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General Jackson “Longshot” Hunter has been in the intelligence game for decades.  The head of Alliance SpecOps, he’s done everything in his power to prevent his operatives from suffering the personal tragedies he has–sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  With war with the Imperium looming on the horizon, Hunter faces the greatest fight of his life: to protect a man he’s come to regard as the son he never had and to save humanity from itself–and a threat long dead.

The story in Longshot takes place largely during the events if Redeemer and was an experiment from several years ago in centering a story on Jack Hunter, the chief of Alliance SpecOps and the chief of military intelligence back on Epsilon.  It’s part character study, part background, part thought and timeline organization.  Chapter 1 is a little bit of all three wrapped up in a packet.

Enjoy.

One

 The middle-aged general dusted some snow off the dark gray headstone and straightened, staring at the few words carved into the polished granite.

Madeline Terrel Taylor, born August 23, 2213, died July 17, 2255. Beloved.

“I’ve been doing what you’ve asked, Madeline,” the general whispered softly. His breath steamed in the chill January air as he stood in the snow, in the shadows of the oak tree planted over the ashes of another woman he’d loved and lost. “I’ve been watching over him as best I can, but he’s not ready to learn the truth. He’s not ready for that yet. I’m sorry.” He laid a gloved hand against the cold stone, squeezing his eyes shut against the sting of the wind. “He’s out on the frontier where you met his father, doing his job. He’s one of my best, Madeline. You’d be proud. You’d be very proud.”

He stooped to lay the flowers in his other hand down against the stone, then turned his gaze toward the oak, his throat growing tight even though his fiancée had been gone these twenty-seven years. “I’m doing my best, Mai,” he said. “I’m trying harder than Roger ever did to make sure they come home at the end of the day. I won’t let any of them suffer like we did, like Kath and Joe did. I’m trying not to let it happen.”

Jackson Hunter swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “God forgive me for the times I’ve failed no matter how hard I’ve tried.”

Wind stirred the oak’s bare branches and he exhaled a sigh. He wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of the imagination, but he had to believe that there was something beyond mortal life, even if he wasn’t sure what it was. Little signs like the wind through those branches made him feel like she’d heard him, somehow, from somewhere beyond the grave.

“I miss you,” he whispered, his voice all but lost in the sound of rustling branches. “I miss you both.” One more than the other.

There were days when he wasn’t quite sure which of the two he missed more.

He closed his eyes and lingered a moment longer before he turned and walked down the hill toward the walking path below. Another man in an ESF-issue peacoat stood on the path, waiting in polite silence for his commander’s pleasure.

“You’ve been waiting,” Hunter said.

“Not long.” The young man smiled faintly and inclined his head. “Only a few minutes.”

Hunter nodded slightly. “Did you get through?”

“Yes sir. Message delivered and, if I know him as well as I think I do, taken to heart.”

“What time was it there?”

“Late. Early. A little of both.” They began to walk down the path toward the cemetery gates. “Hard to say if I woke him or not. I can never quite tell.”

“Text would make that hard,” Hunter observed drily. His aide laughed.

“I suppose so. He answered quickly enough, so I’m thinking if I woke him, he wasn’t that deeply asleep.” They lapsed into silence for a dozen steps, then Allyn Cyne turned his blind eyes to his commander and asked, “Permission to ask a personal question, sir?”

One corner of Hunter’s mouth twitched. “Go ahead.” What harm could it do, after all? He’s already gone toe-to-toe with me once and won. Whatever he’ll be asking can’t be that bad.

“Who were they, General?”

Part of him had expected the question, though the fact that Cyne had picked up on the fact that he’d gone to that site to remember two people and not just one caught him slightly off-guard–a real hazard when one was the commander in charge of intelligence operations for an interstellar confederation. He stared at Cyne for a moment, then shook his head slightly. “Curious, are you?”

“A little, sir,” Cyne said.

Hunter smiled despite how much his heart still ached, even years after the two women he’d just gone to visit had died. “One was my partner,” he said softly. “The girl that I would’ve been married to about six weeks after that last mission, if she’d lived. The other was a friend.”

“A dear friend, I imagine,” Cyne observed, his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, his shoulders slightly hunched in the chill wind. “You don’t strike me as the type to visit the graves of casual acquaintances. Men and women who’ve served under you, yes, but not people you simply knew who are gone now.”

It was true. He didn’t even visit Jonah Frank’s grave that often, and they’d have been brothers if Joe had survived that same mission that had robbed him of Maida. Hunter shook his head slightly. “She started out as someone I simply knew of,” he admitted softly. “Then her husband vanished and she came to us. I was the one they assigned to the case.”

“Taylor’s mother,” Cyne said softly. “You were visiting his mother’s grave? Does he–”

“He doesn’t know anything,” Hunter said. “And it’s going to stay that way.”

“I don’t–”

“It’s all right,” Hunter said, cutting off the word understand. “You don’t have to. Just know that there are reasons for it and leave it at that.”

“You visit his mother’s grave,” Cyne said again, his voice curious and full of wonder all at once, as if the blind man was trying to sort out what it could all mean. Hunter couldn’t help but smile a small, rueful smile as he shook his head.

“I’ll tell you someday,” he promised softly.

“But not today, sir?” Cyne was grinning again.

“That’s right,” Hunter said. “Not today. Now tell me what Redeemer had to say to us when you made your request.”

He let Allyn deal with the Resistance lead because the blind man had worked with him in the past, back when Cyne was still stationed in the Borderworlds, at the tiny Alliance post on Caldin. They’d built some kind of rapport, the two of them, and it was more than worth the inconveniences that Cyne imposed on them where the Resistance was concerned. Any advantage that we can leverage at this point that keeps operations secure and the agents in the field safe is worth some strange requests–like writing a report on paper and then asking me to burn it after I’ve read it. I suppose I’ve honored stranger requests.

“He said I didn’t need to ask,” Cyne said simply. “He and Mr. Taylor have gotten close, I think.”

“You think?”

Cyne shrugged slightly. “It’s a highly educated guess. There’s no way for me to be certain unless I’m there to observe them firsthand, but I think it’s a safe bet.”

Hunter nodded slowly, eyes sliding shut for a moment as they drew closer to the cemetery gate. “Well, I’ll trust your judgement, then,” he murmured. “Since I don’t have much more than that to work from.” Other than what I know about Aaron Taylor, and everything I know about that boy is that he’s starved for purpose and friendship in more than a few ways.

They were a lot alike, the old general and the young man he’d sent out into the Borderworlds to do the single most important job he could give to any of his agents: to be the only real, powerful help that the Alliance could give, officially or unofficially–to those fighting against the threat of Imperium domination, to be the eyes and ears of the Alliance intelligence chief on the ground, in the trenches, working with and fighting for the Resistance.

I wish I could be out there, too.

“You’re quiet, sir, but your thoughts are…evident.”

“Delicately put, Cyne.” Hunter shook his head slightly. “Don’t mind an old man’s thoughts. They’re not of any consequence.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” his aide said softly. “Nothing you do is of no consequence.”

I’d like to think that some things are.

Deep down, he suspected that his aide was closer to right than he was.

 It is year 1791 since the fall of the Basilica del Mare.  The Free Isles of the Immersea are faced with threats old and new, chief among them aggression from the empire in the west, Varuulan.  Sailing under the banner the mysterious and storied Lachlan Hope, a young captain and her crew finds themselves unlikely allies in a pair of infamous pirates and their ships–with all of them standing at the center of a fight that will save or doom them all.

Set in a world where water covers most of the globe, Maraeternum tells the tale of Alexia Hope, Laucorn Taurles, Bree O’Kerry, Rooks Taurles, Kyrie Stafford, Trakal Taurles, Daci Cook, Liam D’Arcy, and Lachlan Hope–figures that stand against the might of an empire that could destroy the world.  They will unravel the lost mysteries of Maraeternum’s past in order to ensure that the world has a future.  What follows is the original draft of the second chapter, in which we meet some of the crew of the Blue Typhoon.

  

Two

There was a storm massing out on the horizon and if the ache in her leg was anything to go by, it was going to be a particularly foul one. She assumed that the rest of the crew had noticed the shadow in the distance. It would be on them before mid-afternoon, well before they made port at St. Ransom.

Unless we’ve made better time than I thought—but I doubt the winds were that favorable and gods know Rooks would rather save the engines for when we really need them.

Kyrie Stafford leaned against the rail, shifting her weight slightly. The only sounds she could hear was the sound of the ocean and the crew on the deck and in the rigging—normal sounds of a ship at sea. She stared at the darkness on the horizon, watched a few faint flashes illuminate the shadows. She straightened, her fingers curling around the battered and scarred wood of a rail that had seen more than one boarding hook, more than one fight with the Varuulani.

The ship had seen far worse than the storm building in the distance in her years on the seas, but there was something about the darkness out there that made Kyrie uneasy.

It’s nothing. Stop worrying. Just another storm. We’ll batten down and ride it out then make St. Ransom in the morning if the storm doesn’t break until after dark.

Her gaze drifted over the water and she frowned. Perhaps that was what was bothering her. Half a day out from port and there wasn’t another ship in sight.

Unless we’re off course, which shouldn’t happen. She glanced back over her shoulder, toward the wheel. “Roanoke!”

The first mate glanced down toward her. “Something wrong?”

Kyrie frowned, then turned, jogging across the deck and up to where he stood minding the wheel. She didn’t speak until she was closer, near enough not to be overheard by the rest of the crew. They were largely a seasoned bunch and used to sailing together, but there was no reason to sow unnecessary concern.

“We haven’t drifted off-course, have we?”

The tall man gave her a strange look. “Not so far as I know, but you’re navigation. You tell me.”

