by Dean Murray
Alec shook his head. "No, you're right, but don't leave. We need to talk about Taggart's accusations. I haven't intentionally betrayed anyone, but he's got a point. Someone told the Coun'hij to expect an attack here."
Isaac looked doubtful. "But using a plane like Brandon just did is the perfect insertion method for countering an ambush anywhere along the route. It doesn't necessarily mean that we were betrayed."
We all sat in silence for a couple of seconds before Carson frowned. "No, I think that Alec is right. There were far too many hybrids with Brandon and there were more enforcers with the caravan than I would have expected. They came ready to fight a force several times as big as anything we should have been able to field."
"Exactly. They either knew about both our groups, or they knew about one of the groups and the fact that we had Grayson or Heath along to even out the odds."
Alec's words had obviously given Isaac something to think about. "It's possible it came from my side of things. I have a high degree of trust in my people, but all it would have taken is for someone to call the next point in the communication chain rather than meeting in person like they were supposed to. It's always much harder to tell if someone is lying over the phone."
The way that Alec closed his eyes made it seem as though for a second the weight of all of the responsibility had become too much for him. He looked like a man who wanted to drop his burden and walk away from everything. Hopeless fights to the death were something Alec could take in stride, but doubting friends and allies looked like it was a step too far for him.
It was only an instant. The three of us saw a rare moment of weakness and then it was gone. Alec opened his eyes and once again he was the strong rock that you could build something lasting on.
"Okay, please follow up as much as possible with your people. Do it yourself wherever possible or delegate to one or two very trusted individuals. We want to keep this as quiet as possible or we'll have people defecting back to the Coun'hij in droves."
Isaac nodded. "If it was one of my people I'll find out and they'll be punished."
"Thanks. I almost hope it is on your side, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. Shawn Bishop was supposed to show up with a bunch of help. Since he didn't, I can only assume that he got cold feet and decided he'd be better off running to the Coun'hij."
"That's terrible news on practically every level. If the Chicago pack has started to shift towards the Coun'hij, then there's nothing left to stop the Coun'hij from going after people like Jaclyn Annikov."
It was Isaac who had spoken again, but Carson seemed fully in agreement with Isaac's analysis of the situation. Alec gave him a chance to interject, but the older hybrid simply waved Alec on.
"Yeah, it means that the battle lines have finally been drawn. We might have a few weeks, maybe even a few months, but sooner or later the Coun'hij is going to try and purge all of the dissident elements. We need to come up with a plan before then that will let us get groups like Jaclyn and her people out alive wherever possible."
"And if it's not possible?"
Carson wasn't questioning Alec, he was just asking what we were all thinking.
"Then we have to make sure that the Coun'hij loses a lot more people than they kill. We're only going to get one chance at this. We need to ensure that the balance of power doesn't get any worse or none of us will live to see next year."
"We're going to have to come up with a counter for Brandon soon or nothing else we do is going to matter."
Carson stood and put a hand on his sword. "You're right, Isaac. I can train Alec in use of his weapon, but even that might not be enough. We'll either need another equalizer or we'll need the perfect set of circumstances. I will think on this."
As Carson gravely pulled his sword out from Agony's chest, Isaac also stood. The two of them picked up Agony's body and carried him in the direction that Taggart had gone. It was just Alec and I now and there weren't any listening ears close enough to overhear whatever we might choose to say.
"I really am sorry, Adri. That night we talked, when you came into my dream, it was the most amazing experience I've ever had."
"Then why didn't you come looking for me?"
"I didn't remember the dream until recently. It's the oddest thing, I've been having dreams about you for years, but they were just dreams. I remembered them, or at least remembered most of them when I woke up, but I didn't remember the one and only time that I actually met you."
I didn't know what to say to that. My emotions were such a tangled mess that it was going to take weeks to even begin to sort them out. I'd gone from loving Alec to hating him and back so many times over the last week and a half that I didn't even know which way was up anymore.
Alec seemed to be waiting for me to respond, but after nearly a full minute of silence, he took matters into his own hands.
"Come with me. I can't guarantee your safety, nobody can make a guarantee like that in the world we live in, but I want to get to know you. There's a hole inside of me. I don't notice it most of the time because I'm not some kind of broken shard of a person, but it's there. It's like a splinter that I can't help but worry at, only when you're around it's not a bad thing because the hole was perfectly designed for you. It's like we fit together, like we were meant for each other."
"So you just want me around to complete some kind of metaphysical ratchet set?"
"No, I want you around because of how I feel around you. You're good and brave. You risked your life to save Carson and me. You care about people and you try to do the right thing even when it costs you. I've spent less than an hour around you, but I can already see that. I want to get to know you better and yet I'm scared you'll send me away because how could perfection ever agree to spend time with me?"
Tears started to pool in the corners of my eyes. What he'd just said was incredible. Maybe it wouldn't have been right for another girl, but it was right for me. It was almost exactly how I felt about him.
