The Redemption Saga Box Set

by Kristen Banet

  He looked her over for a very long time. She just waited. He would need to make sure that his decision to sell her out to Vincent’s team was really agreeing with her.

  “You’re still hitting the gym. Your shoulders are more defined. They forcing you into more upper body work than I did?” Charlie grinned, patting one of her shoulders.

  “We have a schedule,” Sawyer said, shrugging. His hands slid away, and she reached over to pat his massive belly. “Still not on a schedule?”

  “I’ll have you know, I’m very healthy.” He chuckled, hard enough that he shook. “There’s no heart attacks in my future.”

  “Good. Where are they?” She looked around. She didn’t see any rugrats running around.

  “Liam took them on a field trip this morning,” he said, leading her to the back. “I figured you and I can go on lunch, then we’ll hang out with all of them when everyone is back.”

  “I like that idea,” Sawyer whispered. Field trips? She’d never done that. She brought them here after school; she helped them with their homework, played games with them, taught them how to defend themselves. But a field trip? “Where did they go?”

  “Hayden Planetarium,” he replied. “You know the one.”

  “Yeah, it’s famous,” she mumbled. She missed this gym, she thought as they walked through it. “Anyone staying in my room right now?”

  “Nope. Still exactly how you left it. I’m going to keep it that way, too. You ever need a place to crash, you have one here. This is still also your gym as much as it is mine. Only let the kids crash there if their parents need them to stay over. They respect your things, and a few of the girls have taken to making sure the apartment stays clean.”

  “Charlie.” Sawyer swallowed. That was sweet. Tears were still in her eyes as they made it to his office on the second floor. She appreciated Jasper’s silence through it all, just letting her and Charlie pretend it was just them.

  “They want you to come home,” Charlie explained as he sat down behind his beat-up desk.

  “I know,” she whispered, looking down at the floor.

  “But you can’t.”

  “But I can’t.” She fell into the chair in front of his desk.

  “I know, and I understand, kid. I do. I haven’t explained it to them yet, but they’ll be okay. It’ll be good for them to see you, though. Even if you can’t come back up here to live, because you’re scared to, you can come visit.”

  “I agree,” Jasper cut in. “We’ll talk about scheduling some trips for the team to visit so she can.”

  Sawyer turned to him as he closed the office door and sat in one of the extra chairs. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting from him. She hadn’t been expecting him to get involved at all, really.

  “Thank you,” Charlie replied. “I would appreciate that.”

  “Me too,” she offered, still watching Jasper. What was his game? He’d never really liked what she did up here. He just shrugged, but didn’t say anything more.

  “How’s everything else? I heard about some thing in Texas? And a man named James has been stopping by and bothering me. Says he can keep me updated on how you’re doing?”

  “You know James?” Sawyer glared to Jasper, who just looked confused, then looked back at Charlie. “Really? Blond, greying hair? Grey eyes? Laugh lines, wrinkles. Probably in his late forties?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he confirmed.

  “That’s our handler. He is the best person to talk to if you want to know where we are and what we’re doing. If he offered to keep you up to date, then he’s trying to do something nice,” Jasper said, stretching out his legs before crossing them. It exposed part of the new prosthetic.

  “Okay, and where did that come from?” Charlie pointed at the leg.

  “Happened during the Atlanta incident,” she told him. “As for Texas, it happened. It was…weird. Anti-Magi group, serial killer, unreg Magi. Charlie, it was fucking weird.”

  “I bet it was.” He hummed and crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. “How’s the other teammates? You’re still getting along with everyone? You can be honest with me, if you haven’t been on the phone.”

  “I’m getting laid now,” Sawyer said perversely. “I haven’t lied to you about anything. You know what’s going on with my love life. It is what it is.”

  “We’ll order food here, and you can keep telling me how it is. Lot of men and not a lot of you,” Charlie teased.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why don’t you tell me how the gym is still up and running?” She sure as hell wasn’t funding it; she didn’t have any money.

  “Your men released all your funds to me and hooked me up with an accountant that properly invested it, so the money can continue to pay for the gym and replenish in the market. After getting Liam’s college paid off, they thought it would be easy to handle it.”

  Sawyer turned back to Jasper.

