The Twelfth Keeper Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Belle Malory

  “The stars are made up of energy, energy that directly affects you, but that doesn’t take away from your free will.”

  “Okay. That’s comforting. But I still have no freaking clue as to what I should do. Phoenix has gone rogue looking for answers. He wants me to stay. He wants me to stand up to the department.”

  “He has been somewhat of a rebel lately, hasn’t he?” Calaya winked. “Oh, love. There’s a very simple answer to your question. Trust your gut.”

  “If I had a gut feeling, I wouldn’t be in here talking to you about this.”

  The stars shifted and realigned again as Calaya toyed with her brace. More symbols appeared surrounding the chart on the floor. “Honestly, I think you’ve already decided,” she said.

  Kennedy looked around at the hologram stars, trying to see what Calaya saw. “Decided…what exactly?”

  “Everything points to far off travel.”

  Now they were getting somewhere.

  “So I should leave?”

  “This mission means a lot to you. I can see the players involved are pushing you into it, and you’re not happy about that, but you also realize your own potential. It’s not going to be easy…going to this planet will both destroy you and give you rebirth. I see many challenges, but you need these lessons. It will only make you more powerful.”

  Kennedy swallowed, absorbing the advice. Pretty much what she’d been thinking all along.

  Calaya turned to her and looked her dead in the eye. “Don’t think I don’t know what your department tries to hide. I’ve studied the stars enough to see their deceptive collective energy for what it is. I know something big is coming, a war between worlds is likely and has been for a long time.”

  Kennedy sucked in her breath. If she didn’t believe in stargazers before, she certainly did now.

  Calaya continued, “For the other keepers, staying is what’s best, but not for you. Not the twelfth. You need to explore, Kennedy. Find the hidden knowledge. Bring it back and use it as your weapon. Because when you fight, and that’s not an if, but when, what you have to offer this planet will be the deciding factor in how it all plays out.”

  ~ ~

  Kennedy thanked Calaya for the reading, then left the apartment in a daze, almost numb. She walked silently through the halls back to the main viewing center where she’d left Reagan. Hunter was there now too, wearing a matching sober expression.

  “How was it?” she asked him.

  “Good,” he said, but it seemed as if there were so many layers to that one simple word. “You?”

  “Same.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Are you scared?”

  The question surprised her. “Of what?”

  “Dying.”

  She slowly shook her head. “I’m scared of other people dying, but not for myself.”

  Strange. She never considered how Fang’s death affected Hunter. He was afraid for her.

  “I’m not going to die, Hunt.”

  “You better not.”

  She blinked. You better not. In that one small command, she felt her old friend shine through, letting her know he still cared.

  Hunter ran his hand over his shaved head, looking around the hall. “Let’s do something fun. You know, for Reagan’s sake.”

  Hearing her name, Reagan sat up; she’d been lounging against the window. “Yes, please.”

  “Since when did she become such an extrovert?” Hunter said, teasing.

  Her lips pulled into a slow smile. “Must’ve been all those years of dedicated studying.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” Reagan added sarcastically. She grabbed Kennedy by the hand, pulling her to the exit hall. “Let’s go. Hunter and I haven’t seen the Neon City in all its glory.”

  “I do happen to know of this really awesome arcade…”

  Eighteen

  Kennedy opened her eyes, and it was still dark. It should not be dark. That’s not how sleep agents worked. They were supposed to keep you sedated until morning.

  She was going back to sleep.

  Ugh.

  There it was again. The buzzing.

  She really didn’t want to be awake right now. It was still too early, and she only just got back to her apartment after staying out all night with Reagan and Hunter. Probably wasn’t the best idea, considering she was supposed to meet her mom and Jake for breakfast in the morning. Her decision-making skills were seriously lacking. At the time, it had been so nice feeling like a normal teenager again. She hadn’t wanted the night to end, especially since Hunter didn’t act like he hated her guts. Things were semi-normal with him, so much so that she found herself doing exactly what he requested. Having fun. The next thing she knew, it was three o’clock in the morning, and she was still deep in the heart of the Neon City.

  And now she was being tormented by that stupid buzzing.

  She wasn’t going to be able to get up in time unless it stopped.

  But it didn’t stop. It kept going until she groaned and groggily sat up. She blinked a few times, shuffled pillows around, then realized it was coming from her brace.

  Someone was calling her.

  Oh, crap. Phoenix. She scrambled to tap the receiver.

  “I thought you’d never answer.” Phoenix’s voice reverberated through her like warm honey. God, how she’d missed that voice.

  “Wait—why are you calling me from your brace?” she asked, panicked. “I thought you wanted to stay off the grid.”

  “Forget the grid, Kennedy. I’ve figured it out. I’ve figured the whole bloody thing out,” he said, breathless.

  She could feel his excitement with every word. “Are you…you again?”

  “More than that. I’ve ignited explosions, Kennedy. Huge explosions. And I know I’m capable of more. Think nuclear weapons, that’s the kind of power I’m talking about. Davaris and I have become our own detonators.”