That was why my emotions were such a mess. A part of me had never doubted him, had never believed he could be anything other than perfect, but another part—a very big, vocal part of me—had been convinced that someone like Alec could never want someone like me.
A pair of tears broke free and started their slow-motion race down my cheeks as I reached over and took hold of Alec's hand. I wasn't as confident as Carson was that I couldn't be addicted to a shape shifter's touch. Being dependent on anyone to that degree scared me to death, but somehow in that instant it didn't matter. I needed to touch him as much as he needed to touch me.
"I'd really like that, Alec. I can't think of anything that I want more than that right now, but Taggart needs me. He's all alone and he doesn't have as much self-control as you do. He's going to need someone to lean on and I'm the last person left that he trusts."
Alec closed his eyes as if to deny me the heartache lapping up from the depths of his being. It was still there, easily readable in the set of his mouth and the defeat in his posture, but somehow he was right. Seeing it in his eyes had been the worst part.
"You'll sacrifice your happiness, our happiness, for your friend?"
"Yes. He's not just any friend. He's saved my life twice already and he's never asked me for anything other than friendship, but even if that wasn't the case I'd still be going with him."
"I respect your decision; I just wish I could understand."
I reached up and guided Alec's face back towards me. He opened his eyes and I gave him a sad smile of my own.
"You already understand, you just don't realize it. What would you say if I asked you to come with Taggart and me?"
"I'd refuse. I have duties. To my sister, Rachel, to my friends and to everyone who wants to overthrow my father and the others like him."
The admission obviously cost him, but I already knew Alec well enough to know that he wasn't going to lie to me, not about something this important.
"See, you understand perfectly. It's no different for me. I doubted ou
r fight for a while, but I'm every bit as committed to it as any of you are. The resistance needs Taggart and it needs me. The two of us will be infinitely more effective working together and by staying with him I can serve as a bridge between the two of you. He's going to need to learn to trust you if we're going to have any kind of chance of winning."
I raised the hand I'd been holding and turned it over. I looked at his hand, a hand that had killed today, a hand that had saved lives, and then I brought it up to cup my face. I kissed his palm and then I stood and walked away without looking back.
I almost expected him to stop me. Part of me wanted him to force me to stay, but deep down I knew he wouldn't. Alec couldn't do that and still be Alec.
Chapter 25
Samantha Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah
Samantha was sitting in her waiting room, enjoying the sunlight on the back of her neck while she played her piano, when it happened. Kaleb stormed into her suite without waiting to be announced, without observing any of the normal formalities that had come to dominate their relationship over the nearly two decades that they'd been married.
Kaleb picked up a potted rose, a miniaturized specimen that had been a gift from him in happier times, and threw it through the large window directly opposite the doorway from the main house. The pot was heavy enough that a human would have had to exert themselves to get it airborne.
There was a casualness to Kaleb's motion that was belied by the fact that the pot hit directly where four panes of glass met. The heavy earthenware container shattered upon impact but not before it destroyed the metal supporting all four panes of glass and caused a deadly rain of razor-edged fragments.
Anyone sitting underneath the glass would have been killed. The rose was sliced into dozens of pieces. It was a small thing against everything else that had just happened, but that miniature rose was one of only two that had survived so many years. Samantha had never possessed Kaleb's green thumb. Most of the roses he'd given her had long since died.
The nearest shard landed a mere four feet from where Samantha was sitting, but that wasn't the terrifying part of the experience. The really scary part was the fact that Kaleb seemed so controlled. He was always the most dangerous when he was riding his rage rather than letting it ride him.
"Agony's convoy was attacked an hour and a half ago. By Alec."
Samantha tried to keep her feelings off of her face, but it was so hard to play these kinds of games with someone with the native advantages that Kaleb enjoyed.
"You'll be happy to know that Alec's people wiped out my men quite handily. Their attack was well-executed and they seemed to have brought along someone with a rather unique ability."
"Maybe, or maybe Alec has finally manifested the power that you and Mallory have been anticipating for so long."
Kaleb's smile had a cruel edge to it. "I don't think so. If he had, he would have used it when Brandon dropped a secondary force in his lap and nearly killed him. I'm just sorry we didn't manage to get Oblivion down there too. He and Brandon would have made an unstoppable team."
Samantha couldn't help but gasp, but it was a small gasp and in its own way it served her purpose as well. It always paid off to make Kaleb think she was weaker than she actually was. It was one of the few advantages she had over him. He was conditioned to think of himself as superior in every way. It meant he underestimated her, not frequently, but often enough.
"It was a trap."
"Of course it was a trap. Do you really think I would have let you get access to that information by accident or out of incompetence? I worked very hard to make sure that you and Jack would think that the intelligence I'd passed you was clean. It was Jack, wasn't it?"
This time Samantha managed to keep her face even and her breathing unchanged, but that just made Kaleb smile.
