Reckoning (The Variant Series, #4)

by Jena Leigh

  His sister tugged at the door handle, then let out a defeated groan.

  “Nate!” she shouted. “It’s locked!”

  They waited a long moment, but nothing happened.

  Nate!

  Kenzie’s projection sent Brian’s hands flying to his temples and he winced in pain. He could always tell when his sister was truly pissed about something. Subtlety was not her strong suit.

  Come to think of it, Kenzie’s headache-inducing telepathic shout probably ranked as one of her most effective attacks.

  Unlock the damn doors!

  “Little busy here, Red!” Nate yelled from the other side of the stables.

  Something slammed into the building behind them, causing it to rattle on its foundations.

  Kenzie tugged futilely at the door handle again.

  “Who did he think was going to steal this useless hunk of metal all the way out here?” Kenzie mumbled. “NATE! C’mon, man! The doors!”

  A shallow click sounded as the locks released.

  Kenzie yanked open the door, reached down to pull the seat release knob… and then howled in frustration.

  “Oh my God, you stupid freaking pile of tin! What did I ever do to you? LET ME IN, DAMMIT!”

  “She’s probably still holding a grudge from all the times you insulted Nate’s driving,” Brian said, gently shoving his sister out of the way and reaching for the seat control. “And then there’s the fact that you’ve referred to her as nothing but a death trap since the first day he brought her home.”

  “But it IS a death trap!” Kenzie protested. “Have you seen how Nate drives this car?”

  The seat flew forward with barely a tug on the control and Brian clamored into the backseat.

  “Calling the poor old girl a useless hunk of metal just now probably didn’t help, either,” he added.

  “The poor old girl?” Kenzie repeated, scrambling to get in behind him. “It’s just a car, Bri!”

  “I’d be nicer to her if I were you,” he said. “Seeing as how she’s the one providing our getaway.”

  Kenzie gave an exaggerated eye roll, tugging the passenger seat back in place just as Nate slid into the driver’s side. He waved a hand over the dash and the Charger roared to life, her throaty growl nearly deafening as Nate revved the engine.

  Brandt dove into the passenger side and slammed the door, rolling down the window as fast as he could using the manual crank. Leaning forward, he looked back, thrust his arm outside, and sent a beach ball sized orb of fire spiraling into the air above them.

  A deluge of water rained down on the car, splashing in through the opening.

  Brian turned to look out the back window, hoping to catch sight of their assailants.

  Water rippled across the glass, obscuring his view.

  When it cleared, Brian squinted into the darkness. He counted two bodies lying prone in the field… and then he caught sight of a familiar head full of blonde and pink braids shining various shades of silver in the moonlight.

  Jezza, her face twisted in rage, screamed in aggravation. Water swirled toward her outstretched hands as she readied her next attack.

  Brandt was too fast for her. As Nate shifted gears and the Charger fishtailed on the loose gravel, the fire-wielder sent a blazing trail spiraling toward Jezza’s feet, surrounding her in a dancing circle of flames that distracted her just long enough for them to make their escape.

  The car finally gained purchase and they lurched forward, driving up and over a hill.

  As Jezza faded from view, Brian turned back around and dropped down into the seat.

  “How?!” Brian choked out. “How is this happening?”

  None of this was in anything I saw! he thought desperately to himself. This is all wrong! All of it!

  Beside him, Kenzie was still kneeling on the leather seat, staring out the back window.

  “That wasn’t our Jezza, Bri,” she said, misinterpreting both his words and the fear in his voice. “She was being pushed. Someone was controlling her.”

  “Did anyone else happen to check her eyes? Or was I seeing things just now?” asked Nate.

  “Were her pupils blown?” Brandt asked. The rushing noise of the passing air diminished as he rolled up the passenger-side window. “If that’s what you saw, it’s nothing to worry about. It’s a bit rare, granted, but it can happen when a strong-willed victim tries to resist being influenced.”

