Axel had told her that he was a Castello who wanted to make it big on his own. He wanted to be bigger than the family. Vincent was his younger brother.
Vincent was Axel’s younger brother.
That single fact echoed in her mind for a long time, and she lost track of the conversation going on around her.
“That’s rich, Jon,” Elijah growled. “You’re the one who harasses us every single opportunity you find.”
“Look here, you fag-” Jon snarled.
“Enough!” the mediator slammed her notepad down, jumping from her seat. It startled Sawyer. “For an hour, I have only heard insults from both sides, and I am done with it. I’m requesting that you both take some time to think about what’s at stake here other than your egos!”
“We haven’t insult Jon nor his team at all.” Vincent was glaring at the woman.
“Your team’s existence is an insult. To the IMPO and the WMC,” Jon growled, and Sawyer saw all of his silent team members nodding in agreement, except David, who looked a bit guilty. No wonder Vincent told her to keep to Special Agent Hamble.
A phone went off and Sawyer saw the woman answer. She didn’t say anything, only nodded and gave affirmatives.
“Both handlers are here, and they apologize for being late. We’re going to take a fifteen-minute recess.” The mediator left the room, and Vincent stood up.
“Let’s go to another room,” he told the team and they all started standing up.
Sawyer didn’t know what to say. Vincent was Axel’s younger fucking brother.
“Sawyer?” He frowned at her, and she stood up slowly. She followed him silently down the hall and into a different meeting room.
She didn’t say anything as she took a seat. The team chatted quietly about how their handlers being in the room might change things.
She looked out the large window and sighed. She was Axel’s ex. She couldn’t be a hypocrite and hold Vincent’s genetic relation to the man against him. If she were related to Axel, she wouldn’t want anyone to know either.
Axel taught Vincent to play chess. She gasped, but quickly regained her composure, hoping the guys didn’t know.
She used Axel’s own move against Vincent. God damn it.
“Well, I hear you all have been having some fun,” an older voice filled the room and Sawyer looked over. She hadn’t heard the door open, lost in her own thoughts.
“I wouldn’t call it fun, James,” Vincent sighed, reaching to shake the older gentleman’s hand. Sawyer looked James over for a moment as he turned to look at her. He had blonde hair that bordered on white and gray eyes. Small wrinkles stood out to her, laugh lines. He was a happy man.
“You must be Sawyer.” He smiled at her and she shrugged.
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“And you have a sense of humor,” James chuckled. “It’s nice to finally meet you. We’ll get this sorted out, so you can get back home soon.”
“That’s also what I’ve been told,” she mumbled, standing up to shake his hand. He laughed, nodding at her.
“Yes, I sure you have been. So, Jon’s handler, Ken and I were speaking on the drive over.” James clapped his hands together. “He disagrees with Jon’s stance on this and is going to say that it would be best for Jon to back off. But, he needs a night with Jon to make that happen. You packed to stay the night?”
“We did,” Vincent told him with a sharp nod.
“Good. We’re going to convince the mediator to give us a day, then head out. I’ve booked us rooms at the Hilton,” James grinned and looked to Sawyer. “Great facilities there, you’ll like it.”
“Goodie. Yay.” Sawyer did a fake cheer.
“Is she always like this?” James pointed at her.
In unison, all five of them said yes.
“My sympathies,” James chuckled.
Sawyer snorted. These guys didn’t need his sympathies. They drove her mad at every turn.
“Come on,” James waved them all to follow. “Let’s go get this over with.”
Sawyer followed dutifully, tense and somewhat unsure. She still felt like something was about to go horrifyingly wrong. She didn’t like how out in the open they were. She didn’t like how many agents were around. She didn’t like any of it.
It took ten minutes for the mediator to agree with the handlers. Sawyer’s elbow was grabbed by Jasper and pulled slowly. She followed him back out of the room, rolling her eyes.
“Fuck, I hate those guys,” he murmured. She raised an eyebrow.
