Reckoning (The Variant Series, #4)

by Jena Leigh

  Roughly a hundred yards further ahead Aiden and Alex sparred next to a small stream that bisected the field. Both of them were caught up in a fast-paced exchange of attacks involving giant shards of ice.

  Even from that distance, he could see that Aiden had Alex busy running defense as she tried to avoid being pelted by the frozen projectiles. It was unusual to see her struggling to keep up.

  Declan figured he was safe assuming that Alex hadn’t found anything incriminating in the journal yet. Even with the chaotic events of the night before, that was the sort of revelation she would have found time to tell him about.

  And though she was still up and training at the crack of dawn just like always, she must have managed at least four or five hours of rest. It wouldn’t do much to erase her mounting sleep debt, but the few hours she did sneak in must have been relatively restful.

  He knew this because it was the first night in a week that Declan hadn’t awoken at three in the morning to a chest-tightening surge of electricity coursing through the compound. If not for the combined efforts of Cil, Ozzie, and himself—the three other jumpers in residence—Alex would have been frying the compound’s electronics on a nightly basis.

  He sighed.

  Most of the time, those twenty to thirty seconds of vicarious, white-knuckle terror washing over him in the dead of night were the only moments when he could even get a read on her.

  From the beginning, Declan had been able to gauge Alex’s emotions through the effects she had on the surrounding electrical currents. Even as her control over the jumping ability grew, he could always reliably sense her emotional state.

  But that was before.

  Before their ill-fated journey to the past.

  Before Alex returned to the present as a girl he barely recognized.

  Before Alex became so guarded with her emotions that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t tell what she was actually feeling anymore.

  Intentionally or not, she’d severed their connection, and it was driving him more than a little crazy.

  Declan watched the match unfold with a slowly deepening concern. Aiden still had the upper hand. Alex should have bounced back by now.

  Anyone with a pair of eyes could see that she was a hair’s breadth away from total burnout. Each day the shadows under her eyes grew a little darker, her step a little slower, and her pallor skewed a little more gray. She was running herself into the ground and no one could seem to figure out how to get her to stop.

  Alex was spiraling. And he had no clue how to help her.

  Why is she still doing this to herself?

  She flat out refused to pause and take a breath, even when the requests came from Grayson or her aunt. Why couldn’t she just let someone else shoulder the weight once in a while? Let someone in?

  And dammit, why couldn’t that person be him?

  His early attempts to get her to open up were met with kind, but firm, refusals. Alex didn’t want to talk about anything. She just wanted to do everything she could think of to become the person she thought the resistance needed.

  After a while he’d given up on trying to get through to her, and as Alex wore herself down more and more, the two of them drifted further and further apart.

  The collective effort to keep her benched lately was a not-so-subtle attempt to keep Alex safe. Something that Declan, at least, would likely have been pushing for no matter what.

  It didn’t take a genius to realize that a girl skating on the verge of collapse could pose a serious risk to herself and others out in the field. There was more than one reason to keep Alex out of harm’s way, whether she liked it or not.

  And while, yeah, he did understand the reasoning behind her argument for fighting beside them instead of watching from the sidelines, he also knew that this Alex would prove more of a liability than a help.

  Not that he could ever be the one to tell her that.

  If Declan wanted to get things back to normal between them, that little revelation would need to be provided by someone else.

  Back on the other side of the field, a particularly jagged shard came within inches of Alex’s torso. Declan had to stop himself from jumping in to help.

  “Where’s your head at, Lex?” Aiden shouted angrily. “Pay attention!”

  He had her on the ropes. Alex was losing more ground by the minute.

  Declan began walking toward them again, wanting to keep a closer eye on the fight. Aiden would never intentionally hurt Alex while sparring… but then again, Declan couldn’t recall a time since Alex’s return that he’d seen her this distracted during a match. Better to be nearby in case something went wrong.

  Last night was the closest they’d gotten to the way things used to be since the day she came back from the past.

  He’d even been stupid enough to hope that things might get better between them, now that they’d started to clear the air. It was nice to actually be talking to each other again instead of just avoiding the issues that were driving them apart—even if half their “talk” had been something closer to an argument.

  Still. Kissing her again, feeling that electric spark that coursed between them any time his skin met hers…

  Let’s just say he was happy to have gotten that brief moment together.

  After that, Kento’s bombshell about Masterson’s visions pushed all thoughts of his strained relationship with Alex to the back burner in lieu of a much more pressing issue.

  One made exponentially more complicated only a few hours later, when the team landed itself at the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

  Well. Most of the team, anyhow. God only knew why, but Kenzie was still bristling about being left off the list.

  Declan’s mouth twitched at one corner as he fought back a smile. Only his sister would get angry about not being named public enemy number one.

  After the news broke, Grayson forbade any of them to leave the compound without express permission. Unbeknownst to the boss—and to Declan, until it was too late to help—Alex had already broken his new rule by teleporting to Bay View to rescue Cassie.