She made a face at him and glanced back out toward the water, toward the storm and the open sea. “I give you the headings and you follow them.”

“And we are.” His brows knit. “What’s the matter?”

“Where’s Rooks?”

“Below in the galley, I think. Said something about checking on Cookie and our supplies.”

Kyrie nodded, turning away. Roanoke grasped her arm, his other hand still firm on the wheel.

“What’s the matter?” he asked again. She exhaled and shook her head.

“It’s probably nothing. Just that we’re half a day out of St. Ransom and there’s not a soul on the water except for us.”

Roanoke blinked at her, his brow furrowing a little more as he gazed out onto the water, just like she had been before. “Huh,” was all he said, once again settling both hand on the wheel. “Well…stranger things, right?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Stranger things.”

This time when she started to walk away, he didn’t stop her.

Kyrie headed below, two decks down toward the galley, where the ever-cheerful Bail “Cookie” Morris held sway—he’d taken the job two weeks after she’d hired onto the Typhoon as their navigator and like she and Roanoke were among the longest-standing members of Rooks Taurles’s crew of misfits and miscreants. They were the only ones left from the days when the Taurles brothers sailed together, the only ones that remembered the horror of the day when Alexia D’Arcy died on Trakal Taurles’s blade, dying on the deck of a captured Varuulani ship set for an ambush that ended up being her undoing—and very nearly theirs as well. Kyrie still had nightmares about that day and the scar from the wound she’d taken to protect D’Arcy’s daughter still ached sometimes. She knew it haunted her captain, too.

Today reminded her of that day—a storm on the horizon and seas that were far, far too quiet, too empty.

She wondered, as she stepped into the galley, if Roanoke had made the connection, too.

“Come for a cuppa, KyKy?” Cookie asked, busy in front of the pot-bellied stove. Dinner was already on, a seafood stew if she were to guess from the smell of it. Fresh bread, too, that would hopefully survive the coming storm.

She shook her head. “No, but thanks. Rooks down here?”

Cookie jerked a thumb toward the storeroom. “Taking stock and checking my figures. What’s the matter? We off course?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, heading for the storeroom door. “Better button up, though. Storm on the horizon.”

The cook grimaced and nodded. “I’ll have to do that. How long do you think we’ve got?”

Kyrie shrugged. “Didn’t get a good idea of how fast it’s moving, otherwise I’d be able to tell you. Doesn’t look pretty, though.”

“Hurricane?”

“Just a bad storm, I think,” she said, then ducked into the narrow storeroom. Rooks Taurles stood at the far end, one hand moving as if he was counting the canisters stacked there—tins of coffee and tea there at the back. “Cap?”

He glanced back over his shoulder, blinking. “Hey. Did you need any of this?”

“Always, but that’s not why I came down here.”

His brow furrowed and he turned fully, picking up the lamp he’d left on a nearby shelf to provide some illumination for his inspection. “What’s wrong? Heard you and Cookie talking about a storm blowing up.” His voice dropped lower as he came within arms’ reach, quiet enough that they wouldn’t be overheard against the normal shipboard sounds—the crew, the sea, Cookie tending dinner in the galley next to them. “You’ve got that look.”

She grimaced, glancing down toward her feet. “It’s too quiet out there,” she said. “We’re only a few hours out of St. Ransom and there’s not a soul on the water. The last time it was this quiet out there was the day you almost got yourself killed in that ambush.”

Rooks rubbed at his collarbone, as if remembering, his expression matching hers. “Maybe they saw the storm rolling in,” he said. “Ships putting out decided not to and others just decided to make best speed to somewhere else. Or they dropped anchor to avoid the mess. How far out is the storm?”

“We’ll be lucky to make it to mid afternoon before it hits,” she said.

“Can we make St. Ransom before it hits?” His blue eyes gleamed in the lamplight. Sometimes, he loved a challenge—especially if it distracted him from something unpleasant, and she knew that bringing up the ambush that had almost taken him five years before was certainly that. “Full sail, engines going full blast?”

“I doubt it,” she said, chewing her lip. “We could try, but I’m not sure we’d clear the reef and the breakwater before the storm’s on us.”

Rooks’s brows knit and he nodded. “Might be worth the shot,” he said, half to her and half to himself. He caught her fingers and squeezed gently. “Worst case scenario, it’ll put us out of range of anything that’s looking to ambush us.”

A broken laugh escaped her lips and she shook her head. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know. But now the thought’s in my head, too. We’re pretty far out from contested waters, though. It’d take some serious balls for someone to be this far into Free Isles waters setting an ambush—for us or anyone else.”

“You’re right,” she murmured. “Intellectually, I know that, too. It’s just…” her voice trailed away and Kyrie chewed her lip. His fingers brushed her cheek.

“I know,” Rooks said softly. “We’ll be careful. There’s not much else we can do besides make best speed for St. Ransom. Who knows. Maybe we will manage to make Firenze before the storm hits us full-force.”

“If it’s moving slowly, maybe, but the way my leg’s aching says otherwise.”

Something flickered through his expression and was gone. “Just your leg? Not your back, too?”

Her brow arched and one corner of his mouth quirked upward into a smile.

“You don’t remember, but I do. When we got ambushed and I took the worst of it, your back was hurting you so badly you were practically in tears. Storm that day, too.” His thumb stroked her cheek one more time before he withdrew his hand and picked up the lamp again. “With any luck, history won’t repeat itself today.”

Luck. That’s something that sure as hell runs hot and cold for us. Kyrie exhaled quietly, turning to follow him out of the storeroom. “Are you heading up?”

He nodded. “Someone’s got to give the order to fire up the engine and make best speed for the harbor. Gods know that Roanoke won’t do it just yet—especially if he knew you were coming to look for me.”

“We know each other too well by this point, don’t we?”

Rooks grinned. “We do, but honestly, I don’t think I’d have it another way. Have them secure everything down here. I’ll see you up on deck afterwards.”

Kyrie nodded, lingering near the door of the galley even as Rooks headed down the hall. “Be careful.”

He shot her the same crooked, boyish smile that somewhere along the line had claimed her heart. “You first.”

Then he bounded up the stairs. 

It is year 1791 since the fall of the Basilica del Mare.  The Free Isles of the Immersea are faced with threats old and new, chief among them aggression from the empire in the west, Varuulan.  Sailing under the banner the mysterious and storied Lachlan Hope, a young captain and her crew finds themselves unlikely allies in a pair of infamous pirates and their ships–with all of them standing at the center of a fight that will save or doom them all.

Set in a world where water covers most of the globe, Maraeternum tells the tale of Alexia Hope, Laucorn Taurles, Bree O’Kerry, Rooks Taurles, Kyrie Stafford, Trakal Taurles, Daci Cook, Liam D’Arcy, and Lachlan Hope–figures that stand against the might of an empire that could destroy the world.  They will unravel the lost mysteries of Maraeternum’s past in order to ensure that the world has a future.  What follows is the original draft of the opening chapter.

  

One

He was a blonde blur of motion, moving too fast for her to avoid even if she’d seen him coming. The impact of his body against hers was bone-jarring, sent her tumbling into a split-rail fence. That fence was the only thing that kept her from a ten-foot drop to a rooftop below the path.

Alexia Hope bounced off the rail and back into her attacker, using every ounce of his momentum against him to bear him to the ground. She had been the object of attack before more than once in her short lifetime and self-defense was nothing shy of second nature. His head snapped back, banging against the cobbles of the walkway, wresting a curse from his lips as she straddled him. Beneath her cavalier’s coat was a knife, secreted at the small of her back.

I just need to reach it…

“This is awkward,” the man beneath her said. Even as her fingers closed around the knife, she blinked at him, saw him for the first time.

“What is?” she asked without thinking.

“I’ve never been pinned like this before.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then swallowed. His white-blonde hair hung in greasy tendrils, crusted with salt near the scalp, face smudged with grease and dirt, but his eyes were the blue-green of the Immersea, glinting like jewels in the dying afternoon sun.

He’s no older than I am. She swallowed again. She was barely old enough herself to be trusted on the docks of Stoneport unescorted—and this boy seemed far less seasoned than she was. Is he a local, I wonder, or something else?

A body flew through a window behind her and she ducked flying shards of glass. The boy coughed.

“Would you mind getting off of me so we can out of range of the barfight? I kind of intended to be pretty far away before bodies started coming out of windows.”

“You started that?” she asked as she shoved herself to her feet, releasing her grip on the knife’s hilt. She wouldn’t need it, not yet–not unless she got sucked into the brewing battle inside the nearby bar. Alexia stuck out her hand, intending to haul the boy to his feet.

He shrugged as he grasped her hand and arm. “It didn’t seem like that bad of an idea at the time,” he said as she hauled him upright. He was clearly stronger than he appeared; his grip on her arm told her that much.

“And now?” she asked, curiosity mingling with annoyance. Who was this boy, anyway—other than what appeared to be a high-caliber troublemaker possibly harboring if a death wish constantly at odds with strong survival instincts. He must have had some drive to live, after all, if he’d started a barfight in Stoneport and ducked out before bodies and other projectiles started flying.

“More of a bad idea.” He half-ducked, flinching at the sound of shouting and more breaking glass. “Can we have this discussion somewhere else?”

“Yeah, I think we’d better.” Alexia took him by the arm and dragged him down the walkway to a narrow set of stairs leading toward the water, nearer to the docks. Cut into a series of hills and cliffs on the edge of the island, Stonepointe’s major port was as multi-leveled as it was multi-layered. Alexia had never minded the long climbs and steep roads, but she knew other sailors that had complained bitterly about them—though never anywhere the master of Stonepointe, the famed master thief Liam D’Arcy, could hear them doing it.

“So what the hell were you doing starting a barfight?” she asked as they made it down to the next tier of the city, this one quieter, with fewer taverns and more respectable-looking establishments than the level above.

