* * *
Alex reached the surface first and swallowed a lungful of icy air.
The frigid water and the cold, crisp air made for a jarring contrast to the oppressive heat they’d left behind in the bookstore.
Her mind reeled, a thousand different questions running through her head. Where were they? How had they gotten here? Better yet, how was she going to get back? If she didn’t show up at home in the next twenty minutes or so, Cassie and Aunt Cil were going to freak.
Treading water was proving difficult. Her satchel and clothes weighed her down and her muscles had already begun to cramp in response to the cold. Fat lot of good that bathing suit was doing her under her layers of clothes. She hadn’t exactly been dressed for a swim.
She scanned the shoreline for the closest way out of the water. Roughly one hundred feet to her right a dock jutted out from the tree-lined shore. It seemed as good a place as any and she started toward it.
Her rescuer surfaced in the middle of her path and she swerved to avoid him.
“Hah! What a rush.” He ran a hand through his wet hair, grinning from ear to ear. “Why are you just sitting there? This water’s cold.”
She stared at him blankly. He started for the dock.
The rush of gratitude she had felt toward him for saving her from certain death in the bookstore was now warring with an uncharacteristic urge to smack that idiotic smirk off his face.
Grateful though she might be, he’d still just dropped her into the icy waters of a lake in the middle of nowhere, over a hundred feet from the shore.
And for whatever reason, he seemed to find it funny.
All around the lake, mountains towered high above, limiting the horizon to a blue circle of sky. The early evening sun was already threatening to dip below a distant prominence. Wherever they were, it wasn’t Florida.
“Where in God’s name are we??” she demanded. Cassie wanted moxie? Well, Alex was bursting with it right about now. “What just happened? Who was that fire-happy psycho in the bookstore?"
Her words came out at a stutter through chattering teeth. Great. She’d aimed for intimidating and hit cold and waterlogged instead.
“And who are you, anyway?” She tried her best to sound assertive. “Better yet, what are you? How did you bring us here?”
He paused mid-stroke and glanced back at her, his self-satisfied grin faltering, but only for a second. Instead of answering her questions he made for the dock again.
Alex continued to tread water for another moment and then resigned to following him. What choice did she have?
They were still a good fifty feet out when an angry voice echoed across the lake.
“Dammit, Declan!”
The smug smile was wiped from her dubious hero’s face.
Declan? So he had a name.
A forty-something man in an immaculate black suit and gray peacoat was making his way down the dock. He was handsome, though not in any traditional sense. The man was tall and lean, lanky, but with an air of purpose and authority that made him appear larger than he was. His walnut-colored hair was going grey at the temples and his thin mouth and weathered features intensified the scowl on his face.
With a grunt of annoyance, Declan resumed his swim to the dock. His strokes sent him quickly through the water, despite being weighed down by wet clothes and a pair of boots.
He made it look easy.
Alex followed, her progress slow and awkward.
After nearly twelve years in Florida, Alex was well accustomed to being in the water. She’d even been on her school’s swim team the year before, helping them to the state championship for the first time in ten years.
Then again she hadn’t been doing laps in the school’s swimming pool fully clothed with a satchel roped around her.
Her savior, not surprisingly, reached the dock first.
“The lake, Declan? Really?” The man knelt at the edge of the platform, offering his hand. Alex could hear the hint of an accent that she couldn’t quite place. “You couldn’t find a better spot to reappear?”
Declan took the man’s outstretched hand and, bracing his other hand on the dock, hauled himself from the water and onto the platform in one fluid motion.
The younger man sat down with a thud and peeled off his saturated jacket. Alex gripped the edge of the dock, trying not to notice the way Declan’s thin white t-shirt was now clinging to his well-defined torso.
She’d known the guy a grand total of five minutes and he’d already left her with a sour first impression. The last thing she ought to be doing right now was ogling his six-pack.
Alex shoved all musings about Declan’s physique to the back of her thoughts and finally registered what the tall man had said.
They could have reappeared somewhere else? Declan chose to drop them in the lake?
Oh, yeah. Her first impression had definitely been the right one.
“Carson Brandt was there,” Declan said, wringing the water out of his coat. “Had her cornered.”
The twisting motion called her attention to his biceps.
Cursing her traitorous hormones, Alex tried to derail that train of thought with an attempt to pull herself from the water under her own weight.
Her arms gave out a few seconds in and she slipped beneath the surface.
Well, that was embarrassing. If she could look any more pathetic to these people, she wasn’t sure how. Alex slicked back her hair. Declan was still wringing out his jacket and hadn’t seemed to notice.
A cold breeze ripped across the surface of the lake and, suddenly, Declan’s muscles weren’t nearly so distracting. She needed to get out of this water before hypothermia set in.
