Evolution

by Hope Anika

  “You were what?”

  “Shot,” Wanda repeated. “It was not serious, but I bled profusely. When Wylie stopped to bandage me, Eva pushed him aside, laid her hand to my wound, and healed me. Completely.”

  Ash stared at her; the words seemed to buzz in her head, and she thought Yeah, right. And then she remembered Anson Grant’s journal entry—she is a miracle—and Adam’s words—the Ideal can’t die—and the fact that Eva had somehow survived the explosion that killed Anson and Loren Grant—

  “When the cabin blew, I took the brunt of it,” Wylie said. He watched Ash with a glittering, dark blue gaze, challenge stamped across his face. “Eva is the only reason I walked away.”

  Seriously.

  But it was no more fantastical than Reginald Kline’s claim that the Primaries could manipulate the elements. That they could control fire and create tidal waves. Or move the earth. Or create lightning strikes—

  “That’s why you’re sitting here, instead of in ICU?” she demanded, even as she thought—are you frigging kidding me? “Because of her?”

  Wylie said quietly, “She’s the only reason I’m alive.”

  No one spoke for a long, intractable moment. The clock on the wall ticked loudly, and Butch’s pen scratched the surface of the paper he was filling with notes.

  “Jesus,” Ash muttered, trying to digest it.

  “I tried to stop them from taking her,” he added softly. “I only survived the strike because she healed me earlier. Whatever she can do, it...lasts.”

  “Lasts?” Ash echoed, glancing at Wanda.

  “We are continuing to...” Wanda shrugged feebly. “Heal.”

  “Explain,” Ruslan ordered. He moved to stand beside Ash, and she almost felt the tremor that moved through him.

  Wylie pulled a small pocketknife from his jeans, and before anyone could stop him, pricked his thumb. Blood welled. Wanda gasped, and Ash scowled as he stuck his injured thumb in his mouth and sucked the drop away. “Just give it a minute.”

  Ash could only shake her head. She’d known this was crazy—all of it, top to bottom—but...Wanda had been shot? Eva could heal?

  And kill, too. An entire platoon of men.

  Shit on a stick.

  “See?” Wylie held out his thumb; the puncture wound was knitting shut right before their eyes, leaving nothing but a bright pink spot of new skin. “All better.”

  “Jesus,” Ash repeated and stared at him.

  “We have to get her back,” he said, his tone hard, decisive, and determined, and the glint in his eyes mirrored his voice. He sounded...like Charlie. And beside him, Wanda nodded. They sat close together—very close—clearly a combined force, and Ash wondered what had passed between them in the last few days, because something had.

  But that was not her business, not unless it interfered with the case, and she had no room to talk, considering the kiss she’d planted on Ruslan.

  “This can’t be real,” Jesse said suddenly, uncertainty flickering in his gaze. “Can it?”

  “Anything’s possible, kid,” Butch muttered, his mouth a grim line. “I learned that a long time ago.”

  “And Shirley?” Wanda asked. “Was she working for The Order? Is that why she betrayed us?”

  At her obvious hurt and confusion, Ash felt an answering flare of pain and rage.

  Ruslan had stuck Shirley’s body in a freezer in Charlie’s storage unit. At this point, calling Haggerty was out of the question, and until they understood Shirley’s connection to Kline, Ash didn’t want anyone knowing she was dead. Eventually she would have to figure out what to do with her—Shirley had family who deserved to be able to bury her—but until then, she would have to stay on ice.

  Because this is now my life. Where I put people I thought were friends in cold storage until I can figure out what to do with their bodies.

  “Presumably,” Ruslan said when Ash didn’t respond. “Based on what little we gleaned before she detonated the cyanide capsule, Shirley had apparently witnessed the death of someone she cared for, likely at the hands of a Primary. She insinuated that Charlie was involved with them and that she had been put into place to observe him. I suspect that once we dig into her background, we will discover a direct connection to Kline.”

  He made it sound so logical. Simple. But there was nothing simple about any of this, and while his analytical approach helped to defuse the fury bubbling within her, it also, irrationally, made her want to punch him in the face.