  “Jezza’s certainly got a will,” Nate allowed. “But that was something way beyond just a blown pupil. Even the whites of her eyes were black.”

  “Now that I haven’t seen before,” Brandt mumbled in reply. “Sounds like the Agency’s doing. Perhaps a new drug to enhance the power of the push?”

  “Maybe,” Nate said, then sighed. “Thanks, Brandt. For not hurting her, I mean.”

  The man harrumphed, running a hand through his wet hair before tugging his glasses off and wiping them down with the front of his shirt.

  “You’ve no idea how difficult it is for me to fight someone without inflicting any actual damage,” he said. “That would have been over a lot sooner, if you hadn’t tied my hands.”

  Ignoring him, Nate asked, “How are we doing, Red?”

  “So far, so good,” she replied, finally turning around and dropping down into her seat. “Their jumper’s out cold and Jezza will never be able to catch us on foot without—”

  A flash of light and a swirling arc of violet lightning lit up the road ahead. Everyone inside the car lurched forward as Nate slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting their brother.

  The Charger skid to a halt a few yards from Declan, illuminating him from head to toe in the glow of the headlights.

  No one spoke. Declan held up a hand to cut the glare and walked determinedly forward.

  “Jesus,” Kenzie whispered, her shaking voice putting an end to the stunned silence. “He’s covered in blood… Whose blood is that?”

  Declan stopped in front of the idling Charger, reached down to place his hands on the black metal hood—and they jumped.

  As always, Brian was thrown more by the sudden change in pressure than he was by their sudden reappearance in a brand new location.

  And they were definitely in a new location.

  An empty wasteland stretched for as far as the eye could see in any direction, with only a jagged, rocky prominence looming in the distance.

  Brian recognized it immediately.

  Shiprock.

  They were in the New Mexico desert. More specifically, in the Navajo Nation of San Juan county. Basically, they had reappeared in the middle of nowhere.

  Outside the car, Declan stood unmoving, staring at them through the Charger’s windshield with an unreadable look on his face.

  Brandt whistled low. “I really need to stop underestimating young Miss Parker and the O’Connell boy.”

  “Holy shit,” Kenzie said. “He just jumped the freaking Charger. With us in it. That just happened.”

  Nate and Brandt both opened their doors and climbed out of the car. Brian reached down and popped the seat release, lurching the seat forward as he struggled to get out.

  “Guess Nate won’t be able to give him crap about not being able to teleport the surveillance van anymore. Assuming the van’s not a flaming husk at this point. Or that we ever see it again.” Kenzie muttered somewhere behind him. “That did just happen right? I’m not hallucinating, am I?”

  “No, Red,” Brian said as his bare feet settled onto the pale dirt of the desert floor. The sand was unexpectedly cool beneath his feet. “You’re not hallucinating. Although you are starting to ramble on a bit.”

  “Where is she, Decks?” Nate demanded.

  Declan stared back at him, then slowly shook his head.

  “Whose blood is that, O’Connell?” asked Brandt, eyeing him warily. “Are you injured?”

  Declan looked down, raising a distracted eyebrow as though he were just noticing the stains for the first time.

  “It isn’t mi
ne,” he said.

  “Lex?” Nate’s voice was tight.

  “She was already gone when I reached The Corner Pocket.” His gaze shifted past the group and stared tiredly into the distance. “The blood. It’s Benji’s. He’s… They…” Declan swallowed hard, fighting back emotion. “They killed him. They killed all of them. Every last person in the bar. Just so they could take her.”

  “What the crap was Alex doing at The Corner Pocket?!” Brian exclaimed, his strained voice cracking halfway through the question.

  She wasn’t supposed to leave the safe house! No wonder every future he’d envisioned up until now had just gone flying off the rails… This really was all wrong!

  His brothers ignored him.

  “Christ.” Nate ran a hand across his face. “They managed to get their hands on Alex and the boss in the same damn night. Now what do we do?”

  “They took Grayson?” Declan asked in the same moment Brian shouted, “They took my dad?!”

