by Austin, RB
The officer and detective exchanged another glance.
“Are you hungry?” The officer asked.
Kate just stared.
The officer smiled. “We’ll go get you a bag of chips. Be right back.”
Kate held in her scream of frustration. She dropped her head into her hands. This was not going according to plan. Not for one second had she believed she’d have to convince the police of her guilt. Tears threatened again.
Was Lucas really here? Would she be able to see him before they placed her under arrest? Although with the way Dumb and Dumber were acting, who the hell knew when that would be.
The door opened. She didn’t raise her head. “I don’t want any damn chips. Unless you’ve come to take me to booking, I don’t want to hear it.”
“I think you might be interested in what I have to say, Miss.”
Kate’s head shot up. “Jeeves? What are you doing here?” Gone was the black penguin outfit. Instead he wore a gray suit with a light purple tie and was carrying a brown, worn leather briefcase.
He placed his case on the table, took a seat. “I’m your lawyer. And I asked for a moment to confer with my client.”
Kate frowned. “You’re a lawyer?”
The old man smiled. “I’m many things, Miss.”
Kate shook her head. “Is Lucas really here?”
“Yes.”
“You have to help him. He—”
“Insisted I help you first. Refuses to leave until I’ve done everything I can for you.”
A lump formed in her throat. She rubbed a hand over her chest. “Okay. Go talk to the detective. Get him to speed things along. They’re doing everything except arresting me for the crime I committed.”
Jeeves opened his case and pulled out a thick file. “Sarid’s been looking into your crime. He’s not as good at computers as Lucas, but the adohn managed to find some information I think you’ll find interesting.” He handed her the folder.
Frowning, she opened it. The first page was a large copy of her driver’s license. The one from when she was sixteen. With her correct name. Katherine Marie Ross. What followed was a list of homes she’d stayed at since birth. It wasn’t some typed up list either. It was a document that could only be printed from Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Kate opened her mouth.
Jeeves tapped the desk. Gave one small shake of his head, running his finger over his lips.
She closed her mouth and turned to the next page.
The folder contained her whole life history. Every house she stayed at. Every report card she’d received. She quickly flipped through it, in no mood to run screaming down memory lane, until she came to the page containing the last house she stayed at.
Randy and Mary Thurman.
She felt sick, wishing the officer had brought her those chips after all. A few minutes later she raised her head.
“I don’t understand.” Her voice shook. Gaze drawn to the last paragraph of the report.
“Randy Thurman,” Jeeves said, his mouth twisting. “Died two years ago.”
Kate shook her head. “But that’s not right. I left Chicago nine years ago.” On May eighth. One week before her eighteenth birthday. One week before she’d have been free from him forever.
“The date is correct, Miss.”
“But he stopped breathing when I, when I—”
“Heart attack. His wife found him on the floor of your old room. Must have been minutes after you left. Called an ambulance. They revived him.”
She gave a choked laugh. “He’s been alive all this time?” She’d run. Avoided the cops. Refrained from making friends or staying in one place too long. For nothing. She stiffened. “Oh my God. Stacy.”
Jeeves cocked his head. “Stacy?”
“The girl who was living there, too. When I left.” She pressed a hand to her mouth.
The butler-slash-lawyer frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any information on Stacy.”
He’d have gone to Stacy. Who would’ve been too young to protect herself. Too scared to run.
Kate had left her there. Alone. After promising to always protect her. She’d left her alone. With that monster. Kate squeezed her lids shut.
“Miss?”
She shook her head.
Jeeves was silent for a moment then stood, the chair squeaking against the concrete floor. “I’ll be back.”
What had she done? Kate had to find her. Make things better. It’d never be right. Never fixed. She’d never forgive herself.
The officer entered a few moments later. She stood in the threshold, holding the door open with her left hand. “You’re free to go.”
Kate raised her gaze. She didn’t want to go. She needed to be punished, though now for a completely different reason.
“Unless you have some other crime you’d like to confess?”
If she was locked up she couldn’t find Stacy. Kate shook her head, stood slowly.
“Your lawyer asked you to wait for him outside.”
She moved on autopilot, following the officer through the station to the front door.
The cop touched her arm. Kate didn’t even flinch. “You’re strong enough. Leave him. No one deserves to be hit. No one asks for it.”
Kate nodded, turned, and walked out the door. Her heart beat so fast. Her breaths were loud.
Why had she left Chicago? Why hadn’t she gone back to check on Stacy?
Such a coward.
If Randy had touched her. If he’d done to Stacy what he’d done to all those other foster children . . .
“Kate.”
She was swept into familiar arms, face pressed against a hard chest. “I didn’t kill him, Lucas. I just left. I left Stacy there. I left her there with him.” She didn’t realize she was crying until his shirt became damp against her cheek.
Lucas pulled back.
