He growled low and shared a glance with Shane. Both men were especially frustrated. It made sense, of course. They were the executors of the group. Foot soldiers. Without a clear method to attain their goal, eliminating the illusions was a challenge.
Instantly, the candles were lit.
Theo and Heather vanished their candles immediately. Thirteen and Cordele in the first minute. I gave Thirteen a small smile. He didn’t usually participate in training, but I should have known he would be at the top of the class.
No one cried out when the wax began to drip, but those still holding their candles strained against the burn. Charles inhaled on a hiss as the hot wax coated his fingers. Everyone else had dissipated the illusion. I waited for the wax to harden on his hands, then vanished the illusion. He flexed and turned his hands slowly.
“It’s no big deal,” Marie said softly. Charles pulled away from her.
“This is insane!” he yelled. “How are we supposed to fight against pain that real? That pain was real! Anyone who felt the wax burn their skin knew the pain was real! If this is what we’re up against, it’s impossible—it’s suicide. They could throw fire at us, or run us over with a truck, and the pain would be real!”
“It’s only real if you let your mind accept it as real,” Thirteen said calmly.
“Yeah, well, when my hands are on fire, I’m sorry but that just seems real to me!”
“That’s why we’re practicing, Charles,” Thirteen said, his voice rising. “Why we’re so grateful to Magnolia for demonstrating, once again, the level of power we are up against.”
“Grateful,” Charles snorted. “Yeah, let me just give the girl a fucking hug for kicking my ass and frying my hands. Again!” He stood abruptly and ran a frustrated hand over his buzzed hair. “This whole thing is bullshit!” He plowed out the front door, slamming the screen in his wake.
Marie sighed. “Maybe we could take a break?”
Her concern for her husband raised my respect level to the point of actually having some. Charles, on the other hand, was pissing me off. Pain was part of the territory when it came to my family. Surely they all knew that by now. Even more, he had totally doubted himself after our little standoff back at Batalkis’s. There wasn’t room for second-guessing when it came to the Kelches. A lack of confidence would get you killed.
The moment Thirteen agreed to a break, the cell phones came out. No one but Thirteen ever called me, so I fixed another drink.
I leaned against the sink, dropped some ice in my glass, when suddenly every molecule in my body started heating up. Theo. Glass in hand, he walked toward me. I averted my eyes and shifted out of his way. He stumbled. The glass in his hand slipped. We both moved to catch it. His arm brushed mine.
Instantly, a current of energy opened between us again. Sizzling, intense. Just like when we’d been training with that stiletto. Only this time, Theo was ready for it. He grabbed hold of my arms before he could be thrown back. The power reacted, shifted direction. Instead of throwing us apart, energy began holding us together. Like a thick cord, it wrapped around me. Oh God. I couldn’t move away. Then I stopped trying. A vibrant image flashed in my mind.
His body, sculpted muscle rippling under soft masculine skin, pressed down on top of me. His weight heavy and warm. Flesh on flesh, his dark, gentle eyes boring into mine. Was this memory? Fantasy? I couldn’t tell. And I didn’t care.
Then came the feeling. Warm and wonderful—peace. The comfortable calm I’d felt that day in the bathroom transformed, became so much more. A powerful serenity settled into every part of me.
My mind pulled back. NO! Impossible! Not real! Never real!
With a flex of power, I leaped away in a blur. My heart pounded. My breath struggled in my throat. “What the hell are you doing?” I screamed.
“I didn’t do anything!” he yelled back. He braced himself on the counter, panting.
“Bullshit!” I shouted again. “You’re trying to get in my head!” But that was wrong. He didn’t have supernatural powers. Something else forced that image and those feelings inside me. “Leave me alone!”
I ran to my bedroom, my legs trembling. I slammed the door. Locked it. Then barricaded myself against it. My arms clutched at my stomach. Theo’s beautiful face, poised above me, tight with intent—it was all I saw when I closed my eyes. The comfort in that moment, the peace…it was agonizing.
