After Flux (The Flux Series Book 2)

by Marissa Farrar

  “Ari,” he said, pushing himself up and straightening.

  I looked around, confused. The Cavern was strangely deserted; even the training rooms were empty. I didn’t think I’d ever seen the place so empty before.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked him.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something. It does involve the others as well, but more so you. I was going to touch on it before you... passed out... earlier. Now, the second bombing has only confirmed that I don’t have any choice.”

  “Any choice to do what?”

  “I need to track down my father. Confront him and find out what he knows. I’d like to think he wouldn’t do anything as merciless as blowing up innocent people, but after the shit he’s pulled, I can’t make any promises. I know you haven’t been here the longest, but you were involved in one of the bombings, you lost your sister, and my father took your dad. I can’t help feeling you’re more wrapped up in what’s going on than anyone else.”

  “I never meant to be,” I said honestly.

  “I know that. But I can’t ignore that you’re special, Ari. You can do things other Kin will never be able to, even after months, or years of training. I feel like we were drawn together, somehow, that my father created all of this, but he also gave us a way to stop it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He took a step closer. “What if there was a way to make us normal again. Just regular people. Would you do it?”

  “Take away these powers?” My mind tripped over the thought. It would take away the danger of me hurting someone by losing control of what I could do, but it would also remove that feeling of being special. Yeah, it was selfish and immature, but for once, I was enjoying not being the regular girl with the boring life. Almost as soon as that thought crossed my mind, guilt clutched at my chest, compressing my lungs. What had I lost to become this person? My sister’s life, and my father unable to return home, and if the reason these bombings were happening was to draw more Kin out into the open, there were also innocent people being killed.

  “No more Kin?” I confirmed.

  His expression was serious. “I don’t know if it’s even possible, but if it were, yeah, no more Kin.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know how I feel, but my head says that if it meant the killing stopped, then we’d have to do it.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too.”

  “But first we’d have to find your dad.”

  “Which is going to be easier said than done. He has homes and offices all over the world, but I don’t think he’ll have gone far. There’s too much going on here for him to put distance between us. I know him. He’d want to be close if anything happened.”

  “You think he knows who planted the bomb today?”

  He shrugged. “If someone else knows about what my father created, I’ll bet he’s aware of it. Remember, my father wants to gather us all up, to continue the experiments he’d thought would make him millions and make him one of the most powerful men in the world. If someone is trying to exploit that from him, I’m sure he’d know who it is.”

  Something occurred to me. “But if we go directly to him, won’t we be putting ourselves right where he wants us? You’ve gone through all of this to keep us hidden, and we’d be exposing ourselves.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought of that.”

  Despite everything, and all my concerns about blood being thicker than water, I trusted Kit. “What about everything else he could tell us?”

  His ice-blue eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you want to find out how we can do what we do? You study us, Kit, when we’re training. You monitor our brainwaves and try to figure out how we can do what we do. I know you’re not your father, but there is that part of him inside you.”

  Thunder clouds rolled across his features at my words. “My father killed my mother, and yours, and Hunter’s and Dixie’s, and everyone else’s in here. Don’t tell me I’m anything like him!”

  I reached out and put my hand on his forearm, but he shook me off angrily and turned his back on me.

  “Kit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant you have the same scientific curiosity. You have a good heart, though, and you’re a good leader. People listen to you. They trust you.”

  He twisted back to face me. “Even though they know what my father did?”

  I suddenly realized his reason for bringing me here alone wasn’t only because he felt this affected me more than the others. No, he wanted reassurance. He wanted to know the rest of the Kin didn’t see him as the enemy now. He wanted to know we didn’t all hate him because of what his father had done. My heart melted for him a little. Kit always came across so strong and self-assured, bordering on arrogant, but there was a part of him that was as insecure as the rest of us.

  I softened my tone further. “It was a shock to all of us, just as it was a shock to you. But you’ve done nothing to make people think any differently of you. You can’t help who your father is. It’s what you do now that matters.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Thanks, Ari. Sorry to drag you in on all of this.”

  I shrugged. “Hey, it’s not like I had anything else planned for the day.”

  He smiled at me, and then said, “Let’s get the others in. See what they think.”

  Trying not to feel like Kit’s personal assistant, I headed out to round up the others. I caught up to Hunter. Even though I’d been with him all day, we hadn’t had any alone time.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me into him.

  I gave a half smile. “Yeah, as much as they can be with everything going on. Kit wants to see us all in the Cavern.”

  He put space between us, stepping away to put his hands on my shoulders and look into my eyes. “Kit’s on a mission to prove something. I don’t want you getting dragged into it.”

  “Hunter, we’re already dragged into it. We can’t sit back and do nothing.”

  “I’m not suggesting we do nothing, only that you don’t get yourself right in the middle of everything again.”

  I bristled. “I don’t get myself in the middle. I was thrown into the middle of it when someone kidnapped my father.”

