by Belle Malory
“Are you going to tell me who it’s from?” she tried again.
“No.” Blunt answer, but she didn’t care. “It’s none of your business.”
Ha. Take that, sis.
End of conversation. Or it should’ve been. Except “none of your business” never worked on her sister, and Kennedy would’ve been wise to have remembered that fact.
Reagan’s hand shot out to grasp her wrist. Before Kennedy realized what was happening, her sister had gotten a good look. She snatched her arm back, but it was too late.
Whereas Reagan had looked a good deal shocked before, her expression was completely floored now. “Phoenix Jorgensen?” she screeched.
Kennedy didn’t miss the not-so-subtle undertones in there. And sheesh, Reagan didn’t have to make it sound almost impossible to believe. Phoenix could be interested in someone like her. That kind of stuff happened.
Okay, if she were being truthful, she’d admit it was still surreal to her. But she wasn’t about to say that out loud.
Reagan leaned against the kitchen counter, shaking her head. It wasn’t often she was struck speechless.
Kennedy shot a small glare towards the ceiling, feeling like the universe enjoyed making her look like the butt of its demented jokes. Do I ever get a break? Or had her home become a cloud of perpetual humiliation?
Reagan surprised her by saying, “I gotta admit, I’m a little jealous of you, sis.”
Whoa. Hold up. Jealous?
That had never crossed her mind, but now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered Reagan going on and on about how gorgeous Phoenix was, back when he’d come to verify whether or not she was the twelfth keeper.
Reagan crossed her arms over her chest. “I need details,” she said. “Come on, spill the beans.”
Kennedy shifted in her seat. She had never done the whole boy-talk thing with her sister before, but then again, there had never been any boys before. “It’s nothing.” She shrugged, lying.
Part of her wanted to tell Reagan every little detail about Phoenix, to gush excitedly as she described all the ways he gave her butterflies. It would be a normal sisterly thing to do. But the more rational part of her wanted to keep it private. Reagan saw Hunter on a daily basis too, and Kennedy wasn’t sure just how much was safe to say. Telling Hunter about how she felt still scared her.
“That message didn’t look like nothing,” Reagan said, unconvinced.
Kennedy twisted a strand of hair around her finger. Maybe it was dumb feeling so nervous about ending something that had never really started. But she did feel nervous. She had always felt bound to Hunter in an unspoken way. Silently, they’d made a promise to each other, and she’d broken that promise. If he ever found out about Phoenix, he would look at her differently. He would see her as the one who destroyed what they could have had. Their friendship might survive it, but she wasn’t so sure it would ever be the same. Was she prepared to handle that?
“Come on, sis,” Regan whined. “I don’t live an exciting keeper life. Let me live vicariously through you.”
Kennedy snorted. If her studious, wholesome sister only knew the extent of that so-called “excitement,” she’d want nothing to do with keeper life.
She casually sipped from her glass of water, then asked, “Why are you all dressed up?”
Reagan looked down at her outfit, a white cardigan paired with a navy pencil skirt. Her dark brown hair was pinned back with a pretty beaded headband. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “I’ll let the subject go for now, since you’re desperately trying to change it, but trust me when I say we will revisit it.”
Fantastic. She was so looking forward to that.
Reagan walked to the coffee pot. “Anyway, I’m dressed up because I’m going to the historic district with you and Hunter.”
Kennedy nearly choked on her water. Good God, please let her be joking. She slowly set the glass down. “Yeah, sure. We can drop you off. Do you have something to do in town today?”
Reagan chuckled as she poured cream into her mug. “No, silly. I’m tagging along. I figured I’d hang out with you guys.”
Oh holy hell—she was being serious!
Spending all day with Hunter-turned-Casanova was bad enough, but the thought of Reagan being there too made her skin itch like crazy. This could not be allowed to happen. “Why?”
Reagan turned around, eyeing her sharply. “Am I not allowed to spend some time with my sister whom I haven’t seen in months?”
“I didn’t say that—I only figured that you would have better things to do on your spring break. Don’t you have plans with Dean?”
“We broke up.”
An awkward silence filled the kitchen. Kennedy felt awful. Reagan had been with Dean forever, since they were kids in middle school. She hadn’t known things had gone south between them. And she should’ve known. Good sisters knew these things.
“I’m sorry, Rea.”
Reagan shrugged off her sympathy. “We were going to different colleges anyway. It made sense.” She took a deep breath, staring into her coffee mug. “Besides that, we share all the same friends and being around them isn’t the best idea right now.”
Oh man. She was making this really hard.
Reagan straightened and put on a smile Kennedy could tell was forced. “I need to get out of this house. And I’d rather hang out with you anyway. Who knows when we’ll have this chance again?”
Dammit.
There was no way she could blow her off now.
Not only that, but with Reagan going off to college and the high probability of evil aliens blowing up the planet, there really weren’t going to be many more opportunities to spend some quality time together.
Kennedy sighed. She would be the most god-awful, heinous person in the world if she refused her sister under those circumstances. Chances were she was already halfway there for considering it. “Agreed, Rea. That sounds like fun.”
