by Reinke, Sara
Ever since their arrival, he’d felt that uncanny extrasensory perception that meant someone like him was close at hand, but as he had at Latisha’s, he’d pretty much dismissed it as nothing. The Brethren didn’t travel much, as a rule—or at least, the Kentucky clans like the Nobles and Davenants didn’t, preferring instead to keep to their isolated farms, segregated from the human world. That one would have followed him to Florida somehow, or that more he’d felt them not once, but twice, and in two completely different locations, was ludicrous.
Therefore, he didn’t think too much about it when that prickling sensation came over him again, stealing in a slight shiver down the length of his spine.
I mean, come on, he thought, prodding the tip of one serrated tooth lightly with his fingertip to see if it was really as sharp as it looked. What the hell would be the odds of—?
A hand fell against his shoulder from behind. He gasped in surprise as the grip abruptly tightened and he was spun forcibly around, then shoved back into the wall, knocking loose a tumble of shark bones to the floor.
“…talking to you, pendejo,” he saw a young man say—the last word unintelligible to him—as he held onto Brandon’s arm, his brows narrowed, his mouth turned down in a frown. There was no mistaking hostility when he saw it, and no mistaking that electrified tingling.
He’s Brethren, Brandon thought, in bright, bewildered alarm. Reacting instinctively, he reached up, catching the other man’s wrist between his hands then twisting, immediately cocking his arm at an unnatural angle. He saw the young man’s dark eyes fly wide first in surprise, then in pain, and as his face twisted, his mouth opening, Brandon applied pressure to his hold, forcing the man to stumble, then fall to his knees. Releasing him with one hand, Brandon then pushed against his elbow, forcing him in a clumsy, scuttling circle before crumpling, face-down to the floor, his arm craned behind him, clasped between Brandon’s hands.
Keeping the wrist lock firmly in place, Brandon swept his gaze quickly around the three other men who had accompanied his assailant. They’d drawn around him in a tight circumference, and stepped even closer now, all of them in tank tops, their heavily muscled, well-tanned arms exposed, all of them looking pissed off and ready to beat the shit out of Brandon.
One of them—tall, dark, with tattoos cutting jagged lines and asymmetrical shapes along his biceps and shoulders, locked gazes with Brandon, his brows deeply furrowed. He looked Hispanic, his dark hair swept back from his face. His gaze cut over his shoulder just as Taya came darting from behind the bar, hurrying toward them.
She pushed her way past them, her mouth in motion as she cried out, her words indistinguishable to Brandon. When she saw him—and the young man he still held pinned to the floor—her eyes widened all the more. Before she could say anything, however, Jackson waded into the fray, shoving his way forward.
“Brandon,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing? These are my friends. Let him go. Right now.”
You don’t understand, Brandon wanted to tell him. These people aren’t your friends—hell, they’re not even people. They’re vampires, Jackson, and they’d just as soon rip your throat out as look twice at you!
“Brandon,” Jackson said, visibly upset and confused. “I said let him go. Come on.”
Brandon obeyed, releasing his grip on the young man’s wrist. He stepped back, hands raised in concession as the man stumbled to his feet. Cradling his sore arm against his belly, he limped back to join his friends, sparing Brandon a dark glare that spoke volumes—You’ll pay for that.
He came at me, Brandon signed to Jackson, because he couldn’t tell him the whole truth. There was no way he could explain, nothing he could say that would make Jackson any less pissed at him at the moment, or make the situation any more clear in his regard. He grabbed me from behind.
His hands faltered. I’m sorry, he signed, tracing a circle around his heart with his fist.
“These are my friends,” Jackson said again, then he turned to the tall man with the tattoos and spoke to him directly. Because he now stood in profile to Brandon, he couldn’t read his lips, but as Jackson gestured to indicate him, and the Hispanic man cut his gaze toward Brandon, he realized Jackson was telling him the same thing: He’s my friend.
