“Before you say anything else, I know what the next thing I have to acknowledge is.”
He was confused and shook his head. “What?”
“Gregory.”
He stopped walking and turned to face her on the cold, dark street. A distance away a lamp flickered, and he realized it was strangely quiet for a busy avenue. Shrugging, he reminded himself he’d never been to Brooklyn before. It was certainly quieter than Manhattan. Maybe it was just the rain keeping people indoors.
“Someone had to have tipped her off that we were on our way over here. Unless we’re being followed.” He gave a cursory glance around the street.
“Then Greg tipped them off.” She looked at the ground, and he hoped she wasn’t about to cry. Addison had been so brave this entire time. If she lost it now, he wasn’t sure what he would do. “He’s been with my family for longer than I have. He drove my parents to the hospital to have me. He carried Jeremy in his arms when we buried my sister. He takes him back and forth to school every day. How can he have involved himself in this?”
He could only imagine how her world had to be tilting on its axis right now.
“You’re being betrayed over and over by people in your inner circle. Tell me about your family. What happened to them?”
“Tell me about yours.”
“What?” No one caught him more off guard than she did.
“You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine. I can’t keep trusting you with all this and know nothing about you. I feel too exposed.”
She felt exposed? “I’m trying to help you.”
“I know that, but I can’t keep sharing all this stuff with you. I’m sorry, but one way or another you’re a temporary fixture in my life. People who were supposed to be permanent are betraying me left and right. I think the best thing I can do is stop giving anyone any chance to destroy us.”
“You think I have some sort of agenda here? Something other than doing what you asked me to do, finding Jeremy?”
He wanted to punch something. He didn’t know why her response bothered him so deeply. She was right. The people she had allowed into her inner sanctum had been responsible for taking Jeremy. The smart thing to do was to close down shop and stop giving anyone the chance to keep doing it. But she’d told him she didn’t think he was Hell-bound. That meant something. He should admit it, at least to himself; he wanted her to trust him.
“I think you have a secret agenda.”
“Really?” He heard the cold tone in his voice.
At home, people who knew him would have backed off. Addison seemed to have no sense of self-preservation. She pulled her hand from his and placed both fists on her hips. Despite her fuming, he found her sexy as hell. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to pull her into a doorway and fuck her until they were both panting with pleasure. Instead, he tilted his head to the side to give her an accusing look.
“Everywhere I look I see conspiracy now. Two people I trusted, maybe more, have taken my nephew. They’re missing on the psychic plane. I just happen to go and get the one guy who can see that. Hell, even the building I live in is now suspect based on the materials used to construct it.”
“The building’s construction happened long before either of us was born.”
“Are you trying to piss me off? Okay, then the reasons for living in it.”
“Yes, I’m trying to piss you off, because you made me incredibly mad. I had two agendas in coming here. One, to find your nephew, and two, Rhodes asked me not to piss you off because maybe it would garner some good will with the council. I have failed miserably with the second one.”
Addison groaned, and he noticed how soaking wet she was. He hadn’t even focused on how much harder the rain was getting.
“How could helping me do that?”
“Don’t be an imbecile. Someday you’ll hold your grandfather’s position on the council.”
“No way in hell am I ever taking that job, so you can tell Rhodes he’s stuck wooing my grandfather. The Wades will let that spot go to someone else when he dies.”
Unable to stand it anymore, he pulled her into his arms. “Whatever conspiracy is going on here, I am not a part of it. Do you understand that? Tell me you at least believe that much.”
The tears he’d worried about earlier flooded from her eyes like a dam losing its battle with an onslaught of white water rapids. “I do. I believe you.” Her words were muffled and slurred, like it was taking too much energy for her to cry and speak at the same time. As he looked around, he saw a slight overhang that would give them a little protection from the rain.
Keeping her tucked against him, he moved them beneath it.
“I’m sorry, I never cry.”
He believed her. Addison Wade was not a woman who got hysterical easily. She was as tough as nails, and he wondered what this display of pain would cost her when she thought about it later. He hoped she wouldn’t berate herself for it.
“God, no.”
“What?” He looked down, trying to see what Addison meant, but nothing was visible. She strained her eyes closed and tried to pull from his arms. “What’s going on?”
“Let me go, Spence.” She’d used the name Rhodes called him, and he didn’t think she even knew it.
“No. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m going to lose it. It’s too much emotion. I can’t control it.”
“Can’t control what?” His heart pounded, and his pulse rang in his ears. In his life, he couldn’t remember being this terrified of something he didn’t understand. “Explain to me what’s happening here.”
A surge of energy the likes of which he’d never felt before shuddered from Addison. Behind him, the store window they stood in front of exploded. The sound was deafening. Throwing her to the ground, he had a moment to shield her from the shards of glass that flew everywhere. The woman in his arms shook and sobbed.
She was shouting. “I’ve got to do the rhyme or it won’t stop! I’ve got to make it stop!” Desperation filled the air from the agony in her voice.
