by Leigh, Jena
“And for you?”
“Just water, thanks,” said Grayson.
“He’ll have the same, love,” said Brandt, causing Grayson to raise an eyebrow. Brandt tossed a crumpled bill onto the bar. “Trust me. You’re going to want it once you hear what I have to tell you.”
The bartender slid two glasses of amber liquid in their direction.
“Oh? And what might that be?” asked Grayson.
“Thank you, love,” said Brandt to the bartender’s retreating form. He raised the glass to his lips. “That twelve years ago we screwed up.”
A chill ran the length of Grayson’s spine. “What are you talking about?”
“Back in January I was…” He searched for the phrase. “Tending to some business in Belfast.”
“You mean you were there to kill someone.”
“You make it sound so crass,” said Brandt. He swirled the whisky in his glass. “I’m merely a means to an end. They’ll end up dead one way or another. You know I only take the job if I feel the person deserves it.”
“Yes. Because you’re more than qualified to serve as anyone’s judge, jury and executioner.”
“I’m not here to defend my career choices to you, John.”
“Then get to the point.”
Brandt sighed. “I’d been hired by a party that wished to remain anonymous. Nothing unusual about that. What was unusual was that I’d been given a specific time and location where the job was to be completed.”
“Would this location happen to have been a cheap motel on the east side of town?”
“Been checking up on me, have you?” Brandt smiled. “When I got there, I knew something was off. I found the bomb stashed in a closet and managed to shimmy down a fire escape a few seconds before it went off.”
“How is it that everyone came to believe you’d been killed in the blast?”
“You’re not the only one who still has a friend or two at the Agency,” said Brandt. “Had them falsify some dental records for me.”
“What does all this have to do with what happened twelve years ago?”
“I’m getting to that.” Brandt took another sip of his drink. “I’ve spent the last few months trying to figure out who it was that hired me. I’d gotten nowhere until about a week ago when someone in the States accessed one of my Zurich accounts. I traced the transaction back to a bank in—of all places—a coastal Florida town.”
“And?”
“And I hacked into the bank’s security footage. Imagine my surprise when I saw my own handsome face walking around inside of a bank four-thousand miles away.”
“Are you suggesting it was a Mimic that tried to kill you in Belfast?” Grayson asked, surprised.
Mimics were a type of Variant that could take on the physical features of any individual they touched. Shapeshifters. Brandt would have needed to have come into contact with one for his likeness to have been absorbed by them.
That still didn’t explain how the Mimic had been able to control fire, unless that person had somehow inherited two abilities. And the odds against that one… Well, they were astronomical.
“That’s what I thought too, at first, so I went to Florida and tracked him down. Yesterday afternoon I followed him to a bookstore.” Brandt looked haggard. “I watched him attack the girl. And then I watched him teleport.”
Three abilities. For that to be possible…
“No,” said Grayson. “He’s dead, Carson. I made sure of it.”
“Well, apparently, you didn’t make damn sure, because the man is still very much alive,” said Brandt. “And if what happened in Belfast is any indication, he doesn’t appear to be too happy about what we did to him. I don’t know where you’re hiding the girl, Jonathan, but it had better be someplace he won’t think to look.”
Grayson reached for the glass on the bar. He downed its contents in one gulp.
“Masterson’s alive, John,” said Brandt. “And if we don’t figure out how to kill him properly this time, that prophecy of yours might just come to pass after all.”
* * *
“You know, I used to own a pit bull. As I remember, he slobbered a lot less than your friend. Smelled better, too.”
From her spot on the balcony, Cassie peered through the cracked sliding glass door and into Aiden’s living room.
Connor lay sprawled on one end of the L-shaped couch, snoring like a buzz saw and drooling onto the cushions. Brian was asleep on the shorter leg, Connor’s bare feet inches from his face.
Cassie shook her head, wondering what Brian’s reaction would be when he woke to an eyeful of Connor’s size 12’s. She was surprised the aroma of Eau de Feet hadn’t already woke him.
“You’d be wrong to assume that he’s any friend of mine,” she said, turning back around and leaning her weight against the railing.
Cassie had migrated to the apartment’s balcony after trying, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep in one of Aiden’s two recliners. Connor’s thunderous snore would have been enough to keep her awake all by itself, but she was soon facing a second problem.
Every time her eyes closed, she found herself somewhere else.
Blink.
The warehouse.
Blink.
The trunk of Brandt’s car.
Blink.
The dock.
Continuously reliving the events of the day had turned the prospect of sleep into a cruel joke. When Aiden had slipped quietly through the living room and out the sliding door to the balcony, the choice to follow him had practically made itself.
“That sounded distinctly bitter.” Aiden’s green eyes shined with mirth. “Is he an ex?”
“Not mine.” She pulled the borrowed blanket tighter around her shoulders in a futile attempt to stave off the chill of the evening. A salty gust of wind dragged her long blonde hair behind her.
“Surely he’s not Kenzie’s ex?” Aiden arched a brow. “I wouldn’t have guessed him to be my cousin’s type.”
“Alex’s,” she corrected.
The sound of waves crashing against the shore drifted up from somewhere below.
