by Jordan Dane
Benny’s death had touched Gabriel the way it had her, reminding them both of what they had lost, and grief took shape in countless ways. But Gabriel looked as if he had more on his mind than reopening old wounds. When he touched her cheek and kissed her under the virtual storm, she knew he would tell her.
“Lucas and Kendra have asked for a meeting with me before Benny’s funeral tomorrow. The others will be there, too.”
“What do they want? Did they say?”
“They have questions. Hell, so do I. It’s the answers I’m lacking.”
He shrugged and stared up at the clearing sky of a world washed clean. The fake storm had subsided. Gabriel had brought on the storm in the Serenity room to bring him closer to his mother. He had come for her guidance, any way he could get it.
“You’ll figure it out.” Rayne smiled, for real. “But it’s time to come clean, Gabriel. Whatever happens going forward, it doesn’t have to fall on your shoulders alone. Give them a choice and let them decide. Whatever comes next, you’ll do it together.”
Rayne already knew what she would do. She’d crossed Gabriel’s path because of Lucas. She’d stay and fight for the same reason. No one had the right to hunt these kids and treat them like animals.
Gabriel took a deep breath and grinned. He pulled her into his lap and held her in his arms, cradling her as if she were fragile. She breathed in the smell of his skin and stroked her fingers through his long hair.
“You’re brilliant,” he whispered.
His voice sent tingles across her skin, as it always did. When he raised her chin to kiss her, she felt and heard the distant rumble of a storm passing.
In truth, the storm was coming.
* * *
Frederick drifted through the shadowy corridors of the mansion and didn’t look back as Rafe followed him. He didn’t make his body solid, like some ghosts did. Frederick swirled like a faint mirage, nothing more than solemn vapor. He led Rafe to a room downstairs on the main floor, near the front entrance. When the butler got to the closed door to a room that looked no bigger than a closet, he turned and swept his hand toward the knob.
“Take as long as you need, dear boy.” Frederick didn’t wait for his answer. He vanished in the blink of an eye.
Rafe knew what he’d find on the other side of the door. Before he reached for the doorknob, he shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He felt a chill through his T-shirt and jeans, a cold that hadn’t only been from the storm outside. When he opened his eyes, he flung the door open. Nothing had prepared him for what he saw.
A small coffin the color of glistening copper had its lid open with Benny inside. His body lay in folds of white and he’d been dressed in a suit. A real suit. Dozens of candles had been lit and cast a pale glow on his little face. He almost looked alive, as if he were sleeping.
With just him and Benny in the room, Rafe let his tears fall. He couldn’t stop.
“Hey, little man.”
He bent down and kissed the boy on the cheek. Whatever doubts he had about what he would say to the only little brother he would ever have, he’d been wrong. It had always been easy to talk to Benny.
The Next Day—Afternoon
The day of Benny’s funeral, the mansion became a quiet place. Each kid grieved for him in their own way. Gabe didn’t feel a part of them, even though they didn’t block him. He was an outsider who had explaining to do. Since the attack in the tunnels, Lucas and Kendra had time to think about what they’d seen him do.
They’d asked for a meeting before the funeral. He stood before them in the great room, under the poster of his mother. He would need her strength. Lucas and Kendra asked about how he’d found them. Whatever he told them now, they would test him until they trusted him. That wouldn’t be easy for a guy with secrets.
For the first time, he’d be accountable to someone else.
“We saw what you did,” Lucas said. “None of us are as strong as you. How did you do all that?”
“I didn’t. We did it.” His answer was simple. Too simple.
“What are you talking about?” Kendra stood in front of him with her arms crossed. “What you did, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Gabe sighed. He wasn’t sure he could explain if he didn’t understand it himself, but he had to give it a shot.
“I borrowed from all of you. Your strengths became mine, only magnified. It was...amazing.” He saw by the looks on their faces that he needed to say more. “Together we’re stronger than we are alone. It’s the best I can figure. I don’t know if this ability is mine or we can all do it, but a wise man once told me that our abilities are like muscles. We need to exercise and train them.”
He pointed to Kendra and said, “You have the amazing ability to track others like us. I can’t be sure, but I think that’s why my visions became more intense. The twins can tap into a person’s worst fear or make them crave pizza. Totally awesome, guys.” The twins grinned at him. “And like me, Raphael has an epic connection to the dead.”
Gabe almost lost it when Frederick waved to Raphael. The kid only rolled his eyes.
“And you, Lucas. I felt your connection most of all. It felt like whatever I imagined, I could amp it up because of you.”
The kids were paying attention now. They looked at one another and their chatter filled his head until Kendra tested him again.
“You knew the church name. How? What’s your connection?” she asked.
He wasn’t used to answering to anyone else on stuff he considered personal. He’d have to get used to it. Like Rayne had said in the Serenity room last night, none of this had to fall on him alone, but not flying solo complicated things, too.
“They’ve been looking for me. That night in the tunnels was the first time I’d surfaced in a while. They’ll be after me again.” He looked at Rayne when he said, “I don’t regret what I did. We need to take the fight to them. The church secretly hunts us and gets away with it because we can’t report what they do. They bribe people in power. We won’t know who to trust.”
