by W. J. May
Whatever new reality she’d just stumbled upon, she was just about fed up with this new version of Gabriel. A version that was, coincidentally, very much like the old version of Gabriel.
The man who shot first and asked questions later. A man deprogrammed for basic things like mercy, empathy, and compassion. A man who killed without remorse. Who’d done it so many times it was no longer possible for him to remember all his victims’ names.
Not like the man he’d become. The one who battled his every instinct, every day, in the hopes of living up to Carter’s sacrifice. The one who’d fought tooth and nail to develop some approximation of a moral code, as warped as it might be.
She shifted to face him, her frustration needing to be vented. “The first time we met, Gabriel, you hauled me onto a fishing boat. Tried to get my dress off.” She glared up at him with all her might. “Up until very recently, you’ve been trying ever since.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows lifted into his golden hair—half surprised, half amused. “Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. You’re not my type.”
Rae stifled a growl. “I’m going to remind you that you said that…”
“That’s enough!” Devon stepped in between them, his usual caution giving way to curiosity instead. As the wind picked up, dancing their hair around them, he inclined his head and stared intently into her eyes. Searching for the truth. Searching for answers he couldn’t understand. His voice quieted to a low murmur, one only she was able to hear. “How did you know my name?”
Rae shivered, either from the proximity or the wind. Or from the fact that her fiancé was staring her right in the face, and he had no earthly idea who she was. “I told you,” she whispered, “I know you. And you know me. Better than anyone on the planet. I know you’ve been made to forget, honey, but in your heart you have to know it’s true.”
His eyes perked up at the word honey, and a faint line creased his brow.
“We were standing on the cliffs in Scotland,” she continued in a soft murmur. “The sun was just setting over the water. You sank down onto one knee. Said that you’d loved me from the moment you tackled me on the first day of school. You’ve never cared that I was a hybrid. Or a Kerrigan. You’ve always been able to see me as exactly who I am—not what.” Her eyes teared up, and she pulled in a shaking breath. “You asked me to marry you, Devon. I said yes.” Again, she reached for his hands.
This time he didn’t pull away—though he made no move to touch her either. He simply stared, as if in a trance, before a loud voice shattered the moment.
“Kerrigan? That’s my last name.”
Rae’s eyes snapped shut in a painful grimace. Well, that was predictable. It doesn’t matter what dimension Kraigan’s in, he’s going to find a way to ruin my moment in some way. “Yeah, genius. Guess that’s what makes you my brother. My half-brother, actually. Lucky me…” she added under her breath.
“Your brother?” Kraigan repeated with an incredulous smile. Oddly enough, there was nothing sinister about it. He was simply amused. “Afraid not. I’m an only child. Simon’s only child. Simon Kerrigan didn’t have any other children. Doesn’t have brothers to carry on the name. I’m the last of the line.”
Oh, I get it. In this universe, all his twisted little dreams have come true…
Rae purposely ignored him, and turned back to the rest. Devon was adequately speechless, but the rest of them were just getting warmed up. It wasn’t often they were caught so thoroughly off guard, and the fact that she knew everything about them? It didn’t exactly bode well.
“How did you know about the fishing boat?”
Rae’s head snapped up as Gabriel stepped back up to the plate. Instead of being remotely convinced by her little speech, he obviously saw it as even greater evidence against her.
Obviously, this girl was a spy of some sort.
“What?” she asked, glancing back at Devon in a daze.
“The fishing boat.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face to get her attention. “I took a fishing boat to get from England to Scotland. But there were just two people on that boat. Me and the captain. How could you possibly know I was there?”
“The captain,” Rae put her hands on her hips. “You mean Petey?”
Gabriel froze dead still, but before he could speak again Rae beat him to the punch.
“The four of us went on an international road trip, off-book, hunting down a list of hybrids to save before Cromfield could finish them off.” She stared between Julian, Devon, and Molly. “I met Gabriel when he broke me out of prison—after being sent to kill me—and we met up with Angel in San Francisco not long after that. You guys have to remember this.”