The tall man nodded. “But the lake, Declan?”
“The building was going up in flames.” He squinted up at the man in the suit, the glare of the sun in his eyes. “She could have been on fire.”
The man chose to ignore this and turned to help Alex from the water, resigned.
“For the record,” said Alex through chattering teeth, “I was not on fire.”
She tossed her satchel onto the deck, took the tall man’s outstretched hand and—in a maneuver that only slightly resembled the one Declan had just demonstrated—launched herself from the water and tumbled onto the dock.
“I knew I should have sent Nathaniel with you.” The older man shrugged off his coat and placed it around Alex’s shoulders.
“Hey, I got her out didn’t I? She’s here. She’s in one piece.”
More or less, she thought to herself.
Alex tried to wring some of the water from her hair, crinkling her nose as she plucked a slimy clump of algae from her dark brown tresses. She tossed the disgusting glob back into the lake and dropped the tangled, still-dripping mess that was her hair in resignation.
“She’s fine,” said Declan, defensive. “You’re fine, right?”
She gave him a look. “Peachy.”
“See? Both Alex and her astounding wit have made it here intact. Her sense of humor seems to be M.I.A., but I’m pretty sure that was a pre-existing condition.” Declan got to his feet and headed toward the shore. “Mission accomplished.”
Alex glanced up at the man in the suit. His eyes followed Declan’s progress, scowl still firmly in place.
“Um, hello?” said Alex.
The man in the suit turned to face her.
“Hi. Excuse me, but... what just happened? Where am I?”
His expression softened.
“Of course. I apologize. I’ll explain everything once we get back to the cabin.” He helped Alex to her feet. “My name is John Grayson. No need to tell me yours. I already know quite a bit about you, Alexandra Parker.”
He ignored her look of surprise.
“You must be freezing. Let’s get you inside. I know you have questions for us. I promise, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know just as soon as you’re settled. You’ll be safe here for the time being.”
&nb
sp; “Safe? Safe from what?”
“Like I said. Once you’re warm. I’ll answer your questions then. Do you prefer Alex or Alexandra?”
“Alex,” she said, gathering up her saturated messenger bag and adjusting the oversized coat that hung from her shoulders.
Alex wasn’t about to wait until they reached the cabin. She wanted answers now. Figuring that by asking questions with a yes or no answer she might be able to wheedle a bit more information out of him, she tried again.
“Did you send Declan to follow me?”
“I did.”
“To keep me safe?”
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t supposed to bring me back here, was he?”
Grayson’s mouth was a thin line. “His job was to evaluate the situation and to ensure your safety. He wouldn’t have brought you here if there had been another way. Although dropping you in the lake…”
“I’m guessing you don’t welcome all your guests this way?”
His expression became rueful. “Declan’s turned getting under people’s skin into something of an art form.”
“I get that.” She tried to smile, but her teeth were still chattering too hard. It came out more like a grimace. “I’ve only just met him and already I’d like to shoot him.”
Grayson offered her a watery smile and started off in the direction Declan had vanished.
Alex followed after him, hesitant, but freezing. Her Converse All-Star’s squeaked, wheezed and oozed lake water with every step. “Inside” promised warmth and the potential for dry clothes. That won out over hypothermia any day.
— 5 —
Alex huffed as she struggled to keep pace with Grayson’s long strides, lungs burning as her exhalations formed hazy clouds of mist in the thin mountain air.
Sunlight trickled through the rustling branches of the trees above, creating dancing pools of light on the forest floor. As the wind picked up, Alex pulled her borrowed coat tighter around her shoulders.
The trail leading to the cabin snaked its way at a steep incline through the forest and she soon found herself focusing less on her guide, and more on her unsteady footing. Large amounts of melting snow had left the well-worn path slick with mud and pockmarked by puddles of standing water.
Alex stumbled along behind Grayson, her flat-soled shoes offering little in the way of traction.
“Not much further now,” he said.
The rush of adrenaline that had flooded her system earlier was letting up, but this unexpected exercise had kept her blood pumping. She felt relatively warm despite the wet and the cold.
A short ways ahead of them Declan had paused to retie a bootlace.
Grayson had noticed him, too. Alex could tell, because the preoccupied expression he’d worn for most of the walk had morphed into one of vexation.
Declan straightened, picked up his canvas jacket and continued walking, now only a few yards ahead of them.
Alex gasped.
They had emerged from the wooded path into the mouth of a small clearing. At the top of two stone staircases stood a sprawling structure that—Alex could only assume—was the cabin Grayson had referred to.
Cabin wasn’t the word for it. Mansion came closer.
Alex had seen cabins before.
In fact, she was quite familiar with one in particular.
