by Jordan Dane
When he got to the perimeter wall, he didn’t have to tell Oliver what to do. The guy offered his clasped hands and a bent knee. After Gabe gave him his left foot, he hoisted him over the wall in one motion. He did the same for Kendra and Lucas. Uncle Reginald had been less graceful. When it was Oliver’s time to scale the wall, Gabe and Luke gave him a hand from the other side with Kendra’s help while Uncle Reginald caught his breath.
Gabe felt his way through the shadows, sensing the presence of the armed guards who patrolled the grounds in pairs. The men were dressed in black uniforms, like a military unit. Gabriel sensed every turn they made and even anticipated their moves in advance. He avoided the security lights and sought the darkness. The guards needed the light. They didn’t. Through shrubs and the long shadows of trees, Gabe guided the others as he maneuvered in the dark. He trusted his instincts to get them through it. It felt like a peculiar choreography with lethal intent.
Because he had the others with him, he didn’t push it by being reckless, as he might’ve done on his own. The whole thing felt like a game, but it wasn’t. Thinking of it as sport allowed him to put off imagining what would come next.
The others came to rescue Rafael. He wanted that too. But now that he suspected his father might’ve set a trap for him, Gabriel wouldn’t ignore the challenge. He came to confront the man.
When he got to the west corner of the mansion, he pressed his back to stone and glanced at Oliver. “You trust me?”
“Fine time to ask,” the guy said. “But yeah. Why? Are you planning to cure me of that?”
“You’ll see.”
Minutes later
Rayne felt the weight of her Glock in a holster that she wore under one of Gabriel’s jean jackets. He’d left her the binoculars. As she paced the ground near the vehicles, she kept one eye on the kids who sat inside the SUV and the other on the lit estate on the next rise. She’d moved the Indigos to one car, the larger SUV, so they’d be together and easier for her to watch over them.
She listened for every sound and jumped at the hoot of an owl. The night creature had been alarmed at her intrusion and flew away on silent wings while her heart pounded out of control. When she heard the soft thud of the SUV door closing, it didn’t take long for Caila to join her.
“Are they asleep?” she whispered to the girl.
“Sam and Quinn are too wired, but the rest of them are quiet.” Caila crossed her arms and stared across the ravine to the home of Gabriel’s father. “But quiet is good, right?”
Rayne knew she wasn’t talking about sleeping kids anymore.
“Did you turn off the interior lights in both cars?” she asked the girl.
“Yeah. No worries.”
Going stealth in the dark, the last thing she needed was for one of the kids to open the door and make them a target.
“You’re not like us, are you?” Caila asked.
“No, but Lucas is my brother. He’s like Gabriel, sort of. I’m in this, for them.”
The girl nodded, as if she’d said something perfectly normal. Rayne liked her and she liked having company, but when the girl gasped, everything got edgy.
“Hold on.” Caila grabbed her arm. “I’m getting a push.”
“What’s that?” Rayne whispered.
“Someone’s coming. And it’s not one of us.” Caila pulled her toward the SUV and they both crouched behind it.
Rayne pulled her weapon and racked the slide.
“Stay behind me,” she said.
She moved in tandem with Caila, staying low and shadowing her. Rayne listened and heard the soft crunch of gravel and the low hum of an engine in the distance. Sound echoed across the canyon walls. When she didn’t see headlights, not even with her binoculars, she knew that wasn’t a good sign. Anyone driving in the dark without lights didn’t want to be seen.
“Maybe they’ll drive by,” the girl said.
Rayne knew it was safer not to assume that. She had parked the vehicles far enough off the road that they wouldn’t be noticed, but she had to prepare for the worst. “Crack the door and tell the kids to stay quiet.”
When Caila opened the door and whispered to the kids, Rayne saw the Effin brothers shove from their seats and move to join her. She knew they wanted to help. The brothers had Indigo powers and she trusted them, but letting them take on danger felt wrong to her. If anything happened, when she was supposed to be watching over them, she’d never forgive herself.
