“You think you’re so hot? Come on. Come at me.” Parker’s deep voice was a rumble of epic proportions.
“You know what they say, don’t you?” Evan taunted. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Then it was fists thudding and grunts as bodies clashed and grappled. It was the sound of yelps and occasional pained hisses. It was the sound of Mary’s hopes and dreams.
They’d actually turned up like she’d asked. Well, some of them.
“Score one to me.” Evan sniffed.
Mary kept her breath shallow, so as not to be noticed.
“Guys, focus on the parameters of the experiment, please.” Griffin’s curt tone bled through his words.
If Griffin was there, it was a good sign. His analytical mind found the puzzle of Evan’s new physiology too hard to resist. He’d be marking up each point of the fight with statistical enthusiasm befitting a data analyst of his caliber. Probably timing it on his watch, too.
Mary was supposed to have been at the mat half an hour ago, but she’d purposefully been late, and was glad. The three of them worked together just like old times. Sure there was a bit of trash talk, but that was normal between brothers. It was everything she’d hoped them to be. Everything she trained them to be. She only wished the rest of the family would pick up the mantle and join in. It gave her hope that the destitute future she’d foretold at the Sisterhood was far away.
Thinking of the Sisterhood brought back memories. The secret society had rescued her from a childhood where her own parents extorted her powers for their own use, starving her if she didn’t do as she was told. The sisters blamed this lack of nutrition for her inability to have children of her own, but Mary had her suspicions. The rigorous training at the Sisterhood was also harmful to her physical condition. All she knew was, by the time she met Flint, she was infertile.
Perhaps it was a good thing because now she had seven highly capable and demanding adopted children to look after and Flint had never minded. In fact, after suffering his own troubled past, he embraced the parenting duties of the seven as if they were his own.
If Sara was indeed back… If Evan had been right, and she’d been full of deadly envy on the night of the bombing, then a nefarious motive brought her to their family. It could be the Syndicate—the people who’d financed the lab that created the seven. It could also be the Sisterhood retaliating because Mary should have delivered them, signed and sealed, like the good little assassin she was. Mary’s heart ached every day for the two that she couldn’t save—Gloria, and another child.
It was inevitable that either the Syndicate, or Sisterhood, or both, would come looking for her children once they revealed themselves to the world. Mary only hoped she’d prepared them enough. So far no one had come looking for the children, and she hadn’t foreseen any trouble, so had assumed everything was fine.
But Sara’s reemergence was worrisome.
It raised too many questions.
“I know you’re out there,” came Parker’s gruff voice from inside. “I can sense your pride, Mary.”
She smirked and rolled out of her hiding spot to enter the room.
Parker and Evan were in the middle of the large workout space, shirtless and sweaty, wearing track pants. Wireless electrodes over Evan’s tattooed body fed a signal to a computer system on the side where Griffin sat inspecting a computer screen.
Mary let herself take in her third youngest. It had been two weeks since she’d seen him, and he looked the same as ever. White shirt buttoned up to the collar, sans tie. Thick black-framed glasses on his nose, not that he needed them, they were part of his alter-ego and more often than not, he enjoyed wearing them. His hair cut was millimeter perfect in a style that could have come from the twenties; crisp fade for the short back and sides, slick top combed immaculately, all kept in place by styling cream. Everything about Griffin oozed control.
“Mijos,” Mary stated, lifting her eyebrow. “How goes the experiment?”
“Excellent.” Evan grinned, pulling his larger bulkier brother into a headlock.
Parker’s face reddened as he deftly slipped out of the hold, twisted and did the same to Evan, cutting off the circulation at his neck, grinning in a feral sort of way. “Now it’s excellent.”
Evan tapped his brother on the forearm, but was given no quarter. Then the air in the room electrified and the hairs on Mary’s arms lifted. A crackling sound snapped. Parker yelped and fell back on the mat, rubbing his forearm.
