* * *
“You know, I used to own a pit bull. As I remember, he slobbered a lot less than your friend. Smelled better, too.”
From her spot on the balcony, Cassie peered through the cracked sliding glass door and into Aiden’s living room.
Connor lay sprawled on one end of the L-shaped couch, snoring like a buzz saw and drooling onto the cushions. Brian was asleep on the shorter leg, Connor’s bare feet inches from his face.
Cassie shook her head, wondering what Brian’s reaction would be when he woke to an eyeful of Connor’s size 12’s. She was surprised the aroma of Eau de Feet hadn’t already awakened him.
“You’d be wrong to assume that he’s any friend of mine,” she said, turning back around and leaning her weight against the railing.
Cassie had migrated to the apartment’s balcony after trying, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep in one of Aiden’s two recliners. Connor’s thunderous snore would have been enough to keep her awake all by itself, but she was soon facing a second problem.
Every time her eyes closed, she found herself somewhere else.
Blink.
The warehouse.
Blink.
The trunk of Brandt’s car.
Blink.
The dock.
Continuously reliving the events of the day had turned the prospect of sleep into a cruel joke. When Aiden slipped quietly through the living room and out the sliding door to the balcony, the choice to follow him had practically made itself.
“That sounded distinctly bitter.” Aiden’s green eyes shined with mirth. “Is he an ex?”
“Not mine.” She pulled the borrowed blanket tighter around her shoulders in a futile attempt to stave off the chill of the evening. A salty gust of wind dragged her long blonde hair behind her.
“Surely he’s not Kenzie’s ex?” Aiden arched a brow. “I wouldn’t have guessed him to be my cousin’s type.”
“Alex’s,” she corrected.
The sound of waves crashing against the shore drifted up from somewhere below.
Aiden smiled. “Ah, the mysterious Alex. She of the wavy hair and endless trouble.”
He spoke the words as though he were already familiar with Alex’s particular brand of trouble.
Cassie focused on the moon’s reflection on the water, the way the long column writhed and danced upon the crown of each breaking wave.
Aiden’s place might not have been all that big, but his view of the Pacific Ocean was to die for.
At least, she thought it was the Pacific.
She really ought to ask someone which Newport they were in.
“Do you usually get mixed up in these things?” she asked.
“More often than I’d like,” he said. “Anything for family and all that, but one day I’m gonna start charging them hazard pay.”
“You guys pretty close?”
He shrugged. “With Nate, I guess. He lived with me out in Seattle a couple years back. I got him a job on a fishing boat,” he smiled. “Had some interesting times, before he decided to go back to work for Grayson.”
“So is Nate your cousin, too?”
“In all the ways that matter. Nate’s mom died just after my aunt and uncle did, so he went to live with Grayson at the same time as Kenzie and Decks. To me, he’s family. Same with Brian in there. And Brian’s dad, too.” Aiden looked out over the water. “Grayson was more like a father to me than my own dad was.”
They stood there for a long while, side by side against the railing, lost in a companionable silence.
“So tell me, Cassie.”
“Hm?”
“How did you get mixed up in all this?”
This blanket wasn’t nearly warm enough. She stared down at her hands.
Blink.
The warehouse.
Cassie swallowed hard.
“I was Brandt’s leverage,” she said. “He wanted to draw Alex into a meeting… so he… so he kidnapped me to ensure that she’d show.”
Aiden’s good humor evaporated. She could feel him studying her in the low light as an uneasy silence settled over the two of them. Not knowing what else to say, Cassie gazed out over the water.
Her vision blurred.
Blink.
The trunk.
Something warm was dripping onto her forearm. Crap. She wiped furtively at her cheeks. She’d been able to hold it together this long. Falling to pieces in front of a guy she’d only just met was not an option.
It wasn’t.
She was stronger than this.
So why were the tears still coming?
“Want to talk about it?” he asked.
The question caught her off-guard. “You know you’re the first person who’s asked me that? Everyone else just wanted to know if I was ‘okay.’ What kind of question is that, anyway? Am I okay? A crazy man snuck up behind me in a parking lot, held an awful smelling rag over my face until I passed out, shoved me in the trunk of a car, and then left me tied up in an abandoned warehouse for the longest ten hours of my life. After that he burned my classmate alive right in front of my eyes.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. No stopping them now. “Oh, yeah, I’m okay. Life’s a friggin’ peach.”
“Hey,” said Aiden, his voice soft. Lifting one hand, he caught her chin and gently turned her face toward his. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe here.”
With a subtle wave from his free hand, Aiden summoned the tears cascading down Cassie’s cheeks into the space between them. The droplets swirled above his palm and then disappeared, evaporating into the cool night air.
Just as Brandt had controlled fire, Aiden could control water.
There was a hint of worry in his eyes, as though he wasn’t sure what her reaction might be.
She surprised both of them by taking a step forward, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face against his chest. After a moment’s hesitation, Cassie felt Aiden return the embrace, holding her tightly against him.
Safe.
For the first time since Brandt had taken her, she felt safe.
Arms still wrapped around Aiden, Cassie closed her eyes… and saw nothing.