“Trying to cover the fact that I just filched a few purses,” the boy said, looking only vaguely abashed at the admission. “A guy’s got to eat.”

She stopped walking long enough to turn back to study him. The fact that he hadn’t tried to cut her purse spoke volumes. Either he’s as smart as his eyes say he is, or I’ve got him sufficiently frightened enough that he wouldn’t try it. Banking on the former, she arched a brow delicately. “So you go and rob pirates in a dockside dive? On an island ruled by a master thief?”

“It wasn’t their money to begin with, now was it?”

Her stern façade cracked and she grinned. “Too true. You have a name?”

“Laucorn. I’m sorry I knocked you over like that. I was just trying to get out of there.”

“Don’t worry, I get it.” She extended her hand for him to shake this time. “Chance.”

His grip was firm and calloused. He’s used to hard work, it seems. Those aren’t the hands of someone raised to luxury.

Then again, neither are mine.

“That’s an unusual name,” Laucorn said. “Chance.”

“It’s not the one I was born with, but it’s one my mother gave me,” she said with a faint smile, the one she used to cover the old pain that rose when she thought about her mother, gone now for the better part of a decade. “How long have you been stuck here on Stonepointe?”

“A few weeks,” he admitted. “Crew berths have been slim pickings. They don’t do a lot of whaling up here, do they?”

She shook her head slightly. “That’s mostly out of the smaller Oesterovan ports or out of the southern ports. This is a hive of scum and villainy. Didn’t someone tell you?”
 “I almost wish they had,” he said, scrubbing one hand back through his tangled hair.

There was something oddly familiar about him, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. You’ll figure it out eventually. A flutter of nervous excitement in her belly told her that this meeting wasn’t an accident—not entirely. Everything for a reason, right? “So you’re in the market for a new berth, then? You sailed a lot before?”

He fell into step with her as she started walking. “Enough that I know my way around a deck and the rigging. They were using me as a harpooner on the whaler, though.”

“Sounds glorious,” she said with a wry smile. “I don’t think they’ve got any use for a harpooner, but there’s a merchanter down there that might be in the market for another able hand or two.” When her companion’s eyes lit, Alexia knew she’d judged him right. She pointed to a twin-masted vessel below them, safely moored in one of Stoneport’s centermost docks. The honey-colored ship’s white sails were tightly furled, but she still flew the rose and sword flag of Hope’s Mercantile proudly, the navy blue flag snapping in the wind and the silver-white cloth of the sword catching the light, glimmering gold in the sun.

“That flag’s familiar,” Laucorn said. “I’ve seen it before.”

“Hope’s Mercantile,” Alexia said. “Pretty profitable operation out of Santrellis. Lachlan Hope and Alexia D’Arcy’s legacy to the Free Isles, if you believe that swill.”

He snapped his fingers. “The ones that told the Varuulani merchanters to shove it, aren’t they?”

“Something like that,” Alexia said, fighting back a smile. Is that how folks think of it now? Papa would laugh. “I know that they don’t take the Varuulani Navy’s intrusions into free waters lightly.”

“I’d heard that,” he said, then nodded to the ship. “Does she fight for them? Against the Varuulani?”

“They all do,” Alexia said. “If the call comes, anyhow. Targets of opportunity.”

“Sounds almost like pirates.”

She laughed. “Not hardly. It’s not piracy when the Navy’s on the wrong side of the border and trolling for easy targets. It’s security for the Free Isles.” She looked him up and down. “Can you fight?”

“Do you have all of your fingers?” he countered.

Alexia laughed again. “You interested, then?”

“I’ve been too long on this rock already,” he admitted. “If I don’t leave soon, I won’t be able to leave at all.”

“Fair point,” Alexia said. “You should probably talk to the first mate. She makes the personnel decisions.”

He hesitated a moment, then asked, “Do you think you could introduce me?”

After a moment’s hesitation designed to let him stew in his own juices, she grinned. “I suppose I could. Come on.”

They’d gone a dozen steps before she glanced back over her shoulder at him. “You don’t have a problem with elves or half-bloods, do you?”

His nose wrinkled. “No. The stories are too damned much to be believed if you ask me.”

Except for the ones that are true. He’ll learn eventually. She laughed. “Good.”

Without another word, she brought him down to the docks and Bree O’Kerry.

“Pick up the pace, you worthless sacks of meat!” Bree tried to push a little more snarl into her voice. She didn’t need to channel her former lover in most ports, but most ports weren’t teeming with scum and the worst sorts of villains.

Most ports weren’t run by master thieves and haunted by the most famed and feared assassin plying the trade, either.

“I need this cargo loaded by midafternoon. Heave to, maggots!”

“Hoy, Bree!”

She turned toward the sound of her captain’s voice, smothering a frown. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to a meeting?”

Chance grinned. “For better or worse. He’ll understand. I got waylaid on the way.” She ushered the small, dirty-faced young man with her to the fore. “This Laucorn and he’s shopping for a berth. I told him we might have a position as cabin boy or general crew. Think you can set him up?”

Her gaze raked over the boy—no, not a boy, a young man. His hair was cropped short, standing up in spikes. The planes and angles of his face were familiar, enough so that her throat tightened momentarily.

Couldn’t be.

“Laucorn, huh?” She nodded, looking at Chance again. “If you can handle the slackers, I’ll get the kid take care of.”

Chance shrugged. “It shouldn’t take long. Probably be done by the time Uncle sends a carriage ‘round.”

“Mm.” Bree looked at Laucorn. “Go on aboard, I’ll catch up in a moment.” She waited until he’d bounded up the gangplank before looking to her captain again. “Since when do you need a cabin boy, Chance?”

“Since about fifteen minutes ago,” she said, then smiled. “I got a feeling, Red.”

Bree snorted. “You and your feelings.”

“We’re not dead yet,” Chance reminded her, then turned to supervise cargo loading. All Bree could do was shake her head and jog up the gangplank to join their newest crewman on the main deck of the Wild Card.

Not yet, no. How much longer we stay alive, though–that’s a thing that remains to be seen, isn’t it? She exhaled a silent sigh as she looked at him again, studied him a little more closely. There was no doubt about it.

But he didn’t have any children—not before.

The way Laucorn watched the men in the rigging and the crew on the deck told her that he’d been on ships before, had worked on them before. He was lean, smaller than the man he reminded her of, his shoulders narrower, his face softer. She didn’t see any visible scars, but that didn’t mean that some didn’t exist.

“You’ve worked on ships before,” she said as she stopped next to him near the center of the main deck, following his gaze toward the rigging, where two of the crew were re-furling the topsail after finishing repairs. They’d run afoul of a Varuulani patrol ship—which was to say the patroller had run afoul of them—and had managed to put a few decent-sized holes in the canvas before the Wild Card brought them to heel. Bree watched them with a critical eye for a moment before glancing toward Laucorn.

The boy blinked, noticing as her gaze settled on him, then nodded. “Whalers, mostly. I signed onto one as soon as I was big enough to hold a harpoon. It beat staying where I was.” He looked toward the harbor and the sea beyond the breakwater, his expression almost wistful. “I remember my mother saying that the sea was in our blood, that eventually it called all of us. I was practically a baby then.” He fidgeted with something tied around his wrist with a strip of leather cord, something hidden by his fingers when Bree glanced down, tracking the motion.

“Where’s home?”

He seemed startled by the question but shrugged it off. “Wherever I end up.”

Cryptic. Bree shook her head. “Do you have any gear you need to pick up?”

“No,” he said. “All I have is what’s on my back and on my belt.” He wasn’t carrying anything more than a small shoulder bag that looked practically empty and a pair of short knives on his belt.

A soft whistle escaped the Wild Card’s first mate. “Well, I suppose that makes it easy. Come on. I’ll get you settled and we’ll find you some clean clothes.”

“Just like that?” he asked, blinking. He jogged a few steps to keep up with her as she started across the deck, headed below to the berths and the ship’s stores.

Bree’s shoulders rose and fell in a slight shrug. “What Chance wants, she gets. She’s the captain.”  We’ll see if this is a mistake or not. If it is, at least he’s gotten passage as far as Port Royale and he’ll be able to find a berth on a whaler or another merchanter if that’s what he wants. Better than leaving him here.

He stopped dead in his tracks. “Wait. She’s the captain?”

Bree smiled, though she smothered it before she turned, her expression mild though still slightly amused when she met his wide-eyed gaze. “She didn’t tell you?”

“I—no.”

Games again. Bree shook her head. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, it’s just—I—she—she doesn’t seem like she’s much older than I am, that’s all.”

Bree shrugged. “She’s been on the water since before she could walk. Her parents were both mariners themselves. It’s in her blood, just like it’s in yours.”

He was quiet for a long moment before his head bobbed in a slight nod. “I guess that makes sense. Still, her own boat?”

“She sails for her father,” Bree said, then turned and started walking again. “Can’t have a world where a Hope isn’t on the water. The Varuulani get too bold otherwise.”

Her charge didn’t argue the point and Bree didn’t bother to give voice to the words that often followed the phrases she’d just repeated.

Without a Hope, all we have are the Taurles, and a war we can’t afford—not yet.

 The Institute called them their Angelic Legion.  They expected a few hundred children, gifted with talents beyond nature, properly trained, would be able to turn back the forces of hell when the End Times came.  Ky Monroe saw them for what they were years ago–a cult masquerading as something good, something holy, something that would help and not harm.  Matthew Thatcher recognized them for what they were, too–a dangerous organization not above murder and violence to achieve their aims, and together with Ky worked tirelessly to make sure the organization died–and when an explosion ripped through the Institute’s main facility in the midwest years ago, Ky dared believe they might have succeeded.  But when an old friend reappears with a story to tell, Ky realizes exactly how wrong she’s been–and that time is running out to save the people she loves…

When All’s Said and Done is narrated by Kyle Anne Monroe (alias Kyrie Thatcher), a college student who escaped from the Institute as a teenager.  It is the major work planned for the Lost Angels Chronicles, which shares a universe (and many characters) with the UNSETIC Files (and Court of Twelve works like The Man Who Made Monsters, a project I’m working on with L.P. Loudon).