“Cheat,” he growled, then sniffed his arm. “You singed my hair off.”
Evan laughed and then turned to Griffin. “Did you catch that?”
Griffin scowled at the screens. “Yes. Eighty volts. High enough to be harmful if contact was sustained for long enough. Ten more than last time, but less than you said you used the other night. It appears your output is erratic. With practice, you’ll get stronger and more consistent.”
Evan flexed his bicep. “Like strengthening a muscle that hasn’t been used in a while.”
“Precisely,” Griffin said. “We just don’t know what muscles.”
“Not muscles, organs.” Parker moved off the mat to stand at Griffin’s shoulder. “Evan said he had scans at the hospital.”
“Shit, that’s right. Three unidentified organs.” Evan joined his brothers.
Parker rubbed his chin. “Three organs.”
“They studied many animals in the labs you were created in,” Mary added. “Is it possible they took something from one of those creatures that resulted in the extra organs?”
“Like an Electric Eel,” Parker said. “It makes perfect sense.”
“No. An electric eel doesn’t give off enough electricity to create lightning.” This was Griffin.
“Could it be possible he’s mutating?” Mary didn’t like the sound of unexpected biological changes, but she had to ask.
They all turned to Parker, the only one with the kind of knowledge to answer.
“It’s possible,” he replied. “I’ve studied the notes on Gloria’s laptop. A lot of what she did was only tested on rats. We don’t know long-term effects of her human experiments.”
“You mean us, right?” Evan asked, grimly.
“Whatever happens, we’re in this together,” Mary answered.
While Griffin and Parker talked genetics, equations and anomalies, Mary indicated for Evan to face her on the mat. “Speaking of practice, let’s see how much control you have.”
“You want me to zap you?” Evan backed off. “But you’re not enhanced, like us. You could have a heart attack.”
That earned him a swift kick in the chest. “Call me old again and the next one will be lower.”
“I’m serious, Mary. Flint will kill me if I—oof!”
She lowered her kick.
“But…” Real worry blazed in her son’s eyes as he covered his groin for protection. “I can’t always control it.”
“This is precisely why we’re doing this. So you can learn to.” She darted in and jabbed at his face. This time, he blocked with a well-practiced swipe. She jabbed again. And again. He blocked, darted back, blocked again. Soon, he grinned, and bounced around the mat, circling her. He used the advantage of longer arms to reach out and tap the top of her head, toying with her.
It warmed Mary’s heart.
Once, Evan had been the larrikin of the family. Being the youngest, along with Sloan, he’d taken it upon himself to always lighten the mood and to keep them all from being so serious. When he’d come back from his training, he was hardened, but enthusiastic. After Sara died… he’d lost it all, becoming as dark as the sin he fought.
Okay. If he was toying with her, she’d bring her A-Game.
Mary’s mind cleared and decades of martial arts training lifted to the surface, like bubbles rising in a pond. She was water. She was air. She entered her state of flow. The world around her fell away. White noise in her brain dimmed, and she cut out the distraction of the two talking. This
time, she came at him with a rain of precise relentless attacks.
Evan was the first out of the seven to develop augmented skills. She had to be sure he was ready to be out on his own. The kids were all pilot test subjects, and if their mother Gloria was alive today, she’d be pushing them to their limits, testing them, ensuring they were in peak physical condition. Who knew what genetics she spliced to give him powers. Electric Eels were only the beginning. There were things in that lab Mary couldn’t explain. Frogs with bones extending and retracting through their digits, bees, platypuses, and rare insects in test tubes.
She kept drilling her youngest, giving him all of her years of assassin training. She was not to be trifled with.
“Come on, Evan. Use your skill to your advantage.” She kicked his legs out from underneath him, and he fell heavily to the mat. “When I make contact, you should be able to electrocute me. Keep your body charged, and I should receive a zap.”
“But I don’t want to hurt you.”
