The Twelfth Keeper Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Belle Malory

  The first few rooms were empty, just walls, windows, and empty space. A bedroom was at the end of the hall with a dresser in it. He checked the dresser and was surprised to find men’s clothes. Someone had been here…but no clues to show how long ago.

  Disappointment met him at every corner. The whole place was a shell, devoid of anything that might tell them something. Everywhere he looked there was just more nothing.

  Phoenix was beginning to think this entire assignment was a bust. Then he opened the door to the last room. It was an office—several computers set up along an L-shaped desk in the corner. “Bingo,” he whispered.

  A massive machine that looked like some type of generator sat next to the window. Cords connected the machine to an outside device. Phoenix pushed the window up, and craned his neck around to see what it was.

  A satellite.

  So that explained where the mysterious signal was being transferred. Now to figure out why.

  He turned around at the sound of papers being shuffled and saw Nika rifling through a desk drawer. One of the papers caught her attention, and she picked it up, scanning over it.

  “What is that?” Phoenix asked.

  “A list of names,” she said, slowly lowering into the nearest chair and mumbling something incoherent. Her eyes glazed into pools of silver mist as she continued reading.

  “Is everything okay?”

  The piece of paper trembled in her hands. “I know this person,” she said, her voice shaky.

  “What pers—”

  Phoenix’s brace beeped, and Fang yelled, “Get the hell out of there, Nix! Someone’s running from the house!”

  He rushed to the window, and sure enough, a man clad in dark clothes headed full speed towards the woods on the side of the house.

  “I’m going after him,” Fang said, and by the bounce of her voice, she had already started running.

  He gripped his brace tightly. “Fang, don’t be that stupid. Wait for us—do you understand me?”

  “Lay off, Nix. I can handle one measly guy.”

  Phoenix silently cursed. He was going to strangle Fang when he got a hold of her—if he got a hold of her. “We have to go,” he told Nika.

  “No.” She looked around the office, her gaze drifting over each of the computers. “There’s too much information here. Gathering it is more important than catching whoever’s out there. We risk losing our answers if we leave.”

  For all her craziness, Phoenix knew she was right. Great timing for her to make a shit-ton of sense when his first impulse leaned towards the irrational side. But Fang was his friend—one of his best friends.

  “Go if you want,” Nika said. “I can stay and download everything I find to my brace.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Phoenix nodded and bolted out the door. He would have to trust her on this. There were no other options.

  He was already halfway down the stairs when he came to a stop. The energy in the house had shifted, grown tighter. The air expanded and collapsed together. He could feel it in the same way he felt the energy he tapped into when he moved fire. It was one and the same.

  Something was wrong.

  Phoenix ran back upstairs. “We have to get out of here,” he said to Nika, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her towards the door.

  “What? No—we’ll lose everything!” She shoved and pushed against him, trying to turn back.

  “Nika, the place is about to blow.” He gripped her shoulders, shaking her. “If we don’t leave now, we will die.”

  Nika’s mouth fell open and the color drained from her face. She stared at him, looking frozen. There wasn’t any time to snap her out of it. Phoenix pulled her, forcing her down the stairs.

  The sound of a distant ticking grew louder and louder in his ears. Time was running out.

  Tick…tick…TICK…

  He darted through the living room, threw open the front door, and pushed Nika out. “Run!”

  Nika stumbled on the thick blanket of snow. He helped her up, keeping a firm hold of her hand, and tugged her towards the woods as fast as he could manage.

  The explosion split the air behind them, propelling them upwards. Phoenix covered his face as he dropped. But the hard landing he expected never came. A gust of wind drew from below, softening the fall. They hovered over the ground for a second before the air gave way, then gently fell across the snow.

  Nika’s work, and he would’ve told her that was a pretty cool trick, but he couldn’t hear anything beyond the exploding house and the ringing in his ears.

  Dark clouds of smoke billowed behind them. Though he couldn’t hear her, he saw Nika convulse into a coughing spasm. He reached for her, picked her up, and slapped her back at the same time.

  Breathe, he thought. Control the air. You can do it better than anyone.

  She looked up at him, taking deep swallows of the frosty air. It looked like she was getting a handle on it.

  Phoenix steered her towards the woods, wanting to get away from the smoke. He took a brief moment to look at the house and found himself strangely wishing he had time to go back. Manipulating a fire of that magnitude would’ve been amazing. He always wondered if he could.

  Nika also stole a glance back at the burning house, coughing. “The evidence is gone.”

  Phoenix’s eyes fell on her hand, noticing the crumpled paper. He took it from her, opening and smoothing it out.

  He held it up, pointing to the list of names. “We still have this,” he said. And more importantly, there was the guy that took off.

  Time to kick some Russian ass.

  Three

  Three Days Earlier

  The number on the door matched the one Kennedy had been given. According to her brace, she was in the right place. She hesitated for a moment, thinking it was unusually quiet. This was Section 2, an expanse of common areas for Olympian citizens, where any number of places could be found from museums to movie theaters. But there weren’t any people in sight. No people, no chatter, no noises at all.