  “Zander is the computer guy, remember?” Jasper shrugged. “He might be a prick that doesn’t seem very smart, but he knows his way around the web. Vincent knew someone for Charlie to meet. We wanted him to surprise you with that.”

  “I wish people would just tell me what’s going on half the time,” Sawyer muttered in annoyance. She dropped the annoyance and looked back at Charlie though. “I’m glad. I would hate to see this place go under.”

  “Fight Nights are going really well for me, too. We started charging admission and we moved them to weekly.” He chuckled. “There’s one every Friday, if you’ll be in town.”

  “We should be gone before then,” Sawyer sadly told him. “Sorry. I wish. Right now I only get to beat up on Zander.”

  “A pity,” he laughed. “Let me order something for us to eat. Kids won’t be back for another couple of hours.”

  She listened as he got them subs from a local joint only two blocks away. They would send a kid to run the food down. She pulled out her wallet and checked for some cash. She still had a little bit left, sitting on it just in case anything came up. She pulled out a twenty for tip, while Jasper pulled out enough cash to pay for the meal.

  “I can pay,” Charlie whispered hotly at them.

  Sawyer laughed at the hilarity of the comment.

  “No, we’re treating you,” Jasper replied sternly. “No worries.”

  Charlie just hung up the phone, since he was done making the order, and glared at them. She was still laughing as the food showed up and she told the kid to keep the change from what she and Jasper gave him. The boy must have only been eleven, and he was getting something close to a thirty-dollar tip for twenty dollars in subs. They had made his day.

  “It always feels good to do that,” Charlie said through chuckles as the kid tore off to enjoy his prize.

  “Right?” Sawyer agreed, grinning like a fool. “Harley was a runner when I found her, remember?”

  “I could never forget.”

  They ate quickly, laughing over small stories, telling Jasper all about the children Sawyer kept finding.

  “She would bring them home like strays, young man. You have no idea. It was like every week she was in the city, she had another one sitting at my table, eating my food, with bruises that needed healing.”

  “Thank goodness I never brought home actual animals?” She shrugged as Jasper silently chuckled, his shoulders moving as the only sign.

  “I’m sorry we took you away from this,” he told her. “Really. It freaked me all out when we first pulled you out, but you really have done amazing things.”

  “She’s a treasure.”

  Sawyer just shrugged.

  “Why New York, though?” Jasper frowned. “Why, after you tried to escape Axel, did you come up here? You didn’t know Charlie yet.”

  “I actually survived them dumping me into the ocean off a cliff.” Sawyer sighed. Her eyes unfocused. She thought back to the hellish, fevered time from Charlotte to New York. “Two bullet holes in me. My chest cut open to the bone. My hip wound was practically a g
utting.” She closed her eyes and remembered. Why New York? “I pulled myself out of the water. I stole a car. Dropped it off, stole another car. Robbed a gas station for bandages and whatever I could get my hands on for the injuries.” Why New York? “I was hoping that I could get to New York and try to see if the IMPO, since I made the deal with that team, would protect me. I was out of it. I had no idea what was on the news.” Sawyer opened her eyes again. “I got here, barely alive. I saw the news. Heard what people were saying. Shadow: dead. IMPO team: dead. Axel willing to commit major acts of terrorism to get what he wanted.” She looked down at her hands. “I had nowhere to go. My deal with that team got them killed. I stumbled on the gym, tried to break in. Charlie found me.”

  “The rest is history,” Charlie finished for her. “Her wounds were severely infected. I put her into a coma for a week to treat them and keep the fever down. I had the right instincts about not taking her to a hospital. She mumbled in her sleep. Told me things. When she woke up, I learned the full story.”

  “I’m sorry for asking,” Jasper whispered. “I didn’t mean for this to take a dark turn.”

  “It’s fine,” Sawyer forgave him. “It was years ago. And look at me now. Charlie helped me get healthy. Then he taught me how to fight, not just shove the pointy end of a dagger into someone. He helped me achieve this physique. I changed.” Sawyer smiled at her golden boy. “Then you guys barged in and ruined everything.”

  “I would say Axel ruined everything and we fixed it,” Jasper countered.

