by Laney McMann
“It’s too quiet,” he said, not bothering to shift his eyes away from the interior and toward his guest. “Have ya felt it?”
The trench-coated man walked inside the villa and into the dim shards of light bleeding through the beveled glass doors. The side of his throat was emblazoned with large black wings. “You asked to see me because it’s too quiet?”
Heru eyed his companion, bright blue eyes blazing. “I think I found the Patriarchae.”
“Tell me what you need me to do.”
“I hate Sundays.” Giselle shifted her seat forward so Cole and Kade could climb into the minuscule backseat of her RX-7. “School tomorrow. Ugh. Why do we even go? It’s so damn stupid.” She shoved the seat back into place, pressing it against Kade’s knees, sat down, and shut her car door.
“You are so much like your brother, it’s scary.” Cole adjusted his position so he was sitting sideways with his legs lying across the back seat. Kade laid her legs over his, so they were facing each other, both of them half crushed in the tiny car.
“Oh, be quiet and talk to your girlfriend.”
“Hard to have a private conversation when you and Lindsey are inches away.” Cole rested his head against the window.
“I told you not to come.”
“Shut up, you guys.” Lindsey started the car and moved away from the Brotherhood. “Cole and Danny already gave me a headache.” She chunked the rest of her uneaten apple out the window.
The drive up the mountain to Kade’s dad’s house was crazy-bumpy in Giselle’s RX-7. Cars like hers weren’t built for mountain roads. Kade figured that was why Lindsey drove her Jetta most of the time. It was slightly higher off the ground and about ten years newer than Giselle’s car.
Cole placed his open hand on Kade’s thigh, palm facing up, beckoning her to hold it. The red web was as stark as ever, climbing like a vine around his wrist, and Kade knew it continued up his forearm underneath his sleeve. She couldn’t be positive without pushing his sleeve up, but it seemed to have traveled farther than the last time she’d noticed. She wondered why the web of lines hadn’t moved up her arm in the same way. Cole shifted his weight a little, leaning his shoulder against the seat and flinched.
“You okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah, just pulled something when we were in the shaft.”
Kade threaded their fingers together and leaned her head against the seat, staring at him. Crushed in the tiny car or not, she relished every second they had together, even the ones where all they did was watch each other without saying a word.
“Why so quiet?” he mouthed.
She shrugged. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sure.” He squeezed her hand.
“I want to help.” She averted her eyes when he shook his head, no. “You’re putting yourself in danger. Every day.”
“I always do. Even before I met you,” he mouthed. “It’s what I do.”
She sighed. Cole had been adamant about not allowing Kade to help them investigate the mines, or anything else, and Warden Caelius had echoed the sentiment. “I feel useless. I’m just sitting around.”
“It’s my job to keep you safe, Sparrow. Helping me investigate isn’t doing that; it’s exactly the opposite of safe.”
“You know,” Giselle said, “you can talk out loud. The half-whisper-breathy thing is weirding me out. It’s a small car.” She glanced over her shoulder at them.
There had been an edge in Giselle’s tone lately, Kade thought. Not her usual bossy demeanor with a cuteness and playfulness to it that was part of Giselle’s personality, but a rawness—a coldness.
“Very small,” Lindsey echoed Giselle’s words, stopping in front of Kade’s old house along the curb. “We’re here.” She yanked the parking brake up. “What now? We all pile out and smile like we’re happy and clueless that the Daemoneum have vanished?”
“You’ve been hanging around G too long.” Cole squeezed out of the car behind her. “Nothing vanishes, you said so yourself. You guys can head back or do whatever it is you do. I’ll ride around with Kade for a while.”
“Fine with me. Kade-duty is boring.” Giselle popped her shoulders up. “Sorry.”
“No reason to be sorry.” Kade adjusted her coat, standing next to Cole. “I’m bored, too.” She glanced at Giselle and then toward her house, a sinking feeling anchoring itself in her gut.
“Cool.” Giselle perked up. “See you back at the underground homestead then.”
“Shout if you need anything.” Lindsey pulled away from the house.
Cole reached for Kade’s hand and led her toward her car, parked in the driveway. “You want me to drive?”
She shook her head, glancing at the house again. “I don’t know.” All the lights inside were off; the usually glittering windows loomed dark and inhospitable. The landscaping lights that once illuminated the house like Fort Knox were also absent—granted it was late morning. Still, everything about it felt wrong. “I don’t like being here. I hate being here.”
Cole bowed his head. “I know. I wish I could change this part of the routine. Coming up here every day, getting your car. The Daemoneum know you’re with us, I’m sure of it.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll talk to Warden Caelius and see if we can’t park the MINI at the Brotherhood’s loading dock. At some point everyone will know what’s going on, anyway. This is stupid.”
“That’s what I don’t completely understand,” she said. “Why all the secrecy about me still? I mean, I get the ‘no one believes Anamolia exist so everyone is afraid’ thing, but the Primordial kids think I’m a Primeva, at least most do, so, we could go along with that and—” she stopped talking. Being a Primeva—or going along with that ruse—meant living at the Kinship. End of discussion. No way was she moving over there without Cole. “Never mind.”