  For the love of…

  Brian forced himself to take a steadying breath as he reconciled these revelations with the fact that he had absolutely no contingency plan for any of this. The future he’d been carefully molding for the past three years straight had all come unraveled in a single night.

  He had no clue what would happen next.

  They were officially off the edge of the map.

  Hic Sunt Dracones. Here There Be Dragons.

  “Who else did they take, Nate?” Declan demanded, regaining his composure. “I saw what was left of the compound. Was anyone…?”

  Next to Brian, Nate’s face filled with pain. Kenzie winced and looked away. Brandt… Well, Brandt’s expression didn’t change, but that hardly came as a surprise.

  Still, it was more than enough for both Brian and Declan to draw their own conclusions.

  “Who, Nate?” Declan asked. “Who was it?”

  Nate shook his head.

  “Trent,” Kenzie said eventually. “It was Trent. Ozzie and I got back with our first load from the supply run and found him… frozen. He was sprawled out on the path in front of cabin three just lying there.”

  “I saw it go down, Decks,” Nate said. “Somehow Jezza was pushed. The second those agents showed up and started setting fire to the buildings, she turned and used her abilities against Trent. Caught him completely off guard. He never even had the chance to defend himself. The attack probably would have killed him instantly if I hadn’t been able to throw off her aim as she took her first shot.”

  Declan stared down at his feet, his jaw clenching. “How bad, Kenzie?”

  She sighed. “Bad. Jezza was able to freeze the water inside Trent’s body somehow. His torso was covered in a solid block of ice. Ozzie took one look at him, then ordered me to go help the others and just… jumped. I guess he took Trent somewhere he thought he could get him help. God knows where that might be, though.”

  “And the others?” asked Brian. “Cassie and Aiden? Cil? Jian Liu and Linus?”

  Kenzie shrugged. “Cassie, Jian Liu, and Linus were already gone when Ozzie and I first got back. At one point, I sensed Cil return, but then I lost track of her. I’m not sure when—or how—she and Aiden left the compound after that.”

  “It’s possible Cil teleported them all to another location,” Nate said.

  “Or the Agency took them,” Brandt mumbled. As their heads all swiveled in his direction, the older man shrugged. “Just saying. It’s a possibility we need to consider.”

  Brian stared up at the still water-logged fire-wielder, watching him closely as an unpleasant possibility niggled at the back of his thoughts.

  “You didn’t burn it, did you?” asked Brian.

  The others stared back at him blankly.

  Carson Brandt, however, heaved a tired sigh. “So that’s what all the cryptic nonsense you were spouting the other night was in reference to.”

  “What are you two talking about?” asked Kenzie. “What didn’t he burn?”

  “Hang on.” Declan was staring back and forth between Brian and Brandt, quickly putting things together. “You knew about the journal, Bri?”

  “Of course I knew about the stupid journal!” Brian shouted. His voice went up half an octave as his aggravation dipped into the red. “What the crap do you people think I’ve been doing for the past three years? Just sitting back and waiting for the world to fall apart? I finally had it all sorted! There was a plan! And this newly reformed, previously amoral idiot just blew it all to kingdom come!”

  Brandt had the nerve to look offended.

  “Is that really all the credit I get for doing the right thing in this situation?” Brandt asked, bemused. “Being blamed for ruining a plan I was told nothing about?”

  “The right thing?!” Brian sputtered. “The right thing would have been to burn the stupid book and keep my father’s secret in the past where it belonged! You weren’t supposed to suddenly sprout a conscience and then choose to betray my dad!”

  “You wanted him to burn the book?” Declan’s voice was filled with surprise. “Why?”

  “So you would shelve your plans to pick up your purchase from The Corner Pocket for a while,” said Brian. “Alex was never supposed to leave the compound tonight, Decks.”

  Declan paled, his complexion turning gray beneath the dark smudges that marked his face.

  Brandt ignored their exchange, his angry glower still fixated on Brian.

