by May, W. J.
Carter set down his mug of coffee with a sigh. “The good news is it’s nowhere all of you haven’t been before.”
“And the bad news?” Rae asked, bracing herself for the answer.
“It’s inside the Privy Council’s headquarters…”
* * *
“Well that’s just it, isn’t it?!” Rae threw up her hands as she paced back and forth. “Game over. We might as well put me back in chains right now.”
“I can help you if that happens, sweetie,” Gabriel said from the comfy chair he was reclining in.
“Calm down,” Carter tried to temper her. “No one’s getting thrown in chains.”
“Easy for you to say,” she snapped. “You weren’t the one wearing them last time.”
“So it’s in PC headquarters? So what?” Gabriel leaned back in his chair with an arrogant smile. “I’m surprised at you, Kerrigan. I thought you’d be up for a little challenge.”
“Don’t talk to her like that, you little worm,” Molly interjected with a sneer. “She has more to risk by doing this than all of us, and you know that.”
“Yeah,” he leaned forward with a devilish smile, “but I also know that she has the most to gain. Think about it, Rae. You go there, break in, and risk everything just to rescue the piece from Cromfield? The Privy Council will be begging you to come back. In the end, they’ll have no choice but to clear your name.”
Rae paused in her pacing. When he said it like that…
“Which is why I’d like to formally offer you my services.”
Every head in the room swiveled his way.
“I’m sorry…” Rae stammered. “You’d like to do what?”
“Why should you guys be the ones to have all the fun?” he teased, giving her a wink before leaning back to look at Devon. “Besides, with wonder-boy here in a virtual body cast for throwing himself off a big rock, you guys are one man down.”
Perhaps it was lucky that in the blur of angry voices that followed, Rae’s mother wasn’t able to hear exactly which profanity it was that her daughter said. Beth got the gist, however, and held up her hand for instant silence. “That’s enough!”
Everyone around the table froze, even Carter, though he looked rather surprised to be taking orders himself. “If getting this piece and keeping it safe from this man is indeed the way to clear Rae’s name, then we’re going to do it. Whatever it takes, no questions asked. If this means accepting Gabriel’s help,” her tone silenced the protests that instantly started, “then that’s exactly what you lot are going to do.”
“I’m fine,” Devon insisted, turning painfully in his chair to Carter. “The four of us can take care of it, just like we always do. There’s no need to throw a new person into the mix; it would just be an unnecessary variable.” He spoke with such calm assuredness it was almost easy to forget that what he was saying didn’t exactly make sense.
Carter rubbed his temples and sighed. “Devon, breaking into the Privy Council will be one of the most dangerous things the four of you have ever tried. You’ll each be placing your lives in each other’s hands. You and Julian have worked together. But Rae, Molly… it’s all complicated and risky. Are you really going to tell me you’re up for that right now?”
Before Devon could answer, he tossed him a piece of toast.
Sure enough, while Devon’s hand shot up automatically to catch it, his arm jerked back in horrific pain. He fought valiantly to keep it off his face, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“It’s settled then,” Carter announced. “Gabriel comes along.”
Gabriel’s sparkling laugh echoed around the table. “Don’t worry, bro; I’ll look after your girl for you.”
Devon’s eyes flashed as he pushed to his feet. “I’d like to see you try, you son of a—”
“Language!” Beth yelled, as Carter commanded, “Sit down!”
Rae had sunk low in her chair, wishing the ground would swallow her whole. If there was an option to walk into the PC headquarters right now by herself—she’d take it.
“Devon’s going to be coming along too,” Carter clarified. “This isn’t going to be a simple mission, or one that you can just improvise. The headquarters of the Privy Council is one of the most fortified places on earth. There are defenses there that you kids couldn’t dream of. It’s going to take a lot of planning, hard work, and a coordinated effort to get inside. And once you’re there, I’d guess you have about a one in one hundred chance of getting out undetected. Devon can be the guy behind the scenes. We’re going to need a bird’s eye view or back entrance view. Whatever it takes.”
