by W. J. May
No one had thought to look for him after the battle at Guilder. In the chaos and personal turmoil that had followed, he hadn’t crossed a single person’s mind. Kraigan was in the unique position of having literally no one else in his corner. Since the fight at the factory Rae had grown strangely protective of him, and the two had developed an uneasy truce—but it wasn’t the same thing. Kraigan quite simply wasn’t on anyone’s radar. He had worked so hard to evade it for so long that carving out a niche for himself had proven a near impossible feat.
Ironically, it was one of the few things he shared with his father.
“Kraigan… hey.” Devon stepped forward quickly, looking similarly mortified at such a fundamental lapse. “We didn’t…uh…why don’t you come in?”
But Kraigan remained where he stood. Frozen in shock. Staring, dumbstruck, at his sister. “Dad’s still here?” he repeated, glancing towards the basement. “Why would he…I thought that after the trial…I thought he’d be gone.”
He and Rae locked eyes.
One of them, searching desperately for answers.
The other, having no idea in the world what he was trying to say.
“Kraigan,” Rae began carefully, temporarily losing sight of Simon amidst the sudden appearance of his son, “where have you been?”
For the first time, Kraigan took a step back. His cheeks flushed with something as close to guilt as a man like him was capable, before he strode suddenly inside and shut the door behind him. “I left the courthouse,” he said simply. “The second the first witness took the stand. The second it became clear that, no matter what happened that morning, they were going to execute our father that afternoon. A fact guaranteed by your promise, dear sister, to always tell the truth.”
Neither sibling was willing to blink first. Neither willing to back down.
But the longer Kraigan stood there, the quicker his anger gave way again to that initial astonishment that had stopped him on the way in. “Dad’s here,” he said again. This time, it wasn’t a question. It was his own personal miracle, one he was only beginning to comprehend. “You didn’t…I mean, they didn’t kill him?”
Rae’s throat tightened, and she turned her head away. She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t even find it in herself to look at him.
He simply didn’t know.
He didn’t know anything that had happened since they’d set foot in the courtroom that fateful morning. He didn’t know about the fight afterwards. Or how their father had been given a temporary reprieve. He didn’t know that there was a crazy person after them—again—or that she had already infiltrated the gang enough to have temporarily torn them apart.
He didn’t even know that Rae had advocated for life.
Life for Simon. Unlike the lives he so carelessly took away.
And on that note…
“Yeah,” Rae said shortly. “Dad’s here. He’s in the basement. And I would talk to him while you can, Kraigan. Because I’m about to remedy that situation shortly.”
While Kraigan froze uncertainly, Devon stepped into her line of sight.
“But why?” he said again. “You still haven’t told us—”
“That man I saw didn’t kill himself. He was murdered a long time ago. What I was looking at was just the shell that got left behind.” She straightened up to her full height. Turning slowly to face the basement. “And the man who killed him…was Simon Kerrigan. My father. Kraigan’s father. He’s not innocent. Of anything.”
Chapter 9
Since Rae woke up on her sixteenth birthday and discovered she had superpowers, she stopped using doorknobs when she was angry. She preferred to kick the whole thing down instead. “Simon!!”
Dad was gone. The word ‘Dad’ would never pass through her lips again.
Simon leapt to his feet as the splintered planks rained down around him, gazing up in shock as he watched his daughter storm down the stairs. Her half-brother was right behind her. As were the rest of her bewildered friends. None of them seemed to know what was going on any more than he did.
Rae knew. She saw the bewilderment in Simon’s face, Kraigan’s, Devon’s, and everyone else’s. No one got it—except maybe Gabriel and Angel.
“Rae? What is it?” Simon took a tentative step forward, then stopped, bracing most likely against the look of pure fury flashing in her eyes. “What happened?”
She didn’t answer him. She turned to Julian instead.
“If I give you a paper, can you draw me a face?” She conjured the items even as she asked the question, shoving them into his chest. “The same man I just saw?”
He caught them automatically, but shook his head. “You saw him in the past, in his past. I can’t—”
“What if I decide to think about him again?” she insisted. Her voice trembled with so much pent-up emotion, it seemed constantly on the edge of bursting forth. “If I decide to sit down and relive everything I just saw. Could you do it then?”
Julian cast a quick glance at Devon, but found no help. “No…I couldn’t.” His eyes dropped apologetically to the tools she’d conjured, still clutched uselessly against his chest. “Rae, I’m sorry. I would just see you sitting there, thinking about it. I couldn’t see what was actually going on inside your mind—”
“Jules.” Those emotions flared up, and she fought to keep them under control. “I need you to try for me, okay? I need you to sit down and just try. Please.” In a fit of impatience, she actually pushed him down at a desk shoved into a corner, taking back the pen just long enough to thrust it once more into his hand. The paper was soon to follow. “Please,” she said again, preemptively cutting him off before he could speak. “Please, Jules.”