He lifted her chin, gazing down at her. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“‘Kay.”
He kissed her nose and held out his hand. “Keys?”
“You know you’re not supposed to be seen driving my car.”
“The Daemoneum know for a fact that I’m with you, so I’m not hiding anything from them. Warden Caelius also knows that, so …” he shrugged, “unless some Primordials are hell bent on trying to see through your tinted windows should we pass someone on the street, I honestly do not care.”
She grinned. “You’re such an ass.”
He lunged at her and wrapped her up in his arms, lifting her off the ground. “But you love my ass.”
She shoved her keys in the back pocket of his jeans with a smirk, holding onto him.
“Watch where you put your hands.”
“You started it.” A million more comebacks ran through her mind, but she only shifted her hand underneath the hem of his jacket onto the bare skin of his waist. Cole’s eyes darkened, and he set her on her feet, kissing her, and retrieved her keys.
“Um … I want to go inside. For a minute.”
His brows creased. “Why?”
“Closure? I don’t know. Something.”
Cole conceded, and Kade lead him to the front door. She slid her key into the lock, and for a second, wondered if it would open—maybe all the locks had been changed. But the front door swung wide with its usual slight creak, and dull gray light spilled across the wooden floor. The living room was the same, untouched since she’d last been there. The maroon throw blanket lay over the arm of the off-white couch underneath the large window flanked by heavy curtains, the cherry wood coffee table was cluttered with old romance novels she’d read, and the kitchen appliances still hummed from the back of the house, the large granite bar gleaming and clean, stools tucked neatly beneath it.
Everything about being there was surreal. Like some other Kade had lived there, not her. She was the same, but not the same. The house was the same, but nothing else was. It felt empty, abandoned—wrong. The staircase on the left side of the living room beckoned her up to her bedroom. She remembered walking down the
steps in her high heels like a newborn calf when she’d been getting ready for the Fall Dance with Giselle only a few weeks ago, and days before that tripping up the stairs when Jake had come to her house for the first time and met her dad—some of the memories here over the past few weeks had been good memories, she reminded herself.
Cole had kissed her for the first time in her driveway, and they’d slept in her bed together after he’d rescued her from Dracon in the snow, even though she barely remembered it. That was the night she’d witnessed all the swirling colors from her bedroom window upstairs. They had reminded her of the Aurora Borealis in Alaska. She’d showed Cole her baby albums here, too, and so many other good things—or at least eye-opening things had happened—but as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t bear to go up the stairs. She couldn’t look at her bedroom—or her dad’s just down the hall.
She knew Cole had moved everything she owned, all of her furniture, back into the house only days ago, right after Giselle had become Kade’s roommate at the bunker. Kade hadn’t come with him, and he hadn’t pushed her to. She remembered thinking that Plumb must have moved her furniture, even her towels and her blankets, when she’d first moved into the underground bunker after Dracon died, but later she found out it had been Cole. He’d moved everything she owned while she’d been in the Ward’s infirmary after the attack.
She reached for him, blindly, and his arms enveloped her, the sweet scent of clean cotton and fire inundating her as it always did. Reminding her that no matter the few good memories, this house was no longer home—that it never was. Cole was home—the only home she wanted.
She leaned against him. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“For?”
“Saving me.”
Chapter 4
Roberts, Giselle thought, packing the last few boxes of books and clothes in her Kinship dorm room, is such a common name. No one could really find you if Roberts was your last name. It was like being named Smith or Jones. You type the name Roberts into the search bar on Google and about three million names pop up. It wasn’t even a Primordial name—so many of their names weren’t anymore. Thousands of people living on Earth with names like Aelius and Scaevola might clue the masses in that something wasn’t quite right. Granted, there were still some of the ancient names in circulation, like Marcus, but most of the old names had been phased out, which left Giselle with Roberts. It was an English name, she thought. Not that it mattered. Not that anyone was trying to find her on Google, either, but still. What if she got married someday and changed her name? Then she’d really be lost.
Shaking her head, she stuffed more knick-knacks in the box in front of her, along with some old sweaters she hadn’t worn in forever, socks with holes in the toes she didn’t know why she hadn’t thrown away, and pajamas that definitely didn’t fit. Not like she could get married anyway, she thought. Not to the person she would want to anyway. She reached for a porcelain doll on top of her dresser and stared out her small, snow dusted window. Her mom had given her the doll for her sixth birthday. Giselle had begged for one, knowing her mother wouldn’t get it because they were so fragile. She’d been elated to tears when she’d opened the gift, and she had treasured it ever since. Gently, she wrapped the doll up in an old sweatshirt and placed it in the box.
Glancing around the room, she hadn’t realized how much stuff she’d accumulated over the years. She’d lived in this dorm room since she was nine years old. She and Danny had moved to Boulder together what seemed like forever ago now. Giselle into the Kinship and Danny into the Brotherhood. She remembered the conversation between Warden Caelius and her parents before the move. They’d argued back and forth while she and Danny sat in two large, wooden armchairs in the Warden’s office in Rome.