This is another one of those super-long chapters that might be cut into two in edits.

Two

Reece was still up when I got home, curled in the corner of the old blue couch with a book open against her knees. She glanced up at the sound of my entry, tilting her head and glancing at the clock. “Later than usual,” she observed, smothering a yawn.

“Were you waiting up?” I asked her, tossing my keys into the basket on top of the microwave. The evening had grown sticky, humidity promising a late summer storm. From the temperature inside the apartment, she and Marie had closed the windows and turned on the air when the stickiness began to ratchet up, probably a few hours before.

She marked her page and closed her book. “Not really. Just got sucked in, that’s all. Enjoying the last few days I can read and be guilt-free about it.” She grinned at me, but her brow began to furrow the longer she looked at me. “You okay?”

I nodded, starting to put the kettle on for hot water. I needed a mug of something hot, mostly to soothe my nerves and help me calm down enough to sleep. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Was it bad?” I’d told her on the phone that Matthew had gotten a call about work. She knew by now what he did, and she’d seen me after I’d helped him through dealing with victims. She didn’t quite know how or why I was so readily able to deal with Matthew—or sometimes the victims themselves—the way I could, but she’d mercifully never asked about it, either. I sometimes thought that was a blessing and a curse all at once.

I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, preparing myself to lie to her as I took down a mug from the cupboard. “Kind of,” I said. “Someone who escaped a cult made it to Damon, so he called Matthew. But it wasn’t really that bad. Could’ve been worse.” Could’ve been a lot worse. I finally looked at her. “You want some cocoa or something? I’m putting water on.”

She shook her head a little, still watching me. “You seem like you’re upset about something.”

“I am a little bit.” I never thought that I’d ever see Ridley so…defeated. Broken. Lost. “It’s hard, that’s all. On Matthew and on me.”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

No. Not yet, but maybe soon. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, shaking my head. “No. Thanks, though.”

She nodded. “Okay.” She got up and went to lock the door again as I spooned powdered latte into my mug. She paused for a moment next to me at the counter, brow furrowing. “You sure there’s not more to it than that? You’ve been weird for a couple of days.”

“Have I?” I hadn’t noticed. If I had, I might’ve tried to hide it.

“A little. Distant, distracted. I thought it was maybe you worrying about classes starting up again, but you’re never worried about that. Heck, I realized that when we talked about scheduling in March you were really blasé about this semester. Cakewalk, you said. So I know it’s not that.”

Leave it to Reece to pick up on something like that—and remember what I said six months ago. I exhaled and leaned against the counter, staring sightlessly at the teakettle. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind. Not school stuff.”

“And you’re sure you don’t want to talk?”

I nodded. Not yet, anyway. Not quite yet. “Yeah. Not tonight, at least.”

“You haven’t been having nightmares again, have you?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t had the nightmares in almost two years, but they’d been really bad around the time she and I met and became friends. “No. I haven’t had one in a long time.” My stomach twisted as the teakettle began to whistle. I swung it off the burner and started to fill my cup. Hopefully they’re not going to start up again. Hopefully my imagination isn’t going to run wild, run rampant. I looked at her and forced another smile. “Really, Reece. I’m okay—or I will be. Nothing for you to worry about.” Not yet. Not tonight.

She hesitated before nodding. “Okay.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “You know, maybe instead of just looking at that old box of cards, you should open it for a change.”

I sucked in a breath, remembering the way my arm tingled earlier when I’d touched the box. I’d shown her the cards once, a long time ago, when she’d seen it sitting on the shelf and asked about it. I hadn’t told her the whole story, just a series of vague half-truths. That someone I loved had given it to me, that I didn’t really know how to read them the right way, and that it was the only piece I had from the person who’d given them to me. It was a keepsake, a memento. “I didn’t know you saw me looking,” I mumbled.

Reece put a hand on my arm, smiling at me gently, her gaze sympathetic and concerned. “It could help, Ky. With whatever’s bothering you.”

I nodded wordlessly. Maybe she was right. Maybe it’ll…maybe it’ll help. Maybe it’ll help me touch him again… The ceramic of the mug was warm against my hand. “Maybe I will.”

She nodded. “Good.” She went and picked up her book and shut off the lights in our living room. “I’m going to go to bed, I think. Marie’s out with Ian. Said she might not come home tonight.”

“Okay. G’night, Reece.”

“Night.” She headed upstairs and left me alone in our kitchen.

I took a slow sip of coffee and glanced toward the window out onto the parking lot in front of the townhouse, toward the lights of the student union beyond it. The campus was still quiet, still a week out from freshman orientation and a week and a half out from the start of classes. Maybe that would be enough time for me to get my head back on straight.

Maybe enough time to find him and make him safe. I exhaled and turned off the kitchen lights, trudging up the stairs to my bedroom. I flipped on the light and sank down on the edge of my bed, staring at nothing for a long moment. I could hear Reece in the bathroom for a few minutes, and then silence. She’d gone to bed, or at the very least flopped into her bunk to read. I took another swallow of coffee and set the cup aside, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. My eyes fell on the box. It felt like a long time had passed before I actually picked it up.

My arm tingled all the way up to my elbow as I lifted it, shifting to sit cross-legged on my bed. I settled it in my lap and brushed my fingers across the pentacle carved into the wooden lid, exhaling quietly.

Hadrian. I closed my eyes, resting both hands on the box for a long moment. I took another deep breath and opened the box and my eyes in the same moment. The Knight of Swords stared up at me, face-up on top of the pack. I knew I hadn’t left it like that, the last time I’d opened the box, touched the cards. For a moment, I lost all of my breath as a giant hand wrapped around my heart and squeezed.  The Knight of Swords was Hadrian’s card.

I picked it up. Beneath it was the Queen of Swords—my card—also face up. I shivered. After all this time? Are you reaching? Are you…are you trying again? I bit my lip, then picked up the card.

The Devil stared back at me from the top of the deck, mocking me. The Institute. I sucked in a breath and picked up the card with a shaking hand. The green and white Celtic knotwork pattern on the backs of the cards greeted me. Relief flooded me. I was afraid that I’d see more.

I turned the Devil over and laid it back down, followed by the Queen of Swords, but I held the Knight of Swords for a long moment, staring at it and trying to bring to mind the image of Hadrian’s face. It was harder than it should have been, and that brought tears to my eyes. I stared at the card a little longer, then slowly put it back in the box and lowered the lid. I didn’t put it back on the shelf, though. I tucked it into the corner of my bed, near my pillow. That way, it would be near enough to touch without getting out of bed.

I got up, put on my pajamas, and turned out the lights. My coffee sat forgotten on my desk as I curled in bed with my blankets, still trying to hold the wavering image of Hadrian’s face in my mind. I missed him so much, more than I ever admitted, more than I ever let myself feel.

And yet, I was having trouble remembering his face. That upset me more than I wanted to admit.

Closing my eyes, I tried to sleep and hoped the nightmares I expected wouldn’t come. I drifted somewhere between sleeping and waking before I finally dropped off, and dreamed.

I found myself in a familiar garden, a grotto festooned with flowers and trees surrounding a reflecting pool as bottomless as the limitless starry sky it reflected. It was our dream-garden, the place where Hadrian and I had met in dreams, back before, back when I hadn’t dared sneak into his bed back at the Institute, back in those months and years before I failed to rescue him after my own escape. I hadn’t been here in four years, not since then. Not since I thought he’d died because I stopped being able to reach him.

My heart skipped a beat as I saw a thin, frail figure sitting next to the reflecting pool, his back to me. He looked like some kind of shade, dressed in gray, brown hair unruly but limp at the same time. I took a deep breath. Is this real? Or just a fantasy? I slowly walked toward the figure, crouching down to touch his shoulder.

He turned to face me, and I knew it wasn’t a dream.

A nasty, blackening bruise ringed one eye, his face gaunt and narrow, a few freckles standing out starkly against the paleness of his complexion. There was defeat in his eyes at first glance, defeat that melted like ice under the midsummer sun as he stared at me. His chapped lips parted and he sucked in a breath, shock quickly replacing the hopelessness I’d first seen.

“Ky,” he breathed. His shoulder was thin and boney under my hand, and his fingers were frail and reedy as he grasped my arm. “Are you real? Really real? Did I die?”

My heart cracked in half and I sank down onto my knees, shaking my head. “No, Hadrian. No. You’re alive.”

“But you’re dead,” he whispered, fingers tightening painfully. “They all said so.” He sounded confused, terrified.

Oh, Hadrian. I slowly slid my arms around him. He didn’t resist, just sat there, staring almost blankly, as if he was lost. He was so cold, for a moment I wasn’t sure that he was still alive. It was an agonizing few moments before his arms slid around me and he held on tight.

“We’re not dead?”

“No,” I whispered, threading my fingers through his hair. “No, we’re not dead. Whoever told you that lied. I’m so sorry.”

“Ridley and Laren…they said I had to be dreaming. Letting my wishes run away with my heart and mind. That you’d been dead for years, since you tried to escape. They told us…they told us you’d died then. I didn’t believe them.” He shuddered and clung to me. “Until I did. Until I gave…gave up…” He sucked in a breath as if he were a man drowning, struggling for air. “I couldn’t feel you anymore after…so I finally got to thinking that maybe they were right. Maybe I’d just dreamed it all because I missed you so much and needed to be able to focus my hope on something…”

I pulled back and looked at him, at the tears brimming in bloodshot hazel eyes. I took his face gently in my hands and kissed those tears, then held him for a long moment. He shuddered in my arms and pressed his face against my neck. “I’m going to get you out of there,” I whispered. “Somehow. I promise.”