Every year during summer break, Aunt Cil would drag her to a tiny mountain town in North Carolina for two weeks to “get away” from the fast pace of the city. The cabin had two bedrooms, no phone, ropes on the bathroom doors in place of doorknobs, wood siding, a tin roof and a window air-conditioning unit that never seemed to cool a radius wider than three feet.
This was not her aunt’s summer cabin.
Alex stopped in her tracks and took in the sight before her.
The massive three-story home stood flush against the mountain, paneled in richly stained dark cedar and marked with stonework accents. With its immaculate grounds and unique features, it looked like something straight off the cover of an Architectural Digest magazine.
Who were these people?
Declan was now almost twenty feet ahead of them, making his way up the first of the two stone staircases.
Where the first staircase emptied out there was an open area just large enough to accommodate a neatly stacked woodpile and a small, shed-like structure built in the same style as the house above.
Next to the woodpile, a guy around Declan’s age stood splitting firewood. Despite the chilly weather, he was wearing only a pair of jeans and a black tank top. A gray, long-sleeved henley was tied around his waist. His olive complexion and short black hair set him apart from both Declan and Grayson in appearance.
When Declan reached the top of the first set of stairs he lowered the axe.
“Hey, you’re back! How’d it go?” He took in Declan’s soggy appearance with thinly veiled amusement. “The hell happened to you, man? Why are you wet?”
“Oh, you know. Walked through fire, rescued the girl, went for a swim.” Declan walked past him and started up the second stairway. “Just another day at the office.”
Alex looked him over as she approached.
Like Declan, he was gorgeous. Unlike Declan, there was an obvious kindness in his dark brown eyes. Those weren’t the eyes of someone who’d rescue her from the fiery clutches of death only to drop her into a frigid lake for a laugh and the sheer rush of it all.
She liked him already.
The dark-haired teen turned his gaze on Alex… and the axe slipped from his hand, falling to the ground beside him with a muted thump.
He stared at her, mouth open in a small “o” of surprise. Recognition blazed in his eyes.
He said something then that she didn’t quite catch and the look of wonder was wiped from his face. Schooling his expression, he offered her a slow smile instead.
What was that about? She was certain she’d never seen him before. A guy like this, she would have remembered.
“You brought company,” he said.
“So I did,” Declan called over his shoulder. “Now put a shirt on, before your fugliness sends her screaming back into the lake.”
Declan’s joking aside, it was as though some perfectly chiseled Greek god had descended from Mount Olympus and now stood before her, chopping firewood. If Cassie had been here, nothing short of Armageddon would have prevented her from flirting with him.
Cassie.
She was probably wondering where Alex had disappeared to, right about now.
“Alex, I’d like you to meet Nathaniel Palladino.” Grayson gestured toward the axe-wielding Adonis. “Nathaniel, this is Alex.”
Alex glanced down, feeling self-conscious. Between her drenched clothes and Grayson’s too-large jacket swallowing her petite form, she was likely exuding all the sex appeal of a drowned rat in a peacoat.
“Nice to meet you,” said Nathaniel. He stuck out a hand as they approached.
“You too,” she said. His hand was warm and his grip firm, but gentle. She could feel calluses on his palm.
Nathaniel jerked his hand back with a quiet curse. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I mean, I… My hands are disgusting,” he said finally. “You know… Tree sap.”
“Oh,” she said, surprised and a little confused. “It’s fine. Really.”
A flash of color caught her eye.
Up above, two figures peered over the railing that surrounded the patio balcony. The first was a girl who was probably as old as Alex, with flaming auburn hair cut in a drastic swing bob—longer in the front than the back. She smiled down at Alex and held up what looked like a towel.
The other figure was a young boy with mousy brown hair and bright blue eyes made owlish by the large glasses perched atop his nose. He waved at her. She waved back.
“That’s Kenzie and Brian,” said Nathaniel, following her gaze. He eyed the towel. “Looks like Kenzie knew you were coming.”
Declan reached the top of the stairs and the bo
y, Brian, ran over to greet him, towel in hand. She watched as Declan ruffled his hair and the two disappeared from her line of sight.
Nathaniel picked up the fallen axe and gave it one final swing, lodging it into a nearby stump.
“Are you all … family?” she asked slowly. They were an odd bunch, with only Brian bearing any resemblance to Grayson.
“In a manner of speaking.” He untied the arms of the henley and slipped it over his head. “Grayson sort of… took us in… when we were kids. All but Brian. Brian’s his son from his second marriage.”
“You mean you, Declan and Kenzie are all…?”
“All orphans?” He seemed unfazed by the question. “Yeah. We are.”
He looked at her as though he wanted to say something more, but thought the better of it. “Come on. You must be freezing.”
