Betrayed by Blood: The Shelton Family Legacy : 1

by L. A. McGinnis

  “Angus Calder.”

  “My mother sent you to scout ahead, right? Keep an eye out in case I’d managed to escape?” He nodded, blisters forming on his face.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know…” My words trailed off as I saw a bald pate rise above a dune, then disappear. The tweedled dees were on the move, and I’d draw too much attention if I had to contend with them too. Better to ask my questions and live to fight another day. “How did Bennett know how to find me?”

  “Above my pay grade, I’m afraid. I was just the backup.”

  “Of course, you were. Was there ever any money?” I flicked out a finger and a stream of plasma flew past his face, melting the sand into a shiny patch of glass.

  He hesitated for a second, then his eyes shifted to the still-glowing circle a few inches from his nose. I prepared to defend myself as he raised a hand, but he only wiped the sand from his mouth before he spoke. “The twins are supposed to bring it. Once the exchange is made, we’re supposed to let Bennett go. That’s all I know. Like I said, I was just here to keep an eye out for anything… odd.”

  “You know they’re killing Elementals? These people you work for.”

  “Never been proven,” Calder answered, but he had that tone where he knew it was true. “I’m just here for a paycheck.”

  “You’re killing your own kind, and I happen to know my mother pays like shit. Unfortunately, I can’t be around when the twins arrive, or this will turn into a firefight.” I sized him up. “I’ve already hit my quota of people I’ve incinerated, so you get lucky.” He must have been running in nothing but adrenaline, because with my words, he faceplanted into the sand, unconscious.

  I limped over and picked up the phone, then slid down the side to the bottom of the dune before hobbling toward the parking lot. The twins were about thirty feet off the mark, searching closer to the shoreline, instead of where I was, struggling to get my ass back to the car before I had to actually run.

  I paused at the rear of the twin’s car, wondering if I should even bother. I mean, everyone lies, right? But I had to check, so I pushed a sliver of fire into the lock, leaving a small, smoking hole. When I flipped the trunk lid open, miracle of miracles, there was a leather duffel in the center of the pristine carpet, and it was freaking heavy.

  I heaved it out of the twin’s car, dropped the trunk, and pulled out of the parking lot before they made it back. Although, I did catch a glimpse of two bald heads in my rearview, and boy, did they look sunburned.

  35

  I ended up back at Gabriel’s, despite my best intentions, and even made it all the way upstairs until ham-sandwich guy told me I was a person non gratis. Actually, he politely said Gabriel was resting, but it was the same thing.

  “I’ll wait,” I insisted, putting my back to the wall, even though my ankle was killing me.

  I’d slept a few hours in the car, parked most inconveniently in front of the “No Parking” sign, and woke to a pile of tickets beneath the wiper blade. I figured Gabriel could afford the fines.

  By the time Henry emerged, hours had passed, and I was slouched on the floor, exhausted and hurting. HSG’s worried gaze darted to me, then to Henry, who finally sighed and waved toward the half-open door.

  “Who knew you could be so persistent, Miranda? Come in. I’ll let Gabriel know you’re here.” He turned to watch me make my way inside. “I have to warn you. Don’t expect too much from him, he’s pretty drugged up.” Henry disappeared through Gabriel’s bedroom door, and I figured I’d better brush up on my bedside manner, suddenly wishing I’d brought flowers.

  I limped to the closest chair and fell into it, praying I could talk Gabriel into this one last thing.

  Since his viral worm destroyed everything in Devilton’s databanks, namely all digital files, he… we were now the only people who had proof of what happened in the prison. We could prove what the government did, the level of Shelton’s involvement, and put a stop to it for good.

  Of course, this was all predicated on Gabriel actually listening to me, Daws not interfering, and Henry… well, he’d gotten me through the door, so he was on my ally list at the moment.

  I heard shuffling steps and turned in time to catch Gabriel as he stepped out of his bedroom. I hadn’t expected the sight of him to hit me like a punch. For a guy who’d just been shot, Gabriel looked… good. Far too pale, with dark purple shadows beneath his eyes, but he was up and moving.

