The Chronicles of Kerrigan Box Set Books # 1 - 6: Paranormal Fantasy Young Adult/New Adult Romance

by W. J. May

  Julian shrugged casually. “Not really…” Devon kicked him under the desk.

  Carter studied them all for a second, before pointing impatiently to the door. “That’s it, get out of here—go! Study, train, do whatever it is you’re doing to fill your time. And don’t waste mine!”

  Rae didn’t wait for him to change his mind. She got up and Molly followed her with the boys trailing after. Rae hurried out the door without a second glance at either Carter of Elpis. She couldn’t tell exactly why she was annoyed with Carter in particular, but it seemed there was some sort of cosmic injustice in the double-standard they’d been forced into with the stupid detention and being sent back to Guilder for exams. She’d been out in the field, she had experience bigger than what she could learn in some books. Right?

  Risk your lives. Fight to the death. Track down serial killers.

  Except…

  Now there were finals, curfews, and detentions. Infantile punishments for serious acts.

  Carter and the PC, as well as their parents and school, couldn’t have it both ways. Either they were kids, to be treated as such, or they were fully grown with the responsibility and respect that came with that position. Guilder had to choose. They all had to choose.

  As they filed outside, Carter called as he leaned against the doorframe, “Miss Kerrigan, your mother wanted me to remind you she’s hosting another dinner tonight. You’re expected to come.”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “Have fun with that, Rae.”

  “Actually,” Carter gave Molly a piercing stare, “let’s call this one family and friends, shall we? It seems we all have a lot of catching up to do. See you at seven.”

  The four of them nodded wordlessly and set out across the lawn. Instead of going back to Rae’s dorm to study, they headed straight for the Oratory without even asking each other if they wanted to go.

  The Oratory was quiet. Rae shivered as she stepped in. The hallway was cool and she knew the large Oratory training room would be cooler. This was where Lanford spent most of his time, where Kraigan had tried to kill her and nearly succeeded, where she had learned about her tatù. There were good memories but each one seemed to be connected with one that reminded her how much her life had changed. She pushed her shoulders back and straightened. She wouldn’t let her thoughts push her down.

  “So, what happened to you last night?” Rae asked Julian as she reached for a pointed spear and threw it at a target on the wall. “Did the doctors check you out?”

  “I’m fine.” He threw his spear a bit harder than necessary and it shattered upon impact. “Oops.”

  Rae glanced at the shards on the floor before returning her gaze cautiously to her friend. “I have trouble with my tatùs sometimes,” she said tentatively. “It gets hard to balance—”

  “My problem isn’t balance,” he said abruptly and drilled another spear at the target. “It’s control.”

  They continued throwing until they ran out of spears and out of reasons to avoid eye contact, so Julian turned to her with a sigh.

  “I got caught in a wave. Every miniscule decision all four of you were making,” he gestured with his hands, “I was seeing all of them.”

  Molly picked up the spears that weren’t broken and brought them back to Rae and Julian. “At least you were getting the full picture…”

  “No, it was much more than that.” He shook his head helplessly and rubbed his eyes. “Every time you decided to take a step, Molls. Every time Rae debated when to rush into the fight. Every time Kraigan wondered whether or not he was actually going to pull the trigger. Hundreds of minute decisions happening all at the same time. I couldn’t pull out of it. It felt like I was drowning.”

  Devon set down a pair of throwing knives and then shoved them to the side like he didn’t have any interest in using them. “What did the doctor say? I mean, after my dad and I left your room.”

  There was something about his tone that lent an ominous ring to the simple sounding words and both boys exchanged a swift look.

  “He said I was in temporary shock,” Julian replied. “Something similar to a neurological overload.”

  Rae bit her lip. It didn’t sound good at all. “Is there anything they can do? Some kind of—”

  “Nope,” he cut her off with a forced smile. “There’s nothing they can do. It’s just something I have to work out on my own. I’ll get there.” He sighed. “Just have to figure it out.”

