right over there. So you should probably prepare yourself.”

  “You’re hilarious,” said Alex. “You know, Declan, sometimes you can be a real—”

  They jumped.

  “Jackass,” she finished.

  “Hey,” he said, as he punched the button to call the elevator. “I was just giving you a heads up like you asked me to. No need to get pissy.”

  “If my brother keeps acting like an idiot,” Kenzie called from the other side of the garage, “you have my express permission to smack him upside the head!”

  “And you have my permission to kick his ass,” Nate added.

  “What, seriously?” Declan muttered. “Everybody’s ganging up on me today.”

  The elevator to their left dinged and the doors slid open. Alex and Declan walked inside. As the reflective metal doors of the lift slid shut, Alex thought she heard something.

  Whispers. Voices. Louder and louder and then… silence.

  She looked up at Declan. “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “That sound,” she said. “All those people talking. Is there a speaker in here or something?”

  “No,” he said, bemused. “You feeling alright, Lex? No offense, but you really look like crap.”

  Alex caught sight of her reflection in the mirrors that lined the walls of the car. Dark circles were forming under her eyes and her skin glistened a sickly gray in the unforgiving glow of the fluorescent lights. To be honest, she didn’t feel much better than she looked.

  Ever since they’d arrived in DC her head had been pounding.

  “I’m fine,” Alex said as the doors opened. She wasn’t about to let sleep deprivation and a headache stop her from assisting in the search for Grayson. He’d gone missing while trying to help her. She felt just as responsible for his disappearance as she had for Cassie’s kidnapping. She started walking. “Come on.”

  Declan followed. As they rounded the corner to the next level down, the voices returned. The whispers escalated to shouts and as the noise grew to a fever pitch, Alex covered her ears reflexively.

  Silence.

  “Okay, that’s it,” she said, whipping around. “Tell me you heard it that time!”

  Declan nearly stumbled into her as she came to an abrupt halt in the middle of his path. He looked down at her, his brow furrowed. “Alex, no one said anything. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re alone up here.”

  Alex glanced about in confusion.

  Declan walked around her and continued on to the next level. “Let’s go, Alex. That car’s not going to find itself.”

  Resigned, Alex continued to help Declan look for Grayson’s rental car through another two levels. As they rounded yet another bend, Alex spotted Kenzie and Nate twenty feet away, standing on the passenger’s side of a black sports car.

  “Is that it?” Declan called.

  Kenzie looked up, a worried frown on her face. “Grayson’s briefcase is on the floorboard of the passenger side. And on the driver’s side there’s…” She couldn’t finish.

  “There’s blood on the driver’s side door,” said Nate. “There are dents in the rental and in the car beside it. He didn’t go without a fight.”

  The sentence was punctuated by a sudden thickening of the static in the air around them. Alex felt the electrical energy surrounding her abruptly spike and then disappear altogether. A strange tightening in her chest caused her to suck in a breath as her heart skipped a beat.

  What on Earth was that?

  The lights went out. Alex stopped in her tracks as the garage was plunged into semi-darkness, the only illumination filtering in from street-lamps outside of the garage.

  A shot rang out.

  Alex felt something solid slam into her and she went crashing to the pavement between Grayson’s rental and another parked car.

  The “something solid” had been Declan. He was lying on top of her. Again. Only this time they hadn’t landed on something so soft as his bed.

  They really had to stop meeting like this.

  Declan stared down at her. “Were you hit?”

  A second shot. Alex winced as the report echoed through the garage. Between the blow to her skull from the rough landing and the crack of gunfire, her head felt like it was about to split in two.

  “No,” she replied.

  Declan got to his knees and peered through the window of the car beside them, and then ducked down a second later as a third shot was fired. The rear window of a nearby car shattered.

  “Nate? Kenzie?” he called out from his spot beside her. “You guys okay?”

  “We’re good, Decks,” Nate replied.

  From the sound of it, they were crouched on the opposite side of Grayson’s rental.

  “Hold on,” said Declan. “Be with you in a second.”

  He grabbed her wrist and closed his eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  “Shit!” He dropped her arm. “Well, we won’t be jumping out of here, that’s for sure.”

