When Chase kept staring at her blankly, Lia cleared her throat.
“They’re Ex-Comm. They were Jericho’s contacts who were looking into the disappearances in the city. After he died, they reached out to me.”
Elijah nodded as if this all made sense, but Chase continued eyeballing them skeptically.
Weirdo Number Two stepped up so he was shoulder to shoulder with Damon. Chase had to assume he was Xander and there was something off about him—about both of them. It wasn’t the lack of vibes or the wall that surrounded his brain like a fortress. It was the way they stared him down. The way they didn’t spare Elijah a second glance.
“So, did I have to fucking RSVP for this party?” Chase asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nate unstick himself from the huddle he’d been in and move closer. “Or . . .”
“I wasn’t aware that you were invited,” Damon repeated. “As far as I last knew, you were one of them.”
Chase was too tired to be incredulous, which meant he was just ready to punch somebody. “What the fuck is this idiot talking about?” he asked the room as a whole. “Do you know what we had to go through to get here?”
Xander’s and Damon’s attitude solidified the hesitancy Chase had been feeling about Ex-Comm all along. There was nothing more dangerous than an organized group of people who considered themselves crusaders for some obscure greater good.
No one moved except Nate, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in a mirror of the Ex-Comm brothers. “You knew we went to the Farm primarily to get Chase and Elijah,” he said, low and steady and nothing like the hesitant boy who’d stumbled up to Evolution almost a year ago. “Why is it a problem now?”
“Because my people on the inside said Chase was all queued up to take on a leadership role,” Xander said. He had the same gravelly voice as his brother, but looked younger and less sure of himself. He glanced at Damon between nearly every word. “And that he was helping to induct Elijah.”
Elijah swelled up and marched up to Xander. “That’s total bullshit. I thought you people were psychics. Would it hurt to double-check before you spout hot garbage all over us?”
“You have walls up, plus Sixtus’s dampening ability,” Damon replied, again with no inflection in his tone. Chase didn’t know if that was the guy’s natural state or if he was putting on a tough-guy front for the noobs he obviously viewed as a threat. “Not to mention, I’m well aware of how powerful you are, Chase.”
“Yeah? How powerful am I?”
Damon’s gaze flickered, the first indication that he wasn’t as confident in his accusations as Chase had thought. “You’re a telepath, a postcog, a precog, and have telekinesis. One of the most powerful multis the Community has ever discovered. And because of that, and your ability to send messages long distances as well as via dreams, you’re a threat to everything we’ve created until we know for sure that you’re not on the wrong si—”
“‘On the wrong side’?” Elijah butted in. “Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice choked on the last syllable, and he charged forward until he was right in Damon’s face despite being several inches shorter. “Do you have any idea what those people did to him? How they tortured him? If it wasn’t for Chase, I would have been . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence. And instead of being moved by the response, and the emotion in Elijah’s voice, Damon looked at Jessica and asked point-blank, “How do we know any of this is true and not a part of the Community’s plan?”
Holden and Nate both started to talk at the same time as Elijah, but she silenced them with a single look. Amazing how Richard had to brainwash, torture, and instill fear in his followers to gain their compliance, whereas Jessica had gained the trust of Nate in a couple of weeks. There was something about her that both commanded respect and inspired awe, a power that went well beyond her psychic abilities. It was one of the many reasons Chase had always been so jealous of Holden. He’d had a mother like Jessica. Chase had had a mother who’d abandoned him, or so he had thought.
But Jessica Payne had never tried to welcome him into her family. She’d been cordial, polite, concerned in the way an adult would always be concerned for any child, but she’d held him at the same distance the other Ex-Comm members were holding him now.
Something about him inspired distrust.
Chase swiped a hand through his hair and looked around the room. Trent had his back to the wall, not appearing intimidated but observing the scene very closely. To his credit, his gaze was more on the Ex-Comm brothers than Chase.