“Calm down.” His ears rang, and he had to admit his breath felt shallow. He was frightened of what had just happened. He wasn’t sure whether the glass shards had cut him, and he wasn’t ready to move yet to find out. If he’d been hurt and he didn’t feel it, that wouldn’t be a good sign in terms of how injured he was. Clearly, Addison was more than she appeared to be. He could be pissed about it later. For now, he had to get this situation under control, and fast.
“What rhyme?”
“It’s something I say to make it stop.”
The rhyme. Damn, now he remembered the children’s rhyme he’d heard that had driven him into Rhodes’ office back at Safe Dawn. He’d heard a singsong nursery rhyme in his head and assumed it was one of the juveniles, but no, it had been her. She used it as her shield? The girl had enough power to shatter a window and she used nothing more than a rhyme to stop her power flux? She was lucky she wasn’t dead. Hell, the whole city was lucky they weren’t dead.
“Okay, let’s do it together. I’ll help you.” And then he’d figure out whether he was bleeding to death.
“I can’t even think. I can’t seem to say it. What’s happening to me?”
“Addison, listen to me.” He put his mouth close to her ear and tried to speak softly, hoping that she would pick up his tone and relax a little bit. “You can’t say the rhyme because you use it as a shield, and right now you’re too upset to properly put your shields in place. So the first thing you need to do is calm down before you break any more windows.” Please don’t let her break any more windows.
“I think I can help with that, Spencer.”
His head shot up at the sound of a voice he’d hoped never to hear again in this lifetime: Roman. How had he snuck up on him? Well, he supposed, that was obvious. He was lying on the ground with shards of glass in his back, trying to stop Addison from destroying them.
To be found by the Fury in these circu
mstances made the agony of the whole thing even worse. What was he going to tell them about Addison? He couldn’t allow them to take her. That much he was clear about. He’d find a way to save her from this.
“I’m feeling calmer.” Addison’s voice shook a little bit less, which was a relief.
“That’s because Roman is tempering your power. It’s what he does. He’s like Rhodes; he can dampen the Condition. But unlike Will, he can also do other things. Terrible things. So we’re going to stand up slowly and not make any sudden moves.”
Roman laughed. “Despite what you think of me, Spence, I’m not going to shoot the girl in the head as we stand here on the street.”
“I take it you two know each other.” Addison’s voice sounded shaky but steadier than a few moments before.
Spencer had to give Roman credit. His brief seconds with them had done far more to calm Addison down than he ever could have.
Running his hands through her hair, he reassured himself that she was alive, well, and not about to die from a power surge she couldn’t possibly control without instruction.
“Careful how you move; you’ve got pieces of glass all over your back. I can’t tell in the darkness if any of them have pierced your sweater.” Roman paused. “Why the hell aren’t you wearing a coat?”
“Because I gave it to the girl. It’s called chivalry.” He hoped his tone implied how annoyed he really was by the question. Who the hell was Roman to ask him anything?
“No one has told me how you two know each other yet.” He had to give Addison credit; she was determined.
Spencer pulled himself slowly off Addison’s back. Begrudgingly, he admitted to himself that Roman was right. He might not have been seriously hurt, but he did have glass on him, and it stung.
“You know the Fury that you were so worried about? Meet one of its primary members.”
Addison pushed herself into a sitting position that vaguely resembled a small ball. Spencer resisted the urge to pick her up like a baby and carry her back to the car.
“So I guess I’m pretty screwed, right?”
Roman placed his hands in his black coat pockets. “You have the Condition, and you’ve been hiding it your entire life.”
Spencer noted that Roman didn’t phrase that as a question. Clearly, it would have been stupid at this point to assume anything else. Except that he wasn’t letting Roman take Addison. Those who entered the institutions as adults did not do well under their treatments. One out of three died. He didn’t like those odds for Addison. Not one bit.
He cleared his throat. “I blew up the window.”
Roman raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to claim you did this?”
Addison looked back and forth between them. She narrowed her eyes, and he knew what she saw. “There’s something kind of similar about you two.” She stood.
Spencer ignored her remark. “I did. I blew up the window.”
“Then why did I feel the power coming from her?”
“It’s a new development in my Condition. I can force power on other people. I just can’t control it yet.”
“And you expect me to believe that Rhodes would let you out of Safe Dawn if that were true?”
“Yep.”
“Hold it.” Addison’s voice held the authority of being listened to and revered for her entire life. He decided it must be a Wade thing. “This is more than just a Fury thing. You two actually know each other.”
Spencer shook his head. “It’s a Fury thing.”
“He’s my younger brother by eleven months.”
Addison gasped. Spencer could guess what she saw when she looked at the two of them. Roughly the same height, he was maybe one inch taller than Roman. They were both blond, but where his hair curled at the ends and was forever in his eyes, Roman kept his head nearly shaved to the scalp. If he’d let it grow, Spencer knew his brother would have the same curl problem.
