Secret Legacy

by Anna DeStefano

  “No. Trinity. Sarah thinks she can feel Trinity dying in the ocean, but she can’t reach her.”

  Madeline collapsed against Jarred. Her eyes returned to the color of Sarah’s deepest gray. She stared at Richard.

  “You have to believe me . . .” she said in Sarah’s voice. “None of you want to believe me. Your precious council doesn’t want her to be found, any more than you want me or Maddie to grow strong enough to live beyond your control. But they can’t let the center have Trinity. Once they know she’s real, they’ll help me. The council will have to take her away from the center. You’ll see . . . I’m not leaving until you—”

  “Let go.” Richard grabbed Sarah’s shoulders, the last of his objectivity gone. “Release the dream and the cries for help and whatever you thought you’d accomplish without us. Let your sister bring you back to the surface. I can hear Trinity now. So can Madeline. Once we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll find a way to help her.”

  It was a promise he had no business making. Worse, it was one Sarah wouldn’t believe. He’d hidden too much from her for too long for her to believe anything he said.

  “It’s . . .” Madeline’s eyes rolled back. Her eyelids closed. “The screaming . . . It’s killing her.”

  “I need her and Sarah back here,” Richard said to Jarred, “before they give the council even more reason to silence their minds.”

  Jarred’s flat stare promised retribution. He looked seconds away from dragging the woman he loved from Sarah’s side. But he covered Madeline’s hands with his, then wrapped her fingers tighter around her twin’s. Madeline shivered as his consciousness centered her. Strengthened her. From the start, Jarred’s devotion had helped Madeline believe, whenever it was too painful, too impossible, for her to keep going on her own.

  Sarah’s agitation eased with her sister’s. Her tremors stopped, but her system was still in distress, her pulse racing, her blood pressure no doubt off the charts.

  “I’ve about had enough of this,” Jarred bit out.

  He knew firsthand the price the Temples had paid for Richard’s tactical victory over the center: Madeline and Sarah’s non ex is tent freedom, their fragile sanity, their mother’s death, now this.

  Richard ignored the other man’s frustration and reined in his own fear. He was Sarah’s Watcher. He had to stay focused on tactics. On his mission. Letting emotion distract him would damage this family even more than he already had. He covered Jarred’s and Madeline’s hands with his, pressing them against Sarah’s body.

  “Find her.” He closed his eyes and sent his mind deeper, praying his presence could guide Madeline’s without driving Sarah’s even further away. “Don’t let your sister search any deeper for the child. Tell her we need her back here, so we can convince the elders to engage the Brotherhood. Tell her that if she doesn’t come back, there’s no hope of saving Trinity or your legacy.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Fury burned through Maddie as her mind and Metting’s merged. Sarah was in danger. Again. And Maddie needed her sister’s raven to help them. Again.

  She didn’t trust the man or anyone in his brotherhood. But she couldn’t stop Sarah’s destructive obsession with Trinity alone, and Metting was light-years ahead in understanding how her and Sarah’s minds had been manipulated using dream science and psychic programming.

  Metting’s head was lowered over where his hand covered hers and Jarred’s and Sarah’s. The psychic energy surrounding him was as cool and nonthreatening as ever. Then he looked up, and the desperation shimmering in the dark black of his irises had deepened with the predatory intent of a bird of prey protecting his lair.

  A knot of foreboding grew in Madeline’s chest.

  This wasn’t just about Metting covering his ass with the elders. Or the Brotherhood’s lead Watcher tracing a child’s haunting cries back to whoever or whatever was damaging Sarah’s control. Metting may have used Sarah to score a Brotherhood win over Dream Weaver, but there was more firing behind his warrior-scientist pose than honor and code and duty to his cause. Too much more. And wading through another round of emotional muck with this man was the last thing Sarah could handle.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jarred’s mind said. The degree of his hostility toward Metting came in second only to Maddie’s. “You don’t have to keep trusting him while he lets shit like this happen.”

