by Jillian Neal
Lessons Learned
By Jillian Neal
Lessons Learned
Written by Jillian Neal
Cover Design by Ana Cruz of Ana Cruz Arts
Copyright © 2013 Jillian Neal
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincident
Published by Realm Press
36 South Court Square
Suite 300
Newnan GA 30263
http://realmpress.net/
ISBN 978-1-940174-05-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013916426
First Edition
First Printing - October 2013
When you finally manage to gain just enough ground and enough to courage to stand and declare to the world: “This is who I really am…” If you find yourself with someone who will stand beside you, who can wade through the mess and somehow locate your authentic self, then you should count yourself very lucky.
So, this book is dedicated to the girl who always has my back and most definitely a special place in my heart. To all the lessons we’ve learned together in the last thirteen years, and to all the mountains left to climb… I dedicate this work to the girl who’s somehow always seen me for me, and who has never turned away. To my best friend… Cherry.
Table of Contents
On The Road
Set The Trap
It’s a Small World
What’s Given…
Get It Over With
Felsink Reformatory
Interrogations
Comforts
Follies
New York, New York
The Gansevoort Hotel
Latus
Quite a Night
Dessert
In the Daylight
Blood is Thicker…
You’re Surrounded
Talk the Talk
Appropriate Dinner Conversations
Be Careful What You Wish For…
The Tantra
The Undoing
So Easy to Break, So Hard to Rebuild
Talk Loud, Rainer
Hell Hath No Fury…
Cold and Alone
A New Day
Wise Counsel
To Right a Wrong
A Foundation
The Calm Before…
Invitation From the Past
Nerves
Northeast Summation Exhibition
Conflict
Broken
Casualties
Negotiations
None So Blind…
Make Me Whole
Any Lengths
Angels vs. Sirens
Walk the Dock
Swallow Your Fate
Shot In the Dark
Responsibilities
Sticks and Stones
Mom
That Isn’t You
Baby Girl
Never As Good
Dig Deep
Me and You
Not This Time
For Every Action
Adults
…And What’s Taken Away
The Price
His Plan
Vestiges
Pretrial Motions
Lawson v. Lawson
The Tally
Things to Come
Family Ties
Bitter Taste
Sweet as Heaven, Sexy as Hell
Hunger
Saturday
Birthing Hips
The Eye of the Beholder
Beautiful
1964 and a 1/2
Shattered
To Save a Life
Hold Steady, Then Run Like Hell
Battle Lines
Politics
Garrett
The Thin Line
Needs
Brothers
The Devil You Know
Every Step of the Way
Good Night, Son
Animals
A Receiver
Intelligence
In The Reflection
The Price of the Priceless
What Remains
On The Road
“She’ll be fine,” Logan sighed as he and Rainer fell back into the Mustang. They had just dropped Emily off at the farmhouse on their way to the Pentagon for work.
Rainer rolled his eyes. He was growing weary of everyone’s insistence that he was overreacting about Emily’s safety when, just the day before, she’d almost been abducted by one of Wretchkinsides’ top dogs.
“She has the ‘ring of invincibility’, remember?” Logan laughed.
Rainer forced a chuckle. He knew Logan, his best friend and Emily’s older brother, was trying to get him to loosen up.
It was a humid July morning in Arlington. The fumes from Rainer’s ’65 Mustang convertible filled the muggy air around them as he revved the enhanced engine.
“So, you had no idea? About the ring, I mean?”
“No, all that stuff Vindico told us yesterday about the legend, or whatever, I’d never heard any of that. If I’d known my mother’s ring was infused with Promethium, that would let Em throw shields like that… hell, I would’ve proposed in middle school.”
Logan chuckled as he nodded his understanding.
Rainer and Emily had been in love for as long as he could remember.
He let his mind reel backwards as he drove off of the Haydenshires’ vast farm, and took in the onslaught of pine trees and dogwoods along the route.
He remembered sitting in her bedroom with her when he was seven years old, because she’d been afraid of the mighty storm that had driven Emily, Rainer, and all seven of her big brothers in from playing in the backfields.
“You’re my boyfriend,” she’d informed him in her forthright, candid, redheaded sass that still drove him wild.
“I am?” He was thrilled, but didn’t understand how that had come to pass. “How do you know?”
“Because I said so,” she huffed, as if Rainer was clearly not thinking straight.
“Okay…”
He smiled as he came back to the present. He would never love anything more than Emily. I have to keep her safe. The thought seared through his mind for what felt like the hundredth time just that morning.
“I’m still kinda hungry.” Logan hinted.
Rainer hadn’t consciously been aware of his own hunger until Logan had spoken up. He exited the interstate several miles before the ramp to the Pentagon, and pulled into a drive-thru.