Maybe she wasn’t so broken after all.
— 19 —
When Alex mentioned earlier that she’d rather be trained by Nathaniel, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind.
“Arm up,” said Nate. “What are you doing? I said to hold it taut, not to dislocate your shoulder.”
Nate was acting weird.
And, okay, Alex had only known the guy for two days. There was always an outside chance that he got moody and secretive about things all the time, and that this sudden turn for the pithy was nothing out of the ordinary.
But she didn’t think so.
“Tensing up like that won’t help,” he was saying. “Your arm is simply a tool to help you visualize and narrow the direction of your focus. It’s your mind that does the work. Now try again. Move the can.”
The can shuddered, teetering on the edge for one long moment before slipping off the wall and clinking against the flagstone. It continued to roll until it met with the toe of Nate’s boot.
“Is that what you were trying to do?” he asked doubtfully, staring down at the can.
Alex was starting to understand why sleep-deprivation was considered a form of torture. “Actually, I was trying to levitate it.”
“Huh,” said Nate. “Well, it’s a start, I guess.”
Alex couldn’t get the image out of her head.
She’d only stumbled across it by accident. It’s not as though she’d intentionally gone digging into Nate’s private thoughts. One moment, she was memorizing the image of the sun-drenched park in DC he’d offered her—and the next, she’d found herself somewhere else entirely.
Somewhere in the realm of his memories.
Nate bent to retrieve the can.
Alex had asked him about it, of course. How could she not?
When you stumble across a memory containi
ng a crystal clear image of yourself—dripping wet, decidedly unconscious, and sporting a blue-lipped look of death—in someone else’s mind…
Someone you’d only just met…
Well, it’s going to raise a few questions.
Questions that had been met with a look of blind panic from Nathaniel. Oh, he’d tried to hide his reaction, but the damage had been done. He knew exactly which memory it was that Alex had been referring to. And his response told her that the image she’d glimpsed had a story behind it.
A story that Nate wouldn’t be sharing with her any time soon, no matter how many times she might ask.
Alex returned her focus to the task at hand: figuring out how to move that stupid can. She’d get the truth out of Nate eventually. She’d just have to work out the logistics of how to do it later.
“So is Grayson coming back tonight?” asked Alex.
She sized up the soda can Nate had once again placed on the stone wall that lined the patio. He stepped back and she obediently raised her arm, preparing for her sixth attempt.
“Declan said Grayson would check in with us again tomorrow, but that he and Brandt had an errand to run,” said Nate. “Whatever that means.”
The idea that Grayson was out there somewhere with that monster—and that he was there willingly—had taken them all by surprise. There was something very strange going on and Alex was desperate to find out what it was.
Grayson had hinted that the man he was with might not have been the same man that she’d met. But if the man coming after her wasn’t Carson Brandt, then who was he?
“Come on, Alex,” said Nate. “Where’s your head right now? Focus.”
Alex pulled a face. No matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn’t move the lousy hunk of tin more than an inch in any direction.
Next to her, Nate’s shoulders quaked with silent laughter. It was the first time he’d cracked a smile in over an hour. “Relax, Alex. You look like you’re about to strain something. Remember what I said: you’re moving it with your thoughts, not with your actual muscles.”
Why was this so hard for her?
Telepathy had been a cinch, once Kenzie had shown her the ropes. Even her lessons with Declan hadn’t been this challenging.
It didn’t matter what she tried—the stubborn can simply wouldn’t move the way she wanted it to.
Someone yawned behind her. She turned to find Kenzie wrapped up in a blanket. Alex hadn’t heard her approach.
“And how’s our prodigy doing?” asked the redhead.
Nate gave a noncommittal grunt. “She’d probably be better with a full night’s sleep.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” said Alex. Her eyelids were growing heavier by the minute. “What time is it, anyway?”
“A little after two a.m.,” said Kenzie.
Geez. No wonder she was so tired.
“Has Declan made it back with Brian yet?” asked Nate.
Declan left shortly before Alex began training with Nathaniel, intent on taking Cassie and Connor home and bringing Brian back from Aiden’s.
The decision to send her friends back to Florida hadn’t been an easy one for Alex. After what had happened with Cassie, Alex wanted to keep her friends and family as close to her as possible—close enough that she could keep an eye on them.
Eventually, the others had convinced her that Cassie and Connor would be safer at home with their families and Alex relented. She still wasn’t certain she’d made the right decision.
Before Declan left, Alex asked him for two favors.
The first was to have Cassie call her at the cabin as soon as he dropped her off at home. After everything Cassie had been through today, Alex wanted nothing more than to hear the sound of her best friend’s voice and make certain that she was alright.
The second request was that Declan stop by Alex’s house and check in on her Aunt Cil.
She wasn’t answering at the house or on her cell phone and it was making Alex nervous.
Worry had started to sink its gnarled teeth into her, causing a tight knot to form in her chest. What if Brandt had come after her? Or the Agency? What if she hadn’t been able to jump in time?
A thousand different scenarios, each one worse than the last, played themselves out in her mind.
