Reckoning (The Variant Series, #4)

by Jena Leigh

  And permanent scarring on her retinas? It was looking like she’d be paying Holly that visit after all.

  “How do you know all this?” she asked.

  “A vision.”

  Alex jerked in surprise as something soft was placed against her eyes.

  “Just a bandage,” said Brian, wrapping material around her head in a gauzy blindfold. “Declan waylaid Ozzie before he could do it himself. Also, during the blast you sustained a serious injury to your rotator cuff—and you’ve almost certainly fractured your clavicle—which is what’s causing that radiating pain in your right arm. Try not to move it, if you can. We can always fashion you a makeshift sling, if you’d like some help with keeping it immobile.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll just hold it still until we see Holls.”

  Brian paused.

  “Sorry I didn’t have a vision of the incident in time to warn you about it,” he said, his voice quiet. “You’d already left for Chicago by then.”

  Alex frowned. “How many times will I have to say this to you, Bri? It’s okay. You never have to apologize to me for not seeing something in time. You didn’t make this happen, my stupid decision to turn around and stare at a malfunctioning bomb did. This one’s on me.”

  “But—”

  “Nope,” she said. “Not your fault.”

  Even if Brian had warned her about his vision in time, odds were good she would have been injured anyway, even if she’d taken measures to prevent it. The future, Alex had discovered, was stubbornly fixed in most respects. Ninety percent of the time, what Brian Grayson and his father envisioned would happen did happen, no matter what preventative measures they took.

  But it was that ever-elusive ten percent that kept them all trying, in spite of the odds.

  “Besides,” said Kenzie, her voice coming closer. “Getting injured is sort of Alex’s ‘thing’ at this point, isn’t it?”

  “My ‘thing?’” Alex echoed.

  “Yeah. Your thing,” said Kenzie. “You know how the Scooby-Doo gang has their ‘Danger-Prone Daphne?’ Well, you’re our gang’s ‘Accident-Prone Alex.’ Because if it’s going to happen to one of us…”

  “It’s going to happen to me,” said Alex. “I get it. You’re funny.”

  Alex recognized the camera-shutter sound effect of a cell phone snapping off a picture.

  “Not as gruesome as I’d hoped, now that you’re all covered in gauze,” said Kenzie. “But hey. One day we’ll be able to look back on this moment and laugh at Alex’s pain—like all good friends should do.”

  “Now then, Alex.” Ozzie’s nasally tenor was closing the distance between them. “As I attempted to impart to you before being so rudely interrupted, your eyes should begin to heal on their own, however—”

  “—If I don’t absorb a regeneration ability sometime in the next two days, I’ll be left with permanent scarring on my retinas,” Alex finished. “Brian already explained it to me, but thanks, Oz.”

  Ozzie began mumbling a fast-paced monologue of complaints under his breath.

  Alex could just make out the phrases “underappreciated acts of brilliance,” “far more important matters to attend to,” and what she thought was “roughly as clever as a band of knuckle-dragging galoots” before his voice faded entirely.

  “Oz?” she asked.

  A door slammed.

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked Nate, belatedly joining the conversation.

  “Aside from a conspicuous lack of common sense?” asked Declan, in a tired voice.

  Alex recognized the whoosh of deflating seat cushions as someone flopped down onto one of the room’s two threadbare couches. From the accompanying grunt, it was one of the boys… though without her sight, she couldn’t be sure which.

  “Look what you’ve done, Decks,” said Kenzie. “You went and pissed off the man who builds the bombs. Have fun on your next mission. Remind me not to join you on an op any time soon.”

  “So,” said Declan, ignoring his sister. “Holls?”

  Alex nodded subtly, then added a “yeah,” since she couldn’t be certain if he’d actually seen it.

  “She said to tell you that she’s not in Dublin,” said Brian. “Her university classes are on break, so she’s at home.”

  “Kilkenny,” said Declan. His voice was closer than it had been a moment ago. “Got it.”