“You have the capability to hate someone?” She crossed her arms, leaning against the elevator wall.
“Definitely,” Jasper chuckled as Vincent and Zander joined them on the elevator.
“Do other teams treat you guys like this?” Sawyer frowned, looking to Vincent. Now everything about him reminded her of Axel, and yet, the differences were just as glaring. He wasn’t beautiful like Axel. He had that permanent five o’clock shadow, whereas Axel was always clean shaven. He had the same brow line as his brother, but different eyes and a different nose.
“Eh…” Vincent looked thoughtful. “No. Lower-ranking teams don’t like me, but that’s because I tend to run them over. Other elite teams tend to ignore us. That’s more normal. We all ignore each other and go about our business. Jon’s just an ass, and he happens to be close by. It’s just a pain.”
They stepped out of the building together, and she saw Jon’s team only ten feet in front of them. They were all stuck walking to the parking garage together.
“Until tomorrow, Vinny,” Jon called, opening the door to his own truck. Sawyer got ballsy and flipped him off, making him glare.
Then an explosion tossed her into a pillar.
Sawyer groaned, trying to stand as another explosion rocked the building. She cursed, feeling around for anything to hold onto. The concrete pillar she hit was enough to help Sawyer stand up. Smoke filled the area, and she couldn’t see anything. She coughed as fire engulfed vehicles all around her. She tried to open her eyes more, to see anything, but the smoke stung, and they welled up with tears.
Another explosion had her stumbling as wreckage flew around her. She staggered towards the stairs. Well, she hoped she was going towards the stairs.
An arm grabbed her, and she couldn’t see who.
“Come with me,” a male voice roared. In the moment, she couldn’t recognize it. “I’ve got you. We’re going to keep you alive, Sawyer. I promise.”
She followed without complaint, coughing as she was nearly dragged. She stumbled on stairs, and the arm wrapped around her waist. She blinked and saw David, looking serious, helping her down the stairs. David was good, she thought suddenly. The guys said he was the nice one.
They broke out of the fire exit on the ground floor, coughing from the smoke. She was shoved into a car, and she realized something was off.
She turned back towards David. The scarf was gone. He was grinning, and Sawyer’s eyes fell on a scar she hadn’t seen inside. From the left ear, down the jaw and then the neck. David transformed into a woman in a white suit. Her blonde hair was perfect. Her eyes danced with glee and violence.
“Missy,” Sawyer hissed, scrambling to get out the other side. A gun met Sawyer, pointed at her forehead through the open car window.
“Well,” Colt grinned at her. “Look at this. Shadow, so good to see you again.”
Sawyer grabbed the gun and pushed it away, breaking Colt’s wrist in the process. He roared, and she pushed the door into him as Missy grabbed her ankle. Sawyer turned and sent her heel into Missy’s nose. Missy let go and Sawyer dove out of the car and started running. She didn’t know where she was going but it was going to be anywhere else.
She should have been paying more attention. She should have known that Missy was using David’s form. Special Agent David Hamble was probably very much a dead man waiting to be found somewhere. Hickies. What a stupid fucking reason to wear a scarf in August.
“Fucking Doppler
,” Sawyer growled to herself as turned to see both Missy and Colt on her tail. She picked up the speed but without her magic, she was going to need to escape the hard way.
“Talyn, now!” Colt screamed. She powered forward, only to see Talyn drop in front of her. She glared at him, but saw the fire on his hand, ready to go.
“This time, Axel decided to share his powers.” Talyn grinned. She felt the air leave her lungs as the earth grabbed her feet and pulled her down. He let her breathe again when he was positive that she wasn’t getting out.
Sawyer wanted to scream in frustration and anger. In heartbreak. Her guys were probably dead in that parking garage, thanks to Missy.
Missy only had one power, the ability to change into a different human shape. Every Doppler could only do that and only Dopplers could do that. They were Legends for a reason though. Untrackable, incredibly strong, with above average speed, they were nightmares, and nearly all of them were criminals in some way or another. It was just too easy for them, and they weren’t Registered the way other Magi were. Most Magi would never meet a Doppler and know it. They were masters at living whatever lives they wanted to.
