No Peace for the Damned

by Powell, Megan

  And she had absolutely no idea.

  I turned wide eyes to Thirteen. I could block psychic intrusions, no problem. But an empath? I didn’t want this lady knowing my feelings all the time. What the hell, Thirteen? He ignored my silent question and stepped forward again.

  “I would like to introduce you to our newest team member,” Thirteen said evenly. “Magnolia Kelch.”

  Jaws dropped, faces blanched. Shock and anger permeated the room. But Theo and Jon showed nothing. No reaction, no movement. Just total control. If those two turned out to be as strong as I sensed they were, maybe Thirteen didn’t need the rest of the team.

  GI Joe Charles swung around in his chair and grabbed my wrist. “How dare you bring an enemy…!”

  I didn’t think. I just reacted.

  I crushed his hand instantly, the bones breaking to bits under my grip. I slammed a quick extended-knuckle fist into his larynx, no more than bruising his windpipe, but incapacitating him nonetheless. Then I swung him completely out of his chair, twisting him to his knees in front of me, his back pressed to my front, his broken-handed arm pinning him in place. The Glock 34 he’d had tucked into the waistband of his jeans now rested nicely in my other hand. I pressed the gun to his temple.

  Everyone leaped to their feet, guns out, all pointed at me. Charles gurgled and I pressed the gun tighter to his forehead. Thirteen waved his arms in the air yelling something like, “Don’t!” or “Stop!”

  “Magnolia…” Banks said, as if trying to reason with me. But he didn’t lower his gun.

  “Lower your weapons!” Thirteen commanded. No one moved. “Lower your weapons! NOW!”

  All guns pointed to the floor. C’mon Thirteen, don’t be a buzz kill. Let’s see what they’re really made of. His stare bored into the side of my face.

  “That means you too, Magnolia.”

  At a normal speed, I released Charles and lowered his gun to my side. I watched with amusement as he scurried across the floor to Marie. Well, that had been fun. I turned to Thirteen and my amusement evaporated. He sighed deeply, his thoughts full of disappointment and regret. Damn it, it wasn’t my fault that Charles guy had grabbed at me.

  “Heather,” Thirteen said, “please run upstairs and get some ice and a first aid kit from Miller.” Heather didn’t look at me as she rushed to the door.

  “Please,” Thirteen continued. “Please, everyone just find your seats and let’s start again.”

  I took my place beside him, leaning against the wall.

  “Magnolia is here to help us,” Thirteen began again. “She can very obviously handle herself, but more importantly, she is offering her insight, her knowledge. And she is offering this at great personal risk and sacrifice.”

  Thirteen looked each person in the eye before he turned a softer gaze to me. The disappointment was gone, replaced by a warm reassurance. How could he make me feel so accepted with just one look? Even after I’d just injured one of his agents? Shit. I was way too close to Thirteen.

  When Heather returned, she wrapped Charles’s hand in a makeshift splint and an Ace bandage. “Be careful,” he hissed between clenched teeth as she finished taping him up.

  I could heal him. It would be painful, considering how many bones were broken in his hand, but I could still do it. He glared at me over his shoulder. Maybe I’d offer later.

  “Magnolia is here to share her insight,” Thirteen explained again, trying to get the meeting back on track. “And just to give you an idea of how valuable that insight is, she has agreed to a demonstration.”

  “Haven’t we already had a demonstration?” Theo asked, getting comfortable again in his seat. “I think we can all agree that the whole take-Charles-down-in-a-blink-of-an-eye thing was proof enough that she is who she says she is.”

  “Not to mention that we already knew that Kelches could kill with merciless efficiency and unnatural speed,” Shane added. It was the first I’d heard him speak. Considering the way his words oozed with malice and hatred, I kinda hoped he’d go back to being the strong, silent one of the group.

  Jon leaned forward on the table, his hard stare locked on me. “We need to know why she’s here in the first place.”

