Secret Legacy

by Anna DeStefano

  Richard was saying “we.” He was offering to risk his career, facing the council with Sarah by his side and asking them to take even more risks with her legacy. From the start, meeting her had challenged who he thought he was, everything he believed in. And he’d had no choice from the beginning but to challenge her back, always pushing for just a little more than she thought she could handle. Now he was asking her to trust him to push her even further.

  Sarah nodded so tentatively, she barely moved at all.

  “Good.” He tried to project back confidence.

  She crossed her arms and stared daggers.

  “Has the ocean told you to kill before?” he asked.

  “No.” Her tentative smile made him long to see a dozen more. To own more of her kisses, too, and to coax out more of the sighs she’d made as their bodies melded within the vision. “Your raven seems to be what it took to trigger that impulse.” Her gaze chilled. His dream symbol flashed through their link. “The voices have been satisfied with stalking just me before now.”

  “But they focused on me,” Richard said, “when I challenged the water’s hold on your consciousness.” He waited for her to follow his logic. “The same thing happened to Maddie when she tried to pull you out of the nightmare. Then to me, when you woke in your sleeping quarters.”

  “I . . .” Sarah hugged herself tighter. “No. I was just . . . Maddie was too weak to hold the bridge to the dream. And I’d gone too deep to pull out. The darkness was closing in and she wouldn’t leave without me, and the ocean—”

  “Would have trapped you both, if you’d stayed any longer.” Richard had felt their imminent collapse as soon as his raven dove beneath the nightmare’s surface. “The same way the consciousness at the house struck out at me and the other Watchers who were threatening its objective.”

  “What objective, besides pushing me over the edge?”

  “There’s a component of your programming designed to protect your dreams from outside tampering. Sleeper programming designed to return your legacy to center control whenever they need you.”

  Sarah swallowed.

  Started to talk.

  Swallowed again.

  “But why would Maddie be a threat?” she forced out. “The center’s wanted her with me from the start, controlling my messed-up powers. We were supposed to be some kind of super weapon together. Protecting my mind from her can’t possibly benefit them now.”

  “Unless you’re growing strong enough for the center to manipulate without your sister’s emotional control balancing your projections. Maddie’s mind focuses you, but she also holds back your darker impulses. If you don’t need her to maintain a dreamscape, and if she’ll see the center’s embedded impulses within your programming as a threat, then—”

  “She’s in a position to stop whatever the center has planned, just like you.” Sarah’s gaze shifted to the bruises on his neck.

  “We won’t know for sure until we can get you back to your nightmare with the support you’ll need to control your search for Trinity.” It would have to be a council-sanctioned mission, a plan they logically had little to no chance of convincing the elders to implement. But Richard’s intuition was already screaming that it was the Brotherhood’s best opportunity to counter the center’s tactics. “The only other insight we have into what the government’s up to is that there’s a leak in the Brotherhood.”

  “Leak?”

  “A mole, informing the center on key operations.”

  “And after my nightmare you thought it was me.”

  “The council wondered, yes.”

  “But not you? Not even after a center team was waiting for us at my parents’ house?”

  “Not since your mind accepted my raven image into the nightmare, no. I’ve been able to read you ever since. Your focus has always been on saving Trinity, nothing more. There’s a darker presence in your projection, but you’re not controlling it.”

  Sarah was staring at the floor between them, seeming smaller and even more fragile by the second. She had to come to the next logical question on her own, and had to give him a chance to help her find the answer. He could feel her thoughts scanning, analyzing, tumbling through the reality she didn’t want to face and the inevitability she couldn’t avoid.

  “What about Trinity?” She finally looked up, still weak, still scared, but still fighting.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s the one calling to me. Finding her is the reason I’ve fought so hard for the ocean dream. It’s why I went with you on that pointless mission. But all of it was just a center ploy. You’re talking like we’re going back—done deal, no matter how dangerous the dream’s matrix is. And Trinity’s not even real.”

  “Isn’t she?” Richard could feel her fighting the truth that he could only now accept. “Forget about Lenox for now. You found her in the nightmare.” He could see the door again, waiting in her ocean dream. And Sarah’s blood seeping into the churning water as she fought with the latch. But Sarah was resisting the symbolism of what they’d just discovered together. She didn’t know how to trust the hidden truths she’d freed from her own mind. “I was right there with you in your vision. What were you feeling?”

  “I . . .” Sarah’s hands clenched. “I couldn’t reach her.”

  “That’s right. You couldn’t reach her. Not it. Not a static component of some dream’s matrix manipulating your obsession to somebody who isn’t real. There’s someone there, Sarah, a consciousness you’re attached to. Your mind’s strong enough to know that. Now look deeper. Feel the complete memory. What’s behind the door?”

  “The . . .” Sarah stared. “The truth,” she whispered, her composure shredding, her fingers clenched as she fought back tears.

  Richard took her hands. He couldn’t stand to watch her shivering. He turned her palms into his. When she didn’t pull away from his touch, he dropped his telepathic shields completely.