  “She also said that if you randomly appear in her bedroom again instead of on her doorstep like a civilized person, she’s going to beat the ever-loving crap out of you,” Brian said. “Except her wording was much more violent and included an impressive string of illustrative curse words.”

  Declan snorted. “Yeah, that sounds more like Holls. Come on, Lex. Let’s go.”

  Warm hands found her own, bringing with them a familiar shiver of electricity as they loosed her rigid grip on the seat of the chair. Declan entwined their fingers and gave a slight tug. Alex carefully got to her feet.

  “We’ll be back,” he said.

  Alex once more screwed up her courage… and they jumped.

  Where they landed, the air was warm and heavy with moisture. With the time difference in Kilkenny, it must have been approaching midnight.

  Alex could tell by the feel of the ground beneath her feet and the recognizable smell of the field that they had reappeared at her intended destination.

  It was not, however, Declan’s intended destination.

  “I didn’t—How did we—” After a few false starts, he finally said, “Did you just hijack my jump?!”

  Alex’s expression turned sheepish. “Yeah, sorry about that. It’s a new trick I’ve been meaning to try for a while now and, well… I wanted to talk to you alone for a moment. We are alone, right?”

  When Declan didn’t reply, she furrowed a brow. “Decks?”

  “No. I mean yes, we’re alone. Not counting a couple of curious sheep. Go on, you,” he said, and Alex could only assume he was addressing the local livestock. “Get.”

  Something bumped into her left leg from behind, causing her knee to buckle and her balance to falter, launching her blindly toward Declan’s disembodied voice.

  Strong arms enfolded her as she stumbled to a halt. A low rumble shook Declan’s chest as he tried to suppress a chuckle.

  “Sheep sure are friendly around here,” she mumbled into his T-shirt.

  That did it. Declan barked out a laugh.

  “There’s an offensive joke in there somewhere,” he said. “But I’ll spare you the eye-roll, seeing as you’re injured.”

  His voice held evidence of his smile—the first in a long while that actually seemed genuine. Alex cursed her wounded eyes, longing to see that roguish grin again firsthand. It hadn’t graced his features in weeks and she missed it dearly.

  “So what is it you wanted to talk about?”

  Alex’s smile fell. Declan’s grin wasn’t likely to last much longer, either.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Something wrong?”

  “Not exactly,” she hedged, buying herself another few seconds to gather her thoughts. “It’s just… keeping me on the sidelines all the time isn’t helping anything.”

  Declan’s good mood evaporated in an instant. He dropped his arms and took a step back, creating a space between them. It couldn’t have been more than a foot, but in the darkness it felt like an ocean.

  “If you’d kept me with you today we would have been in and out of that office building with time to spare,” she said, determined to finally have her say, even if he didn’t want to hear it. “Instead, you sent me packing halfway through the job and it took you twice as long to finish. If I’d stayed, you never would have gotten stuck in that cubicle without an exit. You need to start trusting me, Declan.”

  “You ask me to trust you and yet…” He sighed, exasperated.

  “But you can trust me, Decks,” she said. “Every time we leave the compound—whether it’s on some complicated mission for Grayson or we’re just going out to b
uy groceries—every freaking time, you give me the least responsibility of anyone. You’ve got to stop treating me like I’m made of glass and let me help once in a while. Dammit, I’m not going to break!”

  “Says the girl who lost her eyesight this afternoon,” he countered.

  Okay, she’d sort of walked into that one. Perhaps directly after being severely injured on the job wasn’t the best time to be bringing this up.

  But that didn’t mean the conversation was going to be any easier tomorrow.

  She needed Declan to listen.

  She needed him to understand.

  “Ten minutes from now, I’m going to be fine again,” she argued, but her voice had lost some of its strength.

  “And what are we supposed to do the next time it happens, Lex? What will we do the next time you do something stupid or reckless? When you’re broken and bleeding—again—and Holls isn’t an option?” Declan’s voice grew louder with each question. “Huh, Alex? What am I supposed to do then?!”

