by Sarah Jaune
From there they bumped down a dirt road for another two miles until they came to a gate. Zen hopped out and undid the latch so Eli could drive through.
“Wow,” Ivy exclaimed as she studied the small white farmhouse with green shutters and a wrap-around porch that came into view. The jeep scattered chickens as they pulled to a stop.
“I don’t see anyone,” Eli said hesitantly.
“No, she’s probably doing chores,” Zen explained as he exited the jeep. Together they walked around the house until they came to a huge, red barn. There was a woman with dark brown hair, in simple jeans and a plaid shirt walking a skittish horse around the ring of one of the paddocks. They didn’t call out. Zen held up his hands for them to stay silent, and it became clear why a moment later when the horse reared, whinnying in impatience or fear.
The woman spoke to the horse, soothing it with a calm tone as it settled back into its typical trot. A moment later she turned to them.
If she was surprised to see her nephew, she didn’t show it. Her face was lined, much more than her brother Kasper’s, but she was also weathered from a lot of years in the sun. She was tall, sturdy, and well used to hard work. Her hands were steady as she inclined her head towards the barn. “There are stalls to muck out.”
Zen’s face split into a grin. “Yes, ma’am.”
CHAPTER 29
AUNT CATE
Zen had barely opened the barn door when Ivy let out a delighted cry. “Kittens!” she exclaimed as she rushed for the gray fuzz balls that littered the barn floor.
Eli has seen a lot of sides to Ivy’s personality, but this was something totally new. Ivy sat straight down on a bale of hay and cuddled two squirmy kittens at once, cooing and aweing over them.
“We have some poop to shovel,” Zen mentioned to Ivy. She ignored him completely. Bemused, Zen turned to Eli. “I see where we stand.”
Eli chuckled and waved it off. “Let’s get to work. She’ll help at some point.”
Ivy did eventually join them and ignored Zen’s teasing comments. “I thought you said your aunt didn’t have any magic.”
“She doesn’t,” Zen confirmed as Ivy picked up a shovel. “Unless you have something to tell me.”
“She can talk to animals,” Ivy informed him with a grin. “She’s pretty powerful, too.”
Zen’s mouth dropped open. “Well… that explains a few things.”
They worked for another hour before they had finished clearing the barn and Zen’s Aunt Cate came to call them in for lunch.
“Come here,” Cate said as she hugged Zen hard. “You are a sight for sore eyes, Zen! I have missed you.”
Eli wouldn’t have guessed it from her reaction to their arrival, but he saw real affection on her face. “So,” Cate put her arm around her nephew and led them all into the house. “Why do I think this isn’t a social call?”
“I’m in a bit of trouble,” Zen confirmed. “Thankfully, it’s not with my parents.”
“That’s always a relief,” Cate laughed as she pointed to a small, wooden table with four chairs. It filled most of the small kitchen and the chairs scraped loudly as Eli slid his seat out.
“I have chili to eat,” Cate told them shortly. “Anyone who doesn’t like it can go hungry.”
“Chili is great, thank you,” Ivy said as Zen opened his mouth to clearly object on principle.
Completely unabashed, Zen pointed an accusatory finger towards his aunt, who was spooning chili into bowls from a crockpot. “How come you always pretended not to be magical?”
“Who says I am?” Cate demanded as she set bowls on the table and put fisted hands on her hips.
Zen pointed towards Ivy. “She does.”
Surprised, Cate turned to Ivy who had gone an interesting shade of red. “Does she?”
“She does,” Ivy confirmed, lifting her chin. “The chili is good, by the way.”
Cate grunted and went back for more bowls. “Well,” she said as she settled herself at the table. “Tell me the story.”
They told her parts of the story, but nothing about the Guard. When she learned that Eli and Ivy both had more than one power, she called them both liars. “I want to see.”
Ivy twirled her fingers and made the water from her glass rise, then fall back in without more than a tiny splash.
“That is unusual,” Cate said carefully as she studied them. “Well, you can stay here as long as you’re willing to work. I don’t keep loafers and lazy children.”
It was a recipe for how the next two days went, and they were some of the most relaxing days of Eli’s entire life. Here, in the outskirts of Saint Louis, Eli truly felt like they’d escaped the world that was out to get them. They worked hard from dawn until dusk, then spent hours talking and playing card games with Cate.
Zen’s aunt never explained why she didn’t mention her magical power, and they all had the impression that they shouldn’t ask. By the third day, Eli knew they should leave, but it was admittedly not the option that was most appealing.
“You can come back here any time you need a place to run,” Cate told Ivy as she gave her a big hug. “Are you sure you don’t want a kitten?”
“My parents wouldn’t be too happy with me,” Ivy told her. “Plus, my sisters would not be nice to a kitten.”
“Thanks again for everything,” Eli said to Cate.
Ivy hugged Zen hard. “Be good and stay out of trouble.”