  Because this was all...fucked.

  How the hell were they going to get Eva back? They didn’t even know where to look... And how was Charlie involved in all of this? How far back did it go; how many players in this game were there?

  And what of Ruslan? The tattoo said he was part of it, too. Had Charlie known that when he let him out of that cell? When he’d called him for help?

  And... Goddamn it.

  Goddamn it.

  She looked at Wylie. Steeled herself again.

  “Charlie was murdered,” she said starkly.

  Her cousin stared at her. “What?”

  Her throat suddenly filled, and her hands clenched at her sides. She couldn’t halt the tears that burned the backs of her eyes.

  “Charlie,” she said tightly. “He was murdered. Shirley confirmed it.”

  Wylie only blinked at her, as if she was speaking gibberish. Wanda gasped, and Butch’s head snapped up, and Ruslan moved closer, until his heat and scent and solid, unwavering presence pressed against her.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Butch demanded.

  Ash tried to speak; her throat was too full.

  “We do not have any details,” Ruslan said quietly. “But Shirley indicated Charlie was killed by those for whom she worked—presumably Reginald Kline.”

  Wylie continued to stare at her.

  “I’m sorry,” Ash told him helplessly. The need to wail like a despondent child filled her chest until she could hardly breathe. “I didn’t know.”

  “Goddamn it,” Wylie snarled, and the florescent light panel above him suddenly began to flicker wildly. A loud buzz filled the room. “Shit.”

  He stood abruptly, and one by one, all of the long, narrow panels above them began to pulse with flashes of bright light. The ceiling seemed to vibrate, and the fine hair that covered Ash’s body stood to attention. Around the room, the light sockets crackled, shooting tiny silver sparks into the air. A moment later, a powerful wave of static electricity slashed through her, and she shivered violently.

  Everyone shivered violently.

  “Fuck,” Wylie said viciously, and the light panels burst in an explosion of plastic and metal and glass so fine it could have been confetti. They all ducked.

  “Is that...is that you?” Jesse breathed, watching Wylie from beneath the arms he’d lifted to shield himself.

  “I don’t fucking know,” Wylie growled. “But yeah. Maybe. Probably.”

  Ash stared at him. “Probably?”

  He only snarled again. Wanda reached up and laid a hand on his arm, and he shuddered.

  “Wow,” Jesse said. “Just...wow. You’re like...like a mutant now.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Butch muttered.

  Balls, Ash thought. We’ve jumped the shark again. But why not? The entire situation was out of bounds; too surreal to be believed. And...was Wylie glowing? Just a little—

  “I think it’s excess energy.” He shrugged. “I think it’ll fade.”

  He thinks.

  “Is that...normal?” Wanda asked.

  “Hell no,” Butch snapped. “Nothing about this is normal.”

  Amen to that. “How do you feel?”

  Another shrug. “Considering that my pop was CIA and apparently in this thing up to his eyeballs, and, you know, fucking murdered, I don’t feel too bad. Unless I think about Eva being in the hands of an asshole who can shoot lightning, or the dickheads who shot Wanda, or the fact that I want to fucking kill somebody so bad I can taste it. How do y
ou feel?”

  Ash swiped at the moisture on her cheek. “I want some goddamn answers.”

  About Architect and Ruslan and Charlie.

  Especially about Charlie.

  “There’s one more thing,” she added grimly. “These factions—the Order, the Exiles, Architect—they’re priming for war. We’ve been warned to pick a side. So we’re walking into a battlefield.”

  “Bring it,” Wylie said, and beside him, Wanda nodded in agreement.

  “I’m in,” Jesse said quickly.

  “Aw hell,” Butch muttered.

  “Indeed,” Ruslan added.

  For a long, silent moment, Ash only stared at them. This had disaster written all over it.

  Butch, who was usually half-lit; Wanda, who was still green, in spite of her recent tour of hell. Jesse, who they had no business involving in any damn thing because he was just a kid. Wylie, who’d been miraculously resurrected and was currently channeling enough volts to jumpstart a Toyota. And Ruslan...

