Twisted Together

by May, W. J.

  Beth rolled up the prints before Rae could get a good look at them. “James is going to tell you all about it after dinner. So for now, I want you to call in the boys, and you kids get yourselves cleaned up. You’re all helping me cook tonight. It’s a family affair.”

  “A family affair?” Rae repeated with raised eyebrows. “With…James?”

  Beth shot her a grin. “Yes, my dear daughter, adults have first names too.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of that, Beth.” Rae rose to the challenge. “Or is that a name that only Devon is allowed to call you? After your secret talk with him that I’m not allowed to know anything about, because everyone here hates me?!”

  Molly gave her a conspiratorial nudge. “You kind of went off the rails there near the end, but I liked it! Feel the burn!” With that, she skipped up the stairs to claim the first shower.

  Rae rolled her eyes, but followed her mother’s instructions and headed out to the backyard to call in the boys.

  How strange my life has become, she thought to herself as she watched the three of them going through the paces for a moment from the doorway. It’s like I’m in some sort of music video. Like Thriller?!

  And it was true.

  There was something about the hearty food and open Scottish air that was taking the already- handsome men to newer, even sexier heights. Maybe it was just the fact that they’d all started wearing less clothing, she mused as she watched them working out. Couldn’t really bundle up when going through an obstacle course, could you? Or training with spears and throwing knives? Or just lifting weights in the afternoon sun?

  “Enjoying the view?” Devon interrupted her thoughts with a roguish grin.

  Rae snapped back at attention only to realize, in utter humiliation, that they were all watching her, giving her the same peculiar look that Molly and Beth had just moments before.

  I have got to stop spacing out like this!

  “Hey, um, my mom wants you all to get cleaned up and then come downstairs. Apparently, we’re all cooking dinner and then Carter is finally going to tell us his secret plan.”

  “Your mom sent you, huh?” Gabriel teased, coming over and resting his arm on the ledge above her. “Rae, sweetheart, if you want to play, just come right out and ask.” He leaned his head down towards hers. “I certainly wouldn’t mind going a round or two with you.”

  He vanished the next moment with a muffled cry, and Rae looked up in shock to see Devon standing where he used to be, holding a blunt club in his hand.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t see you there. I was just swinging this bat and then boom, right where your head used to be.” He tossed it to the ground with a frown. “Bad timing, huh?”

  When Gabriel pulled himself to his feet, there was a fire burning in his eyes. “You want to fight, Wardell? I mean—really fight? Be my guest.” All trace of a smile was gone as he raised his hands to beckon Devon forward. “I’ll bet you don’t last two minutes.”

  The boys took an angry step towards each other, but before they could touch Julian swept in between them, inadvertently pushing both of them away. “Carter’s coming,” he said innocently.

  In a flash, both of them disappeared into the house so fast Rae could have sworn they became invisible.

  “Are they always like that?” she asked Julian in horror.

  He gave her a long-suffering sigh. “Yep.”

  Her lips twitched into a smile. “Carter’s not really coming, is he?”

  “Nope.”

  * * *

  Cooking actually turned out to be a rather enjoyable affair. Beth and Carter had run in to town to get some wine and cider to go with the meal, so for once all five of them were completely unsupervised and alone.

  What could have turned into a disaster, especially based on the behavior Rae had just seen outside, had actually been surprisingly fun.

  She supposed it was because, deep down, all of them, even Gabriel, were pretty damn fun people. A constant stream of bloodshed and ‘near misses’ could only stifle it for so long. They were teenagers, after all. Teenagers like to goof around. She thought back to her time early on at Guilder, before people had started trying to kill her and she was expected to save the world. It had been fun. She had been fun. All in all, they were some of the best times of her life.

  That afternoon had turned out to be more of the same.

  “I don’t get it,” Gabriel had complained, coughing for the millionth time as a thin coat of flour clung to his face. “Rae’s a conjurer now, right? Can’t she just conjure us some dinner?”