  Alex gingerly pulled herself into a seated position, careful not to rise above the level of the car’s windows. She tried to teleport… and couldn’t.

  “Why can’t we jump?” she asked, fear sinking its teeth into her. “And who’s shooting at us?”

  “Both excellent questions, Alex,” said Declan, risking another glance toward the source of the gunfire. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to get back to you with the answers.”

  He jerked his head back down before whoever was firing at them could get a clear shot.

  The automatic locks of the coupé released. A moment later, both of the car’s doors opened. Alex could see through to Nate and Kenzie kneeling on the other side.

&
nbsp; “What’s the hold up?” asked Nate. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Declan hissed. He raked a hand through his hair. “We can’t jump. Whoever it is that’s shooting at us must have set off an EM pulse. It’s why the lights went out.”

  “You think it’s the Agency?” asked Nate.

  “Unless you know someone else who has access to a suitcase-sized electromagnetic pulse generator,” said Declan.

  “A what?” Alex asked.

  “A non-nuclear EMP,” said Declan. “It’s a weapon that disables nearby electronics by sending out a pulse. The Agency managed to shrink the machine down to a portable size a few years back, and now they use them to bring in Jumpers. It’s like hitting a reset button on our abilities. Strips our powers, temporarily.”

  “But why in the world would they be shooting at us?” asked Kenzie. “The Agency knows we’re not a threat!”

  “Tell that to the guys with the automatic weapons, sis,” he said. “Can you hear their thoughts at all?”

  She shook her head. “No. They’re blocking me. Whoever they are, they’ve had training in keeping out a telepath.”

  “Hate to cut short the confab, guys, but we need to start fighting back before they realize that they can just walk over here and gun us down,” said Nate. “Operatives might be slow, but they’re not stupid.”

  There was another crack of gunfire. Alex fully expected her ears to start bleeding any time now. The pain in her head was nearly blinding.

  Declan leaned heavily against the coupé’s open driver-side door. “Dammit, Nate. Why did I let you talk me into leaving the Beretta behind at the cabin?”

  “How was I supposed to know that this would happen?” asked Nate.

  Another shot. More shattering glass.

  Alex cringed.

  “What is this, Nate? The third time we’ve been shot at so far this year?” Declan’s words were laced with annoyance. “It’s April, man. Situations like this one are exactly why Grayson needs to let us carry guns.”

  Nate sent them a smile over his shoulder and started edging toward the rear of the car. “Relax,” he said. “I’m the gun.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You’re a badass,” said Declan. “We get it. Now hurry up and get us out of this.”

  “What’s he going to do?” asked Alex. “Throw a car at them?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” she heard Nate say from somewhere near the trunk. “Unless you have a better idea?”

  Alex opened her mouth to reply and then startled everyone by crying out in agony instead.

  The whispering voices from earlier had returned and were now screaming inside her mind, the bits of conversation having been joined by a flood of painfully sharp images and a roiling sea of emotions. Alex gripped the sides of her head, her own inner-voice suddenly drowning in an onslaught foreign thoughts.

  And the thoughts hurt…

  It took her a while to realize that the piercing scream cutting through the cacophony was her own.

  Blinded by pain, Alex doubled over, and everything went black.

  — 16 —

  “What happened?” Nate asked, coming into view on the other side of the car. “Why is she screaming like that?”

  “I don’t know!” Declan’s hands gripped Alex’s shoulders, trying to hold her steady. The harrowing sound of her screams had set his teeth on edge. What was happening to her?

  Then it hit him.

  Those voices she’d been hearing… He knew what they were. And if they didn’t act soon, they were going to lose Alex. For good.

  They needed to get her out of the city. Now.

  “Kenzie,” he said slowly. “I need you to knock her out. Whatever you do, don’t look in her head.”

  “Are you insane? You know how risky that is!” she said.

  “Don’t argue with me, just do it!”

  Kenzie hesitated.

  “Do it, Kenzie!” he said again. “If you don’t, she’s as good as dead, anyway.”

  She seemed to relent.

  “Fine,” she said, climbing into the car. “But I swear to God, Decks, if this goes wrong and she ends up a vegetable, I’m never going to forgive you.”