Julian’s eyes flickered swiftly between her and Simon before lowering helplessly to the paper. The pen twisted instinctually in his hand. As for the rest, he didn’t know where to begin. “Rae,” he murmured, “there’s nothing for me to center on—”
“Center on me,” she said quickly, perching on the edge of the desk. She peered down at him in the dim lighting, completely ignoring her father hovering obliviously in the back. “Center on me sitting upstairs—travelling back there in my mind. Imagine me doing it again.”
With a look of extreme patience Julian closed his dark eyes, lifting his chin slightly as he waited for the future to reveal itself to him. But this wasn’t the future they were talking about. It was the past. And that patience was quick to fade.
Rae sighed, already knowing what was happening. Or, what wasn’t happening.
The pen twitched in Julian’s hand, and his brow creased into a frustrated frown. Finally, after a full minute of trying, he gave up and opened his eyes—eyes just as dark and dilated as before. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I can’t.”
Rae tossed her hair impatiently, slamming her hand against the paper. “Yes, you can!”
“Rae,” Devon interjected quietly, coming to his friend’s aid, “you know that’s not how his power works—”
“We’ve progressed before,” she said shortly. “Jules especially. He can do it again.”
“On command?” Molly inserted with a bit of a reprimand. “He can’t see inside your head.”
But Rae didn’t listen to any of them. There was too much riding on this to be dissuaded now. Too much at stake to simply give up and walk away. Instead, she leaned forward and rested her hand atop Julian’s, staring intently into his lovely eyes. “Yes…you can.”
There was something different in her voice this time as she said it. A strange intensity, as calming as it was persuasive. Perhaps it was for this reason that Julian decided to try again.
This time was slightly different than before.
He took a deep breath, bracing himself slightly against the table. Then, without seeming to think about it, he reached out and took her hand.
That’s it…you’ve got it…
There wasn’t a sound in the room. Even Simon had frozen perfectly still as the circle of friends gazed down as one
to stare at the psychic.
And that’s when it happened.
“Jules…”
Rae didn’t know which one of them said it. Whose gasp it was that rang out in the quiet corners of the little room. But whoever it was, she didn’t blame them in the slightest. Whatever was happening to their clairvoyant friend, it was truly a sight to behold.
As if he was moving in slow motion, Julian lifted his chin as every speck of color drained out of his eyes. Instead of taking on their usual glassy hue they were almost translucent, giving off a faint glow that cast shadows off his high cheekbones and long hair. Before long, his entire body was awash with it. Rigid, yet relaxed. Physically anchored in place as his mind reached out through space and time. Breaking boundaries. Flying through entire worlds the rest of them would never see.
“What’s happening to him?” Angel whispered, taking a step forward. “Is he alright?”
Gabriel held her back, but Devon stepped forward as well. He looked half in awe, half so worried that he was just seconds away from trying to intervene.
Rae beat him to it. “Jules?” She leaned closer, studying him carefully for any signs of distress. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer her. Gave no indication that he’d even heard.
Then suddenly, without any warning, his hand clamped down onto hers, gripping it so hard it was all she could do to stop herself from crying out.
“Jules,” she gasped, trying to twist herself free.
She’d never known he was so strong. That his ink could make him so strong. Truth be told, she was willing to bet he didn’t know it either.
She tried again to pull herself free, but it was like trying to fight a statue. A statue that resembled a glowing version of her best friend. A statue that happened to be breaking her hand.
“Rae?” Devon came up behind her, his voice thick with tension. “What’s happening?”
She just shook her head, wincing slightly as she stared into Julian’s blank face. “I don’t know, but I can’t get out. It’s like he’s—”
It was only then that she realized what he was trying to do. Understood the connection that his unconscious mind was striving to build.
Of course!
What did Carter’s ink, Curtis’ ink, even Maria’s telepathic ink all have in common? They all started developing via physical contact. If Julian was trying to make some kind of psychic connection now, it would make sense that it would develop in the same way.
That being said, at this rate it was likely to break her…
A hundred different tatùs flashed through her mind, each one offering themselves up for assistance. But in the end, the decision wasn’t up to her. Like it usually did in times of stress, her body chose of its own accord—summoning the ink to the surface with a familiar little hum.
Let’s see if this is up to the challenge…
With a burst of strength Rae stopped trying to fight the grip, and embraced it instead. Her fingers laced through Julian’s, and without thinking she reached out with her other hand.
The power she’d chosen was nothing but strength. Unbridled, impossible strength. The kind of strength that would have crushed Julian’s bones in a second had he not been in a trance. But now, somehow, his body was able to withstand it. And not just withstand it, but match it with his own.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Molly murmured.
But Rae was too far removed to answer her. From the second she and Julian locked hands, it was as if her mind was no longer her own. Her eyes snapped shut, and without making the decision to go there herself she was suddenly transported back. Back down the shadowy recesses of her mind. Back into those memories she had tried so hard to forget.
It was one of the strangest sensations she had ever felt. Not like the push of Curtis’ ability, not like the pull of Carter’s. If she had to guess, she would say that Julian wasn’t influencing any of this. He had simply established some sort of psychic connection, and was allowing her to go there herself—looking on as a silent observer.