“They’re not back yet,” said Kenzie. “But Declan left ages ago. They ought to be home soon.”
Alex sure hoped so. She wasn’t sure her nerves were going to hold up much longer.
How did people in high-stress situations do it? Cops. Superheroes. Bruce Willis in all those Die Hard movies. How did they stay so cool and collected while the world was going mad all around them?
“Alright, Alex,” said Nate. “How about you give it one more go before we call it a night?”
Too tired to argue, Alex raised her arm and prepared for one last attempt.
A flash of light drove back the darkness. The electric blue flare heralding Declan’s arrival replaced the orange glow of the patio lights.
Alex jumped to one side as four bodies appeared in the air next to her and tumbled unceremoniously onto the flagstone. Wisps of smoke surrounded them, filling her nostrils with an acrid stench.
Declan, Brian, Aiden and Cassie lay sprawled on the patio deck, coughing fitfully and looking rumpled. For whatever reason, Declan was the only one of the four that was dripping wet.
“What happened?” asked Alex. “Are you guys alright?”
She knelt beside Cassie as the other girl struggled to sit up. She was fighting to catch her breath, but other than that, she appeared unharmed.
“I’m okay,” said Cassie, waving her off.
“We’re fine,” Aiden managed between coughs.
“Speak for yourself.” Declan sat with his arms resting on his knees, water leaking steadily from his clothes into a slowly expanding puddle beneath him, his face haggard.
“Wait.” Alex did a quick headcount. Their group was one short. “Where’s Connor?”
“I took him home,” said Declan.
Alex looked from Cassie to Declan and back again. He’d taken Connor home, but not Cassie?
“Honestly, Alex,” said Cassie, her voice droll. “Did you really think that I was just going to go back home and leave you here all alone? Mind you, I didn’t realize it would mean I’d come so close to getting roasted twice in a single day.”
Declan glared at Cassie. “I tried to take her home, but she seemed to have other plans. Your friend can be quite persuasive when she wants to be.”
Persuasive? Declan wasn’t the sort of guy you reasoned with. And she was pretty sure that the two of them couldn’t stand each other. So how had Cassie convinced him to let her stay?
“Cassie stole his wallet,” Brian explained. “Said she wouldn’t return it until Declan brought her back here.”
“That reminds me.” Declan held out a hand. “Wallet. Now.”
“Seriously, Cass?”
“Hey, it got me here, didn’t it?” she said, fishing a battered leather wallet from the back pocket of her jeans. She threw it at Declan’s head. “Think fast, Grumpy.”
He caught it with one hand and opened it to check the contents before slipping it back into his pocket, mumbling, “Klepto.”
“You okay, kid? You look a little… singed,” Kenzie was staring at Brian in concern.
Brian rubbed the top of his head, causing a handful of ash to fall from his hair. “All in one piece. No worries. Although we can’t really say the same for Aiden’s apartment. Pretty sure that one’s a total loss.”
Next to Cassie, Aiden rubbed his hands across his face and groaned. “I knew… I freaking knew I’d regret helping you guys. If that asshat so much as touches Norma Jean, you’re the first one I’m coming after, Decks.”
Declan stopped coughing long enough to stare daggers at his cousin. His wet hair was still dribbling water into his eyes. “How the hell was I supposed to know that Brandt would be able to follow me from Florida ba
ck to Newport?”
“Brandt?” Alex echoed.
The soda can took off like a shot and embedded itself in the trunk of a nearby tree. The others flinched.
“Whoa!” said Kenzie. “Breathe, Alex. Breathe. Before you take someone’s head off with an Adirondack chair or something.”
“Okay,” said Cassie, staring in surprise at the can’s remains. “That’s new.”
Alex tried to relax, but her nerves were becoming increasingly frayed around the edges.
It seemed ridiculous, but she was actually starting to miss the way things used to be, back when she only had to worry about the odd appliance getting fried.
Now she’d added flying projectiles to the list. What would she have to worry about next? Spontaneous combustion? Earthquakes?
Alex did as Kenzie suggested and sucked in a deep breath.
“I thought Brandt was with Grayson in Virginia?” said Nate.
“He is,” said Declan. “Or at least he was. When Grayson called earlier, he said that he was about to get some answers, but I’m still waiting on a phone call to find out what those answers were. All I know is that this was definitely the same guy that torched the bookstore and kidnapped Cassie.”
“Alright, but if Brandt’s still with Grayson, then who just came after you? Brandt’s even-more-evil twin?” asked Kenzie.
Declan shrugged.
“How did this happen?” asked Alex. “How did he even find you, Declan?”
“He was waiting for me at your place,” he said. “After I dropped Connor off, I went to see your aunt, like I’d promised. Nobody was home. I was stepping off your porch when I saw him standing at the end of your driveway, so I teleported back to Aiden’s. I thought I’d lose him with the jump.”
“Yeah.” Aiden’s voice was laced with bitterness. “Instead he rode your coattails back to Newport and started torching my apartment. Excellent plan, Decks. You’re a genius.”
“Dammit, Declan,” Nate spat. The anger Alex had sensed simmering quietly within him for the last hour had finally bubbled to the surface. “If he can follow you, then why the hell did you jump back here? You could have led him right to Alex.”