He shook his head a little. “Don’t even know where I am,” he mumbled into my neck.

“We think we do.” I started to stroke his hair again, wincing at how thin and frail he felt. What had they been doing? Had they just never stopped, even though I was gone and they didn’t need the leverage anymore? Or had they found something else to do to him instead?

“We?” He whispered. “Who’s we?”

“Ridley found his way to me and Timothy’s brother.”

Hadrian stiffened. “He gave in to them, Ky. They broke him.”

“I know,” I murmured. “He told me.” He graduated. I knew what it meant when he said that. “There’s some things that don’t go away, though, and one of those things was Ridley’s sense of right and wrong. He got away, and now he’s told me where I can maybe find you.”

“Hurry,” Hadrian murmured. “Please. I…there isn’t much time, Ky.”

My heart seized up again. “What is it?” Tell me you’re not dying. Tell me I haven’t come this close only to lose you again. Please. 

He shook his head a little, drawing back and staring at me with haunted eyes. “Something’s going to happen,” he whispered, a glimmer of clairvoyant madness slipping into his gaze, lending an edge to his voice. “I can’t…I can’t quite grasp what, but I know. I can feel it, in the pit of my stomach. Something big, something bad. They’re going to do it and you have to stop it.”

I grasped his arms and squeezed. “We have to stop it.”

Hadrian stared at me for a long moment before leaning forward again, pressing his forehead against my shoulder. It was my turn to cling to him, now, as if he’d slip through my fingers and be gone again if I didn’t hold onto him with all of my strength. He shivered, once, and pressed closer.

“So cold,” he murmured. “So tired.” He swallowed hard. “What if they find you, Ky? What if they find you before you can get to me? What if they’re…what if they’re using our connection right now to find you?”

“They don’t have anyone that could do that, Hadrian,” I murmured. At least they didn’t then. Why should now be any different? I’ve never heard of someone with that kind of gift. He just shivered again, not answering me.

“Don’t tell me where you are,” he murmured. “Don’t tell me what you’re planning—not all of it. I…I don’t know how far I can be trusted these days. I don’t know what I’ll say if I’m delirious. Don’t know what I can keep back from them.” He sucked in a breath. “I’m almost an open book, Ky. If they asked someone loyal to them to read me, they’d know everything.”

“Do you think they would?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly, arms loosely ringing my waist, now, as if he was too tired to wrap them any higher. “Don’t know if they could tell what’s real from what’s a delusion, either. Don’t know that they care that much anymore. They’ve stopped asking me to tell them what I see. Maybe they already know.” He wet his lips, lifting his face to mine again. “Before tonight…before tonight, I’d started hoping that they’d just end me and let me have peace. I thought that whatever was on the other side had to be better than what I was trying to live through.”

Oh, Hadrian. “And now?”

“I have to hang on,” he said simply. “You say you’re coming for me, and I believe you. You’re the only thing I have left to believe.” He reached up, put his cold palms against my cheeks and cradled my face in his hands, his eyes searching mine for something he’d lost—his hope, I guess. “Tell me this is real, Ky. Just one more time. Tell me it’s real and I’m not imagining this.”

I hugged him close again, drawing him tight against my chest, near enough that he could hear my heartbeat. “This is real,” I murmured to him, resting my chin on his head. “This is real and I’m coming for you, one way or another. I’m going to find you and you’ll be safe and we’ll be together, like we always planned. Like we’re supposed to be.”

He swallowed and nodded. “I believe you,” he whispered. “But please hurry.”

We sat there together, in our dreaming place, for a long time. All I could do was hold him and pray. I prayed that I would find him, and that I wouldn’t be too late. I loved him, after all. I owed it to him—needed to keep my promise. I’d promised I’d come back and get him out of there, a promise I’d made before I ran six years ago, before I escaped.

It was a promise I intended to keep. 

♦ ♠ ♦

I woke in the morning to my phone ringing, tears still wet on my face. It was light outside, the sun slowly climbing up into the sky. The ringtone told me it was Matthew and given current circumstances I probably shouldn’t ignore it. I rolled out of bed, grasping for my phone.  I eventually found it just before it kicked to voicemail.

“Morning, Matthew,” I grated, then coughed and cleared my throat. “Sorry.”

“You okay?” His voice sounded concerned, even over the phone. “Kicked to voicemail twice before you picked up.”

“I was asleep.” I sat on the floor against my bed, staring at the open blinds. How I’d managed to sleep with that much light flooding into the bedroom, I wasn’t quite sure. “What’s the matter?”

“I just thought it would be better if you were with me when I went to collect your friend and Damon’s cousin today, that’s all. I found a safehouse for them.” Matthew exhaled. “If you don’t want to come, tell me now, because I’m already driving.”

Weariness dragged me down. I took a deep breath. I couldn’t say no, not to this, even if I’d wanted to. “No, I’ll come. When will you be here?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Enough time for a shower. “All right. If I don’t answer the door when you knock, just wait. Might still be in the shower. I’m getting off the phone now.” Maybe the shower would help ease all the tightness in my limbs, the knots in my back.

“All right. See you shortly.”

We both hung up and I headed for the shower, which helped ease some of the tightness, but didn’t erase it completely.

We’re really connected again. The aching wasn’t mine, it was his—it belonged to Hadrian. Whatever had severed our connections four years before wasn’t keeping us apart anymore. In a way, it was a relief, though I feared the moment that I stopped feeling again. I wasn’t sure what that would mean, but given the skeletal, gaunt vision of him, I was afraid it would mean that I’d lost him forever.

I was scrubbing a towel over my short hair when I heard Matthew knocking on the door. I poked my head out of the bathroom to see Reece heading to answer it. I ducked back into the bathroom to drag a brush through my hair. Their voices drifted up to me.

“Hi Matthew. Ky didn’t tell me you were coming over this morning.”

“She didn’t know until half an hour ago,” Matthew admitted, probably as she let him inside.

“What are you two doing today?” Reece sounded confused. I wondered for half a minute what the hell Matthew was wearing. Either he was in a suit or he wasn’t. I wasn’t quite sure which would have confused her more.

I didn’t catch his response as I tossed my brush into a drawer. “Sorry, sorry,” I said as I came down the stairs.

Matthew was dressed in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt, looking more like he was about to go play golf than about to go move two people to a safehouse. Then again, that was probably safer. At least he wasn’t carrying his gun, which I was pretty sure was out in the trunk of his car. It was never that far away. He smiled at me and nodded.

Reece glanced at me and arched a brow. “You guys don’t look like you’re dressed to go to work.”

I shook my head. “Suits are intimidating.” It was the first thing that came to mind, and apparently it made as much sense to her as it did to me.

“I guess so,” she said, looking between us for a moment. “You going to be home for dinner, Ky? I think Ian was going to cook for us.”

I nodded. “Hopefully. I’ll call by four if I’m not, okay?”

“Sure.” She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment, then glanced at Matthew, then back to me. “Ky, can I talk to you for a minute?”

I looked at Matthew. “I’ll be out in a second, Matthew. Just give me a couple.”

He nodded. “I’ll start the car.”

Reece waited until he was out of the house before she took a deep breath and stared at me. “What’s going on, Ky? I’ve seen you go with him on a case once, but never twice on the same case like this.” She touched my arm. “Are you going for him, or are you going for you?”

I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Do I tell her the truth? “He asked me to come,” I said quietly.

“Why?”

I grimaced, crossing my arms, almost hugging myself and looking toward the sliding glass window and the shared commons behind the townhouse—looking anywhere but at her. How much do I say? “Because I know how to help the victim he’s dealing with.”

“How?”

I’d braced for the question, even though I hadn’t quite formulated how I was going to answer her. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Bite the bullet, Ky. “Because I used to be like him.”

I still couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bring myself to see what her reaction was to that. The strain in her voice, though, that told me all I needed to know. “Ky…what are you talking about? You used to be just like who?”

“The victim,” I said quietly. “The one Matthew’s going to go move to a safehouse.” I swallowed and finally looked at her, seeing the shock etched on her face. It was a big secret, one I’d kept for a long time, even from my closest friends. “You knew that Matthew took me in after my folks died, but you didn’t know that they died a long time before Matthew found me.”

Reece’s jaw worked for a moment before a sound managed to come out. “A cult had you? You never told me.” She wet her lips. “No wonder you have such a problem with religion.”

I couldn’t help myself—I burst out laughing, so hard I sat down on the floor just shy of our stairs. I covered my face with my hands, laughing helplessly until tears came. Reece dropped to her knees next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Ky?”

“I’m fine,” I gasped between fits of laughter. “You have no idea, Reece. No idea.” Angelic legions. Battles at the end of time, against the demons of hell that will rise. There will be no Rapture, no saving, only the Legions to hide behind. The Legions will save us, which is why they must be taught. Must be trained. Must listen and believe… The old words echoed through my brain and that helped me regain control of myself. Most of us hadn’t believed in their rhetoric.  We’d laughed about it in private, mostly so we wouldn’t cry. I could see how someone desperate and broken, though, one of us, could come to believe them. The words were hope, twisted as it was, and made us important, gave us a reason for all of our suffering. Yes. I could see how some of us, some of their purported Angels, could break. The thought sobered me and I took a deep breath, wiping my eyes.

“Sorry,” I said as I finished drying my eyes, suddenly feeling hollow in the wake of my laughter. I shook my head a little. “It’s a long story, Reece, and Matthew’s waiting for me.”

