“Every available resource is being used to find out who did this and why. Those responsible will meet Lady Justice. Of this, I give you my word. I know you have all been interviewed by James Gotsch’s team, but if you remember anything that can help lead to those who did this, I encourage you to speak up now.”
Let the finger pointing begin.
A member of the Ten physically gets all up in Brad’s face. “This has your signature written all over it.”
Brad doesn’t hesitate to push back. “My Cleave died in that explosion. I had nothing to do with it. Everything I have done has been to further our efforts, not hinder them. And I think that we can all agree that the attack has hindered our efforts. I’m convinced this was the Arbiter’s doing. Jackson Christo was not only at the event but left shortly before the attack.”
Another person shouts out. “Violet and Victor Black were up to something right before the explosion. We can’t count them out.”
Ethan offers, “I disagree with Brad that the Arbiters were involved. Jax walked away because of an altercation with me. At the same time Jax left me, I noticed a Secret Service guy heading straight for the kitchen area a good minute before the blast. Victor and Violet also seemed to be headed in that direction.”
“Victor and Violet are esteemed members of our community. There is no way they were involved. The Arbiters on the other hand…”
Another member of the Ten speaks up. “After what I’ve seen from the Arbiters…I don’t trust them at all. They threatened to intervene, and there has been an intervention. What more evidence do we need?”
The lights flash off for a moment. When the lights flash back on, Jax, Kira, a bunch of old dudes, and a young boy are present.
Everyone is frozen in place—literally. I can’t move.
This’ll be interesting.
“I’m interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that appears to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom.”
—Jim Morrison
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kira
Previous night: Election Party in Los Angeles, CA
“We need to go now,” Jax whispers into my ear. “Something terrible is going down.”
Then he turns to Ethan. “Ethan, let’s go. I’ve got a bad feeling.” Jax grabs hold of Ethan and tries to pull him along, but Ethan resists. He’s too angry with Jax to listen. Ridiculous, stubborn boy.
“Don’t be stupid, Ethan. Let’s get out of here.” Jax is firmer in his admonition this time. He’s getting very impatient. What’s going on?
“Please, Ethan,” I beg. “Let’s take this outside.”
Ethan doesn’t acknowledge me. Instead he gives Jax a homicidal look. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
I can tell Jax is really torn. He looks tempted to disable Ethan and drag him out. With armed Secret Service agents around, that wouldn’t be the wisest move. “Fine, don’t leave with us, but leave.”
“Let’s go. Hopefully he’ll snap out of it and follow.” Jax doesn’t look convinced that Ethan will take his advice. But I’ve had enough experience to know that if Jax thinks there is danger, then we need to leave. He pulls me along and I follow.
Instead of going out the main entrance, which has a dozen Secret Service agents watching, he pulls me into the men’s bathroom. I can hear Henry’s voice in the background, so he must be about to give his second speech of the night.
Jax pulls me close to him in a tight hug, and an instant later we’re back in our apartment in Military City. Maybe he wants some alone time to finish our conversation from earlier. Instead, he lets go and starts pacing. “No. No. No. No. No.” His normally golden face has drained of color.
“Tell me what’s happening. Please. You can’t just pull me out of there, tell me you have a bad feeling, and then not tell me why.”
He opens up the scene for me, and it feels like we’re back at the restaurant in LA. I can see Ethan still standing there watching Henry speak. Henry raises his glass and says, “May our impact be swift and powerful.” He takes a sip of champagne. “Like the shot heard around the world.”
A bright light flashes and then I scream in horror.
They are being attacked!
Everyone is thrown from where they are standing, away from the blast. But then, all of a sudden, there are chairs and dishes and all kinds of debris flying towards the blast. I can’t see where Ethan is anymore. Henry and his family are down, tangled with a horde of Secret Service agents who are either dead or attempting to protect them. There’s a ton of blood.
The sprinkler system turns on and it is burning the flesh off the people. Jax turns off the scene.
“Ethan?” I pound on Jax as tears waterfall down my face. “If you knew, how could you have left him there? And Blake’s there too.”
Jax holds a hand against my cheek, and I can feel his calming energy flow into me. “Love, I feel strongly that they are alive and will be okay. Some of the others though…weren’t so lucky. This is going to be a tough blow to the SCI.” He doesn’t say it with malice, but as if he’s trying to wrap his head around what happened.
That’s when it hits me. The attack may have been directed against the SCI. At first, I’d assumed it was an assassination attempt or a terrorist attack. But with all those SCI in one room, I have to wonder…
I hate the SCI.
Maybe they deserve this.
Karma.
Payback.
Gads knows that I’ve wanted retribution for all the horrible things they have done to me, my family, and my friends.
I have imagined them dying in a fiery explosion like the one they caused at the Goodington estate.
I have wished that they’d get gunned down execution-style just as my parents were.
Brad killed tens of thousands by fire, bombs, chemical attacks, suffocation, and electrical shock. I have often thought that he and his colleagues should meet a similar fate.
But now that I see it coming to fruition? I can’t stomach it.
