A Life Of Shadows (The Redemption Saga Book 1)

by Kristen Banet

  “Borrow?” Elijah chuckled. “You don’t have any money, so you mean you just need some money.”

  “I have money at y’alls house, cash I stashed before you pulled me out of New York,” she mumbled, waving her hand around to dismiss the topic.

  “I’ll pay,” Vincent said before any of the guys could say anything. “We’ll take you.”

  “Thank you,” she sighed.

  They fell in around her as they walked silently out of the hospital. She was put into a Range Rover with a guy on each side of her. Quinn took the front seat while Vincent drove. Zander and Jasper flanked her, and she leaned back to get comfortable. This was so much different than the last ride she’d taken with them.

  “Jon Aguirre betrayed us, hoping to catch Axel himself, using you as bait,” Vincent told her as they drove. “He killed himself when I confronted him.”

  She rubbed her face at that piece of news, but Vincent wasn’t done with her.

  “Three of his teammates were dead in the initial explosions. They had triggered the bombs and stood no chance. Two more passed away yesterday. One is still MIA. David Hamble.”

  “He’s dead somewhere out there,” she groaned. She should have been surprised or shocked by the state of the other IMPO team, but she really wasn’t. She could relate, truthfully. She’d stood on the ledge in the aftermath of Axel’s cruelty and cunning more times than she could count. She just never jumped, the sole difference between her and Jon Aguirre. Not even Charlie could stop her from trying once or twice though, not until she stumbled on Liam and started that chapter of her life. “Missy was pretending to be him that day.”

  “Missy?” Jasper frowned at her. She nodded slowly.

  “I killed her in the hangar bay before you guys showed up. She is… she was a Doppler. I’m a little irked I didn’t realize it was her in the office.” She rubbed her forehead.

  “As a Doppler, you’d never be able to tell, so I’m not sure why you’re beating yourself up over that,” Jasper whispered. She saw Quinn looking at her with interest. He had some fascination with the Legends, and with a Druid for a mother, she couldn’t blame him.

  “Incorrect,” she said to Jasper. “A Doppler can completely mimic anyone, true, but they can’t remove their own disfigurements. Missy had a scar that ran from her left ear all the way down her neck. It was present in any form she took.”

  “How do you know that?” Quinn was now frowning at her.

  “Because I gave her the scar.” Sawyer chuckled bitterly. “She and I never liked each other… My relationship with Missy isn’t important to any of this, though. Either way, someday, you may find David’s body. If she took his place, then she definitely killed him to do so.”

  “So, Jon got his entire team killed,” Vincent said with a bite. “After that… We have Axel, Talyn, and Toni in custody. Felix got away, and we recovered Colt’s body. We haven’t found Missy’s body, but they are still sifting through the wreckage of the building.”

  “Well,” she took a deep breath, “what about me?”

  “That depends on what we are about to learn,” Vincent said quietly.

  No one said anything after that.

  It took nearly an hour for the bank to break open her safety deposit box. She had paid for it ten years out when she bought it; and every year, she paid another ten years out so there had been no chance of them removing her things. She had a standing agreement with whoever was manager to allow her access at any time if she ever needed to get her things.

  She had never expected to come back though.

  They all stood in a tiny room while the manager brought in chairs for them. Vincent and Elijah set up a camera to record what she was about to tell them. They said it was so she didn’t need to repeat it to the WMC, but she wasn’t sure why it was important. She wasn’t going to try to escape her punishment.

  She was tired. For the first time in Sawyer’s life, she was just tired—exhausted by carrying it around. She intended to pass these secrets and shadows, the nightmares she carried, onto the team and let them do with her what they would.

  “You may begin,” Vincent whispered, taking a seat. She didn’t sit. She wanted to be on her feet for this.

  “Don’t… don’t interrupt me once I get started,” she told them as she slowly opened the box. “I’m not sure… I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep going if you stop me. I’ve never told this story when I was sober or in good physical condition.”

  “You’ve told it before?” Jasper frowned at her.