Her mouth fell open. “You look like hell. What’s the matter with you? Are you sick?” Deep, purplish circles stained the skin under his eyes. He was pale, breath unsteady. She glanced down, spied a dark stain on his sweater. She reached toward it but didn’t touch him. “Are you bleeding? Lucas.”
“I’m fine. Come home with me, Kate.”
Home. Tears bloomed. Kate closed her eyes. Her chest tightened. “I wanted to be worthy of you. I was turning myself in so I’d be—”
“You are!”
Kate shook her head. Felt the tears slip pass her lids.
Lucas cupped her face, his thumbs swiped the wetness from her cheeks. “I love you. You’re the air in my lungs. Without you in my life, I’m depleted.”
“But I’m not your bahshrett.” More tears fell.
He stilled.
“I heard talk. And Martha explained some of it to me.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’re the one.”
“Your abilities work on me,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Back at the bar you put me to sleep. You shouldn’t have been able to do that if I was your bahshrett. And I heard you speaking with Cade. You can sense my feelings.”
He shook his head. His own eyes shining. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But what happens when you do meet her? I’ve seen how it is between Cade and Emma. How could I stand in the way of that?” Just thinking about him with someone else was a stab in the heart. Her lower lip trembled.
Lucas pulled her closer. Leaned his forehead against hers. “I love you like that, Kate.” His voice cracked. “I can’t imagine loving anyone as much as I do you.”
A sob escaped. “But Stacy—”
“We’ll find her. I promise. I’ll stop at nothing until we’ve found out where she’s at. Please,” he whispered. “Please, come h
ome. I don’t want a life without you in it.” He wrapped his arms around her, held her tight.
“Yes,” she said into his chest. “Yes.”
Chapter 65
Lucas wore nothing but his red ceremonial robe as he walked through the tunnels that ran underneath the HQ. It’d been two weeks since Kate agreed to come home with him. The other Septs had arrived. The Woyrs were getting settled on the property. Lucas couldn’t walk through the main floor or the basement without running into at least ten different people.
Kate hadn’t objected to Lucas’s demand that she live in his room. What he had protested was the way she’d taken off her gloves and went from item to item in his room. She had vision after vision. Some lasted less than a minute, others longer than five. She’d wake from one, remove herself from his arms and touch something else. Never talked about what she saw. Not even the ones that made her sob and clutch her head as if in pain.
He stepped from the cement flooring of the tunnels to the marble of the chamber. Lucas had been meeting with Elias on a regular basis. The Trihune version of NA. A stipulation if he wanted to stay in the Sept.
Martha had removed his stitches a few days ago. The skin was still tight around the scar, a thin red line he’d always have. To remember.
He had a lot to atone for. Especially to Gabe. Their relationship was still strained.
Lucas lifted his gaze and immediately sank to his knees. Elias stood near the altar.
Less than a breath later, Elias’s hand rested on his shoulder.
“Sire.” He rose.
Elias searched his face. “You’re troubled.”
He nodded and complied with Elias’s outstretched hand and sat on the middle carpeted step leading to the altar. “Kate is still distressed. There’s been no word on Stacy.”
Lucas had hacked into the Illinois DCFS to retrieve Stacy’s file, but mysteriously there was no record of a Stacy Locke ever having been in the state’s foster care system. He had Jeeves hire the best private firm in the country that dealt with missing persons.
One way or the other she would be found.
His Kate was trying to stay hopeful, but sometimes he’d find her in their room, tears silently streaming down her face, her mind locked onto the past. Lucas tried to help. He told her of his own guilt. The lies. His brush with darkness. Even about the Fallen he’d kept in that house. She had listened, her arms wrapped around him, head on his chest. But even as he brushed her tears away, Lucas was afraid she was the one consoling him instead of the other way around.
“Grief and time will feed off each other until one cannot take another bite.” Elias paused. “But there’s something more.”
“I’m afraid I lost my abilities.”
Elias cocked his head.
“I think the poison changed something inside me. Or it was from my last purge,” he said softly, head hanging.
“It’s no more than I deserve,” he continued. “After spending all that time to get rid of it, I finally have what I wished for and realize it’s not what I truly wanted.” This was his punishment. His personal pnachum.
“Why do you think this?” Elias asked.
“I haven’t received a reading on Kate since then. Not even a twinge of what she’s feeling. If I did, I’d be able to help her, give her what she needs even when she’s unable to tell me—”
Elias held up his hand. “My son, why would your ability work on her? She’s your bahshrett.”
Lucas’s breath whooshed out before he remembered. “No. I’ve felt her emotions. It was sporadic, probably because of her ability or my own selfish indiscretions, but I did get readings. And I put her to sleep. I shouldn’t have been able to do that if she’s my bahshrett.”
“You felt your own emotions in the presence of Kate.”
He shook his head.
Elias cupped Lucas’s cheeks. Images flashed in his mind. Walking in the bar, seeing Kate for the first time.