“You ruin all my fun,” Zen retorted mildly. He’d turned fifteen while they’d been together at the ranch. Eli hadn’t seen the old Zen this entire trip together. It hadn’t sunk in at first that Zen was different, but the night before he’d realized that Zen really missed Coral. It left him a little more sober and a tad more serious than he’d have otherwise been.
They hit the road ten minutes later. Ivy told Eli to drive first, and she spent the next hour staring silently out the passenger side window.
“You probably could have kept a kitten,” Eli said after the quiet started to drive him crazy.
“We’re gone too often to really make it work,” Ivy sighed. It was a flimsy excuse, but she seemed set on holding to it.
They continued on through the day, talking some, but not talking at other points. Finally the thoughts about the multiple powers boiled over and out of Eli’s mouth. “Something happened to create multiple powers in some of us.”
“I won’t say obvious,” Ivy replied mildly. “But…”
He grinned, despite himself, at her teasing. Whatever funk she’d been in seemed to be lifting. “But obviously, there is something that was the catalyst that happened before we were born. It’s consistent, and you seem to be the oldest.”
“Only by a few months, though,” Ivy mused. “I’m only a few months older than you are, but I get what you’re saying. Naomi is five years older than you are, and you said she only has the one power.”
“Exactly,” Eli said as he tapped the foot that wasn’t on the accelerator, on the floor mat of the jeep. “So, this may involve your parents.”
“It might,” she agreed. “My dad is mean, selfish, and power hungry, but he’s not like your father. The cities with these kids seem to be falling apart. Look at New Orleans! That levee should have been fixed years ago, and it’s clear that the poor are being treated cruelly. I wish we’d asked Thane what Miami is like now. I think that would be telling.”
“What are the cities that we know about?” Eli said as he continued to stare out the window. “We have Chicago, New Orleans, Portland—”
“No,” Ivy interrupted him. “As far as I know, my father’s kids all only have one power. I appear to be the only one with two. He has at least one who already has their power. We’d know if he had more than one.”
“We might not,” he argued reasonably. “Your father might want to keep that a secret.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think we have enough to rule them in,” Ivy said stubbornly. “It’s fair to say that my mom went crazy in much the same way a
s your father and mother did. We don’t have that with my father. He’s kept Portland running smoothly, albeit with an eye to making the most money for himself. Cruel is not the same as crazy.”
Eli mulled that over for a bit and realized she was right. “Okay, agreed. What we’re left with, for sure, is Chicago, New Orleans, and Miami. None of those cities has anything to do with the other except…” his throat constricted, cutting off the words with fear and realization. “The Council.”
Ivy turned to him with a frown. “What about them?”
“My father is on the Council, along with New Orleans. I heard him talking about it once, a long time ago.”
She shook her head and part of the heavy mass slipped from her bun. Annoyed, she started winding it back up again. “They rotate out all the time.”
“That’s a myth,” Eli sighed. “A couple of the families stay on all the time. My dad is one of them, same with my uncle in Atlanta.”
Ivy let out a huff of air. “Of course it’s corrupt. Why did I think it would be another way?”
“Because you’re not totally jaded and cynical yet,” he reminded her. “It’s not much of a theory, but it’s something to go on. I don’t know if my cousins in Atlanta have more than one power. I haven’t seen them in forever, but it would be interesting to find out.”
She shook her head. “We can’t go to Atlanta. You’d be recognizable. That would have to be a job for Thane, and he might not know if they had two powers. The other question is why do you have three powers? How did that happen?”
Eli had the nagging feeling that it should be obvious, but it just wouldn’t come to him. He stared at the road ahead of them and let his mind go blank until he was at peace. Here, in a type of wakeful meditation, he found the world around him fade until he was left with a blank canvas. It was his heartbeat and the road ahead of him. He had to be careful, though, not to lose himself completely or he’d crash the car.
His mind’s eye painted lines, black slashes with two next to each other, then a third slash below. This kept repeating until the pattern changed and he saw a black and red line standing next to each other. Below it, was a red, then two red lines filled his mind and below it, a blue.
“Eli,” Ivy voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Are you falling asleep?”
“No,” Eli replied quietly as his mind raced through all the possibilities. “I think… I think I have it. We have parents who did something that makes them go insane. We don’t know what, but we know it’s powerful and probably magic of some kind, right?”
“I suppose so,” she agreed hesitantly.
“As far as we know, only your mom was crazy,” he said as he slowed the jeep onto the shoulder and threw the gear into park. “One parent does something magical that then makes the person insane, and you have kids following with two powers. But then there are my parents.”
Ivy groaned as she understood what he was implying. “Both of your parents are going nutty, which resulted in both you and Beth having three powers! Of course! It makes perfect sense.”
Eli unbuckled his seatbelt and shifted in his seat to stare at her. “This could be the answer. Your mom, who wasn’t magical, somehow was involved in whatever it was that created the change.”