“Mrs. Roberts, I understand your dilemma, please be assured I do, but there is simply no remedy I can produce to change the situation,” Warden Caelius had told Giselle’s mom. “This is a rare case, as you well know, and I assure you, your children will be in safe and capable hands.”
“Warden Caelius, please understand my dilemma,” Giselle’s mother had pleaded. “Who will know? The children won’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Let them stay together in the same common house, I ask you, please. They are twins. They are too young to understand why they have to live apart.”
The Warden glanced at Giselle’s father, she remembered, as if hoping for some reprieve, but got nothing. With a deep sigh, he only said, “Marcella, I am sorry. I cannot allow Giselle to occupy the Brotherhood with Daniel. The risk is simply too great.”
Her mother had finally relented, and Giselle and Danny had moved to Boulder and into different common houses. It was the first time she could remember them ever being separated. Besides Cole and Lindsey, and now Kade, none of the Primordial kids even knew they were related. Twins were rare within the Primordial race. Twins, one Primori and one Primeva, were unheard of. Neither of them, especially Giselle, had wanted to try to answer the flood of questions that would have been asked had anyone known, so they’d kept their relationship between themselves.
Stretching out the packing tape, Giselle secured the box flaps down and stacked the box on top of the others near the bedroom door. No one in the Kinship knew she’d moved into the underground bunker at the Brotherhood with Kade. She’d slowly moved her belongings out, little by little, during mealtimes when no one was in the hallways. Truthfully, she’d been moving much slower than need be. If it had been a few years ago, she would have been happy just to be under the same roof with her brother again, but the sinking feeling in her stomach refused to let that emotion take hold.
Her door opened a fraction, and Lindsey peeked in, all long dark hair and deep gold eyes. “You ready?”
Giselle shrugged. There was a finality to moving the last of her boxes and leaving the Kinship, her home for the past eight years, that told her she’d never be coming back again. Staring into Lindsey’s eyes only amplified her reservations.
Lindsey pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing it behind her. “What is it?” she coaxed with a playful grin, but Giselle couldn’t smile back. Lindsey had been trying, so sweetly, to lighten Giselle’s mood for days. She appreciated it—but it just wasn’t working.
“Come on,” Lindsey said, walking over and holding both of Giselle’s hands, “it’s not that bad. You’re just across the mountain.”
“Why do you seem completely fine with this?” Giselle snapped. “You’re not even upset about it.”
Lindsey tilted her head but didn’t lose her composure. “I’m okay with you doing your job.”
“I’m not talking about that part.” Giselle pulled her hands away and plopped backward on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
“Okay.” Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest. “Then tell me what part you are talking about.”
“This.” Giselle thrust her arms wide. “This. You and me.” Sitting up, she motioned between them and toward the Kinship compound in general. “I mean, I’m not here, and you’re here, and other people are here, and—”
Lindsey cocked a dark eyebrow. “I’m not hooking up with anyone while you’re gone if that’s what you’re trying to say.”
Giselle sighed and glanced at the bare mattress she was sitting on. “It’s just … this is hard enough, you and me, as it is, and now this—” She groaned, sinking her head in her hands.
Lindsey sat beside her. “G.”
Giselle didn’t alter her position.
“G, look at me, please.”
She peeked over through her splayed fingers and pink-painted nails.
“I know this isn’t easy for you. I know.” Lindsey shifted Giselle’s hands away from her face. “But it would be a lot easier if we came out in the open.”
Giselle tilted her head, staring at the ceiling again, exasperated. She was tired of this topic. “How is that going to make it easier? How? That makes no sense. Risk getting banished?”
“I’d risk it,” Lindsey said, withou
t the tiniest tone of hesitation.
Giselle closed her eyes, head still back.
“Is there some reason you are refusing to look at me?”
She turned and looked Lindsey directly in the face. “No.”
“Good.” Lindsey grinned. “Listen,” she reached for Giselle’s hand, “I’m not going anywhere. You could move to Alaska, and I’d follow you.”
“You’d hate Alaska.”
Lindsey shrugged and leaned forward, kissing her. “I’d deal.”
The bedroom door swung open. “Okay, Giselle, I think—“
Giselle flew, literally took flight off the bed, as Thatcher stood in the threshold of her doorway.
Lindsey remained motionless on the bed, with her usual, ‘what the hell do you need?’ expression on her face as she stared at the Kinship’s Lead.
Thatcher took in the scene, her bright red nails pointing, wild, beehive hair floating around her head like a too-blonde halo, and glanced at the boxes on the floor, and then at Giselle, white as a sheet, near the far wall. “Right. Well,” Thatcher inhaled a breath and eyed the two of them before she picked up the boxes near the door, “looks like I’m right on time. Let’s go.”
School was … weird. Kade couldn’t think of a better way to describe it. Everything had changed, but at the same time, being in class made it feel like nothing was different. It felt similar to being at her dad’s house that way—familiar, but unfamiliar at the same time. Giselle and Lindsey still hadn’t come out as a couple and neither had Kade and Cole. Nothing seemed okay about that. At least Giselle and Lindsey were able to spend time together at school, even if it was only platonic, unlike Kade who had to pretend she and Cole weren’t even friends, really, although it was becoming more and more difficult for both of them to keep up the charade.
