by Jessica Gunn
You were scared. Of what? Them telling me I was crazy to run to Boston when Riley hadn’t been kidnapped there? I guess I’d been worried they would tell me to stop looking for him after so long. They hadn’t exactly been thrilled when Sandra had gotten pregnant to begin with. But was that enough to keep me from coming back for so long?
Coward.
“Ready when you are,” Rachel said, looking up at me. There wasn’t a single sign she was as stressed as I was. They were her parents, after all. Why should she be worried?
The truth was, it wasn’t her parents I was scared of facing. It was Michael, her brother.
We walked up the driveway in silence. I wasn’t sure what Rachel was thinking, but the only thing on my mind was getting this over with and going to Alzan as quickly as possible. Assuming, of course, that we found nothing. What we’d do if Amanda or Michael—or even Rachel’s parents—had developed powers, I didn’t know. Especially since they didn’t know the truth about Rachel and I.
When we reached the front porch, I let Rachel take the lead. We’d both grown up in her parents’ house but it felt weird to be the one to walk through the door first. I would have knocked and waited. Rachel, on the other hand, drew keys from her pocket and unlocked the door. I swallowed hard as she pushed it open and stepped inside.
“Hello?” she called, pocketing her keys. “It’s Rachel. Ben and I are stopping by.”
Long moments passed but there was no response. At first, the silence was daunting. As if all sound had been vacuumed out of the space. But given that it was early morning on a weekday, I guessed we shouldn’t have been surprised no one was home.
“Hello?” I called.
Footsteps sounded down the side hallway that led into the kitchen. Amanda, my younger sister, emerged. She’d only been a teenager when Riley had been born. Now she’d be partway through college. Her eyes widened when she saw us. She froze. “Ben? Rachel?”
Rachel offered her a warm smile. “Hey, Amanda.”
Amanda only returned her smile, not embracing her, as she passed by Rachel and made her way up to me. “You’re home?” Tears shone in her eyes.
I nodded, though where a few years ago I would have had to look down to meet her gaze, we were more even in height now. God, so much time had passed. And what an idiot I’ve been. “Yeah. We’re home.”
Amanda reached out and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I caught her, hugging her back. “I’ve missed you both so much. I can’t believe you just left us like that. That you left me, Ben.” She pulled back, glaring up at me weakly, like she wasn’t sure if she meant the anger. “I hated you for that.”
Her words cut bone deep. I deserved every single one of them. She’d been all I had after our parents had died. Sure, Rachel had always been like a sister to me, and we had Michael and their parents. But it wasn’t the same connection Amanda and I had. The same connection I’d left behind in search of Riley and some misguided attempt to rid the world of all the demons like the one that’d kidnapped my son.
My body started to shake, a queasiness twisting my stomach. “I’m sorry. There was a lot going on until now. I…” I had a million and one excuses, some of them even good ones, but now that I stood here, none of them meant anything. “I shouldn’t have left like I did.”
Tears coursed down Amanda’s now blotchy red cheeks. “You’ve been as missing as Riley, Ben. A few birthday phone calls and an email here or there isn’t the same as having you here.”
“I know.” And what made it all that much worse was that we’d come here not to visit, but to check in for a Hunter Circles related purpose. “I’m sorry, Amanda.”
She wiped her cheeks and nose with the end of her sleeve. “Well, it’s a good thing I forgive you for it then, huh?”
My eyes widened, a knot squeezing my gut. “You do?”
She balled a fist and lightly punched me in the shoulder. “You’re my brother. I kind of don’t have a choice in the long run.”
I wonder if Michael will feel the same…
Amanda hugged me again, and all I could do was stand there, basking in the relief flooding my mind. Amanda was alive and well and for some reason forgiving me for being an idiot.
She pulled away and looked to Rachel. “I assume you’re to thank for him smartening up and coming home?
Rachel cringed. “We’re uh… we’re not home for good. Not yet.”
Amanda frowned, her brows bowing. “What? Why not?”
“It’s complicated.” I wasn’t sure how much she knew or if she’d talked to Sandra at all over the years. If she had, was it possible Amanda was one of the people Sandra had told about demons and the Hunter Circles?
Anger flashed across her bright blue irises, a mirror to mine. “Complicated like how you forced Sandra to move to Canada and then left her there like you left us? Or complicated in that you weren’t there for her when she started posting crazy things online?” She lifted a finger to her chin and tapped it. “Or how about complicated in that you for some reason think I’m still a child that can’t handle the truth?”
Rachel bit her lip, a smirk working its way across her lips. “She’s definitely your sister.”
I sucked in a deep breath past my teeth. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“All of that is true, but for reasons that are… Look, we didn’t come here to argue. Can we please not do that? I don’t think you’re a child or can’t handle the truth. I’ve always tried to keep you away from all of this because you were so excited for Riley’s birth and him being kidnapped nearly destroyed you.”
“I know,” she snapped. “I was there too. What I don’t understand is why you moving to the city has anything to do with finding him or whatever career path you’ve found, Mr. Ex-Quarterback.”