  “You were terrified.” He leaned closer. “So terrified, you let go of the door, no matter how badly you wanted to get through. You were afraid—”

  “Of the truth. That’s what she said in Lenox. The little girl in my lucid daydream said I didn’t want to believe. That I never would.”

  Her mind was moving with his again, bouncing back and forth between her memories of the nightmare and the lucid dream in her childhood bedroom. Her unspoken trust as she shared it all with him felt like cool spring rain, washing him clean. He sensed the exact moment that Sarah accepted what she’d known all along.

  “Trinity was there, in the nightmare,” she said, the instincts he needed her to trust finally taking hold. Instincts that had pulled her back from the vision’s demand that she kill him. “And I felt her in Lenox, too. I don’t know what happened. Why I couldn’t get through to her in either place. But . . . she was real.”

  “She’s real.” Richard breathed for them both until she caught the rhythm and her lungs began to fill on their own. He held on to the reality of her fully accepting him into her memories for the first time. “I’m not sure what happened in your old bedroom, but we’re not going to stop until we find Trinity. Together. Your mind’s always known it can trust me. It reached out of the nightmare to me for help. Me, Sarah. Your—”

  “Raven,” her mind projected.

  Only this time, the mention of his dream symbol wasn’t followed by a surge of hatred. Her breathing stayed even, flowing in and out in time with his. Something close to acceptance flickered in her gaze as her thoughts followed his, back to the moment when he’d rescued her and Madeline from the nightmare. Then to their debriefing vision and his battle with the wolf’s presence, his determination to bring Sarah back. His willingness to die protecting her, the way he and his entire team had put their lives on the line to get her to Lenox and back.

  Richard found himself wanting to cradle her head against his shoulder, kiss her and make the intimacy they’d just shared real beyond the dream. He wanted the future he’d told her he never s
hould have offered. He waited instead.

  Other things were more important than his selfish need to hold on to the passion and belonging they’d just rediscovered. Like being Sarah’s Watcher. Being by her side from now on, fighting for her legacy. Earning more of her trust back even if he never had another chance to feel the rush of desire, the promise of more, that had filled them in their vision. Sarah’s mind had accepted him again. Nothing could tempt him to betray that trust.

  “Tell me you believe that you don’t have to do this alone,” he said. “I’m here, Sarah. Your twin and Jarred are behind you one hundred percent. Madeline was furious when she learned I’d taken you on a mission without her. You belong with us no matter what’s waiting in your dreaming mind. You can lose yourself in your programming’s matrix, and we’ll be there to help you control it. We’ll have your family with us when we pitch the idea of a dream mission to the council. But you have to stop seeing your own mind as a threat. If the elders sense your fear, it’s game over. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Confusion, doubt, flooded their link. But she nodded slowly, accepting the truce he was offering.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” she said, and he could sense her shoving down the destructive instinct to keep hiding. “But I don’t know how. I’m not like you. I can’t turn my emotions off and turn my confidence on just because it’s time to fight. Show me how to convince your council that I can be trusted. That you and Maddie and Jarred and I can help them find Trinity, so the Brotherhood can stop whatever the center’s using Dream Weaver to do to us.”

  “I don’t recall inviting your principals to this meeting, Colonel Metting,” said one of the holographic images shimmering at the other end of the conference room.

  “My sister and I are no one’s principals anymore.” Sarah stood with Maddie on one side of her, Richard on the other. She felt like a total fraud, relying on their minds to enhance her power and control as she faced the council. “We’re done being psychic test cases. The center’s or yours.”

  “Maddie agreed to participate in this circus to protect her sister,” Jarred said, standing to Maddie’s left. “But continuing to treat the Temple sisters as though they’re the Brotherhood’s enemies is off the menu.”

  Neither he nor Maddie knew much about what was going on. But they’d come, regardless. They had Sarah’s back just as Richard said they would. Because she belonged to them. Because they were her family. That degree of trust after everything that had happened was insane. Humbling. And Sarah never would have trusted it without Richard’s help.

  “The center is this meeting’s focus,” said Jacob, the lead elder. The council’s images were being transmitted to the bunker from seven classified locations. “If we didn’t perceive the Temple Legacy as valuable to that endeavor, your presence would never have been accepted at our command site.”

  “Accepted?” Maddie asked. “Is that code for deciding a legacy’s fate without consulting the principals involved?”

  Sarah could feel her twin wondering how this confrontation would get them any closer to finding Trinity. She could feel everyone’s thoughts now whenever she didn’t consciously use the mental shields Richard was strengthening. Ever since their link deepened within the vision, her powers were expanding even faster. She could hear everyone’s questions. Sense their confusion. Their fear.

  Jacob’s condescending gaze flicked to Sarah, then back to Maddie. “You and your twin still aren’t in control of the effect of your legacy on the world around you. If the center were to regain full command of your abilities, the damage done would be our responsibility. Our mission is to—”

  “Do the right thing?” Sarah asked. “How about partnering with my family instead of treating us like we’re faceless pawns in some war? Because that sounds pretty right to me.”

  Richard had begun the meeting by filling in the elders on their discoveries from her debriefing vision, including his personal guarantee that Sarah was not the Brotherhood’s mole. The elders had been as unmoved by his assurances as they were by her challenge now.