  He’d never forgive himself, either.

  Unfortunately, Kenzie’s mental K.O. was the only way Alex was going to survive long enough for him to get her safely out of the city. They didn’t have a choice.

  Kenzie crawled into the driver’s seat, careful not to raise up too high, and reached for Alex, grabbing hold of her upper arm. His sister’s stare became vacant.

  Next to him, Alex doubled over. Declan caught her in his arms before she could hit the ground.

  Kenzie swayed in the seat before pulling herself together.

  “Did it work?” asked Nate. He had a death grip on the headrest of the passenger seat and was staring anxiously at Alex.

  Declan found himself wondering—not for the first time that day—exactly what was going on between his brother and Alex.

  “Won’t know until she wakes up,” Kenzie answered.

  As if to remind them all that there was still one more threat to be dealt with, four shots whizzed by in rapid succession.

  Nate stood up. The sound of crunching metal and screeching tires filled the air.

  Declan risked another glance toward their assailants and raised his eyebrows in surprise. Nate had created a barricade out of the parked cars, piling them on top of each other until the wall of automobiles stretched from one side of the garage to the other.

  Sometimes, the things Nate proved to be capable of scared the hell out of him. Flinging two-ton cars around like they were bath toys happened to be one of those things.

  Nate sagged heavily against the side of the coupé.

  Declan looked down at the unconscious girl in his arms. She wouldn’t be out for long. They were running out of time.

  “Help me get her in the car,” he ordered.

  Kenzie flipped forward the driver’s seat and assisted Declan in half-carrying, half-dragging Alex into the backseat. He didn’t envy her the scrapes and bruises she was going to wake up with, but at least they’d managed to get her inside.

  The driver’s seat slid back into place, confining the two of them to the backseat. The bucket seats made moving around difficult, but Declan eventually managed to position Alex so that she was curled on the seat next to him with her head resting in his lap.

  She looked oddly peaceful like that.

  Declan, meanwhile, was getting a kink in his neck from being hunched down in the seat at such an odd angle.

  A heavy thud reverberated through the garage and the wall of cars shuddered. That barricade wasn’t going to hold them for much longer. Judging from the way Nate was still leaning heavily against the coupé, He-Man over there wouldn’t be tossing around any more cars until he got his strength back.

  Time to go.

  “Nate,” said Declan. “You drive.”

  “And how, exactly, would you like me to accomplish that, Declan?” Nate asked as Kenzie slipped back out of the car and he took her place. Nate grunted as he lifted himself over the center console and settled in behind the wheel. “The pulse disabled any car with electronic equipment in the engine.”

  “I’m working on it,” he replied.

  Declan felt around for nearby electrical energy, stretching his reach to the farthest periphery of his senses. If he could just tap into one of the still-working streetlamps outside of the garage…

  Got it!

  He began leeching the energy out of the light and into himself. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

  Declan really wished Alex was awake right now to show him how she did that trick with the spheres.

  He would just have to wing it.

  What had she been doing when she created a sphere for the first time?

  He’d asked her to ground out the charge. She’d been trying to give the current a place to go.

  Righ
t. Okay, then.

  Here goes nothing, he thought.

  Declan raised one hand, palm up, and channeled the energy through his arm and toward his fingers.

  It worked. A crackling ball of pale violet light was growing in the palm of his hand. He gave a triumphant laugh.

  “What the heck is that?” asked Kenzie. She was twisted around in the passenger seat watching him, her face illuminated by the dancing blue light of the sphere.

  “A little something Alex taught me,” Declan replied, smiling.

  He placed his other hand on the metal frame of the car door. With a little concentration—and a lot of creativity—he was able to bypass the fried electronics that would have kept him from kick-starting the engine. Sending one last surge of electricity to the still functional fuel injectors, the car roared to life.

  Nate looked at the coupé’s dashboard in surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. He and Kenzie slammed the car doors shut.

  “You’re welcome,” said Declan as he used what was left of the energy he’d gathered to roll down the car’s windows.

  As Nate peeled out of the parking space, the wall of cars separating them from the agents exploded outwards.

  Aiming for the opening in the barricade, Declan launched the sphere of electricity he’d formed through the open window. Nate sped the coupé around a corner before he could see if his attack had had the desired effect.

