Honesty (Mark of Nexus)

by Butler, Carrie

  ~

  Grandma welcomed me with open arms.

  I stiffened at first, practically pulling a Wallace, but then I gave in to her comfort. Everything about this woman was warmth and acceptance and…home. With the storm of confusion I had raging inside of me, it was exactly what I needed.

  “Can I get you something?” she asked, already fussing over me. “Tea? Pop? Maybe some coffee cake?”

  I moved to sit on the couch, after I double-checked to make sure I wouldn’t press dirt into the floral print. “Nah, I’m good.”

  Her eyes nearly doubled in size. “You don’t want anything?”

  Okay, so maybe I’d been known to appreciate my grandma’s hospitality a time or two. Who doesn’t love a good meal? It didn’t mean there was something wrong with me when I abstained. “I just had dinner a little while ago.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Rena said you had a date.”

  I stared at her, incredulous, while she went about her tasks in the kitchen—ignoring my refusal of baked goods. “How did she know?”

  “Now, now. Don’t get upset.” She waved me off and put the teakettle on. “It seems this Rachel girl reached out to your future sister-in-law to ask about some church function before campus emptied out. I guess it came up in conversation.”

  “Campus emptied out already?”

  “Your brother did.”

  “Wait. Wallace is here?”

  “In the basement. You didn’t see his truck out front?”

  I wracked my brain, trying to remember anything from my way in. “I, uh…no.”

  “He showed up this afternoon with that little refrigerator in his arms. His and Rena’s finals are wrapped up now. You didn’t know?”

  “I guess not.” Had he mentioned it yesterday? Where the hell was my brain lately?

  She scrutinized me from across the room, before coming over to press the back of her hand against my forehead. “Are you feeling all right, sweetie?”

  No.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “Just a long night. I actually had something I wanted to ask you, but since nimrod is here, he better be here for this.”

  “Nicholas…” She sighed.

  “Sorry.” I sprang from the couch and walked over to wrench the basement door open. “Family meeting, bro!”

  Wallace appeared around the corner with a raised eyebrow and a half-swollen face from his cluster. “I thought that disturbing time bomb of emotions was you. What’s going on?”

  “Just following up on something I neglected to mention last weekend.”

  That caught his attention. He joined us in the living room, where Grandma served tea and coffee cake—which seemed kind of mismatchy, since the thing is called coffee cake, but whatever. I leaned forward in my seat.

  “Grandma, do you know anything about Jackie from the other branch of the family?”

  Her back went rigid, but her face didn’t betray her thoughts. “If you mean her involvement in the incident last Friday, then yes, your brother has informed me.”

  “Not quite.”

  Wallace shot me a don’t-be-an-asshole-to-Grandma look, but I ignored him. No malicious intentions here. I just wanted some answers.

  Grandma’s gaze darted between us as she straightened things on the coffee table. Huh. Another thing that starts with coff—

  “Let me ask you this,” she said, taking a seat at the end of the couch. “Did you talk to her?”

  Like I could lie. Her minor gift of discernment botched that notion.

  “Yeah,” I reached for my mug, “I did.”

  Wallace remained quiet, even though I knew he had questions for both of us. I hadn’t given him a detailed report of everything that’d gone on that night. Things were still too fresh for him, too personal.

  Grandma sank deeper into the cushions with a heavy sigh. “Very well. I suppose you’ve realized by now that your great-great-grandmother Adelyn had two children. Your great-grandpa Edwin and a woman named Florence—or Flo, as we called her. She had a son named Conrad, and he had two children of his own. Jackie and Titus.”

  “I’m with you.” I rubbed my chin. “Adelyn is the Dynari woman who wrote the journal, right? It was her generation that decided to bury knowledge of the other bloodlines for everyone’s supposed safety.”

  “That is correct.”

  I gulped my tea, burning my tongue in the process. “She had a son, and that son had Jackie—the woman who unleashed a tornado on Wilcox’s campus under duress.”