  Who was still very much a wild card.

  Up against a genocidal psychopath with an army of martyrs, killer Primaries and a mysterious organization so powerful and wealthy, it had apparently survived undetected for generations.

  And they were not the only players. GenTek, the CIA, Bethany Little—who was no doubt hard at work creating more Primaries—possibly the feds, Charlie—and God only knew who else.

  They had a pile of dead men and little else to go on, and Eva...

  Eva had been taken.

  “What now?” Wylie demanded, watching her with his father’s dark blue gaze. Primed and ready.

  They all were.

  Well, shit. She’d never done anything the easy way, anyhow.

  “Now,” she told them, “we get to work.”

  *****

  Thank you for reading Evolution: Awakening, the first book in the Ash Kyndal series. Stay tuned for Evolution: Brethren, coming soon.

  If you enjoyed Evolution: Awakening, please consider leaving a review. Reviews are critical to the exposure and success of independently published works. Thank you!

  For a sneak peek of Hope Anika’s novel, In Plain Sight, keep reading...

  IN PLAIN SIGHT

  When Fiona Dresden’s estranged stepbrother calls asking for help, she’s pretty sure the world is ending. Because she and Max haven’t spoken in years, and he despises the carnival she works almost as much as he despises her... But Max’s precious FBI has been infiltrated, and he’s desperate for a safe place to hide his murder witness. Fiona wants nothing more than to turn him away—as he once turned her away—but his witness is just an innocent kid, and the midway really is the perfect hiding place, and there are things she and Max need to finish...

  Former Army Ranger Rye Wilder is happy to come to the rescue of his friend Max, especially when it means helping out a kid—and finally laying eyes on Max’s mysterious stepsister, Fiona. A man alone, Rye has never understood Max’s rejection of his only family, a woman whose picture has haunted Rye for nearly a decade... And now, finally, is his chance. To make Max and Fiona understand the precious gift that is family...to push them toward reconciliation...and to get to the bottom of what it is he feels.

  But first Max must unmask a mole. Fiona must lay to rest the demons of the past. And Rye must safeguard an innocent girl against the man hunting her, pushing them all beyond the history that defines them, and into a future that just might free them.

  IN PLAIN SIGHT

  Chapter

  -1-

  “I need your help.”

  Someone call Scientific American. Because those four small words—tight, tense, edgy little syllables—were unequivocal proof of a parallel universe.

  Or maybe the world really was ending, just like Athena the All Knowing insisted.

  “Fiona? Are you there?”

  In spite of the desperation she heard—or perhaps because of it—Fiona Dresden didn’t immediately reply. Maxwell Morrison Prescott the III wasn’t her favorite person. Never mind that he was her brother—or step-brother, if you wanted to get technical, which she did—or that a decade had passed since their last brief conversation, which had taken place at the foot of their collective parents’ freshly dug graves. In her lifetime, there were only two things Fiona had ever gotten from Max: a missing front tooth (care of a Tonka truck he’d beamed her with when she was ten) and a broken heart.

  Neither of which she cared to revisit.

  “Fiona.” He sounded like someone had just totaled his car. Which she had, when she was fourteen. He’d driven a burly Jeep the last time she’d seen him; much better safety features.

  “Don’t have a cow,” she told him. “What do you want?”

  Did that sound ungracious? Well, tough tittie. She felt ungracious.

  “I told you,” he grated, impatience crackling like dry wood catching flame. “I need your help.”

  “Moi?”

  “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

  “Because I should make it easy?” She laughed, a harsh bark of derision. She’d learned well. Would he notice? “What possible use could you have for me now, big brother?”

  Silence. Heavy, thick, leaden with something she had no desire to contemplate. It had taken years to regrow the skin he’d peeled from her; she refused to reopen that wound.

  And yet, she didn’t disconnect. She didn’t toss her phone to the ground and stomp on it. No, instead she waited for his response, her heart a painful drum in her chest. Frozen and furious and damning herself for trying.

  Again.

  “I need you, Fi.”

