Marked by Fate

by A J Kurtz

  Kensie slowly pulled herself away, making sure not to take things too far. She was cautious in almost everything she did, scared to let herself be carefree and vulnerable to anyone, but he would never tell her secrets to anyone. Kissing one another left them both breathless. As they both were pulling themselves together, there was a noise from the other room.

  He got up to make some coffee when he happened to look down and see what had occurred from them kissing, and he was instantly mortified as he tried to think of different things to get his mind off of her as he got the coffee ready.

  “I have a question.” He turned back towards her and caught her openly staring at his ass. It took a moment for her eyes to meet his.

  She grinned. “Sure, anything.”

  “We found some strange things leading to Aaron Kelly, maybe even Morgan. You know she’s a rogue agent...why do you refuse to see what she really is and that she’s behind this?”

  He watched her smile fade from hearing Morgan’s name. He wondered why it bothered Kensie so much to even have a conversation about her ex. Kensie said they’d broken up in college because she wanted to focus on her courses, and that she broke Morgan’s heart, but something wasn’t adding up. Kensie didn’t owe it to anyone to really say what happened, but for some reason, it bothered him. Possibly due to the fact that she just said she wanted an honest friendship, and yet was hiding something from him.

  “Why are you so quick to point the finger at her? You said there were other rogue agents out there, right?”

  There wasn’t a tone to her words, but it was obviously a touchy subject for her. She had absolute faith that Morgan wouldn’t hurt her this way. It was as if she were a saint. How could Kensie be so blinded by what was right in front of her? Even after what she had found on the internet about Aaron Kelly, she refused to put any stock in Morgan being Aaron’s accomplice or working for her father. It was all too clear that Kensie wasn’t going to believe anything until there was absolute proof Morgan was involved.

  “Yes, there are other rogue agents out there: good and bad. I want to be wrong about all this, Kensie, I really do,” he assured her. “I don’t take happiness in someone’s pain.”

  Jackson strolled into the room, heading straight for the coffee. “My brother is right however, I do take happiness in other people’s pain,” he said while pouring coffee into a mug. When he turned around, he saw the seriousness written on their faces.

  Jaymes shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re related.”

  “How did you sleep last night, Kensie?” Jackson ignored his brother.

  There was a staring contest between Jackson and Kensie, enough to make him wonder what he’d missed. He hoped his brother didn’t start telling her about any other ex-girlfriends of his just to make him sound like a bad person.

  “That recliner isn’t for sleeping on. I have this awful kink in my neck,” she complained while rubbing the back of her neck.

  Riah came in, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and heading towards the coffee. Then she went and sat next to Kensie. Riah asked Kensie how she slept and Kensie repeated what she’d just said.

  “Why didn’t you come to sleep with me last night? There was plenty of room,” Riah said.

  Jackson began choking on his coffee, spitting some out onto the floor. Jaymes only shook his head at him.

  “Why would she sleep with you? You’re a known biter.” Jackson raised his eyebrows.

  “How would you know?” Riah shot back. “That’s right, I don’t care.” Her dark eyes moved back to Kensie, concentrating on her instead.

  “I didn’t want to wake you or Jaymes up,” Kensie answered sweetly while putting sugar into her coffee and stirring.

  Jaymes signaled to his brother to go into the other room. Jackson seemed hesitant, at first. Jaymes followed.

  “How did you sleep last night?” Jaymes asked.

  “I slept like a princess, why? Are you worried because she slept down here, too?” His brother always had to be sarcastic with him and rarely ever serious.

  Jaymes let his stare answer for him and Jackson smiled, enjoying the reaction. “What was that all about in the kitchen with her? Did you do something stupid?” Jaymes worried.

  “Ask her. Tell me, what is going on between you two? Nothing, most likely. Well, you see, two adults can sleep in the same room without anything having happened. You must really care about her if you’re in here interrogating me,” Jackson said, growing visably frustrated.

  “She’s my friend and a good person. I worry about someone like you being around her.”

  “I know she is. And she dealt with me last night, remember?” Jackson crossed his arms.

  “I’m shocked that you didn’t get slapped. I have to say, I’m impressed.”

  “You should be. It’s clear you want to be with her. Are you finally trying to move on since Cassidy?”

  Jaymes rolled his eyes. “Apparently I’m never allowed to move on from her because you continue to bring her up. It’s been years and I just haven’t found the right person to move on with.”

  “You haven’t tried, until now. This is the first person that I’ve seen you actually try to be with. I’ll drop Cass. I just want to see you live your life again and not be some shell of your former self,” Jackson admitted.

  “I’m finally in a place where I’m ready to move on. No matter what happens between Kensie and me, I still feel responsible for her, and I’ll protect her as long as she wants me to.”

  Jackson shook his head. “You always feel responsible for everyone. I don’t know how you do it, but good luck with it. We should probably get back in there and talk strategy.” He left Jaymes standing there.

  How did I get stuck having him for a brother? Is it a curse? Maybe I did something in another life and now I’m paying for it in this one. The fun has only begun with Jackson, I can only hope that he’ll be helping with this mission going forward or we’re going to have issues.