  I stepped forward, power already rising under my skin. Thirteen touched a hand to my arm, stopping me. He had had this whole explanation planned for the group: how I would use a power they’d never seen before to project a memory of my family into their minds, providing real-life footage of my family’s abilities. He’d been so eager for them to see what a valuable resource I’d be that he’d forgotten the most important thing about me: I was a Kelch. Charles’s jumping the gun and now Jon’s questioning my motives brought him back to reality.

  Thirteen looked at me, then without a word, stepped back, offering me the floor. Guess we’d do the explanation thing later. Resigned, I closed my eyes and reached out with my power, pushing past Heather’s and Theo’s blocks, until I was deep within the mind of every person in the room. They might have tackled supernatural beings in the past, but they had no clue what horrors awaited them when it came to my family.

  It was about time they found out.

  Thick leather restraints dug into my wrists and ankles, holding me tight to the metal chair. The chair itself was large, heavy, and bolted to the floor of an otherwise empty tank. I took a deep breath and blinked my eyes into focus.

  Cold steel surrounded me, the tank walls gray except where the bolted seams had rusted to a flaky red and green. My legs weren’t long enough yet to bend where the seat ended. Instead, my bare feet dangled oddly off the edge, pulling against the straps that held them in place.

  Five feet above me, the top of the tank was open. I could see my father’s head and shoulders. Dressed in his CEO best, he rested his arms on the tank’s edge. He looked down at me, his face pinched in frustration. The water wasn’t working right. It was coming out more as a spray than in droplets. It needed to be as close to real rain as possible. I shivered, wearing nothing but panties and an undershirt.

  Father’s features contorted in disgust the moment our eyes met. He rolled his gaze away from mine and spoke directly to the man next to him. One of my uncles? Probably, but my eyes were still blurred, and I couldn’t tell which one. They shared the same dark hair, sculpted features. Their faces all ran together for me.

  I turned my head, but the movement tore open a wound on the side of my neck—a soldered gash that went from behind my right ear, down my neck, all the way to my collarbone. It hurt like hell. I knew it was fresh because it had barely started to heal. I could usually heal burns and cuts, even severe ones, in a matter of minutes. That was why Father had taken Uncle Max’s advice and started using the soldering irons—to see if the combination of deep tissue tears and flesh-melting burns took longer for me to repair.

  “Yes, yes, that should work.” The excitement in Father’s voice startled me. My stomach automatically lurched. If he was happy, it meant that whatever new means of torture he had been working to perfect was about to be tested. On me.

  Father looked down on me again, watching me. The sadistic anticipation on his face made bile rise in my throat. I swallowed it down and braced myself. Four other faces appeared around him, and I now recognized each of my brothers and uncles. Even Uncle Max was there. The feeling of dread quadrupled. Uncle Max was busy these days. He would only have taken the time to watch if it was going to be especially horrific.

  My brother Malcolm, now at Father’s side, handed him a clunky remote control. Malcolm looked down on me with a gleam in his eye that matched Father’s exactly. Markus was sandwiched between my uncles. I didn’t have to read his mind to know that he was just happy it wasn’t him in the tank. Our eyes met for only a moment before he looked away. Such a coward.

  Uncle Max looked at his watch. “I have a meeting at four,” he drawled. Father scowled at him.

  “You’re not going to want to miss this,” he said. “Trust me.”

  All eyes were on me again. I held my br
eath. Father pushed a large yellow button on the remote. Water sprinkled down on me. I flinched when the first drop touched my skin. Father’s deep chuckles from above echoed in the tank around me.

  The drops of water sped up as Father made adjustments on his remote. It felt like real rain now—a fast, sharp rain that stung a little with impact. Uncle Max yawned.

  Then Father handed the remote back to Malcolm. His face went eerily blank. His eyes dilated so completely that any color his irises had was lost behind the empty ink of his pupils. His skin tightened. His features went completely devoid of emotion. His mask was complete.

  This is it.

  The sharp coolness of the downpour mutated into a burning wetness. A spasm of screams wrenched from my chest. My eyes clamped shut. Pain pierced through my senses. Like my entire body was being peeled away, one fiery piece of flesh at a time.

