The Legacy Series Boxed Set (Legacy, Prophecy, Revelation, and AWOL)

by Ellery Kane

  I felt my world spin off its axis and tumble away. It broke, irrevocably. “That’s a lie,” I said. “All of it.” I tried to gather the pieces—Jack Croft?—A deal with my mother?—but I couldn’t think fast enough to put them together. “Most of it,” I corrected when Quin’s guilty eyes met mine over his shoulder. “Quin was ordered to kill those people to make the Resistance look bad. I saw it myself in his military file.”

  “Really? The file that’s been missing for years? Let’s see it.” In my mind, I held my breath and swam to it at the bottom of the ocean. Fished it out of the sand, where it was buried deep. “Your mother promised Ryker she would let it all go—the Guardian Force, Emovere, everything. But she broke her deal, and she ended up dead. She’s no hero either, just a liar.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” My protest was halfhearted. Everyone—even complete strangers—seemed to know my mother better than me. “She would never agree to that.”

  “Think about it, Alexandra. We saw Quin in your neighborhood, at your house. We even sent our investigators to talk to your mother. I think you were there that day, weren’t you?” The blacks suits. “Did you really think we’d give up so easily?” How could I have been so naive? I didn’t want to believe it, but it stung like the truth. My mother must’ve changed her mind after watching the Onyx training video.

  “Where’s the bomb, Steele?” Mr. Van Sant demanded, still several car lengths away. Pushing his way through the unruly crowd, he was marching with Langley, her video camera rolling and a foil-blanketed Edison in tow.

  Doe-eyed, Xander directed an exaggerated shrug at his mother. “I haven’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about.”

  General Maze pointed to Quin’s convertible. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bomb in your car, Quin. That is your car, isn’t it? The one Mr. Steele bought for you.”

  I watched as Quin seemed to contemplate a response, a defense. Then, gun still drawn, he aimed for the general, sending my heart into overdrive.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Looking smug, General Maze directed his own gun toward the backseat of the red car, his target a stone-faced Colton. “Unless you’re prepared to have his blood on your hands.” Quin stopped cold.

  “Put your guns down! All of you!” Detective Katherine Brewster and a small band of officers charged toward us from the checkpoint, dodging the cars retreating back down the freeway, where a melee had broken out between Resistance and Zenigenic supporters. As two soldiers approached the chaos—ready to contain the fight with a single spray—the crowd turned on them, finally united in a cause. A canister of Docil-E went flying, ricocheting off the hood of the red convertible. Its medicated occupants followed it with their eyes but sat in frozen silence.

  “Detective,” Xander began, his tone cloying. “We have reason to believe there is a bomb in Quin McAllister’s vehicle.”

  “What about that car?” I asked. “The red one. That’s the one with the bomb.” Even as I heard myself say the words, I felt sick. All the things that made sense to me were unraveling as fast as unspooled thread.

  “Give me your gun, Quin.” Detective Brewster spoke in the voice I remembered. So calm that it was sinister, like a doctor poised to stab a needle in your arm. “We need to search your car.”

  Quin shook his head, gesturing to General Maze. “I’m not putting mine down until he does. Search all you want.”

  “I will.” Her voice was an indictment, already presuming what she would find. With reverence—as if she was raising the lid of a coffin at a funeral—Detective Brewster opened Quin’s trunk. I couldn’t see what was inside, but her face told me what I needed to know. And whatever it left unsaid, her words finished. “Mr. McAllister, you’re under arrest.”

  “Katherine, let’s talk about this. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he blow himself up?” Mr. Van Sant extended his hand, imploring her, but met with her stiff arm. “Don’t say anything, Quin. We’ll figure this out.”

  At Detective Brewster’s direction, an officer confiscated Quin’s gun and patted down the length of his body, checking his pockets and the inside of his jacket. “Where is the detonator, Mr. McAllister?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t—”

  “It’s in Xander’s pocket,” Max blurted. I opened my eyes wide at him, hoping his posturing was more convincing to the detective.