Those words, sounds like fun, echoed inside her head like a broken record.
This was bound to be one very long day.
Four
Phoenix pounded on the steering wheel, cursing under his breath. After trying to blow them to smithereens, the man from the house made a quick getaway. And as if he’d prepared for this, he had stowed a Vespa in the woods, right off the highway. Fang was a fast runner but couldn’t get to him in time.
“This was the way he went,” Fang said, her eyes furtively darting down the road. “It’s not like he’s getting anywhere very fast on that scooter. What do they top out at—like sixty miles per hour? Speed up, maybe we can catch him.”
Phoenix put more weight against the pedal. Flooring it crossed his mind, but the roads were icy, and he was already having a hard time keeping the car steady. Living on Olympus hadn’t given him much driving experience—especially manual driving—so he didn’t want to push his luck.
“Now reaching dangerous speeds,” said a voice from the dash.
Both of them simultaneously shouted, “Shut up!”
“This is the only road back into St. Petersburg,” Nika said in a small voice. It was the first thing she’d said since they left the burning house.
“Which means he couldn’t have gotten very far,” Fang added. “Who the hell drives scooters in Russia anyway, I’d like to know.”
Just as they entered the city limits, Phoenix caught sight of a white Vespa up ahead. “Look, there he is.” The driver was dressed in all black and wore a matching black helmet. Phoenix shook his head at the sight of him. “That dude has to be freezing on epic levels.”
Fang gripped the handle above her seat. “Faster, Nix. We can’t let him get away.”
He pressed down harder against the pedal, pushing their little car to its limits. He couldn’t keep it up for long though. The buildings grew taller and the traffic became denser the farther he drove into the city. He had no choice but to slow down.
Fang’s anger came
to a boiling point when they were trapped at a red light. The Vespa ran it, but Phoenix couldn’t fit the car around the others to follow. When the light turned, she screamed, “Let’s go, people! What shade of green are you looking for?”
Nika leaned between the two front seats, trying to get a better view. “I’ve been here before. This is a marketplace.”
“There he is,” Fang said just as the Vespa rounded a corner up ahead. It sped off down a side street. “He must’ve seen us.”
“The way he took is a dead-end.” Nika pointed to the right. “See that, over there? It’s blocked for vendors. He’ll have no choice but to either turn around, or to leave the scooter behind.”
If that was the case, they were better off parking and going after him on foot. “Are you positive?” Phoenix asked. Now was not a good time for her to be wrong.
Nika met his question with silence. He wasn’t all that surprised; he would’ve ignored himself too if he were her.
Oh, what the hell, Phoenix thought, and slid the car into the nearest parking spot. Time to run.
They slammed the doors behind them in a hurry. Fang took off down the street, the faster runner by far, but Phoenix was close on her heels. “Do you see him?” he shouted.
“Yeah—he’s making a run for it!”
Phoenix urged his feet to go faster. Biting winds and snowflakes whipped against his face. A stronger gust of wind breezed past his legs, and it caught his attention. He looked back to see Nika jump through the air, soar straight past him, and then land on the ground again.
Whoa. Did that just happen? The cold weather must’ve frozen his brain. There was no way his eyes were seeing this.
And then she did it again.
Stretching her arms out, Nika summoned a giant gust of air, and it propelled her yards ahead of them.
Fang turned around, her eyes rounding incredulously. “Did this chick just fly?”
“I think it was more of a giant leap, but yeah, she did.”
“Someone sign me up for a change of element, because that was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
No argument there. Sparks of envy ignited inside his chest as well. “She’s going to catch him,” he said, fully believing she would.
“I think she already has.” Fang tilted her head towards the end of the street, blocked off, just as Nika predicted. Their mystery man tried to climb the fence, but Nika yanked him by the back of his coat. He landed on his back, likely getting the wind knocked out of him in the process.
Phoenix watched as Nika took charge, sitting on top of the man, holding him by his collar, and yelling, by the sound of it. “What is Project 27? Does it have a purpose?” She shook him when he refused to answer her. “Tell me why you have that list of names!”
The man said nothing. He only stared up at Nika, his expression devoid of emotion.
Phoenix and Fang saw the oncoming motorcycle before Nika did. It skidded around them, stopping directly in front of her and the mystery man. “Nika, look out!” Fang shrieked.
It was too late.
The man on the motorcycle kicked out his leg, the tip of his black boot connecting with Nika’s head. She fell back, and the mystery man scrambled to his feet. He hopped on the motorcycle, and the two of them sped off together.
Fang removed the gun she carried beneath her coat, aiming it straight for the bike. Phoenix had no doubt she could hit it from this distance, but he laid his hand across her arms. “Don’t.”
“Why not? Did you see his face?”
Phoenix shook his head, frowning. “No, he had a ski mask on, but I got his plate number, and I’m not sure if killing them would do us any good.”
Fang battled briefly with what he told her to do and her desire to pull the trigger. Finally, she lowered the gun and let out an angry hiss.