  “Painkillers and stubbornness,” Henry commented softly from behind as he followed Gabriel’s slow progress. “Don’t let him fool you, he’s hurting.”

  “What are you doing up?” I scolded, well aware I only had one shoe on and my other ankle was roughly the size of a telephone pole. “You should be in bed.”

  “I thought you were gone.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m like a virus, around for at least a couple of days.” His gaze trickled over me while I tried to decide if it was colder than usual or if I was imagining things. “I know how to play this thing with the Sheltons.”

  “Play… what, Miranda?”

  Yup, definitely not my imagination, Gabriel was mad at me. He only called me by my full name when I’d really pissed him off.

  “Let’s face it, the Sheltons and the government will never be convicted in any real court. The only way to get this story out there is to let it play out in the court of public opinion.” I paused as my ankle throbbed. “You have the proof, right?”

  “We do, and I’ve already thought about this. We give the information to the DA, and he’ll have no option but to pursue it.”

  “We, as in Gabriel Vanguard of Vanguard Enterprises, who’s word is gold and who’s reputation is untarnished? Or we, as in a ragtag group of soldiers fighting for what’s right and good?”

  From the way he rolled his eyes, I knew he’d already considered this, but I explained anyway. “You can’t use a shred of this data to prove your case, it’s all contaminated. We stole the information, it won’t be admissible in court, and everyone walks free, once again.”

  I watched him carefully as I told him, “You can’t associate yourself with any of this, you’ll lose everything. I’m a wanted felon, and Henry and Daws….” I shook my hand at Henry. “I don’t exactly know who they are, but they don’t have the political clout to bring anyone to justice.”

  “What do you suggest?” Gabriel dropped into the chair next to me. Up close, I saw he was sweating from the effort, beads forming on his upper lip, his color not good at all. When he saw me notice, he gestured impatiently, “I’m fine. What’s your plan?”

  “The Sheltons own a total of fourteen tele-global channels, two of the big three in social media platforms, and countless news outlets. I say we fill up every Shelton channel with what happened at Devilton. I say we use their own stations against them.”

  Before the Surge, television—especially the news—had become entertainment-based. That all changed after the event, when humans realized their very survival depended on accurate information. As long as I’d been alive, the media was held to strict guidelines enforced by the government. A hundred years ago, they would have called this propaganda.

  Now we just called it news night.

  “How do you propose we do that, ask them if they’d like to run a special report?”

  “No silly.” I tried to kick him but my foot wouldn’t move. “We hijack their signals and upload a video of what happened. Old school stuff, we could have Henry change forms and black out his face or something. Show footage of inside the lab, Dr. Death had videos and pictures.”

  “Like in that vintage movie?”

  “Exactly like that.” When we were eight, we’d discovered pre-Surge crime dramas, spent hours watching them, and countless more hours dissecting them. “We stage it like a crime scene, lay out all the facts, then plant the proof into social media pages where it can be easily accessed by the public. Once it’s everywhere, then the DA will have no choice but to pursue the case.”

  “
Could work,” Gabriel mused, while Henry hovered close, pretending not to listen to every word. “It would be easy enough to mask the digital trail and leave no trace.”

  “I knew you built this company for something,” I teased, laughter rising up, at least until Gabriel slumped into me, my arms going around him to keep him from hitting the floor.

  “I told him he was a stubborn bastard, but he wanted to walk out here on his own two feet,” Henry grumbled, unscrewing a cap from his water bottle. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he wanted to impress you.”

  My heart warmed at the thought, at least until Henry splashed the water on Gabriel’s face, covering me in the process. It dripped from my hair down onto Gabriel’s face, his blue eyes wide open. “That was from Henry, not me,” I hastily explained as he tried to push himself off of me. “The water I mean.”

