by Jen Talty
“That was amazing.” He kissed her nose.
“I’d tend to agree.”
He laughed as he rolled to the side, keeping his arms tight around her body.
She let out a long sigh, resting her head on his shoulders, her fingers dancing over his chest. Her heart swelled with the kind of love she’d only dared to dream. A new foggy image of her and Hunter, along with Hazel, Brett, Savanah, and Chad sitting at a table appeared before her. Willow stood off in the distance, reaching out to a silhouette.
“Hazel’s had these kinds of visions before,” she said.
“What happens next?”
“Nothing. Sometimes we’re all there, sometimes we’re not. Brett thinks it’s possible future outcomes, which makes sense based on Riley’s note.”
In the vision, Alexis stood, rubbing a round belly.
“No fucking way,” she mumbled as reds, oranges, and dark blues swirled around, erasing one image and replacing it with another one. A dark car rolled to a stop in front of her house. Three men with guns stepped onto the curb.
Hunter bolted from the bed. “We have to get out of here. Now.” He gathered her clothes and set them on the bed.
She didn’t argue as she snagged her pants and hiked them up. “The car. That’s got to be a premonition.”
“The last one was only off by fifteen minutes, so we still need to hurry.” Thankfully, he said nothing about her being pregnant in the premonition before the car showed up.
She raced to the window, carefully pulling back the curtain. “No one is out there, yet. But I think we should gather everyone at either Brett’s or Chad’s. I need to call Willow.”
“Okay, brothers and sisters. Sound off,” Hunter projected.
She cocked her head. “You think that’s really going to work?”
“Brett here.”
“So is Hazel.”
“Chad and Savanah accounted for,” Chad said.
“I’ve changed my mind about wanting to be able to communicate with everyone this way. It’s too weird,” Willow projected.
Hunter smiled like a proud little kid. “We’ve got a situation. Three men, locked and loaded, are on their way here.”
“Chad’s house is the closest,” Willow projected. “Let’s all meet there.”
“Let’s go,” Hunter said as he yanked open her bedroom door. “Fuck,” he mumbled.
Alexis turned just in time to see a man take the butt of his gun and smash it into the side of Hunter’s head.
“Get her,” the man commanded as two more people charged into her room.
“The men are here, and Hunter is knocked out,” she managed to project as one of the men took a needle and jabbed it into the side of her neck. She blinked, trying to maintain focus, but a haze filled her vision…then the world went black.
7
Hunter groaned as he blinked his eyes open, his surroundings a blur. A sharp pain tore through his brain. He tried to raise his arm, but he realized his hands were tied behind his back. He sucked in a deep breath and scanned the small, damp room. The concrete floor was cold on his bare feet. The walls stretched at least ten feet with a florescent light dangling from the ceiling with a frayed wire.
“Alexis.”
Nothing.
His chest hurt as he tried to take in a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if it was from being knocked unconscious or if the air in this hellhole was that stifling.
The door in front of him swung open and in stepped the man who had indirectly caused Hunter’s torture just a short week ago.
“We meet again, brother,” Karl Homer said.
“You’re no brother of mine.” Hunter swallowed the bile taste of betrayal. His chest tightened, remembering how Karl and Theo had raised their weapons and shot their teammates, point-blank, in cold blood. He’d been giving the North Koreans information about Hunter’s mission for three months. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life in a military prison, if I don’t kill you first.”
Karl laughed as he pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Not only will that never happen, but this time after we tap out all of your psychic energy, we’re going to let you die a slow and painful death after you watch me take your pretty little lady friend.”
“Where is she?” Hunter asked behind gritted teeth. He continued to reach out for Alexis, trying to find her presence, but he came up with nothing but darkness.
Same when he tried to connect to her sisters or his brothers.
“Oh, don’t you worry about Alexis. She’s safe. We have her in a little nicer room than this, but we’re going to need your help with that one.”
“Like I’d help you.” Hunter focused on the rope that bound his hands. He’d never been able to untie anything with his mind nor had he been able to lift anything that weighed more than five pounds, but he had to do something.
Only, he couldn’t even sense his own energy.
Just like when Mallard had been protecting him, only Hunter suspected this wasn’t Mallard.
“You’re not going to have a choice.” Karl pressed the cold metal of his weapon against Hunter’s temple. “I know you’ll die a noble death, protecting her from me, so you’ll do whatever I tell you, or we’ll start with me fucking—”
“What the hell do you want with me?”
A green fog inched up the walls like a snake. It turned blue and then red before opening up to a vision of Brett and Chad in front of a computer.
Hunter focused on the screen.
The wall twisted and crunched until it formed a glass box of some kind. Hunter lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers in front of his face, only they weren’t real. He stood, stepping into the booth. An old-fashioned telephone dangled on the back wall. He looked over his shoulder. His body had slumped over in the chair. Karl had kicked over his chair and raced out of the room.
Hunter wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, or the fact that his physical self had started to foam at the mouth, and the blues of his eyes had turned white.
“Step through the booth,” a male voice called.
“Just walk through glass,” he mumbled.
