by Jena Leigh
Considering Oz’s noticeable lack of interpersonal skills, that was probably saying something.
Nate tilted his head back and stared at the wood-planked ceiling. “I get it, Lex,” he said. “Really, I do.”
She studied him in the silence that followed, watching as he worked his jaw and shifted uncomfortably, summoning his nerve to say something more.
“Aiden told you, right?” he asked, finally. “He told you why I left the cabin in New York? Told you why I moved to Seattle?”
Hesitantly, Alex nodded.
There had been a job.
Nate—at the time, a recent high school grad—was sent to Prague alone in the hope that he would be able to prevent one of Grayson’s dire premonitions from coming to pass. Trouble was, Nate left New York without being told all of the facts.
Key details of Grayson’s vision were intentionally left out of Nate’s mission briefing. Presumably, the boss thought it was information Nate wouldn’t need to know. In the end, he couldn’t have been more wrong. When the dust finally settled, Nate wasn’t the only one who would pay the price for John Grayson’s presumption.
There had been a boy.
Just a kid, barely four years old. A child that developed his fire-wielding powers too young to understand what was happening, much less exercise any amount of control. A boy who, by some quirk of fate or genetics, was unbelievably powerful.
There had been a fleeting moment where Nate thought he might be able to calm the boy and steer the rapidly deteriorating situation toward a happy resolution—which was roughly the same time everything fell apart.
After that…
Well, after that, Nate had been faced with an impossible decision: save the boy and let fourteen innocent people die, or save fourteen souls and lose an innocent child.
Nate chose… and the boy died.
At the time, Nathaniel blamed Grayson as much as he blamed himself. Whatever trust Nate held in the man who raised him evaporated in an instant.
Nate was out of the cabin and on his way to Seattle in less than a week.
The way Aiden told the story, Nate made the only choice he could make, given the circumstances. If he hadn’t, Nate probably would have ended up just as dead as the fourteen men, women, and children already standing in the line of fire. Even if he’d chosen to save the child, there was no guarantee he would have been successful.
It was an awful, heart-wrenching, impossible decision.
By the time it was all over, Nate had saved fourteen people… and lost a part of himself.
“After it happened,” he said, “I shut almost everyone out. I stopped talking to Decks, to Kenzie, to Brian. Everyone except Aiden. He was the exception. That was only because, back then, he hated Grayson almost as much as I did.”
Nate lay back on the bed, relaxing into the mattress. He folded his hands behind his head, just a few inches from Alex’s crossed legs.
“I sealed myself off,” Nate continued. “Didn’t let anyone in. Didn’t want to let anyone in, until you showed up in Seattle.” He reached out and tugged gently on the ankle of her jeans. Alex surprised herself by smiling. “But even then, things never really went back to the way they were before. Before Prague, I was pretty chill. And I mean about everything. Then again, before Prague, the decisions I faced were all mostly clear-cut. Black and white. Right and wrong. I always trusted myself to make the right call. Going with the flow is easy when you’re not terrified of the consequences.”
Listening to Nate speak, Alex experienced a pang of sympathy shot through with understanding.
She knew what it felt like to draw that line.
Before and after.
It had been one thing to compare her pre–Variant existence to the life created in the wake of discovering her abilities. But that revelation had been little more than a thin line drawn in the still shifting sand.
It wasn’t until Seattle that Alex’s line became etched in stone.
Before her disastrous trip to the past, she still thought she could make the noble choice—the right choice—and be guaranteed positive results. That simply doing the right thing would be enough.
But life, the universe, and even time itself, Alex had realized, rarely worked like that.
What was that old saying? The one about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions?
After Seattle, there were no easy decisions. Nothing was clear-cut. No choice was black and white. Every situation, every choice she made, came in varying shades of gray. A wrong move could easily land herself or someone she cared about in the hospital.
Or six feet under.
“After Prague, I became a total control freak,” Nate said, interrupting the brief silence. “You’ve probably noticed that Decks still gives me hell for it from time to time.”
She’d heard Declan refer to Nate as the “golden boy” and the “good little soldier” on more than a few occasions: normally, when Nate refused to deviate from a plan, or sided with Grayson over Declan during an argument. The comments were usually borne of exasperation, containing little hostility—but their effect on Nate was obvious. To Alex, if not to anyone else.
“At first, I justified the change in my attitude and my crazy new work ethic as just another way to remain in Grayson’s good graces. Told myself it was all for the sake of my deal with Director Carter,” he said. “That if I worked my ass off and stayed in the boss’s favor, I wouldn’t run the risk of him kicking me out of the cabin and giving Carter a reason to renege on our agreement. But that wasn’t it at all.”
“No?” she asked.
He shook his head, then caught her gaze and held it. “All that time, I was just trying to get back the part of me I lost the moment I decided to save those bystanders instead of Lukas. I’d been trying to get back some sort of control. Any sort of control.”
Alex’s brow furrowed at his use of the past tense. “And now?”