Brian shook his head, causing more ashes to fall from his brown hair. “We should be okay. Brandt jumped first,” he said. “Aiden had him pinned in a corner with this really big, really sharp chunk of ice.”
Alex eyed the soggy blonde sitting next to her, unable to contain her curiosity any longer. “Declan, why are you all wet?”
Instead of answering, Declan glowered at Aiden.
“So what happened to the apartment?” asked Kenzie. “Is it still burning? What about the other people in the complex?”
“Pretty sure that won’t be an issue,” said Cassie.
His anger momentarily forgotten, Aiden fixed Cassie with a rueful smile.
“Oh?” said Nate.
Aiden’s smile grew wider. “I, uh… Well, I sort of put the fires out before we jumped.”
His bad mood momentarily forgotten, Nate grinned. “Is there any water left in Newport? Or is it all in your apartment?”
Aiden gave a lazy shrug. “Probably safe to assume that I won’t be getting my deposit back.”
Nate and Cassie laughed.
“I don’t get it,” said Alex.
“Aiden can control water,” said Cassie, matter-of-factly, as though that were a completely normal thing for someone to be able to do.
Her friend seemed to be handling all these revelations with surprising alacrity. Alex wished she could say the same.
“Yeah,” Declan grumbled, shrugging off his moisture-laden coat. “And he can’t aim for shit.”
Aiden climbed to his feet and held out a hand to Cassie. “Hey, I told you to get out of the way, Decks. It’s not my fault you have the reflexes of an eighty-year-old woman.”
“Next time you need a quick escape, cousin, I’m going to remember you said that.”
Alex reached for Declan’s discarded coat and fished his cell phone from the pocket. It was damp, but it looked alright. She turned it on and dialed.
“Who are you calling?” he asked.
The others were headed inside, but Declan remained, watching her movements with interest.
“Aunt Cil,” she said. “I want to make sure she’s okay.”
Brandt had been at Alex’s house. Was that why her aunt wasn’t picking up the phone?
There was no answer at home or on her aunt’s cell. Alex left messages on both machines and wondered if there was anyone else she could call.
The phone buzzed in her hand. A text from her aunt.
DWBH, Lee-Lee. Am fine. Will call soon.
“D. W. B. H.?” asked Declan.
She gripped the phone.
When Alex had first gone to live with her aunt she’d been a wreck. For days Alex had cried nonstop, had refused to eat, and had been unable to sleep for anything more than an hour or two at a time.
Aunt Cil had been at the end of her rope, desperate to find something that would stop the deluge of tears.
And then, one night after tucking Alex tightly into bed, Aunt Cil had started humming a song.
Alex had recognized it instantly. The song had been one of her mother’s favorites. She’d started humming along and, within minutes, had fallen into the first night of restful sleep she’d had since her parents’ death.
“It stands for ‘don’t worry, be happy,’” she explained. “You know. Like the song. It means that she’s okay.”
Alex stared at the phone for a long moment before trying a third number. Declan was still watching her. She turned away from him and waited for an answer.
“Hello?” came a groggy voice.
“Connor!” she breathed. Alex ignored Declan’s derisive snort. “Are you okay?”
“Alex?”
The sound of rustling sheets reached her through the phone and she knew she’d woken him. Alex could picture him there in his darkened bedroom, sitting upright in bed, hair tousled from sleep, clutching his cell phone as worry set in and he struggled to wake up.
She hated that he’d been dragged into the middle of all this.
Was this what it was going to be like from now on? Always worrying about the ones she loved? Always fearing for their safety?
How was she supposed to keep them all safe when she could barely hold it together herself?
“I’m fine, Lexie,” he said. “Declan brought me home. Why? Is everything alright? Are you okay?”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “Everything’s fine. I just… I just wanted to make sure you got home alright. That’s all. I’m sorry to wake you.”
Declan was mumbling something under his breath.
“Goodnight, Connor,” she said softly, then hung up.
Alex handed the phone back to Declan. His expression was unreadable.
“What?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he jumped.
Exhausted, Alex got to her feet and trudged back inside.
— 20 —
Her cell was ringing again.
Cecilia Cross stared at the phone vibrating in her right hand, frowning as she recognized the area code. The phone stilled and the call went to voicemail.
Not answering was growing harder every time the phone rang.
Trouble was, she still hadn’t decided on what she would say when she finally found the courage to answer it. She couldn’t seem to come up with anything that wouldn’t potentially make the situation worse than it already was. So instead, she’d opted for silence.
She felt like a coward.
The light turned green and she hit the gas, dividing her focus between the rain-drenched roads and her cell phone, waiting impatiently for the message alert. Two minutes passed and still no notification. With a small sigh of relief, she slipped the phone back into the cup holder beside her.
If something had happened, Alex would have left a message. Cil was banking on the notion that no message mean
t there was nothing to worry about.
Well.
Nothing new to worry about, anyway.
Cil chewed at her thumbnail as she drove, squinting to see the blacktop through the torrential downpour and wishing, for the millionth time, that she’d handled all of this differently.