The SCI as an entity—yes, I want them to lose all their power. But individual people being blown to pieces? That’s messed up.
I wonder, for a moment, if I’d feel differently if Ethan and Blake weren’t there. Or if I hadn’t seen it—if I’d just found out after the fact. After all, they are a bunch of corrupt, evil politicians and mass murderers.
It doesn’t matter. Ethan and Blake are there.
“We’ve got to go back there and make sure Ethan and Blake are okay.”
He embraces me and kisses my cheek. “We’ll go back but not now. The place is going to be flooded with emergency personnel and we need to let them do their jobs. I’ve got to go meet with the Arbiter Council. I’ll come get you when it is time. I promise that you will see them soon.”
“You can’t leave me here! I can’t be alone right now.” My knees buckle, and I start to sink to the ground.
Jax holds me steady and presses his cheek to mine. “I don’t want to, but I have to go. I’m so sorry. I have no choice, love. You and the babies will be safe here, but I can’t keep you safe there right now, okay?”
I nod. He gives me an extended kiss on the forehead before disappearing.
When he’s gone, I go give my babies some extra hugs—from me and from their daddies.
Ten and a half months prior: Fashion City, Thera
After being nearly killed with a machete in Farm City, I was forcibly torn away from my family and shipped halfway across the world to Fashion City. The separation from them nearly killed me. It was bad enough being kept away from Ethan, but I’d been able to handle it because I was with Jared and my parents. I worried that I’d never see any of them again. Even though my parents didn’t remember they were my parents, we’d still grown close—closer than we’d been on Earth. On Earth, they’d always been too busy with work and projects and traveling. We never spent much time together. I always felt more like a burden than a daughter.
&nbs
p; I was in such a bad mental state that I couldn’t enjoy the relative normalcy that Fashion City had to offer. Unlike many Theran cities, Fashion City was highly cosmopolitan. Workers there designed the attire for other cities, but let’s just say that they sent the dregs off and saved all the best for themselves. Lavish shops lined every street with factories and living space towering above.
Anything and everything went fashion-wise, from Earth-like period clothing to radically forward thinking designs. As creative as the place was, it still felt off and made me miss my old life more than ever.
Who dedicated an entire city to fashion? And how crazy was it to go into a store to “purchase” a new outfit by bartering apparel of your own making? What if you really wanted a lavish Renaissance-era gown and all you had to offer was the crappy overalls that got sent to Farm City? Sure, everyone had “credits” they could use, but those went fast and had to also be used for food.
Jax tried to distract me with my studies. I was a terrible student. The constant evening sickness made me feel like crap. And I was so depressed that I could barely rouse myself enough to shower, much less discuss SCI policy.
One evening, Jax forced me out of our cramped apartment. “We’re going to get you some maternity clothes and go out to eat.”
I scrunched up my nose and grimaced at him. “Food is overrated. Even here, where they offer more than gruel.”
Jax dragged me along all night, picking out clothes for me when I refused to do it for myself. After hours of shopping, my feet hurt, and I was done. I collapsed into a chair outside a little cafe by the shoreline. The cafe was deserted—with the exception of some yellow and orange-colored birds begging for food. “No more. I can’t do it anymore.”
He dumped all the packages next to me. “Funny, love, since you’ve had me do all the work.”
“Wasn’t my idea to leave the apartment.”
“I’ll be right back. I know just the thing to help.” A few moments later, he returned with a sugar-crusted, oversized Theranberry muffin. My mouth watered just looking at it.
“Is that thing safe? I’m not sure mixing Theranberries and pregnancy is a good idea.”
Jax twisted his mouth into a smile that showed off his dimples. “Sorry, love. You won’t get teebed off that thing. The berries have been neutralized. They’re in there purely for flavor.”
I devoured it in a few bites but decided to share the crumbs with the birds. “I love the muffin…so yummy. But I still don’t want to be here.”
He scooted his chair next to mine and put his arm around me. I put my head on his shoulder. “I know you’re having a rough go of it. I’m really sorry we had to leave Farm City.”
“I don’t miss Farm City. I miss my family.”
The scruff on his face pricked my forehead as he pressed a kiss against it. “I know you do. Tell me what it was like for you growing up. You’re not much like your parents and brother. How was it back on Earth?”
“I was really close with Jared but less so with my parents. They were pretty absent most of the time.” With my head still on his shoulder and my hand buried in his soft hair, I gave him the cliff notes version of my childhood and the memories of my parents that really stood out. At some point Jax shifted me so that he could rub my sore feet.
Jax asked, “What about grandparents? Were they involved?”
“I never met my father’s parents. They died before I was born. But I knew my mom’s parents pretty well before they passed away. They once took us all on a cruise to Mexico.”
“Any aunts or uncles?”
I shook my head. “Nope. There’s no one. I don’t even know what happened to my house after my parents were killed and my brother and I were taken. I mean, did the bank just throw out all of our personal items and sell the house? All my memories were there.” A tear snaked down my face, hitting my mouth and blasting it with salty regret.