  Devon clapped him casually on the shoulder. “You will, man.”

  “Sure,” Julian replied easily, but in his eyes there was a flicker of doubt.

  The conversation dropped as the four of them split off to their separate corners of the room to work. Molly was blasting smoking holes in a group of mannequins, likely imagining Kraigan with every blast. Julian was setting about picking up the broken pieces of his shattered spears, and Devon started climbing a rope hanging in the far corner. While most people opted to curl their legs around and use their feet for leverage, he was dangling in mid-air, using only his hands.

  Switching to Devon’s own tatù, Rae quickly scampered up a rope that was beside his. “Hey.”

  It was hard to get the drop on a guy like Devon, but he was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even heard her come up. “Rae!” He almost lost his grip entirely, hanging now by one hand.

  “Sorry,” she laughed quietly, offering her hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You didn’t scare me.” He grinned and tightened his grip. “I was just…thinking.”

  Rae steeled herself. “About your dad?”

  Devon’s eyes flickered to hers before he deflected. “About Julian.”

  Rae spotted the lie, but let it pass. “I’m sorry if I got you in trouble last night. It looked like he was coming down pretty hard on you.”

  “You didn’t get me in trouble,” he said quickly. “I can make my own choices.”

  “I know that.” She swung up her legs so she was sitting on top of the bar that ran across the length of the high ceiling, dangling her legs fifty feet above Julian and Molly’s heads. “I just know your dad doesn’t like me very much, so I—”

  “Hey!” He jumped up next to her and put his hand over hers. “He has nothing to do with us. Okay? It’s just you and me. We are the only two people in this relationship.”

  Rae smiled in spite of herself. “It’s still so strange to hear you call us a relationship.”

  He chuckled. “Well, I certainly hope it’s a relationship. Otherwise, I’d feel pretty mixed up about what we’ve been doing these last couple of nights.”

  “What?” Rae teased him. “You don’t go hunting down psychopaths for girls you aren’t dating?”

  He pressed his forehead against hers and grinned. “I don’t make it a custom to have sex with girls I’m not dating.”

  She blushed and glanced automatically around. “Okay, since for the time being we’re living at a school full of people with superhuman abilities, how about you at least lower your voice?!”

  He laughed again. “Oh, come on. Who’s going to hear?”

  At that moment, the door banged open and a class of first year students poured inside. They spotted Devon and Rae immediately on the ceiling bar and many of them pointed in astonishment.

  “Do you see them?!”

  “How cool is that!”

  “How on earth are they going to get down?”

  Rae glanced back at Devon and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. Them?”

  Devon winked at her. “See ya at the bottom.” He slipped off the bar and let his body fall. Rae immediately followed, tightening her body so she could beat him to the ground. They landed on their feet on the floor and both of them rolled in a somersault to absorb the impact. It was as if they had planned it perfectly.

  The first years erupted into hand claps and cat calls. Rae curtsied and Devon bowed before they headed to the hall where Molly and Julian were waiting. On the way out, Ellie, the young girl from the librar
y, caught Rae’s attention once more.

  “Hey! Are we still on for our group mentoring Tuesday?”

  “Uh, yeah.” With the whole Kraigan fiasco, Rae had almost completely forgotten. “Every Tuesday, that’s what we said, right?” She winked. “I’ll see you then.”

  Leaving the over-excited class behind, Rae and Molly split off from the boys and headed back across the lawns to Aumbry House. They still had an afternoon of studying to look forward to before what promised to be another eventful family dinner.

  * * *

  “I just don’t understand why you got detention,” Beth said for the third time as she passed around a plate of mashed potatoes. Their plates were already heaped full, but ever the mother, Beth kept on adding. “James?” She turned to him, expecting some sort of response.

  Rae mimicked the gesture, taking no small amount of pleasure in watching Carter squirm.

  “Technically speaking, Molly and Rae are still students here at Guilder.” He sounded apologetic. “We need to follow the school rules accordingly, all students have to graduate. Rae understands that…don’t you, Rae?”