  “Yes,” she whispered in the lowest voice she could muster. “Just once, and over a period of months. Never all at once like this.”

  “Okay,” Vincent agreed, just as quiet as her.

  “Wait,” Quinn growled, shuffling around. “I want to know something before this starts.”

  She watched him place a picture on the table and her heart cracked a little more. She couldn’t take much more of this pain. Physical pain was easy, but the heart-wrenching emotional pain was going to slowly kill her. It festered in her soul.

  “The boy’s name was Henry,” she choked out, “and the cat’s name was Midnight. And to tell you more about them, Quinn, you’ll need to hear the full story.”

  “Okay.” Quinn nodded and leaned back, taking the picture with him. She resisted the urge to tell him to give it to Vincent. She was only able to do so because she knew Vincent would have no idea what that picture was about to mean to him.

  35

  SAWYER

  “On June 10th, 2008,” Sawyer began with a whisper, “Zander and Jasper left for the IMAS. You might think that’s a weird starting point, but I see that day as the beginning of the end of my life. I was fifteen. On January 13th, 2009, my abilities manifested, and I was… the happiest person in the world. I had cool magic, and I thought I would one day rule the world in that stupid way teenagers always tend to think they will. Sixteen-year-olds tend to have a big head when they learn they can sublimate and blink and do all sorts of cool shit. On January 15th, the Reader came, did my official reading, and Registered me as a Magi. Little did I know that he was dirty.”

  It happened. Readers could be bribed just like any other Magi. They were just Magi, and Magi were only human.

  “On January 30th, I was adopted by the fucking old man who proceeded to pull me out of school and cut me off from any form of communication. As a minor, I knew escaping would only lead to being chased and caught. I figured I could suffer through it, turn eighteen, and go find you two.” She jerked her head towards Jasper and Zander. “That’s why I stopped replying to whatever letters you may have sent. I never got them.”

  “It was March 5th, 2009 when I met Axel. My adopted parent was throwing a party. A dress was bought for me and I wore it. And Axel proceeded to sweep me off my feet. Oh, he promised me the world, and I ate it up, already falling prey to the loneliness of being cut off from the world I had known. It had all been a set-up. I was adopted and being recruited, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was sixteen, and this gorgeous man wanted me. The lanky, not-white girl who was taller than all the other boys. I ignored that he was older than me. He must have been… twenty at the time?” She considered that for a moment. He had already been a very powerful man at only twenty. She wouldn’t have believed it, but then she thought of herself at twenty and it became more plausible.

  “Either way, he swept me away, and I never saw the asshole who adopted me again. I don’t even have a GED, can you believe that?” She gave a dark chuckle, but no one else did. They must have already known. They probably did. “He taught me how to be thief, and that was just fun. I’ll be honest. I enjoyed being a thief and that worked for a while. I even had my Midnight, my wonderful little bonded animal.”

  “You said…” Quinn frowned at her. She would let his interruption slide. She had lied to them.

  “Yes, I had a bonded animal. I lied to you all about it. She’s… she’s hard to talk about, hard to remember,” she told him. “Midnight
, the little black house cat with yellow eyes. And life was good for a time. Axel kept me away from his real empire, and I just had fun with him. We had fun, traveling the world, planning my heists. Then, on October 20th, 2010, an assassin attacked. We were in bed,” she heard a strangle sound at that comment, “and he’d come to kill Axel. He was able to get a good hit in, too. The logistics don’t matter so I’ll cut to the chase. I saved Axel’s life, and killed the guy before he could kill Axel. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been an eighteen-year-old fool madly in love with a man that I didn’t know was a monster, yet.”

  She spent many nights wondering what her life would be like if she had run for it like the assassin had told her—if she had let him kill Axel, who could barely do his magic when he was in pain. What-ifs were a waste of time, she knew that, but she wondered nonetheless.

  “How do you remember the exact dates?” Vincent asked quietly. He was asking because this probably seemed practiced. It wasn’t.