Missy turned her lack of offensive magic into a passion for blowing everything up the conventional way, and she had a special hatred for Sawyer.
Sawyer was the one who scarred her, ruining her ability to perfectly match whoever she was copying. She wondered if that added to Missy’s insanity, or if she was always just a really fucked-up freak.
Sawyer groaned as someone kicked her back. She couldn’t fall forward though, with her legs pulled thigh-deep into the earth.
“You’re lucky we aren’t killing you right now,” Missy hissed in her ear, pulling her head back by her hair. “Boss wants to see you. He’s quite upset.”
“Go to hell,” Sawyer snarled. “And I’m amazed that Axel let you within ten feet of him, Talyn. He always found your kind disgusting.”
Sawyer knew she shouldn’t have said that. The earth tightened on her legs, threatening to crush them.
“You never did know how to keep your mouth shut,” Colt laughed. “Please, keep pissing everyone off. We’re just looking for reasons to make this even more painful.”
“Like you need reasons,” Sawyer scoffed.
“Drug her,” Talyn snarled, “and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Sawyer hissed as a sharp pain stabbed into her shoulder.
“We’ll wake you up when we get to the boss,” Missy giggled.
Sawyer’s world went dark.
23
QUINN
Quinn pushed a piece of twisted metal off his left leg before doing anything else. The parking garage was a disaster with fire, smoke, and debris everywhere. He coughed and heard another explosion.
“ELIJAH!” He roared, hoping for any sort of answer. “VINCENT!” He spun and looked around. Where were Shade and Scout? He knew they were alive and uninjured, but they weren’t in the parking garage. He could only hope they ran into the office building or found a safe place to hide while he found all the humans he was worried about. “SAWYER! ZANDER! JASPER!”
No one responded to him and he started to cough harder. He looked around again, hoping to see anything, even a body, but nothing was around him.
“QUINN!” James’ voice cut through, and he spun towards it. “I have Vincent!”
He ran for it, ignoring the pain shooting up his leg. He found James pulling Vincent out from under a car door and Quinn pulled the car door off his leader.
“Fuck,” Vincent snarled. “What the hell!”
“Someone blew up half the cars in the damn garage,” James groaned as he helped Vincent stand. “Injuries?”
“Sore,” Vincent groaned. “Nothing bleeding or broken.”
“Same,” Quinn growled, looking around. “We need to find everyone.”
“Let’s get to it,” Vincent had begun to jog away when all of them jerked to a stop at Zander’s touch to their minds.
“I have Jasper. He needs to be healed now or he’ll bleed out, so Elijah has to deal with the fire.”
Quinn cursed and began running toward where he knew Elijah’s truck had been parked. Vincent followed him.
“No,” Quinn gave a strangled growl at the sight. Elijah’s truck was a pile of burning metal. He was stood there, stunned, for too long, and Vincent passed him, looking for any sign of Elijah.
“Quinn, he’s over here,” Vincent called.
Quinn ran to him, thirty feet from the truck on the other side of the garage. Elijah had almost been tossed out of the garage, and they were on the third floor.
Quinn could hear firetrucks as he helped Vincent pull Elijah off the car he landed on. Quinn couldn’t see any injuries, and looked to Vincent whose eyes had glazed over. Quinn waited, holding Elijah’s head gently.
“Zander will be on his way over once he’s done with Jasper,” Vincent told him, coming back to the present. “We need to find Sawyer.”
Quinn nodded and searched his pockets. Vincent’s eyes narrowed. Quinn knew he thought that they would actually go searching, but he had an easier way to find her.
He pulled the picture out of his back pocket and opened it. He’d folded it to bring it to Atlanta, just in case.
“What is that?” Vincent’s voice was hard. Quinn showed him as Zander walked over while supporting a limping Jasper. “Where did you get this?”
