by Rise of Hope
“You mean…”
“Yeah, B and E.” He smiled at the horrified look. “Not exactly legal.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t about the stealing, not really. It was the challenge, the rush.”
And finding a safe place to sleep most of the time.
Seth might have been only a few months off eighteen, but he’d been conditioned well and hard. Good fortune didn’t happen to someone like him. He’d brushed Noah off as crazy, but the guy had pushed Seth to the limit with his bullshit offers and promises.
They’d fought. Or rather Seth had. He’d beaten the crap out of Noah until he’d realized it hadn’t been any kind of competition to begin with. But even bleeding and battered, Noah wasn’t giving up.
“He gave me a place to stay and money I didn’t have to deal with my conscience over.” Well, not as much anyway. “And the work was easy.”
Sometimes he delivered stuff, but most of the time he did what he did best. Used his ability to gather information for Noah. No stealing, no going hungry and no wondering where the fuck he could crash each night.
“In return, I taught him how to fight.”
“Fight?” Her eyes went wide at that and he felt a smile tug at his lips.
“Street style,” he added. And they’d kept at it, day after day, week after week, month after grueling month, until the bloody sparring sessions didn’t have a clear winner anymore.
Seth couldn’t count how many times he’d hit Noah over those months, how many times he’d knocked him down. Noah had kept getting up.
“Noah took his shirt off after he’d knocked me on my ass the first time.” He swallowed at the memory. “He showed me his marks.”
Yeah. Real agenda time. Before then, he’d never even considered there could be others like him. And he couldn’t lie to himself. He’d been intrigued, maybe even relieved. Back then, anyway.
“What happened?”
Seth shook his head. “He already knew about me somehow. Said we were the same. He had this grand plan of finding others like us. Of having us all band together. Said he was looking for something. That he wanted my help.”
“And?”
He looked down at her, felt the intensity of her gaze. The hunger that was never far away surged through him whenever her eyes were on him, whenever she was near. He pushed it back, fought for control of it.
“I joined the Marines,” he rasped. “Noah’s been the thorn in my side ever since.”
* * *
Devon could barely comprehend what he’d described. If he’d been trying to take her mind off her own issues, he succeeded. Perhaps too well. She may have been kept like an expensive pet while unimaginable, unfathomable things had been done to her, but she’d never worried about where she would sleep, how she’d eat, how she’d survive day to day. Until she’d hatched her plan of course.
“Why did you tell me all that?”
His gaze met hers. Direct, hot and it sent a sharp jolt into her abdomen.
“You’re not alone, Devon.” His voice was deep and seemed to reverberate inside her, kicking her heartbeat into a galloping staccato that made her breathless. “Not anymore.”
Oh God. She’d wanted answers, wanted to know where she belonged, but she’d gotten a whole lot more than she could have imagined.
“What do you think they did to me, Seth?”
He didn’t move, seemed as if he didn’t react, but his dark eyes flashed, the pulse near his temple throbbed. “Maybe nothing.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No,” he sighed. “But it doesn’t do any good to dwell on it. It’s over. You’re safe now. If anyone can get to the bottom of it, Noah can.”
But perhaps the knowing would be worse, so much worse. Maybe it was best to always wonder, but never really know for sure? Perhaps knowing wouldn’t serve any purpose.
Devon looked out over the beautifully manicured grounds, past the magnificent palms out to the open water of the bay. She’d already learned it was deceptive—the openness, the sense of space, of freedom. Perhaps that was the cruelest reality of all.
They were discreet, low key, but they were everywhere, especially out here. Cameras, motion detectors, and who knew what else? And men. Guards patrolled the grounds, guards with weapons, predatory, dangerous, ever alert. Despite how long she’d watched, their movements weren’t predictable, there was no schedule she’d been able to figure out and their focus was almost tangible—particularly on her whenever she’d ventured out here.
It was all so…familiar.
She turned back to Seth. He wasn’t looking at the view. His gaze was trained on her. “I can’t just leave whenever I want. Can I?”
Seth frowned. “Devon—”
“I can’t, can I?”
He sighed, ran his hand around the back of his neck. “Look, I—”
“That’s what I thought.” She looked away from him, closed her eyes briefly because she’d seen what was in his eyes.
“No one’s going to hurt you here, Devon. Ever. The Assembly will never get their hands on you again. You’ll be safe. Protected.”
His voice sounded as if it came from a great distance. How many times had she heard that? Each and every time she’d pleaded, begged, cried to be allowed out, to go somewhere, experience something. It had always been “no.” Always for her protection, for her own good, so that she’d be “safe.”
How could she even hope to make him understand? How could anyone? She took a deep breath, knowing she’d have to force the words out through a throat clenched tight, but she’d try. At least she could say she tried.
“You know, when I was younger, I had an ‘I’ve never’ list. It contained all the things I’d never done, never seen, never experienced.”