  His arms shook as he pushed back to a sitting position, the white shirt sticking to his torso in the most inappropriate way. I would have offered to help, but I could barely stand myself, and I doubted he wanted to collapse twice in one day.

  Henry wrangled him to his feet, then started in the direction of his bed. Gabriel course-corrected over to his desk, his fingers typing before his butt hit the seat. “Just let me get this started,” he muttered. With a sigh, I unlaced my other boot, then padded awkwardly over to watch his progress.

  “What happened to your foot?”

  “I was in the trunk of Bennett’s car when the magic released. It made for a fun ride.”

  I didn’t want to go back over what happened in the woods. I’d tell him someday, hopefully the day we were sipping margaritas on a beach and laughing about this entire thing.

  His lips clamped together. “You were lucky he didn’t kill you in that parking lot.”

  “I thought he was going to,” I admitted, watching him reconstruct a timeline for Devilton going back eight years. “He was out for the reward. Apparently, I’m worth more alive than dead. Imagine that.”

  The sharp sniff behind me clued me into Daws presence, a waft of her heavy perfume tickling my nose. “I thought you weren’t coming back here?” she asked, her voice dangerously soft, like a mama bear sensing a threat.

  “One last thing,” I assured her, my focus on the screen in front of me and Gabriel’s increased labored breathing. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze of encouragement. “I’d like to see this finished, and the Sheltons get their due.”

  “Is that so?” Daws asked, hanging her heavy coat over the back of a chair. “Or did you come back for something else?” Beneath my hand, Gabriel went perfectly still, not even breathing. I knew me answering that question honestly would only confuse him. But I wasn’t about to lie, either.

  “I came back for Gabriel,” I confessed, even though I knew admitting it was a mistake. I moved my hand to the crook of Gabriel’s neck, and he began breathing again.

  “But not to stay. To keep him from making a mistake.” He stiffened up as I rubbed my palm across his shoulder, then let it fall away as I faced Dawson in all of her aqua glory. “You see, I happen to agree with you. You were right, I shouldn’t be anywhere around him. He can’t afford me jeopardizing everything he’s built. But I have to make sure the Sheltons and the government pay for what they’ve done.”

  A flash of the empty beds came back to me, as well as the nauseating smell of blood and urine. I wondered if I’d ever smell it again and not think of that day.

  “I’m sorry,” I told Gabriel softly. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

  “I’m in,” he murmured as his hands flew across the keyboard. “The Shelton media outlets have a single back door, run through a management firm. I’m stringing together a series of video clips from the doctor, lab footage, and news film from the explosion yesterday. I’ll hijack the signals and upload our feed into the existing schedule.” His gaze flickered to mine. “Then I’ll dump the corresponding data into all the social media platforms, and let the masses sort it all out. Within a few hours, there will be thousands, if not millions of posts detailing what happened.”

  “And then you’ll leave for good,” Daws added, her gaze riveted on my hand—the one formerly on Gabriel’s shoulder—her expression indecipherable.

  But something told me this time, I’d be leaving for good, and she’d make sure of it.

  36

  I never answered Dawson, maybe because I didn’t know what to do.

  I didn’t want to leave.

  I wanted to stay here with Gabriel, fighting bad guys and foiling evil government plots. Besides, none of this, even if it did work, solved the looming problem of the coming Surge. In a few months, the world as we knew it would end, and unless Gabriel used his super brain to come up with a solution, we were all toast.

  Of course, there was something satisfying in showing the world how corrupt my family was, and how far-reaching government controls had become. But like I said, none of that mattered in the long term.

  Which led me to my real dilemma. Did I want to face the end of the world alone in a strange city? Or face it with Gabriel, making a difference, doing something to help prepare humanity for disaster?

  No matter how I worked the problem, I always chose Gabriel.

  I glanced at the holo display, counting down the minutes. We’d decided to upload the video at ten thirty, just before the news, giving it ample time to percolate through social media before being picked up by the major networks.

  That was an hour ago.