  “Unfortunately, that is also correct.”

  Hot, hot. I set the mug back down, reining in my expression to get to the matter at hand. “So, if you knew all along, why is this the first time we’re hearing about the other branch? When I helped her escape, she asked me to say hi for her, even though you aren’t supposed to have contact. Then she said something about helping me once. Pretty sure we’ve never met. How’s that figure?”

  Grandma looked past me with tired eyes, her lips curling downward. “I should’ve known it’d come out. Things like this always do.”

  “What things?” Wallace finally interjected. “What have you been keeping from us?”

  She reached over to his chair, patting his leg. “Your great-grandpa Edwin buried knowledge of the Nexus and other bloodlines before I was born—that much was true—but it wasn’t until I was a teenager that our two Dynari branches parted ways. He and Flo got into a fight over something or another, and she moved her family out of state. We were told that branch was dead to us.”

  “And you guys just went along with it?” I made a face.

  “It was a different time, Nicholas. We didn’t disrespect our elder’s wishes as you do.”

  “As I do?” Heat spread a fiery trail across my shoulder blades, and I flared my nostrils. Again, I was the bad one. Did we forget that Wallace kill—

  “Your generation,” she quickly elaborated. “But ultimately, I am no different. I went against my father’s wishes when I tracked Jackie down to ask for her help.”

  I waited.

  “You’d talk in your sleep, sometimes.” Grandma gestured downstairs, to our old room. “Those nightmares you used to get. Going on and on about the oil. The body. It was a reoccurring thing. I never asked what happened that night you boys snuck out, but you gave me no choice. Once I realized, I knew I had to do what I could to protect you—to keep this nightmare from going on any longer.”

  The color had drained from my face, leaving a cool tingle in my cheeks. “You had Jackie summon a storm.”

  “Like I said, I did what I had to.”

  “You had lightning strike a crude oil container,” I muttered, dumbfounded. “How did you even know where?”

  “Your Grandpa Freddie only took you kids to the site in the Smith’s field. That’d be where you’d go in a panic. Somewhere familiar.”

  I looked at Wallace, and he shook his head. He hadn’t known either.

  “Okay,” I said, pushing out a leveling breath. “Is there anything else we should know, Grandma?”

  She reached forward to grasp her plate, doing her best to appear unbothered. “Well, you do have other cousins. If Faye got to Jackie, it’s possible we may be up against more than we can handle.”

  Great.

  CHAPTER 26

  Wallace and I dug into ERA’s files, bright and early the next morning.

  The kitchen still smelled like cinnamon rolls from Grandma’s appeasement breakfast, providing a disturbing level of comfort while we sorted through information that could ultimately bring about the fall of mankind. Just another Saturday in the Blake household.

  Our notes tracked the bloodline back as far as Faye’s partial roster allowed, but it wasn’t much to go on.

  Generation 1 - Adelyn

  Generation 2 - Edwin and Florence

  From there, things got sticky. We knew Edwin’s family tree, but Flo’s still had some holes in it.

  Generation 3 - Conrad

  Generation 4 - Jackie and Titus


  Generation 5 - Ben and Unknown

  “All right, how about this?” Wallace turned his paper to face me. “We know Conrad is dead and Jackie’s in hiding with her son now. Why don’t we check up on Titus? He might be able to help us fill in these blanks, if ERA hasn’t gotten to him yet. And if they have, we’ll…have to convince him to change his mind.”

  I blinked at him. Did he just suggest we do something proactive and potentially dangerous. Together? “Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”

  “I think last Friday told us we’re past the point of safety,” he said, leveling me with Dad’s blue-eyed stare. “If I’m going to do something crazy, I figured you might as well be involved.”

  “I just love it when you two work together,” Grandma chimed in, wiping the counters down. “Warms my heart.”