Aiden smiled. “Ah, the mysterious Alex. She of the wavy hair and endless trouble.”
He spoke the words as though he were already familiar with Alex’s particular brand of trouble.
Cassie focused on the moon’s reflection on the water, the way the long column writhed and danced upon the crown of each breaking wave.
Aiden’s place might not have been all that big, but his view of the Pacific Ocean was to die for.
At least, she thought it was the Pacific.
She really ought to ask someone which Newport they were in.
“Do you usually get mixed up in these things?” she asked.
“More often than I’d like,” he said. “Anything for family and all that… But one day I’m gonna start charging them hazard pay.”
“You guys pretty close?”
He shrugged. “With Nate, I guess. He lived with me out in Seattle a couple years back. I got him a job on a fishing boat,” he smiled. “Had some interesting times, before he decided to go back to work for Grayson.”
“So is Nate your cousin, too?”
“In all the ways that matter. Nate’s mom died just after my aunt and uncle did, so he went to live with Grayson at the same time as Kenzie and Decks. To me, he’s family. Same with Brian in there. And Brian’s dad, too.” Aiden looked out over the water. “Grayson was more like a father to me than my own dad was.”
They stood there for a long while, side by side against the railing, lost in a companionable silence.
“So tell me, Cassie.”
“Hm?”
“How did you get mixed up in all this?”
This blanket wasn’t nearly warm enough. She stared down at her hands.
Blink.
The warehouse.
Cassie swallowed hard.
“I was Brandt’s leverage,” she said. “He wanted to draw Alex into a meeting… so he…
so he kidnapped me to ensure that she’d show.”
Aiden’s good humor evaporated. She could feel him studying her in the low light as an uneasy silence settled over the two of them. Not knowing what else to say, Cassie gazed out over the water.
Her vision blurred.
Blink.
The trunk.
Something warm was dripping onto her forearm. Crap. She wiped furtively at her cheeks. She’d been able to hold it together this long. Falling to pieces in front of a guy she’d only just met was not an option.
It wasn’t.
She was stronger than this.
…So why were the tears still coming?
“Want to talk about it?” he asked.
The question caught her off-guard. “You know you’re the first person who’s asked me that? Everyone else just wanted to know if I was ‘okay.’ What kind of question is that, anyway? Am I okay? A crazy man snuck up behind me in a parking lot, held an awful smelling rag over my face until I passed out, shoved me in the trunk of a car, and then left me tied up in an abandoned warehouse for the longest ten hours of my life. After that he burned my classmate alive right in front of my eyes.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. No stopping them now. “Oh, yeah, I’m okay. Life’s a friggin’ peach.”
“Hey,” said Aiden, his voice soft. Lifting one hand, he caught her chin and gently turned her face toward his. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe here.”
With a subtle wave from his free hand, Aiden summoned the tears cascading down Cassie’s cheeks into the space between them. The droplets swirled above his palm and then disappeared, evaporating into the cool night air.
Just as Brandt had controlled fire, Aiden could control water.
There was a hint of worry in his eyes, as though he wasn’t sure what her reaction might be.
She surprised both of them by taking a step forward, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face against his chest. After a moment’s hesitation, Cassie felt Aiden return the embrace, holding her tightly against him.
Safe.
For the first time since Brandt had taken her, she felt safe.
Arms still wrapped around Aiden, Cassie closed her eyes… and saw nothing.
Maybe she wasn’t so broken after all.
— 19 —
When Alex had mentioned earlier that she’d rather be trained by Nathaniel, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind.
“Arm up,” said Nate. “What are you doing? I said to hold it taught, not to dislocate your shoulder.”
Nate was acting weird.
And, okay, Alex had only known the guy for two days. There was always an outside chance that he got moody and secretive about things all the time, and that this sudden turn for the pithy was nothing out of the ordinary.
But she didn’t think so.
“Tensing up like that won’t help,” he was saying. “Your arm is simply a tool to help you visualize and narrow the direction of your focus. It’s your mind that does the work. Now try again. Move the can.”
The can shuddered, teetering on the edge for one long moment before slipping off the wall and clinking against the flagstone. It continued to roll until it met with the toe of Nate’s boot.
“Is that what you were trying to do?” he asked doubtfully, staring down at the can.
Alex was starting to understand why sleep-deprivation was considered a form of torture. “Actually, I was trying to levitate it.”
“Huh,” said Nate. “Well, it’s a start, I guess.”
Alex couldn’t get the image out of her head.
She’d only stumbled across it by accident. It’s not as though she’d intentionally gone digging into Nate’s private thoughts. One moment, she was memorizing the image of the sun-drenched park in DC he’d offered her—and the next, she’d found herself somewhere else entirely.
Somewhere in the realm of his memories.
Nate bent to retrieve the can.
Alex had asked him about it, of course. How could she not?
When you stumble across a memory containing a crystal clear image of yourself—dripping wet, decidedly unconscious, and sporting a blue-lipped look of death—in someone else’s mind…
Someone you’d only just met…
Well, it’s going to raise a few questions.