“Let me put my shoes on. I’m coming with.”

I blinked at her. Wait, what? “No, Reece.”

“Why not?” She was already getting her shoes. Something told me I was going to lose against her stubbornness, but I had to try.

“Because this isn’t something you really need to be exposed to.” It was a weak answer and I knew it.

She looked at me squarely, tugging her shoes on and grabbing her satchel. “Maybe not, but it’s something I need to understand. You’re my friend. I don’t know why you’ve kept this a secret for so long, but if you’re not going to tell me why, then I can at least witness why.”

I swallowed bile. “Reece, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t—”

Reece just stared at me and shook her head. “You’re not talking me out of it. You need someone to lean on that’s not Matthew and you know it. Something’s been eating you up almost for as long as I’ve known you. Is that what it is? Whatever you went through?”

After a moment’s hesitation, I sighed. “Part of it.” I grabbed my bag and shook my head. “If you’re going to get involved, will you do something for me?”

She blinked, but nodded. “Depends on what it is, but shoot.”

“Don’t press me. Please? If I tell you I don’t want to talk about it, please believe that there’s a good reason for it.”

A few moments passed before she nodded. “All right. I think I can do that.”

I exhaled the breath I was holding. “Thank you.”

She squeezed my arm. “You’re welcome.” She handed me my keys and stepped out onto our tiny concrete porch. I turned to lock up the house. Her question came quietly. “The box, with the Tarot deck in it. You got that while you were inside, didn’t you?”

I paused in twisting the bolt into place, nodding. “Yeah,” I said softly.

“Is he still out there? Alive, I mean. Somewhere.”

I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment as I finished locking the house. “I think so,” I lied, not wanting to tell her that I knew. I’d told her enough. I wasn’t ready to tell her that, not yet. Though coming with Matthew and I to move Ridley…well. She’d get an education pretty quickly.

Matthew isn’t going to like this. I shoved my keys into the pocket of my jeans. “All right. Let’s go.”

The Institute called them their Angelic Legion.  They expected a few hundred children, gifted with talents beyond nature, properly trained, would be able to turn back the forces of hell when the End Times came.  Ky Monroe saw them for what they were years ago–a cult masquerading as something good, something holy, something that would help and not harm.  Matthew Thatcher recognized them for what they were, too–a dangerous organization not above murder and violence to achieve their aims, and together with Ky worked tirelessly to make sure the organization died–and when an explosion ripped through the Institute’s main facility in the midwest years ago, Ky dared believe they might have succeeded.  But when an old friend reappears with a story to tell, Ky realizes exactly how wrong she’s been–and that time is running out to save the people she loves…

When All’s Said and Done is narrated by Kyle Anne Monroe (alias Kyrie Thatcher), a college student who escaped from the Institute as a teenager.  It is the major work planned for the Lost Angels Chronicles, which shares a universe (and many characters) with the UNSETIC Files (and Court of Twelve works like The Man Who Made Monsters, a project I’m working on with L.P. Loudon).

The chapter that follows is a little long and might actually end up being two chapters in the final draft.  It also overlaps with the ending of What Angels Fear, available where books (paper and electronic) are sold.

  

One

The Institute was supposed to be dead.

It was dead and I believed that as I stacked a last few books on the shelf above my desk, the scent of summer flowers drifting into the bedroom on the wind. I had been trying to shake an ominous feeling pressing down on me in spite of the pleasant surroundings, one that had lingered since that morning. My fingers brushed along the dark wood of the small box resting on the shelf nearest to my bed, nearer to the lower bunk than the unoccupied upper. My hand tingled a little as I touched the box. I drew back from it, exhaling.

That part of my life was over, long over. It was time to move on. I’d decided that this would be the year that I finally let it all go, stopped dwelling on the nightmares every time they came. It was time to stop dwelling on what had happened to me at the Institute, time to let go, but not forget.

Never forget.

I shivered, despite the warm wind blowing in through the window. The floor was hard beneath my bare feet, my toes curling. There was no way I’d ever forget what happened there. There were too many years, too much suffering. It was something you could never really forget.

“Ky?”

I turned and smiled at Reece, one of my two roommates, all traces of what I’d just been thinking about completely banished from my expression. “He here?”

She nodded. “Yeah, he’s waiting downstairs. You going to be out late?”

I shook my head. “I doubt it.” Matthew Thatcher and I rarely were out past ten. He said it was because he got up early to head into the office. I teased him that it was because he was getting old. “He said dinner. I think he wants to talk.”

Reece’s nose wrinkled. “Talk about what?”

I laughed weakly. “Probably school.” Probably what I told him on the phone the other day about moving on. “Probably what I’m going to do in two years after graduation.”

She shook her head. “Is it really that vital?”

“For financial planning, I guess it is.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “Tell him I’ll be down in a minute, okay?”

She nodded and retreated from the bedroom. I turned back toward my desk and stared at the box for a long moment, though I didn’t touch it again. My hand still tingled a little bit. I flexed my fingers, but the feeling didn’t fade, the persistent ghost of memory clinging tight, too tight.

I hadn’t felt something like that in a long, long time. Not since before they’d all died, not since before the Institute burned them all like some kind of offering to the Old Testament’s God. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, letting the smell of the summer blooms fill my nostrils.

It was the end of August and for the fifth time in my twenty-one years, my life was about to change forever.

♦ ♠ ♦

“You sure you’re not upset with me now, Ky?”

I blinked at Matthew across the table and shook my head, continuing to move pasta around on my plate. I was full, didn’t want to eat any more, but I was making a show of trying. “No,” I said quietly and set down my fork. “I’m not. Are you upset with me?”

The FBI agent across the table from me took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, shaking his head. “I’m just frustrated. You and I are the only people on the outside that have any idea of what they did and we can’t do a damned thing. We can’t even find them anymore.”

I shook my head again and sighed softly. “I don’t even know that they still exist. I don’t see how they could have vanished so completely and still be active.” I put my hands in my lap and stared at the remains of my dinner. “It’s time, Matthew. It’s been four years. If they were going to move against us, they’d have moved by now. If they still existed, I’m sure they’d have started doing things again, especially if they really think I’m dead.” I looked up at him, brow furrowing slightly. “Or is there something you’ve been keeping from me? Something you’re not telling me?”

“No, there isn’t anything. Nothing’s come up since then. Other things, but nothing Institute.” He shook his head again, a brief flicker of pain crossing through his eyes. “But you’re right. It’s time.”

Damn right. I can’t keep living with that spectre hanging over me anymore. It’s time to stop worrying so much and start living. I reached across the table and squeezed his arm. I hated to hurt him, but I needed to do what was right for me. “Thanks for understanding, Matthew.”

He smiled weakly. “What’s family for? You’re still family, Ky. Whatever you decide.”

My fingers tightened on his arm. “I’m still going to tell our story. I promise. I just…Matthew, no one’s going to believe me. Not without some kind of credentials to back me up, failing having evidence to back me up. You saw what happened four years ago. I’m just some crazy person ranting that this really influential charity and research organization is some kind of cult. You’re the only one who believed me, and that’s because you already knew I was right.”

“Well, if you’re right and they’re gone…” Matthew’s voice trailed away and he sighed quietly. I knew what he was getting at. No one would pay for what had happened to his brother, to his parents, to all of the others that had just disappeared into the clutches of the Institute and were never seen or heard from again. We’d never know. No one would ever know what had really happened, how many they’d stolen, how many they’d killed.

His phone rang and he muttered a curse under his breath. I smiled and shook my head, gesturing for him to answer it and leaning back in my chair. He mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” and got up from the table, easing over to a quiet corner of the restaurant to take the call.

I shook my head a little and looked back to my fettuccini. I’d expected him to be upset about my decision, but instead he just seemed sad—a little hurt, but mostly just sad. I couldn’t blame him. They’d killed his brother and my walking away from the effort to figure out what the Institute was doing these days probably felt like losing Timothy all over again.

Matthew came back to the table a few moments later, brow furrowed. I frowned.

“What’s wrong? Was it work?”

“Kind of,” he said, waving a hand to try to get our waitress’s attention.

I lofted a brow at that. “Kind of?” How can it be ‘kind of’ work? Either it is or it isn’t.

He nodded, fishing his wallet out of a pocket and handing a credit card to the waitress for our bill. “It was Damon. Said he had someone at his place I needed to talk to.”

“Talk to about what?” Damon was Matthew’s longtime friend, back from when they were kids. We’d met a few times, though always in passing. Just like the rest of the world, he thought that I was Matthew’s orphaned cousin, Ky Thatcher. It might as well have been true. No one had seen Kyle Anne Monroe in more than a decade.

“He didn’t say. Just that his cousin was there with someone and they both needed to talk to me.” Matthew took a long swallow from what was left of his drink. “Said that I was the only one that came to mind.”

Matthew’s specialty was dealing with cults and domestic terrorism, and had been for almost as long as I’d known him—six years, since I’d escaped the Institute myself and lost his brother in the attempt. Dealing with cults, especially their victims, always went hard on him. I hadn’t really noticed it until I’d screwed my head back on straight and grew up, pushed beyond all of my teenage crap. That’d been three years ago. I took a deep breath.

“Do you want me to come?”

He hesitated for a moment, the nodded. “Yeah. Something tells me this doesn’t have to do with domestic terrorism.”

I smiled weakly. “Y’think?”

He choked on a laugh and shook his head, nodding in thanks to the waitress that brought back his card and a receipt for him to sign. He handed the signed slip back to her and put his card away, standing up. I stood with him, raking my fingers back through my hair.

“You going to be okay?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Yeah, I think so. But we’re not going to know for sure until I see what we’re dealing with.”

“Damon didn’t tell you anything?”