Alex glanced back over her shoulder as she mounted the first step and was rewarded with a beautiful vista of the forest and the lake below. The view would have been far more inviting had she not just gone for an unscheduled swim in those shimmering black waters.
“You must be Alex,” came a voice from above.
At the top of the stairs, Kenzie stood waiting, her arm outstretched and a towel in her hand. Alex accepted it gratefully.
“I’m Kenzie.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Alex. “Thanks for the towel.”
The girl quirked a smile. “I’d like to apologize for my idiot brother.”
Alex couldn't hide her confusion. Which brother was she referring to, exactly?
“The moron that dumped you in the lake,” she explained. “We really don't welcome all our guests that way.”
The statement was a word-for-word echo of what Alex had asked Grayson earlier.
Kenzie’s cheeks blazed the same color as her hair. “Yeah, suppose I ought to explain… I've sort of been eavesdropping on your conversations since you got here.”
Alex glanced back toward the pathway. The lake was nearly a five-minute walk from where they now stood. How could she possibly have heard their conversation?
“I didn’t,” she said, answering Alex's unspoken question. “Well, I mean I didn't technically hear you, per se. Technically I read your mind. I've sort of been spying on your thoughts since you arrived.”
“Kenzie,” Nathaniel admonished.
“I know, I know.” Kenzie sighed. “Sorry, Alex. Promise to stay out of your head from now on. Curiosity got the better of me. When I heard Declan get back and I realized that he had brought you back with him… I couldn't help myself.”
Alex probably should have felt violated—or at least a little incredulous—but after having been transported from Florida to god-knows-where in a brilliant flash of light… well, a nosy telepath seemed about par for the course. This whole situation felt surreal.
“You can read minds?”
Alex conducted a quick inventory of the thoughts she’d had since arriving.
Oh, geez. Declan’s abs. Nathaniel’s god-like good looks. She’d heard all that?
Alex turned ten shades of red at the realization.
Maybe the whole thing was just some sort of parlor trick. Maybe Kenzie had just made a lucky guess. Any explanation would be preferable to the alternative right about now.
“Not to worry, chica.” Kenzie winked at her. “Your secrets are safe with me. And I promise—no more going into your head without your permission. If you want, I can even teach you how to block people like me from getting in.”
“Hey, Nate!” Declan’s voice called from the cabin’s front entryway. “Heads up!”
A bottle of Gatorade spiraled through the air, heading straight for the back of Nathaniel’s head. He turned, but not quickly enough. There was no way he’d be able to get his arms up to catch it in time.
Alex’s eyes widened in surprise.
The bottle of red liquid had come to a complete standstill and now hung suspended, frozen in place, a few short inches from Nathaniel’s nose.
He plucked it from the air a moment later.
“For Alex,” said Declan. “Grayson thought she could use it.”
Alex blinked. Had she really just seen that? Or were her eyes playing tricks on her?
Nate offered her the bottle.
First Declan zaps her out of a burning bookstore and then Kenzie potentially reads her mind. Now Gatorade bottles were defying gravity and Newton’s first law of motion?
Gingerly, she accepted the beverage.
“You’re wondering what just happened.” Nathaniel’s smile was almost apologetic.
“Did you just…?” Alex couldn’t find the words to finish her question. What, exactly, had he done?
“Suppose I ought to explain.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You see, everyone here can do something kind of… special. Kenzie reads minds, Declan teleports, Grayson and Brian can see glimpses of the future—”
A gentle tug pulled the unopened Gatorade bottle from her hands and thrust it back into the air. It hung there for a moment before falling slowly back down to her.
“And I’m telekinetic,” he finished. “I can move objects with my mind.”
She stared at him dumbly, wondering if her day could possibly get any weirder.
“Oh,” said Alex. She had no idea what to say. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed it. “Okay, then.”
Kenzie laughed. “Come on, Nate. Let’s get her inside before the cold air and all our weirdness sends her into shock.”
Alex allowed them to lead her through the main entryway and into the cozy warmth of the cabin. They stepped into a spacious living area, lined with hardwood floors, softly lit and filled with wrought-iron furniture. Comfortable-looking leather couches faced a large stone fireplace at the center of the room and a kitchen table sat off to one side. Against the left side of the far wall, an oval pass-through window offered a glimpse into the kitchen.
Her gaze traveled upwards.
A cathedral ceiling towered high above, one massive wrought-iron chandelier hanging from its center. The second floor was open to the living room, the banister-lined hallway providing those upstairs a birds-eye view of the downstairs living area.
Despite the intimidating beauty and size of the house, it was most definitely a home.