To hell with what Nora and James had wanted. Alex should have been told the truth about the family months ago.
Cil spent twelve years waiting for the day when her lies would fall apart. Waiting for the day when Alex would discover who she really was and what she was capable of.
When Alex hit sixteen, Cil had stopped worrying.
Sixteen years old and not a hint of either of her parents’ abilities. No electrical disturbances, no mysteriously moving objects. Just a beautiful young woman with a budding social life, a bright future ahead of her and an unwavering determination to make something of herself.
At first, Cil couldn’t believe her luck. She wasn’t sure what the odds were against two Variant parents giving birth to a child without abilities, but somehow, they appeared to have done just that.
Alexandra was wonderfully, impossibly, average, and Cil couldn’t be happier.
She was going to have that normal life her parents had wanted for her from the start—and she would never have to learn the truth.
In this instance, ignorance truly was bliss.
Then came the accident at the school.
Cil had hovered over her niece for the next week while she healed, under the pretense of keeping her still so she wouldn’t pull the stitches in her side. In reality, she’d had a second motive for sticking close to her niece: she needed to know for certain if the accident had been Alex’s fault.
For the first three days, nothing happened.
On the fourth day they had an argument. What it was about Cil couldn’t remember.
What she did remember was that bitter moment of surprise and the intense pain she experienced when, after laying a hand on Alex’s shoulder to calm her, her niece absorbed her energy and used it to short out every piece of electrical equipment in the room.
She should have told Alex the truth, then and there.
Instead, she’d kept her mouth shut. Cil told herself that she was keeping up the facade of normalcy for her sister’s sake, because it was what she and James had wanted so badly for their little girl.
But that was a lie.
In reality, she’d been afraid of how Alex would react to learning the truth. Afraid of how Alex would feel about the fact that she’d been lied to for so many years.
Cil was afraid of losing her.
And now?
She turned the car into the driveway of their home and cut the engine. The blue, two-story Victorian that she shared with Alex glistened black with rainwater in the pre-dawn gloom. Sighing, she stared up at the empty house.
Well, she might just have lost her, anyway.
The phone shook violently against the sides of the cup-holder, startling her. Only one pulse—she had a message.
Heart in her throat, Cil checked the phone.
It wasn’t Alex.
Grayson had sent her an image.
Before the image could be downloaded completely, there was another pulse. A text message appeared below the image, reading:
We need to meet. Be here as soon as you can.
The image finished loading. She scrolled up to examine it, then very nearly dropped the phone in surprise when she recognized where the picture had been taken.
The photo was of the dilapidated entrance of a disused mineshaft, burrowed into the side of a mountain and lit harshly by the flash of Grayson’s camera phone.
No, she thought desperately. Please, God, don’t let this be happening.
Phone still clutched in one hand, Cil was out of the car in the next instant. She took a breath to steady herself… and jumped.
The muggy coastal air had been replaced with the dry chill of a Virginia night in early spring. Cil crossed her arms over her chest as a breeze rushed through the branches of the trees overhead and realized, belatedly, that she really ought to have grabbed a jacket before she left.
Thoughts of outerwear fled her mind when she registered that there were, in fact, two figures waiting for her at the entrance. Grayson hadn’t come alone.
A flashlight was aimed in her direction. Cil raised a hand to cut the glare and tilted her head to see below it as she hesitantly approached.
“Grayson?” she called out. “Who’s—”
“Cecilia!” a familiar Scottish brogue replied. “Well, well. It is a night for surprises.”
“You!”
“It’s alright, Cil,” Grayson’s voice called. He pointed the light at the ground, illuminating her path as she approached. “Brandt’s not the one after Alex.”
She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved by that announcement, or terrified.
Judging from the fact that she was currently approaching the entrance to a place she only ever visited in her nightmares, she was leaning toward terror.
“You’re looking good, Cil,” Brandt drawled as she came to a stop next to Grayson. “The years have certainly been kind.”
“Stuff it, burnout,” she replied. Brandt was definitely the same letch she remembered.
“Lost none of that dazzling charm, I see,” he quipped.
How Grayson and the others had tolerated him back when they’d both worked as consultants for the Agency had been beyond her. Working with scumbags like Brandt was exactly why she’d only consented to work with the Agency on an as-needed basis. And even then, she’d only agreed to do so to appease her sister.
Brandt, on the other hand, had simply been in it for the money.
Cil had never trusted the Agency, even when the organization had still been in its infancy.
As it turned out, she’d been right not to.
“Alright, you two,” said Grayson. “To your corners. We’re all on the same side here.”
Grayson swung the flashlight around to focus on a patch of brush near the gate. He pushed aside the branches to reveal a hidden keypad.
“How’s Alex?” she asked as he typed in the code.
A heavy metal click resonated from the rust-covered door that sealed the entrance. Grayson swung it open. Only darkness lay beyond.
“Fine,” he said shortly. He led the way into the black, vanishing completely before being illuminated by a motion-activated florescent light. “At the cabin. Same as she was when I called to update you earlier.”