“Not much.” Matthew took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly as we wandered out into the deepening twilight, toward the car. “But he’s not exactly comfortable with what I deal with, either. Never has been.”

“Matthew, no offense, but who would be?” I slid into the car’s passenger seat and stared at him as he got in and started the engine.

“You are.”

“That’s because I was a victim and I haven’t seen one of your investigations yet where they tortured people the same way.” I stared out the window as he pulled out onto the street. I hope I never do. I can’t imagine having two places like that in the world. That would mean that something’s seriously out of joint with the human race.

Matthew just nodded. “He lives downtown. Twenty minutes, tops.”

I stretched and turned on the radio, closing my eyes.

A figure made of pale shadows drifted down a long hallway, one hand trailing along the wall. There was no sound, nothing, just a crushing weariness coupled with pain, unrelenting, omnipresent pain. Everything hurt. There was nothing that didn’t except for numb fingers and toes.

The radio played one of the darker, moodier tunes currently topping the pop alternative charts. Matthew mumbled a curse under his breath at the traffic on I-196 heading into the city. I righted myself in my seat and frowned a little, trying to shake the sudden feeling of cold and tiredness that gripped me. I flexed my fingers, rubbing them firmly until the feeling came back to them, pins and needles heralding their waking up again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. Had I slept? I tried to make sense of where we were. I couldn’t have slept. We weren’t that much further up the highway than we were when we’d gotten on it. Up by the old burial mounds near the river, if I was guessing right. That was probably why I was feeling cold.

Some places just have power to them, whether they’re Indian burial grounds or churches dating back to the fall of Rome.

“Traffic,” he grumbled. “People don’t know how to drive.”

I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t smother a smile. “Calm down. We’ll get there. It’s not a matter of life and death, is it?”

“Damon didn’t make it sound like it was, but I told him we’d be there in about half an hour.”

“And we’re not going to make that.”

“Maybe more like twice that long if people don’t figure this out,” Matthew growled.

I reached over and patted his knee. “Settle down. We’ll get there when we get there. Do you want me to call him?”

He shook his head, seeming to settle down a little. “No, you’re right. We’ll get there when we get there. Whatever it is will just have to keep until we do.”

I nodded and leaned back again, watching the dying light of day against the trees. There would still be light left by the time we got to Damon’s, maybe, but certainly not by the time I got home.

So much for not being out that late. I’d call Reece and Marie when we made it to Damon’s. I had my keys. They could lock up for the night.

♦ ♠ ♦

Damon’s apartment was in the recently rehabbed Division corridor, set above an old furniture store that he’d had converted into a clinic well before I’d met him. He was one of those young doctors out to save the world, still idealistic enough to think that it was possible, but worldly enough to know that the best he could do was help a fragment of those in need in a corner of Michigan’s second largest city. He’d been Matthew’s closest friend since they were kids growing up outside of Detroit.

We jogged up the stairs to the building’s second floor and Damon’s apartment. Matthew rapped on the door and I leaned against the wall, staring at the stairs at the far end of the hallway. There were a few other tenants in the building, but Damon had the largest apartment, save for the two-storey loft upstairs on the fourth and fifth floors. Damon’s voice came muffled from the other side of the door and a moment later he poked his head out, smiling at Matthew and I.

“Sorry we’re late,” Matthew said. “We were out and traffic was murder.”

Damon nodded, smiling a little. “I’m just glad you could make it tonight.” He peered past Matthew to me. “Oh, hey, Ky.”

I smiled back. “Hi, Damon.”

He let us inside and gestured for us to join him in his living room. A blanket-shrouded form was curled up on the couch, apparently asleep, and a woman maybe a year or two older than me was slumped in one of his armchairs, also wrapped in a blanket. She was blinking sleepily as we entered, and something tugged at the back of my brain.

She looks familiar. It wasn’t the sort of familiarity that stirred panic in the pit of my stomach, though, so I knew it had to be something from after the escape category rather than the Institute or before the Institute.

There weren’t many people I recognized from before the Institute. I’d just been too young.

Damon gestured toward the woman as she sat up fully in the chair and rubbed her eyes. “This is my cousin Julia. Not sure if you remember her, Matthew.”

“Vaguely,” Matthew said. He smiled at Julia, who smiled weakly back. “It’s nice to see you again, Julia.”

She nodded a little, then her gaze flicked to me. Her brow furrowed.

Matthew slid an arm around my shoulders and drew me forward. “This is my cousin, Ky.”

Julia stared at me for another long moment before she nodded, almost to herself. “I know you,” she said softly.

I nodded a little. “I know you, too, but I can’t quite remember where from.”

“We worked together.”

Oh. That camp job. I hadn’t lasted long that summer. I’d started the job in May and been utterly spent by the end of June. I hadn’t been ready for it. “That’s right,” I said quietly and shook my head. “I’m sorry. That was a bad time for me.”

She nodded a little and smiled. “We all have our moments.” She got up from the chair, abandoning her blanket, and moved over to the couch. Seating herself on the edge, she leaned over the figure asleep there, who startled slightly and started to roll over, apparently awake now. I glimpsed a bandage-swathed arm and frowned, glancing toward Damon and Matthew.

Matthew must have seen it, too, because he was frowning. He glanced toward Damon, arching a brow. Damon shook his head a little.

“They really need to talk to you, man.”

Julia smiled weakly up at Matthew. “Hopefully, you can help us. Damon said you might be able to.” She helped the figure on the couch sit up.

His unruly dark red hair stuck up in a dozen different directions, a mop of soft spikes over a narrow but not unhandsome face that framed haunted, sunken green eyes. My heart seized up.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” the man on the couch and I said in the same breath.

Ridley. I shook myself. I slowly sank down into the chair Julia had abandoned, feeling myself start to shake. If Ridley was alive, did that mean he was, too? “I thought you all died. All been killed.” Sacrificed by the Institute as if it would appease an angry god. As if they didn’t know it was what they did, not what I did, that brought wrath down on them. The fault was theirs, not mine.

“No,” Ridley whispered hoarsely, leaning against Julia. She slid her arm around him, almost protectively. He was pale, shaking all over. “But I wish I was, now. Jesus pancake flipping zombie Christ on a pogo stick.” His chest heaved for a moment, as if he was choking on a sob, then he leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. “Hadrian,” he moaned. “Forgive me. Oh, god, Hadrian, forgive me.”

I couldn’t breathe. What happened? Oh, god, what happened? Is he dead? Is he? Did I…is he gone forever? “Ridley?” I knew what I sounded like—I sounded like a scared little girl all over again, terror and fear of heartbreaking loss washing over me again for the first time in four years.

Matthew came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I realized I was shaking, then. I swallowed hard, tasting bile in the back of my throat. My stomach twisted. Please. Please let him still be alive. Please. I leaned forward a little, trying not to sound desperate and knowing that I’d fail. “Ridley, is he alive?”

Ridley nodded, lifting his head a little as Julia’s arm tightened around him. “Four months ago, at least, when they cut me loose.”

My stomach twisted again, harder this time, starting to knot up. They don’t let anyone go. Not ever. “They let you go?” No one leaves that place alive unless they’re just being sent to another facility.

“Not really.” He winced. “Kind of. I ‘graduated.’ They…sent me to someone. To watch me. To wait. They were finished with me until the end, until they were ready to use me.”

The end. I wanted to throw up. My hands curled into fists, nails digging into the flesh of my palms. Matthew’s hands tightened on my shoulders. I squeezed my eyes shut. Ridley kept talking, voice haunted, broken.

“That’s how I got out of there. Then Julia got me away.”

I opened my eyes, looking at Julia for a long moment. She bit her lip, her eyes on Ridley, not on me or Matthew or her cousin.

Ridley took a deep breath, seeming to steady himself for a moment, then said quietly, “They told us you were dead.”

I guess that Matthew and I really fooled them, then. I shook my head, swallowing hard again, willing my stomach to settle itself, to stop trying to rebel against me. But to tell them that, all it did was make sure that I never tried to rescue them again. To make them think that there wasn’t any hope for them anymore. To break them. “They didn’t want any of you to have any hope,” I said, hands tightening into fists again. “Damn it all.”

“I’m sorry, Ky,” Ridley whispered, leaning into Julia, his shakes starting to finally ease. “I’m so sorry.” He was, too. The pain in his eyes was deeper than any pain I’d ever seen from him, and he’d always had nearly as much reason to hurt as I had. He’d lost his parents, too, when he was a kid only to have the Institute sink its claws into him within months of that loss. So much for child welfare systems in the Midwest, since the same thing had happened to me. Ridley started to shake again as he stared at me. It was as if he needed me to be angry at him. I couldn’t summon the strength for that. It wasn’t his fault.

“Oh, Ridley,” I sighed. “No. Don’t be sorry. Please, don’t be sorry.” I looked him over again, staring for a long moment at his right arm, bandaged almost from wrist to elbow. “What happened to your arm?” Did they do that to him? What did they do?

He shook his head a little. “They microchipped me, Ky.” Anger crept into his voice, and for a moment, it was like I was with the old Ridley again, the burning outrage that had coupled with Timothy’s purposeful determination, Hadrian’s quiet but fading strength, Ally’s cheerful, directed mischief and my desperate hope. “Like a fucking animal. They microchipped me so they could find me if I ran. I dug it out, threw it out the car window.”

The full impact of the words hit me. They needed to track him in case they needed him. The Institute was still out there, and it could be close. They were still pushing on, toward their ultimate goal. I found myself almost breathless for a moment. “Where?”

Julia opened her mouth to answer, but Ridley spoke before she could. “The only installation I know about is outside of Andover Commonwealth. He might still be there. I don’t know.”