Questions that had been met with a look of blind panic from Nathaniel. Oh, he’d tried to hide his reaction, but the damage had been done. He knew exactly which memory it was that Alex had been referring to. And his response told her that the image she’d glimpsed had a story behind it.
A story that Nate wouldn’t be sharing with her any time soon, no matter how many times she might ask.
Alex returned her focus to the task at hand: figuring out how to move that stupid can. She’d get the truth out of Nate eventually. She’d just have to work out the logistics of how to do it later.
“So is Grayson coming back tonight?” asked Alex.
She sized up the soda can Nate had once again placed on the stone wall that lined the patio. He stepped back and she obediently raised her arm, preparing for her sixth attempt.
“Declan said Grayson would check in with us again tomorrow, but that he and Brandt had an errand to run,” said Nate. “Whatever that means.”
The idea that Grayson was out there somewhere with that monster—and that he was there willingly—had taken them all by surprise. There was something very strange going on and Alex was desperate to find out what it was.
Grayson had hinted that the man he was with might not have been the same man that she’d met. But if the man coming after her wasn’t Carson Brandt, then who was he?
“Come on, Alex,” said Nate. “Where’s your head right now? Focus.”
Alex pulled a face. No matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn’t move the lousy hunk of tin more than an inch in any direction.
Next to her, Nate’s shoulders quaked with silent laughter. It was the first time he’d cracked a smile in over an hour. “Relax, Alex. You look like you’re about to strain something. Remember what I said: you’re moving it with your thoughts, not with your actual muscles.”
Why was this so hard for her?
Telepathy had been a cinch, once Kenzie had shown her the ropes. Even her lessons with Declan hadn’t been this challenging.
It didn’t matter what she tried—the stubborn can simply wouldn’t move the way she wanted it to.
Someone yawned behind her. She turned to find Kenzie wrapped up in a blanket. Alex hadn’t heard her approach.
“And how’s our prodigy doing?” asked the redhead.
Nate gave a noncommittal grunt. “She’d probably be better with a full night’s sleep.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” said Alex. Her eyelids were growing heavier by the minute. “What time is it, anyway?”
“A little after two A.M.,” said Kenzie.
Geez. No wonder she was so tired.
“Has Declan made it back with Brian yet?” asked Nate.
Declan left shortly before Alex began training with Nathaniel, intent on taking Cassie and Connor home and bringing Brian back from Aiden’s.
The decision to send her friends back to Florida hadn’t been an easy one for Alex. After what had happened with Cassie, Alex wanted to keep her friends and family as close to her as possible—close enough that she could keep an eye on them.
Eventually, the others had convinced her that Cassie and Connor would be safer at home with their families and Alex had relented. She still wasn’t certain she’d made the right decision.
Before Declan left, Alex had asked him for two favors.
The first was to have Cassie call her at the cabin as soon as he dropped her off at home. After everything Cassie had been through today, Alex wanted nothing more than to hear the sound of her best friend’s voice and make certain that she was alright.
The second request was that Declan stop by Alex’s house and check in on her Aunt Cil.
She wasn’t answering at the ho
use or on her cell phone and it was making Alex nervous.
Worry had started to sink its gnarled teeth into her, causing a tight knot to form in her chest. What if Brandt had come after her? Or the Agency? What if she hadn’t been able to jump in time?
A thousand different scenarios, each one worse than the last, had played themselves out in her mind.
“They’re not back yet,” said Kenzie. “But Declan left ages ago. They ought to be home soon.”
Alex sure hoped so. She wasn’t sure her nerves were going to hold up much longer.
How did people in high-stress situations do it? Cops. Superheroes. Bruce Willis in all those Die Hard movies… How did they stay so cool and collected while the world was going mad all around them?
“Alright, Alex,” said Nate. “How about you give it one more go before we call it a night?”
Too tired to argue, Alex raised her arm and prepared for one last attempt.
A flash of light drove back the darkness. The orange glow of the patio lights had been replaced by an electric blue flash heralding Declan’s arrival.
Alex jumped to one side as four bodies appeared in the air next to her and tumbled unceremoniously onto the flagstone. Wisps of smoke surrounded them, filling her nostrils with an acrid stench.
Declan, Brian, Aiden and Cassie lay sprawled on the patio deck, coughing fitfully and looking rumpled. For whatever reason, Declan was the only one of the four that was dripping wet.
“What happened?” asked Alex. “Are you guys alright?”
She knelt beside Cassie as the other girl struggled to sit up. She was fighting to catch her breath, but other than that, she appeared unharmed.
“I’m okay,” said Cassie, waving her off.
“We’re fine,” Aiden managed between coughs.
“Speak for yourself.” Declan sat with his arms resting on his knees, water leaking steadily from his clothes into a slowly expanding puddle beneath him, his face haggard.
“Wait.” Alex did a quick headcount. Their group was one short. “Where’s Connor?”
“I took him home,” said Declan.
Alex looked from Cassie to Declan and back again. He’d taken Connor home, but not Cassie?
“Honestly, Alex,” said Cassie, her voice droll. “Did you really think that I was just going to go back home and leave you here all alone? Mind you, I didn’t realize it would mean I’d come so close to getting roasted twice in a single day.”