Cil followed Brandt across the threshold. The stone walls of the passageway seemed to insulate the cold, making the cramped entryway feel a good twenty degrees cooler than the air outside. She shivered.
Up ahead was a second door, this one equipped with a retinal scanner. Grayson ducked down to peer into the device.
“And after what happened with Cassie, do you really blame me for asking again?” She rubbed her arms in a futile attempt to warm them. “I just spent the last two hours apologizing to her poor mother, who called me—frantic—at midnight tonight, wanting to know where her daughter was. Do you know what I told her? That they went camping. Camping! Cassie hates camping! They both do! And it’s pouring down rain!”
Cil was aware that she was rambling. She couldn’t help it.
She knew what was waiting for them on the other side of that door. And she had a sinking suspicion that what they were going to discover when they finally made it past all the security protocols would be far more frightening than the wrath of Cassie’s irate mother.
“So this is a nice little reunion,” said Brandt, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Had I known we’d be getting the gang back together, I would have dressed for the occasion.”
Cil took a moment to look at him—to really look at him—and then appraised Grayson as well.
Brandt had a rip in his jeans and dried blood spattered across his wrinkled black dress shirt. Even Grayson looked worse for wear in his Burberry t
rench and designer suit, though he’d at least attempted to pull himself back together. His lip was split and he had the makings of a real shiner blossoming around his left eye.
“What on Earth happened to you two? Jesus, Grayson, you look like you just went five rounds with Mike Tyson.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Brandt. “She’s right, you know. You really do look like hell.”
Grayson didn’t answer. He was too busy glaring at the retinal scanner, arms akimbo and a scowl on his face.
“What’s the matter?” asked Brandt.
Grayson sighed. “They must have changed my clearance level. I no longer have access. We have maybe ten minutes to find a way in there before someone at the Agency figures out what we’re doing and comes to investigate.”
“Well, Miss Cross?” said Brandt. “It is still Miss, correct? Not Mrs.?”
Cil glared at him. “They’ve still got the EM shield up, Brandt. I can sense it from here. We can’t teleport inside.” She narrowed her eyes at the scanner. “But maybe we can try something else.”
Placing her hand on the side of the scanner, Cil began studying the inner-workings of the device, searching for the door control. Twenty seconds passed, then thirty.
“Not to trouble you, my dear,” said Brandt. “But we are operating under something of a time constraint here.”
Okay, so she was rusty.
The last time she’d attempted to use her powers to manipulate an electronic device had been two presidential administrations and a lifetime ago.
Another minute passed.
She couldn’t find the damn door control.
What she had found, however, was the component that would have been triggered had Grayson’s security clearance been high enough.
“Grayson,” she said. “Look into the scanner again.”
He did as she requested. Cil forced the approval and the door lock released with a hiss of air.
“Finally,” said Brandt, pulling the door wide.
“You’re welcome,” she shot back, following them through the entryway—and into a world she’d hoped never to see again.
The place was a tomb.
Cil stood frozen in place, just a foot inside the door. Fluorescent lights were coming on, panel by panel, gradually illuminating the long hallway as Grayson and Brandt forged ahead, making their way toward the silver elevator doors that glinted in the darkness at the end of the passageway.
The air was stale. Cil wondered how many years had passed since anyone had actually been down here. The entire complex was supposed to have been sealed up for good that snowy night, twelve years ago. The same night she’d helped Grayson and Brandt put an end to the horror that was Samuel Masterson.
As if reading her thoughts, the air filtration system in the ceiling above whirred to life, pumping in fresh air from above ground.
Glass partitions took the place of walls, demarcating the rooms on either side of the hall. She supposed the glass had been selected in an attempt to curb the feeling of claustrophobia that came with working beneath countless tons of solid rock. Instead, it gave their former headquarters all the hominess of a fishbowl, the contents of each room laid bare for all to see.
Desks, computers, file cabinets, a coffee pot on the counter in the break room… In its appearance, it was no different than any other office.
To look at it, you’d have no idea that their line of work had been anything but ordinary.
Her gaze lingered for a moment on a plain black picture frame that sat on a desk in an office to her right. James’s desk.
In the image, her sister knelt in the grass out front of their former home, arms wrapped tightly around a three-year-old Alex, as they both smiled up at James behind the camera.
“Coming, Cil?” called Grayson. He and Brandt were already at the end of the hall and stood waiting for her at the elevator.
She started walking, the sound of her heels clicking against the linoleum floors echoed in the quiet space. Cil found herself remembering a time when these offices had been filled with noise and movement and—more often than not—the sound of laughter.
Before Masterson’s reign of terror incited the higher-ups at the Agency to change their methods (quickly making them the bane of Variants everywhere), Grayson’s team had been a real force for good in the world.
Cil had worked with them often enough to see just how close the group had become in the eight years since the unit had been formed. Grayson hit the nail on the head when he’d described their bond to Alex earlier—they weren’t just co-workers. They were family.
The elevator opened.
It took every ounce of her resolve to step inside.
The doors slid closed. No going back now.
As they began their slow descent, Cil broke the silence. “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing here, Jonathan?”
Grayson’s choice to remain silent only served to confirm her fears.