  “Uh-um-uh-that’s ludicrous.” Xander puffed his chest but turned to his mother seeking refuge. She responded with fire.

  “How dare you accuse my son! You should be ashamed of yourself, young man.”

  “It’s not an accusation,” Max replied, daring to look Mrs. Steele in the eyes. “It’s a fact. See for yourself. Ask him to empty his pockets.”

  “I will do no such thing,” she said. “Xandi is not a common criminal. And turn off that camera!” Langley placated her with an agreeable nod but kept filming.

  Detective Brewster paused and considered Xander. He stared back at her steely-eyed. To me, he never looked guiltier, but she converged on Quin first. Conceding defeat, he winced as she and two officers forced him to the ground. Valkov chuckled to himself and limped back toward Xander and General Maze, victorious. I couldn’t look—not at any of it—it all was unbearable. I covered my face expecting tears, but they were finally dammed inside me behind a wall. A wall I had been raising since I watched my mother die. A wall built brick by brick with helpless outrage. I understood what Elana meant when she wanted to step into the fog, when she thought there was no way she could live in this world. And I wished, if only for a moment, the bomb would explode, returning me to stardust.

  “Will you at least check the other car?” I tried not to sound desperate. Determined, I marched back down the freeway toward it—Langley filming me—passing the space left by one sports car, already sped away by its owner. Only two antiques remained—a shiny yellow pickup truck and a powder blue sedan—both abandoned.

  I glanced back, relieved to see Detective Brewster and her officers following. Two of them led Quin by the arms, his hands cuffed behind him. As they approached the trunk of the red convertible, the driver swiveled his head, setting his vacant eyes on the detective. I watched Emma’s hands tense on her lap as General Maze covered his mouth. Was he giving them orders? I felt a stir, a twinge in my stomach. I recognized the feeling like an old friend. It was fear.

  “Stop.” A voice emerged from the mob still tussling near the checkpoint. It was slick. It was smooth. It was String.

  CHAPTER SIXTY - SIX :

  THE REAL STORY

  String was strutting up the freeway entrance, one long-legged stride after another. His eyes were hidden, as usual, unseen behind his dark sunglasses. But the pistol in his hand wasn’t subtle. He raised it, directing it at Quin. “I’m here to turn myself in,” he announced. “For the murder of Quin McAllister.”

  “Don’t come any closer.” I pointed my gun back at him. Quin jostled with the officers, trying to take cover. “I mean it, String.” I positioned myself in front of Quin as String ignored my warning.

  “This isn’t your fight, Lex. Move out of the way.” He swept the barrel of his weapon from left to right and back again. “The same goes for all of you. You too, Detective.”

  “What about me?” Max asked. He lowered his gun. Handing it to me, he took a decisive step toward String, arms raised. “Are you gonna shoot me too?”

  “If I have to.” String was convincing. He always was.

  Another step by Max. “So what are you waiting for?”

  String’s jaw quivered. He gritted his teeth, shifting his aim just over Max’s shoulder. He looked away, then fired into the air.

  “Is that the best you can do?” The rest of us ducked, taking cover behind the hood of the red car, but Max didn’t flinch. He was an arm’s length away now, close enough to touch the gun if he wanted. But instead he wrapped his hand around String’s wrist and trained the gun on his own heart.

  “Max!”
Quin shouted at him, straining against the officers’ hold.

  “It’s okay, Quin,” he said without turning back. “He can’t do it. He won’t do it. Not because he cares, but because he’s a coward.”

  Even with his eyes covered, String looked wounded. “That hurts, Maximillian. It really does.” There was a hint of sincerity in his voice, but I’d stopped believing String so long ago, the feeling was hardly recognizable, easily ignored. “If you knew what I know, you’d shoot Quin yourself.”

  “What is it that you think you know?” Max asked, pressing the gun harder against his chest. “Did you hear it from Xander or Augustus? I’m not entirely sure which hypocrite you’re working for nowadays.”

  String’s dark lenses rested on Xander. “I don’t work for anybody anymore.”