  “And creeps me out.” I grinned, standing up. “But I’m on board. We goin’ now?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve got to meet Rena at ERA HQ. Faye called her up and insisted she start sessions with an in-house therapist. Said she couldn’t train her with distractions. I assume Gail is set to screw with the shrink’s brain afterward, since they’ll be discussing…things. But who knows. We’re not in a position to go against her right now. Maybe you and I can track Titus down tomorrow?”

  “Uh huh.” I heard everything he’d said, but lost focus after the word therapist. I hadn’t gone to my own sessions for a couple of weeks, and I hadn’t exactly told the office I’d moved. Since my landline in Columbus was off the hook, they had no means of contac—

  “How are your sessions going, Nicholas?” Grandma asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  Damn it. “Peachy.”

  She paused and carefully set her rag on the edge of the sink. “When was the last time you went?”

  “I…” I scrambled to think of something with a technical ounce of truth. “It was back when I lived around here. I need to find someone up in Cleveland, since I’m finally moved in.”

  “Cleveland?” Wallace furrowed his brow.

  “Oh, yeah. I moved. Work stuff.”

  His eyes widened and narrowed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Wallace!” Grandma’s sharp reprimand made him take a step back.

  “Sorry,” he told her, turning back to me. “But you moved and didn’t even tell anyone?”

  “I told Grandma.”

  “She didn’t say anything.”

  Grandma cleared her throat. “You had a good number of other things to contend with at the time, dear. I thought it could wait.”

  He stared at some vague point between us, working his jaw. Poor bastard. He didn’t deal with change any better than I did. Maybe I should just rip off the whole bandage.

  “I did warn you that I had a surprise in store. And if it makes you feel any better, you’re moving, too.”

  “What?”

  “The house.” I gestured around us. “We’re moving the whole thing up north. I don’t want Grandma having to hang around down here by herself.”

  Two strides brought him to my face, and he stared me down. “You made that kind of decision by yourself?”

  “I made that kind of decision with Grandma. You know, the woman who owns the house?”

  His bicep flinched, but he didn’t lay a hand on me. “Well, I would’ve liked to have been in on that discussion. How much is this move going to cost?”

  “I’ve got it covered.”

  “What did you do?”

  I put my hands in the air, innocent as a newborn babe. “Nothing.”

  “What did you have your minion do?”

  “Wallace, I’m hurt.”

  His voice rose. “If you get her caught up in some—”

  “Boys!” Grandma edged between us. “I say one thing about you two playing nice together, and you have to prove me wrong.”

  “Sorry,” we both muttered.

  “Nicholas,” she began, directing her attention to me. “How did you acquire the loan? I told you I will not be a part of anything illegal.”

  “Tits—I mean, Larry—secured the funding.”

  Her lips pursed. “How?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  I had a feeling it came from very bad men who’d probably stolen it to begin with, but she didn’t need to know that. Tits had a vigilante streak to him, too. He was just more hacktivist than neighborhood watch.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You know I know when you’re holding something back from me. I do not appreciate being intentionally misdirected.”

  Well, shit. “Grandma, it’s for your own good. It’s for everyone’s own good. I’m makin’ a real, honest to goodness effort here to get things on track. I haven’t even done rounds for two weeks.”

  Wallace snorted.

  “I don’t want it,” she gritted out under her breath. “Call it off. I’m not moving.”

  “What?”

  “I am not accepting a loan cloaked in this much deception. You should’ve known better. I’d never set that kind of example.”

  “Oh, so it’s okay to lie about us having more family, but not about this?” My mouth got ahead of me in the moment, but I didn’t care. They all thought I was so bad, maybe it was time I lived up to it.

  “You watch your tone.”

  “I’ve watched my everything,” I shot back, heat slashing my eyes. “But nothing I say or do matters. It still blows up in my face!”

  Her brows knit and she reached for me. “Honey…”

  I wanted to back down, but I couldn’t. There was too much frantic energy building inside. Too many conflicting thoughts. “Forget it.”

  “Cole,” Wallace tried, but I was already edging out of the room.

  “I can’t do this right now.”

  I had my shoes on and was out the door before they realized I was gone.

