by May, W. J.
Molly threw up her hands. “Well obviously I am, just because I didn’t get up at like six in the morning like the rest of these maniacs to steal the first showers—”
“No, I mean, you’re not going to fight Jennifer,” Rae countered quickly, crossing to her window and throwing open the curtains, “I am. Me and Kraigan. That’s it.”
For a moment the shower situation was forgotten. But however impossibly, Molly looked even more dangerous than ever. “Oh yeah? And why is that?”
Rae sighed. She had been dreading this conversation since it first occurred to her late last night. There was simply no way on earth that she could ask her friends to go with her on this one. To them, Jennifer didn’t pose an active threat. That, and she hadn’t destroyed their lives. Not to mention, she was about as dangerous as a dragon on uppers.
No, for this fight only it was best that they stay behind.
“Molls, it’s just way too risky for—”
The loofah hit her smack dab on the nose.
“Would you just give it a rest already? As if everything that we do together isn’t that dangerous? As if you ever really had a choice as to whether or not Jules, Dev, and I were coming? I mean, we like to indulge you, sweetie, but come on—”
“I’m serious!” Rae exclaimed with sudden passion, as pressure she didn’t know she was carrying came bursting forth. Molly frowned slightly at the look on her face and fell quiet. “This one isn’t your fight. It’s my fight. Jennifer took everything from me.” Her voice started to shake with tempered hysterics. “Everything there was to take. And now—she’s going to take something else. She’s going to make me…” Her voice trailed off and she collapsed on the bed with her face in her hands.
A second later Molly joined her—rubbing a sympathetic hand on her back. “…a killer?” she guessed quietly.
Rae’s shoulders shook as she considered the word. It couldn’t be right, could it? ‘Killers’ were the kinds of bad guys the Privy Council used to send her and her friends after. They were just one step away from ‘murderers.’ Rae couldn’t be that…could she?
Her dark hair fell between them as she hung her head. “I don’t know if I can do it, Molls. I don’t know if I can just go over there and kill her.”
The two girls sat quietly for a while before Molly clapped her lightly on the shoulder. “And that’s what makes you different from Kraigan.”
Rae finally met her eyes, and Molly gave her a sad half-smile.
“You don’t want to do it—but you know you have to do it to keep your mother safe.” She emphasized the last part carefully, and Rae slowly nodded her head.
Molly was right. Jennifer Jones would never stop coming. It wasn’t in her nature. If Rae wanted to keep her mother alive, she would have to take action first.
“So are we okay?” Molly asked gently.
For the first time in what felt like days, Rae’s face relaxed into a sincere smile. “Yeah, we’re okay.”
Molly nodded curtly. “Good, because, not to make this day about me, but I wasn’t at all kidding about that shower. Do you think you could conjure an extra water heater or something?”
Rae laughed and was about to answer when Beth called suddenly up the stairs. “Girls, get down here! Breakfast is getting cold.”
Molly rolled her eyes and raced back to her room to get dressed, while Rae conjured herself a simple form-fitting outfit all in black. The same kinds of clothes she used in training and on missions. The same kinds of clothes Jennifer would most likely be wearing herself.
When she got downstairs, the four boys were already sitting around the table, gorging themselves on the morning banquet Beth had prepared. There was nothing but the sounds of forks scraping plates and the faint gurgling of the coffee maker as the kitchen flooded with the rich aroma.
For a moment Rae just leaned against the frame with a small smile, watching. She couldn’t imagine a table of more drastically different personalities.
First there was Kraigan, sitting a little off by himself at the far corner—spearing a sausage on the end of what looked like a hunting knife. Crazy and lethal as they come. Then there was Julian, sitting a way off on his left. Quiet, but strong. A force all in his own right—with the kind of power that set him a step above the abilities at the table. Right by his side was Devon. Rae’s heart automatically skipped a beat when she saw him. Handsome—devastatingly so—with enough latent ability to probably take down anyone seated around the kitchen. But humble. Kind. With twinkling eyes that Rae loved so much. And then, of course, at the end of the table was Gabriel…
Rae bit her lip pensively as she considered Gabriel. He wasn’t her usual type that was for sure. In fact, he wasn’t even the kind of guy who would usually be her friend. He was cocky, abrasive, annoying, infuriating—the list went on and on. To be frank, he was all the things that she loved Devon for not being.