  I now had four screens up, plus a wide display for gauging internet traffic. Right now, social media was saturated with conspiracy theories, the story trending on every major platform. On the next display, I watched as they cut to a shot of a local reporter in front of the containment building, gesturing wildly as Devilton guards tried to drag him and the camera man away.

  Henry had managed to smuggle a good number of the prisoners to a safe location, where they were reunited with their families, and safely out of the government’s reach.

  All Shelton media outlets were in full-blown panic mode, shell-shocked reporters gazing wide eyed at the cameras as they read canned responses from their higher ups, denying any knowledge of Devilton or a conspiracy or an impending solar disaster.

  This was perfect. The story couldn’t be ignored, and there was no way the Sheltons could ever explain away the sheer amount of evidence. My family was finally going to get what was coming to them, and I’d actually lived to see it.

  Never say there was no such thing as miracles.

  Not only that, Devilton would be shut down, investigated, and all the families who lost loved ones would get some closure. This was the outcome we’d hoped for, and I perused the incoming reports with a growing sense of relief.

  Gabriel was in bed, and I’d even managed to grab a couple hours of sleep. I’d woken up to Henry informing me I was in charge of monitoring public response before we uploaded our pièce de la résistance. A short vid of Sophia Shelton and Dr. Death, the lab on full display behind them, complete with the ghastly experimentation equipment. A couple minutes more, and then we’d see if this was enough to convict them.

  When the new file uploaded, I watched online traffic skyrocket, before I heard a faint crash from Gabriel’s room.

  He’d fought against going to back to bed, his stubborn ass willing to stroke out rather than walk away from this for a second. Daws had finally convinced him to lay down for a few minutes, and Henry had practically dragged him to his room.

  I gingerly settled my weight on my foot, then scuffled across the floor toward Gabriel’s door. I didn’t even stop to think, didn’t stop at all as I bulldozed through the door, instantly engulfed in darkness.

  “Shut the door,” Gabriel said, and I did, thankful to have something to lean against.

  “Over here.” His voice husked out of the shadows, and I did the air-claw thing while I walked forward until my knees hit the edge of his bed.

  “Sit down.”

 
I plopped my ass on the edge of his bed, kind of pissed he was giving me orders, but kind of intrigued by how I felt about him giving me orders. The edgy, fluttery feeling in my stomach indicated just how pleased I was to be here in the darkness, waiting for him to tell me what to do next.

  “I’m sorry I got you shot,” I nervously confessed, the instant I was seated. “I didn’t know… I didn’t even think about Bennett. In the middle of everything, I forgot about him. Some detective, huh?”

  In answer, a finger reached out and stroked down my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

  “And then,” I told him, my voice higher, “I let that asshole throw me in a trunk.”

  “If I remember correctly, he was going to shoot me in the head.” His voice was rough, the sound traveling up and down my spine like a lover’s touch.

  “Well, he was,” I admitted, possibly leaning in a bit so his finger stroked up the side of my neck. “But still…”

  “Shut up, Andy,” Gabriel said while he wrapped a hand firmly around the back of my head, his mouth finding mine as he pushed me down into the bed. “Just shut up for once.” His mouth met mine, forcing my lips wide, his tongue delving in deep and hard.

  Fuck, but he could kiss.

  My hands went around the back of his head, pulling him closer, and he groaned in satisfaction. He tasted like salt and spice mixed together, and I’d dreamed my entire life of kissing Gabriel Vanguard just like this, tangled together in the darkness with just our heartbeats between us.

  Gabriel broke away just long enough to growl, “Where the hell have you been?” Then kissed me even harder. I kissed him right back, knowing exactly how he felt. I’d thought about him too much, for too long for me not to understand.

  After our tongues tangled, I pulled away with a gasp. “I’m right here now, Gabriel. Right in front of you.” He shuddered when I ran a hand down him, my fingernail dragging between his pecs. Then he pinned me to the mattress, his body heat sinking into me as we writhed together, trying to find a comfortable position until he sank against me, his hips between my thighs.