In the dining area, she noticed a backpack sitting next to the kitchen table, textbooks and a laptop spread out on the tabletop. A jacket was slung over the back of the loveseat, a variety of tennis shoes and boots were sitting next to the front door beneath the coat rack, pictures of the four kids and Grayson sat on the end-tables, and there was a fire roaring in the fireplace.
Fire.
Alex shivered despite the warmth, unable to look away from the crackling flames. Had she really almost died in that bookstore?
It all seemed so impossible. The way the fire had followed her down the aisles as though it had come to life and was determined to envelop her. The way the man had controlled it so completely, the flame not even burning his palm as it hovered less than an inch above his skin. The way Declan had transported them from the bookstore to the lake in a blinding flash of light.
A creaking sound interrupted her thoughts and she tore her gaze from the hearth.
Grayson was coming down the staircase.
From the corner of her eye, Alex could see Declan and Brian standing in the kitchen.
“Kenzie, would you mind finding some clothes for Alex to borrow? And show her to one of the spare rooms upstairs. Prove to her we’re not completely lacking in our hospitality when it comes to greeting guests.” Grayson sent Declan a pointed look through the pass-through window.
Declan only smiled.
Kenzie took the now soaked peacoat from her shoulders and hung it on the coat rack. “Allons-y!” she said, making for the stairs. “Next stop: dry clothes and a hot shower.”
Alex had a million questions still to ask about what had happened at the bookstore, about where she was and who
they were and about how she was going to get home—but right now, the offer of a warm shower and dry clothes was too enticing to ignore.
The aching cold Alex had been experiencing since their splashdown in the lake had left her feeling weak and increasingly disoriented, her thoughts becoming harder and harder to organize. A chill had settled over her and she was starting to think that even the heat being produced by the large fire wouldn’t be enough to warm her.
That worry she’d had earlier about suffering from hypothermia now seemed very real. She needed to get out of these wet clothes.
Shower first.
Then she wanted some answers.
— 6 —
The bathroom had become a sauna.
Alex sat on the tiled floor, wrapped in a terry-cloth robe she’d found hanging on the back of the door, wondering what she should do next and trying hard to feel warm again.
She was currently weighing the pros and cons of making a break for it.
Sure, Grayson and his family seemed nice enough. But who were they, really? And could she trust them?
A simple look around earlier had made it clear that she was far—unbelievably far—from home. They didn’t make mountains like these in the Sunshine State.
So how was she going to get back home again, without Declan’s help?
She could sneak out and pray that the others, Kenzie especially, failed to notice.
But then what?
The cabin was surrounded on all sides by an ocean of trees—a forest so vast she hadn’t been able to see to the end of it. If she chose the wrong direction, she could end up hiking for days before she found help.
Alex frowned.
They’d given her no reason not to trust them. If anything, Grayson and his family seemed like they genuinely wanted to help. And she liked them. Especially Kenzie and Nathaniel.
As for Declan… Well, he might be an incorrigible jerk, but he had saved her life. That should count for something, right?
Her mind made up, Alex stepped out of the en-suite bathroom and back into the sizable guest room. Grayson had promised her answers, but she wasn’t going to learn anything by hiding out in there.
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. Laid out on the bed were a pair of jeans, a black camisole, a hairbrush and a zip-up hoodie.
Dry clothes!
As she slipped into them she made a mental note to thank Kenzie, then wondered if the other girl hadn’t just heard her, anyway.
Moving to exit the room, Alex made it halfway to the door before something caught her eye—ten feet away, standing upright in its charger atop one of the mahogany dressers, was a cordless phone.
By her count she was almost an hour late for meeting Cassie back at the house. Knowing her overprotective aunt the way she did, the odds were good that half the town had already taken to the streets in search of her. And if they knew about the fire in the bookstore…
On impulse Alex crossed to the phone, plucked it from the charger, and dialed.
Her aunt answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Aunt Cil? It’s me.”
“Alexandra! Thank goodness! Where are you, honey?”
Alex hesitated.
She suddenly had no idea what to tell her.
“I’m… I’m not exactly sure,” said Alex. “Before I tell you what happened, you need to promise me that you’re not going to freak.”
“Freak? Why would I freak, Lee-Lee? What’s happened?”
Alex grimaced. “I went to Ballard’s like you asked.”
“I am aware of that, Lee-Lee.” Cil’s patience had obviously worn thin. “Cassie told me as much.”
“Well, I was at the bookstore,” said Alex, deciding in that moment to give her aunt the Cliff’s Notes version of the story, “and this crazy Scottish guy started torching the place while I was in it—”
“What?”
Whoops. Definitely could have worded that better.
“But it’s okay!” Alex said hurriedly. “This other guy sort of… well he showed up, out of nowhere, and he managed to get me out of the building before I was hurt.”