And yet there was something special about Gabriel. Something that went beyond his stunning looks and scandalizing body. There was something deep in those sparkling green eyes…
“She’s officially lost it,” Kraigan declared abruptly. “I get her bacon.”
Rae snapped back to attention to realize with acute embarrassment that all four boys were staring at her. Her cheeks flushed a deep pink as she ducked down her head and quickly joined her mother by the stove. “Uh…coffee?” she asked needlessly, just to change the subject.
Beth pursed her lips with a knowing smile, but handed her an empty mug and plate. “Eat up,” she instructed seriously. “It’s going to be a long day.”
Rae specifically avoided the chair that Gabriel pushed out for her, and settled herself down beside Devon instead. “Morning,” she said softly, sliding a piece of toast onto her plate.
“Morning yourself.” He grinned, casting a quick look at Gabriel before kissing her on the cheek. All in all, he had been much better to Gabriel since he was nearly killed in London, but Gabriel was constantly doing things to set him off, and sometimes he simply couldn’t resist returning the favor. “Was that Molly I heard screaming this morning? Something about showers?”
Rae chuckled. “Yeah, I suspect you’re going to be hearing it in person before long.”
“If it’s anything like Peru, I’m out of here,” Julian warned, shuddering with the dark memory. “In fact…” The fork slipped from his hand as his eyes turned white, scanning the immediate future for an encore of Molly’s South American tantrum.
Kraigan watched him for a moment, fingers obviously itching to steal his ability and try for himself before he settled on stealing his bacon instead. “Why were you guys in Peru anyway? In fact, the four of you have been gone most of the summer. What gives?”
Gabriel took a swig of coffee before starting helpfully, “They were actually tracking down a list of tatùs before my old boss—”
“Could fine them for truancy,” Devon finished quickly. “Gabriel worked in the admissions office at Guilder. Lots of disciplinary action, filing, that sort of thing.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up over the rim of his coffee cup, but after glancing at Rae’s stricken face he decided to let it go. “Yep, that’s me. A virtual librarian.” He grinned ironically. “That’s how I got beat up.”
Rae buried her face in her coffee as Kraigan cast each one of them a sour, disbelieving look. “Fine, don’t tell me,” he snapped. “Damn groupies. Hurry up and eat so that we can get to planning. I didn’t track down that bitch for the last few months just so she could slip away while you guys feast on black pudding.” Without another word he got up and stalked from the table, leaving the others in charged silence behind him.
When his footsteps had faded away, Gabriel turned to Devon with a wry grin. “Filing and disciplinary action? Yeah, I guess that’s one way of putting it.”
Rae snorted and set down her glass. “Sorry; you were so out of it yesterday we didn’t really get a chance to fill you in on Kraigan.”
“You mean your half-brother?” Gabriel
grinned, and then looked speculative. “So he’s the one I should be trying to charm if I want to eventually get with…you know…” He cocked his head towards Rae as Devon fumed in the background.
“He’s also crazy.” Rae ignored him, moving swiftly forward. “Certifiable. He’s tried to kill me now a couple of times.”
This time Gabriel’s eyes flicked back to the hallway Kraigan had disappeared through, with a touch of that same protective instinct Rae had seen back at Guilder and a whole lot of rage. “Did he now?” he said the words calmly, but it looked as though he was half-ready to get up from the table and rip Kraigan limb from limb.
Rae shrugged casually, trying to cool him down. “My family’s a little strange…”
Julian snorted. “Greatest understatement of the year.”
“Not all of us are strange,” Beth interjected sharply, tipping more bacon onto each of the boys’ plates. “Just, well, most of us.”