  9

  Jackson

  This would’ve gone much smoother if Jaymes hadn’t shown up, Jackson thought as he rejoined the ladies, who were conversing in the kitchen. His brother walked in behind him. Jackson took a drink of his coffee and leaned over the center island across from the women.

  “As I said prior, we should split into teams to throw these people off. I think that Riah and Jaymes would be great at leading them in the wrong direction while Kensie and I get the real artifact.”

  Jaymes sat next to Kensie and stared over at his brother. “What if they have more people than we realize? We could possibly be leading them to the real artifact,” he pointed out.

  “The more we know, the better equipped we’ll be to deal with this situation,” Riah chimed in. “Do you have any idea who they may be?” she asked Jackson.

  “I have surveillance videos that we can go over to see if we spot them.” Jackson pointed to the other room where his office was.

  They all finished drinking their morning coffee, and they took turns getting showered. Once everyone was done, they all met back up in Jackson’s office, where they began going through the videos to find whoever was following them. The footage was broadcast onto the office wall for all of them to see. Jackson kept speeding up the videos and rewinding them, trying to catch something they hadn’t noticed before. Riah made Jackson pause a frame of a man and woman walking through a crowd. A tall, slim, dark-haired man with a short curly-haired woman stood out and weren’t that far away from catching them.

  “I’ve seen that man before, he’s a rogue traveler. While I was on a mission, he was somehow a part of it...he was unreliable and put us all in jeopardy because he did whatever he wanted. He got fired,” Riah explained. “I think they called him Agent Scott.”

  Kensie pointed to the man. “That’s the man that was following Jaymes and me in the Washington, D.C. protests.” Kensie identified.

  “I only got a glimpse of him, but I’m pretty sure Kensie’s right,” Jaymes said.

  J
ackson worked his tech magic as he started going through MMEA files that positively identified fellow travelers, hoping to find a match for the man and woman; they needed a breakthrough somewhere. It wasn’t long before the computer started beeping that it had found a match.

  “This is Agent Monty Scott, a rogue agent and time traveler who is rumored to be working for the Elite in some capacity. The woman is working for the Elite as well her name is Agent Jessica Raven. I’ll see if I can find out any more of their history.” Jackson said, using the hologram computer.

  Kensie and Jaymes shared a look with one another. Jaymes shook his head in frustration.

  “Morgan could still be involved,” he said to Kensie.

  Kensie crossed her arms. “Hypothetically, if she were involved, why would she be doing this?”

  “How much do you really know about their family? About Aaron?” Jackson asked. “He may be working for the Elite, too. That’s the rumor that’s going around. That and he watched your family for many years, to stay close and find out if any of you were travelers.”

  “Is this suspicion or do you know for a fact?” Jaymes asked his brother.

  “Look, I’ve known their family for a long time, and there was never anything odd about them to me. If anyone would have known, it would have been me,” Kensie stated.

  “These are rumors, as I said, Jaymes. Nobody has found absolute truth in the accusations, yet,” Jackson responded to Jaymes.

  “Kensie, one thing you should know about travelers or rogues...or even anyone working for the Elite is: We’re all rehearsed in lying. It’s a must when traveling to different time periods, and it keeps us from getting caught. A huge secret we must protect at all costs. For example: How do you know anything we’ve told you is the truth?” Riah suggested.

  Kensie frowned at the idea any of them would lie to her, but she remained quiet. Riah had a point, and hopefully, Kensie could understand why they would need to protect themselves.

  Jackson still found it hard to believe that Kensie couldn’t have known about the Kelly family. For fuck sake, she was in a relationship with Morgan for a few years and had no idea. Was she so blinded by love she refused to see the truth? It made him wonder if Kensie was holding back information, having her own secrets and playing dumb about the situation. On the other hand, Kensie seemed like a genuine person, but some people were good at putting on a facade.

  His eyes reached Kensie’s as he pondered on whether she was capable of much more than anyone realized. Maybe it was a good thing that they were teaming up together to search for the artifact, so that he could really get to know her better to decide what team she was really on.

  He was quite surprised that Riah had taken a liking to Kensie so soon. Normally Riah was just as guarded as he was about outsiders.

  “Focus,” Jaymes said, gettng everyone’s attention. “I know it’s in Pennsylvania I haven’t figured out the year…” He trailed off.

  “The year you need to travel to is 1863, Northcrest. I believe that’s Kensie’s hometown.” Agent Stone announced from the doorway, surprising everyone with his quiet entry. All eyes moved to him. Jaymes and Jackson went over to shake his hand. Agent Stone nodded to Riah and then set his sights on Kensie.

  “You must be Kensie Rockwell. I’m Agent Stone.” He extended his hand and she shook it.

  “It’s nice to meet you.” She smiled brightly, captivating everyone in the room with just a smile.

  That woman is dangerous, Jackson thought. Melting the hearts of whatever room she steps into with a simple smile, and making a huge impact on whoever is near her. He noticed that his brother was gazing at her. Riah’s face had lit up, hell, even Agent Stone blushed. Was this a show or did she have no idea the effect she had on other people? He had an urge to explore these things further.

