Live Wire (Blue-Eyed Bomb #1)
Page 20
“Agreed,” said TS.
Alek fell in behind our brother, leaving Gabe, TS, and me behind.
I looked over at Gabe and smiled, knowing that we had a long conversation in our future, but not at that moment. He had a lot to work through with the death of his mother and the loss of everything he’d ever known in his whole life. That and the reality that magic and the supernatural existed.
“Go with them,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist. “You need to get some rest.”
He opened his mouth to reply, then shut it. We were at the point where saying anything else would have led to an hours-long conversation that we didn’t have time for. It seemed he knew that just as well as I did.
He squeezed me back, then kissed the top of my head before following my brothers’ path toward the back of the warehouse. I watched him disappear through the exit door and exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“He will adapt.” TS came up beside me, and I turned to face him. His neutral, calm expression had returned. “We will contact Pierson and find out what we can about his lineage and the root of his family’s powers. Hopefully we can then train him—educate him on how to control them. Perhaps then he can establish himself in this new world that his eyes have been opened to.”
“And if not?” I whispered, my mind instantly delving into the darker reality that he potentially faced.
“If not, I will handle the situation myself. I promise.”
I nodded, knowing that, though his offer was a macabre one, it was one of mercy.
“Do you think it will come to that?”
“That remains to be seen, but I have faith that it will not.” His eyes stared down at me with fierce intensity. “You are an excellent motivating factor, Phira. I think he will want to get control of his abilities for you, if nothing else.”
I choked on a laugh.
“That’s because he doesn’t know the real me. A few days with this version and he might beg you to off him.”
He stepped closer to loom above me.
“A few more days with you and we might never be rid of him.” He stood there for a moment, the silence in the room so oppressive that it made it hard to breathe. Then he turned and walked off toward the back of the warehouse, leaving me—heart pounding—to figure out exactly what he’d meant by those words. “I will take the room next to Muses,” he called back to me, pulling me from my stupor. “You can thank me for that later.” The clang of the metal door shutting punctuated his statement.
I stood in the vacant space, trying to wrap my head around all that had happened. My powers were back. I had regained my freedom. Hell, I was about to be an active member of the PC. I should have been ecstatic. And yet there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I just couldn’t ignore. One that wouldn’t be denied.
I knew that freedom and magic came at a price for all beings, and I doubted that I would prove to be an exception to that rule. What I didn’t know was exactly what the cost for both would be. That unknown weighed heavily on me as I made my way upstairs to claim my space in my new home.
And it wouldn’t be long until that unknown revealed itself to me.
Epilogue
It didn’t take long to settle into my new Midwestern home. Like it literally didn’t take long, because before I could slap sheets on the bed upstairs, we were headed out to track down the disturbances that we had originally been sent to deal with. Only hours after our Chicago arrival, we were back on the job.
And I loved every second of it.
Nico and Alek looked wary, still uncertain of how I would perform under duress, but I did all I could to assure them that things would be okay. I had my new, still unnamed inner badass to step up to the plate if things got too out of hand. It was also helpful that I was no longer human, reacquiring all the perks that went along with that. Without those things, I would never have been allowed to stay in the first place.
It also helped that TS had chosen to stay by my side.
He never did disclose exactly how he’d saved Gabe or convinced the others to let him do so, and I didn’t press him for answers. Whatever he’d done, he'd done for me, and I appreciated it. I didn’t want to tarnish that by interrogating him. He respected me and had always given me as much latitude as he could, even when I chose to squander it on self-destructive behaviors. To make up for our history, I chose to extend the same courtesy to him.
Things between us had changed with the control of my powers. They were lighter. Easier. Less strained. But a distance remained that I could not close. A secret he kept well hidden from me. The more I realized this fact, the more I wanted to know what it was.
But there was little time for that.
Gabe presented an interesting dilemma for all of us. Having somehow inherited his mother’s powers upon her death, he was now a magical being with no training and no purpose, given that I’d eliminated the sole reason for his family's gifts. My father had his most knowledgeable PC brother on the case, researching all he could to help Gabe, but so far he’d come up short. While we were dispatched to investigate the Iowa issue, Gabe was shipped off to Detroit to see if anything else about his abilities could be determined better in person. Knowing he was in good hands made me feel better, but the degree to which I felt responsible for his situation made it impossible to ignore.
That and the fact that I cared for him.
I had to set my feelings aside, though, when we arrived in that tiny Iowa town, not entirely dissimilar to Gabe’s. It didn’t take long to figure out that things there were not good. And the further we investigated, the worse it got. Supernatural girls were going missing. Children too. And to top it all off, an unsolved murder practically fell into our laps the second we set foot in town. The body wasn’t even cold yet.
Something very strange was afoot.
The Midwest proved to be full of surprises.
KILL SWITCH...coming soon