Six, on the other hand, was glaring at everyone. If he was as invulnerable as everyone made him out to be, he hadn’t felt them coming. And the reunion definitely was not panning out however Six had expected it to, likely because his goal was to take down the Community and not waste time with infighting.
Chase expected Lia to be in a similar state, but her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was unreadable. All Chase noticed was that she’d drifted closer to Elijah.
“Look,” Chase said, interrupting whatever silent mental communication was going down between the Ex-Comm members. “For once in my life, I’m gonna think about what some other motherfuckers want, and be reasonable.” He backed away from the group. “I’ll take off—”
“Chase, no,” Holden said. “This is unacceptable—”
“It’s really not.” Chase kept looking at Jessica, the leader in the room, and the one who could handle her people without him being there to turn everything into an argument. If there was anything he’d learned in the past month, it was that you couldn’t get through a fucked-up adventure like this if your attitude sucked the entire time. “I’ll go wander around, come back, and you can figure out whether you want me on your team or not.”
He continued walking backward and held up his hands when Elijah started in his direction. “You stay here.”
“Chase—”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Elijah’s face filled with color, and Chase turned on his heel before it could turn into a big thing. He didn’t want anyone to stop him, so he tried to project that with every fiber of his being. The last thing he wanted was for Damon and Xander to start distrusting Elijah as well. At the end of the day, Chase was the outsider there. Elijah and Lia had been on board with Ex-Comm before any of them, Holden was in bed with one of their most loyal followers, and Nate . . . well . . . Nate had backed up to join Trent by the wall. They were probably wishing they’d stayed in Cali.
I’m following you.
Chase didn’t try to disagree with his brother’s message. He only gave Elijah another hard stare, ignored the building resentment in those big dark eyes, and strode out into the brisk winter air. He knew it was the right decision, he could feel in his gut that walking out of the house was the best thing to do, but going it without Elijah . . . felt wrong.
He closed his hands into fists and forced himself to not look back. Not give in to this weakness that had formed inside of him when it came to Elijah. Too much had been said and done between them in the past few weeks, and things would never be the same. He’d ripped open his own armor, invited Elijah in, and now he regretted it because of his own doubts. To top it off, he was now afraid he’d be the red line between Elijah and the anti-Community group he’d restocked his faith in before getting stuck with Chase.
“Chase.”
He stopped walking by the curb and waited without looking over his shoulder. There was something about Nate that pinged his radar like a GPS. He could tell as Nate took each step closer to him, a silent warning in his system letting him know that another member of the Black family was drawing near.
“Leaving the void?”
Nate slipped on gloves, showing his full Texan in the movement since it wasn’t even that cold anymore, and sniffed. “Call him Trent or I’ll go back in the house.”
Chase scoffed. “You thought I wanted you to come with me?”
“No, but I think you need someone to fill you in
on everything that’s been going on. And you have some things to fill me in about as well.”
“Fair fucking point.” Chase jerked his head toward the road. “Let’s go before Elijah comes out here and reams me.”
They slipped their hands into their pockets, walking side by side. To Chase’s horror, he realized their strides were nearly identical. Same height and build.
“Your family is creepy,” he muttered.
“Heh. Speak for yourself, Chase Payne.” Nate shook his head, burrowing deeper into his jacket as they wandered toward the main gate where the eighteen-wheeler had parked not too long ago. “I had a long talk with Holden about families, and how we’re not responsible for what our families do, but I have to admit . . . our people are impressively fucked.”
“You’re telling me.” Chase dragged his teeth over his lower lip. “How much of my messages did you get?”
“Enough to know she’s alive.” Nate’s voice hushed, but the chaos of emotion and shock that Chase had experienced was absent. Maybe he’d already processed it and was moving on to a plan of action. It seemed to be how he operated since it was exactly what he’d done after Theo died. “Did your father—”
“Did Richard,” Chase butted in. “Don’t call him my father.”