Nika moaned, distracting them. Blood trickled from her temple. Phoenix moved towards her, helping her to stand. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
He held three fingers up. “How many do you count?”
She shot him a disparaging glare.
Yep. She was fine.
He balled up a fistful of snow and held it towards her head, but she jerked back. “Will you trust me?” he asked, frustrated. When she didn’t say anything, he pushed the snow in her hand. “That’s going to knot up unless you put some ice on it.”
She lifted her snow-covered hand and pressed it to her temple. At least she had sense enough to listen, he thought.
“You shouldn’t have let him go.”
“We didn’t have a choice.”
Nika brushed the snow off of her coat. She surveyed the area, sighing. “We had him…we almost had him.”
“I got his plate number,” Phoenix said, hoping it would help. For not knowing what they’d been chasing, Nika seemed much more affected by all this than she should be. “Hey, don’t take it personal.” He patted his coat pocket containing the paper she found. “We still have the list, and we have his plates. It’s not a total loss.”
“Whatever. Let’s just go.”
He nodded and walked ahead, figuring it was better not to push her. Maybe Professor Mason was right when he said Nika needed something. Back on Level 3, everyone thought of her as the crazy girl. And from the moment Nika stepped foot in that house to chasing the mystery man here in the market, she’d been someone else. She’d made smart decisions, kept her head in the game.
Being back in Russia could also have something to do with it. If they were in Oslo right now, or even in London, he supposed the pressure would’ve intensified for him, since those were the only two places he called home outside of Olympus. Nika had grown up here in St. Petersburg, and familiarities surrounded her. That type of nostalgia played at your senses no matter what you did.
When they got back to the car, Fang beat on the hood a few times, letting her frustration out. It didn’t phase Phoenix. He was used to her temper. After she calmed down, she asked, “Are you going to call in the plates?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it now.”
Fang opened the passenger door, climbing inside. “So where are we headed—back to the airport?”
An eerie feeling tingled along the back of his neck. Nika was usually a silent tag along, but it was almost too quiet. He glanced behind him. She was nowhere in sight. There was no sign of her down the street they had come from either. “Um, Fang?”
She climbed back out of the car. “Yeah?” she asked impatiently. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get on the road already.”
“We’re missing someone.”
There was nothing but buildings and cars and an endless expanse of white. Fang’s brows shot up as she scanned the area. When she couldn’t find Nika, she groaned. “Wonderful. That’s freaking wonderful.”
Five
“Don’t you think you should tell Hunter about Phoenix?” Reagan whispered as they walked outside.
Kennedy shot her sister a deadly glare. Now was so not the time to have this conversation. Not when Hunter stood a few feet from them in his driveway.
“What?” Reagan asked, all innocence. “He, like, adores you. You are aware of that fact, right?”
Kennedy pushed on the darkest pair of sunglasses she owned, hoping to go unrecognized in their little town. “I’m aware.”
She caught the snide judgmental glance Reagan gave her as they walked down the porch steps. It only lasted a second, but she felt it reach out and smack her across the face. She paused on the bottom step.
“Look, please don’t do that.” Her gaze traveled towards Hunter, making sure he wasn’t listening. Thankfully, he was busy wiping down his car. She turned back to Reagan. “Not right now.”
Resorting to begging made her feel pretty helpless, especially in front of her sister, but at this point she didn’t care.
Reagan tugged her purse strap over her shoulder. She squinted at Kennedy in the sunlight, and then she looked across their driveway. After a moment, she sighed and steered Kenned
y towards the car. “I get it,” she said. “My lips are sealed.” She smacked them to emphasize her point.
“Thank you,” she whispered, grateful.
“Don’t thank me so soon. You’ve still got some major beans to spill later.”
Oh she didn’t doubt that for a moment.
Hunter’s car was a shiny black mustang his dad picked up at the auto-auction a few months ago for his birthday. It was about twenty years old, but the father-son duo had been fixing it up together, and it gleamed as if it were brand new.
He held his arms out as they approached. “So what do you think?”
“Hunter, this is amazing,” Kennedy said as she circled around the vehicle. When he described it over their telephone conversations, she never imagined it would turn out this good. “Like, really amazing.”
A pang of jealousy coursed through her veins. She could only credit herself with a learner’s permit. People didn’t drive cars in space; they used spheres.
Hunter opened the passenger door and held the seat up for Reagan. “Glad you like her,” he said, beaming. “She’s my baby, my pride and joy.”
Kennedy climbed inside and fastened her seatbelt. Hunter shut the door behind her.
“What a gentleman,” Reagan whispered teasingly from the backseat.
Kennedy turned around to tell her sister to shut her face, but Hunter was already opening the driver’s side door. She shot Reagan a warning glare instead, which only earned her an amused chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Hunter asked as he switched the ignition on.
“Nothing,” Kennedy said quickly. She steered the conversation back to car talk. “You’re lucky your dad is a mechanic. This car looks like you bought it straight out of a dealership.”