  They careened out of the parking deck and onto an empty side street before sliding into heavy traffic on the main road.

  “We need to get out of the city,” said Declan. “Faster the better.”

  “Interstate should be up ahead,” said Nate. “It’ll be the quickest way to go.”

  Something in the side mirror had captured Kenzie’s attention. “Anybody else notice that black Challenger?” she asked. “Because I think it’s following us.”

  Declan twisted in his seat. The Challenger was two cars back in the other lane and accelerating, weaving through traffic in an attempt to catch up with them.

  “Better find that gas pedal, Nate,” said Declan.

  They sped up.

  Ahead of them, a traffic light changed from yellow to red.

  “Whoa,” said Kenzie, pressing one hand against the dashboard and grabbing desperately for the door handle with the other. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Brake!”

  They sailed through the intersection… and only barely missed getting creamed by the cross-traffic.

  Nate was smiling. “Did you see that?”

  “Yes, Nathaniel.” Kenzie had a white-knuckle grip on the door. “You have a bright future ahead of you as a wheelman for the mob. We’re all so proud. Now focus on the road, please.”

  “I wouldn’t celebrate just yet,” said Declan, looking out the rear window. The Challenger had made it through the intersection and was following only a few car-lengths behind them. “We didn’t shake them.”

  Nate hit the gas, turning onto the ramp that led to the interstate.

  “I don’t think we’re going to be able to lose them,” he said, threading the coupé through the lessening traffic. “Not like this.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Kenzie.

  Nate caught his gaze in the rear-view mirror. “What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever jumped with, Decks?”

  He couldn’t be serious.

  “You want me to jump the car?”

  “If we jumped without it, we’d still be traveling at the same speed we are now, right?” Nate asked. “I’d rather not reappear somewhere going a hundred-and-twenty miles per hour. Something tells me that wouldn’t have a happy ending.”

  Declan’s head slammed into the back of the passenger seat as the car pursuing them collided with their rear bumper.

  “Son of a…” he mumbled, rubbing his forehead ruefully.

  Seatbelts. They were more than just a fashion statement.

  He glanced nervously at Alex. The impact hadn’t been enough to wake her. She was still out.

  “Hang on, guys,” said Nate.

  Declan looked past Nate and through the windshield. Up ahead, traffic was at a standstill. Nate swerved the coupé into the breakdown lane, flying past the stopped cars.

  The black Challenger followed suit.

  Declan continued to siphon energy from the passing cars and streetlamps, but he wasn’t getting much. They were simply moving too fast for him to get a good fix on anything. At this rate, it was going to take ages before he’d have enough power to jump with all of them and the car in tow. That is, if he managed to jump at all.

  Alex stirred in his lap and let out a whimper. Declan gently brushed aside the errant locks of hair that hid her face. She turned her head to look up at him.

  She was awake. And from the looks of it, she was still in pain.

  They were almost out of the city, but apparently it wasn’t far enough to help Alex.

  She turned away, closing her eyes tightly as her face twisted into a grimace.

  Alex, look at me, he thought.

  She didn’t respond. He cupped the side of her face and turned it toward him. Warm tears spilled over his fingertips where they rested against her cheek.

  Lex, he said again. Her gray eyes blinked open.

  Focus on my voice, Alex, thought Declan, mentally shouting to be heard over the clamor of the voices in her head. Can you hear me?

  She nodded mutely.

  “Okay, that could be a problem,” he heard Kenzie say.

  He looked up. About half a mile ahead, the breakdown lane ended, branching off instead into an exit lane that continued on for another quarter-mile before curving to bridge the road they were traveling on. Unfortunately for them, it was still under construction.

  Declan returned his attention to Alex.

  You’ve got to shut out the voices, Lex, he said. Imagine a wall separating you from them. A thick wall. Just like you did earlier when you wanted to keep Kenzie out.

  Nate drove the car through an opening between the water-filled plastic barricades and accelerated. As they rounded the curve, he muttered a curse. “Now would be a good time for that jump, Decks.”

  “Little busy here, Nate.”