  ~

  Part of me wished Gail was manipulating me from afar, forcing me to alienate everyone I cared about against my will, but that wasn’t it. My own demons had kept them at arm’s length, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  I’d tried the whole good thing—stopped assaulting dealers and would-be thieves in the off chance I’d go too far, started hanging out with a good influence and made her a sexception to the rule, even tried giving a shit what people thought of me. But what did that gain me? Nothing. Everyone assumed the worst, regardless.

  So, I might as well give ‘em a little validation.

  I didn’t bother stopping to get my mask and gloves from the Jeep. There was no pretense of jogging as I powered down the sidewalk, turning the neighborhood scenery to a blur of color and wind. My gaze raked every corner, every shadowed crevice, for movement.

  Whoever chose to screw with me today was in for it. I didn’t care anymore. One offense and they were getting the ass-beating of a lifetime.

  My phone rang, but I ignored it. I needed a guilt trip like a hole in the head, right now. Wallace could wait.

  After God knows how long, I found myself in terra incognita. To me, anyway. I didn’t recognize the buildings. People sat on stoops and milled about on the sidewalk, too friendly for their own good. Not the best place to find a crime in progress.

  Pass.

  A few more streets brought me to a seedier part of town, an urban development area backed up against the city’s edge. Here, the folks weren’t as social. They watched from behind bass-shaken windows and disappeared behind curtains.

  I slowed to a stop behind a brick apartment complex and covered my nose with my shirt. The air smelled like a treatment facility. Yuck.

  Saturday morning wasn’t a great time for wrongdoing, but it didn’t deter me. There was always something going on somewhere. Just a matter of sniffing it out. Figuratively. I peeked around the corner.

  About that time, something locked onto my arm like a vice and a booming voice barked in my ear, “What do we have here?”

  I was spun to find a massive, barrel-chested man with tats on his face.
Tats. On his face. Looked like prison ink. “Caaaan I help you?”

  “Why don’t you start by tellin’ me why you’re sneakin’ around my place? Did Victor send you?”

  Ah, hell. This was why I never stopped during rounds. Confrontations tend to get complicated when you stop long enough for them to see you—or grab you from behind.

  “Who’s Victor?” I tried to shrug him off, but he had a monster grip. “I’m not sneakin’ around anything. I’m layin’ low. Local PD’s been up my ass all night.”

  I thought a relatable excuse would grant me a pass, but he gritted his teeth and jerked me closer. “You brought that shit to my backyard?”

  “Relax,” I told him. “I think I lost them.”

  “You think, bitch? Well, I hate to tell ya, but you chose the wrong place to camp out.”

  I saw his knee coming, but there was no way to avoid it in this position—until that cocky son of a bitch shifted his grip to grab my head. The second his fingers grazed my shoulder, I ducked out of his strike range.

  His knee met the air like a misplaced battering ram.

  “Actually, I gotta get going,” I said, shaking the wrinkles from my t-shirt. “But I did enjoy the welcome.”

  If this were a cartoon, he would’ve had steam spewing from his ears. His face turned an unsettling shade of red as he called for his boys, and I considered waiting for them. It’d be the fight I was after, and even better, it’d fall under self-defe—

  Something caught the sunlight about the time I heard a bang.

  The projectile zipped in a beeline for my chest, but I jumped out the way. Holy shit. They’d shot at me. They’d fucking shot at me!

  Another shot followed the first, and I looked up to find an angry-looking entourage on the balcony. Oh, hell no. I sped up the back steps, too fast for their eyes to follow, and gave the first guy a roundhouse to the ribs.

  He reeled backward, off balance, and took the second guy with him. Before the third could turn with his semi-automatic, I grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and dumped him over the edge to a twelve-foot drop.

  Thud!

  My phone rang again, and I cursed as I flew back down the stairs. I’d wanted to take care of the dude who’d mouthed off to me, too, but I couldn’t afford to stick around now that they had a sound to follow.