I knew pain. I knew fear. Those feelings were constants and could be trusted. Moments of quiet or warmth—they only meant that punishment would be coming soon. I’d had months to adjust to Thirteen’s kindness and I still didn’t trust it all the way. Everything with Theo was so fast, so intense. There had to be something wrong with it.
Images flashed in my mind. Father’s hateful mask. Mallroy’s terrifying mind. My brothers—so handsome, so horrible. The red of my dreams, so much like blood it frightened me. The tranquility that wrapped around me at Theo’s touch—I couldn’t feel this way. It was too dangerous; it made my guard drop, shifted my focus. My knees buckled and I slid to the floor. I knew where my thoughts were headed, and I didn’t want to go there.
But it was too late. Memories assaulted me.
…
Something covered my face. I sucked it into my mouth when I tried to inhale. Netting? A thin cloth of some kind? I went to remove it but my arms were bound tightly to my sides.
Insects burrowed into the earth around me. The smell of dirt and sweat and dried blood filled my lungs. Buried. I was in the ground, tied, and left for dead. Again.
I wrestled myself free from the binding and dug my way to the surface. Ten feet. I clawed through ten feet of packed dirt and mud and mulch before gasping the cold winter air.
Father’s imagination was waning. He should have used chains.
For several seconds my eyes adjusted. I shivered in the cold. I had on nothing but cotton yoga pants and a sports bra, both shredded and crusted with dry blood. No wonder I was freezing. It took a few moments more before I recognized my tomb. Uncle Mallroy’s ancient tool shed. I was on the far west acres of the estate. With a brief look around, I began the long trek back to the main property.
Keeping to the woods, I used the trees to block the icy winter winds. Dusk was near. When darkness fell the temperature would follow so I moved as quickly as I could. But my muscles were tight and sore. How long had I been down there?
I’d managed about twenty acres when I heard the deep, accented voices of two of the maintenance crew. I crept closer. They were loading debris into the back of a work truck.
“…days and nothing,” the first one said. “I think they might have really done her in this time.”
The second scanned the darkness while he spoke. “I heard the older son, the one with the eyes, bragging to the animal brother that he had bested her in some duel—took off her head.”
“Yeah, right,” the first scoffed. “None of them could take her and they know it. She probably escaped.”
Escaped?
“No, no,” the second argued, still looking over his shoulder, “the snotty one, he took the brothers to where they buried her. Said he and the other one sliced her head off. Brothers must’ve had proof because Celia heard them talking about using staff soon.”
Both men shuddered, and then they hopped into their truck and drove away. My mind worked furiously, replaying their words and thoughts again and again.
My father thought I was dead?
I had been buried for days. Days. I looked down at my clothes again. I’d worn this the day Father had me in one of the old grain silos. He’d hung me upside down from chains before searing my stomach and back with a serrated horse whip and then burning me with a cattle prod. Gotta love farm life. But I’d freed myself from the chains and walked back to the far wing of the main house.
Or had I?
No, I’d never made it back to the house. I’d walked to the southern gardens when…what? I was shot. In the back. No voices, no movements, but a thought, a train of
thoughts in the distance from the one with the gun.
Markus.
That little pissant had shot me! God, what a fucking coward!
I’d fallen, but not from the wound. The shot wasn’t a bullet, it was a dart filled with one of Father’s experimental drugs. In the next moment, Markus and Malcolm had sneered down at me, their handsome features twisted in grins of deluded pleasure.
I’d only registered the blade for a moment, recognized it as one of Father’s favorites, and then the pain had hit me. Cutting, burning, I’d reached for my throat but I couldn’t move past the drugs. I had tried to scream but no longer had a voice. They’d decapitated me.
An icy breeze cut through the trees and I shivered. With shaking fingers I touched the fresh sleekness of new flesh just beneath my chin.
I looked up to the dark and cold sky, blanketed in clouds waiting to snow. And there, forcing back the clouds, was the moon. Bright…and full.