"I had my suspicions when Alec was able to fight his way out of the welcoming committee that I'd arranged for him when he flew back from the Caymans. He couldn't have done that without help and he'd had very limited opportunities to make the kind of contacts he would have needed to pull off that kind of unexpected miracle. Brandon just confirmed my suspicions. He saw several of Jack's people before he was chased off. He didn't see Jack though. Pity, I'd hoped to kill my old friend myself."
Samantha waited. Kaleb invariably let more drop when she just let him talk than when she tried to get information out of him with leading questions.
"The most interesting thing out of all of this is that you knew it was a trap, but you didn't tell Jack or Alec that. I made every effort to convince you that you'd stumbled upon the kind of intelligence windfall that the resistance needed and yet you still knew what I was really planning and arranged to have a second group there to bail Alec out when Brandon tried to shut the jaws of the trap."
"Maybe I just wanted to protect Alec. Maybe I didn't know it was a trap but I couldn't help but make every arrangement I could in order to try and protect my only son."
Kaleb's laugh was a biting, caustic thing. "We've known each other for too long for those kinds of ploys to work on me, dearest. You're much too experienced a manipulator to let something like sentiment get in the way of your larger goals. You wanted to weaken me, both in real terms and with regards to my position on the Coun'hij.
"Just remember, I'm not the worst thing you need to fear. There are forces out there that are much less understanding than I am, but they aren't any more dangerous than me. Even when I lose, I still win. How likely is Dream Stealer to trust you next time you provide him with a tasty bit of information? For that matter, how much confidence are you going to have the next time you think you've ferreted out some piece that I don't want you to know about?
"All roads lead to me, Samantha. It's only a matter of time before you figure that out. It was obvious that Alec needed more motivation to manifest his power than I'd managed to provide him while he was part of my pack. I think that's all about to change though."
Kaleb turned and left without another word. Samantha rose and picked her way across the shards of glass. She managed to hold off the tremors until she got the door closed and made it into her bedroom. Once she was safe, she couldn't keep from shaking. The fit didn't stop for more than an hour.
Chapter 26
Shawn Bishop
The Bishop Compound
The Outskirts of Chicago, Illinois
Shawn and his dad were in his dad's office when the text arrived. Shawn looked at his phone and then slid it across his father's desk.
"Alec pulled it off. I don't have any idea how he managed it, but another group showed up and bailed him out at the last minute."
Ulrich read the text and set Shawn's phone down with the same impassive face that he usually displayed to the rest of the world. Shawn had heard whispers inside the pack to the effect that Ulrich only felt two emotions. Anger and a mildly-interested clinical detachment. Both emotions were potentially dangerous to those around him.
"You're angry."
"Yeah, but to be fair, I'm not really mad at you. This was as much my decision as it was yours, I'm just pissed off at the situation. If Vicki and I had gone down there like we'd originally planned we could have prevented some of the losses that Alec took and maybe we could have even killed Brandon."
Ulrich nodded. "I know. Believe it or not, I feel the same way. Alec Graves didn't save my life, but he saved yours, which counts for a lot with me. It was just too dangerous. Someone leaked Alec's plan to the Coun'hij, which meant that there wasn't going to be any hope of keeping your involvement a secret.
"If Kaleb and the others ever realize that we're actively working against them they'll risk everything in a bid to wipe out us and every other pack that's ever even looked at them sideways. Even repaying Alec Graves for your life isn't worth that."
Shawn dropped his head down so that his face was resting in his hands. "I know, I'm not trying to say that you don't appreciate what he did, it's…oh, I don't know. It's mo
re than just his actions that made me want to trust him. He's the real deal, Dad.
"I think he's what Jaldul or Thanatas must have been like. I practically wanted to kneel down and swear fealty to him. I didn't of course, but the desire was there."
"He's not going to make it much longer, Shawn. You're right, his heart is in the right place, but he's in over his head, even more than he realizes he is. Kaleb and the others will eventually crush him, it's only a matter of time."
"Do you really think we can change things?"
Ulrich shrugged. "We're up against some of the best, Shawn. Kaleb has been manipulating people since before you were born and he graduated to the major leagues pretty early on. The fact that there are two of us gives us more options than I used to have, and the fact that our pack is so large gives us leverage, but when you get right down to it we're just treading water."
"I know. You explained the plan to me when I was twelve. I understand it and I agree with it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."
Ulrich reached one massive arm across the desk and rested it on his son's shoulder. "It's going to happen eventually. No repressive government can stay strong indefinitely. Eventually they'll misstep or some young hybrid will manifest a game-changing ability. When that happens we'll be ready to throw our weight behind the resistance and make the overthrow much less bloody than it otherwise would have been."
"I sure hope so, but I worry every day that we're going to wait too long to act and find ourselves boxed into a corner we can't fight our way out of."
—The Story Continues in Shattered—
Curious how all of the pieces of the Reflection Universe fit together? Check out the Reflections Reading Order Diagram on my blog.
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