The gang merely stared back. They exchanged tentative glances before Julian stepped forward with a frown. “No… The three of us went on that road trip. Me, Dev, and Molls.”
“And I was never sent to kill you, sweetheart,” Gabriel added confidently. “Cromfield didn’t have an agenda involving a specific person. Angel and I came to the cause of our own accord.”
Even though they were out in the open air, Rae felt a claustrophobic pressure pressing down on her lungs. A door was closing. Right before her very eyes. And unless she found a way to keep it open she was terrified she’d be trapped forever—standing on the wrong side.
“No! I was there!” she insisted. “Molls, you helped me pick out this outfit. Made me change three times before you’d let me go out. Luke, you taught me how to drive stick shift when Julian refused to let me borrow his car anymore. Guys…this is me!”
Panicked, desperate tears rolled down her cheeks, but even as she spoke she could see Samantha’s power at work. It was detectable in the soft flutter of their eyelids. The faint tightening of their brows before they were smoothed clear once more, awash with fabricated understanding.
In most stories, Rae was replaced by Molly. In others, she was replaced by Kraigan. In still others, she was even replaced by Angel.
Before her very eyes, the people she loved most in the entire world were slowly erasing every trace of her from their minds. Re-writing their whole life narrative to tell a new story.
One without her in it.
“We should get back home,” Luke said softly, nudging Devon to get his attention before gesturing back to Molly. “It’s been a long night.”
Devon stared at Rae for another moment, lost, as if he was in a dream, before blinking quickly and nodding his head. “Yeah. Yeah, we should head back. Sorry, Rae. I’m sorry we can’t help you.”
Without another word, the seven friends grabbed up their jackets and started hiking back down the hill to their cars. Oblivious to the girl they were leaving behind. Unaware of the fact that seven was supposed to be eight.
Rae froze for a split second before rushing after them in a blind panic. “Guys, wait! Don’t leave me out here—” She fell to her knees with a piercing scream, trembling head to toe as Gabriel held her in place with his terrifying power. He’d moved so fast that she hadn’t seen him turn around, protecting the gang’s back as she’d flown towards them as fast as she could.
The scream echoed off the hills, and for the first time there was a faint glimmer of life in Devon’s eyes. A single spark that brought to life all his other features. It was gone so fast Rae thought she must have imagined it, but at least a trace of its influence remained.
“Gabriel. That’s enough,” he said softly.
Gabriel didn’t lower his hand. If anything, the pain grew even worse.
Rae bowed her head to her chest, watching as her tears ran in little rivers down the blades of grass, when a sudden movement blurred in her periphery. She fought to use a tatù to counter his, but was too stunned to do anything. She had just enough energy to force her eyes back up just in time to see Julian knock Gabriel’s hand out of the air.
“He said that’s enough!” The psychic angled his body between Gabriel and Rae, lowering his voice in a furious accusation. “What the hell is wrong with you? Using you
r power on someone from the common world?!”
Gabriel straightened up and the two of them faced off, staring each other down with a familiar kind of hate.
Much to Rae’s surprise, Devon didn’t stop them. He simply stood there as the angel and the devil on his shoulder battled it out.
Angel, however, stepped between them with the long-suffering sigh of someone who’d done it a million times before. “Please, guys. Not again.”
Gabriel ignored her, focusing his every frustration on Julian. “She’s clearly not from the common world. She clearly has an inked brother, or cousin, or something with a big mouth. How else would she know all about us?”
Kraigan piped up helpfully. “She’s also clearly deranged…”
“Oh, that’s funny, coming from YOU!” Rae shouted back. Seven pairs of eyes locked on her, and she quickly changed tack. “Here. Let me prove it.” It was a testament to her panic that she hadn’t done this right away. But it was impossible to think straight when the boy who’d asked her to marry him didn’t know her name.