It’s complicated. That was the answer I wanted to give, mostly because the truth was so unbelievable that I doubted Amanda would believe me. But since both of those explanations would only serve to get her even more pissed with me, I kept my mouth shut and deferred to Rachel instead.
Rachel’s jaw muscles tightened. “I’ve been interning for the paper there, taking night classes. Ben’s coaching college athletes that have sustained injuries. It’s not the most glamorous life, but it’s working for now.”
Amanda lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing. There was zero chance she’d believed a single word Rachel had said. “Well, I can’t wait to see it for myself. I’m transferring to Boston College next semester. In the spring.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What?” Great. Another member of my family directly in harm’s way inside Boston’s city limits.
She nodded. “Yeah. They have a really good program and I got in. It beats the hell out of this community college. I’ll figure out the student loan stuff later. This way, I can see you two more often.” She glanced down to her hands. “If you want to see me, I mean. Not live with you or anything, just hang out now that I’ll be in the city too.”
Rachel recovered faster than me. “Absolutely. That’s so awesome, Amanda. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
But all I could think about was the state of the war with Darkness. The target on Cianza Boston’s back, not to mention the disarray the Fire Circle had become. The Neuians. And the secret I’d been keeping from my team.
“Ben?” Rachel asked.
I forced a smile and tried to look to Amanda’s future, not the immediate war. “Congrats. I can’t wait to see you more often.” Amanda’s expression turned neutral. I shook my head and stared at my feet. “I’m… sorry I left without anything more than a few messages those first few months. Honestly, I’m still ashamed of what happened to Riley. I was trying to come to terms with that before facing you again.”
The more words I let escape my tongue, the more I realized why I’d never come back before. “I guess I didn’t want to come back empty-handed. I’d rather stay out in Boston then come home without Riley. But things will be different soon.”
I just wasn’t sure what kind of different it’d be. Or if any amount of looking for Riley would make up for all the damage we’d allowed Darkness to make in our wake, or justify the pain I’d caused my family in the interim.
“What the hell are you doing here?” said a voice from behind us.
I turned and saw Michael standing in the doorway, coming in from outside. He wore a glare that bore straight down to my bones. “Hey, Michael,” I said.
He looked from me to Rachel and back again. “Shouldn’t you two be in the city?”
“Why aren’t you?” Amanda asked, stepping around me and Rachel to greet her cousin. “I was going to meet you there.”
“Meet you?” I asked, thoughts whirring. Amanda being here made sense since the semester hadn’t started yet. But Michael? I was banking on him not being here.
“I took the day off to help her get into the city,” he said. “What’s your excuse for finally coming home?”
Amanda groaned, rolling her eyes. “Great. Another brother who thinks of me like a child.” She pushed past him, too, and grabbed a bag hanging by the door. “I can make it on my own. It’s apartments I needed help with, not public transporation.”
“Wait!” I said, moving to follow her out the door as she grabbed her car keys. “I need to talk to you.”
“You’ve been gone for almost four years,” Michael said. “Any talking should have been done a long time ago.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rachel told him.
He arched an eyebrow. “Don’t I? You two ran off to Boston, leaving the rest of us behind to clean up the mess. The next thing I know, even Sandra’s gone. Did you know Amanda still talked to her until she moved to Canada?”
I glanced over at Amanda, who was currently doing everything to avoid eye contact with everyone. “Is that true?” Sandra hadn’t mentioned it at all. And as seeds of some emotion resembling betrayal sprouted in my gut, I understood why they’d kept their interactions quiet.
“She was sad,” Amanda said. “And alone. You and Riley were her everything, and I missed you both too. After she told me how dark you’d gone, how off the deep end, I thought it’d be better to be there for her when you weren’t. When no one was.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from speaking. None of what Amanda said was untrue. Right after Riley had been kidnapped, I’d gone mad. And it’d only gotten worse after Jaffrin had recruited me as a Hunter. The whole situation had hit critical mass when Sandra had had to take me home from an emergency room in Boston after a demon fight gone wrong.
“I’ve been a shit brother,” I said. “And a shit… partner, for lack of a better word. I admit that.”
“Good thing I’ve been here, then,” Michael said.
Rachel stepped between me and him. “We’re not here to cause trouble. We just wanted to say hi and to see how everything’s going.”
“After so long?” Michael asked, turning his glare on his own sister. “We’re fine. Maybe in another six months we can even get together with you guys. But for now—”
“Nothing weird has happened?” I asked. No sense dancing around it anymore, not when Michael was so ready to kick us out of the house. I expected him to hate me. I’d in no way guessed he’d be this pissed with Rachel, his own sister, since I was the one who had dragged her into this whole mess in the first place.
Amanda’s brow furrowed as she let go of the door handle. “Weird?”
I met her gaze over Michael’s shoulder, ignoring him as best I could. The chances he’d have developed magik after Rachel and me were low. Amanda on the other hand…
“Yes, anything strange.”
“Strange how?”
Do you have magik powers? I couldn’t straight out ask that. Michael would flip his shit. But Amanda would tell me if I did ask, right?
“Like, magik or something.” I tried to say the words as if I wasn’t sure about them, like they didn’t matter, but Rachel’s eyes narrowed anyway. Maybe straightforward wasn’t the best approach.