For a long moment, the Hispanic man’s eyes bored into him, sharp and unflinching, his jaw set at an equally stern and rigid angle, as if he clenched his teeth behind the camouflaging seam of his lips. It probably lasted no more than a second or two—although to Brandon, it felt like an intimidating eternity—but then the tension in the man’s face and form drained. He smiled, careful and guarded, but polite nonetheless, and stepped forward again, this time to offer his hand to Brandon.
“Sorry about that,” he said, as if nothing more had happened than he’d accidentally jostled Brandon in a crowd, causing him to spill his drink. “I’m Valien Cadana. This is Lopito…” He nodded once to indicate the man on his left. “…Carlos…” Another nod, this time to his right. Lastly, he clapped his hand on the shoulder of the young man Brandon had tussled with, a fond and somewhat protective gesture. “And this is Téo.”
Yeah. Brandon nodded once, his brows narrowed. To Jackson, he signed sharply: We’ve met.
****
“You’re jumping at shadows,” Lina told Brandon. They stood together, nearly nose to nose, speaking in low voices outside of Latisha’s house, beneath the camouflaging shade of an orange tree.
She’d listened as through an excited mix of telepathy and sign language, he relayed to her what had happened at the juke joint in town. It had clearly frazzled him, but worse than that—he was ready to leave.
I don’t know what they want or how they tracked us, but we need to go, he signed. We’re all alone down here, Lina, and there were three of them in the bar. We have to go back to California, to Lake Tahoe.
He’d also sheepishly told her about a text message he’d received from his grandfather, one he’d deliberately kept to himself to that point. Augustus said that the Davenant who attacked Tristan had fed from one of the Brethren. If the ones from the bar have figured it out, too…
“How could they be Davenants?” Lina caught his hands to still them, cut him off in mid-sentence. “That doesn’t make sense. Mama said Jackie’s been hanging out with those guys for the past few months. Months, Brandon. And besides, you said so yourself. You didn’t recognize them from Kentucky.”
The clans are huge, he argued telepathically, his brows narrowing. There are hundreds of sons, cousins, nephews, uncles in each one. Hell, I wouldn’t recognize half my own damn kin!
“You said they were all Hispanic,” Lina said. “Your ancestors were from France.”
He could be stubborn when he felt like it—even when presented with perfectly sound arguments to the contrary—and that cleft between his brows deepened. I sensed them.
“No, you sensed something. You said it wasn’t the same as with other Brethren, not exactly. Maybe there was an electrical transformer nearby, a generator or something giving off electrostatic energy. Michel Morin told me that could interfere with your telepathy sometimes.”
That’s not what happened, Brandon insisted.
“Really? Then why didn’t they tear you apart in that bar? Three against one—even without telekinesis, those are pretty good odds in their favor. If they were Brethren—if they were really out to get you, Brandon—then they sure as hell wouldn’t have let a few human witnesses stop them from doing it.”
I don’t know why they didn’t, he said. But I know what I sensed, Lina. I know what I felt.
Lina fought the urge to grab him by the shoulders and give him a good, hard shake. This is all Augustus’s fault, she thought, exasperated. She meant to keep this to herself, but he picked up on it anyway. Shit.
His dark eyes flashed hotly, rising to the challenge, but she cut him short, speaking aloud, “Stop reading my mind. You weren’t supposed to hear that. And anyway, it is, too, his fault. You wouldn’t have these ridiculous ideas
in your head if he hadn’t…”
Ridiculous? Folding his fingers down to his palm while leaving his thumb and pinky extended, he gave his hand a quick waggle. His hands flew; when he was pissed off—like right now—his signing grew sharp, fervent and swift. He was trying to help me, help us both, by warning us.
“He’s trying to run your life,” Lina snapped. “Again. Still. You’re out of his sight, but not out of his control, I guess, when all it takes is a phone call, a text message for him to tell you to jump, and you do it.”
That’s bullshit, Brandon signed fiercely, forking his index finger and pinkie while keeping his other fingers tucked together. After everything we’ve been through, all of the shit that’s happened these past few months, I’d think that you of all people would—
“That’s exactly why I’m asking you to let it go.” Again, Lina stopped his hands in mid-rant. “Listen to me. He’s trying to trick you. You said he told you to stop taking the Wellbutrin.”