Choosing an active power with a lot of bang, she lifted her hands and aimed for the nearby trees. Then, after taking a deep breath, she shot out the biggest flash of lightning ever seen.
At least, that’s what she tried to do.
The gang watched with growing pity and impatience as she shook out her hands and tried again. And again. And another time after that.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she muttered, switching manically through her roster of powers. “Maybe Samantha told me not to use…WAIT!”
They were walking away again, leaving her where she stood. Probably dismissing her as some crazed fan. Not even Devon spared a glance over his shoulder.
She raised her voice, afraid to approach what with Gabriel on the warpath, but desperate to grasp onto anything she could. “You guys wake up, beaten to death, lying on a hill above a burnt-out building, and you’re telling me you’re not the least bit curious as to what happened?”
There was a hitch in their step, a pause in their collective breathing. For a moment they hesitated, turning to each other uncertainly.
Then, bit by bit, Samantha’s ink wrote them all an explanation.
“We were drinking…” Luke began uncertainly.
Angel nodded with a frown. “Must’ve passed out at some point.”
Julian’s eyes glazed over. “Maybe we heard the trucks when the fire started and woke up?”
“Rushed down to get as many people out as we could,” Devon continued.
“And got hurt in the process.” Gabriel finished the story, and just like that it was cemented as undisputed fact. “Nothing more to it than that.”
Kraigan stuck his hands in his pockets, all innocence. “Except that she’s still crazy…”
With that, they started walking away once and for all.
Nothing Rae could say could convince them. And, thanks to Samantha, she didn’t have a single supernatural trick up her sleeve.
All she had was information. And the fervent hope that something might break through. Desperate to stop them from leaving her, she yelled, “Well, if I’m so crazy, then how do I know that Simon Kerrigan is living in your basement?”
The gang slowly turned around.
Rae took a step back.
In hindsight, maybe I should have kept that one to myself…
Chapter 2
For probably the first time in her life since Guilder, Rae Kerrigan found herself feeling supremely sorry for every person—bad as they might be—who ever dared to venture in her friends’ path.
“Are these really necessary?” she asked for the fourth time, holding up her hands.
They had been bound by the wrist the second she slid into Devon’s car. Bound, ironically, with her very own jacket, which she’d left inside the car. When she made mention of the fact that it was her coat, his face had blanked, then cleared with that same supernatural brain-washing.
“No. It’s probably Molly’s,” he’d said.
“Molly’s. Really?” Rae held it up, emphasizing the long sleeves. “Does this really look like Molly’s size to you? The girl is scarcely taller than some hobbits.”
He cocked his head quizzically. “Hobbits?”
Rae sighed and slumped back in the seat. “I forgot. You never saw those movies.”
He’d stared at her for another moment then threw the car into gear, leaving the crumbling supermarket behind them as they sped back to the mansion.
It was a short drive back, but Rae had been encouraged when he’d automatically put her in his car. She had been less encouraged when Gabriel had volunteered to go with him.
“Yeah, I think so,” Gabriel answered her question, giving the sleeves an extra tug just to prove his point. “Given the fact that the first thing you did to poor Julian was try to disrobe him.”
“I was proving that I knew he’d gotten hurt at the market!” Rae exclaimed. “We all did!”
“And the fact that you scratched the shit out of me…” he added with a scathing glare.
At this, Rae simply offered a smug smile. Her eyes flickered to the four scratch marks running down the side of his face before she turned up her chin with a self-righteous sniff. “You were getting a little handsy.”
“I was fastening your seatbelt!” he countered. “Something I’m beginning to regret, given the speed Devon drives. Could have just let you be and saved everyone a lot of hassle.”
Rae glared back, refusing to give an inch. “I know ‘fastening,’ and I know ‘handsy.’ That was the latter.”
Devon glanced back in the rearview mirror with a slight frown, but didn’t say a word.