  When Phoenix originally told her to meet him here, she assumed it would be at the Atrium since that was a spot he loved. Artificial sunlight streamed in from the ceiling, and it was very close to the real thing. They’d spent countless Sunday afternoons there, walking around, talking and, well…becoming friends.

  But whatever this place was, it was in the back of Section 2 and nowhere near the Atrium. She stepped in front of the door, but it didn’t open automatically. She tried the handle.

  It was dark inside. She blinked, adjusting her vision. Starlight shone through the outer walls made entirely of glass from the floor all the way up to—no way. Even the ceiling was glass!

  Kennedy took a few more steps, feeling like she was floating in the midst of space. If it weren’t for the telescopes lining the walls, she wouldn’t know where the room ended and outer space began.

  “There she is.”

  She spun around, finding Phoenix standing there behind her. He wore civilian clothes that were dressier than normal, loose jeans, and a black button-up. His messy blonde hair was slicked back tonight, allowing every strong line of his face to show. Traces of a smile curved his lips, and she had never seen him look so handsome. She felt briefly grateful for having dug out her little black dress.

  Phoenix leaned in to lightly kiss her on the cheek. She smelled hints of his cologne mixed with that warm, divine scent that only belonged to him. “Thanks for meeting me here,” he said. Little tingles warmed the spot where he had kissed her, and Kennedy began to feel lighter. Like she really was floating in space. And the smile on his face, and those dimples, just…wow.

  Oh man, she needed to sit down—and quickly. Except there were no chairs anywhere in sight.

  Phoenix tilted his head to the side. “This way.”

  Kennedy looked ahead to see a blanket spread across the floor. Dim candles lit up the area surrounding the blanket, giving it a soft, romantic glow.
A picnic in space.

  She smiled. He was trying to make their last night together a special one, which was so incredibly sweet.

  Seriously she needed to get it together, especially since she only just arrived. She wasn’t sure how she would last the whole night without melting into a puddle at his feet.

  She sat down on the blanket, trying to think of something to say. Words were impossibly hard to form. “This place is beautiful,” she finally managed. “And a little intimidating.”

  Phoenix slid a box of pizza between them and pried it open. “Intimidating?” he asked. “Why do you say that?”

  Seeing the familiar logo of his favorite pizzeria almost made her laugh. Neither of them were any good at cooking. Kennedy usually ordered in or asked Matilda to make something. Phoenix had gotten good at sweet-talking her robot into cooking for him whenever he visited. Matilda’s culinary talents were endless, and he served as the perfect person she could show off for.

  “It feels so isolated in here,” she said, gazing overhead. “Like we’re the only ones who exist in the universe.”

  He pulled out a bottle of wine and two glasses from his picnic basket, surprising her. The legal drinking age on Olympus was eighteen, younger than the twenty-one the US dictated, but she had only just turned seventeen. Most people here didn’t raise a brow if teenagers drank wine with their dinner, but Phoenix wasn’t the rule-breaking type. He usually did things by the book.

  “It doesn’t feel so remote during the day. Tourists fill up the floor.” Phoenix’s contemplative eyes drifted upwards. “But I like it this way. It takes away some of the weight. Makes me feel small again.”

  Keeper life was still new to her, but the responsibility that came with it already settled onto her shoulders. And Phoenix had been carrying that weight his whole life.

  “When they first constructed this place, the floor was made of glass too.” His tone changed to that of an informative tour guide. “From what I heard, they carpeted the floor because it freaked people out to the point of crawling and hyperventilation.”

  Picturing the floor without the carpet, seemingly groundless, made her own heart rate pick up. “I can imagine.” A moment passed, and she thought to ask, “So if this place is so popular, how did you get access to it this late at night?”

  “I have my connections,” he said, grinning, and handed her a glass.

  It was so like him to keep her guessing.

  “Pizza and wine,” she said thoughtfully. “There is a lot to be said about that combination.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  She nodded, her head held expertly high. “Simple meets elegant.”

  “Or cheesy meets romantic,” he said, making her laugh.

  “Yeah. That, too.”

  He leaned over the pizza box, his lips about an inch from hers. “Did I tell you how much I like this dress?”

  Warmth spread over her cheeks, and she hadn’t even taken a sip from her wine yet. She watched him as he rifled through his picnic basket. He found what he was looking for, a small black box, then opened it and withdrew a shimmering chain.

  She held her breath.

  It was a cross embedded with tiny amethysts and crystals. He unlatched the chain and held it out for her. “Come here.”

  The jewels within the necklace caught the dim lighting, glittering at her. She held her hand up to it, mesmerized, and immediately drew back.

  There was no way she could accept a gift like that. “It’s too much.”

  “Anything I could give you would never be enough,” he argued.

  “I don’t want it.” A blatant lie if there ever was one. She loved jewelry and would be thrilled to own something so pretty. But deep down, she knew she couldn’t let him give it to her.

  He lowered the necklace. “Why are you doing this?” Black eyes sharpened on her beneath furrowed brows. “It’s just a present.”

  She bit her lip, debating what to say. Certain boundaries existed between people, and sometimes things were better off that way. Some subjects were better left untouched. This was one of them. But how was she supposed to refuse such a beautiful, thoughtful present without crossing that line? “Phoenix…” she didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

  He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “What is it? Tell me.”