  “Because I can’t seem to forget them, no matter how hard I try,” she sighed. “Continuing on. Axel realized I had potential to take a more… aggressive role in his empire. He trained me to fight, had the other Ghosts help. But when he told me to kill someone for him, I resisted. He took Midnight from me and held her hostage. I killed who he told me to, and he promised that if I just did as he asked, nothing had to really change. That was hit number one. January 2011. I tried to resist the second hit, but that only got me beaten. I did it swiftly, realizing he would never take no for an answer. And the pain I felt come from Midnight was a sharp reminder that someone’s life was at stake if I didn’t do as he asked.”

  “Holy shit,” Elijah breathed. “He tortured your bonded animal.”

  “Constantly,” she whispered bitterly. “Well, the ride isn’t over, yet, because on October 5th, 2011, he came home with a four-year-old boy named Henry.” She met Vincent’s eyes and took a shuddering breath. “His son—with a prostitute.”

  Not a single sound. She watched Vincent process that he was, at one point, an uncle and never knew it.

  “No,” Jasper gasped. “No.”

  The second ‘no’ was one from a broken man. She blinked back tears, remembering what Jasper had seen in her dreams, and what she had thought. He knew.

  “Shh, Jasper,” she pleaded. She needed to finish this before she broke. “Let me continue.”

  “Please do,” Vincent growled.

  “Henry was given to me, and I was told to care for him. When Axel asked me to do another hit a few months later, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t kill people and raise his child. I wasn’t strong enough to cuddle a child with hands that killed people. I was a stupid nineteen-year-old who thought, maybe, Axel would care about that. He didn’t. In seconds, he proved that nothing was sacred. With a single text, Midnight was killed, and Henry was on the chopping block. From that point on, for the three jobs I did in 2012, I did them without complaint. My only goal on this earth was to keep that innocent child alive.”

  “Why did he kill Midnight?” Quinn snarled. “Why?”

  “Because Axel had no use for two pieces of collateral over me. He knew I had fallen for Henry, and Midnight was more expendable to him,” Sawyer forced the words. Anger bubbled up in her, cold rage. Dark rage. A rage that had led her to killing without mercy or guilt. “And you know what? I fucking failed. I did everything he wanted, including agree to marry his fucking ass. I let him violate my body, all to keep Henry safe, happy, and away from Axel’s brand of love. He got pissy one night, and I offered myself for the beat down I knew he wanted to give. He chopped off my finger to take the stupid ring back. And Henry,” her voice broke, “I think Henry wanted to help me.”

  “Sawyer,” Zander’s voice was full of emotions that Sawyer didn’t want to hear.

  “Henry tried to stop his daddy from hurting his Sawyer, and Axel… flung him across the room without thinking.” Sawyer swayed at the memory as it flooded back to her. A dent in the wall. A pool of blood forming on the floor. She nearly dropped to the floor, but someone was holding her up. She didn’t know who. “And Axel took his body from me and left. I, to this day, can’t tell you where he buried him or if he even did. I wish I could, Vincent. He’s was such a sweet boy. And I tried. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She was pulled into a chest and sobbed, clinging to the body that pressed to her own. Finally, she pushed away and stumbled back into the table. She looked to see who had held her, and it was Vincent. Vincent. Seeing him brought another wave of tears that she could barely hold back.

  “Go sit down,” she growled, pointing wildly, hoping it was towards his seat. Of all of the people who could have come to comfort her, he was the one who could completely break her.

  “Sawyer-” He whispered.

  “Go,” she snapped. “I’m not done yet.” She hoped those words were as forceful as she intended them to be. “After Henry… Axel didn’t come back. It was the only time since I had left with him at sixteen that he and I didn’t live together. He sent Colt to watch me. And after picking up the pieces of my broken heart, I started making my plans to get revenge. Yes. Revenge. And that blew up in my fucking face. You know the story from there,” she hissed. “You know the story of how Shadow died.”

  “How many people have you killed?” Jasper asked.