  “There’s no one else in the godforsaken place even pretending to be on our side,” Maddie projected back, shielding their conversation from Metting.

  Sarah hadn’t been able to tolerate Richard’s thoughts in her mind while she deprogrammed the behavioral and psychic triggers left from Ruebens’s work. Maddie had taken Richard’s place, trying to break down her twin’s ocean dream. But Richard was the expert with the equipment and medication, and it was his experience that kept pulling them back from the brink every time Sarah’s mind began to fray.

  “We’re losing her to something we don’t understand, and I’m not strong enough to help her without him.”

  Jarred’s fingers made soothing sweeps over Maddie’s hand. In the place in their linked minds where they’d forged an intimacy she hadn’t believed possible for her, his presence was as solid as ever.

  “whatever you have to do,” he said. “I’ll be right beside you.”

  And he would be. If Maddie fought. If she ran. If she fell apart again under the responsibility of protecting her twin and the dark legacy their psychic abilities had become. Jarred would never leave her. Never judge her. He’d die for her, and she for him. It was an unshakable union she suspected Sarah had once wanted to build with Metting—before he’d betrayed her.

  “Let’s go get your sister,” Jarred said. “I’ll anchor you here. I’ll make sure Metting brings you both back. I won’t let another dream rip you away from me.”

  Maddie let her mind linger for a moment longer, wanting Jarred to feel her need to stay. Then she looked down at Sarah’s sleeping form. She closed her eyes, reached deeper into the connection they’d rebuilt. She opened her thoughts more fully to Metting’s chilling determination, wrapped her consciousness in it, and sent her mind back into Sarah’s nightmare ocean . . .

  She could feel her twin identifying with the nightmare’s darkness. She could sense Sarah’s willingness to be absorbed in it, even to die in it, for the sake of a mystery child she insisted was in danger. Maddie could feel her sister’s mind slipping further away. And a part of her wanted to disappear into the dream’s darkness with Sarah. To fall away from the reality of how little chance their legacy had to be the healing, positive force Maddie had fought to make of her life.

  Embraced by the shifting currents of Sarah’s mind, it was easy to imagine a life of aimless drifting. They could both be free of the responsibility and the disappointment and fear and failure.

  “Careful, sweetheart.” Jarred drew closer, both physically and mentally. His arms and mind wrapped tighter around Maddie, enveloping her with the love she could never leave behind. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  His presence centered her, enabling her to safely connect with more of Sarah’s emotions.

  “You’re feeling the pull that’s bound Sarah to wherever her mind has gone,” Richard said. “Follow it, but stay focused on your connection to Jarred outside the dream. Join with Sarah’s mind, but be separate. Retain control of your own identity, just like our work in the lab.”

  “You’d better know what you’re doing,” Maddie said to the shadow image of a menacing bird flickering beyond the dream ocean’s surface. “Sarah doesn’t trust herself or me or, God knows, you. She just might prefer staying in this awful place to believing in anyone’s promises again.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Sarah?” the voices called. Minds she couldn’t belong to and still follow Trinity. Voices insisting that she “Come back to us . . .”

  Sarah could feel her twin’s desperation. Maddie’s anger for how the Watchers had manipulated their lives until this madn
ess was all they had left. Jarred’s energy was there, too. Calming. Soothing. Centering. Richard was closer than before. Stronger than all of them. Determined to keep Sarah’s mind under control.

  They were all refusing to—

  “Let me go!” She drifted deeper into the ocean.

  “Never . . .” their combined thoughts pushed back.

  “I’m not leaving until I find her,” she insisted.

  But the sea swirling around Sarah had grown more frigid. And the numbness made searching harder. It had been so long since she’d felt warm.

  “The light is here,” she reminded herself. “It’s on the other side of the door. I’m not quitting until—”

  “Whose light?” Maddie asked. “The ocean’s? The water’s trying to destroy you. Don’t trust it.”

  Sarah collapsed onto what felt like rocks covered in broken glass. The sea’s floor. There was no door in sight. There was nowhere left to look. She’d been waiting for weeks for this moment. She’d lied to everyone, convinced she could find Trinity here on her own. Now she’d failed.