“Where are you now, Lee-Lee? Why didn’t you just come back to the house? Oh, god. You’re in the hospital, aren’t you?”
Alex could hear her aunt snatching up a set of keys on the other end of the line.
“No, no! Imnotatthehospital,” she said in a rush. “I’m fine!”
This was definitely not going the way she’d hoped.
“Then where are you? Why haven’t you come home?”
Alex let out a slow breath. How do you go about telling someone that you’ve pulled off the ultimate disappearing act and teleported to the middle of nowhere, with the help of some mysterious stranger… and not sound like a prime candidate for the psych ward?
Yeah.
Alex didn’t know either.
“See, that’s the thing. This guy… He can sort of disappear into thin air and reappear somewhere else.” Alex winced.
Her aunt was going to think she was nuts.
“He took us someplace safe,” she finished lamely.
Alex waited for her aunt to say something. When no reply came she kept going, the words tumbling out.
“I know it sounds crazy, but he sort of… zapped me here.” She glanced around the elegantly decorated spare bedroom. Wherever here was. “I’m pretty sure I’m a long way from home right about now.”
“Where are you?” Her aunt’s voice had turned hollow.
“Some cabin.” Alex wandered to the windowsill. “We’re in the mountains. Near a lake. I’m still not sure where, exactly.”
The line went dead.
“Aunt Cil?”
Silence.
Alex hung up the phone, turned it back on, and redialed. Halfway through the second ring the sound of raised voices carried up the stairs. Curious, Alex left her place at the window and walked out into the hallway. She came to a stop at the banister and stared wide-eyed at the scene unfolding downstairs.
The phone clattered to the hardwood floor, forgotten.
“What were you thinking bringing her here, Jonathan? Of all the idiotic, irresponsible—”
“And hello to you, too, Cecilia,” Grayson sounded tired. “Long time.”
“Aunt Cil?”
Declan and Nathaniel wandered into the living area from the kitchen. Alex barely noticed. Her eyes were glued to the frazzled form of her aunt standing in the room below.
Alex gripped the banister railing for support. “How did you…?”
Her aunt finally looked up. “Alex!” she cried.
Alex watched in disbelief as Cil took one step forward and disappeared in a ripple of violet light. A split-second later she had reappeared on the landing beside her.
Cil pulled her into a fierce hug before Alex could react.
“Oh, Lee-Lee!” Her aunt pushed her back to arms length, looking her up and down. “Are you alright? You’re not hurt are you?”
Alex’s head was spinning. “I… You… How did you do that?”
She heard Declan address Grayson downstairs. “You never told me she had Variants in her family tree. Or that she was that Alexandra.”
Declan sounded angry. But why? Which Alexandra was she supposed to be, exactly? And what was a variant?
“Need-to-know,” Grayson replied. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, Lee-Lee,” her aunt said again. She was staring at Alex, a mix of grief and fear in her expression. “You weren’t supposed to find out. Not like this.”
Cil reached for her arm, but Alex shrank back, just out of her reach.
“Find out what, Aunt Cil?” Alex continued backing away from her aunt, eventually running out of room and bumping into the hallway wall. “What’s going on? Since when can you do… that? How do you know these people?”
Grayson was making his way up the stairs.
Cil looked helplessly from her niece to the dark-haired man. Alex thought she could see tears
welling up in her aunt’s eyes.
“There are some things you need to know, Lee-Lee. Things I was hoping I’d never have to tell you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her aunt sighed. “I thought you’d be safe so long as I stayed out of it and you stayed ignorant to the truth. But I guess that’s no longer an option.” The look she sent Grayson was icy. “Our family’s a little… different. Your mom and I, we were both born with the ability to teleport—to move instantaneously from one place to another.”
Alex nodded slowly, trying to turn off the cynical voice of reason that was loudly protesting this turn of events in the back of her thoughts. This morning, such a declaration from her beloved aunt would have had Alex calling Dr. Moran—the psychiatrist Alex had been forced to visit for years after the death of her parents—and scheduling Aunt Cil for the next available appointment.
But now…
She’d just seen the laws of physics shattered for the fourth time in a single evening.
The thing was, this time she couldn’t write it off as some stranger with a parlor trick. This was family. This was her family.
And if her mom and her aunt were different, then what did that make Alex?
Declan was standing by the front entryway downstairs watching them, his hazel eyes intent.
Nathaniel walked up beside Declan and placed a hand on his shoulder. He nodded toward the door.
Declan’s gaze didn’t waver.
Nathaniel glanced upwards. Catching her eye, he sent her a brief, sympathetic smile before exiting. A few long, silent moments passed before Declan finally looked away and followed him outside.
Alex closed her eyes and tried to focus on what her aunt was telling her.
