Secret Legacy

by Anna DeStefano

  He’d given her space after the conference with the council, but he would be running with her tonight. Because he understood this moment as no one else could. She’d need freedom to work through her doubts and fears. She needed movement. More venting, like their sparring in the gym. It was good that she was rejecting the isolation that would have deepened her confusion. She was searching for answers rather than accepting defeat. And he was going to be there to guide her this time, just as before. He’d be there from now on, for as long as she’d let him.

  The last twenty-four hours had left Sarah exhausted. Additional physical exertion would drain her even more. But the risk to tomorrow’s mission would be worth it, if he could help her accept the very darkness that was terrifying her, shadows she could use to create more than danger and pain once she learned to harness their power.

  A rush of energy reached him.

  Sarah’s panic.

  Her denial.

  He’d already disabled the sensors that would have alerted command that the bunker’s side entrance was breached. Sarah slipped out, dressed in a black knit shirt and fatigues, the color and the moonlight spotlighting her porcelain complexion and deep auburn curls. She peered through the dimness surrounding her. Richard could sense her need to find something, be something, anything besides the dangerous mind she still believed she couldn’t stop.

  He could feel her confusion at encountering no challenge to her exit. The anomaly didn’t slow her for long. He felt a streak of relief as she raced into the woods that had seemed both familiar and terrifying to her a month ago, when he escorted her through them to the bunker. She wasted no time looking back. The need to keep moving flowed to him from her mind. She focused only on taking the next step, then the next breath. On relishing the night’s chill as it stung her already-cold skin. Sarah was lost in the moment and the peace of running from her destiny.

  Richard mentally reengaged the bunker’s sensors and cloaked both their movements. He followed Sarah, close enough not to lose her, far enough away that she wouldn’t hear him. If she slowed down or looked deeply enough within, she’d sense his presence. But she was running from their connection along with everything else.

  He increased his pace when she did. He felt her heart race. The heightened level of exertion shouldn’t have been possible for her still-recovering body. She wouldn’t last much longer. He ran with her, breathed with her, felt the tension and anxiety ease within her. She was mesmerizing, a bright flash of motion flowing through darkness and shadow, blending into the night as the silky flash of her hair flowed behind her.

  This was how he’d first found her energy in the emptiness of her coma, flying free of the world that had chained her to madness. She hadn’t wanted to return then, either. Waking had meant facing the parts of herself she thought no one could accept. But her gifts were ready for more than hiding now. Everyone around her was demanding more. Her legacy. Her sister and Trinity. Him. The council. And not trusting what she was becoming was ripping her apart. Worse, she was creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that could result in tragic consequences. She was—

  —tripping over a tree root.

  Sprawling forward and catching herself.

  Her feet slipped out from under her. She landed hard on her butt, then slid down a hill beside the natural path she’d been following. He sprinted to the spot where she’d disappeared, then headed into the underbrush toward the body he could barely make out below. He dropped to his knees.

  “Sarah?”

  She was on her back, her chest rising and falling, her eyes closed as she wheezed. He reached to feel for broken bones but stopped, not wanting his sudden appearance to make it even harder for her to get in air. He rested his arm on his knee instead.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “Let yourself relax.”

  “Not . . .” She took another wheezing inhale. “Not likely . . . with you looming over me like a specter swoo . . . swooping down from the . . . treetops.”

  Richard settled back on his heels. If she could talk without pain, her lungs were okay. Likely no injury to her head or rib cage. It wasn’t a surprise that she’d known it was him without looking. Having her this close was filling his own senses, crowding out everything else.

  “You about done lazing around, playing for sympathy?” he asked.

  Her eyelids flew open, and he could have sworn he saw clouds swirling in her dark gaze. She stopped breathing at the sight of him. Then her chest rose on a long inhale. After she’d taken several deep breaths in rhythm with Richard’s, he stood and held out his hand.

  “Come on,” he said. “You’ve already come this far. Let’s finish it.”

  She scrambled to her feet unassisted. She bent at the waist and brushed leaves and twigs off her fatigues while she gulped in more oxygen. She straightened and wavered, off-balance. He motioned for her to precede him up the hill to the path they’d left, following closely so he could catch her if she slipped.

  Once on level ground, Sarah stood petite and irritated beside him. He was mesmerized all over again by her grit. She’d need that inner strength tomorrow. They all would.

  “Finish what?” she asked into the night’s fragrant silence.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “You said it was time to finish it,” she said. “Finish what?”

  “Your sprint to freedom.” He turned and walked deeper into the forest, increasing his pace when she followed. “Who better to lead you through the night than a specter who knows the way?”

  “Where are we?” Sarah had been so absorbed in the rush of being free that paying attention to anything but getting away from the bunker had been impossible. Including, evidently, the fact that Richard had been following her. Now he was leading her even farther away from her showdown with her nightmare.

  “We’re about a mile and a half from the bunker.” His lean, powerful body and relaxed gait were beautiful to watch. Distracting, as they moved deeper into the dense underbrush.