“You called upon the Creator’s help to block Followers’ emotions. He helped you.” Elias’s voice sounded over the images. Lucas watched himself watch Kate head to the kitchen. The sway of her hips. Her long legs. The swish of her ponytail. “The loss you felt when she walked away was yours.”
In the next image Kate sat across from him at the table in her section, empty burger plate in front of her. Her gaze full of suspicion when she asked what he wanted in return. Lucas remembered the sadness he’d felt from her.
“Ah, no,” Elias said. “Again, that was yours. Not the nheqeba’s.”
Lucas’s eyes flashed open, dispelling the image of Kate’s expression, her distrust. He wasn’t altogether sad to see it go. He hadn’t liked it then either. To know she’d never received kindness without expecting it to cost her. If only she’d grown up with love, she wouldn’t be going through this right now. A lump grew in his throat. His eyes widened.
Elias smiled broadly. “Yes, my son. Those have been your emotions the whole time. You, who feels everything around him. Sometimes even your own get mixed in the jumble. Your gift, which you tried to destroy, is what makes you who you are. My empath. The one who feels. I’m so glad you found your bahshrett before it was too late. She’ll save you from drowning.”
Tears welled and slipped down Lucas’s cheeks, falling onto Elias’s hands.
“You’re still too worried to hope. About putting her to sleep in that bar.” He shook his head. “You didn’t do that. Kate’s power did. She’s more than psychometric. So much more. She’s the—”
“I don’t understand. How could Kate’s power put her to sleep? She doesn’t have that ability.”
“Her ability absorbs the emotions of what she touches, does it not? So when you pushed the desire to sleep into Kate—the feeling of exhaustion, lethargy—her ability sucked it in.”
Lucas frowned. “So will I be able to put her to sleep again?”
“I think not since she already had a complete vision from your past. Her power will no longer work with you.”
She’s my bahshrett. Lucas stood. Hands ran through his hair. “She’s my bahshrett.”
Elias beamed. “Yes, and the key.”
Lucas froze. “What?”
“The key. You found the key.”
“Kate can’t be the key. She’s a Follower.”
“Yes. Yes. The key is a human.”
“You never told us that. You never said it was a person. You said it was a key. A key. A key is something that goes with a lock.”
Elias grinned, standing. “Ah, now you have it. ‘What he opens no one can shut, what he shuts no one can open.’”
At Lucas’s blank stare he continued.
“You have opened the key, Lucas. She’ll read the map. The way will be shown.” Eyes closed, he lifted his head to the ceiling, hair falling back, arms spreading.
The words falling from his sire’s mouth were in the Trihune language, spoken too fast for him to understand.
Wind whipped through the chamber swaying Lucas’s robes and Elias’s long hair, though they were miles from the entrance. His sire raised his head, stared straight at Lucas as if he were looking right through him.
“I will see her.” The words echoed around the chamber and didn’t resemble Elias’s voice.
A chill went through Lucas. “Kate? Are you talking about Kate?”
Elias’s lids fell closed. The wind quieted. When he opened his eyes, he appeared drained for the first time ever. His sire swayed. Lucas was at his side, took an arm and led him to the steps.
“Sire? Do you need something? Blood? Can I give you my blood?”
Elias shook his head. “No, no. This will pass. Don’t worry. Go to your bahshrett now.”
Lucas didn’t move.
Elias patted his hand. “Go, Lucas. And as soon
as Kate asks, bring her to me. We must speak.”
Lucas nodded. Stood reluctantly. He turned in the doorway. Elias was still there. “I wish to help you, sire.”
Elias lifted his head. It seemed to take a lot of effort. “And you have, my son. Your happiness is mine.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I feel it in here. You understand?”
He did. Lucas nodded and left the chamber, entering the HQ the way he left it, stopping in the conference room.
Cade was speaking with John, Sept Two’s leader from Greenland. A blond-haired, blue-eyed Behn who had the ability to sense others’ powers. And Lars, Sept Four’s second from Norway. A collection of throwing knives wrapped his waist and around each ankle and probably under his sleeves, too.
Lucas told them about his meeting with Elias.
“I’m happy for you, ach,” Cade said, smiling.
“If she’s the key, we must speak with her at once.” John stood. “Bring her here.”
A low growled filled the room. John startled. Lars immediately palmed a knife.
Cade patted Lars on the shoulder, “You’ve a lot to learn about Behns and their bahshretts.” He turned to Lucas. “When she is well,” he said gently.
Lucas blinked and the glow from his eyes faded. After a nod of appreciation to Cade he left the room. He didn’t want Kate involved in their war. It was too dangerous. Her part would be minimal, he’d make sure of it. Besides, Martha had been overjoyed to accept her back as part of the household. That was a safer job.
How would Kate feel about being the key? She’d have questions about what it all meant. He’d learn the answers before speaking to her, so not to scare her.