  “Okay, but no one has kidnapped anyone this time, so let’s just take a step back for once.”

  “Are you going to take a step back?”

  He frowned. “No, of course not.”

  “Then don’t expect me to.” I huffed out a frustrated puff of air.

  He reached out and caught my hand. “Hey, Ari. Take a breath, and just chill for a minute. I’m not saying this to be a jerk, I’m saying it because you could have died the last time, and I’m terrified we’ll end up with a repeat performance. You’re more powerful than anyone else here, and you haven’t managed to control what you can do yet. But when you do, Ari, and if people like Philip Middleton realize what you are, it’s going to put a great big bullseye on your back. They’ll either want to study you because of all the different things you can do, or they’ll want you dead because you’ll be too powerful for them to control.”

  I softened at his words. He wasn’t trying to control me, he was trying to keep me safe. I used the hand he was holding to pull him in closer. “I’m not going to hide away down here, Hunter.”

  “You want your father to.”

  “It’s different. He isn’t one of us. He doesn’t have the ability to defend himself like we do.”

  Hunter sighed and tugged me into him, and pressed his forehead to mine. “Okay. But however this ends up, promise me you won’t do anything crazy.”

  I gave a small smile. “Me, do something crazy? Never.”

  He chuckled. “Hmm. I guess I’ll believe that when I see it.” He released me and put some space between us. Back to business. “So, do we trust Kit?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I mean, what other choice do
we have? We could try to find Middleton on our own, but do you think any of the men he surrounds himself with are going to let us get anywhere near him?”

  Hunter’s jaw tightened. “We can make them.”

  “Even so, Kit has an advantage. Wouldn’t it be better for all of this to be settled without anyone getting hurt?”

  “You think that’s possible? You think Middleton is going to say, ‘sure son, since it’s you, I won’t continue with the work that’s been more than twenty years in the making’.”

  I sighed. “Probably not, but it’s worth a try. And he might know who’s responsible for the bombings. We have to make them stop, Hunter. No more innocent people can die because of what we are.”

  “What we are isn’t our fault, Ari. We never asked to be able to move things with our thoughts.”

  “I know that, but we can, and we have a responsibility to make sure others don’t get hurt because of it.”

  He smiled and leaned in and placed his lips to mine in a kiss. It was soft and gentle, and warmed every inch of me. “You’re too good a person, Ari, you know that?”

  I wrinkled my nose, skeptical. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  He laughed. “Well, you are, even if you don’t think it.”

  Movement came at the door, snatching our attention. “Oh, sorry,” said a male voice. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  I glanced over. It was Zane, looking awkward in the doorway. He must have showered, his hair clean of blood and back in that same style, with it pulled over to one side and twisted down over his eye.

  I let go of Hunter’s hand and stepped away. “No, that’s fine, Zane. How are you doing?”

  He touched his temple and winced. “Headache, but otherwise okay.”

  “Let’s see if we can get you some painkillers for that.” The bandage was also missing, and I could see a fresh graze across half of his forehead. It would have gotten wet when he’d showered and washed his hair. “We’ll find you a new dressing for your head, too.”

  He shrugged. “It’s fine.”

  “You don’t want it to get infected.”

  I glanced back at Hunter. “Find Kit and see if there’s anything we can do to help him find his father.”

  Hunter nodded. “Sure.”

  I turned and left with the new guy.

  Chapter Six

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Zane as we walked side by side down the corridor toward the kitchen. There was a medical cabinet positioned beneath the sink, and I hoped to find him some painkillers and a fresh dressing for his head. The bathroom would have been the normal place to find such things, but as each of the bedrooms had its own bathroom attached, we had a main spot for first aid which everyone could access, rather than duplicating it numerous times over for each individual.

  “Okay, I guess. Still confused about what’s going on.” He gave me a wry smile. “Part of me is wondering if this is all a dream.”

  I returned the smile. “Yeah, I know how that is. I still feel it myself sometimes. Have you met any of the others?”

  “Yeah, I met the twins—Lisa and Lyle, is it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to make of them.”

  “They tend to keep themselves to themselves. They’re harmless, though.”

  He nodded. “Sure. Sledge seems like good people, and I met a big guy called Russell.”

  I smiled. “Russell’s okay, too.”

  He paused for a moment. “I haven’t felt any different, though. You say I’m one of you, that I can do what you guys can do, but I haven’t seen any proof of that. Did you know right away that you’d ... changed?”

  “Not quite. At first I thought my sister—the one who died in the bombing—was haunting me.”

  “Seriously?”

  We’d reached the kitchen. A couple of people were microwaving some sandwiches. They smiled at us both as we walked in, friendlier toward me, but still unsure of Zane. They took their food to the common room, I assumed, and left us to it.

  “Yeah, things started happening around me. Lights going on and off, doors opening and shutting—typical poltergeist stuff. I thought it was her spirit trying to contact me, but then Hunter caught up with me and explained it was really coming from inside me.”