“Devon—”
“While others might have wanted to visit exotic locations, experience fantastic sights, dream of the impossible, I wanted to be able to go out to eat in a restaurant, learn how to drive, have a best friend.” She swallowed. “Kiss a boy.”
“Christ, Devon…”
“It got to be so long,” she whispered, knowing her voice was about to give out. “I stopped adding to it.”
Rather than be a wish list, it had become a cruel reminder of what she’d never attain, a mockery of everything she’d ever dreamed of. Until the mere wishing itself became too painful.
“I’m sorry,” Seth swallowed. “I am, but…” He shook his head.
They may or may not have her best interests at heart, but she’d just swapped one decorative cage for another, had become someone else’s property, their responsibility, something to be protected at all costs, including her own. And she’d sworn she’d never let that happen again.
* * *
“So how did you discover your ability?” Devon asked.
Seth froze at the soft voice, just before he’d turned the corner into the large workout room. He’d come down here to blow off some steam, run the treadmill into the ground, anything to exhaust himself so he couldn’t think any more, so he’d stop feeling like such an asshole. He figured he’d be able to do it in privacy. It looked like it was going to be a “no” on both counts.
Micah chuckled and the sound grated across every one of his nerves. “Yeah, see there’s a funny story behind that.”
Seth ground his teeth together when Devon laughed.
“I figured there would be,” she said.
He’d never heard her laugh before, not even close, wouldn’t have been able to imagine her sounding so relaxed, carefree. But then she wasn’t talking to him, was she? The shaft of need that went through him almost brought him to his knees. Almost. Because the singe of something else that burned like acid deep in his gut overshadowed even that.
Micah murmured something he couldn’t catch and that was it. His
fury was red, fierce, hot and unable to be contained.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarled as he launched into the room, his gaze locked onto Micah, every muscle in his body tense, ready.
“Seth,” Devon gasped.
Micah might still look as if he’d been hit by a truck, but he was up and around. Charming, charismatic. A player.
Micah raised his head to meet Seth’s eyes. A slow, easy movement, as if he had all the time in the world, one eyebrow raised in a way guaranteed to piss Seth off.
“What does it look like?” he drawled.
Seth didn’t want to think about what it looked like. All he knew was that Micah was standing close to her, way too close, his big body dwarfing her. And Devon had her hands on him.
Shit.
The red swirling haze that clouded his vision ebbed. Some. He glanced at Devon who was still staring at him—wide-eyed, pale and so Goddamn beautiful she took his breath away.
“You’re letting her practice,” he ground out.
“Yeah. I am.”
“On you?”
Jesus, from what he’d seen Devon could have a man completely at her mercy with a single fucking word. No control. Nothing.
Micah shrugged. “I’m not letting her do anything. She needs to know what she’s really capable of. You know it as well as I do.”
Yeah. He drew in a deep gulp of air. They’d all honed their abilities over years of trial and error—it was simply another weapon in their arsenal—along with their other, more conventional skills.
Seth’s jaw clenched. “Dammit, Micah, it’s—”
“Dangerous,” the other man cut in, his voice hard, quiet. “Only if she doesn’t know how to use it.”
He was right. Of course he was and dammit, he should have thought of it himself, but he didn’t want to think about her having to use her ability. Ever.
Devon cleared her throat, raised her chin and looked him square in the eye. “I wouldn’t hurt anybody. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Of course not,” Micah soothed. “But you need to understand what you have to work with, its strengths and limitations.”
“And its risks,” Seth bit out.
Micah stepped back from her, inclined his head and then sauntered over, passing way too close, bumping right into him. On fucking purpose. If Seth hadn’t been braced for it, it would have knocked him back. As it was, they stood eye to eye, shoulder to shoulder. Seth clenched his hands into fists.
“Stay away from her,” he grated before he could stop himself. Yeah, so much for cool.
Micah’s mouth quirked. “Or what?”
“She’s not yours, Micah.”
“No.” The smile vanished. “She’s yours, Seth. It’s meant. You think I’d disrespect that?” Despite the colored contacts, Seth didn’t miss the flash of anger in Micah’s eyes. He’d only seen real anger a handful of times from the other man. Well, shit. And hurt, there might have been hurt there as well.
Micah poked him in the chest. Hard. He barely managed to hold back a wince. “She’s yours for the taking, Seth,” he said too low for Devon to hear. “All. Yours. What the fuck are you doing?”
He took several deep breaths after Micah left, still fighting the urge to rub the spot he’d jabbed. Or perhaps it was his heart that burned, ached.
“Micah was only trying to help. And what I do isn’t any business of yours. You’ve made that clear. More than once.”
Yeah. He had. Except… Just except. Aw, fuck it.
“You’ve had a great deal of time to become accustomed to your ability. Right?” she threw at him.
Yeah. Micah was only doing what he should have made sure of himself. Again, he hadn’t been thinking clearly where she was concerned. Which was way more dangerous than Devon experimenting with her power.
“Yeah.”