  “Men, you all tend to ruin things,” she retorted.

  “I’ll give you that,” he conceded.

  Sawyer’s gentle smile turned to a victorious grin. Jasper was much easier to beat in verbal wordplay than Vincent.

  “Wow. He’s whipped,” Charlie muttered, looking between them. “They all that bad?”

  “Fuck no,” she told him. “I fucking wish.”

  That brought more laughter from all of them.

  “Charlie!” Liam’s clear young voice rang out.

  Sawyer nearly jumped out of her seat. Her heart began to race. For years, she only had two close friends. Two. Charlie and Liam. Liam had learned about her much later; she told him after what happened with Axel in LA, and he’d still wanted to be near her and in her life.

  He’d hated her since before Texas. Refused to speak to her - all her news about him came from Charlie. He was twenty now. He hadn’t answered her call for his birthday.

  She was terrified of seeing him.

  “Does he know I’m here?” Sawyer asked quickly.

  “No, I wanted you to be able to surprise them all,” Charlie answered, opening the office door. “Coming down!” he roared back.

  Sawyer followed him out of the room with Jasper. She wasn’t used to being nervous like this, but it was becoming more common. Nervous for a date with Jasper. Nervous for a conversation with Elijah about him and Quinn. Nervous about seeing Liam.

  Too goddamned nervous.

  “I have a guest, as well!” Charlie announced as they walked into the main area of the gym.

  Sawyer stepped out from behind them and saw her kids. All of them. She swallowed back her emotions. They were all there. Ages seven to twenty. All going wide-eyed at the sight of her.

  “Hey,” she called out softly.

  “SAWYER!” It was like all of them had screamed her name at once. The younger ones came running immediately, and she was jumped. She grabbed two, hugging them tightly before getting two more of them.

  As the younger ones jumped around, even bothering Jasper since they remembered him, Sawyer looked up to the teenagers. Liam hadn’t moved at all. None of them had. Some looked a bit pissed. She wondered how much Liam had talked to them, how much he’d expressed his own anger at her to them.

  “Let me talk to the older kids,” she told the younger ones. “Keep Charlie and Jasper busy for me, please.”

  “Yes, Sawyer!” one girl saluted her. Others giggled and laughed. They cleared a way for her to get to Liam and she started it off by glaring at him.

  “Workout room. Now,” she snapped, pointing to the room where she would hold her lessons.

  The teens smartly listened. She followed them and locked them all in together.

  “You said you weren’t coming back,” Travis started off, angry and glaring at her. “That’s what you told Liam.”

  Sawyer closed her eyes and rubbed them gently. When she looked back up, her temper was firing up as well. She was not going to be talked about or chastised by a bunch of teenagers. “Liam knows more about what’s going on than the rest of you. He understands why I’m not going to live in New York anymore and is just angry.”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Liam said with a growl.

  “Don’t spread rumors,” Sawyer retorted, turning on him. “You know better. I opened up and gave you the full story, Liam, and what do I get in return? Your petulance? Your anger?”

  “We needed you here and you decided you weren’t coming back!” Liam yelled.

  “You called me a coward!” she roared. “I explained it all to you and you called me a coward!”

  “Explained what?” Jessie asked, her arms crossed. “What does Liam know that we don’t?”

  “That I’m a retired assassin called Shadow,” Sawyer said it without thinking. The moment the words were out, there was no taking them back. She watched Jessie’s eyes go wide. “Fuck.” She hit the wall with her open palm, pissed that she’d just said it like that.

  “Sawyer…” Liam sounded a little guilty. “I didn’t want to expose you.”

  “So instead you made them think I was just running?” she hissed at him. “I guess it’s time to tell a story. Gather round, kids. Let me tell you about a girl called Shadow.” She said it sarcastically as she leaned onto the wall. “Because her life and ‘death’ is why I’m in a deal with the WMC for the next five years to stay out of prison. Because my life as her led to me having enemies all over the world. The biggest one, the one I used to work for and the one who thought he’d killed me, found me earlier this year. That’s why I was pulled into protective custody. They found out who I was when I nearly died in August.” She bared her teeth at them, frustrated. “So forgive me if I think I shouldn’t be a constant presence in your life right now.”