  Rae held his gaze for a moment before shrugging a shoulder. “Sure. How come we can’t just test out? I thought that’s what you said when I signed the contract and found out you were the pre—” She stopped short when Carter sent her a look of warning. Not everyone knew he was the president of the PC council. Molly probably didn’t know. Only a few did. There was danger in numbers.

  “While we’re on the subject,” Beth turned to her shrewdly, oblivious of the exchange between Rae and Carter, “what were you doing? And don’t tell me you went all the way out to London to go on some sort of midnight double date, because we flat out won’t believe you.”

  Molly and Julian flashed each other an appraising look, then shrugged in concordance.

  “We were…” Rae trailed off nervously. With her Uncle Argyle living half a world away, she wasn’t used to seeking parental permission before she went off and risked her neck. “We kind of…met up with…” She glanced around, hoping to get some support from her friends. Seeing that wasn’t going to happen, she met her mother’s tough stare. “I went to see my half-brother, Kraigan.”

  Carter slammed his fist down on the table. “Are you out of your mind?!”

  Beth’s face grew pale. “Didn’t you say he was the one who tried to kill you? Wasn’t it his mother in the fire?”

  “He’s a lunatic!” Carter roared, clearly ticked off. “Dangerous and psychotic! What in the world possessed you to think seeking him out was a smart idea?” he growled. “And you wonder why we treat you like children!”

  “We sought him out for precisely those reasons you both just said,” Rae answered calmly, keeping her eyes on her mother’s face. “He’s a dangerous psychopath whose mother died in the fire.” She pointedly moved her gaze over to Carter. “The fire that Jennifer caused. The rogue, undercover black op agent of the PC’s.”

  There was a moment of silence as the adults absorbed this, then Carter shook his head emphatically. “Oh Rae, you can’t be serious.”

  “Think about it,” Devon came to her defense, “who better to catch a killer, than a killer?”

  “Kraigan can’t be controlled,” Carter insisted. “He’s a loose cannon. There’s no telling who he might turn on.”

  “Ironically, it was you who let him out of prison.” Rae stood her ground, refusing to believe her decision had been a bad one. “I’m not trying to control him. I simply pointed him in the right direction. No one has a greater reason to want Jennifer brought to justice than him. Isn’t that what we all want,” she glanced around the table, “to take Jennifer down?”

  Beth, at least, seemed to accept her daughter’s reasoning, but she was still concerned with the belated risk. “He could have killed you,” she muttered reproachfully. “He could’ve seriously hurt any one of you. Or all of you. You need to think about these things before you go gallivanting off without—”

  “Without what?” Rae interrupted, a bit more sharply than she’d been intending. She threw her napkin on the table. “Without asking permission?” Her eyes flickered to Carter. “Going after Kraigan is nothing the PC themselves haven’t asked me to do before.”

  Carter opened his mouth to reply, but fell short, reaching for his wine glass instead.

  Beth, however, was hardly satisfied. “I know how the PC works. I was one of them. The point is, you could’ve gotten hurt. How am I supposed to be okay with that?” Her eyes flew accusingly around the table.

  “Mom, we’re all fine. I told you, it’s no big—”

  “No big deal?” Beth demanded, mimicking her daughter with the napkin toss. “Don’t think I don’t see Devon eating with his left hand, when I know he favors his right. Cracked ribs, right?” He met her gaze guiltily and she nodded. “I’ve certainly had those before. And what’s this I hear about Julian going to the hospital?”

  Molly jumped in helpfully. “That was unrelated.”

  “Julian?” Beth asked sharply. Rae and her friends had quickly found that Beth’s maternal instincts were not just limited to her own child.

  Julian’s dark eyes flashed up to hers, but he merely shrugged. “It was unrelated.”

  Beth leaned back, but this time, it was Carter who couldn’t let it go. “That’s not what Dr. Leventhal told me. He said you got lost in some kind of trance.”