  The fire rain remained clear, looking every bit as normal as a spring shower. But as the liquid made contact with my skin, it instantly scorched circles into the flesh. Each burn spread, deeper and wider, until the edges of one burn wound met with another. Within minutes I could see cartilage where the liquid burrowed past flesh and muscle.

  And the tank was starting to fill. I could no longer hear my own screams. My feet were nearly covered in the pool of acidic rain. The flesh melted away, exposing tendons and bone. And when I looked down, thick chunks of my face fell into my lap. My lungs stopped working; the burning broke through my chest. In one final act of defiance, I forced my melting eyes to my father. Encompassing pleasure spread across his face. Then everything went dark.

  It was like changing the channel on a TV show. I switched off the memory and was back in the Thirsty Turtle’s basement conference room. It only took me a moment to get my bearings. The others had a more difficult time.

  Heather and Cordele struggled to find their breath. Tears streamed down both their faces. Charles huddled in a tight embrace with Marie, trembling. Chang was curled up in the fetal position on the floor, his chair knocked backward. Banks and Shane both had their faces covered with their hands, shaking in restrained sobs.

  Jon was the first to move. He scrambled from the head of the table to Heather’s seat and pulled her into his lap as she curled in a ball. Her knees tight against her chest, he rocked her back and forth, gently rubbing her back. Then he buried his face in her hair just as she buried her face into his neck.

  Wait a minute. What the hell was this? This softness, this comfort…this didn’t correlate at all with my earlier assessment of Jon. I turned to Theo. He was already staring at me, his brow furrowed with pain and anger. I took a step toward him. His breath hitched and his chin lifted in response, stopping me midstride. What was I doing?

  “I asked Magnolia to share this memory,” Thirteen said in a shaky voice, “to show just what this family is capable of. Experiments such as this one are confirmation that the Kelch brothers have been honing their powers for years. We have to assume they are planning something big.”

  I stared at the floor, my cheeks burning in humiliation. What Thirteen hadn’t said, but what was in the back of everyone’s mind, was that no one had ever imagined that the Kelch family would practice their horrible, torturous methods on one of their own.

  Always knew they’d kill anyone in their path, Shane thought. Callous bastards.

  Fucking monsters, Marie silently growled at me. And she’s one of them…

  That guy in Buenos Aires was telepathic, but I’ve never heard of anyone who could take over our thoughts like that. I glanced over to Jon. She could completely manipulate our minds if she wanted to.

  Cordele thought I was a mole, here to gain inside information about the Network. Shane and Charles thought I was the perfect distraction, sent by my father to plant false intel, steering the Network away from whatever huge terrorist plot they were concocting. They had visions of my Uncle Max forcing foreign nations into signing contracts, or my father destroying one of the primary competitors of Kelch Incorporated. Whatever was being plotted, it must be huge to send me into enemy hands.

  I tried not to roll my eyes.

  As if my family thought that much of the Network. Sure, they caused a setback every now and then, but truth be told, the organization was little more than an annoyance to my father. And Senator Max? He thought they were cute.

  “Another team needs to use the safe house where Magnolia has been staying,” Thirteen said. “So I will be taking her to the southwest HQ where she will be living for the rest of the summer. There is much to be discussed. Take the rest of today to do what you must then we’ll meet again at HQ tomorrow evening at six. Until then…” Thirteen wanted to say more, but what was there to say? Your newest team member just totally mind-fucked you, but really, trust her—she’s on our side. And by the way, be nice and don’t attack her again. She really doesn’t want to have to kill you.

  Yeah, there was nothing else to say.

  I turned to leave with Thirteen but glanced back at Theo once more. He hadn’t moved since I had pulled back the memory. He knew I was the biggest threat any of them had ever seen. He knew the Network was in over their heads with my family. Any other time, he would have made the practical decision and killed me before it was too late. But this time, with me, the thought of hurting me made him sick. And the thought of someone else hurting me? He reached for the blade hidden at his ankle before he even knew what he was doing.