“He’s right,” Kendra said. “Reporting them to the cops will only make things worse for us. That would put us in a spotlight we don’t need or want, but we can’t let them hunt us without fighting back. We’re outnumbered and we’re losing too many of our own.”
“But they have weapons and men willing to use them,” Lucas argued.
“We have the weapons we need...in us. We can train here, but no one will be forced to. That will be up to each of you. You decide,” Gabriel said, sounding more confident than he felt. Rayne had been right. Whatever they did going forward, they had to make that decision together.
“They have their army,” he told them. “We’ll have ours...and we can recruit more.”
That set the room on fire with the chatter inside his head. The debate raged. There were countless voices with questions and fears. He felt an adrenaline rush being joined to the collective in such a profound way. He’d never experienced it before, but Rayne looked completely lost. To her, the room was dead silent. She looked at him as if he’d told a joke that fell flat.
He loved that she looked sympathetic. He smiled at her and shrugged.
“If the church is secret about what they’re doing, how is it that you know so much about them?” Lucas asked.
Gabe had expected his link to the church to be questioned, but not what happened next.
“You’re questioning his connection to the church? What about yours?” Raphael spoke up for the first time. “Your sister works for those bastards. Why haven’t you told anyone about that, golden boy?”
All eyes fixed on Lucas.
“Is that true?” Kendra asked him.
Before Lucas said anything, Rayne defended her brother.
“Mia is our older sister. She works for the church, yes, but she had Lucas committed to a mental hospital and drugged. He escaped to get away from them. Any one of you would’ve done the same. There’s no conspiracy here.”
�
��All I know is that we were doing fine until they came after him,” Rafe argued. “Now Benny’s dead and we got no place to live.”
“I don’t mean to intrude.” Uncle Reginald spoke up. “But you can live here. Whether you choose to train or not, you have a home.”
Raphael stared at Gabe’s uncle as if he’d spoken in a foreign language. Trust wasn’t easy for him. Gabe knew how that felt. When Rafe took a deep breath, he let it go, but Gabe knew he wasn’t done.
He felt the kid’s rage and understood it.
“When Rayne told me about her sister, I freaked, too,” Gabe admitted. “It’s normal for us to have that reaction to anyone linked to that so-called church, but not everyone knows about how they hunt us. One man, Alexander Reese, is in charge of their North American operations. He’s here in L.A. These men work for him. I’m sure of it.”
“How is it that you have a name?” Kendra asked.
“It pays to know your enemy. For those willing to fight, you’ll know him, too,” he said. The room got quiet again. When the mind buzz died, a grandfather clock in the great room chimed the top of the hour. Everyone knew what that meant.
It was time to say goodbye to Benny.
“It’s time. Please follow me,” Uncle Reginald said, and he led the way.
* * *
Rayne didn’t know what heaven would be like, but the beautiful images flashing on the dome of the Serenity room were as close as she could imagine. Uncle Reginald had dazzling lights and stunning photographs in a slow spin over a small coffin.
He put on a show for Benny and he was the first to speak.
“No foot is too small that it doesn’t leave an indelible mark on this world. I did not have the pleasure of knowing Benny, but I wish that I had. I see how he is loved by each of you. Your love for him fills this room. I feel it. Benny will be missed.”
Uncle Reginald spoke from his heart. His rich baritone voice made for a solemn start to Benny’s funeral. Others stood and said what they wanted. Some had sweet, funny stories; others shared things that brought tears.
When it came time for Raphael Santana to speak, the room got still as he walked toward Benny’s coffin. He put his hand on the lid and shut his eyes, saying goodbye in his own way. When he pulled a small leather bracelet from his pocket and laid it on the casket, Rayne knew every heart in the room reached out to him, but she wasn’t sure how much he felt. Lucas had told her that he’d shut down to everyone. He’d severed his link to the hive and no one knew how long he’d punish himself.
Raphael was a beautiful boy with a fire in him that made her sad. He was the oldest, but there was a part of him that felt like a broken child.
“I didn’t have a little brother,” he said when he turned around. “I wouldn’t have wished my father on any kid, but God hit one out of the park when he made Benny.” A tear drained down his cheek. “I don’t know why some people get to live and others don’t. What happened to Benny wasn’t right. I can’t stand here and talk nice about him, ’cause I...I just want to hit something. I want someone to pay for what they did. Maybe someday I’ll be able to think about Benny and remember only the good stuff, but not today.”
When he left the room, the sound of his boots echoed in the chamber. The only person who went after him was Kendra.
* * *
She had to run to catch up to Raphael. Even weak and wounded, he moved fast to outrun the demons they shared. She could only imagine a fraction of the agony he felt. After Kendra lost sight of him, she found his jean jacket tossed on a hallway floor and she knew which way he went. She found him in a small courtyard that reminded her of her garden. The sounds of trickling water from a fountain brought back memories of the life and home they’d both lost—dreams and hopes gone in one night.
Raphael wore his pain in every muscle of his body. He’d blocked her from his mind and heart. Now he had his back to her, too.
Please...don’t shut me out. I need you.