  “I was right there,” she said. “But I couldn’t . . .”

  “I saw the door.” Maddie’s face became a reflection in the murky water. “We’ll get you back to the door, Sarah. We’ll find whatever is on the other side.”

  “You know what’s there.” The dream choked Sarah with cries that might as well be silence, because she couldn’t reach them. “You’ve always known. But all you care about is keeping us safe. Just like Mom. We’ll never be safe, not while the center has Trinity.”

  “We’ll stop them together.” Richard’s mind moved closer. “You’ll help us figure out the dream’s purpose. You’ll tell us everything we need to know about Trinity. Then we’ll—”

  “I won’t leave her.”

  “Leave who?” her twin asked. “Look around you, Sarah. You’re alone. No one else is here.”

  “She never stops crying.” Sarah pressed her fists to her ears. She drank down more of the sea, letting it wash away the horrible sound.

  “I can hear her now.” There were tears in Maddie’s voice. “Come back. You don’t have to prove anything anymore, but we need your help. We won’t find her door again without your memories.”

  Sarah watched her sister’s reflection grow more solid within the deadly vision. Brighter colors returned with Maddie, a rainbow of amethyst splendor trailing toward the surface, where a raven circled. But the hues were already fading.

  “Go away,” Sarah yelled. “You’ll die here.”

  “If you stay, I stay.” Maddie grabbed her arm. Her nose began to bleed. The sea washed the stain clear, but more blood followed.

  Maddie pulled, her strength overwhelming Sarah’s resistance. She fought the rising current and somehow got them both moving. Terrified for her sister and the beating Maddie’s mind was taking, Sarah stopped fighting as they neared shallower water, where it should be easier to breathe. Only it wasn’t. Maddie’s image flickered. Faded out, then back in.

  “Help me . . .” cried a defenseless child Sarah was certain was being tested and programmed by center scientists.

  Maddie made a weak attempt to kick through to the surface, only to sink back to Sarah. Both of them drifted lower.

  “Let me go,” Sarah begged. “You’re dying.”

  “When are you going to get it?” Maddie’s image held tight to Sarah’s hand. “Hide from me, and I’ll find you. Try to get yourself killed following some guilty compulsion to make up for your past, and I’ll drag your ass back to life. We’re sisters, Sarah. You’re not staying here alone. We’re in this together.”

  “Break the link,” Jarred demanded, his presence stronger near the surface.

  “We’re losing them both,” Richard said. His raven’s shadow circled closer to the water. His mind beat away at the dream’s reality.

  Sarah grabbed her twin as Maddie collapsed. She glared up at her raven’s reflection. She tried to open her eyes in her sleeping quarters in the Brotherhood’s bunker. To fight her way back. But she was too weak. The water growled in excitement—a predatory animal circling its prey.

  “Help me,” Sarah begged Richard’s dream image, terrified of inviting him even deeper into her thoughts, but even more afraid now for her twin and Trinity. Too many people had already suffered because Sarah couldn’t control the power she’d never wanted. “Please, don’t let them die, too.”

  The raven’s reflection circled higher. For a second, she was certain he’d abandon them. Then his image dove beneath the dream’s surface, finally free to unleash the unworldly psychic power that had secured his position leading the Brotherhood in its mission to tame Sarah’s legacy.

  He hurtled toward Maddie and Sarah, slicing through the water. He grabbed them in his talons, capturing but not hurting. Dry, warm wings surrounded them, creating a pocket of life-giving oxygen. Sarah felt her sister’s heart falter, weakened from battling Sarah’s sleeping mind for too long. Her own body began to convulse.

  With a menacing shriek, the raven soared toward the surface.

  “I’ve got you,” he said.

  It felt like a new dream, having his voice back in her mind, even though she was certain trusting him again would destroy her.

  “You have to wake up from here,” he said. “Madeline’s unconscious. Your link to her is stronger than mine. Bring your sister back. Wake up, so you can bring her over.”