“Stay put until I know what’s happening,” she whispered to the brothers. “Caila, get inside and stay with them. Keep their heads down until you hear from me.”
Rayne shut the door and moved closer to the road to listen. The car without lights must’ve stopped. She couldn’t hear the engine, and the tires had stopped rolling. That didn’t make her feel any better. Not hearing the noise only made her more worried. Rayne held her breath and searched the shadows for anything that moved.
With a two-fisted grip, she held her weapon as she listened and waited. When she heard the soft snap of a twig behind her, she turned and aimed her Glock at the shadow of a man, but it was too late.
He had a gun aimed at her face.
“Hello, little girl.”
Even in the moonlight, Rayne knew who it was. She’d recognize Boelens anywhere.
Inside the estate of Alexander Reese
Channeling Oliver’s gift, Gabriel traveled like a drifting mist and fused into every shadow. Even though his real body hadn’t moved, he vanished into the house and stood in a foyer under a crystal chandelier before he floated through the main floor and up a massive curved staircase. Even moving in the mansion, he still felt Oliver next to him outside—a most peculiar sensation. Kendra and Lucas were harder for him to sense, but he had a definite connection with his uncle.
He wasn’t a stranger to seeing through different sets of eyes. When he shotgunned through animals, he became them. He felt his body change from a wolf on the hunt of prey to an eagle soaring over the earth with its keen eyes. Now adrenaline pumped through his blood and doubled his excitement. He sent messages to the hive and told them where he was and gave them the location of rooms in the house.
Tell me what you sense about Rafael, Kendra. Have Oliver scry for him too.
His father’s home had security measures in place. In his present state, Gabe got by them undetected, but once they located Rafael that would change. Since they wouldn’t have the finesse of cat burglars, Gabriel had to know who lived in the house, to determine the threat once they broke in.
He didn’t know the layout of the manor, but he followed his instincts when he recognized a scent—the smell of his father. The aroma triggered voices from his past. The sound of his mother and father arguing over him in the middle of the night, those yelling matches had scared him when he was a kid. Some nights they still lingered in his sleep.
At the end of the hall on the second floor was a suite with double doors. As he drifted toward the room, he felt colder. He sensed evil, but maybe that was his mind playing tricks on him or his past catching up.
When he got to the door, he pushed his body to take shape as he’d seen Oliver do when he transformed into boogers, as the twins put it. If there were security cameras, he would become visible now, but a part of him wanted his father to see him. To be afraid of what he saw. Gabriel reached for the knob to turn it, but his fingers slipped off the metal. His hands had substance, but they were more gel than flesh and bone. It took time for him to make his fingers work. When they did, he opened the door and eased into the room.
As he crept toward the large bed, he barely felt the carpet under his feet. Every ounce of control took effort. His body was a foreign instrument he had little experience with. Trying what Oliver had done, he marveled at the guy’s accomplishment as an Indigo. Being a Crystal child didn’t give Gabe any advantage.
When he got closer, he saw the shape of a man under the covers. The face of his father—the man’s angry eyes—haunted him in the dark. Gabriel couldn’t stay in the moment. The way he was, he had a hard time distinguishing between the past and present. The nightmares of his childhood had become a barrier that left him as good as crippled.
He fought it, but in the grips of his past, he was a boy facing his father. He stood over the bed and glared at the man who had ruined his life and murdered his mother.
He battled his emotions and the strange state of his body as he dug deep to stir the fire of his power and channel it through the essence he was now. He felt the heat well up. The process had started. His father would know what he had become. On the verge of adapting Oliver’s power with his, Gabe let the surge take over until he heard a soft click behind him.
“Hello, Gabriel.”
Gabe stopped dead still. The sound of his father’s voice sent a shudder through him. When he turned, the man held a gun aimed at his heart and didn’t wait for him to speak.
Alexander Reese pulled the trigger.
* * *
Something woke him.