“You care?” he asked the customary question that he and Logan shared whenever they went for takeout together, ever since they’d both obtained their licenses.
“Nope,” Logan gave his typical response.
“Yeah, let me have four sausage biscuits, four egg, cheese and bacon biscuits, bunch of hash-browns, and two large Dr. Peppers.”
A garbled voice told him to pull forward.
They were trying to ward off what the day was certain to hold. On top of everything that had happened to Emily the evening before, he and Logan had spent their first day as Elite Iodex Officers training with their new boss, Dan Vindico.
Rainer’s biceps ached to such a degree that it was mildly difficult to steer, but he would never have admitted that out loud. Logan
had eased around the guesthouse that he and Adeline, his girlfriend, shared with Rainer and Emily, and tried to hide his own muscle fatigue.
After a few more rounds of training, Rainer and Logan were being taken to Felsink Reformatory to learn how to drop off and retrieve prisoners who they would soon be responsible for taking in, subduing, and detaining.
Felsink was a Gifted prison in Culpepper. It was a solid hour away from the Pentagon, near the Non-gifted limestone and granite quarries. It sat approximately three miles underground, the distance below the earth’s surface where the Gifted people were completely unable to access any of their Gifted energies.
Going to the prison was excruciatingly painful, and could effectively leave a Gifted person drained for several hours to several days, depending on the length of stay and the strength of their energy Predilect.
Rainer and Logan were strong Ioses Predilects, and both were from powerful families. Their ability to summon the energies of the earth and harness them to their will reflected their hard work and their parentage, but Felsink could weaken and cripple the strongest of Predilects. Rainer and Logan knew they would be no different.
Logan offered him a ten for his half of their breakfast, but Rainer shook his head as he paid the uniformed employee in the window.
Rainer certainly didn’t need the money. He’d just inherited his parents’ vast estate.
The woman at the window didn’t look any too thrilled to be at work that morning. She flung the large sack of food and dumped his change into his hand.
“Nice,” he drove away after he stowed the bag of food between them. As was their policy, they both reached in the bag, grabbed food, and began eating without any real concern as to who’d ordered what.
Food was one way to restore their Gifted energies that the prison would drain. Rainer wasn’t certain if eating prior to visiting would help, but, on the off chance that it might, he was willing to give it a try.
“Dad says the first trip to Felsink is the worst.” Logan tore into another biscuit.
“Yeah,” Rainer nodded, not certain what else to say. Governor Haydenshire had tried to prepare Rainer and Logan for their trip that morning when they’d dropped Emily off at the Farmhouse.
Logan and Emily’s father was one of the six Realm Governors who served the Gifted Realm of the United States. He was in charge of the Governing boards of the individual states, and had to occasionally visit the prisons if something was wrong or design changes were being made.
He typically only visited Felsink and Coriolis, the two Gifted reformatories in Virginia that serviced the D.C. area, and let the state Governors and the Senteon Representatives from each of the fifty states check on the prisons in their own home states.
“Gonna suck, though.”
“Yeah, Mom’s already cooking chili, so that’ll help.”
Rainer grinned. He would never be able to thank the Haydenshires for all of their love and care over his relatively short lifetime.
Rainer’s father had been assassinated when he was barely fourteen years old. His mother had been murdered nine years before.
The Haydenshires had gone to the Governing board, and demanded custody of Rainer. They’d added him to their brood of ten children, and raised him just like all the rest. There was more love and kindness on the Haydenshires’ farm than anywhere else on earth; Rainer was certain.
“You and Em gonna stay in New York for the whole weekend?” Logan seemed to decide that changing the subject was preferable to trying to discuss the prison system of the Gifted Realm.
“Just Saturday night. We’ll be back for dinner Sunday.”
It had been a long-standing tradition in the Haydenshire household, as their children had grown and moved out, that everyone came back to the farm for dinner Sunday evenings. It was rare that everyone was there all at once, but most of the kids made an effort to be there, and to bring their wives or girlfriends, who were always welcome.
Logan nodded as he took long sips of his Dr. Pepper, and stared distractedly at the D.C. gridlock surrounding them.
“Why does he have to be so freaking helpful? He’s making me crazy!” Logan finally blurted out the thing that Rainer had known was brewing deep in his psyche. When you’d been best friends with a guy since birth, you knew when to ask questions and when to let things simmer a little longer.
“’Come in early, Adeline. Let me give you a ride, Adeline. You’re so talented, Adeline‘,” Logan mocked angrily.
Rainer tried not to chuckle. “Brad?” He didn’t really have to guess.
“Yes!”
Adeline was a Valeduto Predilect, and was training to be an Obstetrics Medio at Georgetown Hospital. Brad was the attending Medio who was training her to be able to see patients on her own.