Mary ground her teeth. She wasn’t a frail old lady. She’d spent weeks once, simply hanging from her neck to strengthen it. “Then I’ll hurt you. Up. Go.”
“Wait.” Parker held up his finger, still reading the screen. “I have an idea.”
Evan turned to his brothers.
Mary struck his temple. Fool for turning his attention from her. She did it again. This time, he dodged, giving her a chagrinned glance.
Good boy. She bounced on her toes, fists in the air, ready to strike.
“Electric Eels have the ability to create an electro-magnetic field around them and sense movement in that field. It borders on precognition,” Parker said, reading the screen before lifting his gaze to meet Evan’s. “If you truly dreamed the future and those finger prints from the purse come back as Sara’s, then it’s safe to say perhaps you have this skill. All this time you could have been innately amplifying your dream-state brainwaves and locking onto Sara’s.”
Evan’s eyes went all dopey and he smiled. “I dreamed of Grace this morning.”
Parker snorted. “And?”
“You don’t need to know the rest.”
“I meant, was there any indication you were seeing reality?”
“Well, for part of it, I saw her walking down the street.”
“So…” Griffin added, tapping his pencil on his chin. “If you can project your brainwaves asleep, then you can do something similar awake. Load up on electricity and let it out a little and hold it. You’d be able to sense Mary’s movements when she hits the field. You’d know the minute she twitches and be able to deduce her intentions.”
“Interesting,” Mary said. “Let’s test the theory.”
Evan’s eyes narrowed on her. “So now you believe me about Sara.”
“We’ll believe you when those prints come back a match,” Parker said.
“What prints?” Mary asked without taking her eyes from her opponent.
“I went patrolling last night,” Evan elaborated as his eyes glazed with inward thoughts. “I’m trying to project the field now…”
“Patrolling… for envy?” She lowered her fists, shocked. He hadn’t done that in months.
Parker arched a brow, no doubt sensing her pride. He was the only out of the seven who never gave up fighting crime, he just did it on his own and in secret. He was too good to give up. Too smart, and too stubborn. He’d accepted his destiny long before Evan was even born, but it had done something to him. Something cold and dark slithered under the surface of Parker’s bravado. A responsibility, or perhaps a duty with a heavy toll.
“I went patrolling,” Evan murmured, still half focused on his magnetic field creation, “and found Grace’s purse. Sara had her paws all over it. The prints will prove it.”
Mary felt something in the air—a tangible change in atmosphere. He was almost ready for her to attack. But first, she had to ask: “If that’s true, then we’ve raised more questions than answers. Why would Sara lie? Why would she do the things you said she did? What’s her motive? And how is she alive?”
Evan shrugged, rolling his shoulders. “Don’t know. Don’t care. I just want her to pay.” Then he extended his arm and gestured for her to Bring it.
Mary’s resolve hardened. That attitude was not healthy. The minute they felt they had the right to choose who lived or died, was the moment they failed at being human. It became even more apparent that she needed to prepare him for battle. She feinted right, then left, then swung out with her foot.
He blocked her, almost lazily, as though he’d been waiting for her to move.
She went at him with a barrage of attack moves.
He blocked each and every one.
She kept at it. Charging him relentlessly, switching up her style to catch him unaware. Within minutes, they were both sweating with exertion.
She hadn’t landed a hit.
A slow clap came from the prideful spectator, a few feet away.
“You’re an eel,” Parker smirked. “Always knew you were a slippery sucker.”
Evan whirled and closed the gap. He slammed an electrified palm into Parker’s chest. Blue light flashed and a sizzling sound crackled. Power lifted hair on Mary’s arms and tingled her tongue.
“Five-fifty volts,” Griffin exclaimed as Parker hit the floor.
Mary laughed. “You look like you can control just fine, Evan.”
When she turned back to him, a pink stain had colored his cheeks and ears.
“It’s not with you guys I lose it,” he mumbled.
“Grace?” she asked quietly.