Rafael opened his one good eye and searched the dark room for anything that moved. Nothing did. His lip had started bleeding again and it stung. He wanted water but wasn’t sure he could drink it. He felt sick.
Because there were no windows in the room, he kept track of the time of day by the chill. It was cold now. It had to be nighttime or early morning.
Are you here? He let his mind reach out to her.
The lady sometimes came to him—Gabriel’s mother—whenever the men who beat him stopped. He didn’t know why she came to him. Maybe the dead felt a duty to the living whenever they sensed the end coming. It made him think of the old man’s spirit who was always with Benny at the dead train in the tunnels, watching over him like a guardian angel. Rafe had to stop thinking about that. He wasn’t dead yet.
He struggled to move, but the weight of his body made his pain worse. Wearing only the suit pants they’d given him, he hung from a steel bar and ropes cut into his wrists. Whenever he went unconscious or fell asleep, the warm blood trailed down his arms until it dried and stuck. He couldn’t stand anymore. They’d kicked one of his legs. He thought they’d busted it again, the one his old man had broken years ago with his baseball bat.
They beat him to find out where Gabriel was. He’d die before he said anything—and not just for Kendra’s sake. Gabriel deserved to live.
Rafe tried using his mind shield, as Uncle Reginald had warned them about if they got caught by the Believers, but the beatings only numbed the hurt. The pain stayed on the fringes of his mind but was getting worse now. He knew his body would fail him. He had nothing left. He couldn’t fight them anymore. His shield had weakened and he couldn’t concentrate.
All his energy went to one effort. The only thing that worked was when he thought of Kendra. Sometimes it would only be the way her skin smelled, or the scent of that coconut shampoo she used sometimes, the one he’d stolen for her. Other times he imagined her whispering to him in the dark, the way they used to talk when neither of them could sleep. When the pain got bad, he retreated to her arms until she was the only thing he felt. He trained his mind to find her in his memory.
When he died, that’s where he wanted to be—with her and Benny.
He was with Kendra now, when the shadowy room got brighter. He lifted his head and tried to stand taller. If they’d come to bruise their knuckles again, he’d stare them in the eye one more time, but when he looked up, he saw the lady.
Cinder block walls bubbled and spears of light shot through the cracks in the shape of a woman. A beautiful woman, dressed in a long robe. Her skin glowed as though she had a light inside and when she smiled at him, he thought he smiled back, because his lip hurt. She always made him feel warm and safe, but when he heard a noise that echoed through the mansion, he knew what it was.
The sound of a gunshot.
Lady Kathryn faded into dust and he heard the patter of her ashes hit the floor in front of him, before the shouting and the sound of more gunfire took over.
Something bad had happened. He felt it.
22
With the gunshot still ringing in his ears, Gabriel gasped for air and grabbed his chest, rolling in pain. What the hell happened? He didn’t have time to figure it out.
The gunfire had scrambled the guards. Alarms went off and spotlights strafed the grounds with his father’s armed men on full alert. A small unit hit the front door and went inside, as Gabriel took cover with the others. He stared at everything around him, stunned. He couldn’t make sense of what happened. He breathed fresh air and felt the night’s chill on his face, but his father’s bedroom was gone.
Only the pain had stayed.
Oh God, it hurts.
An agonizing burn shot through his body. It tore into him like a hot iron. When he could, he ran his fingers over his clothes and expected to feel the warm stickiness of blood, but he didn’t. His chest hurt as if he’d been hit by a battering ram. He was bruised and ached all over, but mostly it hurt where his father shot him. The bullet must’ve gone straight through him.
Worse than the pain, something else obsessed him. The cold-blooded eyes of his father bored into him the same way that bullet had. The man wasn’t in front of him now, aiming a gun at his chest, but it all felt too fresh.
Oliver was with him. It took time for Gabe to clear his mind and realize what had happened. He was outside the mansion with the others, where he’d left his real body. Gabriel had never been so grateful to be alive.