“It’s your tunnel. Just do it,” the voice said.
He inched forward, and the booth opened up into a clearing where he found Brett and Chad sitting on rocks under a couple of big oak trees with lush green leaves. A slight breeze ruffled the branches. The blue sky filled with ravens circling overhead.
“What the fuck is this?” Hunter asked.
“The space between one reality plane and another,” Brett said.
“How are we all here?” Hunter glanced over his shoulder. The phone booth was gone. “I’ve read that any of the spheres between reality…well, fuck. Of course this is possible considering I traveled through the abyss into the past.”
“Every day we learn and deal with something new,” Chad said. His hologram was fuzzy, much like the static on a television, only tighter and in color. “That phone booth is your tunnel to other planes in the same time and space. But we also heard you can view from the comfort of your own home, without the tunnel. So, we think there is a slight difference between remote—”
“I know what remote viewing is, and the only thing I need a so-called tunnel for is to explore,” Hunter said, letting out an exasperated sigh. He had no idea how he understood the difference, or why it was even important. He turned, focusing on his physical self. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing.” Brett stood, taking a few steps forward. “Savanah does shit like that, but she does it on purpose. Try to use your physical body. A head bob. A wave of your finger. Anything.”
“Like I know how to do this.” Mentally, he lifted his head and winked. “Well, fuck me, that’s crazy.”
“Welcome to the crazy train family,” Brett said, taking his seat back on a large rock. More like a boulder.
“Now, why did you call us here?” Chad asked.
“What? I didn’t call you.” Hunter turned in a complete three-sixty. He’d
worked with a few men who’d had the ability to remote view. They always described it as being invisible, which freaked Hunter out, but not as much as being in this place where there was nothing to view.
“Doesn’t matter. Do you know where you are? Where Alexis is?” Chad asked.
“Not a fucking clue. Assholes clocked me good. I just woke up a bit ago.” Hunter decided not to fight whatever this was, and he sat on a rock across from his brothers.
Blood brothers.
Cut from the same cloth, brothers.
“That was an hour ago. So, you can’t be too far from the house,” Brett said in that same level tone he’d been using since Hunter had met the man. “Do you know what happened to Alexis?” Brett asked.
Hunter balled his fists. He’d failed her, something he’d never be able to forgive himself for. Had he kept his dick in his pants, this wouldn’t have happened. Being intimate could have waited. “No. But I do know that Karl Homer is one of our captors.”
Chad and Brett exchanged glances.
“What?”
“We got a report back from the Perception Project about Riley’s computer,” Brett said.
“And?” Hunter’s patience grew short.
“Mallard knew Karl was part of the Elite Brotherhood when he put him on your team.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Hunter let out a sarcastic laugh. His own father had tossed him under the bus. And for what? To protect them? Or to betray them? “How could he let this happen? And don’t tell me he had to because of his visions. I’m calling bullshit on that.”
“I don’t think it’s a load of crap.” Brett picked up a stick and fiddled with it. “I don’t know Mallard, but I think he’s doing what he believes is best. That said, you and Chad have had contact with him in the past. I haven’t.”
Hunter bent over to do the same, but it slipped through his fingers.
“I’m angry too,” Chad said. “Of the four of us, I wasn’t adopted. Instead I was shifted from one foster home to another and Mallard knew, just like he knew what was going to happen to you. But I trust him.”
“That’s fucked up,” Hunter mumbled, but he knew it wasn’t really true, because he too trusted him, though he couldn’t fathom why. “So, if we’re going to believe Mallard is on team quads, then why is he MIA?”
“We have a theory,” Brett stated. “Based on everything we were able to decipher, Riley and/or Mallard had various visions during her pregnancy. Something about carrying four very powerful psychics sent her abilities into overdrive. We also found out she’s an oracle.”
“Wow. I didn’t think they existed anymore.” Hunter had read in Riley’s book, that the last known oracle had been Dimitri, the head of the Collective Order before they disbanded in order to save themselves from witch hunters.
“Turns out, we are all oracles,” Chad added. “Or at least, that’s where things are headed.”
“That’s just peachy,” Hunter said under his breath.
“One of the things we found on the computer was a listing of potential future outcomes.” Brett continued to fiddle with the stick. “They tracked many of them, and the only one that led them to all of us being reunited was if you were tortured.”
“It gets worse,” Chad said.
“Of course it does.” Hunter folded his arms across his chest. He should have stayed in the past a little longer with Alexis. “Lay it on me.”
“Gabe Underwood is working for the Elite Brotherhood,” Brett said with a tight voice. First time Hunter had seen the man show any kind of emotion other than playing footsy with Hazel.
“Our fourth brother is working against us? That’s certainly going to piss off Willow,” Hunter said. The one thing he knew about the youngest Raven sister was that she had a fascination for guns and wasn’t afraid to use them, or so he’d been warned. “Not sure I’d want that chick mad at me.”
“She is a bit of a hothead,” Chad said with a chuckle. “She has her own personal arsenal in the trunk of her car. But we’re getting sidetracked, and we don’t know when Karl will be back to do whatever he has in store for you.”