She looked down at her hand, clenched and unclenched her fist. He wondered if she felt what he did when he used his own ability—a singing release of energy, a surge of warmth, a flood of sweet power.
“How did you find out about yours?” she asked. “Your abilities? How did you know you could…do what you can do?”
“How did I know I could morph into someone else?”
She nodded. It wasn’t exactly something he liked to think about or that he was particularly proud of. But she was the first person to ever ask him about it so why the hell not?
“I’d broken into a warehouse. I needed a quiet place to crash for the night.”
Her head tilted to the side. “You didn’t—you didn’t have a home? Even back then?”
“Home?” Home was what other people had. Not him. He had a house with too many kids, barely enough food and a place where his stuff went missing on a regular basis. “I preferred to take my own chances. But my luck ran out. I got cornered by a security guard.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” Seth relaxed some at the memory. He thought he’d been busted. He’d already been in trouble a couple times, he didn’t need another arrest, even though he was still underage.
“I remember wishing to be anywhere but there. Then I wished I could be someone else. And then…I was. I’d seen the guy who owned the warehouse around.” He cleared his throat. “I might have even lifted some spare change from his pocket once or twice. I thought it in my head, you know, that if I could look like him, if I could be him, I could walk right out of there. The security guard said hello to me, let me go. It was surreal.”
“You must have been scared.”
Scared? No. He knew what scared was. He’d only seen it as an advantage.
He shook his head. “It took me awhile to figure out the connection with touch, but it became second nature soon enough. And my rep was born.”
“And have you always known you were…special?” she murmured.
“Special?” Seth almost choked on the word. She thought what they were was special? Jesus.
“I’m so fucking special whoever brought me into the world left me outside a hospital when I was four.”
Devon paled and took a step toward him. “Oh, Seth…”
“I waited. For hours. They never came back.”
Alone, lost and that time—scared.
He swallowed at the thickness in his throat, the surge of adrenaline that shot into his system, like it did every time he went there in his head. He’d never in his life forget how he’d felt in that moment, how he’d felt for the hours he’d waited there, wishing for someone to come get him, pleading to himself, promising anything, hoping they’d tell him it had been a mistake, until the hospital officials had finally realized—no one was coming back for him.
“Special?” he spat again. “I’d trade ‘special’—and all that goes with it—for normal, any day.”
They’d told him to be strong, to be brave, as if that should have been enough, but he’d felt anything but. He’d so badly wanted to run after them, to beg and dammit…even to cry. But he’d stayed on the bench, like they’d told him to, head bowed long after they’d gone, picking at the peeling blue paint until he’d made his nails bleed. He’d tried to fuse them into his memory so he wouldn’t forget they’d left him there—on purpose—but as much as he tried, he couldn’t see their faces anymore, their images had long since faded. Most of the time he was glad about that. And he’d never cried. Not once.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Yeah. Me too.”
He took a deep breath, shook his head. It was old news, over and done with. He knew it affected him, wasn’t arrogant enough to think otherwise, but dammit that didn’t mean he had to dwell on it or overthink it. It just was. And why the hell had he told her? He’d never told anyone before. Devon had enough to think about without his baggage.
He sucked
it all back, like he always did. “Sometimes being a genetic abnormality is a real bitch.”
“Seth, I’m—”
“Sorry. Yeah. I got it the first time. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I’ve put it behind me.”
Except, he hadn’t. Not really. But this way was a hell of a lot easier.
“So rather than face the reality of what might have forced a mother to abandon her own child, you’d rather believe they just decided to get rid of you?”
“They dropped me off. Told me to be brave and to not cry. Didn’t even pack me a lunch. Then they left.” He shrugged. “That’s what happened.”
“From a child’s perspective.”
Yeah. He’d been a child—defenseless, innocent—but not for long. “So…you’re bought in then?”
She frowned. “Bought in?”
“The whole ‘secret race on the brink of extinction’ thing.”
“Why not? I mean, it’s plausible, isn’t it? Look at us. At what we can do. There could be any number of reasons they left you, Seth. Maybe…” her voice trailed off and she sighed. “Well, the possibilities are endless.”
“Yeah?” After all his digging Noah hadn’t been able to come up with a single good possibility so far. “Or maybe they’re real simple.”
Chapter Five
Devon knocked on the heavy door again. For the fourth time. How ironic would it be if she’d finally gotten up enough courage and he’d already left? God, maybe she’d really missed her chance this time because she’d been standing here like an idiot for ten minutes already. Then the door swung wide and she swallowed her tongue, along with everything she’d been going to say.
“What the hell…” he muttered.
Seth had a white towel wrapped around his lean hips and nothing else. His dark hair was damp and several drops of water clung to his wide shoulders. Smooth, brown skin stretched taut over the powerful muscles of his shoulders, his arms, his chest and down. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was like her. Apart from the hair on her head, she didn’t have a single hair on her entire body. She’d never thought about it much before, but she’d known it made her different. A wash of heat flared into her cheeks because now she was thinking about it. A lot.