“I stole it from her,” Quinn answered. It was a picture of Sawyer and a little boy as they played with a small house cat. He knew the picture meant the world to her since he could track her with it. He focused on the image and closed his eyes. His Source reached out in the direction of hers. She wasn’t close by. She wasn’t within five miles of the parking garage.
And she was moving further away at an alarming rate.
“Quinn?” Vincent sounded worried.
“She’s running, or she’s been taken,” Quinn whispered. “Zander, check on Elijah.”
“He’s waking up now. He was just knocked out. I sent a jump start to his brain to wake him up. Like magic smelling salts.” Zander told him. Quinn nodded and stood up as Elijah’s eyes opened.
“Fuck me,” Elijah groaned. “What the fuck happened?”
“Look around. All of our cars were blown up,” Vincent reached down and helped Elijah, who swayed, to stand. “And Sawyer is on the lam.”
“We don’t know that,” Quinn growled. “I just know that she’s moving away from here.”
“There’s no way she orchestrated this,” Jasper groaned, rubbing his leg. Quinn could see the blood stain, even on the dark pants. “We need to get out of this building before it goes down.”
“We should find Jon’s team,” Elijah reminded them.
“I think they’re all dead,” Zander mumbled. “I’m not finding any living bodies in this building except us and James. I say we go and chase her. Why aren’t we already?”
There was a small moment of silence before Vincent spoke up.
“Let’s get James and get out of here. Firefighters are here. We’ll go after Sawyer and find out what the fuck happened.”
They were all limping in some way as they got out of the building. When they made it to the main street, Quinn tried again to find his wolves.
He entered Shade’s mind and took a backseat ride to Shade running through the city in back alleys with Scout next to him. Where were they going? He pushed that question into Shade’s mind, and Shade snarled, throwing him a memory of Sawyer being carried by two Magi that Shade didn’t know. Quinn recognized one, however—Colt, known member of the Ghosts.
“Vincent,” Quinn re-entered his own mind.
“Are the wolves following Sawyer like Kaar is?” Vincent must have checked in with his animal as well.
“Yes, but Shade saw who has her.” Every head snapped to Quinn when he said that.
“Kaar did, too,” Vincent gasped, his eyes coming back into focus.
“Go,” James coughed. “Go. I’ll handle th
ings here. I see Ken and Jon. We’ll take care of it.”
“We might not come back, James,” Vincent reminded him. Quinn didn’t like the dark look in their leader’s eyes.
“I know,” James sighed, “but those mother fuckers need to pay for this.”
“We don’t have a ride,” Elijah reminded them. “Jasper is recently healed, and Zander wasted a lot of energy on that. Can we do this?”
“We’re going to fucking try.” Zander sounded excited, and Quinn looked at him with wide eyes. “Time to steal some cars, boys.”
24
SAWYER
Sawyer wasn’t tied to anything. That was the first thing she noticed when she woke up. Missy was grinning down at her with a syringe in her hand, and Sawyer groaned.
Great. It hadn’t been a nightmare. This was real life. Missy blew her guys to high heaven, and Sawyer was back in the tender, loving care of her least favorite people to walk the face of the earth.
“I’ll make this simple,” Axel’s voice cut through the fog of Sawyer’s mind. “If you put up a fight, this will be much more painful, and it’s already going to be a long, slow death for you.”
“And what did I do this time?” She groaned, pushing herself up. She met his glare. He stood nearly five feet away from her, toying with a long black dagger.
“You made me kill my brother to get to you.” Axel’s voice betrayed nothing except anger, and Sawyer scoffed.
“I think I care more about him than you do,” she hissed. “He’s a bit like you, but he’s at least got a moral compass. I kind of liked him.”
“You don’t know fucking anything about my relationship with my brother,” Axel snarled. “I let him have his fun chasing me around the world, but when I learned he had you, I was forced to make the most difficult decision of my life.”
A Life Of Shadows Page 25