Hunter swallowed. He didn’t think he could endure another round of torture. “Can either of you remote view me? Alexis told me that you both crossed in a view and that Brett can bring back items.”
“We’ve been searching for you and Alexis for an hour and until you yanked us here, we haven’t been able to locate either of you. But I’m communicating with Savanah, and she says she’s homing in on your location. She thinks there is some sort of barrier blocking us, which isn’t surprising,” Chad said.
“Like when Mallard protected me until you rushed in and saved the day?” If Mallard had anything to do with this, Hunter would take a swing at the old man.
“Not exactly,” Chad said. Behind him a water tunnel appeared. “We believe there is a barrier over the building where you’re being held, but it’s not strong enough for our emerging powers. It’s only a matter of time.”
“You can’t know that.” Out of the corner of Hunter’s eye, the phone booth reappeared. He didn’t know if he willed it to come back, or this was the cosmos’ way to tell him to get the hell back to his body.
“If we couldn’t penetrate it, then you wouldn’t have been able to reach us and bring us here.” Brett moved in front of the tunnel. “We’re connected and not just through blood, brother. We’ve got your back.”
And with that, Brett and Chad raced off into the same tunnel, disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Hunter stood in the space between, staring at his physical self. The phone booth rattled as the receiver inside fell off the hook. He figured that could be a bad sign, so he stepped in and closed the door.
Seconds later, or at least he thought it might be seconds, he stepped into a room…no, a lobby of some kind. A young man with a headset sat behind a large white desk. He greeted a man with dark hair, wearing jeans, steel-toe boots, and a black V-neck shirt. A nine-millimeter Glock rested on his right hip.
Theo Knox.
Fucking great.
The sign behind the desk read: Caleb Snow Security Foundation.
Wonderful. Guns for hire. Not that he had anything against private security or bodyguards. He most likely would enter that line of work if he ever left the Navy. However, Caleb had been on a three-man list, and Chad had said Caleb was a prick.
This couldn’t be good.
He followed Theo down through a set of double doors behind the reception area. His boots clicked against the tile as he passed one office after another.
“Theo.”
Hunter cringed at the sound of Karl’s voice.
“What’s up?” Theo turned on his heels. “Why aren’t you in the vault? I heard you got yourself two for the price of one.”
“Hunter up and went rabid animal on me. He’s literally foaming at the mouth, but he’s unconscious, so essentially useless.”
“What about the girl?”
“Caleb wants to hold off strapping her in until he gets a chance to talk with her. He thinks she knows who the fourth brother is and where we can find him.”
“I don’t see why we don’t just get what we can and kill them,” Theo said.
Hunter’s heart thumped in his chest, ringing loudly between his ears. “Alexis? Can you hear me? Come on, babe. I need you to connect with me.”
“You need to look at the big picture.” Karl shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Caleb says that even if we destroy these brothers, another generation will emerge. What we need to do is keep them alive as long as we can, sucking every ounce of energy from them. And let’s not forget, he thinks Alexis is with child.”
Hunter coughed, pausing in the doorway in front of a set of stairs. He hadn’t heard Alexis, but he could feel her presence on his skin. She was near. She had to be.
But pregnant?
Impossible.
“Alexis. Answer me.” Hunter raced down the stairs where Karl had come from. He knew he coul
dn’t be away from his body forever, but he had to find Alexis and devise a plan to escape.
He had to save Alexis and their…
Impossible.
Alexis blinked, but she couldn’t lift her eyelids enough to see anything. Cool liquid flowed from her hand through her body. She didn’t need to see to know an IV had been inserted into her arm.
“Hunter? Where are you?”
Nothing.
She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. She wasn’t sure if it came from being terrified of her lost connection to Hunter, or whatever pumped through her system, keeping her from becoming fully alert. Her muscles were relaxed and at the same time, felt like rocks when she tried to move.
“Is anyone out there? Willow? Brett? Come on. Someone has to be there.”
A faint whisper slithered into her mind, but she couldn’t capture the words, nor the sender. Whatever drugs they pumped into her veins, she had to punch through.
“Hunter,” she commanded with as firm a tone as she could project. “Sisters? Brothers? I need your help.”
Another unobtrusive sound filtered in the background much like static from a television.
“We can barely hear you,” Willow’s voice came across like the crackle of an old-fashioned radio.
“Same here. Do you know where I am? Where Hunter is?” Alexis rolled her head to the side. She peeled her eyes open and groaned. The blinding light zapped her senses, sending bolts of pain to her temples.
“Currently, Hunter’s mind is in the space between one reality plane and another with Chad and Brett. But we don’t know where his physical body is.”
“I can’t reach him. It’s like he’s being blocked or something.”
The sound of muffled voices filled her ears. “I think someone is coming.”
“Hang tight. We’ll find you.”
Alexis closed her eyes, willing her body into a calm state, while trying to awaken her brain. She needed her mind to be razor-sharp so she could gather as much information as she could.
A door screeched, and rubber soles squeaked across the floor.
“It’s too early to tell,” a deep, raspy female voice echoed.