  Our eyes met. His pulse sped until it beat in time with my own. He leaned forward in his seat and gripped the table to hold himself in place just as I gripped the frame of the door.

  Thirteen touched my arm and I jumped. Shit.

  Without looking back, I hurried past Thirteen and out of the room. I didn’t breathe again until the metal door was shut securely.

  The Network wasn’t the only one in over its head.

  I loved downtown Indianapolis. The city was alive, vibrating with people. Renovations were everywhere: the Circle Center mall, the convention center, the historic circled street that anchored the city. And with Lucas Oil Stadium having just hosted the Super Bowl, the place was busier than ever. It was awesome, exciting, and I loved it whenever Thirteen brought me here.

  Unfortunately, the Network’s southwest headquarters were not downtown. Not even close.

  I followed Thirteen’s car nearly fifteen miles before turning off the highway. The occasional cookie-cutter neighborhood sprouted up to separate one long cornfield from the next, but that was it. Eventually we were so far out that the faded green street signs no longer posted street names, only county grid numbers. We turned from E 450 to S 900, and then onto a road that didn’t even have a number to post.

  Masses of spindly weeds covered the uncultivated land. Thirteen’s car turned sharply. Crap! Was he driving into that field? Then I saw the imprinted path. Tractors might have ridden on the trail just fine, but there was no way my week-old BMW was going to survive this. The steering wheel jerked as I dipped into the field. Shit!

  The trail disappeared into the cover of woods at the edge of the field. From the jerks of the tires I figured we were on gravel now. Off in the distance, between the thinning trees, I caught the gleam of white siding.

  The gravel trail snaked past a thick grouping of fir trees, and I could make out a clearing up ahead. Thin grass stretched in a nice open yard before the small home in the distance. It looked pleasant. Quaint.

  I imagined driving up to my family’s estate. Past the guards and the glowing stone wall, the main house would shine with its golden bricks and enormous windows. The home was stunning. Just thinking about it made my stomach roll.

  I parked in the grass next to Thirteen’s SUV and watched as he and Banks walked toward the front porch. I turned off the engine but didn’t move. Up close, I could see that the chipped clay roof tiles had run and stained the worn siding. Someone, probably Thirteen, had put a pot of perennials on the cement steps leading up to the wraparound porch, no doubt trying to make it more welcoming.
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  It wasn’t much at all. But it was mine.

  Shane had been the one to donate the old farmhouse to the Network, as well as the nearly three hundred acres surrounding it. It had been left to him a couple of years ago, after his parents died. I knew from Thirteen that it was just one of several private donations that helped keep the Network staffed and operational over the years.

  I peeled myself from the car and hauled out my black backpack from the backseat. I threw the bag over my shoulder and walked the broken stone path around to the front of the house.

  Banks winked at me as he held open the metal screen door. I stepped past him into the tight entryway. A large great room ran the length of the house to my left, furnished with a couple of tattered, oversized couches and several worn ottomans. The far end of the great room opened into the kitchen, complete with yellow flowered wallpaper and cobwebs that had been there since disco. A thick wooden table was centered in the small room, making it nearly impossible to walk through. Off the kitchen, a narrow corridor led to the only bedroom in the house. A tiny full bathroom, a back door to the rear acres, and a narrow stair to the second story loft completed the home. There was no basement.

  I looked out the tiny window over the kitchen sink. The sun shone brightly in my eyes until I had to turn away. Curtains. After I doused the whole place in bleach, I’d have to get new curtains for the little window. And maybe some for the windows in the great room, too. Nice curtains. Yellow ones. And maybe a throw pillow. Nothing with fringe and tassels like the ones on every freaking sofa at the estate. But cute ones. With flowers. Slowly, I felt a smile tug at my lips. Wonder if the bedroom needed curtains too?

  Thirteen and Banks talked quietly in the kitchen while I explored.

  “…should have the rest of the report by next week. I want you on the call when it arrives so we can make a decision and get everyone moving as quickly as possible. Assuming, of course, it gives us information to move on. I just hope it’s not too late.”