“Except you can’t help. What about Beth?”
“My mother’s not joining us.” Rae said in a determined voice.
“Whatever it takes?” Julian’s eyes scanned worriedly to the future, but came up blank. “So, what does that mean?” he asked quietly. “If the odds are so stacked against us…?”
Carter glanced at Rae, and for the first time all morning she could have sworn she saw a hint of a smile.
She stood. “It means…we need to get to work.”
Chapter 8
Rae swore she had never worked so hard in her entire life. Not at school. Not during training. Not even during finals week when she swore she’d had the worst of both worlds.
This was in a league all of its own.
“Focus, Kerrigan!” Carter shouted, “You’ll need to do better than that!”
Rae rolled her eyes, but kept her comments to herself as she struggled to adjust her grip. He always called her ‘Kerrigan’ when they were in work-mode, she’d come to realize. ‘Rae’ was obviously saved for something else. Needless to say, it had been all ‘Kerrigan’ for the last week.
Sweat poured through her hair in little beads, falling to the ground as she clung upside-down to the outer railing of the house. She’d been hanging there for the last hour, trying to build up the strength in her upper arms. According to Carter, she was ‘tiny’ and ‘delicate’ and could use the extra muscle. Also according to Carter, she might need these skills when breaking into the headquarters of the Privy Council. When Rae had countered and asked in what part of their plan was she required to hang from the rafters like a koala, he’d sent her outside to do it some more.
“Looking good, Kerrigan.” Gabriel grinned as he walked outside and squinted up at her in the sun. He tilted his head to the side, eyes sparkling as they locked on her body. “Very…flexible.”
She dropped to the ground with a stifled curse.
When Gabriel called her ‘Kerrigan,’ it meant something else entirely. Something that set her blood boiling every time.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Carter shouted angrily. “By my watch, you have ten more minutes!”
She glanced over her shoulder before throwing a dirty look Gabriel’s way. He was standing casually in the frame of the kitchen door, directly blocking her path.
“I’m going inside so I don’t murder our fifth wheel. Fair enough?”
“Murder?” Gabriel leaned down with a grin, bringing their faces close together. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? For the man who rescued you? And who draws you pretty pictures?”
He and the other boys had been doing their own workout in the back yard, and despite her boiling rage Rae was finding it very difficult not to look at the way his muscles gleamed in the sun.
“Pretty pictures?” she repeated shortly. “You mean of me passed out, cold, and miserable on a fishing boat? That’s your big claim to fame?”
He leaned down still further and the citrusy tang of his body wash wafted into her face. “I don’t remember it being so bad.” He grinned again, showing her every one of his perfect teeth. “And if we’re being honest,” he lowered his lips to her ear, “I seem to remember we got each other heated up okay…”
“That’s it!” She shoved him out of the way—hard. When he hit the bricks on the other side of the wall with a dull thud, she threw Carter a look of smug sati
sfaction. “There! Is that strong enough for you?”
Before he could answer, she disappeared inside.
Molly and Beth were standing on opposite sides of the kitchen table, staring at a pair of hand-drawn blueprints of the tunnels and hidden chambers beneath Guilder’s foundations. As it was kind of an unspoken assumption that Molly wouldn’t be doing much hand-to-hand combat, she and Beth had been working more on the logistical side of things. Not to say that they hadn’t done their fair share of training as well.
Rae remembered that first afternoon with a smile…
Beth had taken both girls out to the middle of a huge dirt field about a mile away. Next year, it would be rented out as farm land, but for the time being it remained fallow. Rae kicked at a clump of grass and squinted around in the bright afternoon sun. Next to her, Molly was trying to keep her stiletto heels from sinking into the mud. Beth had insisted they walk here—no cars—and Rae was sure she was going to get some sort of ‘Jimmy Choo needs to be treated with respect’ lecture from Molly the second they were back home.