“Yeah,” Devon agreed, flashing a mischievous grin. “Surely not the super-agent-turned- kidnap-victim who recently came back from the dead.”
She swatted at him with a spatula, but laughed as she returned to the stove. Ever since their mysterious talk upstairs, the two seemed to have struck up an apparently unbreakable bond. A bond that Gabriel noted with the faintest hint of resentment as he returned to his coffee.
“So he’s your crazy half-brother,” he got them back on track. “What’s the big deal?”
“He’s also a sociopath who can touch you and steal your tatù,” Julian warned darkly.
Devon’s face turned grim. “And that’s just one of his abilities…”
Gabriel glanced between them. “We covered that last night too. He’s a hybrid. So what?”
Rae sighed softly. “I’m guessing Cromfield doesn’t know about him, because he wasn’t in any of his files… Jules and I checked.”
“And one who can’t know about Cromfield because we have no idea what the little bastard might do with that information or how it could come back and hurt Rae,” Devon said sternly.
“Got it.” Gabriel nodded briefly. Then he paused. “You know, you could have just asked me.” The three of them shot him an almost nervous look and he chuckled. “I worked for him my whole life. Crom basically raised me. It’s not like it’s some big secret anymore,” his eyes flickered to Beth. “You guys can talk about it. It’s fine. It’s the past and it’s going to be something that helps me change my future.”
Julian shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, but he almost beat you to death and—”
“—and I’m here now,” Gabriel finished steadily. “I want to help in any way that I can. And I certainly want to do everything in my power to keep Rae safe.” He glanced pointedly at Devon before returning his eyes to Rae. “So just to set your mind at ease—no, Cromfield most definitely doesn’t know about Kraigan. That’s the kind of thing he would have told me.” He grinned wickedly. “And would so love to know. He’s going to kick his own ass when he finds out. Simon had a sweetie on the side?”
“Possibly more than one.”
Rae swung around to look at her mother in surprise. “Excuse me?”
Beth shrugged. “If he had Kraigan, who’s to say he didn’t have more? I don’t know. I obviously didn’t know your father as well as I thought I did.”
“None of us did.”
“Cromfield didn’t know that. He had no idea Simon had branched off in a… uh… new direction.” Gabriel smiled at Beth. “He fooled a lot of people. He was smarter than Cromfield. I wish he had taken him down when he tried.”
“What?” This was news to Rae, to all of them. “My dad tried to take Cromfield down?”
Gabriel waved his hand. “I don’t know much. I was still a kid, but apparently Simon was as gung-ho about Cromfield as the Privy Council would like to believe.”
“Interesting.” Rae would love to ask him more questions, but now wasn’t the time. They had to focus on Jennifer and also be aware that Kraigan might be listening in. Secrets were not something easy to keep anymore. Rae forced her shoulders to relax. “Thanks for sharing, Gabriel.”
He winked and tapped his forehead. “You’ve got about twenty years of secrets from the other team’s playbook up here. They’re at your disposal.”
It wasn’t a particularly strange thing to say, but something about the way he murmured ‘at your disposal’ raised the hair on the back of her neck, and got Devon scowling. He was about to say something when the lights in the kitchen flickered, and the four of them raised their eyes to see Molly standing at the base of the stairs. Her hair hung in wet locks around her, and judging from the look on her face this was going to be much, much worse than Peru.
“I’m going to go…do something else,” Julian muttered, getting to his feet and vanishing from the room quicker than anyone could stop him.
“Yeah, I’m,” Devon pushed his plate back, “I think I’m done with breakfast.” He quickly cleared his dishes and set them in the sink, squeezing Beth’s shoulder as he walked past. “Thanks for cooking, Beth. It was delicious.”
Rae’s eyes narrowed as they followed the two of them out of the room. What on earth had happened there? When Beth first met Devon, she gave him absolute hell for dating Rae. Granted, she had been teasing, but the torture was real. And now?
“Well?!”