  “Well, we’re about to run out of freeway, so unless you want to teach this car to fly in the next ten seconds, I suggest you find the time.”

  Declan looked frantically out the windshield. The bridge up ahead was unfinished and they were fast running out of road.

  Realizing he’d have to make do with what little energy he’d gathered, he attempted a jump. Nothing happened. He needed more power.

  In desperation, Declan drained the car’s battery. The coupé’s engine cut off.

  They went over.

  As they careened through the air, Declan tightened his hold on the back of the passenger’s seat and wrapped his other arm protectively around Alex. Then, for probably the first time in his life, he prayed…

  …and they jumped.

  The front end of the car slammed into the blacktop, the undercarriage scraping against the pavement until the rear wheels finally connected. The coupé lurched forward a short ways before Nate hit the brakes and they screeched to a halt.

  He’d done it.

  “So much for the suspension,” Declan muttered. “Hope Grayson listened to the rental guy about the optional insurance plan.”

  “I’m never getting in a car again,” Kenzie said from the front seat. There was a funny waver to her voice. She opened the passenger-side door and tumbled out. “And if I do, so help me, it won’t be with Nate.”

  “Hey now, my driving was excellent,” said Nate. “Next time we’re in a life-and-death style car chase you can drive and we’ll see how well you manage.” He peered into the backseat, frowning. “She okay?”

  “She will be,” said Declan.

  Nathaniel nodded and climbed out of the car.

  Declan felt a hand grip his arm. He glanced down to find Alex staring up at him.

  “Hey,” he said. ?
??Feeling better?”

  “A little,” she replied, her voice small. “It’s quiet again.”

  “Quiet sounds good,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Quiet is good.”

  Alex gave a weak smile.

  Declan stared down at the girl in his lap. She looked so frail. So easily broken. If he hadn’t gotten her out of the city… gotten her away from all those people…

  She’d be gone right now. Everything that Alex was would have vanished in a sea of other people’s thoughts.

  That was twice today he’d almost lost her. They really needed to call it a night before she went for a trifecta. The girl was turning out to be more than a little jeopardy friendly.

  “Where are we?” she asked, closing her eyes as if the words hurt. Then again, between Kenzie’s knock-out and the psychic onslaught giving her the mother of all migraines, they probably did.

  Declan took her hand in his before he realized what he was doing. She didn’t pull away.

  “Home,” he said. “I teleported us back to the cabin.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “I improvised.”

  “No, I mean… what happened while I was out?”

  “Nothing much,” he said. His thumb traced a lazy circle on the back of her hand. “We got shot at for a while, Nate tossed some cars around… Oh, and I managed to make one of those spheres of lightning you love so much. We ended the night with a high-speed chase and a long drive off a short bridge. Had some good times. You should have been awake, you would have loved it.”

  “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  The passenger seat flipped forward and Kenzie stuck her head in. “How’s our girl?” she asked.

  Declan let go of her hand.

  Alex struggled to sit up.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Declan, exiting the car. He turned around to offer Alex a hand in getting out.

  He told himself he was just being polite. That it had nothing to do with the way he’d started to crave the electric sensation of her soft skin brushing against his.

  Nope.

  It had nothing to do with that, at all.

  Alex took his outstretched hand and climbed carefully from the backseat. She managed to take only a few steps before her knees buckled.

  Before Declan could move to catch her, Alex’s body froze in place, leaning suspended in mid-air.

  An invisible force gently pushed her upright. Kenzie rushed to help support Alex, wrapping her arm around the other girl’s waist and draping Alex’s arm over her shoulder.

  “Nice catch, Nate,” said Kenzie.

  Their brother was leaning against the stone wall that lined the driveway, watching them with interest.

  Nate pushed off the wall and approached them, shaking his head. “That wasn’t me.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Kenzie.

  “I didn’t do it. I’m still drained from moving around those cars in the garage.”

  Kenzie raised an eyebrow. “Well, who else could it have been?”

  “I think…” Alex’s voice was barely above a whisper. Her head was bowed and her gaze remained fixed on the ground. “I think it was me.”

  “Wait…” said Kenzie. “So Alex has two abilities?”

  “Three,” Declan corrected.

  “What?” asked Kenzie.