  A video downloaded to her brace, and images of Phoenix’s explosions appeared, orangey flames engulfing an entire building, demolishing it within seconds.

  “My God, Phoenix. Are you being careful?”

  He laughed. “I show you an explosion I created by sheer will, and you ask if I’m being careful?”

  “Good point. But the question stands.”

  She could almost see him rolling his eyes.

  “Yes, we’re careful. We’re in the middle of the desert with no one around for miles.”

  She took it all in, watching the video for a second time. “That’s amazing, Phoenix.”

  “Do you understand what this means? Davaris and I are more powerful than any of the keepers ever dreamed of being. And it’s not just because of Fang’s death. It’s being here. All of us need to train on Earth. They set us up for failure when they put us on a space station. This power, whatever it is, comes from the planet itself.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can just feel it.”

  She thought about her most recent trip home, and how much easier it had been to create water spirals using the ocean as opposed to a small pool in space. The gravity here on Olympus was man made. The environment itself wasn’t natural. Instinctively, she knew he was right. “I believe you,” she said. “One hundred percent. The keepers should be on Earth training.”

  He paused. “Why do I sense a but coming?”

  She was afraid to say it. “I’ve made up my mind, Phoenix. I’m going on the mission.”

  A string of curses jumbled with static came through the brace’s speaker. “Dammit, Kennedy. I found your answers. I figured out how we can beat the Slayers, and you’re telling me it doesn’t matter?”

  “I never said it doesn’t matter,” she insisted, feeling her voice break a little.

  She hadn’t thought about how hard this conversation would be. She should have prepared, but then again, she hadn’t expected to hear back from Phoenix this soon.

  And it’s not like she could blame him; his anger was understandable. If the situation were reversed, sh
e’d be livid.

  “The last conversation we had about this, you promised to wait. I held up my end of the deal. I found a bloody solution. So if all of that matters, then what the hell are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I have to go. I want to know how the other worlds fight, Phoenix, and I want to know why ours is so vulnerable. The answers are out there. I can feel it just as strongly as you feel the need to keep your feet planted in the ground.”

  “They’ve brainwashed you, haven’t they?”

  She snorted. “Definitely not. This is not about DOE or anyone else, for that matter. This is about me. I’ve already asked you not to leave, Phoenix. And I feel guilty about that—”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “—but maybe this is what keeps you here. Maybe this is how I stop those dreams from happening. I’m the one who leaves instead of you.”

  “That’s the most skewed logic I’ve ever heard. What if your abilities don’t work on another planet? How do you plan on training?”

  “If that happens, I’ll learn from their keepers, and train once I come back.”

  “This isn’t necessary, Kennedy. We can both stay. We can both learn to fight right here on Earth.”

  “I’m going, Phoenix.” Her voice rang with finality. “I need to do this.”

  He stayed silent for a long moment, making her think he hung up on her. Then, in a low, defeated voice, he said, “You do what you need to do.”

  After that, he did hang up.

  Kennedy stared at her brace in disbelief. Tears stung at her eyes, her breath heavy. Every cell in her body seemed to hang there, teetering on the edge of breaking down and sobbing. But she didn’t. She just sat there in the silence, wishing she had handled that conversation differently. She wished she could’ve said the right thing, if that were possible…knowing Phoenix, the only right words would’ve been to tell him she was staying.

  No one she loved wanted her to go on this mission. She wondered what that said about her, that she was openly disregarding everyone’s feelings on the chance that it was for a good cause.

  God, she hoped she was making the right decision. It couldn’t all be for nothing.

  Nineteen

  Exhaustion settled in around the same time her family went home. The weekend had been a blur of activities and sightseeing, and although Kennedy was sad they were leaving, she was thankful to have some time to herself. She needed to mope. About the way Phoenix had cut her off. About the mission. And about life in general.

  She spent all of Sunday night doing said moping by walking around like a zombie, eating nachos, and flipping through the waves. She immediately regretted checking the news broadcast. That journalist, Daxton Hughes, was on one the air talking shit about her. He said, “I stared into Kennedy Mitchell’s eyes, and let me be the first to tell you, I didn’t see anything heroic about her. She’s just your average seventeen-year-old girl. Nothing special there, no revolutionary spark of earthly magic, and she showed no interest in answering any of my questions. As I’ve said all along, these keepers are a distraction. The world government has us fooled into thinking we need them to keep our planet safe, but they’ve never explained why. It’s time we demanded answers.”

  Kennedy threw a jalapeño at the screen. “That’s how I feel about you, too, Mr. Hughes,” she muttered.

  “You know he isn’t really there, right?” Matilda said.

  Kennedy glared at the android until she whizzed away.

  She sighed and turned off the TV. While staring at her glass of ice water, she drew out a miniature stream, mindlessly swirling it into different shapes. A circle. A star. A heart…

  Her life had changed so much in the course of the last year that she barely had time to grasp what was happening. In just a few days, she’d be on her way to another world. And all she could think about was the one she was leaving behind. The people she was leaving behind. The goodbye Phoenix didn’t want to give her.