  She twisted the brace on her wrist nervously. “It’s just, well, I didn’t think you were very religious.”

  He let out a long sigh. “That’s not what this represents. This,” he said, placing the lightweight chain around her neck. “Represents your belief in something greater than yourself. I admire that kind of faith.” He grinned and added, “Plus, you’ll think of me when you wear it, which is like a bonus.”

  She lifted her hair so he could fasten the clasp, feeling some relief in his words. When he was finished, she picked up the glittering cross, looking at it more closely. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Glad you think so.”

  “And I suppose it passes as romantic.”

  He leaned towards her again, brushing his lips lightly against hers, and then trailing a path of kisses along her jaw. Each one made her skin grow warmer than the last. “You suppose?”

  It was bad enough he could so easily send her heart racing, but it was just unfair that he knew how much he affected her on top of that.

  “All right, it definitely passes as romantic,” she admitted.

  He smiled and drew her close for a longer kiss, leaving her breathless and hot all over. Maybe it was the candles and the stars, or maybe it was the way Phoenix’s kisses took away all ability to think clearly, but her next words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Phoenix, what are we?”

  She imagined she looked as shocked as he did. She couldn’t believe she had just asked him that question. Someone needed to sew her mouth shut. Seriously. Controlling the things that came out of it was next to impossible.

  Phoenix got it together before she could. “Whatever this is, Kennedy, it’s absolutely perfect.”

  His words were nice, and they made her feel a little less embarrassed, but she still wasn’t sure what they meant. And since the question was already out there, floating around in the air, she might as well ask him to be more specific.

  Okay, think about what you say before you speak, dummy. Will asking him to define “perfect” make things more awkward?

  Probably.

  But she was going to do it anyway. “So what exactly does that mean?”

  He smiled and gathered her closer. “You want me to put a label on perfection?” he asked, shaking his head. “I can’t do that. You mean more to me than some silly label.”

  Kennedy wasn’t sure how she felt about his answer. It left her strangely unsatisfied, and she probably should have said so. This feeling would only worsen, but for the time being, she stamped it down.

  Phoenix had never given her a reason to believe that the way he felt about her wasn’t special. That should be enough.

  Deep down though, she knew it never would be.

  ~ ~

  Present Day

  Kennedy twirled her necklace around her fingers, weaving the small cross between them. She let it drop against her chest, then took one last bite of her eggs before pushing her plate aside.

  She sat back against the mahogany chair. It was new, and so was the table, for that matter. The wood gleamed beautifully without so much as a scratch, unlike the table she had grown up with and its chipped tiles and rickety legs. She, for one, was glad to see it gone. Nostalgia could prey on people who enjoyed regularly spilling their juice.

  It was nice to see Ashley had spent some of the money DOE poured into her account on Kennedy’s behalf. Actually, it would be nicer to see her spend a bit more. Years of living without the proverbial man of the house had turned their home into something of a disaster. The roof leaked. The pipes made ghostly noises. Several floorboards had come loose. And God help them if repairs were needed. Ashley’s idea of a hammer was one of
her red pumps—because those had the sturdiest heels.

  Kennedy couldn’t understand why she didn’t buy a new house. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford one; she could probably buy ten new houses if she wanted to. Kennedy brought it up once, and her mom fed her some nonsense about this crap house having sentimental value, so she dropped the subject. It still didn’t make any sense to her, but she let it go.

  Vibrations tickled her arm. A message waited to be opened on her brace. Kennedy idly scanned it and straightened when she saw it was from Phoenix.

  Finally.

  She had been driving herself crazy wondering what he was doing, and if he ever planned to contact her. She’d even considered calling him first, just to make sure he was okay, to hear his voice, to see his face. Being kept in the dark was killing her. Good thing her conscience had reminded her that those irrational girl fears were better left under the surface.

  She pressed the button and immediately backed up. A giant blue heart soared out of the brace, expanding before her eyes. The hologram changed from its cool blue into a vibrant plum purple, and then brightened into a fiery red.

  Kennedy watched as the heart went up in flames, melting into sparkling drops of red. The drops merged together to spell out letters, and in the end, they formed three of the most beautiful words her eyes had ever read.

  I miss you.

  Smiling like an idiot was unavoidable. Her heart was doing a happy dance beneath her chest.

  He missed her.

  And he was okay.

  Warm little fuzzies spread all the way down to her toes. Nothing could ruin the perfection of this moment. Absolutely nothing.

  “Well, well, little sister.” Reagan sauntered into the room with her hands on her waist and wearing a smile. “I see the romance department has been treating you well these days.”

  Perfection officially ruined.

  “So who’s that from?” Reagan cooed. “Hunter?”

  It was no secret how her neighbor felt about her, as much as she wished it were. And dammit if Reagan didn’t like to make fun of her for it. You’d think the whole “keeping the world safe from evil” would boost her up some on the respect-giving scale, but oh no. Not with her older sister. It wouldn’t even surprise her if Reagan busted out singing the kissing-in-the-tree song at this point.