  First, Alex fell quiet… and then she got angry.

  “Here’s a better question,” she said. “Why are you the only one who’s allowed to act on his fear of losing someone, Decks?”

  For the first time since her injury, the tears that filled her eyes and soaked through the bandages had nothing to do with the flash burn.

  “Don’t you get it?” Alex asked. She gave a humorless laugh. “I worry about you every day. Every single day I have to sit back and watch while you put yourself in harm’s way over and over again. While you take on more and more risk, all in some misguided effort to keep me safe. And I’m sick of it!”

  She shook her head, ignoring the pain it elicited from her aching shoulder.

  Without her sight, she had no way of gauging Declan’s reaction. His silence was one part gratifying and two parts maddening.

  Was he angry? Did he understand yet? Or was he staring back at her stone-faced and unmoved like she’d anticipated?

  For her part, Alex was sick and tired of having this same argument over and over, to no avail.

  She could help them win this fight. And for that reason alone she was going to help, in whatever ways she could, whether Declan liked it or not.

  “As you’ve been so quick to remind me lately, Decks, this is a war we’re fighting,” she said, finally allowing the exhaustion she felt to creep into her voice. “And last time I checked there was no end to it in sight. Fact is, you can’t keep me out of the line of fire forever and I’m not going to be safe until the Agency and Samuel Masterson have both been taken out of the equation. Until you learn to accept that and allow me to fight beside you instead of behind you, none of us will be safe again. We need to work together. We’re stronger together. Dammit, I know you have to have realized that by now.”

  Still, Declan was silent.

  Alex sighed.

  For a brief moment she wondered if was even still standing there—and then his arms were encircling her and she was being crushed against his chest. Alex bit her tongue and ignored the pain in her shoulder, refusing to do anything that might prompt him to pull away.

  “You’re right,” he whispered into her hair. “I don’t like it. Not at all. But you’re right.”

  Alex breathed him in and sank into the embrace, more relieved than she’d been in weeks.

  She felt, more than heard, Declan chuckle.

  Alex smiled.

  “Stubborn,” he said.

  “Always,” she replied.

  He loosened his hold around her shoulders, dropping his left arm to her waist, his other hand occupied with brushing a lock of Alex’s wavy hair behind her ear.

  “Yeah, well,” he said. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, princess.” Declan’s fingertips trailed slowly along her jawline. “Just promise me you’ll be twice as careful from here on out. And for the love of God, stop trying to play the damn hero all the time, would ya?”

  “Only if you’ll stop getting yourself into trouble all the damn time, Charming,” she countered. “I mean, trapped under a desk in an office cubicle, Decks? Really?”

  “Touché, love,” he said. “Touché.”

  Love.

  Alex found herself thinking that she really liked the sound of that—and then Declan’s lips were on hers and she wasn’t thinking about anything at all except the taste of cinnamon and the flutter in her chest.

  He broke the kiss far sooner than Alex might have liked, but didn’t release her. “Time to get those eyes fixed, babe,” he said. “Hang on.”

  They jumped and this time, when they reappeared, Declan took a step back. He snaked an arm around her good shoulder and Alex heard the faint echo of a door chime.

  “I should probably warn you,” said Declan, quietly, “Mr. Nakamura’s not the most agreeable guy you’ll ever meet.”

  Alex had roughly ten seconds to puzzle over that comment before she recognized the sound of a door swinging open—and then heard the all-too-familiar crash of that selfsame door being slammed in her face.

  So much for a warm welcome.

  Four

  “What just happened?” asked Alex.

  “Uh,” said Declan. “Well…”

  Alex heard the door swing open a second time and a rush of cool air escaped from inside the home.

  “Sorry about that,” said a girl’s voice. Alex immediately recognized Holly’s chipper tone and lilting accent. “Da got to the door first. Probably should have warned him you were coming, but I didn’t want to get him cheesed off and then have to suffer through another family dinner with him giving out.”