She tried to help as best she could. Thinking back to the pristine study, tainted only with a child’s trail of mud. Thinking back to the look on Samantha’s face, to the unspeakable hurt and disappointment written there. And then, finally, the chair turned around and she saw the man.
The gun cracked. A spray of blood splashed across his lifeless face.
Julian flinched at the sound. Then grew very still.
For a full minute, they shared a suspended connection. For a full minute they sat silently together, staring unblinkingly into each other’s eyes.
Then, just as quickly as it started, it was over.
Julian released her, and with a speed so fast that even she could hardly follow his hand started flying across the blank page.
Rae blinked quickly and shook her head to clear it. Her mind was still spinning from what she’d just seen, and it was a few seconds before she could focus again on the room.
“Honey?” Devon knelt in front of her, smoothing her fingers automatically to check for breaks and damage. “Are you okay? What—what the hell is going on?”
“He saw him,” she breathed, beaming with pride as she stared at Julian’s face. His eyes were still completely blank, yet glowing. The image on the page was slowly taking shape. “He saw the man’s face. He can draw him. I would never have been able to…” Even as she said it, there was a rustling of paper.
As Julian’s fingers whipped back and forth across the desk, blurring with speed, the likeness of a man appeared beneath them.
Like all of Julian’s work, it was drawn to perfection. More of a photograph than a sketch.
Despite having never seen him in person, and the fact that the man died over ten years ago, Julian was somehow able to capture every detail. The pale skin beneath the missing ring. The handsome, yet hollow features. The lifeless eyes. He’d even gotten the guy’s tattoo.
Just a few seconds later, it was finished. The gang looked on in wonder as he slowly pushed it across the table, dropping the pen and closing his eyes. He rubbed them for a moment, as if the entire ordeal was very tiring, then slowly, ever so slowly, he returned to the present.
“Welcome back,” Rae said with a smile. She held up the page. “You did it.”
He blinked in disorientation, trying to get his bearings. “…I did?”
She nodded as Devon swooped in to attend to him before slowly getting to her feet and approaching her father. The smile was quick to fade. The rage was quick to return.
As she held it up in front of him, her hand trembled with it. “You know him.” It wasn’t a question. There was no doubt in her mind. “I saw him in your memory, back at the courthouse. I know you know him.”
She expected him to deny it. For him to think up some quick, yet charming excuse to get her to dismiss it like he always did.
But he didn’t.
The second he saw the page his face went white with shock. He reached out with a hand trembling just as much as hers, and traced the edges of it. “Elias.”
Rae leaned forward, making sure she didn’t miss a single word.
“What? Elias?” Her eyes flashed as the crack of the gun echoed again in her mind. “Who’s Elias? How do you know him?”
But Simon was too surprised for an interrogation. He tuned out her questions completely, staring in unmitigated shock at the drawing. “How do you know him?” he countered, unable to move his gaze. “What did you see?”
For a moment, Rae almost paused. She’d glimpsed only enough of this Elias in her father’s memory to be certain the two shared an acquaintance. And she knew enough of her father’s acquaintances to know that most of them ended up dead.
“What did I see?” she repeated through clenched teeth. In her periphery Kraigan moved a step closer, prepared to jump between them. “I saw a man completely and utterly destroyed. A man’s whose life stopped mid-swing. Whose insatiable passion for everything the world had to offer was suddenly taken away
from him.”
Simon said nothing. But for the first time, he was looking in her eyes.
“That man is Samantha’s father. And I watched him put a gun to his head and kill himself while...” her voice cracked as she thought about herself and the fire that had once killed her parents, “while his five-year-old daughter played outside.”
There was a heavy silence, punctuated by a harsh scrape of a chair.
Rae dragged it to the center of the room, then pointed with an accusatory finger. “Sit. Talk. Don’t even think about leaving something out.” She lifted the same finger to point it at his chest. “I used Carter’s power once. If I have to I’ll do it again.”
There was that presidential tone again. The one that had gotten her elected. The one that popped up at random moments, taking charge when things spiraled too far out of control.
Simon watched her for a second, then sank down onto the chair. He took a moment to settle himself, then lifted his chin to look her straight in the eye. “What do you want to know?”
Rae paced back and forth, keeping him locked in her gaze all the while. “How did you know Elias? What was he to you?”
“Elias is—was—one of the most powerful telepaths I’d ever met.” For a second, a look of true sorrow flashed in Simon’s eyes. Rae couldn’t tell whether it was from the loss of life, or from the loss of ink that followed. “We met at a bar. I guess you could say I searched him out.”
“Searched him out for what?” Rae fired back. They were up against the clock. She didn’t have time for half-truths or missing details.
“You know for what.” Simon’s gaze leveled with hers, bringing an unintentional pause to her pacing.
Yes. She certainly did know what. She had seen the storage warehouse for herself. She had seen the cells full of people. Lab rats for experimentation. Row after row of hollow, empty faces. So many faces that the lot of them became a blur.
But still. The second she saw Elias…she should have known.
“What did you do to him?” she muttered, still trying to reconcile the beaming face of the man in the pictures with the lifeless corpse she found on the floor.