“Let’s go. Let’s go drop this stuff off in the apartment, and we’ll take a little excursion back home. Well, maybe after you take a nap. If we show up there in the middle of the night, we’ll only get ourselves arrested.”
Jax let me snooze for several hours and enjoy a long shower before we finally departed at 0900 hours.
I was shocked to find my home in San Diego largely untouched. No one had answered when we knocked, and I could see my parent’s furniture through the window, so Jax figured that was an invitation to enter.
“Why? Why is everything still here?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.” Jax went through all the files in my father’s office. He even managed to open the safe where my dad kept all of our “vital” documents like birth certificates and hopefully his will. I let him go through the papers while I found all the family photo albums and trudged down memory lane.
Jax found a will, signed by my parents, and called the executor. “Yes, yes I understand. When is Kira due back from her internship with The Second Chance Institute? Ah, okay. Yes. I see. That makes sense. So the house won’t be available to go on the market until she is back and decides whether she wants to sell?”
After he hung up, he explained that my father’s business partner was the executor of my parent’s estate, but that everything had been left to me and Jared. The authorities thought I was gone doing my SCI Recruit gig when my parents’ murders occurred, so they assumed I was still alive. Jared was thought to have been kidnapped.
I caught sight of my birth certificate on the desk and grabbed it. I’d never seen it before. Jax tried to take it back from me, but it was too late. The damage had already been done.
I was adopted. My real mother was listed as “Jane Doe” on my birth certificate. No father was listed.
Everything I’d ever believed was a lie. Why hadn’t my parents ever told me? Were Jared and I even brother and sister? And if not, how did he manage to get across to Thera?
“They were still your parents, love. Genetics don’t mean everything. Where you came from, who you came from, can be just as much a burden as a blessing. One child can be abused and neglected and grow to greatness while another can come from greatness but be lazy and squander it. Your parents weren’t perfect, but I know they loved you.”
“I want to leave.”
Those were the last words I spoke for more than seventy-two hours. Jax became so concerned that he arranged for me to meet with my therapist. Of course, I couldn’t tell her about my parents not being my parents. That my brother was probably not my brother. Or that we’d gone back to Earth. So I did the only thing I could do.
I lost it.
Who are my real parents? Why didn’t they want me?
I went insane.
No one would ever want you. Your own parents were gone so much because they obviously couldn’t stand to be around you—around something that wasn’t even theirs.
When my therapist told me to “get my emotions under control,” I punched her and then wrestled her to the ground, pounding her with my fists.
That earned me my trip to Education City and everything that followed.
Honestly, I don’t blame my therapist for reporting me or having me committed. I deserved it. Well, the lockup at least. Not the stuff they did to me while I was locked up. It was not like I was trying to kill my therapist or anything.
At that point, locked up in Education City, I was completely alone in the world. Everything but my day terrors had been taken from me. Everyone I cared about was gone. My parents. Jared. Ethan. Blake. Jax.
Death would have been kinder.
Present
“It’s time, love.”
“Am I dressed okay?” I ask. I have no idea how one is supposed to dress to attend an SCI meeting with the Arbiter Council, and Jax only gave me five minutes’ notice. I’ve got on a yellow, knit sweater-dress and flat, brown boots that come to my knees. My hair’s up in a twist. Compared to Jax, who is in a full-blown white suit, I’m feeling a little underdressed.
He winks at me. “You are far too delectable and
distracting to bring anywhere. But that would hold true no matter what you wore, so I guess we better get going.” When he talks to me like that, I immediately think of the “not” kiss and the “promised” kiss. He wraps his arms around me and presses a feather light kiss at the edge of my mouth. I think I swoon because he has to hold me upright. “Hold that thought…and hold on.”
My bedroom fades out, and the familiar red walls of the Crossover Center in Heart fade in.
Jax chuckles. “We need to all leave together. Dramatic entrance and all that.” He points to the other Arbiter Council members, who are all assembled. “At this point, a large number of the SCI leaders think the Arbiters were responsible for what happened. And the two of us are on their official ‘missing’ list since we didn’t sign out before leaving.”
I start to respond, but Jax holds a finger to my lips. A young boy has entered the room. The council members each bow deferentially to him as if he’s some sort of God.
The boy comes over to me and gives me a huge smile. He’s absolutely adorable and looks a bit like what I imagine Jax looked like as a child. His blond hair’s a mess and his eyes—I can’t even tell what color they are. Every color, I think. He’s holding a small bag with lumpy contents. Was I supposed to bow? I do so just in case.
He giggles and then grabs my hand and kisses it. “No need.” This isn’t spoken but in my mind. “You have taken an unusual route.”
What? How so? “It doesn’t matter. Each of us has a different path to take and different challenges to overcome.”
Out loud, he says to everyone. “I shall not intervene unless I deem it necessary to do so.”
The Arbiter Council members nod to him. Why does a mere child speak so formally? And how could he possibly intervene?
The boy giggles again. I want to adopt him on the spot. He’d be the perfect big brother to Evvie, Zander, and Aiden.
To me, “It’s not necessary to adopt me. I have an amazing family.” I’m sure you do.
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