“Magic?” Michael echoed. “What are you talking about?”
“Magic like how Sandra was saying it?” Amanda asked. “Her social media posts about demons and Riley and all that?”
I winced. How much had Sandra told her? “Sort of, yeah. I was wondering if…” Oh, fuck it. “I guess I was wondering if there was any truth to what Sandra was saying. Like, if you’d seen anything weird like that when you hung out with her or something.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed further, if that was possible. Michael looked to her. “You really came back after years for that?”
“We’re worried about her,” Rachel said. Which wasn’t a lie. Sure, I’d seen Sandra a few days ago at her new apartment not far from the team’s house. She wasn’t one hundred percent okay, but she seemed to be doing a lot better than when I’d found her after Hydron and the Fire Circle had ordered me to get her to stop talking. But the truth was, Rachel and I were still worried about her and how she was taking everything.
“Then call her, maybe?” Michael offered. “And do me a favor and don’t buy into whatever fairy tales she’s telling. I think she’s still freaking out about it all.”
“Her baby was kidnapped, Michael,” Amanda hissed. “You don’t just get over that.”
“No, you don’t,” I said darkly.
They both looked to me as if seeing me here for the first time. Amanda frowned. “Ben, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “Sometimes I make decisions about Riley and everything that happened, and I forget Sandra should be involved in those decisions too.”
“What kinds of decisions?” Michael asked.
“Don’t worry about it. As long as nothing weird is happening here, we’ll be on our way. Rachel and I just wanted to check things out.”
“No crazy demons and stuff here,” Michael said, exasperated. “You all need to see a doctor. This is insane.”
Amanda didn’t say a word. Instead, she accepted Rachel’s hug and then my own.
“We’ll be on our way, then,” I said. “Tell your parents we say hello.”
Rachel wrapped her brother in a hug he didn’t seem happy to return. “Tell them I love them. All of you.”
We retreated out the door without a second glance. Maybe these relationships were just another on the long list of those to repair once Riley was home safe. It was clear Michael didn’t give two shits about either of us right now. And while I didn’t blame him for it, I guessed I was hoping for something more.
Like either of them having magik and confirming this Neuian nonsense. No matter how much I didn’t actually want that outcome.
“That didn’t go as planned,” Rachel said as we worked our way back down the driveway.
“You’re welcome to stay and try to get through to your brother. I think he’s done with me.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “The two of you are the most stubborn men I’ve ever known.”
“You’re welcome.” I didn’t know what else to say. That stubbornness she hated was the same stubbornness that’d saved our asses on more than one occasion. I wasn’t going to apologize for it.
“What now?” she asked.
“We head back to the house, collect everyone, and get ready to go to Alzan.”
“Right away?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know another course of action, Rachel. They’re the only people who know about the Neuians, and that everyone with the Power might have magik that’s directly tied to them… Areus and the other High Council members will know what to make of that. I also want to know exactly what Jaffrin knew.”
“Is it true?” someone asked from behind us.
Rachel and I froze, turning back. Amanda stood there, hands on her hips. “What Sandra was saying, how much of that is true?”
Rachel’s gaze met mine, a silent question in her eyes. I looked from her to my sister. “Depends. What did she tell you?”
“The same thin
gs she wrote on social media,” Amanda said, the fingers on her hips tightening into fists. “That demons took Riley. That it wasn’t a normal kidnapping.”
I swallowed hard. No wonder Hydron and the Fire Circle were so ready to shut Sandra up. “What if it was true? What would you say to that?”
“Ben,” Rachel hissed under her breath, a warning.
I waited for Amanda to answer. Michael wasn’t behind her. It was just the three of us now. My heart leapt into my throat with every moment of silence that spanned between us, as if Amanda would actually come out and say she, too, had magik.
But when she spoke, she said, “Then I’d guess a lot of things would actually make sense.”
My brow furrowed. “Sense?”
Amanda’s eyes dropped to her hands. “I overheard you and Rachel talking once at the hospital right after you woke up. About powers and being in a coma. And the lightning that struck the boat.”
Rachel’s eyes went wide. “You knew?”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I asked.
Amanda shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I always figured that if you wanted to tell me, you would. And that you didn’t because I’m your little sister. Some protection bullcrap or something. And then you never brought it up.”
She lifted her gaze to mine. “I don’t know how else you survived, Ben. You were struck by lightning while in water. You should have died—we all should have. But we didn’t. So if you do have magik lightning powers and that’s what saved us, then thank you. And I’m sorry that same stuff got between you and Sandra and whatever really happened to Riley. But I hope you figure it out.”
I held her gaze, too many words fighting to be said to speak any single one of them. But if she knew the truth about Rachel’s and my magik but didn’t have her own, it didn’t mean she couldn’t know the full truth. “It’s true, Amanda. And when you get to Boston for school in the spring, I promise I’ll tell you everything. But not until then.”
Because if the world survived long enough for her to start school in Boston, that meant we’d won against Lady Azar. And if we didn’t, whether my sister knew the truth about Riley and the Hunter Circles and Darkness wouldn’t matter.