  “How did you feel?”

  “Disbelieving. I didn’t think I could do it myself.”

  He frowned. “No, I meant how did you feel learning it wasn’t your sister’s spirit trying to contact you.”

  “Oh, right.” No one had ever asked me that before. “Sad, I guess. I liked to think she was still out there, still with me, somehow. But then I also like to think she’s at peace, in Heaven or wherever else it is we go when we die.” Tears filled my eyes from thinking about her. It wasn’t as though I could take any kind of comfort from her death. Karina hadn’t been ill or in pain. She’d been stolen from us, her promising life gone in an instant.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He touched my arm, and the tingling I’d felt before drifted up through my skin. I blinked back my tears and looked up at him. He stood, frozen in one spot, his fingers still lightly touching my arm. “You can feel that?” he said, his voice hushed awe.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I can feel it.”

  Maybe his ability was different from ours.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Strange. I have no idea.” I made a mental note to mention it to Kit, and then nodded to the stools up against the counter. “Take a seat. I’ll find you something for your head.”

  I bent to the cabinet and found what I needed. I suddenly realized I wasn’t going to be able to re-dress his head without touching him again. A part of me didn’t want to, while the other part was naturally curious. Was it only me he was experiencing this with?

  I tore the top off a packet of alcohol wipes. “You’re going to need to hold your hair out of the way.”

  He did as I asked, and I wiped down the graze, careful to keep the material of the wipe as a barrier between our skin. He winced as the alcohol touched his skin, but I saw his jaw tighten as he forced himself to deal with the discomfort. I threw the wipe, pink from his blood, into the trash, and then unwrapped the dressing. I placed it against the wound, but taping it onto his skin was going to be a whole heap harder without making contact with him. “Here,” I said. “Hold this.”

  He pressed his fingers against the dressing, and I tore off some medical tape. My fingers brushed his skin as I taped the dressing down, and our skin fizzed and buzzed at the contact. He gave me a lopsided smile, one eyebrow lifting, the other pulling down.

  “That’s going to start getting weird, you know,” he said.

  “Yeah. Awkward.” I gave him a grin and stepped back. “Anyway, you’re done now.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you get assigned a room yet?”

  He nodded. “The guy, Kit—the one who is the leader of this place, right?—put me in with Mark and Jason, I think their names were.”

  “Good. I’ll leave you to get settled, then. Help yourself if you want anything to eat. Make yourself at home.”

  “Thanks, Ari.”

  I left Zane to it. I was feeling emotionally and physically exhausted from the day. Having to face the fallout of another bombing, so close to the one my sister had perished in, had left me shaken, though I’d tried not to show it. I didn’t want any of the guys to jump on it as a weakness and use it as a way of getting me to stay away from any of the action. No one could see the aftermath of a bombing and not be affected by it.

  I went back to my room, only wanting to fall into bed and wake up and start again. I’d barely eaten since breakfast, but my appetite was gone. I walked in to find Dixie already lying on her bed.

  “Tough day?” she asked as I threw myself down on top of my duvet.

  “Yeah, just a bit.”

  “I can’t believe there was another bombing.”

  “I know. I don�
�t want to think about it, yet I can’t stop myself imagining all the families who are having to spend their first night without people they loved.”

  “It’s awful,” she said shaking her head. “Even worse if it’s happening because of us.”

  “Even if we are the target, this isn’t our fault. None of this is. We weren’t asked to be made this way, or for us all to lose our moms, and definitely not for some psycho to be bombing the shit out of innocent people.”

  We fell into a contemplative silence, and then Dixie rolled onto her side to face me. She propped herself up with her elbow, her hand supporting her head. “So, what do you make of the new guy?”

  I tried not to look too interested. “He seems okay.” I debated telling her about how it felt when we touched each other, but decided not to. It felt weird telling her, but I didn’t know why. I wondered if he experienced the same thing with anyone else, or if it was just me. I made a mental note to ask him next time I saw him, though I wasn’t sure how I’d phrase the question.

  “Only okay?” Her voice took on a teasing tone. “You don’t think he’s cute, then?”

  “I really hadn’t noticed.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “Dixie!”

  She laughed. “Okay, okay. I believe you. Is he showing any signs of what he can do yet?”

  I shook my head. “He doesn’t seem to be able to move things, but we haven’t exactly started training.”

  She rolled onto her back and folded her hands across her stomach. “It’s early days. Not everyone can be an overachiever like you.”

  I picked up my pillow and threw it at her. “I’m definitely not an overachiever. Trust me, before all of this happened, I was literally a nobody. I’d barely even grown up. I waitressed, and I lived with my dad. Oh, and I’d never had a real boyfriend either. I was an underachiever extraordinaire.”

  “But your dad is super nice,” she said. “So, there is that.”

  I laughed and immediately felt a little better. “True.” I rolled over and reached out to switch off my light. “Stop talking now. I need to go to sleep.”