  “Promise you’ll protect Maddie when the Watchers find out what I’ve done.”

  Sarah longed to close her eyes and let the ocean take her again. To quit, just as Maddie had said, so she didn’t have to face the reality of the commitment she’d just asked Richard to make. But that would mean sacrificing her sister and Trinity, and protecting her family was all Sarah had left.

  “Promise,” she said, “that you’ll bring us back to find Trinity.”

  “You have my word.” Richard’s raven panted as he fought the ocean’s pull. “Break your links with the dream, and we’ll figure out the next step together.”

  But she could no longer feel the safety of his strong wings wrapped around her, or the comfort of Maddie’s heart beating close by. Trinity’s cries were softer, too. Even farther away. It was becoming harder to hear anything at all, even her raven’s voice in her mind.

  “Let go,” the ocean chanted. “This is where you belong.”

  “Stay with me, Sarah,” Richard called.

  Her dreaming reality dissolved to darkness . . .

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Sarah!” Richard shouted inside the dream.

  She was unconscious. Without her awareness feeding their link, sustaining his identity, the ocean vision was rapidly draining his psychic reserves. The matrix began to waver. He closed his raven’s wings even tighter around the twins.

  The second she’d welcomed him into her nightmare, he’d felt another mind scanning his from somewhere in the sea. Something beyond Sarah’s awareness, most likely whoever was projecting the nightmare to her from the center. A consciousness he’d have to identify, for him to have any shot at protecting both Sarah and his brotherhood.

  He blinked her sleeping quarters into focus. Her head lolled beneath his chin, her body convulsing. Madeline still clung to her sister’s hand, but she’d collapsed, unconscious, against Jarred. The doctor was wiping at the blood trickling from her nose.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jarred demanded. “Why are they still dreaming?”

  “Maddie’s too weak to disengage. They’re both unconscious inside the dream.”

  “Then pull them out.”

  “I can’t risk it.”

  Richard told himself to reach for the comm unit beside the bed, but his arms wouldn’t obey. He couldn’t make himself let Sarah go.

  “I need at least one of them lucid,” he said. “The nightmare’s already disintegrating. If I force a break now, both twins’ minds could be lost.”

  “Maddie’s brought Sarah back before.”


  “The nightmare’s in control this time.”

  Richard stared at Sarah’s slack features. She was dying in his arms.

  “Disengage from the dream, Alpha,” he ordered. Alpha had been her clinical designation at the center. She hated the name. She’d be furious with him for using it now. He was banking on it.

  “Jarred.” He could barely force the words out. “Call for backup. I won’t be able to hold on to their minds much longer.”

  There was an angry pause.

  “Metting needs a dream-recovery team in Sarah Temple’s quarters,” Jarred finally shouted into the comm unit to an operator who wouldn’t miss the fear in the psychiatrist’s voice.

  Richard felt Sarah’s chest above the collar of her cotton nightgown. Delicate skin. Racing pulse. Too-weak heartbeat. He sent his consciousness deeper into her sleeping mind. There was nothing now where her thoughts had been.

  “Stay with me, damn it,” he projected.

  The sisters were so close to the surface, lying limp and unresponsive, encircled by his raven’s wings. He’d only need a flicker of consciousness, one of them awake and willing, to bring them both back.

  “Do something to get through to Madeline,” he growled to Jarred, “before my team arrives and the situation is removed from my control.”

  “Maddie?” Jarred shook Madeline. “Sarah’s still in danger. She’s not free of the ocean. Save your sister, sweetheart. Open your eyes in the dream. Wake up!”

  There was a feminine moan, followed by a flash of lavender light streaming through the dream link—Madeline’s consciousness reengaging. Her mind, weak but determined, wrapped around Richard’s. In the dream’s ocean, her image and the raven’s faltered, then held. She stirred and reached for her sister’s hand. In Sarah’s quarters, Madeline’s fingers tightened around her twin’s.

  “Sarah . . .” her mind called. “We’re almost there. Let the dream go. Please . . . You have to—”