“Got it.” Nate sighed slowly, his breath clouding the air in front of him. “So, that day she went for a walk and never came back . . .”
“He snatched her up. I don’t know how they found her, but I bet the glut of your family all living in one fucking town basically sent out a giant signal to any half-decent tracker.”
Nate shook his head slowly. “And to think my aunt thought she was so careful keeping us isolated and scared . . .”
“That sounds familiar,” Chase said. “It seems to be what people do when they’re trying to control you.”
“No shit.” Nate glanced at him again, and this time there was fear in his face. “How is she?”
“Pissed.” It was the first word that popped into Chase’s head when he remembered Lorelei Black’s furious silver eyes. “I found her locked in a room in a nightgown, sitting in a rocking chair like she was in a nursing home or some shit. Honestly, I figured she wasn’t all there after years of being drugged, but . . .” Fondness crept into his tone. “When I mentioned Richard’s name, she looked like a fucking lioness.”
Nate’s fear transformed into relief. “I was so fucking scared she wouldn’t remember anything. That she was alive but not . . .”
“Your mom anymore?” Chase nodded, averting his eyes. “Yeah. I get it. But she’s still there, man. She even fucking knew who I was.”
“And how did you feel about that?”
Chase could have cursed Nate for prying, but he couldn’t blame the guy. Chase had made his bitterness plain as day in the past.
“I don’t know. Nothing I thought was the case is turning out to be the fucking case.” Chase scoffed. “All my emo mommy shit, and it seems like she thought she was doing the right thing by leaving me behind.”
Nate grabbed his arm and stopped him from walking farther. “I told you before, she was haunted by what they did to her in New York. By leaving you. I didn’t know what it was all about at the time, but now I do.”
Chase nodded, sniffing against the cold and refusing to acknowledge the lump at the back of his throat. “Yeah, well, the best thing we can do now is get her the fuck out. We have some help on the inside—a nurse who is probably one of Jessica’s people. She’s been decreasing meds. It’s why your mother is lucid all of a sudden.”
Nate nodded slowly. “Is that how you and Elijah got here?”
“Yeah. Without Shelby, we’d probably still be on that farm. Me strapped down as dear old Dad’s pet leech tried to pull the abilities out of my brain.”
Nate grabbed his arm. “Beck?”
“Nah. She’s gone. There’s another one. A stronger one.” An image of Jasper flashed before Chase’s mind. His cat eyes, his cold smile, the way he projected nothing, like a walking corpse. “He runs the Farm—the experiments. Or ‘research’ as Richard puts it.”
Nate walked along with his hands in his pockets and his head down. “Did he get his hands on Elijah?”
“No,” Chase said quickly. “I’d fucking kill him.”
“How did you keep him away?”
They bypassed the basketball court and walked out to the street. It was like any other residential street, but Chase couldn’t relax. Even if this looked far removed from the Farm, and Cold Springs where the SUVs had crashed, he didn’t feel safe. Nowhere felt safe.
“I pretended to hate you all,” he said bluntly. “Like I’d only gone along with you when you busted into the Farm because of Elijah. As far as they knew, I was in love with Elijah, and I wanted him to be realigned to rejoin the right side.”
None of it seemed to surprise Nate. “How did you escape after the nurse decreased the drugs?”
“They were taking us to you. They know you’re in Poughkeepsie, but not exactly where.” Chase glanced up at the gray sky and the white rays of sunlight weakly attempting to break through the clouds. “You know, I probably should have led with that info, but I was kind of thrown off by dick-wheel back there giving me the third degree before I could even take a piss or drink some water.”
Nate stopped walking and turned to him. His hair had grown longer and fell over the side of his face. He looked younger like that, but those gray eyes were tired. Again, Chase regretted redragging him into this mess instead of leaving him in California where he’d been invisible. Safe.
“We know we have to go soon,” Nate said. “Apparently there are others in their group who have a cabin in the mountains nearby. The plan was to go there.”
