She cupped Trinity’s head to her shoulder, and her daughter’s silent tears soaked into her scrubs. Richard’s hand covered hers. She turned and tried to lay Trinity on the exam table.
“No!” The child clung like a vine, arms and legs tightening. She burrowed her head into the crook between Sarah’s neck and shoulder. “Don’t let go!”
“I’ve got you.” Sarah sat down instead, pulling her daughter deeper into her lap. “I’ll never let you go, honey. I’m here.”
“Lieutenant Donovan?” Richard asked while he felt for Trinity’s pulse at the base of her neck, then looked into her eyes with the device he used to gauge pupil reflexes.
“She’s been agitated,” the lieutenant said, “but cooperative. We could sense . . . her mind searching ours. There was no malicious intent. She definitely assisted our escape. We got out clean thanks to your intel on the complex’s layout and her augmenting our shields.”
“Good girl.” Sarah kissed her child’s cheek, sensing that Trinity wasn’t hearing a word.
It was too much activity. Too much stimulation. Too many voices and minds and images after being locked away alone in room full of windows like a prize rat in its maze.
“You did so good, honey,” Sarah projected. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to make everything okay.”
“I can’t . . .” Trinity’s mind sent back. “Don’t make me, Mommy. I can’t . . . I don’t want to. I never wanted to. Don’t make me . . .”
“No one’s going to make you do any of those horrible things again. We know you didn’t want to. You’re free now. We’ll never let the center have you again.”
Clouds, dark with fear, edged with the crimson of Trinity’s rage, flowed through Sarah’s mind. Agony seared through her already-crippling headache. She glanced to Richard and caught his flinch. Donovan braced himself against the barrage of energy as well. His eyes narrowed. He and the entire team inhaled. Slow. Deep. As one, they exhaled. All of them were using Richard’s techniques to help her daughter, because each Watcher understood exactly what Trinity was going through.
“She’s losing control,” Maddie said.
Jarred helped Sarah’s twin sit up on her table. She was pale and shaking. Her chest was heavily bandaged. But Maddie was smiling at the image of Sarah and Richard cuddling Trinity close.
“I need everyone out of here,” Sarah said to the room. “I need to be alone with her and my family, so we can calm her down.”
Donovan’s gaze shifted to Richard.
Richard’s nod released him.
The Watcher team turned to go.
“Thank you,” Sarah said to the men, her gratitude warring with her lingering resentment toward the Brotherhood. “Thank you so much for protecting my little girl. My legacy. You’re all . . .”
“You’re welcome.” Donovan waited while his team preceded him from the dream lab. He studied the quietly crying child in Sarah’s arms, a hint of a smile kicking up the corners of his mouth. “It was our plea sure.”
The lab’s door slid shut behind him, sealing Sarah’s family within its protective walls. Richard crouched until he was looking up at Sarah.
“The council’s given us whatever time we need to stabilize Trinity,” he said. “They’ll debrief the recovery team first, before they’ll need your report.”
“How?” she asked, feeling his calm, soothing energy easing her and Trinity’s confusion. “How did you talk the elders into all this?”
“Logic,” her gypsy answered with a devilish glint in his eyes. He patted Trinity’s back, smiling when she didn’t cringe at his touch. “Unemotional, unattached, objective logic. It was the most important con of my life, and I failed miserably. Jacob saw right through it. He saw my love for you and the complete conflict of interest our relationship has become. And he still made the right choice for the psychic realm. Because you had gotten through to Trinity enough for her to send us the sign we needed.”
Sarah clutched her child tighter.
“We came so close to losing everything,” she said.
“But you’re here now.” Maddie placed her hand over Richard’s on Trinity’s back.
“We all are.” Jarred added his touch to their physical link, all of them merging with Trinity’s mind, their energy washing through her panic like cool, healing water.
Trinity sighed, her body relaxing against Sarah’s, the storm clouds in her mind receding. One tiny arm slipped up to encircle Sarah’s neck. Her thumb popped into her mouth. It might have been an immature coping reflex for a six-year-old who’d seen and done the things this powerful six-year-old had. But in so many ways Trinity was still a baby. An innocent, untouched consciousness waiting to soak up the light and the positive energy she’d been denied for so long.
“She’s falling asleep.” Richard rubbed away the tears leaking from Sarah’s eyes. “She finally feels safe.”
Sarah looked around the brotherhood’s lab, built by her brilliant warrior not just to help her and Maddie, but to help them all prepare for this exact moment. The war wasn’t over. The psychic realm was still in play, and none of them knew for sure how much tactical information the center had acquired through Jeff and Trinity’s link.
But another innocent mind, a critical legacy, had been saved. A new bond had been forged. The Brotherhood would live to fight another day, stronger and wiser than before.
“We’re finally home.” Sarah smiled into her daughter’s curls as Richard stood.
“Yes, you are.” He kissed her while Trinity’s mind drifted into a deep sleep that would be free of nightmares.
“Dream of me,” Sarah whispered into Trinity’s ear. “I’ll be waiting by our seashore, where the sun’s just beginning to rise . . .”
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
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Secret Legacy Page 25