  “I wouldn’t have complained,” said a masculine, oddly accented baritone. “I simply wouldn’t have allowed this visit to occur in the first place, and that would have been the end of it.”

  The man’s accent was more or less Midwestern American, but with a noticeable Japanese influence. Alex felt safe in assuming the voice belonged to Holly’s father, Kento.

  His displeasure at their unexpected arrival called to mind Grayson’s warning to only contact Holls as a last resort.

  “I promised Kento Nakamura I’d keep both of his children out of this if I could help it…”

  Mr. Nakamura had clearly wanted to keep his family isolated and outside the scope of the ongoing conflict with the Agency. And obviously, his stance on the matter had yet to change.

  “But seein’ as you’re here,” Holls said pointedly. “Won’t you come in?”

  Alex hesitated. Without being able to read the facial expressions of the people waiting inside the house, she wasn’t sure which direction to move in. Step inside? Or remain on the doorstep?

  Holls sounded self-assured. Her father sounded pissed.

  Who to listen to?

  Mr. Nakamura heaved a tired sigh and said, “Since you’re here, please, come in.”

  Despite their civility, his words were laced with displeasure.

  Declan seemed keen to accept the lackluster invitation—he tightened his grip round Alex’s shoulder and guided her slowly, step by step, into the home.

  Under her breath, Holls added, “Leave it my father to slam a door in the face of the girl who’s going to save our kind.”

  The girl who’s going to do what now?

  Alex felt a blush creep into her cheeks. Just what had Holls heard about her? For that matter, what had anyone heard?

  More loudly, Holls asked, “So exactly how bad are your eyes, Alex?”

  Hesitantly, she removed the gauzy bandage and blinked her eyes open. The inside of the house was so painfully bright that within a few seconds she was forced to close them again.

  “Och, that’s fecking brutal,” Holls muttered. “Must be painful.”

  “Language, Holly,” her father warned. “Heaven knows I’ve spent enough money on your education by now that your vocabulary ought to be showing the effects. You could at least attempt to censor yourself once in a while.”

  Holls huffed, standing much closer to Alex than she’d been just a moment b
efore, and muttered, “That was censored.”

  Cool fingertips spread across Alex’s cheek.

  “Just a touch, yeah?” asked Holls, a noticeable level of excitement in her voice. A moment passed and then she blurted, “Jaysus, that is deadly!”

  Alex was too distracted by the sudden relief—and noticeable itch—rushing to her abused nerve endings and radiating through her shoulder to puzzle over Holly’s strange vocabulary and her own limited understanding of Irish slang.

  She blinked slow and purposefully as the world around her snapped into focus.

  The first thing she saw was Holls, inches away, electric blue highlights and a pixie haircut crowning a face that was alight with an ecstatic grin.

  And then, just over Holls’ shoulder, Alex spied Declan. As their eyes met, he sent her a look that asked, “Are you good?”

  She smiled and gave a slight nod. He blew out a slow breath, relief erasing the crease of his brow.

  The living room in which they now stood was small, but nicely furnished, with a large couch and two overstuffed chairs surrounding a well used, but currently unlit, fireplace. In one of the chairs a middle-aged man was seated with an iPad in his lap, studying the screen from behind a pair of square, frameless glasses.

  He was handsome, with jet black hair, a patchy goatee, and smooth skin that belied his age. Looking at him now, Alex struggled to determine how old he might be. He could be around forty—or he could be pushing sixty.

  She wondered, vaguely, if he was the parent that Holls had inherited her regenerative ability from. And then she wondered why, if that was the case, would he be wearing glasses?

  “You were smart in bringing her to me, O’Connell,” said Holls. “No matter what me da might have to say on the matter.” She sent her father a pointed look that he studiously ignored. “No sense in leaving her to suffer needlessly, now is there?”

  At that, Mr. Nakamura cleared his throat, set aside the tablet, and stood. “Declan,” he said. “A word?”

  With a fleeting squeeze of Alex’s hand, Declan followed Holly’s father out of the room.

  “Holls?”