“Now I know I never will.” Nate broke eye contact and returned his focus to the light fixture attached to the wobbling fan.
Nate’s words hit painfully close to home. Listening to him speak, she couldn’t help but wonder how much her own nightmares stemmed from the lingering fear of one day being trapped again in limbo—and how much they stemmed from her growing sense of helplessness.
She’d become just as trapped and defenseless in her waking life as she was at night in her dreams.
Was that why she threw herself into her daily training, despite her mounting exhaustion?
Lately, she’d become more and more determined to be a crucial player in their various missions, rather than to stand by and watch, sitting powerless on the sidelines.
Was she still hoping to regain the sense of control she’d lost? Still fighting back against the possibility that dumb luck and twists of fate had just as much to do with their current circumstances as her own actions?
Nate’s voice interrupted her musings. “You know, after watching what you’ve gone through, I finally realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve accepted that, some days, life’s just a bitch and there ain’t shit we can do to change it.” The creases of his furrowed brow began to lessen. “Then again, I learned something else from watching you, too.”
“Oh?”
Unexpectedly, Nate smiled. “I learned that it’s possible to keep going—to keep hoping—in spite of the fact. And that that is what makes us strong. It’s not just about getting up again after life kicks our ass. It’s about getting back up with twice the determination, twice the faith, and a smile to spite the Fates… even if that smile is a bit weak at first.”
With another gentle tug at her pant leg, Nate hauled himself up and into a seated position, then got to his feet. “Don’t forget, there’s still some food in the microwave.” As he made for the door, he added, “I’ll see you in the morning, Lex.”
Nine
That night, Alex didn’t dream.
Exhaustion claimed her shortly
after finishing the plate of food Nate left for her in the kitchen. After she ate, she returned to her shared bedroom, collapsed on top of the still made bed, and proceeded to black out until sometime before dawn the next morning.
Upon waking she discovered that a blanket had been draped over her while she slept—and that someone had stealthily brought in a cot and set it up between the two twin beds, creating a place for Cassie to sleep.
The other girls were still dead to the world, Kenzie’s quiet snore the only sound to be heard. It was early enough in the morning that even the birdsong had yet to begin.
Alex checked the clock. Five minutes till six. The sun wouldn’t be fully risen for at least another hour. That gave her just enough time to sneak in a short run and grab a bite of breakfast before her hour-long training session with Aiden.
She was glad it was him on the schedule today. Her thoughts and emotions were still too raw where Nate and Declan were concerned. It would have made it that much harder to concentrate.
If there was one thing Aiden could be counted on for, it was his staunch refusal to take sides.
“Just think of me like Switzerland,” he’d told her during their training session the week before. “I take no one’s side except my own. I’ll always have your back when it counts, Trouble. But when it comes to infighting with our own team? I’m pretty much always going to be a neutral party. Safer that way.”
At the time, tensions between Alex and the others were just starting to come to a head. He’d opened their session by making sure her head was in the game, put forth his disclaimer of neutrality, and then conducted their round of training as though it were just another day.
This morning, that aura of normalcy was exactly what she was hoping for.
It also helped that he’d never treated her with kid gloves the way the others were usually wont to do. When they were in the field, he stood beside her rather than in front of her. When they sparred, he fought with her on the same level as he did with his cousins and rarely let up. And while they trained, he occasionally barked at her like a drill sergeant and always pushed her to her limits.
It was the sort of training she needed. She was already far more proficient with water-wielding than any of her other abilities, save for jumping. For that, she had Aiden to thank.
Looking back on his first impressions of Alex, two years in the past, it was easy to understand why he might see her in a different light than the others. His first understanding of Alex’s abilities involved a busted water main and what was—to Aiden, at least—a near miraculous display of strength and control. He watched her do something he couldn’t do in a thousand years, in under a minute, without breaking a sweat.
Even Nate hadn’t grasped the depth of her abilities that quickly.
No matter the reason for it, Alex appreciated being treated like an equal, even though he was the only one who seemed inclined to do so.
Silently rifling through the dresser, Alex grabbed the exercise clothes she wore to train, changed swiftly, then crept out of the room only to find someone already waiting for her in the living area.
Salt-and-pepper hair that fell to just above his shoulders, wire-rimmed glasses, a neatly trimmed beard, and a face that she’d know anywhere. Though the aging college T-shirt and sweat pants were a marked change from what he’d been wearing the day she’d first seen him—or his likeness, at any rate—little else had changed. Even knowing he was there to help, she still stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of him.
Carson Brandt.
The first mask Samuel Masterson wore when he met Alex. The face that had kidnapped Cassie. The face that had nearly roasted Alex alive in a burning bookstore.
Brandt must have read the truth in her initial reaction before she could school her expression.
“One day, I really am going to have to pay Samuel back for the damage he brought to my good name.” His Scottish brogue was heavy, but his words were soft, as though he were doing his best not to let his voice carry and wake anyone else in the main house.
It was an oddly considerate action for a psychopath.