The next thing I knew, I was moving. Running. Within seconds I was back inside Uncle Mallroy’s shed.
I wrapped the sheet that had covered me in a tight ball before throwing it back into my deep hole. With my powers, I quickly packed in the upturned dirt and debris until it looked as if it had never been disturbed.
And then I ran.
Faster than the cold, I ran. And I didn’t stop. Not for the wall surrounding the estate—doubt and hesitation had me pausing for only an instant—and not for the sounds of movement behind me. I ran until I was a good five miles or more from the estate, safe on the empty highway.
In a heap, I collapsed on the pavement. Release poured out of me in sobs. That’s when the SUV struck me head-on.
I woke in the backseat of a moving car. The expensive leather interior and spot-on detail were of true luxury. I panicked. They weren’t taking me back. I wouldn’t let them.
Silently, I reached up behind the driver. In a blur, I wrapped the seat belt around his neck and pulled. The car swerved, knocked me off balance. The seat belt slipped from my grip. I fell to the floor as the car squealed to a stop. The driver scrambled out of his seat and wrenched open my side door. I attacked. A lifetime of being put down for even attempting to fight back had me clinging to this stranger and not letting go.
His head banged against the pavement as I pounced. He was enormous—my hands couldn’t close around his thick throat. I ripped open his mind in a mindsweep, tearing into his most recent thoughts in the most painful way possible. His eyes closed tight and he shrieked in pain.
His mind held nothing of the estate or my father. But there was another face I recognized. Carter. One of Uncle Max’s personal secretaries.
But this big man hadn’t taken orders from Carter, he’d interrogated him. He’d held Carter for hours, launching question after question about a meeting Uncle Max had with some Egyptian diplomat. Then about the newest Kelch Inc. product launch. Then about my family’s supernatural abilities. Who the hell was this guy?
Every time Carter had balked in responding, this man had hurt him. Badly. But Carter worked for my family. He knew what would happen if he talked. The man had turned his back for a second when Carter pulled a knife from the guy’s back pocket and slit his own throat.
The guy had been horrified, but frustration had surpassed any other thought. He’d left Carter dead on a cement floor. Five minutes later, he had plowed into me.
I pulled out of his mind. He trembled beneath me. Slowly he opened his eyes. He looked familiar. Had he been to the estate? My hands still choked him, but he did nothing to fight me off. His eyes stared up into mine and I knew that he recognized me.
“Who are you?” I shouted.
He opened his mouth but only a gurgle escaped his bruised throat. I loosened my grip. “Thirteen,” he muttered after a moment. I recognized the number as a name; one from my father’s thoughts. No wonder he knew our secrets—this was an enemy.
But wait—was he my enemy?
I let him go and he fell back against the pavement. Now what? Steal his car? I couldn’t drive. Run some more? I had nowhere to go. Warily, I eyed him. He was shocked to actually meet me. He hadn’t been sure my brothers and I really existed outside of files. His thoughts were so honest, I didn’t understand them. I kept waiting for a plot to use or hurt me. Or an intention to return me to the estate. But there was only curiosity and concern. And amazement.
I knew the evil inside him would come out eventually, but I would see it before it surfaced. So when he suggested driving me to one of his safe houses, I let him. He couldn’t hurt me the way Father could. And after a few hours in a warm place, I could come up with a plan.
He never tried to hurt me. Not once. Instead he had offered me shelter, food, and the first kindness that I had ever experienced.
But when Theo touched me…it was so much more than kindness. It was peace. And that peace was so unbelievable that I knew it had to be just that: something not to believe in.
I opened my eyes, my back still against the bedroom door, my legs still folded in front of me. Voices carried from the other rooms. How long had I been back here?
Slowly I stood and wiped a hand over my face. I tried to take in the room around me, but all I saw was the dirt of the shed floor, the pavement as Thirteen’s car crushed me. The look in Theo’s eyes.
“…nobody cares about that, Heather.” Marie’s shrill voice brought me back. “Whether she was really attacking Theo or not doesn’t matter.”