  “I thought . . .” Wind rustled through the leafless branches above, overwhelming her with sounds straight from one of Ruebens’s earliest nightmares. Except the crisp night air smelled like freedom, with Richard beside her. The moon showered winter white down on them, instead of a summer storm’s vengeance. Miles of welcoming nature felt nurturing. Forgiving.

  “You thought this might be your last chance?” Richard asked.

  “Last chance to do what?”

  “To get out before your nightmare destroys everyone and everything you care about.”

  She tensed, expecting to sense the brush of his thoughts within her scattered ones. But he kept his psychic distance.

  “You’re taking quite a risk, leading me so far away from the others,” she said. “Especially if you’re that sure I’m ready to bail on my promise to work with the Brotherhood.”

  “There’s very little any of us can do now to force you to stay. Whether you’re behind the bunker’s shields or out here dealing with your doubts, you’re growing too strong to control by isolating you. It’s time for you and everyone else to accept whatever you decide your legacy’s going to be.”

  He sounded almost . . . proud of her impulses to run into the night.

  “So,” she asked, “aiding and abetting the escape of the nutcase whose disappearance will give the elders cause to rethink tomorrow’s mission. That’s your plan for getting your fellow Watchers to accept me? Isn’t my just being out here a security breach?”

  Richard lifted his chin, motioning toward a spot in the distance.

  “Activity in these woods is monitored around the clock.”

  “Someone’s recording every step we take?”

  “No one knows you’re out here but me, Sarah. Big Brother won’t be listening, as long as I trust you to keep your rebellion within reason. Which I do.”

  “Naturally.”

  Instead of being kept on a short leash, she was like one of those outdoor pets with GPS chips. Except her invisible tracking device was
Richard’s mind. And if she’d learned nothing else since being dragged into the center’s and the Brotherhood’s battle over the psychic realm, it was that if it felt like a cage and worked like a cage, freedom and power tracked by someone else was merely another form of captivity.

  “You’re going to be working with a lot of my men when we start mission prep.” He walked ahead, his hands buried in the back pockets of his fatigues. “You needed a break.”

  “Which you took it upon yourself to provide.” She tried not to stare at the play of black fabric over his muscular backside. “How gracious of you.”

  “I’m a manipulative bastard. I wanted you out here, or I’d have stopped you at the bunker’s entrance. There are safer ways of escaping from the madness filling your mind than running around in the open like the center isn’t searching for you under every rock. I wouldn’t advise making this a habit.”

  Sarah stumbled to a halt. “You wanted me out here for what, exactly?”

  Richard kept walking, forcing her to keep up. “To convince you that you’re not the enemy any of us are fighting. You don’t have anything to prove, or any reason to believe that tomorrow can’t be successful. You’re one of us, Sarah, and we’ll help you every way we can. You were born to be with us. You and your sister both.”

  “Your council and most of your team would—”

  “Our council. Our team”

  “There are a lot of Watchers on our team who aren’t buying a word you’re saying, any more than I am.”

  He stopped walking.

  Sarah stumbled into him.

  “The council made a decision to trust your legacy,” he said, “with all its powers and potential darkness, rather than forcing you and Maddie to become something else, something less, before taking your place in our order. It’s a policy shift for handling principals that some Watchers will have a harder time accepting than others. But it’s the right stand to take. Except the move the council’s making won’t be successful, neither will tomorrow’s mission, unless you find a way to own the trust they’re putting in you.”

  So now the future direction of the Brotherhood itself hinged on her pulling her act together.

  Excellent.

  A faraway bird sent out its midnight call. Something small and furry scurried through the bushes to their right. There was a surreal sense of rightness to the breeze curling around them, the isolating freedom of limitless moonlight and sharing it with Richard. A rightness that felt alien, as if it belonged to someone else rather than Sarah.

  “Communing with nature is supposed to renew my faith in my destiny how, exactly?” she asked.

  She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she sensed an underlying sadness to his presence. Deep-seated regret mixing with the forest’s relaxed energy.

  “My parents loved nature,” he revealed, instead of taking another tour of her psyche. “From my earliest memories, they’d bring me into the woods on nights like this. At first, I thought it was because they loved picnics after dark. What they loved was growing my powers where no one else could see what we were capable of. My ‘greatness,’ they called it. Of course, even then the Watchers were nearby. They were comfortable with the shadows my parents were courting. And if my family had kept their pursuits within reasonable boundaries, the Watchers would have kept their distance.”

  Sarah didn’t know what to say. If this was how Richard had planned to distract her, it was working.

  He’d never spoken of his past. His family had been one of the Watcher’s high-risk legacies several de cades ago. From what little Sarah had heard—overheard, as she’d practiced scanning the minds of the Watchers she came into contact with—she knew his parents were no longer in the picture. But Richard kept the rest of who he was, who he’d been before his blind allegiance to his order took hold, a mystery.

  He started walking again. Curiosity had her stepping over a felled tree and hiking up a steep incline to keep up, until they stopped on a shallow ridge. He looked out over the ravine below. She couldn’t read his thoughts. But she had a sense that the vista spreading before them was a familiar friend.