Yes, because it dampens my powers, Brandon signed.
“Because it makes you less like him, less like the Brethren,” Lina said. “And more like me—human. Which is exactly what he doesn’t want!”
That doesn’t… Brandon began, then, visibly frustrated, he forked his fingers through his hair. Lina, he asked me to stop taking the pills in case something happens—something just like today in the bar. Tristan went up against one of the Davenants with his telekinesis out of commission and it damn near killed him.
“We don’t know that. Not for sure. Hell, for all we know, Tristan could be perfectly fine back in Lake Tahoe.”
Brandon blinked at her. How can you say that? he asked finally, his voice wounded and bewildered inside her mind. Why would Augustus lie to me?
She laughed. “Seriously? Brandon, that’s all the man’s made of! He’s spent the last three hundred years building a goddamn empire based on lies and manipulations.”
To protect my family, Brandon argued. To protect Grandmother Eleanor. To protect me.
“Protect you?” Her eyes flown wide, she stared at him, shocked. “Brandon, he broke your hands!”
That wasn’t his fault. Brandon bristled, his jaw tightening, his posture growing rigid and strained. He had no choice. Allistair Davenant made—
“He blames everything on the Davenants, and you buy into it every time,” she snapped. “When are you going to accept that Augustus is responsible for his own actions? He always has been!” Throwing her hands up in the air, she uttered an aggravated cry. “I’m so sick of this goddamn hero-worship thing you have going on for him now. It’s like you can’t even see straight—no, it’s like you’ve gone off and lost your mind.”
“What are you doing?”
At the sound of Jackie’s voice, Lina jumped, stumbling back from Brandon as guiltily as if she’d been caught fucking him instead of fighting with him. Heart hammering in sudden start, she managed a clumsy laugh.
“Nothing,” she said, once she knew her brother could see her well enough to lip-read as she ducked out from beneath the tree.
“Everything alright?” he asked as he stood half-in, half-out of the back door to the lanai, his expression puzzled.
What had he seen? she wondered. She wasn’t ready for another argument—least of all one with Jackson for her romantic involvement with Brandon—and hoped like hell he hadn’t seen enough to realize what was going on between them.
Everything’s fine, Brandon signed as he, too, faked a smile and walked back toward the house. He gave her a broad berth, which she matched stride for stride, neither of them so much as sparing a glance at the other.
It’s dinner time, Jackson signed. Mama’s called us all to the table.
“Terrific,” she said, with that damn insincere toothy grin still plastered across her face. “I’m starving!”
When she glanced at Brandon, his smile remained as well, though definitely strained. Yeah, he signed, dropping a nod with his fist in agreement. Let’s eat.
****
Even though Latisha’s fried chicken and biscuits were just about hands-down the best Brandon had ever tasted, the entire meal—and the rest of the evening immediately following—felt like an exercise in torture to Brandon. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that he had to force a cheerful attitude despite the fact that he and Lina had just had what was probably the worst argument to date in their relationship, or the fact that for much of the time, he felt like a relative outsider as Lina, Jackson and their mother chatted happily and nearly non-stop together. They shared anecdotes from their past, from Lina and Jackson’s childhood, or relayed updates on various different family members Lina had apparently not seen in some time. The conversations were boisterous and light, and Brandon wound up feeling intrusive, out of place and lonesome for his own family.
Not that I have much of that, he thought glumly as he finally turned in for the night. It was just past ten o’clock, and in the living room, Jackson and Lina were continuing the catching up started over dinner. Latisha had retired to bed early, and Brandon hadn’t missed the flash of concern in Lina’s eyes as she’d excused herself.
She’s worried about her mother, he thought. She thinks it was too much, our visit today, all of the cooking she did. It wore her out.
While Lina and Jackson had dutifully cleared the table when they’d all finished eating, and then washed dishes and loaded the dishwasher, Latisha had pushed her chair back and stood with a yawn. Come on, she’d signed to Brandon. Let’s you and I go into the living room, get to know each other a little better.