  “Really?” Max asked. “Because Augustus sure sounded like he knew you pretty well. He had a lot to say about you—how you used me, how you never really cared about me, how you hid things from all of us … life-altering things. If you trust what you hear from these psychopaths, I guess I should too.”

  String raised his sunglasses, setting them atop his head. The darkness in his eyes was deep and undeniable. It made me wish he’d cover them again. “Okay, okay,” he admitted. “I wasn’t exactly honest. You know me—you can’t really be surprised. But I do care about you, Max.” He curled his fingers around Max’s arm, his light touch strangling Max’s resistance until they both lowered the gun together. “And what I know about Quin, I saw with my own eyes.”

  I could barely hear the din of the crowd anymore. There was only the insistent wind of my own breath and the crash of my heartbeat like water battering the rocks. I watched Max say the words. “I’m listening.” And we all were. I couldn’t do anything but.

  “When I was fourteen, your buddy, Quin—the one you’re ready to take a bullet for—shot my dad.” Jack Croft. Finally, something made sense again. “My dad was just a blue-collar guy, working his fingers to the bone to support us after our mom left. He met me after school that day like he always did. We were close, him and me, so close he liked to joke there was a string attached between us. Get it? The nickname. Anyway, we passed by this rally, where this crazy guy in a Resistance T-shirt was standing on top of a car with a rifle in his hands. And just like that, he started shooting. I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life. I thought my dad was right there with me.” He raised his weapon again with new conviction. “But Quin shot my dad. He killed him.”

  “I already know what happened at the rally,” Max said. “We all do.” String looked at me, and I nodded. “But it’s not what you think.”

  “Not what I think? He bragged all the time about killing my dad. That’s what I heard.”

  “Who told you that? Augustus? Xander? I never did that.” Quin looked from String to me and back again, his voice was almost pleading. “What I did to your dad is part of the reason I wanted out of the Guardian Force. I couldn’t stand who I was becoming on Emovere. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  As Quin’s words settled onto String’s face, Xander began slinking away, pulling his mother along with him. After a few steps, he snuck a glance back over his shoulder.

  “Not so fast, Steele.” String redirected his gun to Xander. “I thought you wanted to see this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know you.”

  “That’s funny. I could swear I remember you telling me you’d let me kill Quin when the time was right. Help me, and we’ll both get what we want—isn’t that what you said when I helped you clean up the mess with Radley? Isn’t that what you said the night I saw—”

  “Get down!” Quin yelled as Valkov rapid-fired at String. Stumbling, staggering, clutching at his chest, String veered haphazardly, grasping at the hood of the red car to steady himself. The driver, now alert, put a hand to his ear, listening. He reached down out of view and raised a weapon, methodically aiming it at String. “String! Watch out!” Quin launched himself at String’s legs, both of them landing hard behind the bed of the yellow pickup.

  As we took cover, Detective Brewster and the other officers returned fire. I hit the ground, bear crawling until I was completely concealed by the hood of the blue sedan. “Requesting immediate backup! Officers down—” Detective Brewster fell forward. The radio cracked against the pavement. Her blood spread like wine over the white leather seats from the wound on her shoulder. Abandoning her camera, Langley ran to help her, dragging her behind one of the truck’s front tires.

  “Spray them! Spray them!” Xander ordered. The soldier nearest him fumbled with the canister, nearly dropping it before he aimed it in the wrong direction, spritzing Xander’s mother with a fine mist of Docil-E. “Not her, you idiot! Them!” Valkov redirected his gun at the errant soldier, dropping him with a single bullet.

  Gunshots pinged off the metal, bounced off the concrete around me. In seconds, all four tires were flattened. I leaned forward, peering around the front fender to Quin and String, a car’s length away. There was a hole in String’s shirt. No blood. String met my eyes and lifted the edge of his T-shirt, confirming my suspicion. A bulletproof vest.