  “No conscience?” Brandt scoffed. “Well, therein lies the root of your mistake, child. You held not one, but two major misconceptions regarding the content of my character. The first being that I’ve been operating all these years entirely without scruples… and the second being that I would forever remain loyal to a man like Jonathan Grayson.”

  “Okay, that’s it,” Nate said, stepping in between them. “What the hell are you three babbling about? What secret? What purchase? And what book?”

  There followed a tense silence wherein Declan, Brian, and Brandt exchanged a series of heady looks while Kenzie and Nate watched on in confusion.

  “Well, clearly,” Brandt began, “I can’t be trusted to divulge the proper revelations to the proper individuals at the proper hour, so I believe I’ll leave the answering of those rather interesting queries to the two of you.”

  Declan turned to Brian, holding up his hands in either exhaustion or surrender. It was tough to tell which.

  “You know what? It’s your call this time, Bri,” he said. “Alex and I weren’t going to say anything to anyone until we had more proof, anyway. If you really do know so much about it, then I guess… I’ll trust your judgment.”

  Nate turned expectantly to Brian, his face a mask of utter confusion.

  “Well?” said Nate.

  Brian thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No. Not yet, Nate. I’m sorry. This is something you need to hear from my dad. Firsthand. The way you were meant to hear it, before everything changed tonight.”

  Nate blew out a breath and stalked back toward the Charger.

  “Fine,” he said tiredly. “We have more important issues to deal with right now, anyway.”

  “Where are you going?” asked Declan.

  “Seattle. That’s assuming the show you put on a few minutes ago wasn’t just a one-off, Decks,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re gonna need a place to lay low until we can locate the others. I’ve got a hideout in mind, but I’d prefer not to make another cross-country road trip. Brian? Think you can conjure a few visions and figure out where everyone’s at?”

  He shrugged. “I mean, it’ll take some time, but—”

  “Get on it,” Nate barked, shoving the driver’s seat back in place and then sliding into the Charger. “The rest of you either get in the damn car or get ready to get real acquainted with the local wildlife when I leave your asses behind.”

  Brian sighed as he trailed behind the others.

  Seattle Nate was back, it seemed. Lousy attitude and all.

  Bri
an knew Declan must be equally vexed after Brandt called shotgun and his brother didn’t even bother to argue.

  Reaching the passenger side, Declan bent double and tugged at the seat control.

  Nothing happened.

  “I’m starting to think the Charger just has a thing against O’Connells,” Brian mumbled.

  Nate sighed. “It really would explain a lot.”

  He waved a hand and popped the seat release easily using his telekinesis.

  Brian followed Declan into the backseat, settling onto the uncomfortable hump in the middle as his sister climbed in after him.

  They made the jump to a small lot off the side of a forgotten highway just north of Seattle. They’d been driving for nearly five minutes before Kenzie finally spoke, her voice low and shaky in the darkness of the backseat.

  “Hey, Bri?”

  “Yeah, Kenzie?”

  “Those visions you shared with me… Back when Alex and Declan were lost in the past. Back when you were still trying to convince me of everything that was at stake…”

  “What about them?”

  “Does this mean…” Kenzie’s voice broke. In the soft glow from the dashboard lights, he could see her eyes filling with tears. “Does this mean we can’t avoid it, now?”

  Brian shook his head. “I don’t know, Red,” he said. “But if there is some other path we can take… I haven’t seen it yet.”

  Reaching over, she took hold of his hand in the darkness, entwining her fingers with his and holding on tight.

  Twenty

  It was the pain that finally forced Alex to open her eyes. The white hot torment of a knife’s edge piercing the back of her neck and shooting up into the base of her skull. Impossible to ignore, it launched her toward consciousness with an agonized scream.

  “She’s resisting,” said a voice.

  “Of course she is,” said another. “Dial up the intensity.”

  “But we’re already past—”

  “Do it anyway.”

  The world went black…

  And then white.

  Alex drifted through the fog, the pain flowing further and further away until it could be forgotten entirely.