He’d felt wary at this. She’d been smiling as she signed, and he’d kept his mind closed to her, not wanting to be intrusive, but the same misgivings, those underlying feelings of negativity and dislike he’d felt from her upon their arrival remained. He suspected “get to know each other a little better” was a loose translation; that really what she’d meant to say was: Let’s find out if you’re fucking my daughter.
He’d accompanied her nonetheless, not wanting to seem rude or be an impolite guest. When she sat down in a recliner and glanced pointedly at the couch positioned caddy corner to it, he settled himself stiffly against the far end, folding his hands anxiously in his lap, feeling for all of the world the same way he’d always felt in the great house whenever Augustus would be cross with him.
Was dinner alright? Latisha signed. You get enough to eat?
Yes, ma’am, he’d replied, nodding with his fist. Plenty, thank you. It was delicious.
You’ve been awfully quiet since you and Jackie got back from town, Latisha said. Is everything alright?
They hadn’t told her about what had happened, Brandon’s ill-fated introduction to Valien Cadana and his friends. Which was probably just as well, Brandon figured, considering he’d apparently already been on Latisha’s shit list from the start. He nodded once, then shrugged. I’m tired, he replied. That’s all. It was a long car ride.
Her brows raised in tandem, an a-ha sort of expression. You’ve been doing that a lot lately, haven’t you? she signed. You and Lina both. Driving all over the place, back and forth across the country.
Brandon squirmed slightly in his seat, cutting his eyes momentarily toward the kitchen doorway, hoping for a rescue by Lina or Jackie that, unfortunately, didn’t materialize.
I guess so, he said, cupping his hand in the shape of a C at one side of his forehead, and drawing it laterally across, closing his fingers into a fist as he did.
Latisha studied him for a long moment, as if aware of his discomfiture and either not giving a shit about it, or taking some sort of thinly veiled delight in it. I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about that, Brandon, she signed. Or all of this trouble Angelina seems to have found herself in since running into you.
He hunched his shoulders. Yes, ma’am.
I don’t expect you’re going to tell me much of anything about it, she said. Just like she wouldn’t, either. But I want to make something clear to you, right here, right n
ow. There’ll be none of that while you’re under my roof.
Yes, ma’am, he’d said again, although he doubted she had any actual inkling of what exactly the that she wanted none of had entailed.
You seem like a nice enough boy and both Jackie and Lina speak highly of you, Latisha said. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. From here on out, as far as I’m concerned, you’re as welcome here as any other of Lina’s or Jackie’s friends would be. Unless… She’d leaned forward, signing this, crossing her index fingers in front of her, then waving them apart, her eyes locked with his. Unless you give me reason to feel otherwise.
Yes, ma’am, he’d said, and he’d been frozen in spot, paralyzed on the couch. He’d remained there ever since, after Lina and Jackson emerged from the kitchen, even after Latisha had retreated to her room for the night. He might have been stuck there yet had it not been for his twin sister, Tessa. As he’d watched Lina and Jackson talking together, or exchanging playful bits of sign language with one another—Lina shooting him glances every once in awhile, her expression torn, leaving him longing, yet resisting, to read her mind—he’d felt the cell phone in the hip pocket of his jeans begin to vibrate. He reached for it and found an awaiting text message from Tessa on-screen.
Just checking to make sure you made it in OK, she’d written.
Rising from the couch, Brandon had excused himself to the lanai. Here, the futon had already been pulled out from sofa-form to bed for him, the pad covered in fresh sheets, with an extra blanket folded at the foot end in case he got cold. There were no curtains on the lanai, no shades or blinds, and through the beveled windows that framed the room nearly end to end, he could see the shadow-draped back yard beyond, and the glint of distant street light off of water—the canal at the end of Latisha’s property. These were brackish channels, fed both by the ocean and a fresh-water river tributary, man-made with high concrete sea-walls to prevent flooding during tidal surges. During the trip from Tahoe, Lina had told him that you could see manatee in the canals sometimes, and even alligators on occasion.