“What are we doing out here, Mrs. K?” she asked with the hint of a whine. Out of all the kids, she had the most natural relationship with Rae’s mother; coming in second perhaps only to Devon, who’s strange ‘understanding’ with Beth, Rae had yet to figure out. “And did we have to walk? I don’t think there’s even cell service,” she added as an afterthought, lifting up her phone.
Beth chuckled to herself. “Yes, we had to walk. I’m not wasting a car on this.” Both girls shot her a strange look and she chuckled again. “Alright Molly, we’re going to start with you. Do you see that tree out there?”
She pointed far off into the distance, and Molly shielded her eyes as she followed along.
“Yeah, barely.”
“Good. I want you to use your lightning to hit it.”
Molly’s eyes widened and she turned back to Beth in surprise. “Hit that?” She gestured with a dramatic wave of her hand. “There’s no way I can hit that thing! I can barely see it. You really expect me to—”
“No, I don’t expect you to hit it right away,” Beth said reasonably. “But I do expect you to try. Now, let’s see what you’ve got.”
Molly groaned, lifting a dainty hand towards the tree and covering her eyes with the other. “This is going to be really embarrassing. Rae, please don’t watch!”
Grinning, Rea pretended to cover her face, and peeked through her fingers as her friend shot her best bolt of lightning out across the field. It didn’t even come close to the tree.
Obviously discouraged, she turned back to Beth with a ‘told you so’ pout, but Beth was nodding her head thoughtfully as she walked forward. “Okay, I want you to try it again. This time, square your shoulders, plant your feet, and you know that feeling you get deep in your chest when you’re summoning your ink? That little sizzle? I want you to focus all your concentration on that.”
“Should I spit out my gum?”
Beth stifled a sigh. “Yes, Molly. I’m going to need your full focus here.”
“Got it.” Molly spat it into the dirt and then did exactly as Beth asked, getting into a fixed position as she tried again. This time, the bolt went much farther, but what was perhaps more telling than the distance was Molly’s reaction. Before Beth could even say anything, she opened her eyes and stared out with determination at the tree, cocking her head like she was seeing it in a whole new light. “I want to try again,” she said without hesitation, assuming the position once more and squaring her shoulders. “I can do better.”
Rae had never heard her sound so serious. She shot her mom a sideways smile, and Beth gave her a secret wink. Then they both turned and watched as Molly got progressively closer and closer to the tree.
Both girls went at it for the next three hours. Rae hadn’t had any more luck with hitting the damn thing than Molly had, even with her fire. They were getting closer, that much was sure, but neither one had even made it a quarter of the way. After a while, Rae began to think that it was physically impossible to hit the tree. That the tree was some kind of proverbial Everest, meant only to build up confidence and control.
She and Molly had just shattered the ground with another burst of fire and lightning when they heard the sound of footsteps headed their way. They turned around to see Julian, Carter, Devon, and Gabriel walking towards them across the field. The boys were sweaty, deliciously so, from working out. Their thin tanks and dark jeans clung to their sculpted bodies in a way that made her and Molly share a quick grin before hiding their eyes from Beth.
But, as usual, there was trouble brewing in the ranks.
The second they got close enough, it was easy to see that Julian and Devon were upset about something, Carter was looking frustrated, and Gabriel looked smug. Rae stifled a sigh as she wondered what all the trouble was about this time.
Last night, it had been that Gabriel had tried to ‘accidently’ burst in on Rae in the shower. When Devon had moved to automatically avenge her, he’d unintentionally ripped open his bandages and the cuts beneath. By the time Rae turned off the shower, snatched up a towel, and opened the foggy door, he was bleeding through his shirt, locked in a full-on shouting match with Gabriel. The same Gabriel who had the unspeakable gall to pause mid-argument just to compliment Rae on her legs. Then Devon really lost it.
Today was shaping up to be more of the same.
“Hey guys,” Beth said tentatively, sensing the same tension and trying to diffuse it before it began. “How’s it going?”