  When Declan returned to the compound a short time later, he found a furious Nate and a worried Aiden pacing beside the compound’s massive fire pit. After Nate finished explaining what had happened, he’d had roughly five seconds to consider jumping to Bay View to help before Alex and Cassie appeared.

  Grayson had been equal parts furious about Alex’s unbelievably reckless actions and relieved that they’d managed to make it back in one piece, welcoming Cassie while simultaneously laying down the law about locking down the compound until the heat was off.

  From the sound of things, their A-team probably wouldn’t be waltzing around outside the confines of the safe house any time soon.

  Speaking of which…

  He glanced back over his shoulder and toward Grayson’s office window. The pane was nearly black in the light of day, making it impossible to see through—but he was fairly certain that the boss would be holed up in there for most of the morning, making plans and figuring out their next move.

  Declan’s real trouble would be dealing with Red. As their most powerful telepath, his sister was tasked with the solemn duty of keeping watch over who was walking the safe house grounds at any given time. Kenzie was just as likely to notice someone slipping away from the site as she was to notice an intruder approaching.

  But he had an idea about how to deal with that, too.

  The sparring match came to a sudden halt. Declan frowned. Aiden’s last volley grazed Alex’s shin and she rubbed at it tiredly. She lifted her left hand to wave off a concerned Aiden, bowing her head as her shoulders sank in defeat.

  It was rare that anyone other than Declan got a point in during a sparring match with Alex lately. Even on her slowest mornings, she was usually spry enough to hold everyone else off.

  Declan checked his watch. Just before eight.

  Aiden and Alex’s training session should be wrapping up soon.

&
nbsp; When he dropped off the payment last night, Benji told him he could pick up the surveillance gear just after noon, New York time.

  Since Declan had nothing else on his schedule that morning, that gave him a little bit of time to kill… and he had the perfect person in mind to spend those two vacant hours with.

  Eleven

  Surveying the scene from his office window, John Grayson followed Alex’s movements as she worked her way through a second round of sparring with Aiden.

  Alex won the first round by the skin of her teeth, claiming a point only by resorting to a last ditch tactic of misdirection and sneaking in a hit before Aiden could react. It was an underhanded trick he’d never seen her employ before. Even from this distance, he could tell she failed to fully weaken the volley before it made contact with her opponent—something the girl was usually very careful about.

  Aiden bounced back quickly enough, though Grayson was certain the young man would be sporting a nasty bruise on his right side for the next few weeks.

  Grayson watched as Alex’s movements began to slow and her weakened stance gradually forced her to switch from offense to defense.

  A few short minutes later and Aiden had the win he’d been driving toward.

  Just like Alex, Aiden failed to weaken his volley before it struck the girl’s leg.

  Unlike Alex, however, Grayson knew Aiden’s mistake had little to do with fatigue; he was surprised to get in the point at all.

  Fortunately, Alex possessed freshly absorbed regenerative abilities from Holly Nakamura. Without them, the blow could have proven far more serious.

  Grayson shook his head.

  At the rate she was going, it wouldn’t be long before Alex hit a wall. Her explosive outburst the night before left him worried that the wall might be more mental in nature, but now he was back to thinking she’d hit a physical wall first.

  Enhanced abilities or no, the human body simply wasn’t meant to carry on without rest and without fuel.

  The only nights she slept soundly were the nights he and Cil managed to sneak a sedative into her evening meal. Even then, she’d barely get in five or six hours of rest before the high-powered soporific wore off and she was up and going again.

  It was a stopgap measure at best. At worst it was dragging things out. Putting off the inevitable for a later date.

  Their prize fighter was about to crack, and that was something they simply could not afford.

  Not right now. Not if they wanted to win this.

  Not with everything that was still on its way.

  Beside him, Cil let out a frustrated sigh.

  “Have you tried talking to her lately?” he asked.

  “Of course I have.” Her tone was resigned. “Every day, now. She always says the same thing, ‘I’m fine, Aunt Cil, please don’t worry,’ and then she changes the subject.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Have you seen anything?”

  “About Alex, you mean?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Plenty,” he admitted. “But not lately. And nothing about this. There’s a bit of a… a gap, where Alex is concerned. Often, the closer in proximity I am to a person, the less I tend to see. As far as my near-future premonitions are concerned, she hasn’t been involved in any of them.”

  Cil turned away from the window. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

  Maybe.

  He heard the scrape of his tablet being lifted from the desk and turned around.

  “For God’s sake, Jonathan,” Cil said, scrolling through a news report. “I knew this uprising would come with plenty of risk, but terrorists? Really? Even if we win, how will we get our lives back? How will the kids get their lives back?”

  “They’re hardly kids anymore, Cil,” he said softly. “But we’ll find a way to repair the damage and clear their names when all this is finally over.”

  Assuming, of course, that they came out on the winning side in the end.