A chill ran down Rae’s spine as she realized she had accidently allowed herself to be the only person left in the room with Molly.
“Um…” She got slowly to her feet, eyeing the sparks shooting from her friend’s hand carefully, “Why don’t I try conjuring that water heater…?”
* * *
Ten minutes later, everyone was dressed and dry (for the most part), and sitting around the living room as Kraigan stood in the middle.
“She’s in a little town called Staffin on the western coast,” he said authoritatively, obviously relishing the opportunity to grandstand. “Why, I don’t know. But she’s been there for the last two days without any indication of moving. It’s a little seaside town, so it might be a little hard to sneak in undetected…”
Rae snorted. A little hard? That was a laugh. Even if Rae was invisible, Jennifer would be able to hear her coming from a mile away. Sneaking up on her would take a bit of creativity, to say the least.
“But it’s a simple house, single story, with one way in and one way out. Once we get her in there, she’s trapped.” His mouth turned up in a chilling smile. “Then we can start to play…”
Beth rolled her eyes and leaned forward, tossing her hair back just like Rae did when she was impatient. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple, Kraigan. To start, I doubt there’s a chance in hell that you’ll make it within two miles of the house without her knowing. And once you’re there, there’s still the matter of fighting her.”
Kraigan scoffed. “How hard could it be? I mean, really?”
Much to Rae’s surprise, the eyes of the room turned to Gabriel instead of Beth. He had stayed very quiet during the entire meeting, glancing only once or twice at the map before leaning back in his chair, a troubled look clouding his handsome face.
It was only now that Rae realized why.
He had grown up with Jennifer, at least sporadically. In all likelihood she had been the one who actually helped raise him and Angel. Rae couldn’t very well imagine Cromfield doing it. And now that Rae thought of it, the similarities between the two were startling.
“Jennifer trained you,” she said softly, watching him until he finally met her eyes. His face tightened for a moment, and then he slowly nodded. Rae shook her head in disbelief, connecting a dozen dots that suddenly made perfect sense. “When you took down those two guards the night you broke me out of prison…I thought I’d never seen anyone fight like that. It was extraordinary; I didn’t know how you did it. But I had seen someone fight like that before. Jennifer.”
Both Devon and Kraigan had looked up with interest at the mention of these mythic fighting skills, but Gabr
iel was in his own little world.
For a brief moment all his usual cockiness went right out the window, and he looked shaky for the first time. “Since I was three,” he said softly. “Me and Angie—she trained us up since we were three.”
Angie? Rae frowned in confusion, before realizing. Angel. Gabriel still didn’t know. There simply had been no time to tell him.
Sitting across the room, Julian’s face had gone deathly pale. “Gabriel,” he said tentatively, glancing at Rae to make sure it was okay, “Angel’s not dead.”
The room went dead quiet.
A muscle hardened in the back of Gabriel’s jaw and he looked at Julian with a burning intensity that gave Rae the chills. “Say that again,” he said quietly.
Julian’s eyes softened sympathetically, almost apologetically, as he shook his head. “Rae didn’t kill her. I could never have let that happen. I…I love her.”
“I know that she loved you,” Gabriel snapped. “It was all she ever talked about, in private, when…” his eyes flickered to Kraigan and he edited, “when no one else could hear.”
Without even thinking about it, Rae reached over and took his hand. He looked completely overwhelmed, just barely holding it together. When he walked into the room, he thought he was about to lose whatever was left of his ‘family’ for good. Now he finds out that the girl, who for all intents and purposes was like his sister, was alive? “She’s not dead,” he said again, not as a question but more to reaffirm it for himself.
“No,” Rae answered quietly, “she’s most definitely alive. I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you sooner… In our defense, we’ve only had about twelve hours with you when you weren’t bleeding out.” She laughed shortly and squeezed his hand. “But Angel’s not dead. She’s most definitely safe, and she’s alive.”
Kraigan threw up his hands impatiently. “I really don’t see how this could matter less. Who the hell is Angel?”