  They filled Agent Stone in on their plan and where exactly to find the artifact—which was in a small creek, stuck in the ground. The problem was that it was in the middle of the civil war.

  “I think we should throw the rogue agents off by making it harder for them to get to us while there’s a battle going on.” Riah said.

  “You want us to walk straight into a battle?” Jaymes asked in confusion.

  “Not exactly, and I never said anything about walking,” she shook her head. “This may sound crazy, but some of us should go when there’s a window of opptortunity for us to get passed the battle, retrieve the artifact, and by that time those agents will have ended up in the center of the action and would be less likely to follow us back.”

  Jackson thought it over and understood what Riah meant. “You mean right before the Confederate and Union armies begin the battle?”

  Riah nodded her head. Jackson played it over in his mind, but he’d never gone back to 1863, so he wasn’t certain the plan would work unless they tried going back in time to watch how everything played out

  “I’ve gone back to this time period, and Riah is right. There’s a window of time where we could find the artifact prior to the rogue agents getting there.” Stone told them.

  “Why not pick a different day to go get the artifact? It would save us the hassle of ending up in the middle of the civil war.” Kensie suggested.

  Everyone grew quiet as each of them thought each option over. Jackson knew that if they made it easy for the other agents they would find them in no time, and try to steal the artifact from them. On the other hand, if they did make it harder, they had a better chance at losing them while the battle was happening. It was a tough decision. He thought it’d be best if Stone picked for them.

  “I say it’s Agent Stone’s call on this. He knows better than the rest of us since he was there before.” Jackson spoke up.

  “You’re right,” Jaymes agreed with his brother.

  “I believe this is an unusaul idea, but it may work. I will go back in time just to be sure.” Stone said, and with a blink of the eye, he was gone.

  While Stone was back in 1863, Jackson knew they all needed to dress as if they were from that time period and find weapons. He suggested a shop down the road that collected and sold items from past wars. The shop might possibly have what they were looking for. He asked Kensie to walk along with him while the others stayed behind to watch surveillance cameras and continue to plan for a safe route to take to retrieve the artifact.

  Kensie and Jackson wandered around the store, searching for particular clothes and weapons that would match that time period arounf 1863. Kensie lifted a navy blue uniform to show Jackson.

  He arched an eyebrow, scanning the uniform. “Might as well pick the winning side.” He took it from her hand, inspecting it closely while she went over to a rack of dresses.

  “Can you imagine Riah wearing a dress?” she asked, trying to keep things light.

  He grabbed a few more uniforms and walked over to her. “She hates them. She’ll probably burn it afterward.”

  She started laughing and he joined in with her. The first time they had a conversation that didn’t revolve around the end of the world or millions of people dying. It was a relief.

  “I can picture the whole thing.” She chuckled.

  Jackson cleared his throat, his expression turning serious and Kensie took notice. “There are a few things I wanted to ask you about while we’re away from the others. What’s going on with you and my brother?”

  “We’re friends. He’s been my mentor.”

  He rolled his eyes, not believing that for a second, especially after everything he’d witnessed. “I see how he looks at you, and he hasn’t opened up to anyone in a long time.”

  She shrugged. “I think we’re all in a stressful situation, and I’m trying not to make any decisions based on fear or because I think the world might come to an end.”

  “And what if you’re wrong? What if it doesn’t end and you’re missing out on having something more with someone special?”

  She laughed. “Since when do you care about what I do? I thought you made it pretty clear that you
really didn’t care that I was around? Are you asking about Jaymes for a reason?”

  He sighed quietly, realizing that him asking about his brother made it look like he was interested, and that wasn’t the case, exactly. “I was curious, is all. I’m weird about new people coming into our group, because I want to try to keep them safe.”

  She nodded. “I understand that, I do. It shows that you care even though you pretend not to.”

  She was seeing the real him at that moment, and he didn’t want that to ever happen. A slip-up on his part. He needed to be more careful. He needed to put his facade back in place before she found out anything else about him. Before he started to care.

  “I wanted to ask about how you had no idea about Morgan when you were together for two years. Weren’t there any signs or anything you can think back to that might stand out?”

  She turned her attention back to the dresses, grabbing two of them from the rack, and she fixed her eyes back on him. “You clearly don’t believe me when all I’ve been is honest with everyone. If I thought anything was off, I would have told you guys. She and her family acted totally normal the entire time.” The frustration in her voice built as she spoke.

  “Why does talking about her bother you so much?”

  “I can’t wrap my mind around the idea she’s behind this, and how stupid I was not to have known. It’s out of character for her to do something like this. She wouldn’t hurt anyone, let alone me. Maybe it’s possible her father, Aaron, is behind this...but he’s always been so kind. I guess I never really knew them at all.” she sounded disappointed and her voice began to break up.

  He saw she wanted to believe the best in Morgan and knew her better than the rest of them. Maybe it was Morgan’s father and she was just going along with it? She appeared deeply hurt and for some reason, he felt like he needed to fix it.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”