  “Hurry!” Elana yelled to Edison. She ducked behind the door of the blue sedan—narrowly dodging a bullet that shattered the window—and fired back at Valkov and General Maze. Edison and Mr. Van Sant scrambled to help String drag Quin, still handcuffed. His palms were scraped raw from his abrupt landing on gravel. He scooted himself next to me, straining to free his hands.

  “Are you okay?” he asked me. “Can you see Emma and Colton?”

  Edison answered for me. “Yes, no, and no. Wait—who? Who’s Colton?”

  Quin groaned. “I wasn’t talking to you, Eddie.”

  “Really, McAllister? You want to do this now?”

  “I can’t see them,” I told Quin, waiting for a break in the gunfire to try for a glimpse of the convertible’s interior.

  “Your long lost brother, Colton?” Edison asked.

  “Can you put some clothes on?” Quin replied. “I can’t take you seriously in that foil blanket.” From her pocket, Elana produced the now-infamous boxers and tossed them to Edison. He concealed himself beneath the cover and slipped them on, rolling his eyes at Quin.

  “I’ll take that as a Thank you for saving my life, Eddie.”

  Staying out of sight, I raised my gun over the hood and fired a few shots in Valkov’s direction. Elana did the same. With Valkov on the defensive, I snuck a fast glance at the red car. The driver was collapsed over the steering wheel, his head disfigured. One of the soldiers was draped over the door, a Docil-E canister still in his hand. Emma was lying on top of Colton, not moving. The others must have been slumped beneath them.

  “I couldn’t see them,” I said to Quin, wishing I hadn’t.

  “Go! Get out of here, Mother!” Xander barked. I inched over so I could see her. A vacant smile revealed porcelain white teeth in a red lipstick frame. “Anything you say, Xandi.” He gave his mother a little shove and fired at our hiding place as she ran. As awkward as a newborn fawn in her heels, she gathered momentum, not grace.

  Mr. Van Sant watched with me. “There goes our last hope of talking any sense into this loon. If he’s got the detonator, we’re in big trouble.”

  “Detective Brewster called for backup,” I said, optimistic. “Surely, they’ll be here soon.”

  “Uh … Lex?” String was pointing around the side of the car, his face pained. “I don’t think we should count on that backup.” A row of motorcycles formed a sinister black barrier at the checkpoint. As one police car approached, then another, Satan’s Syndicate opened fire. String was right. We were on our own.

  CHAPTER SIXTY - SEVEN :

  FLOOR IT

  I jumped as a bullet skirted under the car just missing my hand. “Do you have any ammo left?” I asked Elana. She nodded. “On three, go for Valkov.” We scooted down so we were nearly flat against the highway. “One … two … three … ” Turning on
to my side, I followed Valkov’s stocky leg under the red car, squeezed the trigger, and prayed. On the second shot, he went down with a groan.

  “Nice shot,” Edison said. “Now what?”

  “The detonator,” Max called to us from behind the other car. “Without it, we’re toast.”

  Edison guffawed. “Literally. Burnt toast.”

  “On three again,” I said. “But this time, we aim for General Maze. As soon as he goes down, we run for Xander.”

  “One—”

  “Hold on.” String stopped me. He rested his gun on the pavement and peered around me at Quin. “Look, I didn’t know the whole story about you. I still don’t. Maybe Max is right. Augustus told me what he wanted me to believe. But you saved my life. So in case I don’t make it out of here—it’s hard to say this out loud because it sounds really bad. But I used to think an eye for an eye, you know?”

  Mr. Van Sant turned to String, suddenly excited. “You followed George McAllister, didn’t you? You were going to kill him. You saw what happened that night—you saw who killed Shelly!”

  String nodded. “It was Valkov. I saw the whole thing. He would’ve killed me too, but I convinced him I could help Xander because I wanted the McAllisters for my own reasons.”

  “Can we talk about this later?” I asked. “Burnt toast … ”

  Quin strained again, pulling at his handcuffs, gritting his teeth with the effort. He leaned back against the car, exhausted. “Go without me. I’m no use to anybody like this.”