  “Oh, but that wouldn’t teach us moral fiber,” Molly insisted sarcastically, standing atop four thick cooking books just so she could reach the pot to stir.

  “And trust me,” Julian interjected with a smile, “you don’t want to eat anything Rae tried to conjure. It’s not exactly one of her strong suits.”

  Gabriel shot him a grin without seeming to think about it, a grin that escalated to a full-on laugh as Rae popped her head out of the spice cupboard where she’d been searching for cumin.

  “Hey, you didn’t have any problem with that suit I made you.”

  Julian shrugged. “Not all conjuring is the same. You’re good with stuff. And beer. But no, I wouldn’t have eaten the suit.”

  “It might have been an upgrade from those vanilla cookies,” Devon muttered, stabbing a meat thermometer through a leg of turkey.

  There was laughter in the kitchen once more.

  One by one, some of the barriers that had been keeping them apart slowly broke down. Gabriel, the shameless flirt, the kind who could make you want to tear your hair out, even relaxed. Rae got the feeling that he was a bit of a sweetheart deep down. Very, very deep down.

  “Hey, you remember when I told you I wanted to sleep with your girlfriend?” he added to the joking, the laughter still lingering on his face.

  “Yeah,” Devon said, still laughing.

  “That was true.”

  Devon shot him a stony look, but instead of hitting him with another miniature baseball bat, he just walked calmly forward and reached for the flour to help put it away. Granted, he clapped both sides of the bag, re-exploding it in Gabriel’s face first, but it was progress.

  But even more than the four of them getting used to Gabriel, Rae had a feeling that the deeper obstacle was Gabriel getting used to them. There was something unexpectedly guarded about him. Something that didn’t quite jibe with his otherwise-bright demeanor. More than a lot of openly defensive people she knew, Rae got the feeling that this guy wouldn’t let anyone get close. Ever. He might play and tease with the rest of them, but there was something broken there. Deep inside.

  It was through that lens that she watched him, watch them all during dinner. Every time someone cracked a self-deprecating joke, or the table erupted in laughter, his eyes would flash up in surprise for a split second, like he wasn’t sure it was real, before he joined in. His mouth opened in actual awe the first time Molly went on one of her famous ‘doesn’t need to take a breath’ speeches about the quality of the sushi place there in town, and when Carter reached over to fondly ruffle Devon’s hair after telling a story, Gabriel’s eyes locked on every movement like a hawk.

  Rae had laughed at the idea before, but it really was a ‘family affair.’ And although Gabriel was by no means a part of that family yet, he looked like maybe he was getting there. Or at least, maybe he wanted to get there.

  But all the laughter and frivolity ended the second Carter joined them at the table after it had been cleared. He unrolled the final map, and without any further pretense started tracing lines with his finger, and emphasizing each stop with a deliberate jab at the paper.

  “You’ll come in through the tunnels here—Rae you’ll be invisible. Gabriel—you’ll be topside. The guards will lead you down through this corridor here, where you’ll end up in my office for a formal review. One the review is underway, Rae will sneak up through the ventilation duct, here, and make her way into
this chamber. That’s the place where the piece of the device is kept.”

  “It’s right in there?” Rae repeated tentatively. “In a hidden room behind your office?”

  Carter nodded briskly. “From there, it’s just a thirty-foot climb through a barred roof to get back to the outside. Actually, it’s set up very similarly to your old cell.” He shot Rae a faint smile.

  “Ha-ha,” she answered sarcastically. “Well, that doesn’t seem so hard…” She glanced around at her friends, but they seemed as dumbfounded as she was.

  Was she missing something here? A room exactly like her cell? The cell that she’d busted out of without so much as breaking a sweat?

  “Not so fast, Miss Kerrigan,” Carter stopped her. “The room is very much like your old cell, aside from one major difference.”

  He paused, and she leaned forward anxiously. “And what’s that?”