“Teleport,” said Alex. “Like Declan. That’s how I got here, right? Teleportation?”
“Yes, sweetie. Like Declan,” she said slowly. “Declan and Mackenzie’s parents, Nathaniel’s mother, your parents… They all worked together when you four were kids.”
“Parents?” she asked. “Plural? As in, my Dad, too?”
“Your Dad, too. He was telekinetic. He could move objects with his thoughts.”
Like Nathaniel.
“Wait. If Nathaniel and Declan can do the same things as my parents, does that mean… Are we related somehow?”
Cil shook her head. “No. Teleportation and telekinesis are actually two of the more common abilities that Variants possess. And for the type of work your parents were doing… Well, those skills were very useful.”
Alex swallowed the information, feeling numb. Eventually her thoughts circled back to the second part of what her aunt had said. The bit about all of their parents having worked together.
“What sort of work did they do?”
Cil pursed her lips and looked once more to Grayson. He cleared his throat.
“Twenty-two years ago, I’d just emigrated from England and was working for the NSA.” He looked uncomfortable. “The United States government had been aware of people like myself, your parents and your aunt… of individuals with unusual talents, for quite some time. They referred to us as Variants—human beings whose DNA possessed slight variations from a normal human’s genetic code. Variations that allow us to do incredible things.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “On account of my history with the NSA and my precognitive abilities, I was selected to head a newly formed bureau—one that would employ Variants in an attempt to aid the NSA, and other government organizations, with sensitive missions where our skills might prove… useful.
“The Agency started off small. Just a handful of us, really. Some paper-pushers to handle the bureaucratic affairs in the office and a single unit to work in the field, which I commanded. There were ten Variants on our team; four women and six men. We worked together for eight years. The unit was a great success. We were a bit like family.”
Grayson paused, his jaw clenching. “They were my family,” he said quietly. “Your parents were two of my very best friends.”
Alex watched the older man pull himself back from the abyss he’d been peering into.
“One day, a powerful Variant named Masterson got it in his head that…” He appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “Well, let’s just say he came after one of our own. The team tried to stop him.”
Grayson paused again.
Realization dawned.
“My parents didn’t die in a car crash,” Alex whispered, “did they?”
It was more a statement than a question.
Cil blanched. Alex felt her knees give way beneath her and she sank slowly down the wall. Her borrowed sweater snagged on the cotton t-shirt underneath and hitched it up around her waist. She tugged it back down.
“All these years…” she heard herself say.
Alex had only been a kid when her parents had died.
Just a little girl.
These days she was hard-pressed to remember a time before she had gone to live with her aunt. A time before the “accident.”
A time when her family had still been whole.
She kept the few memories that remained locked away inside of her, to be brought out only when the darkness was at its worst… or any time she was feeling particularly masochistic.
The memories were few, but they were everything.
They were all she had.
She closed her eyes.
It was the smell of her mother’s perfume—the light, flowery scent of honeysuckle mixed with the heavy sweetness of orange blossoms.
It was riding piggyback, high on her father’s shoulders—so scared of slipping, but so certain that his strong arms would always be there to catch her, should she fall.
It was learning to swim in the chilly waters of the creek out behind their house. It was a picnic on a summer day. It was the smell of her mother’s pumpkin pound cake in the fall.
And more than anything, it was love.
Every other thing she knew about her parents—all of the facts and anecdotes she’d collected like valuable treasures over the years—had all come from Aunt Cecilia.
And they’d all been lies.
Anger.
Betrayal.
Despair.
Alex couldn’t quite name the feeling that had started to drain all the color and light from the world around her—that had caused her chest to tighten so painfully—but she thought that, perhaps, it was something entirely new. Some horrible combination of all three.
She glared at her aunt. “You said my mom was a school teacher. That my dad was an accountant! Now you’re telling me that they were spies? That they were murdered? Was there anything you told me about my parents that was true?”
Her aunt’s face crumpled. “Oh, Lee-Lee. Your parents loved you! They would have done anything to protect you! When they realized what was happening, they told me… they told me that if anything were to happen to them, that I was to raise you as normally as I could. They didn’t want you to know about any of this, if it could be helped. They didn’t want their life to be yours. They wanted you to be… normal.”
The word hung in the air like a guillotine a thread away from a fall.
Nothing about her life would ever be normal after this.
She wasn’t sure who was more deserving of her anger. The man in the bookstore for attacking her and forcing the truth out into the open? Declan for bringing her here? Her parents for insisting the truth be kept secret from her? Or her Aunt Cil for intentionally keeping her in the dark for so many years?
All this time. How had she not known? Not picked up on the clues?
“Am I normal?” she asked. “Or am I like you? Like my parents?”