“What happened?” Oliver pressed a hand to his chest and said, “Just breathe. You’re here. You’re safe. Sort of.”
“He shot me. My father...shot me.”
Not even saying the words made it real. Gabriel didn’t know what he had expected. His father had shot him. If he had walked into the mansion on his own, without using Oliver’s gift, he would be dead. It had happened so fast, not even his powers could’ve saved him. A shudder ran through him and he fought the tears that stung his eyes.
What had he expected? His father hated him. Now he knew how much.
“Gabriel, are you hurt?” His uncle crawled over to him and looked as worried as he’d ever seen him. He ran his hand over his face and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “That bastard. He’s a killer, but I still expected...something between a father and his son. Not this,” his uncle cried and clutched at Gabe’s clothes, unwilling to let him go.
“We’re not leaving here without Rafael,” Gabe told him. “My father has got to be stopped. It ends here.”
Kendra and Lucas looked as ready for a fight as he was, but when Oliver held up Rafael’s infinity bracelet, all eyes were on him.
“I know where he is,” Oliver said. “Follow me.”
* * *
Rayne felt the weight of the Glock in her hands. It was heavy and the muscles in her arms burned from holding it steady. A bead of sweat trickled down her cheek. She wanted to brush it away, but she couldn’t move.
All she had to do was pull the trigger. Why couldn’t she do it?
“You must be having a déjà vu moment...” Boelens said. “...’cause we’ve done this before.”
The mercenary looked bigger than she remembered. Under the dim haze of the moon, the shadows of his face made him look crazy and the barrel of his weapon was a cannon.
“Where’s your freak brother...and the rest of his circus?” the man asked.
Rayne didn’t see the point of talking to him, except that it meant he might not pull the trigger. All the range shooting in the world hadn’t prepared her for confronting this man with his gun aimed at her face.
“We heard there’ve been sightings of Big Foot in the canyon. Thought we’d take a
look, but maybe they only saw you,” she said.
“You think that gun gives you a smart-ass license?”
“Nope. That’s genetics, I’m afraid.”
Rayne’s mind raced with what to do. The kids were hiding in the SUV. Boelens didn’t seem to know they were there.
“You alone?” she asked. “I thought wolves like you traveled in a pack...or did you wear out your welcome with the church?”
Boelens ignored her question. He gripped his weapon tighter and gritted his teeth. “Last chance. Tell me where the others are. Or I got no reason to talk to you.”
Rayne fought to keep her breaths steady. Her adrenaline was off the charts.
“The others are gone. They left me here to watch the cars. In case you didn’t notice, I’m not like them,” she said. “You’re wasting your time. I’m not telling you anything.”
“There’s no one here to protect you...like before.” He took a step closer and grinned. “You’re right. You’re not one of them. Drop your weapon and I’ll let you go. You don’t have to end up like the freaks.”
Rayne couldn’t take her eyes off him. He actually looked as if he enjoyed this, as if he knew how things would turn out. Maybe he did. If he shot and killed her, he’d get his hands on the kids. Even though the twins might hold their own, from what Luke had told her, they’d be no match against a gun, not like Kendra.
But when the man winced with a pained expression, he lowered his weapon with a gasp.
“Those little mind freaks are close by. They’re messing with me again. I can feel it.” Boelens grabbed his head and stumbled.
The Effin brothers were up to something. Rayne knew it. They were inside the SUV, targeting their psychic attack on Boelens where he stood.
“Where are they?” he yelled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one’s here except me.” She tried to distract him, but he only got madder.
Whatever the twins were doing to him, his pain must’ve gotten worse. When the man lunged toward the SUV and made a move to grab the door, one of the girls inside screamed. Boelens knew they weren’t alone and he wouldn’t stop. Rayne had no more time. She had to do something. She tensed her grip and felt her finger on the trigger. When she heard gunfire and alarms blaring in the distance, her muscles tensed and she pulled the trigger.