“I should think the reason why we’re here ought to be fairly obvious by now, love,” said Brandt. “God knows we didn’t come back for the sheer nostalgia of it all.”
“It’s not possible,” she said quietly. “He’s dead, Brandt. Masterson is dead. We made sure he couldn’t come back.”
“You two are like broken bloody records, you are,” said Brandt. “You know, I never asked what measures you took to make sure he was truly dead. And honestly, I could have cared less how you did it, so long as the dog had finally been put down. But now that some bastard is out there masquerading with my face and sullying my good name—” Cil snorted at that. ‘Good name,’ indeed. “Well, personally, I’d like to know for certain that your measures were effective.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
One final blast door stood between the trio and the resting place of nothing less than pure evil.
Cil stared up at the massive metal door, curling her hands into fists to fight the trembling in her fingers. It was a scene from her nightmares, made all too real.
Doors like this one weren’t meant to be opened.
Another retinal scanner. Cil and Grayson repeated the process and, far sooner than Cil would have liked, she found herself walking into a massive room, empty except for a row of cryogenic chambers, standing upright at the center of the room.
Masterson’s numerous gifts had made killing him nearly impossible. Accelerated healing and a myriad of other defensive abilities meant that, even if you could stop his heart, he wouldn’t stay dead long.
In the end, a chemical cocktail, a little subterfuge, and a loaded gun had put him under just long enough for Grayson and Cil to transport him back to the mountain and place him in cryo-stasis—leaving him forever frozen in his temporary state of death.
Cil came up short. She wasn’t sure what was more surprising. That one of the formerly empty units was now active—containing the body of a man she couldn’t identify, because his face lay in shadow—or that Masterson’s unit wasn’t empty.
Samuel Masterson was still locked in his icy prison.
Grayson came to a stop in front of the unit, eye-to-eye with Masterson’s sleeping form.
“Well, now,” said Brandt. “There’s a twist.”
A pair of strong arms grabbed Cil from behind. One arm around her waist, the other reaching up to grip her by the throat. The arms were nearly translucent in the dim light, slowly shimmering into form. Another heartbeat, and the figure’s materialization was complete.
Cil craned her neck to peer up at her now visible captor.
Samuel Masterson’s face smiled down at her. “Hello, lovely,” he said in a quiet voice. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Samuel!” Grayson said with a start. His gaze traveled quickly from the man holding Cil, to the unit, and back again. “But how…?”
“I suppose I ought to start out by thanking you,” he said. “Been trying for ages to get in here. Couldn’t have done it without those magnificent eyes of yours, Jonat
han. Much obliged.”
“You followed us in here,” said Brandt.
“Invisibility sure is a neat trick, isn’t it?” he laughed.
“How are you here and in there at the same time?” asked Brandt.
“Christ, you three got old,” said Masterson, giving Cil a once-over as she struggled in his arms. “Especially you, John. I suppose raising four kids on your own will do that to a man. Oh, but then you weren’t alone the entire time, were you? There was that beautiful second wife of yours… the one you found to replace Mary. Now, what was her name? Lillian, wasn’t it? Pretty name for a pretty lady. You always did have a weakness for the pretty ones, didn’t you, John?”
“Shut up,” Grayson forced out through clenched teeth.
“Such a shame what happened to her,” he continued. “Nasty bit of business, that. Tell me, John. Did they ever find all the pieces?”
Masterson’s smile could have chilled the noontime desert.
Grayson gaped at him, the color draining from his face.
“No,” he continued. “No, I don’t suppose they could have. I scattered bits of her in places even you wouldn’t have thought to look. What can I say? I pride myself on my creativity.”
“God damn you,” whispered Cil. Masterson tightened his grip on her throat.
An alarm echoed through the large room. The blast door slammed closed and a locking mechanism clicked into place, sealing them inside.
The Agency had arrived.
“That would be our cue to hurry things along,” said Masterson. “Jonathan, if you would please assist me by opening up my cryo-unit? There’s a good chap. If you want Cil to live to see the dawn, you won’t get too creative with the reanimation sequence. It doesn’t need to go all the way through the cycle. You know as well as I do the body will start healing, no matter what state it’s in when you pull it out of there.”
Grayson walked slowly to the cylindrical towers. He punched something into the computer attached to Masterson’s unit and the glass case of the container slid open.
“Excellent, Jonathan. Thank you,” said Masterson. “Now, undo the restraints, lay the body on the floor, and step away.”
Grayson did as he was told.
Masterson released Cil, shoving her toward Brandt. Carson held out a hand to steady her.
As Masterson knelt to examine the body, Grayson pulled a gun from the inside of his coat.
“Please,” said Masterson, sounding bored. He raised a hand and, without bothering to look up, yanked the gun from Grayson’s grasp using telekinesis, turned it in mid-air and aimed it at Cil.
The gun fired, the report echoing through the empty space.
Cil fell to the ground as the bullet tore through her right thigh.
“Cil!” cried Grayson, moving toward her.
“Not another step,” said Masterson, finally glancing up. The gun floated through the air until it came to rest in his right hand. “That was very stupid, Jonathan.”