Fear flickered in Cil’s eyes for the briefest of moments.
Was this why Alex had suddenly turned into a walking electro-magnetic pulse, frying unlucky appliances any time she got upset? Had that been part of one of her parent’s abilities?
Seemed pretty useless, if you asked her.
“Not all Variant offspring possess the traits of their parents,” said Grayson. “Some are born completely human.”
Her aunt nodded in agreement. “And some children who do inherit the variant genes from their parents never develop their powers, anyway. It just lies dormant.”
They were quiet for a moment as the news sank in.
Alex narrowed her eyes as another thought occurred to her.
“What happened to the others?” asked Alex. “The rest of the unit—where are they now?”
Grayson leaned back against the banister. “Masterson killed the majority of my team.” A shadow had fallen over his expression, seeming to grow darker with each word he spoke. “My wife. Your parents. All of our unit save for two: myself and one other, who I haven’t spoken to for many years.”
“So Kenzie, Declan and Nathaniel… ?” Alex couldn’t find the words to finish her question. This must have been how they’d come to live with Grayson. Masterson had murdered their families. Just like he’d murdered hers.
Grayson folded his arms across his chest. “Orphaned. Like you. I took them in because they had nowhere else to go. No family members left to take care of them.”
“And you?” Alex asked, her eyes narrowing. There was a poorly concealed tone of accusation in her voice. “How is it that you survived?”
Later on, she would look back on this conversation and wish like hell she hadn’t asked that question.
Grayson was quiet a moment. The look in his eyes suggested that he was no longer standing at the edge of that chasm.
The abyss had swallowed him whole.
“The last time I saw Masterson, he gave me two reasons for why I had to go on living. The first was that someone needed to look after the orphaned children.” He unfolded his arms and stood up straight. “And the second was that killing me would have been an act of mercy. One he wasn’t willing to provide.
“That night, Masterson died by my hand. And that is why I’m still alive,” Grayson then turned and walked down the stairs, leaving Alex alone with her aunt.
The silence that followed Grayson’s statement was absolute. She waited for the front door to close firmly behind him before she turned to her aunt.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What did he mean by an ‘act of mercy’?”
Cil was still staring at the door through which Grayson had disappeared. “One of Masterson’s gifts was an ability to see the future,” she said. “And while Grayson can see the potential future of any person, any place, he has never been able to foresee his own. When Masterson finally confronted Grayson, he saw something of Grayson’s future. Whatever it was that Masterson saw… He felt that leaving Grayson alive would be a far crueler punishment than death.”
— 7 —
Kenzie sat down in one of the whitewashed Adirondack chairs surrounding the patio’s fire pit and glared at her brother.
“What, Kenzie?”
“You know what.”
Declan ignored her, his attention fixed upon the pile of ashes resting at the center of the pit.
This attitude of his was getting on her nerves.
“Dammit, Decks, it isn’t her fault and you know it.”
He sent her a warning look. “Stay out of my head.”
“I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking right now.”
Nathaniel got to his feet. “I’m going to go finish chopping that firewood. You two try to keep it civil, would ya? There’s enough drama around here tonight as it is.”
Kenzie watched him disappear down the stone steps, then returned to her former activity of glaring at Declan. She kicked at the leg of his chair. “You can’t hold what happened against her, Declan. She was a victim, too. She was just as innocent in all of it as we were.”
“Innocent?” He snorted. “That’s a laugh.”
“That girl in there doesn’t even remember what happened. And no one’s told her. She’s been lied to her entire life. You can’t possibly hold her accountable for something that happened when she was four years old.”
Declan fell quiet.
Kenzie fought back the urge to read his mind. Normally she didn’t have to. Predicting her brother’s thoughts and moods usually came as naturally to her as breathing.
And while Declan possessed a stubborn streak roughly a mile wide, something about this felt different. It wasn’t usually this hard to make him see reason.
“You weren’t old enough to remember it either, Kenzie,” he said bitterly. “You don’t have those images burned into your brain.”
“Oh, like hell!” she snapped. “God knows you replayed them enough times growing up. I saw them in your head whether I wanted to or not.”
“I’m sorry, Kenzie.” Her brother’s face twisted with an emotion she couldn’t identify. “I didn’t… I would have saved you from that if I could have.”
She sighed. This wasn’t about them.
“You can’t focus all of your anger on Alex, Decks. She didn’t do it. Masterson did.”
“It was her he was after, Kenzie. Not them.”
“No,” she said. “They were protecting an innocent child from a madman.”
“Yeah. And they gave their lives doing that, Kenzie. Eight people. Dead. And for what? What could possibly be so important about that girl?”
“It’s not her fault,” she said again. “Declan, it’s not Alex’s fault our parents are dead.”