Chase shook his head slowly, unable to get over how fucking ridiculous this all sounded.
“It does,” Nate agreed.
“Fuck, man,” Chase griped. “I wasn’t even trying to project that time. Why are you in my head?”
“It’s definitely not my gift.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s the Black connection?”
“No. Because Elijah can hear me too sometimes,” Chase said.
“Maybe it’s people you, uh, have a bond with or whatever.” Nate stumbled over the words, clearly awkward with the implication. He reddened slightly like the dork that he was, and ran a hand through his hair. “Can Holden hear you?”
Chase snorted. “Fuck no.”
The response seemed to take Nate aback. He gnawed on his lower lip, studying Chase with those big gray eyes, and looked ahead of them. “I don’t know what the history is between you two, but he was worried sick about both of y’all. If it wasn’t for Six, I don’t think he’d have been able to keep himself from storming the Farm for as long as we have.”
It was in direct contrast to everything Chase had told himself about that first raid, and because of their connection, he knew Nate wasn’t bullshitting him. Within one blink and the next, he could reach into Nate’s memories and see Holden pale faced and pacing. Worrying for both Elijah and him. Pressing Six to do something, and getting pushback from Ex-Comm.
“Nate, help me figure out what the plan is here.” Chase glanced back at the house, but they’d gone too far for him to see it. “What does Ex-Comm want?”
“To dismantle the Community completely.”
Chase’s brows shot up. “What do you mean completely? Take out Richard and Jas—”
“No. They want it to be gone. No Farm, but also no Community Watch.”
“What the fuck? Why, though? The Community Watch actually does some good.”
“That’s what Holden says and what Elijah said in the past,” Nate replied. “But they think having any kind of organized hierarchy keeping an eye on psychics will lead to corruption and . . . I don’t know, somehow impede our free will?”
What, had they stumbled on some fucking anarchists? Chase wasn’t exactly rah-rah government or leadership, but even he could see how the CW helped people who couldn’t help themselv
es or who were trapped.
Chase scoffed. “Okay, but Ex-Comm is still an organization trying to make it their business to deconstruct a fucking institution. Won’t they just replace that institution somehow simply by existing?”
Nate smiled wanly. “That’s what Trent said.”
“Heh. Your void is smart.”
“He is,” Nate said. “And a natural skeptic. He thinks mostly everyone is full of shit.”
A man after Chase’s own heart. “What about Six?”
“Don’t know him very well, but I can tell that he says exactly what he’s thinking at all times, so . . . I trust him even though I can’t read him. It seems like he has more of a bond with Jessica than the outside members of Ex-Comm, though. I think he finds their righteous ranting annoying. It seems like he finds anyone who gets overly passionate about anything to be annoying. He just wants to get shit done.”
“Uh-huh.” That had always been Chase’s interpretation of the impenetrable former guard. Although, he’d managed to keep secrets. “And those Ex-Comm fucks who didn’t want me in their living room?”
Nate was silent a moment, his lip caught between his teeth as he visibly chose his words with care. “I think they’re very black-and-white, so whatever goodness you and Holden and even Elijah have seen in the CW won’t matter. They think it’s terrible, so there can’t be any goodness to it at all. Point-blank.” He looked over at Chase, brow furrowed. “And because you were part of it for so long, and they saw glimpses of you complying with your father, they think you’re part of that whole . . . thing.”
Was this the way it was going to be? Was he really a roadblock to Elijah and the others joining up with this group? Maybe it was best if he took off for good instead of only going for a cool-down walk.
The thought settled over his shoulders like a damp cold cloak, making him shiver and hunch, but it was more the idea of leaving Elijah than Ex-Comm that clenched his guts. And, with that in his head, the vision hit him.
Him somewhere without snow on the ground juxtaposed with an image of black SUVs and motorcycles pulling up to the house on Hudson Heights. A mix of guards in body armor and white-clad Community staff flooding the neighborhood and surrounding the home.
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