“Or she was accidentally caught up in it,” she told him. “My mom wasn’t exactly a top ranking person.”
“But she went to college, right?” Eli asked her. “Somehow, she met your father.”
Ivy shrugged helplessly as her eyes fell to her lap. “I don’t know how any of that happened. By the time I was old enough to ask, she was already dead. She never told me how she met him or anything like that. It isn’t like I can ask him.”
Her pain was so raw that Eli couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to take her hand. “That’s his loss, Ivy. He’s missing out, not the other way around. You don’t need that kind of jerk in your life. I know, I ditched my own jerks.”
Ivy’s smile was brittle, but stronger than he’d seen in a long time. “Okay, you ready to switch?”
Eli nodded. “I want to stretch out a bit, then we can keep going.”
They ended up only stopping once for about four hours so they could both sleep. Otherwise, they drove on through that night, the next day, and most of the following day to reach the Portland Zone and the Redmond Township.
“I have rarely been so glad to get home,” Eli said as he drove towards his house. He was so exhausted that he felt like every nerve ending was vibrating on a higher level, and at any moment, he might shatter.
Ivy didn’t say anything.
“You can stay with us tonight,” he said, correctly interpreting her silence. “We could see about you moving in with us. You’d have to share with Ava and Alexi, but—”
“No,” Ivy shook her head. “My foster parents really do need the help. It was nice getting a break, but I have to go back. It’s difficult and dangerous getting these kids to safety, but the real hard work is on the back end. It’s what the families that take them in do every day.”
He didn’t object, because there was no way to dispute that. Cole had saved him, but it was one day in his life. The big heroes in his story were Maia and Pablo, plus his foster brothers. They were the ones who had helped him to be a normal, functioning human being. Without them, he’d have been a selfish, dangerous weapon that Eli’s father would have used and manipulated into Campbell’s own image.
“I will stay tonight, though,” Ivy said when he pulled the jeep into the driveway. “I’m too exhausted to do more than eat, tell the story, and sleep.”
Their welcome was, as always, joyful. Ava ran for Eli, who scooped up his five-year-old sister and held her close. She was about the same size as Diana, the girl from New Orleans. Ava was never going to have to silently sneak her baby sister from their house in order to run for their lives. Inexplicably, Eli’s eyes stung, but he forced a grin, and tossed her up into the air. He caught Ava, who laughed a full belly laugh and told him they were about to eat.
Maia’s greeting was the best. It was a long, warm, hard hug that involved her letting out a breath that told him she’d been worried about him. “We expected you back ages ago.”
“I know,” Eli said as he dodged a punch from Graham. “We made a stop along the way to make sure we weren’t followed.”
“We have a lot to tell you,” Ivy said as she came back from washing her hands. She caught sight of the table laden with food. “Oh, thank goodness! I am starving, and I am so sick of eating sandwiches.”
“Let’s eat then,” Pablo told them as he carried over a huge pot with steamed broccoli. “I remember my days on the road and eating whatever I could.”
“I had one fancy meal,” Ivy said as the eight of them sat down together. “They made me wear a dress and everything, but home has the best kind of meal.”
Oliver snorted and snatched his water glass out of the way before Alexi could knock it over. “I can’t even begin to picture that.”
Eli picked up a roll and chucked it at Oliver’s head, who didn’t duck in time. The bread bounced off his brother’s forehead and shot across the room.
“Ow!” Oliver bellowed as he prepared to retaliate with his own roll.
“No!” Maia’s sharp voice stopped him in his tracks. “We are going to have a nice meal where the pair of you will behave yourselves. Am I understood?”
“Yes ma’am,” Eli and Oliver said at the same moment.
Eli grinned at his foster brother who narrowed his blue eyes. Oliver had a small piece of bread that stuck to his dark brown hair, and his round face had a red mark from the roll. “Tomorrow, I am going to kick your—”
“Oliver!” Maia warned sternly.
A tiny bit of water flew from Oliver’s glass and hit him in the chest.
Maia turned back to Ivy in exasperation. “You, too?”
Ivy smiled innocently. “Like I said, it’s nice to be home.”
AFTERMATH
REASONED INSANITY
&nbs
p; “You are an idiot,” Campbell Hunt growled as he rubbed at his throbbing temple. He could have been speaking to any of the dozen men who sat around the table, but they would all know to whom his words were aimed. He ran a hand over his slick hair, confirming it was all still meticulously in place. Campbell’s hair was freshly dyed so that none of the gray that wanted to sneak into his ebony hair would show. He focused his intense, ice-blue eyes on Gabriel Chaplain and restrained from reaching across the table to strangle the man.
They had been meeting too often of late. Their conference room in the underground facility was just outside of the Denver Zone. It was considered to be a separate entity, not a part of any zone, thus safe.