Grayson addressed Masterson, but his eyes never left Cil’s. “Are you going to kill us now, Samuel?”
“I told you, John. What fate has in store for you is far worse than anything I could whip up. Not that I don’t intend to give destiny a helping hand every once in a while. Lillian found that out the hard way, I suppose. Anyhow,” Masterson pulled his half-frozen duplicate into his arms. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up in the months to come. I have something quite special in store for all of you. If you’d be so kind, please tell my pet I’m looking forward to her next lesson.”
With that, the two Masterson’s disappeared, vanishing not in a flash of light, but instead fading like a mirage, until the space they’d once occupied stood empty.
Brandt was the first one to pull himself together. He strode quickly to Cecilia, putting an arm around her waist and hauling her to her feet. She cried out in pain.
“I’m afraid, love, that you’re our one and only ticket out of this place,” said Brandt, by way of an apology. He guided her, limping, to a control panel set into the wall beside the blast door. “Can you disable the EM shield from here?”
She put a hand to the panel. The exterior controls hadn’t offered her access to the security measures, but the computers inside the complex were a different story.
Cil found the shield’s controls and powered them down.
Easy as flicking a switch.
“Done,” she said, still leaning against Brandt for support. The pain in her leg was excruciating, but the bullet had only grazed her. She’d definitely seen worse.
“Grayson,” said Brandt.
Grayson was still staring dumbly at the place where Masterson and his doppelgänger had disappeared. “He played us,” he said. “From the beginning... he planned for all of this.”
“Grayson!” Brandt barked. “For god’s sake, Jonathan, snap out of it and get your boney arse over here, before we leave you behind.”
Breaking from his reverie with a determined look on his face, Grayson moved to join them.
Cil grabbed hold of his arm and jumped, leaving the scene of her nightmares behind. She was fairly certain she’d just collected enough new material to fuel fresh night terrors every night for the rest of her life.
— 21 —
“I was wondering where you’d disappeared to.”
Aiden O’Connell sat on the stone edge of a large rock waterfall, positioned at the very center of the atrium. It was rare that he found his way to the cabin these days. Rarer still that he found himself a welcome guest.
He returned the mass of water he’d been toying with to the fountain beside him. “Alex still asleep?” he asked.
“Fourteen hours and counting,” Nate answered, his shoes crunching on the gravel path as he approached.
“Yeah, well,” said Aiden. “We both know that’s nothing, for her.”
Nate smiled, handing him a mug filled to the brim with steaming black liquid.
“Coffee,” said Aiden after taking an appreciative sniff. “Thanks. I needed this.”
“Careful,” Nate replied. “Kenzie made it.”
Aiden frowned warily at the mug. He’d had Kenzie’s coffee before. It gave new meaning to the phrase “high octane.”
“So what happened to the roof?” asked Aiden, nodding toward a ten-foot stretch of blue tarp that covered the glass ceiling above them. It crinkled loudly as it whipped about in the wind outside of the enclosure.
“Declan happened,” said Nate. “Although I suppose I helped a bit.”
“Uh-huh,” said Aiden, taking a sip of coffee.
Nate settled onto the fountain’s edge beside Aiden, rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head low, staring at the ground. Aiden recognized the look—he was losing himself in the memories of days gone by.
The last rays of the evening sun filtered through the trees that surrounded the enclosure, creating an army of shadows that danced on the gravel pathway as the leaves above them trembled in the breeze.
This had been his home, once.
It hadn’t lasted long, but it had been the most peaceful six months that Aiden had ever known. Nate wasn’t the only one guilty of wishing he could go back in time and relive the past.
“I thought it’d be different, man,” said Nate, looking up.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Just… different. Easier.”
“You told her anything yet?”
“How could I?” he asked, a bitter edge to his voice. “I say the wrong thing, and he dies.”
“Yeah,” said Aiden. “Or you say nothing, and she does.”
“We don’t know that,” said Nate. “Not for certain. Besides, how do we know what the wrong thing to say even is?”
Silence settled over them. They’d had this argument before. Aiden wasn’t sure if they’d ever agree on what action to take. One thing was certain, though. Now that Alex had finally arrived, they were running out of time to make a decision.
“She saw som
ething in my head last night,” said Nate. “Kenzie had her digging around for a location for Declan. Somehow she managed to glimpse an image from Seattle.”
“What did she see?”
“Probably the worst thing she could have.” He heaved a sigh. “She saw herself on the deck of the Misty Rose.”
“What? What did you tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her anything. I just refused to answer her and then I changed the subject as fast as I could.”
“Well, shit.” Aiden raked a hand through his hair. He was all for telling Alex what he thought she needed to know, but that particular piece of information he’d planned on leaving out.
The door to the house opened and Kenzie stepped through. “Yo, Nate!” she called over to them. “The boss is back. Family meeting in five.”
Aiden and Nate got to their feet.
His cousin walked on for a short ways, then turned when he realized Aiden hadn’t followed.
“What is it?” he asked.
Aiden smiled. “Think now would be a bad time to ask Grayson how he plans on paying for my apartment?”