  “Alex has three abilities. She can jump, she’s telekinetic… and she’s a telepath. That breakdown she had in the parking garage? It was the telepathy manifesting.”

  Alex raised her head, two loose brown curls framing her face. Her eyes were filled with questions he wasn’t sure how to answer.

  “In the middle of a city? My god, no wonder she was in so much pain,” Kenzie said quietly. “But three powers? Decks, you know that’s not possible.”

  Alex’s legs gave out again. Her full weight proved to be too much for Kenzie to support.

  Declan moved to help, but Nathaniel reached them first. His brother scooped Alex wordlessly into his arms and carried her toward the staircase that led down to the patio.

  He watched them go until they were out of sight.

  “Three abilities,” Kenzie repeated. “I don’t understand it, Decks. Variants never have more than two abilities. It just doesn’t happen.”

  “You know that’s not true. It’s happened once before.”

  Kenzie stared at him. “Once. And he wasn’t born that way. The Agency made him that way.”

  “I’m just saying… it’s happened before.”

  “Are you honestly suggesting that the Agency did this to her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, making for the stairs. “But we really need to find Grayson.”

  — 17 —

  “How’s your head?” asked a loud voice.

  Alex lay sprawled on the couch in the exact same place Nathaniel had set her down ten minutes earlier, her feet resting in Kenzie’s lap and an arm slung across her eyes; a futile attempt to block out the low light shining down from above.

  She attempted a reply, but the sound that escaped her throat was something between a grunt and a whimper.

  “That good, huh?”

  Alex heard Declan settle onto the coffee table across from her. She lifted her arm and squinted in his general direction. The pounding in her head had caused her vision to dissolve into an indistinguishable mix of light and color.

  Even without a clear view of him, she knew that he was smirking down at her. She could hear it in his voice.

  It was nice to see he found her situation so amusing.

  Three abilities. According to Kenzie, it was impossible. Variants could only ever have, at most, two abilities—inheriting one from either parent. Even that was incredibly rare.

  To have three abilities made Alex a freak amongst freaks.

  She felt Kenzie’s leg kick out in Declan’s direction, heard the subtle thunk of her foot connecting with his shin, followed by the much louder sounds of Declan’s grousing.

  “Quietly, Decks,” Kenzie chided. “You’d feel like crap, too, if a thousand different voices just had a shouting match in your head.”

  She spoke just above a whisper, her voice low and soft.

  Not like Declan, whose voice would have been better suited for an outdoor sporting event. Or maybe talking over the sound of a jet engine.

  She was pretty sure those extra decibels had been intentional.

  Jerk.

  “Is that what happened?” Alex’s voice was raspy. “I was starting to think someone had just used my head for a soccer ball.”

  “Nah,” said Kenzie, patting her leg gently. “Trust me. That would have hurt a lot less.”

  “Good to know,” she said, covering her eyes again.

  “Most telepaths develop their ability slowly, over time,” said Kenzie. “We’re not very strong at first. The things we hear and see… they’re fuzzy. And quiet. Like barely heard whispers. Or like a radio that’s tuned to the static between stations.”

  Alex could feel Kenzie fidgeting with the frayed edges of her jeans.

  “Eventually, it gets louder, and as the thoughts become clearer, we learn to control what we let in. That way we aren’t overwhelmed by the thoughts and emotions of the people around us.” Kenzie paused. “And then, sometimes, the ability hits you all at once.”

  “When that happens,” said Declan, “you’re pretty much screwed.”

  “Judging from the amount of pain you were in, I’d say you were probably tapped into the inner-thoughts of every person in a ten-block radius,” said Kenzie. “All of them, all at once.”

  “That’s… a lot,” she said.

  “Honestly, Alex? I’m amazed you’re sitting here talking to us right now,” said Kenzie. “Most people don’t recover from what you experienced. They just check out. Get lost in the chaos and never make it back to the surface.”

  Alex swallowed.

  There’d been a moment in the car earlier when she’d almost done just that.
The pain had been so intense. The darkness that lurked beneath the voices had felt so enticing. At the time, she’d wanted nothing more than to surrender to it and never feel anything again.