Relaxing slightly, Alex tilted her head and appraised him. “Considering what you do for a living, I didn’t realize the status of your ‘good name’ was ever in question.”
At that, he smiled. “As with beauty, little girl, justice will forever rest in the eye of the beholder. You see murder. I only see vengeance.”
“Did you want something?” Alex asked.
She was itching to get away from the arsonist hitman and get started on her morning run. Unfortunately, he was still standing between her and the front door.
“I want for very little,” he said. “On the contrary, it seems as though I might have something of interest to offer you.”
She didn’t bother to hide her skepticism. “I seriously doubt that.”
“Y’see, I heard about the little row you had with your friends yesterday. Something about them holding you back? Not allowing you to reach your full potential?”
She scowled.
He shrugged.
Alex looked him over with curiosity. “I guess word travels fast around here,” she said. “But what does our disagreement have to do with you?”
Brandt’s smile returned. “If you’re itching for more responsibility, little girl… then perhaps it’s time you start fighting fire with fire.”
* * *
This is a terrible idea.
After sparing a moment to grab one of the halogen floodlights from the storeroom, Alex had teleported herself and Brandt to a small field, nearly half a mile from the compound that she knew well from her morning runs. If she was going to go through with this crazy plan, it needed to be far from prying eyes—and even farther from anything of value that fell into the category of “flammable.”
She could only imagine what her aunt would say, if and when she found out about all this.
Brandt’s hand was warm in hers, his palm calloused against her fair skin. The floodlight had been left on the ground a few yards behind her, creating a shadow that covered half the man’s face. The lighting effect proved more than a little sinister.
This wouldn’t be the first time Alex borrowed a fire-wielding ability. She’d absorbed it before. Twice as a result of Masterson’s touch, and once when the Agency was testing her abilities.
The test—an event appropriately referred to as Alex’s “trial by fire”—had been the only time someone had been dumb enough to light a match nearby. Many aspects of that afternoon remained a blur, but one thing stood out perfectly in her memory—the way the flame had called to her.
The draw it held. The allure.
The fire practically sang.
The spark of the match was a whisper on the wind compared to the roar that came from the molten lava she’d summoned from deep within the earth before being knocked unconscious by six Agency-devised tranq darts.
She released Brandt’s hand, the absorption process complete.
“Are you ready to begin, little girl?”
Alex took a few steps back and tried not to bristle at the pet name. He’d used it three times already. In addition to being an unsettling reminder of the way Masterson repeatedly called her “pet” while masquerading as Brandt, it was aggravating as hell.
“Lesson number one: the fire wants to be used. The stronger the wielder, the louder the call. The larger the flame, the louder the call. For someone as powerful you, a lit match ought to sound like—”
“Singing,” she said before she could stop herself.
He smiled. “Aye. Like the most beautiful melody one could imagine.”
Brandt lit a match and her attention was immediately drawn toward it. Without consciously meaning to, she raised her hand, eager to pull the flame into her palm and allow it to grow.
The lit match appeared to flicker in an unseen wind as Brandt battled her for control over the flame.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he chided. “Not yet. We still need to cover the second les
son.”
Surprised by her own reaction, Alex lowered her hand and worked to regain her focus. The call of the flame was practically hypnotic.
“Lesson number two: you must not let the fire control you.”
It was difficult, resisting the draw of the match flame, but by no means impossible. Now that she was aware of it, she found it easier to restrain herself.
“Not bad,” he said. “Up until now, you’ve probably been taught that your impressive strength would always be an asset when it came to mastering your abilities. That once you learned the foundations of control for each specific power, you could relax.”
He wasn’t far off.
She had been taught that. For every new ability she learned to manage, Alex found without exception that, once she knew the mechanics, the power became easier and easier to keep in line.
It was only when juggling multiple abilities that Alex occasionally found it difficult to maintain control.
“Your teachers…” Brandt drew the tiny flame into his open palm and discarded the matchstick. Almost immediately, the spark he held grew into a fireball roughly the size of a truck tire. “… are idiots.”
Alex sucked in a breath, so overwhelmed by the call of the blaze that she fell to her knees in the dew-speckled grass and gripped the sides of her head.
“There is no such thing as mastery when it comes to controlling fire. You will need to battle your own instincts, every waking moment, if you ever hope to keep the ability in check.”
Screwing her eyes shut, Alex fought to locate her own thoughts amidst the siren’s song of the flame that now dominated.
“Because the moment you stop fighting the call…” He trailed off.
Warmth. The fire coiled around her like a comforting blanket on a chilly night, swirling and flickering and right…
It was as close to a feeling of euphoria as Alex had ever known.
Either Brandt had been unable to stop her from taking hold of the flame, or he was attempting to send the point home.
“Come on, little girl.” He sounded vaguely disgusted with her. “This was nothing but a spark. What will you do when faced with a four-alarm fire or an explosion during one of your so-called ‘ops?’ Out yourself to the norms? Hurt an innocent, when you accidentally surrender to the call and the blaze you draw toward yourself takes out a bystander?”