  “Your refusal to accept that my sister and I can be part of the solution to your problem,” she said, “not only endangers the people I care about, but your league of Watchers. My dream is a direct link to the people closing in on you. Isn’t that enough to make partnering with us a necessity, right or wrong?”

  The room slowed around her. Sarah could feel shock in response to her rational, calm delivery. She could read every mind, every heartbeat, every consciousness—including the thoughts of the elders, who weren’t aware that she could sense them through the psychic shielding at their locations. She could feel Richard waiting, confident in her control, while he buffered the cries for help still reaching for her from her nightmare.

  She could feel him wanting her, too. Needing her. Holding himself in check, so she’d have this chance and however many more chances she needed, without the distraction of dealing with the passion they’d lost themselves to and the question of what they were going to do about it.

  “The Temple Legacy has already benefited the psychic realm,” Richard said to the old men, whose images were now wavering. “They’ve assisted us in defending countless other legacies by helping end Tad Ruebens’s Dream Weaver plans.”

  “Have they?” Jacob asked.

  “My sister and I are here,” Sarah said.

  “Are you?” another elder asked—Sebastian, the one whose hologram was projected closest to Sarah. “Are you fully here with us, or is your consciousness still in thrall to the center’s programming?”

  His mind fixed on Sarah’s.

  He frowned when she blocked his attempt to access her thoughts.

  Sarah pictured the door barring her from the truth in her ocean dream, centering her thoughts on the light she needed to find on the other side of it. Then she concentrated on Sebastian’s consciousness. Welcomed his thoughts into her own. She felt Richard shielding her intent while his own gifts enhanced her range.

  Sebastian blinked when he realized she’d locked on to his energy. His mind rejected hers with so much force, Sarah stumbled backward. Richard grabbed her arm, kept her on her feet, then returned her to his side. The rightness of his calm presence beside her, within her mind, could become addictive if she let it.

  All seven elders were frowning now. There wasn’t a single condescending, tolerant smile amongst them.

  “As you can see,” Richard said, “Sarah’s control has grown enough for the council to consider the next phase of her legacy’s union with the Brotherhood.”

  “What union?” Maddie’s fingers tangled with Sarah’s. Her anxiety sizzled through them. “We were brought here to deprogram Sarah and to neutralize Tad Ruebens’s embedded dreamscapes. So you maniacs could move on to manipulating some other unsuspecting legacy and leave us the hell alone.”

  “Meanwhile,” David, the darker-skinned elder, said, “your sister seems more inclined to merge your legacy with our mission by the day.”

  “Since when?” Maddie asked.

  “Since she and Colonel Metting brought you and your fiancé to this meeting,” Jacob said, “to suggest that none of us have a choice in the matter.”

  Silence filled the conference room. Sarah could sense Maddie waiting for her to set the man straight.

  “Trinity is real,” Sarah said to David instead. “Whoever she is, the center has her. Colonel Metting has made it clear I won’t conquer the next dream projection I follow her into without the support of your Watchers and my family to stabilize the matrix. You need to know how the center plans to use that nightmare, and me, to weaken your organization. We need each other.”

  “And if the nightmare you’re so eager to dive back into gives you another command to kill?” David asked. “And next time you can’t stop yourself?”

  “Then Colonel Metting will be there”—Sarah had already accepted what would have to happen if her darker impulses grew too strong for her to stop—“to neutralize the dama
ge you’ve let the center create inside of me, for good.”

  “No!” Maddie’s hand clenched around Sarah’s.

  Sarah pulled away. Richard grabbed both their arms, his presence calming Maddie’s confusion and Sarah’s doubts that she could see this through. The desire that had coursed between them during the vision’s kiss reached for Sarah, too, the pull of the memory stronger now that they were touching.

  “I’ll get Sarah through the door this time,” he promised. She could sense his awareness of the turn her thoughts had taken, but he kept his warrior’s focus on the plan they’d discussed. “We’ll progress deeper into the ocean’s matrix and—”

  “My sister is not going deeper into that damned dream.” Maddie confronted the holograms. “You’re panting for the chance to silence her mind for good. If things turn ugly, you’ll have your excuse. It would be a suicide mission.”

  “Forcibly subduing your sister’s consciousness if necessary would be a condition I’m afraid we’d have to insist on,” Jacob said. “However, Colonel Metting wouldn’t be commanding the mission. The Watcher in charge would have to be someone we could trust to put our directives first.”

  “Before my family’s well-being, you mean?” Sarah’s heart stumbled at the thought of dreaming without Richard protecting her.

  The elder’s attention shifted to Richard. “Your supervision would be required in the lab, of course, to ensure the safety of the minds joined to the matrix. But another would be responsible for protecting the projection.”

  “I understand.” Richard blocked what he was thinking from Sarah for the first time since her vision.

  “Well, I don’t.” She needed her raven back.

  No, not her raven. She needed Richard, her Watcher, still stripping away the rising screams from her ocean dream and her fear of what was happening, so she could continue standing there, confident and calm, while she gambled with her sanity. But he wasn’t there. He’d deserted her, just like before, as soon as duty required it.