Nice. I’d had worse wake-ups, but still. Whispering about me from the next room over? Did they seriously think I couldn’t hear them?
“Look, I know we all agreed to work with her and listen to her,” Marie continued. “But I’ve been thinking about this lately. Network members didn’t start disappearing until after she was already living at Thirteen’s safe house. How would the Kelches know who was even in the Network? We don’t even know who’s in the Network, but suddenly the Kelch family has the inside track on how to capture any one of us? She’s a plant, Thirteen. I’m sorry, but she is. And I for one am done getting all chummy with her and making her job that much easier.”
The bulb in my bedside lamp shattered. It should have been Marie’s head.
“I understand your concerns,” Thirteen said, not whispering at all. “She’s powerful. She’s a Kelch. It makes sense that you would be wary.” His voice got hard. “But the fact remains that she is a part of this team now. My team. She has trained you, provided crucial information to you. And this morning, she even saved some of you. If you still do not feel comfortable working alongside her, then by all means, let me know. There are plenty of other missions I can assign you.”
I brushed the hair out of my eyes. After everything that had happened these last couple of weeks—my rage at being asked to train, disobeying his orders—he still took my side.
In her mind, Marie fumed. Being picked for Thirteen’s team had been a privilege. Reassignment, even requested reassignment, would be a total slap in the face. And it would be all my fault.
No one spoke when I entered the kitchen. I went straight to the fridge and took down my whiskey. I didn’t look at Thirteen, or Heather, or anyone. Not even Theo at the other end of the table. What had he said during their little “trust Magnolia” debate?
Marie leaned with her bony ass against the far counter. I poured my drink. Slowly I met her eyes. She gulped. It wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. I wanted to see her shaking. Her face paled as her thoughts finally caught up with what the rest of the room had already figured out.
That’s right, bitch—I hear everything.
Thirteen’s cell phone rang. Several people jumped. Jon cursed under his breath. Thirteen looked at me as he answered, his face set in a dire warning.
Do not touch her, Magnolia.
Gee, was I that obvious?
I nodded to Thirteen’s thoughts. He turned to finish his call in the great room. Marie’s hand shook as she took a drink. Good. Almost immediately, Thirteen came back.
�
�Chang has finished getting the property details. We need to survey them immediately.”
Chairs scraped the floor, hands grabbed at the food, bodies struggled to exit the tight kitchen. Even though she was farthest from the door, Marie was the first out of the room. Yeah, you better run. Thirteen stood across the table from me. The softness was back in his eyes—warm now with genuine concern.
“I’ll call you soon,” he said. I gave him a small smile. Go get ’em, Thirteen. I didn’t say it, but for the first time, I meant it.
I shook my head and took a long swallow. God, now I was as delusional as the rest of them.
The next couple of nights I hardly slept at all. When I dozed, my color dreams were especially vivid—tinted with that oh-so-fabulous unease and confusion that constantly rode shotgun in my life these days.
When dawn came after the third sleepless night, I grabbed my whiskey and an apple from the fridge and decided to take back my control: I was going to decorate. After all, curtain therapy was as good a distraction as any from my current emotional landslide.
I’d finally picked up some sun-yellow sheers the day before at a Super Target. The quality was horrible—nothing like the thick silk drapes used at the estate—but they were mine, so they were awesome. Shopping still sucked—all those strangers going loopy when they looked my way—but I was getting better at the whole normal thing. I’d even picked up some decent groceries while I was there.
I was hanging my new sheers in the front window when Thirteen’s car pulled up the drive. He parked in the grass. Heather emerged from the passenger seat of his SUV. Maybe this was more than just the situational update I expected.
I opened the front door as they approached. Thirteen looked serious as ever, but Heather had a wide smile brightening her face.
“Nice curtains,” she said as they came through the door. “When did you get those?”
“I did a little shopping at Target last night. With everyone out scouting buildings and businesses, I had some free time.”
No Peace for the Damned Page 8