  “It wasn’t a trance.” Julian’s face paled and he stared down at his plate. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said softly.

  Carter proceeded carefully. “You should know, there have been other cases of—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it!”

  Rae was stunned. Julian could always, always be counted on to be the most level-headed member of their group. He was the one she went to for advice, and she had seen the ‘adults’ in a situation turn to him for assurance or council many times. His words were careful and absolute. To hear him mouth off like this to Carter, she didn’t know what to make of it.

  Rather than get angry, Carter’s face softened as he regarded the young man across the table from him. “Julian, that’s a hell of a gift you were given. One of the strongest of them all. No one expects you to handle it alone.”

  “But I am,” Julian’s eyes flashed though his voice remained soft, “…handling it. Can we just let it go? Please?”

  Devon cleared his throat and picked up his fork. “How about we eat some of this dinner that Beth made before it gets cold?”

  The rest of dinner carried on in relative silence. Hardly more than a ‘please, pass the salt’. As they cleared the plates, the boys started putting their shoes on.

  “I can do the dishes, girls,” Beth said quietly.

  Neither Rae nor Molly argued with her. Rae had spent most of dinner wondering how everything had gotten out of control. How these grownups could act like they knew everything when they didn’t understand it at all. Her mom hadn’t been with tatùs for over ten years. She couldn’t just jump back in like she was ready to fight and be the super hero-agent she had been. Rae knew her mom wasn’t trying to. She just needed someone to direct her anger at.

  Beth walked with them outside while Carter remained in the cottage. “Rae. Devon. Julian. Molly.” She said each name as if each of them were her child.

  They all paused and turned around to look at her.

  She smiled slightly, lines on her forehead showed the worry she was trying to hide. “Whether you realize it or not, the four of you have come to a crossroad. It’s familiar to me, but you have yet to cross it.”

  “What do you mean?” Julian asked politely as he clearly didn’t understand like the rest of them.

  “You’ve come to a point at which your own power and independence has grown too great to ignore. A point at which you will either have to sink or swim.” Beth wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. “But either way, it’s a decision you will have to make alone.” She smiled tenderly at each of them before turning
to go inside.

  “What does she mean?” Molly asked. “I don’t swim, I’m electrical. I could kill everyone in the pool, or all the fish in a lake. It’s too dangerous. For everyone.”

  “Crap!” Rae slapped her forehead.

  “What?” Devon moved instantly beside her. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s like my Uncle Argyle,” she replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  Rae rolled her eyes. “She speaks in proverbs of truths too.”

  Chapter 9

  Days stretched into weeks stretched into months with the same routine. Finals were looming closer than ever, and most days, Rae locked herself away in the library with the rest of her class to study. In the rare moments she wasn’t there, she went to the Oratory, training and sparring with anyone who was available. She felt a deep sympathy for Julian’s ongoing struggle to get a handle on his powers, but she was also intensely jealous he’d been able to progress his gift as far as he had. Although her time was limited and her nerves were already stretched to the brink, she forced herself to do the same—pushing against every boundary she could.

  Fridays became family dinner night, evenings devoted to poring endlessly through her mother’s files, and every Tuesday, she and her friends headed to the library to mentor the first years.

  In the beginning, Rae worried about the mentorship. Helping the kids get a handle on their tatùs was one thing, but how on earth was Cromfield supposed to fit in? As it turned out, it was Carter who solved the problem. During their second week in, he showed up at the library to see how things were progressing, and casually suggested that as part of the children’s mandatory historical research papers (something Rae was sure he’d made mandatory just for the occasion), they focus on the origins of Guilder and its founders—specifically, Jonathon Cromfield. The kids were eager to impress, and every moment they weren’t paired off working with one of their four mentors, they dedicated themselves to cataloguing Cromfield’s every move; tracking down places he went, things he did, countries he visited—anything that could help the gang narrow down the search. Not that they knew there was a search, of course. While Rae and her friends were working tirelessly to find the monster, the kids were simply hoping for a passing grade.