  The guy had literally driven her to lose her mind. Every time she called and there was no answer, she winced in physical pain. Every message that went unanswered wrecked her a little more. Her throat felt all scratchy, and her eyes would water, and she would pace the room until Matilda told her she was showing flu like symptoms. No, it’s just a broken heart, she wanted to say.

  “I need a distraction,” she said to herself.

  She stood, and the water fell, splashing all over the countertop. “I’ll be right back, Matilda.”

  “Where are you going at this hour?”

  Kennedy slipped on her boots, heading for the door. “Classified information. See you later.”

  That answer left Matilda sputtering in her wake. “What do you mean classified? I’ll have you know I was made with the utmost integrity. Our conversations are confidential—”

  Kennedy shut the door behind her, smiling. She finally found a way to annoy the Series Seven android. It was about time. For a while there, she thought it only worked the other way around.

  She dialed Professor Mason on her brace.

  “Mitchell, it’s late,” he answered in a gruff voice. “What do you want?”

  “Access to the Room of Lost Prophets,” she said without hesitation. “I want to do some late night reading.”

  There was a short pause. “Done. Make sure to lock up on your way out.”

  She was surprised by how easily he granted her request. “Thanks, Professor.”

  “Yep. Night.” He signed off.

  Level 3 was eerily calm at this hour. Space had no day or night, but the absence of people seemed to make the place feel much lonelier. She remembered the first day she wandered through these halls and how out of place she felt. Sometimes she still felt that way. Then again, Calaya told her it was a product of her own nature. If that was true, would she ever feel like she belonged anywhere?

  She sure hoped so.

  The door to the Room of Lost Prophets was open, as promised. Kennedy shut the door behind her, looked around, and breathed in a deep breath. Time to get to work.

  She started with the volume Mason had opened, Azuras 3050, found herself a spot in the corner of the room and sat down, huddling against the wall. She began flipping through the hologram pages, ready to absorb everything she could about her destination planet.

  As far as distractions went, it was a good one. She found herself reading late into the night, and before she knew it, fell asleep there on the floor. It wasn’t until early the next morning that she woke up again, a pair of dark brown loafers staring her in the face.

  Crap.

  “Ah, Miss Mitchell…” Professor Mason cleared his throat. “Do you realize you have ten minutes to make it to the daily five?”

  She rubbed her eyes as she sat up. “Sorry, I lost track of time.”

  “That’s all right,” he said, scratching his beard. “In fact, ah, why don’t you gather Colton and Alanna and meet me in my office today.”

  “Sir?”

  “Forget training. The three of you only have a few days before departure. We should spend some time focusing on that and prepping as much as possible.”

  Kennedy nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m sure we would all appreciate your help.”

  Twenty

  Phoenix pressed the ignore button on his brace. Then he turned it off, throwing it into the campfire they were huddled around.

  “Uh-oh.” Davaris shook his head. “Not your best idea, man.”

  Phoenix scowled, the flames growing brighter in response to his anger. He’d already told Davaris to stop prying, but he refused to listen.

  “Look, you don’t have to talk about it with me—”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “But eventually you have to face the fact that she’s leaving whether you answer her calls or not.”

  “Stay out of it, Var.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “I said stay out of it.”

  Davaris’s lips thinned as he turned away. Fo
r the time being, it seemed like he was done nagging.

  Phoenix lifted the canteen to his mouth, gulping. The cold water streamed down his throat, tempering the heat inside of him. He hated that it reminded him of her.

  He tried to think of something else. These past few days and the freedom that came with them, they had been amazing. He and Davaris had demolished all of Picker Place, growing stronger with each fire they set. Again, reaffirming his belief that the keepers should train here on Earth. Again, reminding him that Kennedy was making a stupid decision by leaving.

  He inwardly groaned.

  Every thought led back to her. He stared hard at the canteen, wishing there was whiskey in it instead of water. Then maybe he could get some peace of mind.

  Before he’d thrown his brace into the fire, he read her message.

  Please don’t let me leave without saying goodbye, it said.

  Screw her goodbye.

  If this was what she was choosing, he wanted no part of it. And he definitely wasn’t going back to Olympus to deal with those close-minded dictators inside of DOE. He was done trying to be the kind of keeper they wanted him to be.

  “Did you send a message to all of them?” he asked Davaris.

  “Oh, so you’re talking to me now?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “So far Lexie is the only one who has responded. She said she agrees and is willing to give our idea a try. Once she’s done with the assignment in Mexico, she’ll meet up with us.”

  They were trying to bring the keepers together here on the planet to train. After experiencing the strength he and Davaris had gained in just a few days, he knew the same would happen to the others—if they had the chance. They needed that chance.

  Hearing that Lexie was on board sparked some hope.

  “What about her circle? And Gabby?”

  Davaris shrugged. “She said she would talk to them. Right now they’re in the middle of the rainforest, looking for an energy gemstone.”