  “You…” Travis blinked a couple of times and sank to the mat. Two other young men did as well, looking a bit dazed. “You used to kill people.”

  “I still do,” Sawyer whispered. “It’s why I teach self-defense, though. Charlie taught me how to not kill, and I wanted to teach others who find themselves in places like I was once in.”

  “You used to get hit,” Jessie realized. “You were once one of us.”

  “In a way,” Sawyer mumbled. “I was in a relationship. He taught me to be a thief. Then he taught me how to kill. Then he forced me to kill. Blackmailed me into it, using the lives of others. I’ll never let another person unable to defend themselves be put on the line because of me.” She took a deep breath. “I won’t let you end up like the people I’ve failed before. So I won’t come back to New York. Not permanently. I’ll visit. As often as I think I can. But, between old enemies and my political trouble, I can’t stay here.”

  “Coward,” Liam whispered. “You are scared of us getting hurt and don’t trust us to protect ourselves like you trained us to.”

  No one else said anything. Sawyer began to think only Liam really thought that way. Maybe it was because he’d known her the longest and had been the closest to her. The first. She’d killed his father to save him from the beatdown she’d witnessed.

  “Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t say that to me.” She was not a coward. She would not be talked to like that. That boy had no idea what kind of things he was claiming he could protect himself from.

  “Seriously, Sawyer!” He was angry again.

  Sawyer narrowed her eyes. Was she going to need to prove it to him that this was out of his depths? “Ma
t,” she ordered. “Get there.”

  “Yeah, let me prove it to you,” he huffed. “You don’t need to worry about us.”

  She grinned as he pulled off his shirt and threw it. The kid was turning into a man. She hated it a little, even though she was also proud of him. She just needed to remind him of the difference between a Magi and non-Magi. She had fucking magic.

  She blinked directly in front of him and captured his arm and twisted it behind his back. She hadn’t even given him a chance to react to her suddenly appearing across the room. Others gasped. They had never seen her magic. She had never shown off in front of her students. She kept it to Fight Night, which they were banned from attending as minors.

  Liam tried to toss her over his shoulder and she rode it, sublimating before she hit the floor. He was still hunched over from the toss when she solidified and grabbed him. She tossed him instead, though she could have kneed him in the face too. She didn’t want to injure him.

  He stayed on the floor, staring at the ceiling in shock.

  “I used two of my abilities,” she whispered. “I have five, four that matter. I can move through solid objects, phasing, and cloak as well. The last isn’t something you need to worry about. I used to have an animal bond. She’s dead.” Sawyer’s voice went cold towards the end of that statement. “Now, here I am, one of the most infamous assassins that walked this earth. I’m telling you that there’s a possibility that you can be used to hurt me, by people with different and possibly more powerful abilities than me. If you can’t trust my judgement, Liam, then you are a fool.”

  “Shit,” Jessie whispered. “Sawyer…what did he do to you?”

  “The scar on my lip. The scar on my chest. The scar over my hip. My left ring finger,” Sawyer answered, not looking away from Liam. “He dropped me for dead in the ocean. I should be dead. You don’t need all the details.”

  “We tell you all of ours…because we trust you with them,” Jessie reminded her.

  “Get up, Liam,” Sawyer told him, ignoring Jessie’s comment for a moment. As Liam stood up, she turned to the younger girl. “He took my animal bond and used it to keep me in line. Did you know a Magi can feel the pain their animal does? She was a little black house cat.” She sank to the mat and stretched out her legs. “He killed her later on. Some of you understand what it means to take the beating so someone else doesn’t have to. That was my life. For years. He said kill this person and I did. So he couldn’t hurt a young boy the way he had killed my cat.” Sawyer waved a hand at all of them, her left, to remind them of the missing finger. “That’s why I did this. Made this. Taught you all. To stop you from being me. Forgotten by a broken system, ignored by those around you. I wouldn’t watch others go through what I did. And I won’t let more children die for me. And that’s what you are. Children.” She looked up at Liam, who was brushing himself off. “You understand now? I won’t let you, or them, be another Henry. I won’t. I trained you to protect yourselves, yes, but not to get dragged into my life. Not to get dragged into the criminal underbelly of the Magi world.”