  The quiet intensity of his tone caused dread to suddenly ripple down her spine, a chilled fingertip that made her skin prickle in ominous warning. Because Max was omnipotent; he didn’t need anyone. Certainly not her. His last words to her on that dreary day a decade ago still danced ghoulishly through her darkest dreams.

  I don’t want anything to do with you, Fiona. We aren’t family; we never were.

  Ugly words, branded into her soul. He should have just kicked her in the face with one of his sharp-toed cowboy boots. It would’ve hurt less.

  “You don’t want anything to do with me,” she reminded him coolly. “Remember?”

  More silence. For one endless moment, Fiona thought she’d lost him. And part of her thought: good. Full circle, brother. Karma’s a bitch. But the child she’d been, the one who’d so foolishly believed that they were family—and still did, no matter the reality—waited, breathless with hope.

  Goddamn hope.

  “I was a dickhead,” he said finally, his tone gruff. “I was angry. I’m sorry.”

  Which froze her, motionless, into place. The world really was ending. Because that was not what she’d expected to hear. Honesty; humility. A freaking apology.

  “Who are you and what have you done with Max?” she demanded.

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” he retorted. “Cut me some fucking slack.”

  Another ugly laugh broke from her.

  “Fiona.”

  “You threw me away,” she told him flatly, and her throat suddenly filled, and the memory of his desertion stabbed through her like a hot blade. “I owe you nothing.”

  More silence. Hang up, you stupid fool. But she didn’t.

  “I can’t change it,” he muttered, and he sounded...weary. As if all of the arrogance and angst he’d always worn like a shield had drained away, leaving only fatigue behind.

  Not that she cared. Dickhead. On that, they could agree.

  Still, how curious that he should...need her. “What do you want?”

  “Are you alone?”

  An odd question that made her look around. Nothing had changed since the last time she’d looked: the rain was still a cold, steady deluge that left her standing in half an inch of water.

  The carnival midway was waterlogged, the ride jocks covered in mud and grass as they struggled to set up the tilt-a-whirl in what was quickly becoming swampland. T
he games weren’t faring much better, the trailers sinking into the ruts formed last night when they’d pulled in. Even her balloon game, built of wood and lightweight PVC pipe, was slowly settling into the wet ground. Just across the midway, the popcorn wagon sat in two deep puddles that would only get worse once she went to work inside.

  Thunder rolled overhead, and someone was listening to Tom Petty. In the row of games across from her everyone was working, setting up their stock and flashing their stands, no matter the storm, because tomorrow was opening day, and there was no “called on account of rain” when three days was all you had to make bank.

  “Alone enough,” she told him, and continued to clean the .22 she held. One down, three to go, and the short-range game would be ready to go.

  “You’re in Cedar Hills?” Max asked. “At Our Lady of Hope?”

  She stilled. “How do you know that?”

  “Hatchet. Until Sunday?”

  “Hatchet?”

  “Stay with me here, Fi. Cedar Hills is only a three day run, right?”

  “Right,” she growled, annoyed, and glared at the clouds, smoky gray and deep violet, churning like class four rapids as they rolled in. Stinking rain. “What does that have to do with—”

  “I have a witness.”

  “A what?”

  “A witness. I need some place to stash her. Some place safe.”

  Fiona shook her head. Opened her mouth, closed it.

  “Some place no one will think to look,” Max added grimly.

  “Have you lost your freaking mind?” Because clearly he had. “You’re not getting me involved in your FBI bullshit. No freaking way.”

  “Fiona.”

  “No,” she repeated. “I’m not the Witness Protection program! I’m a carny. It’s what you despise most about me. Remember?”

  “No,” he said, his voice hard, and she snorted.

  “Liar.”

  “I don’t despise you,” he said evenly. “I never despised you.”

  “Did you get hit in the head?” she wanted to know. “Are you concussed?”

  “Jesus Christ, Fiona. Was I really such a prick?”

  “Really, really such a prick. Like the king of all pricks on a big old dickhead throne.” Another snort escaped her. Was he serious? “You abandoned me, Max. I was fifteen, and you were all I had, and you fucking left. Why the hell should I help you with anything?”