  Cil set the tablet back down. “Have you thought any more about contacting Cassie’s family? They’re probably scared out of their minds for her right now. If we could at least let them know she’s okay—”

  “It’s too much of a risk.” The words came out more brusquely than intended. He took a quick breath and softened his tone before continuing. “Besides. We’re wanted criminals, remember? Even if we reached out to her parents and tried to assure them of her safety, I doubt they’d take much comfort from it.”

  Another sigh.

  A brisk knock sounded at his office door.

  “Come in,” he called.

  Ozzie strode into the room, tablet in hand. He looked even more put out than usual, which Grayson immediately took as a bad sign.

  Their tech wizard had been working through the night, attempting to decrypt the information they’d managed to steal from the Agency’s Chicago office the day before. Judging from the urgency—and the black look on his face—he’d finally cracked it.

  “It’s worse than we thought,” Oz said without preamble.

  Stifling a groan, Grayson lowered himself into his office chair. The other man set the tablet down in front of him.

  Grayson scrolled through the list of names—twelve in all— then leaned back in his chair, dropped his head against the cushion, and closed his eyes.

  Cil moved to stand at his shoulder. “What…” she said, followed shortly by a dismayed. “All of them?!”

  Ozzie’s silence was answer enough.

  “Oh, God.” Cil sounded as though she were struggling not to be sick.

  Grayson opened his eyes again. Ozzie stood in front of the desk, arms crossed, scowl firmly in place, waiting for him to respond.

  “How many have you been able to contact?” Grayson asked, though he was afraid he might already know the answer. “How many know they’re burned?”

  Ozzie shook his head slowly.

  Cil turned away, her eyes filling with tears.

  “They took months to gather that list,” said Ozzie, “but delayed taking action on the intel they gathered until just three days ago.”

  That explained why their assets had all gone silent at the same time. Their recent Chicago incursion had been an attempt to find out what happened.

  Now they knew.

  The room was quiet for a long while as they processed the news, and as Grayson started mentally thumbing through their contingencies.

  “Damn that woman and her bloody patience,” Grayson mumbled.

  Cil sniffed quietly and wiped at her eyes before asking, “Dana Carter, you mean?”

  He nodded. “The Director must have realized from the outset that the Agency would end up with spies in their ranks once people began choosing sides,” he said. “So she waited, biding her time until we’d already tapped all the people we bloody well could. She held off until we had them all in place—and then she took them all out of play simultaneously.”

  Devastating as the blow was to the resistance, Grayson had to admire the beauty of it.

  Carter’s ploy had been one part trap and one part show of force. A strategic move, but also a clear message to anyone that might think of betraying her in the future.

  He glanced down at the list again.

  Frank Bartlett. Samar Mati. Tara Miller. Gary Strand.

  So many names. A few of whom he’d even grown to consider friends.

  Carter wasn’t alone in her strategic decision to play the long game. Grayson, for example, had been playing a very long game, indeed.

  He’d known for years that this conflict would prove inevitable. His visions had solidified his belief, but any fool paying close enough attention could have seen it coming a mile off.

  As such, he wasn’t the only one making such predictions. For nearly five years now, he’d been slowly cultivating assets within the Agency and outside of it, making repeated trips to the Agency’s headquarters in Washington DC. He’d traveled under the guise of visiting the District for his own legitimate financial and political dealings, but in reali
ty he’d been attempting to silently recruit as many toward the cause of the resistance as he possibly could.

  Ozzie had been the first to sign on, though he’d parted ways with the Agency shortly thereafter. Bartlett, a senior director in their intelligence bureau, had been quick to follow. Three more within other Agency departments joined their ranks over the next few years and another eight volunteered as soon as it became obvious that this uprising was unavoidable.

  And in one fell swoop, Carter had eliminated every hard-won asset he’d cultivated within the Agency. Only Ozzie and the outside assets remained.

  “Can’t we use this against her somehow?” Cil asked. The tears were gone now, replaced by a look of steely determination. “I mean, how does that old saying go? ‘Cut the head off the snake and the body will die?’ She’s a government official, for Christ’s sake. She can’t just go around assassinating people!”

  “As the Variant Protection Agency’s Director in Chief, she operates without any real political or military oversight.” Grayson shook his head, then looked to Ozzie. “I’m assuming Carter was careful about it?”

  He nodded. “They were able to keep everything—and I mean right down to the obituaries—out of the papers. After I knew what to look for I was able to locate the various coroners’ and missing persons’ reports. Accidents, disappearances, and natural causes, the lot of them. Nothing to tie the Agency to what happened to them. At least, nothing I could find. I’ll keep digging, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  Grayson nodded.

  A second, much softer series of knocks carried through the door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Ozzie picked up his tablet. “I’ll let you know if I discover anything useful.”

  “Thank you, Oz,” said Grayson. “Get some rest first. You’ve earned it.”

  “You wanted to see me?” said a nervous voice.

  “Ah,” said Grayson, glancing up to find one of their newest recruits standing timidly in the doorway. “Linus. Please come in.”

  Ozzie slipped past him, stepped into the hall, and closed the door silently in his wake. Cil claimed one of the chairs in front of it, putting an end to her anxious pacing.