  “You won’t be able to use any of your tatùs.”

  Chapter 9

  Home sweet home.

  Except, for the first time that Rae could remember, it didn’t feel like home. Not one little bit.

  She trailed invisibly along behind her friends, arms wrapped around Devon’s waist as she took care to step only in his footprints. There were too many people with too many powers around here to take any chances. It had been bad enough when Molly accidently shut the door before she’d gotten out of the car like the rest of them. Gabriel had to pretend that he’d left his phone, just to give himself a legitimate reason to open it back up again so she could slip through.

  Of course, these kinds of mistakes were to be expected. Rae was hardly infallible. And that brought with it a whole slew of little errors and human faux pas.

  On the other hand, these kinds of mistakes could dictate whether she would get caught by Guilder security and spend the rest of her life in prison.

  No pressure.

  She squeezed Devon’s waist and lightly kissed the back of his jacket. He couldn’t respond, but she thought she saw the corner of his lip twitch up in a secret, reassuring smile.

  That’s it, Rae. Breathe. You’re just out for a walk with your boyfriend at your old school. No big deal; you’ve done it a million times.

  Of course, on none of those occasions had she been trying to break in to the school.

  They headed past the main office and took a turn up the bend to get to the Oratory. The secret chambers of the Privy Council were located directly beneath. An unseasonably cold breeze blew Rae’s hair in a dark cloud around her and she leaned in closer to Devon with a shiver.

  She had indeed made this walk probably a million times. But never before had she fully appreciated the measures of security Guilder employed on behalf of its students. Not only was there the invisible force-field enacted in times of trouble to keep people with tatùs both inside in out, but there were two massive guards posted at the gate; as well as a regular team of at least eight more that kept an eye on the perimeter. Everything inside past a certain level was passcode-protected. Although Rae had joked about it once, there were actual retinal scans and voice-activated doors in the lower levels of the underground chambers. As for the school, not only were there the scores of teenage students, each gifted with super-human potential, training round the clock to hone those skills for the good of the country, but there were the teachers as well. Literal masters of ink.

  In short, Guilder was virtually impenetrable. On every level, there were measures in place that would make any sort of incursion nothing short of a suicide mission.

  Of course, she had a way around all these measures. A proverbial ace up her sleeve.

  Carter.

  They’d spent the last three days going over every inch of the grounds and security to an exhaustive degree. She’d stared at the blueprints long enough to make her eyes bleed, and he had instilled in each and every one of them every contingency option known to man.

  Yes, there was a plan. And considering how complicated this little endeavor could have been, the plan was surprisingly simple.

  While Gabriel was to inconspicuously join the perimeter-protection detail—Julian, Devon, and Molly would walk straight inside of their own volition. Rae would follow along behind, undetected. Once inside, they would willingly surrender themselves to be cross-examined by the President of the Privy Council himself—aka Carter. Thanks to his unique ability to see into the very depths of a person’s soul, Carter was the ultimate go-to man for determining the truth of a matter.

  Fortunately for Rae, he was also secretly on their side.

  No matter what he saw, he would swear to their sincerity, freeing them of all the suspicion they’d naturally garnered since Rae’s escape and their subsequent unexplained absence. He would then discreetly trigger the voice-recognition software leading to the chamber, and Rae, once the room was clear, would sneak inside and steal the device.

  They could have gone through the main entrance of the Privy Council, but Carter argued it would be too obvious that something was up. Coming this way would make the PC less suspicious, and they needed every little bit of help they could get.

  After all this, her only obstacle would be scaling a thirty-foot rock wall to climb through a ceiling crossed by iron bars. Without using any tatùs.

  Admittedly, that’s where the plan went off the rails a bit.

  “See,” Carter had said with a wicked smile, “I told you there was a reason I’ve been having you hang off the rafters for the last seven days. You’re going to need those arm muscles if you want to make it out of that chamber without your powers.”