  He fit here.

  He seemed at ease.

  Content.

  But the sadness was stronger, too.

  The ridge wound a narrow, uneven path through the woods. It was rugged terrain. A brutal, fragrant masterpiece. Stark. Peaceful. She glanced back in the direction they’d traveled and saw only more trees. More undergrowth. More hills to climb. They were totally alone, protected by nature and the strength of Richard’s shields.

  “This was the last forest my parents brought me to,” he said. “This is where they died.”

  Sarah’s attention snapped back to him. Her family’s own losses were a still-gaping wound that might never heal.

  “How long ago?” she asked, still not quite believing he was sharing his own damaged past with her.

  “On the night I agreed to undertake the Watcher training and conditioning that would make the Brotherhood my new family.”

  “How long were the Watchers involved with your legacy before that?”

  “Since my birth. My parents were in full control of what they wanted their destinies to be. What they thought they could make for themselves, through me. It became clear to the Brotherhood early on that the development of my gifts needed watching.”

  “But I thought you people—” She sighed when his eyebrow shot up. “I thought Watchers only involved themselves when there’s a threat to the psychic balance or something.”

  “We’re always monitoring. Tracking potential power spikes or possible sources of exposure. What my parents intended to do with their gifts and mine was an ongoing concern. Eventually, the Watchers assigned to our legacy were ordered to stop them.”

  The forest chilled even more around them.

  “What . . . what did they do to your parents?”

  “Nothing.” Richard nodded toward a section of the forest cloaked in denser shadow. “Until my parents’ practice became a threat to the quiet community they were building here.”

  “They brought you to live under the Watchers’ noses?”

  “The bunker was constructed ten years ago.” He kicked at the rich earth at his feet. “After I’d risen up the chain of command. We needed a central headquarters that would buffer the kind of metaphysical energy our warriors emanate when we train. I knew this area would meet our needs. It absorbs psychic energy. Nurtures it. Many think the forests in this part of the country were havens for refugee followers of the craft during the witch trials. Locals respect the superstitions and steer clear of the deep woods. It’s no coincidence the center’s complex is only twenty miles from here. The kind of work being done out here requires isolation. So did my parents’ plans.”

  “The craft?” The witch trials had been the genesis of Sarah’s legacy. A distant aunt had uttered their prophecy while being burned at the stake for her ability to sense and predict others’ thoughts. “Your parents were Wiccan?”

  “In name only.”

  Richard’s gaze was still down. There was a tightness to the slant of his cheekbones, a play of taut muscles stretching across bone as he attempted to hold his emotions away from her.

  “It was never about theology for them,” he said. “The craft was an affectation to mask our powers. They were gypsies. In their alternative society their gifts could have been used for healing, protecting, foreseeing. But the next score was their priority. Getting ahead. Getting away from whatever latest scheme had backfired. I’d never had a home until they built the commune out here. They collected a group of followers. A permanent kingdom they could rule.”

  “They used your gifts to make people trust them? The way you can manipulate someone’s environment and repel unwanted energy? The way you’re stopping your control room from tracking us now?”

  The way he’d manipulated Sarah at the center, once he’d reached her mind and won her heart.

  “They were very convincing,” he said. “It
never took them long to persuade a mark that one of their incantations was responsible for his good fortune. Some of it was mind over matter. A placebo effect. But my parents traded on their psychic skills and my growing ones. From the day I was old enough to teach the art of scamming, I became their meal ticket. We were common thieves.”

  “They were. You had no choice. They used you.” The way the center had used Sarah and Maddie and countless others.

  Sarah was mesmerized. She’d never heard another legacy’s story. It had never dawned on her that Richard’s gifts would once have been weak enough that he’d have been under someone else’s control. That he could understand the emptiness that filled you, when you knew what you were doing was wrong but you had no choice but to behave as you’d been taught. Trained. Programmed.

  “If they made me look sick or hungry or hurt enough,” he said, “I could scam an invite into any home. Ferret out the most deeply hidden weakness. Prep a mark for my parents to arrive and close the deal.”

  “You stole from people?”

  “My parents took everything they could get and expected me to do the same—for the family.” Richard stared into the woods. Into the past. “For a long time, it was about pleasing them and keeping them from beating me when I failed at whatever task they gave me. I’d catch hell when we were discovered. It was always my fault. I thought it was finally over when we came here. The lying and hating what I was and never being sure where we’d wake up tomorrow. This was going to be my home. Then the others started showing up.”

  “Other witches?”

  “More gypsies. A community of them. And my parents were determined to rule the bunch, controlling a network of miscreant activity up and down the East Coast. Except there’s a hierarchy to tribal living. Another family with more standing in the community became the presumptive head of the clan. Which put them in my parents’ way.”

  Wind howled through the leafless branches above them. Sarah pictured a lonely boy, running to this stark place and dreaming of freedom. Family. A future where his conscience could be cleansed of all he’d done.