Spencer was built like a linebacker and Roman was even broader. Their eyes were shaped the same way, thin and elf-like, but Roman’s color tended toward gray-blue instead of pure blue. He’d gotten that from their mother, and Spencer had always silently resented him for that, among other things, since she was the only parent he remembered. Their noses were the same, but where his face could be considered long, Roman’s was rounder, giving him a more approachable look.
Of the two of them, Spencer had been the only one with a visible sign of his powers. His eyes turning black in the dark place had made him obviously Conditioned, whereas Roman had been able to hide his abilities. That was until Spencer had gotten them both caught. Internally, he shrugged. Just something else he could add to his list of things to feel guilty about.
If he really dwelled on everything that had gone wrong in life, everything he was personally responsible for, he’d never get through the day.
Addison whirled on him. “Your brother is a member of the Fury and you didn’t think to mention that?”
Lowering his voice, he leaned over to whisper in her ear. “As I stand here risking death to take responsibility for your stunning little display, I would remind you that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Illuminated by the nearby streetlight, he could see her cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“I did it. I broke the glass. Take me in.” Spencer turned back to look at Roman and held out his wrists like he wanted to be handcuffed.
“Liar. You never could pull off even the slightest fib, so knock it off.”
“Take me in.” Why couldn’t his brother just do what he wanted for once in his life?
Roman walked over to Addison and extended his hand. She took it. Never before had Spencer wanted to punch out his brother for nothing more than touching a woman. This time he was damn close to actually following through on his desire to pound Roman.
“I have a bit of a problem here, Ms. Wade. Your grandfather put me on to watch Spencer here. I’m not sure what he’ll do if I take you in instead.”
“If my grandfather finds out I’m Conditioned, he’ll be the first person to turn me in.”
“You can’t take her, Roman. You know what will happen to her in there at her age.”
Addison’s cheeks lost their red glow, and she went deathly pale. “What will happen to me?”
“I’m in a difficult position here, Spencer.”
Spencer stalked forward and poked him in the chest. “Bullshit. There’s right and wrong. This would be wrong, and you know it.”
Sneering, Roman rolled his eyes. “The woman just broke a storefront window. We have moments before the police will arrive. How do you suggest we explain it?”
“You tell them I did it. Problem solved.”
“Despite what you think, little brother, I don’t have a desire to turn you back over for rehabilitation. I don’t want to see that happen to you either.”
“I survived them once.”
“You were a child then. There’s no saying you could survive them now.”
If his heart beat any faster, it might explode. “Do you worry this much about every poor soul you drag back to captivity?” Spencer spared a glance for Addison, who had crossed her arms over her chest. Clearly, she was terrified. Good, she should be. It was important that she understand the severity of this.
“No. I don’t.”
Spencer hadn’t expected that answer, and he wasn’t sure what to say.
Addison moved forward and grasped his arm. Her body heat felt good against him. His back had started to ache and her vanilla scent was like a balm for his bleeding soul. Every time Roman showed up, it played havoc with his sanity.
“Spence, maybe he can help us.”
“He can’t.”
She sighed. “Let’s ask him.”
“The worst thing we could do is involve the Fury in this.”
“Help you with what?” Was it his imagination, or did Roman seem genuinely interested?
“My nephew is missing. Spencer is trying to help us find him.”
“Your grandfather said nothing about that.”
She shook her head, and he felt her body shudder. Addison was freezing. They needed to move off of the street sooner rather than later. He opened his mouth, but she grabbed his arm tighter to make him stop.
“I’m not surprised. Anyway, Spence can’t find him because someone is erasing people from the psychic plane.”
Roman shook his head. “But that’s impossible.”
Spencer sighed. “Only it isn’t. So take me in and not Addison. There are much more important things going on here than Addison Wade and her uncontrolled power.”
Roman looked at him. “What does Rhodes say?”
“I haven’t told him yet.”
“Then before we do anything else, we’re going to do that.”
Spencer laughed. “Now you’re giving orders?”
“Enough,” Addison yelled, and she shook hard in his arms. He pulled her tighter against him. “I need to find Jeremy. Let’s find him. Then you’ll take me in, because despite Mr. Heroic over here, it was obviously me, and I’m clearly a danger to everyone. But first we find Jeremy. Can you help us?”
If Roman said no, Spencer would kill him where he stood.
“I’ll see what I can turn up. Talk to Rhodes. I’ll find a way to be in touch in three days if I’ve heard anything.”
Like the ghost he’d always been, Roman turned and disappeared into the shadows. Spencer wondered if they’d just opened Pandora’s box. Roman Lewis was not to be used lightly. He knew that better than anyone.
Hearing the sirens in the background, Spencer pulled Addison along with him. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
Ten
Addison sat quietly in the car, not daring to utter a word in front of Greg for fear of where his loyalties lay. Part of her wished she could just ask Spencer to beat him up, or that she was some sort of superwoman who could do it herself. The shards of glass still attached to the back of his sweater reminded her that he was probably not up to full speed at the moment.
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