Carter shot her a look like a panicked parent trapped on a field trip with a bunch of drunken kids. “It’s going well. We were actually just taking a quick break—”
“Devon needed a break,” Gabriel inserted, casting him a pitying look. “Seems someone isn’t quite back to his usual self yet.”
Before Devon could even reply, Julian ‘accidently’ shoved Gabriel face-down in the dirt. He pulled himself up and spat out a mouthful of dust, a murderous expression on his face, but before he could do a thing to retaliate, Julian lifted a finger and tapped his temple in a gesture that was as simplistic as it was absolute. The message was clear: ‘Want to try something? Go ahead. I can see the future.’
Carter ignored all of them, continuing on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “We wanted to see what you ladies were up to. Maybe you can all play together for a while,” he added with a strained smile.
Beth grinned. “Actually, both girls have been working really hard for quite a while now, so we were just finishing up.”
“What were you trying to do out here?” Devon asked curiously, eyeing the scorched earth.
Molly put her hands on her hips, gazing out to the horizon with a determination she usually reserved for online shopping. “We were trying to hit that tree.”
“That tree?” Gabriel took a step forward, shielding his eyes as he squinted out. “That’s impossible. It’s way too far away.”
Rae’s eyes focused on it with something akin to hunger. “Yeah…probably.”
It was Carter’s laughing that interrupted them. “Too far away?” He laughed again, eyes sweeping over the defeated-looking kids before landing on Beth. “They think it’s too far away?”
Beth stifled a lovely smile. “They’re just children, James. Let them practice.”
“What?” Rae cocked her head towards her mother and put her hands on her hips. “You think you can do better?”
“The point of today was for you and Molly to practice, something at which you both excelled, and I’m very proud of you. Why don’t we leave it at that?”
“Aw, come on, Mrs. K,” Gabriel cajoled, with a grin, “show us your best shot. The famous Bethany Kerrigan? It’s got to be something special…”
“Yeah, come on, Mom,” Rae pleaded. “How close can you get?”
“How close can I get?” Beth repeated with a sparkling laugh. Her eyes flicked for a brief moment to the tree before she lifted a casual hand. “Get down.”
; No one moved except Carter, who crouched with a smile on the dirt. The rest of the kids just stared at her in confusion.
Eventually, Molly said, “What do you—”
“I said, get down.”
They had barely ducked out of the way before a wave of fire, the likes of which Rae had never seen, shot from her mother’s hands in a perfect circle around the field.
The tree was gone. Only the scorched remains indicated where it had once stood. And the rest of the field? Well, it would have to remain fallow much longer.
Holy crap!! Rae pushed to her feet with her mouth hanging wide open, looking at her mother like she’d never seen her before. The other kids were in similar states of shock, though Carter was just smiling to himself, beaming at Beth with a quiet kind of pride.
As for Beth, she never gave the tree a second look. Instead, she offered a hand to Molly, who was still crouching on the ground in utter amazement.
“Shall we get back to the house?” she offered cheerfully. “I think you girls deserve some lunch.” The lot of them trailed in a shell-shocked line behind her, casting occasional glances back at the smoking stump as she led the way back to the house.
Rae simply couldn’t believe her eyes. She had never seen anything like it before. She had never even imagined it was possible. Even after poring over all her mother’s mission files, she had failed to fully grasp a most simple truth.
Her mom was a freaking badass.
She glanced up ahead to where Beth was talking kindly to Molly, trying to coax her out of her daze. “And that’s why we didn’t bring the car…”
She could almost smell the scorched oak as her mind returned to the kitchen. By this time, Molly and Beth were staring at her with very peculiar looks on their faces.
“Honey, are you alright?” Beth asked with concern.
Molly frowned. “You’ve been standing there for like, a full minute.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Rae shook her head quickly and joined them at the table. “So, are we going to find out our actual plan today? Carter said a week, and it’s been a week.”