  Then she’d heard Declan’s voice, familiar and reassuring in the midst of the bedlam, and felt his warm hand gently graze her cheek. His touch had amplified the sound of his voice, causing his words to ring out crystal clear through the ocean of thoughts competing for dominance in her mind.

  The wall she’d created at his urging hadn’t helped much, but his voice, steady and persistent, had kept her from giving over to the darkness.

  Declan’s voice was the only reason she was still here. The only reason she was still whole.

  When they finally made it back to the cabin, the voices had vanished as quickly as they had appeared. The sudden return to silence sent Alex reeling.

  “How come I haven’t heard anything since we got back?” she asked.

  “Because we all keep walls up,” said Declan.

  “The guys do it to keep me out,” explained Kenzie. “And I do it to keep from accidentally hearing anything I shouldn’t. Speaking of which. You’re going to want to keep one up all the time, at least until you get the hang of things.”

  Alex heard someone flip first one light-switch, then another.

  “It’s safe to open your eyes, Alex.” Nathaniel’s voice had come from somewhere behind the couch. “I turned off the light.”

  Cautiously, Alex raised her arm and blinked her eyes open. The painful glare of the chandelier overhead had been replaced by the dim glow of the light above the front entryway. She could just make out the shadowy form of Nate as he approached and knelt beside her.

  He took her hand and turned it over, shaking a pill from a small bottle onto her palm.

  “Only one?” Kenzie sounded dubious.

  “Two?” asked Nate.

  “Three,” said Kenzie.

  “Three?” echoed Declan. “The girl is five-two and thin as a rail. What are you trying to do? Knock her out for the next week?”

  “Three,” Kenzie insisted. “She’ll be lucky if that even takes the edge off.”

  “How about we start with two and if she needs more, we give her another one later?” Nate suggested.

  “Uh,” said Alex. “What exactly are you giving me?”

  “Pain meds left over from when I broke my leg last August,” said Nate, shaking out another pill. He handed her a bottle of water. “They’re not all that strong. Especially with our metabolism.”

  “What’s wrong with our metabolism?” she asked, staring down at the bleary outline of the pills in her hand.

  Generally speaking, she didn’t make it a habit of taking other people’s prescription medications. Then again, generally speaking, she didn’t usually find herself suffering from excruciating pain that showed no signs of letting up, either.

  She swallowed the pills.

  “Variants’ metabolisms tend to run a bit faster than the average,” said Nate. “We burn things off more quickly than most people.”

  Well, that explained why she never seemed to gain weight, despite her aunt’s valiant efforts and Alex’s borderline-unhealthy obsession with junk food. Cassie often joked that Alex could eat more than all four of her brothers combined.

  “Speaking of overactive metabolisms,” said Declan, climbing to his feet. “Getting chased by bad guys all night made me hungry. Is there any pizza left?”

  “Fridge,” said Kenzie.

  With that, he and Nate disappeared in search of a food, leaving Alex and Kenzie alone in the living room.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this,” said Kenzie, “but you’ve got some things to learn before it will be safe for you to leave the cabin again.”

  Alex sighed.

  “Now that we have both Brandt and the Agency to worry about, it would be better if I started your training tonight. You’re going to need to know how to keep out the voices before you even think about going anywhere populated.”

  Closing her eyes, Alex grudgingly admitted that Kenzie had a point. The wall she’d tried to put up when they were in DC hadn’t done a thing to help her.

  “When we were in the car earlier, Declan told me to put up a wall to block out the voices,” she admitted. “I did it just like you taught me this afternoon, but it didn’t work. I was certain I was just doing it wrong.”

  “Wrong or right, at that point it wouldn’t have made much difference.” Kenzie shifted on the couch, drawing her legs up under her. “You’d already let them all in. Hard to hold back the water when the dam’s already busted, you know?”

  Alex thought back to the sound of all those voices talking over each other and the amount of pain it inflicted. The memory alone was enough to make her anxious. The thought that it might happen again absolutely terrified her.

  The lamp sitting behind Kenzie launched itself off of the end table and shattered as it collided with the wall, causing both girls to jump.

  Hand over her heart, Kenzie took a deep breath. “Spending a few minutes training with Nate tonight probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.”