  Only a sharp kick in the shins from Molly had prevented Rae’s cheeky retort.

  And now here they were, attempting the impossible. Just a regular Saturday night.

  They came to a sudden stop in front of the Oratory, and all five of them took a deep breath. Then Gabriel turned around and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “I’m going to head up for guard patrol,” he said with a glance around, hoping to lend as much credence to their story as possible. “But I’m glad the three of you decided to come in. We’re going to need all hands on deck if we want to catch that little traitor.”

  Rae’s eyes narrowed and she could have sworn she saw him wink.

  “Anyway, good luck with Carter.” He began jogging away up the hill. “I hear he can be a real hard-ass.”

  Molly watched him go for a minute, before her mouth turned up in disgust. “Yeah, I don’t care who hears, I really hate that guy.”

  Devon sighed. “Let’s just go in and get this over—”

  “Wardell?”

  The four of them whirled around in surprise as an enormous man Rae had never seen before came pacing up from around the Oratory. Devon froze for a second, before his face melted into a welcoming smile.

  “Hey Brick, I didn’t know you were scheduled tonight.”

  Brick?! Of course his name’s Brick.

  Rae’s eyes widened as they travelled from the tip of the man’s muddy work boots to the top of his crew cut. He was even bigger than the bouncer at the bar. Really? The irony of life was sometimes too much. Rae swore if she ever wrote a book about her adventures at Guilder, she’d be using all that irony as foreshadowing.

  The man came to a stop in front of them, casually positioning himself between them and the door. “On duty every night until they catch Kerrigan.” He squinted ever so slightly as he looked down at them. “And on that note, we haven’t seen you three in a while.”

  Molly shot Devon a quick look, and he cleared his throat quickly. “Yeah, that’s uh…why we’re here.” He pulled himself up to his full height and tried to act as casual as Brick. “We came to submit to voluntary questioning by Carter. I know I speak for all of us when I say I don’t want there to be any doubt as to where my loyalties lie.”

  Brick raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. Apparently, anyone who would willingly allow their boss to know their every thought and secret warranted a good deal of respect.

  �
�Sheesh, man. Well…good for you.” The accompanying smile he gave Devon seemed much more relaxed than the first. “I’m serious; it’s really good to have you back. When they said you’d gone missing, well…” he paused, then jutted up his chin proudly, “I didn’t believe any of the rumors. I knew there was no way you’d jump ship. You’re more loyal than a dog. Just like me.”

  The very faintest of shadows flitted across Devon’s face, before he cleared it into an easy grin. “Thank, buddy! Well,” he sighed dramatically, “we’d better head on inside and get this over and done with.”

  “Just a minute,” Brick put a light but massive hand on Devon’s shoulder, bringing him up short. “I hate to do it, but, you know, protocol is protocol. You understand?”

  Devon tensed his shoulders, but nodded his head slowly up and down. “Of course. Knock yourself out.”

  There was a moment’s pause where it seemed like nothing was happening, and then Devon’s body locked up and Rae finally made the connection as to who Brick really was.

  Of course…the human lie-detector.

  That was the name he’d earned for himself amongst the guards, but perhaps lie-detector was an inaccurate term. It was more like threat-detector. She watched in fascination as his ink went into effect. At a glance, it almost looked like Angel’s power, but instead of freezing people in place, it was like he slowed them down, like they were moving through thick mud. The time-delay gave him the opportunity he needed for his real ink to go into effect: determining whether or not a person presented any sort of danger or threat to the center of his attention. In this case, the Privy Council.

  It was an ability that had made him a valuable asset to the Council for many years. Even the stealthiest or most charming suspect couldn’t hide the dark motives harbored away in their hearts. Rae could only hope that Devon had enough of a grasp on his bitterness towards the Council for its recent behavior that he didn’t send up any red flags.

  “Just get on with it,” he teased with some difficulty, struggling a bit to speak. “I’m here, alright? Not going anywhere.”