“First of all, Adeline is crazy about you. Second, it is his job to train her, and his training of her reflects on his own practice, so maybe he’s not interested in Adeline. Maybe he’s just doing his job. She’s certainly not gonna go after some other guy just because he offered to take her to work.”
Logan rolled his eyes in disdain. “Right. Let’s think about it this way, the guy gets paid to stick his hands up girls, and feel all over them all day long, so I don’t really see how that doesn’t just automatically make him a perv.”
Rainer cracked up as he shook his head at Logan. The scowl remained etched on Logan’s face as Rainer pulled the Mustang into the Iodex parking garage. They flashed their badges to gain access to the Iodex wing of the Gifted Senate.
Set The Trap
“What’s wrong with you?” Garrett quizzed as soon as Logan and Rainer joined him at their grouping of desks.
Garrett was one of Logan’s older brothers and the only other Haydenshire who served as an Iodex officer. He was almost eleven years older than Logan, and had joined the force right out of the Academy, just like Logan and Rainer. He’d worked in almost every capacity of law enforcement, and had just been reassigned to the Elite forces to help train and keep an eye on Logan and Rainer.
Garrett was an outstanding officer. He’d received numerous commendations for his service, including being named Officer of the Year twice, for risking his life to save others.
Governor Haydenshire had asked Garrett to come back to the Elite forces, and leave his position as a liaison between the Gifted and Non-Gifted Realms at the Non-Gifted D.C. main police precinct where he’d worked for the last few years.
He’d begun his career in Elite, and had worked there until a few years after his brother, Cal, had been killed. He’d taken a month off, and then decided to step down to the liaison position. Only Elite Iodex Chief Officer, Dan Vindico, outranked him, but Garrett liked to play just as hard as he liked to work.
Vindico never played. As far as Rainer could tell, the only thing that Dan Vindico ever did was work. When he wasn’t actually working on a case, he was working out. His massive size and chiseled strength made him particularly intimidating.
“He thinks Adeline’s mentoring Medio is making a play for her.”
Logan shot Rainer a look that said he wasn’t supposed to have shared that.
Garrett chuckled as he shook his head at his little brother. He’d had never seen the point of tying himself down to just one woman. He perpetually harassed both Rainer and Logan for their commitment to Emily and Adeline at, what he considered to be, a very young age.
Vindico’s brow furrowed as he joined the conversation.
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you, Haydenshire, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about, but,” he drawled with a wry smile, “You’re on my team now, and that means we always have one another’s back. So, if this guy decides to extend his hours, so to speak, he can take on all of Elite Iodex. And, believe me, he doesn’t want to do that. I don’t care how well he can heal himself. Just go down there and flash your badge. The guy’ll get the message, trust me.”
A broad grin stretched across Logan’s face. “Thanks. I might do that.”
/> “Like I told you yesterday, I expect a hell of a lot from my guys, but there are a few perks as well.” Vindico gestured into his office, and Rainer and Logan stood to follow him. Garrett, Portwood, and Ericcson entered right behind them for the morning meeting.
“All right, there was a quake at Felsink last night. They’ve been expanding the chambers, so the energy is particularly unstable. It was pretty mild, but we’re gonna delay our visit for a few hours. I’ll take you two on the required tour of the Senate first, then we’ll head to Culpepper to retrieve O’Ryan.” He seemed more irritated with the change in his schedule, than fearful that it might not be the best idea to visit the prison right after a quake.
Logan and Rainer shared a bewildered glance as they nodded their understanding.
Most often, the tremors felt around the earth that were associated with the use of dynamite were actually caused by Gifted prisons. Energy that far under the earth’s crust was unstable, and often caused quakes that were blamed on fault lines that didn’t actually exist. Rainer considered this as he forced his mind back to the meeting.
“So, obviously, after what happened last evening, Emily Haydenshire will now be given almost 24/7 security detail when she is not either on Haydenshire Farm or with our esteemed colleague here, who I will quickly teach to forcefully dismantle anything or anyone that might try to do her harm.” Vindico gestured to Rainer.
Everyone nodded their understanding. Rainer appreciated the fact that no one was taking Emily’s safety lightly.
“Garrett and I are gonna be tied up most of the day, doing the tour here for Lawson and Haydenshire, and then taking them out to Felsink. I’m bringing O’Ryan back with me. Tuttle!” Vindico barked.
Ryan Tuttle’s eyebrows lifted from his cell phone.
“I want Mitchell and Scarlett O’Ryan here, but stick them in a questioning room until I finish with O’Ryan. I can’t set the trap if I don’t have the bait.”
Rainer swallowed harshly. His new boss clearly wasn’t afraid of bending the rules, if it helped him get his man. Right now, that man was Dominic Wretchkinsides, the head of the Interfeci Criminal Organization. Vengeance etched every detail of Vindico’s chiseled face.