He nodded, avoiding her gaze. Mary took a deep breath knowing none of her children liked to discuss their romantic relationships with her, and this was the big one. So she sighed. “All I can say is, practice makes perfect.”
A ringtone cut through the air. Parker groaned on the floor and sat up, rubbing his chest. Strands of long, wild auburn hair lifted in the epitome of an electric shock victim.
“That’s my phone,” he grumbled and rolled to his feet. He stumbled to a side bench where their shirts and belongings had been discarded. “Yeah,” he said into the handset.
While Parker spoke, Mary moved to Griffin’s side. “Is there anything we should be worried about?”
Griffin turned his practical gaze her way. “Medically speaking? I’m not a doctor.”
“I know that, Griff. Give me your best educated guess.”
“I don’t guess. I take statistics and assess the risk factors to calculate a probable outcome.”
“Okay. All that.” Mary knew better than to argue with him. He was so much like his birth mother Gloria that deep down she worried he wouldn’t assimilate into society well, but he’d proven her wrong. He survived his seven year combat training, albeit barely and with some trauma he refused to speak about. He’d made a few friends, he’d excelled at his job as a data analyst, and kept himself extremely fit and well presented. There was one thing that niggled at her though. He was the only child to maintain equilibrium with his sin of greed. It should be a positive, but this balance came at the sacrifice of a normal, healthy life. It controlled every decision from his waking moment, to his sleep. It even controlled his sleep patterns. Last week, she saw him activating the timer on his watch before he went to dinner with his family, then check his bio-indicator as though he were mentally recording the effect spending time with his family had on his equilibrium.
“Well.” Griffin shifted his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “From these figures, it is as you say. Practice makes perfect. The more he uses his power, the stronger it becomes. He hasn’t had any problems calling the current to the surface which indicates his other control issue is perhaps mental, or sexual.”
“Screw you,” Evan said from his spot on the mat, unwinding the protective tape on his knuckles. “When you’re around your mate, you’ll know exactly how it feels. Mr. Control will be in hell.”
Griffin frowned, shaking his head. “No. I’m not like you. I can keep my ba
ser instincts in check.”
Evan snorted and stalked over to Griffin, pointing in his face. “Your dick gets hard just like mine, brother.”
“La madre que me! Language!” Mary blocked her ears. “From the looks of you, Evan, you’ve finished training. You don’t need me here anymore.”
“Sorry.” He had the decency to look apologetic and pulled her hands from her ears. “But it’s true. What do you think is going to happen when he meets his match?”
Griffin shrugged. “Maybe I don’t need to meet her. I’ve got my condition in check.”
“I’m telling you now, brother. You won’t have a choice if you do. Your body will heat up like it’s on fire. She’ll be all you can think of, morning, noon and night. It’s been days since I met Grace and every time I close my eyes, she’s there.”
“That was the lab.” Parker came over, interrupting. “The results are back.”
Mary held her breath, unsure which result would make her feel better.
“It’s a match. The fingerprints are Sara’s.”
“I knew it!” Evan grinned and then saw the various shades of horror reflected back at him. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “It’s just… I was right.”
“For Chris’sake, Evan,” Parker growled, cutting him off. “Grow up.”
But Evan couldn’t stifle the smile stretched across his face, or the light glittering in his eyes.
“I’m going to find my girl. She needs to know,” he said, then strode from the room, but Parker halted him by the shoulder. Their eyes met and Evan’s smile completely dissipated.
“Shit,” he said, finally understanding the warning in his brother’s eyes. “Wyatt.”
Parker glared. “We have to break it to him together. Family meeting at Heaven, two o’clock this afternoon. After the lunch rush and before he does the dinner prep.”
Evan nodded grimly.
Parker turned to Mary. “If you and Flint can be there as well, that would be appreciated. Wyatt’s going to need all the support he can get.”
“Of course.”
Envy (The Deadly Seven Book 1) Page 11