Gabriel, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to stop talking.
Something about this new ‘Rae-free’ reality had made his particular personality step up to the foreground, approaching every situation with his own, typical Gabriel-style.
“You know the only silver lining about this whole thing?” Rae continued loudly. “The only good part about Samantha temporarily brainwashing all of you?”
“You mean the fake girl, who launched this fake attack you keep talking about?” Gabriel muttered under his breath.
Rae ignored him. “It’s that each one of you is going to remember every minute of this. You’re going to remember every single thing that happens.”
There was a pause. Then Gabriel took the bait. “And how exactly is that a silver lining?”
Rae flashed him a dark smile. “Devon’s going to kick your ass.”
This time the look Devon flashed them was much longer. Much longer, and much more telling—as far as Rae was concerned. That little crease was back in his forehead, and when their eyes met in the mirror there was a moment when time seemed to stop.
“Dude, look out!”
Thank heavens for advanced reflexes!
Devon’s eyes shot back to the road just in time to swerve, narrowly missing an oncoming truck. Rae and Gabriel went tumbling into the far door as it tilted up on its wheels, righting itself a second later.
“Sorry ‘bout that.”
Gabriel threw up his hands. “Sorry? That’s the best you can do?” He raked his messy hair back into place. “The guy has the sensory capacity of a Nordic god, and he still can’t manage to stay in his lane…” His eyes flashed accusingly to the front seat.
Rae bit down on her lip with a secret grin. Maybe there’s hope for my fiancé yet…
* * *
Less than ten minutes later they were cruising past the iron gates, rolling down the long driveway that led to the mansion. Rae had grown more and more nervous with every mile they drove, and now that they were here she was on the brink of a full-blown panic attack.
What if no one in the house believes me either? What if Samantha’s ink worked on everybody? My own mother…
She peered up as Devon put the car in park. She knew she was pale as a sheet. Trying her very best not to focus on the worst-case scenario, unless it was actually
to happen.
Devon stared at her for a moment before gesturing toward the house. “This is it.”
She forced her eyes away, and focused on him instead. “I know, Devon. I live here.”
He and Gabriel shared a quick look before he killed the engine and the three of them began climbing out of the car. Gabriel ‘assisted’ Rae, holding her firmly by the elbow, and by the time they were actually standing on the gravel she was on the verge of excommunicating him. In any reality.
“I can do it myself,” she snapped, yanking her arm away.
At least…she tried. It wasn’t so easy to yank things away from Gabriel.
He stared at her for a split second before carefully glancing over his shoulder. The second they’d stepped out of the car Devon had been accosted by Julian about his ‘creative driving,’ so for at least a moment the two of them had a small degree of privacy.
“Listen,” he lowered his voice, staring curiously into her eyes, “I don’t know what your story is. If you’re just some crazy stalker or what. But let me give you a little advice.”
Oh, this I’ve got to hear!
“These people have been through more than their share.” His eyes swept over the lot of them, and without seeming to realize it the sharp edges of his face softened the slightest degree. “A lot more than someone like you could possibly understand just reading about it secondhand.”
Rae’s blood rose at the accusation, but she kept her temper off her face. He was going somewhere with this. What was more, his over-happy trigger finger suddenly made sense.
The guy was protective. Fiercely so.
Without Rae there to balance out the impulsivity and power in the group…he had to be.
“So, what are you saying?” she asked quietly, feeling abruptly fond of him.
All those tender emotions went right out the window as his eyes latched back onto her. “Don’t give them a reason to regret bringing you here. You won’t like what happens.” His eyes glowed with chilling promise. “You have my personal guarantee.”
Note to self: When this is all over don’t EVER get on Gabriel’s bad side. Rae stifled a shudder, and nodded quickly. Half-terrified at the homicidal capacities of a man she’d called one of her dearest friends. Half-relieved that he was looking out for the rest of them. “Understood.”