She willed him to hear her, but he never turned.
“You were good to him,” she said. Kendra touched his arm, but he didn’t acknowledge her. “You gave him something he never had. Benny knew he was loved.”
Kendra understood Raphael’s misery more than he would ever know. It killed her that he wouldn’t let her in. She couldn’t feel him. She had no idea what he was thinking. This boy who wanted a family so much he’d built one, she understood that need—and he knew her, too. She didn’t have to link to his mind to see that she had lost him.
She couldn’t handle that, especially not now.
“Don’t make me go through this without you.”
He barely glanced over his shoulder.
“You’ve got Lucas. The others. You don’t need me.”
“You’re wrong.” She felt the sting of tears. “God, you are so wrong.”
She had to look into his eyes to show him what was in her heart. She reached for his hand, and when he turned, Kendra wrapped her arms around him. At first, Raphael didn’t react. He didn’t hold her, but she didn’t care. She held him tight until something happened.
When Raphael caressed her, he felt good against her, and she drew from the strength he always had for her, but when he lowered his lips to kiss her, she felt her body stiffen against him. Yet she didn’t stop him. A part of her let go. A part of her wanted this to happen. She kissed him back and her body wanted more.
“Oh, God, I can’t do this. I shouldn’t.” Breathless, she stopped and gazed into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She ran before he could say anything. She flushed with the heat of embarrassment. Kendra didn’t know what had happened.
Dusk
After the funeral and burial, Gabriel disappeared. Rayne went to his bedroom, searched the house and the patios, and even went to the domed Serenity room, thinking he might want the peace and quiet he’d found there, but Gabe was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until the sun’s dying light bled through the windows of her bedroom that she went looking for him again.
This time she had help.
When she saw the evening sky filled with fireflies around the grounds of the mansion—and the children laughing and playing under their fairy magic—she found Gabriel not far away. He sat on a large boulder that overlooked a lush valley below the Bristol Mountains. He wasn’t alone. Hellboy was with him. When she joined him, the ghost dog wagged his tail and vanished.
“I think Benny would have liked this,” Gabriel said, but didn’t smile.
Rayne nuzzled into his arms and breathed him in. With the last warmth of the sun losing to the night’s chill, she welcomed the heat and the comfort she always felt in his arms. When he lifted her chin and kissed her lips, nothing could have been more perfect.
Gabriel had given her another sweet gift that she always wanted to remember.
“I want to thank you for finding Lucas, but I don’t know how to do that. Nothing feels...right.” She pulled from his arms to look him in the eye. “How do you thank a guy for risking everything...for a stranger?”
“I’m the one who owes you.” He curled a lip into a shy smile. “Uncle Reginald said you’re making arrangements for another guest to stay here. Should I be jealous of this guy? What kind of name is Floyd anyway? Very retro.”
“He’s very...quiet. I think you two will have a lot in common.”
Their talk came easily. They touched and kissed, and for the first time, Rayne felt that Gabriel had no more secrets. She didn’t feel the walls he always had between them. She felt like a girl talking with a cute boy, but that wasn’t all that Gabriel was.
“That vision you had, where you saw those men attack the kids in the tunnel.”
“Yeah.”
“We got there in time, sort of. I mean, it took us a couple of hours to drive to L.A., but we got there in time for you to see it happening. You know what that means, right?”
He shook his head.
“It means that you can see the future. You had the dream and it happened.”
Hearing him say that made her ache inside.
“Maybe next time you will.” The way she said it, even she didn’t believe it.
What Gabriel had done was nothing short of amazing. With all his gifts, she wanted him to feel good about what she’d seen him do, but if he had visions of the future—of terrible things he couldn’t stop—that would be torture.
He didn’t deserve that, but he had no choice—just as he had no option in the future that lay ahead of him.
“Did you mean what you said...about taking the fight to them?” Rayne asked as she watched the smaller kids play with the fairy light Gabriel had conjured for them. “I can see why, but most of them are...just kids.”
“No, they were kids. The Believers have their army. We need ours.” Painted in the soft pastel of a fading evening’s sunset, Gabriel had a haunted look on his face. “Uncle Reginald is worried. So am I, but we can train them. We have to.”
He’d come a long way from a boy with secrets who only wanted to be alone. Whatever decision he’d made about his future, she’d seen the same determined look in Lucas’s eyes.
“We have a fight ahead of us,” he said. “We don’t have a choice. Kendra is right. Getting the police involved will only make things worse and the church won’t leave us alone.”
“But this could be only a small group of crazies. You said Alexander Reese is here in L.A. and is responsible for all their operations in North America. Are you sure he knows what’s going on here? Maybe...”
Gabriel didn’t let her finish. He shook his head and said, “He knows, Rayne. He’s behind it.” He sighed. “Alexander Reese will learn from what we did. He underestimated us this time, but he won’t make that mistake again. We have to be ready.”
“You never answered the question Lucas had. If the church is so secret about hunting these kids, how is it that you know so much about the guy in charge?”
He looked as if she’d punched him. When he fixed his mesmerizing eyes on her, Gabriel touched her cheek and said, “Because Alexander Reese is my father.”