  “Nine,” she growled. “The assassin. Hits one through five. Liam’s father. Missy. Colt. Don’t expect me to remember the names of those who Axel told me to kill. I didn’t care then, and never committed them memory. I can remember every piece of each of those kills. I can see their eyes as they died, but fuck me, I’ve never been able to remember their goddamn names.”

  “Alright, Sawyer,” Elijah stood up slowly. “Calm down.”

  “I am calm.” She was breathing hard. Her body was overloaded with too much pain, too much regret and guilt.

  “No, you aren’t,” he said as he leaned over the table and tapped the box. “Why don’t you tell us about the stuff in the box.”

  “It my gear. Don’t touch it. Most of it’s enchanted, and some of it will kill anyone who doesn’t know how to properly use it.” She grabbed one side of the box and tipped it, spilling its content onto the table. Daggers, her kukri, a black, emotionless mask. Throwing daggers, and all manner of other sharp objects. “I left them here in Atlanta, thinking I could bury them with the rest of my past. Like the memory Jasper and Zander.”

  She let the silence stretch out before adding one more thing.

  “This is why I didn’t go looking for you, Jasper,” she sighed. “This is why.”

  “I understand,” he whispered.

  “Sawyer,” Vincent murmured. “I have an important question for you.”

  “Yes?” She looked to him. He never did go back to his seat, standing much too close to her. His mere presence and those fucking eyes brought back the pain. Why hadn’t she noticed before? Why hadn’t she realized he was a fucking Castello, at the very least? She’s grown soft in New York. He mumbled how he could ask it later.

  New York. Now, that was a distant memory. She wanted to back so badly, but that seemed like a far-off dream, now. A life Sawyer was never supposed to have and would never have again.

  She finally collapsed into her seat, feeling drained.

  She’d done it. She’d finally told her story in its entirety. She had stepped out of the dark, and now she had to deal with her new reality in the harsh light of truth.

  She couldn’t even begin to process her feelings about it.

  It was the longest hour of silence she’d ever experienced. No one moved or spoke. She couldn’t hear what was going on out in other areas of the bank, and she almost couldn’t believe that the world was still chugging along out there.

  It was, though. Out there, the world turned, and people moved on with their lives with no idea what horrors could possibly meet them in the dark.

  “I should tell you what all of this is,” Sawyer sighed, waving a weak hand towards th
e things she had dumped on the table.

  “I think most of it is pretty obvious,” Elijah said, and Sawyer felt a wave of guilt at the complete lack of happiness he displayed. Elijah was always happy.

  But she knew how hard it was to be happy when the conversation turned to dead children, abuse, and murder.

  “The daggers all have strengthening enchantments, allowing them to cut through things they shouldn’t be able to,” she began, steeling herself. She took on a professional tone, shoving the old memories back into their box in her mind where she wouldn’t be overwhelmed by them.

  “With a strong enough throw they can be embedded into things like… concrete,” Elijah whispered.

  “Yeah,” she mumbled, picking one up and running a finger over the edge. “Not only did I cleanse them once a week to remove my own magical signature, I also had them enchanted to pick up less of my magic, so it wasn’t a pain to deal with.”

  “And the mask?” Jasper pointed. She heard the shake in his voice and, when she looked at him, she saw how pale he was. She flicked at look at Zander. He was also pale and he held the tell-tale appearance of someone who had recently used life force to do magic. Absentmindedly, she touched her abdomen. She’d noticed the new scar. He had saved her life. She would need to… thank him for it eventually.

  “The mask is special,” she whispered, reaching out to touch it. And it reacted to her, sending tingles into her fingers, asking for permission to have something from her. “It’s complicated.”

  “It’s old,” Elijah whispered.

  “Very, and complex in its use,” she sighed. “Now… isn’t the time for a show and tell on how it works.”

  “We’ll worry about it later,” Vincent said calmly. She eyed him carefully and saw the red eyes he sported, as if he were about to fall apart.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “What are you going to do with me?”