Of course he’d known that I wasn’t asking about the microchip, where he’d thrown it from the car. That didn’t matter. Where the Institute currently laired, that’s what was important. What if he’s still there? I have to find him. I have to get him out. I can’t break my promise again. I just can’t.

Had I somehow known? Was that why I kept being drawn back to the deck, the battered set of cards that were the only possession Hadrian managed to hang onto over the years the Institute had us, the Tarot deck he’d pressed into my hands before the awful events of that night that left Timothy dead and me alone on the outside.

“I need a map,” I said.

Matthew startled, looking down at me with wide eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

I have to find him. I don’t have any time to waste. I have to find him. I have to know. Four years…I wasted four years when I should have been looking for him. “I thought he was dead, Matthew! Get me a damn map. You want to take them down as much as I do.” It was true. They’d killed his brother and they were still out there, even when we’d thought they were gone, or gone so deep underground they were never going to come back up again. Something. They were still out there.

He let go with a wince and headed for the door. I took a deep, shaky breath and exhaled it slowly.

Julia slid her other arm around Ridley, hugging him almost protectively against her chest. His eyes never left me, though. He wet his lips.

“He wasn’t good the last time I saw him, Ky.”

I laughed a bitter, weak laugh, thinking of that last moment I’d seen Hadrian, his hollow eyes, face and body almost all planes and angles, hazel eyes full of pain and weariness. “He hasn’t been good for ten years, Ridley. But you’re telling me he even might be alive and that means everything to me. Everything.” Hadrian loved me, the first and only person to love me in the dark years after my parents had died, the years before I escaped back to the real world, and I loved him back, loved him enough that I’d never quite been able to forgive myself for not saving him, something I’d never be able to forgive myself for entirely ever.

Matthew returned with a map from the car, spread it out on the coffee table. Julia glanced toward Damon. “Get me a pencil?” She asked.

Damon nodded, glancing toward Matthew for a moment, then retreated to the kitchen. Matthew sighed and looked down at me.

“What’re you planning to do once they tell you, Ky?”

Find Hadrian and somehow make him safe from them. Bring him back to me. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. But it’s a place for both of us to start from.” This was the break he’d need for a case that he’d been working since he was young, one he’d never quite closed. He’d always believed that the Institute had engineered the death of his parents, just like we were both pretty sure they’d found a way to kill mine. They had a lot to answer for, in Matthew’s mind, maybe more to him than to me.

Damon brought a pencil and gave it to Julia, who let go of Ridley to bend over the map, eyes searching the southwestern quadrant of the state. “The village is pretty creepy,” she said as she hunted along the I-94 corridor. “Thought so since I was a kid. Everything Ridley’s told me kind of makes the general creepiness make more sense. I think they’ve been in the area for a long time.”

One of their long-term facilities, then. I wonder how long they’ve kept people like Ridley and I there.  Probably not many for very long, I decided. We’d always assumed there were other facilities, we’d just never really known where, or how many. It was like a rigged game of cups, where the ball kept getting moved over and over again, impossible to track.

I have to get to him before they move him. I looked at Ridley. “What are the internal defenses like?”

He winced a little. “Not sure if they’re one-way, but someone like you or me can’t get through the exterior walls without someone opening a gap for us. Doesn’t matter for most, but enough…” his voice trailed away. “You’re thinking about going in there.”

Damn straight. “I can’t let him stay there, Ridley.  I only stopped trying to find him because I thought he was dead, just like I thought all the rest of you were gone, when they blew the place. I haven’t been able to touch him since then.” Since the explosion in Ohio, since I thought that everyone inside had been killed. I’d tried to find him, questing with my heart and my mind the way I’d learned over the years, the way we’d learned over the years. But there had been nothing. No dreams, no feelings. Just endless emptiness. After months of nothing, I finally gave up, accepting that he really must have been gone.

“This is where it should be.” Julia had marked a point on the map and tapped it lightly with the eraser. I reached for the map, flipped it around.

Just off the I-94 corridor. Only a couple hours from here. I exhaled, suppressing a shiver. He’s so close, if he’s there. How could I…but no. Because I stopped looking. I stopped looking. “That’s not so far,” I breathed.

Julia shook her head slightly. “They think we headed south, I hope. The one who had Ridley came after us.”

I shuddered a little as my heart froze for half a beat before starting again. “I’m not surprised.” They need to be protected somehow. I looked up at Matthew. “Is there anything you can do?” They’ll be looking for them both. Someone’s got to help them disappear, at least for now.

He frowned a little. “Not tonight, but in the morning, maybe. Are you two staying here tonight?”

Julia nodded. “We really don’t have anywhere else to go.” She glanced toward Damon. “I really don’t think he’s going to make us sleep in my car. At least I hope not.”

Damon shook his head. “You can stay here as long as you need to.”

Julia smiled. “Thanks, Damon.”

He just nodded, then went to the kitchen and dragged two chairs out into the living room. Matthew appropriated one, spinning it and sinking down in it, arms and chin resting along the top rail. I watched him for a long moment, trying to figure out what he was thinking. I didn’t always know, though most of the time I could figure it out. I looked back at Ridley, who seemed to be pulling himself back together again.

His lips thinned to a line as he looked between Julia and I. “You’re going to go after him, aren’t you, Ky?”

Yes. “If it’s possible for me to, yeah, I am. I’m not going to break my promise again.”

His breath caught. Julia put her arm around him again. “Then you really did try to get to us. You’ve been alive and looking and trying to get to us all this time.”

I nodded slowly. I tried and failed. I was a kid with delusions of grandeur. I wonder how close I was, really. It was too insane to work.

Ridley closed his eyes and shook his head. “I hope you can get to him before they move him or do something stupid,” he murmured. “I owe him a huge apology.”

I reached across the coffee table and squeezed his fingers. They twitched a little in my grip and he looked up at me. I forced a smile. “You’ll get the chance, Rid.”

He nodded a little and offered me a watery smile. He squeezed my hand. “I wish I could help you. But I’m…I’m scared, Ky.”

So am I. But I’ve had more time to learn to handle that fear. “It’s all right,” I said softly. “Matthew’ll find a way to make you safe. Once you’re out, and free, there’s no going back. They don’t own you anymore.”

“They still do,” he murmured. “But not for much longer.” He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, releasing my hand and leaning back into Julia, looking exhausted. “There’s so much to tell you, Ky,” he said.

“We’ll have plenty of time, Ridley. I promise.” After you’ve slept. After Matthew finds a way to hide you from them. After I’ve found Hadrian again. I glanced at Matthew, who was just quietly watching us. I swallowed. “…you’re sure you can do something?”

He nodded slightly. “To make sure no one gets to them? Yeah. I just have to figure out what it’s going to be.” The look in his eyes told me that he’d already figured it out, but it wasn’t going to be a pleasant option. I exhaled silently and nodded back.

As long as they’re safe, I’m not sure anyone’s going to complain that much.

“Does it ever stop hurting, Ky?” Ridley’s voice was small. It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about.

Using my abilities, after I’d escaped the Institute, had hurt for a long time. As all the drugs and everything they’d ever pumped into me started to clear my system, the pain got worse, then eventually went away as I got used to doing things in a normal way again—or at least as “normal” as our abilities rendered us. It had taken a few months, but the pain had passed and I’d felt good again. I looked back at Ridley and nodded. “It’ll stop,” I murmured. “It just takes time.”

He nodded a little and pressed himself into Julia’s embrace. My throat tightened for a moment.

You’ll have that again, Ky, I told myself. Once you find him again. You’ll have him, the way things were supposed to be.

I looked at Matthew again. “Matthew? Think that maybe you could do your special agent thing tomorrow? The interviews and everything?”

He blinked at me, then nodded. “Yeah. I think I can do that.”

I glanced back toward Julia and Ridley. “Would that be okay?”

Julia nodded a little. “Yeah, probably better,” she said. “We’re both pretty wiped out. It’s been a really long day.”

I nodded and stood up. To my surprise, Ridley stood up, too, and took a tentative step toward me. I smiled at him and he hugged me, thin arms tightening almost painfully around my shoulders. I hugged him back for a long moment, feeling him shudder as he choked back a sob.

“When you find him, remember that none of this is your fault,” he murmured in my ear, arms tightening before he released me and sank back down onto the couch with Julia.

I blinked at him a little bit and nodded. “I won’t forget that, Rid. I promise.” Why is he saying that? I shivered a little. Matthew had gotten up from his chair and was saying good-bye to Damon.

We left a few minutes later. I puzzled over what Ridley had said most of the way home, then finally let it go. It would either make sense, or it wouldn’t. I was almost afraid it would start to make sense, because the possibilities that held terrified me.

What was I going to see when I found Hadrian again?

Thank for reading!  I hope you enjoyed it.

NYPD homicide detective Ryce Marshall doesn’t remember what happened to her before she woke up in a dirt parking lot in Pennsylvania.  She doesn’t know why her lover is so afraid she’ll walk away.  She doesn’t know that she’s already neck-deep in things beyond imagining.

One of the UNSETIC Files, Truth Will Set You Free is the introduction of Ryce Marshall and Jesse Stole into the universe, two NYPD cops on a collision course with the supernatural in more than a few forms.  What follows is the original draft of the first chapter.

  

One

“Look, I’m effed up right now and I know it, but that doesn’t mean that the best thing for me isn’t getting back to work.”

“Missing for two weeks with about half your memory just gone now that you’re back? Sue me if I still think you should’ve taken the day.” A wry smile twisted Alex Stole’s lips as he watched me slide into my seat behind my desk at the precinct. I supposed that it must have looked the same as it did when I left it. “The shrink actually cleared you?”
 “There’s nothing wrong with me,” I said. “According to him and the doctors, anyway. Just…well. Just the amnesia. Either everything comes back or it doesn’t. Captain said as long as it doesn’t impact my ability to get the job done, I stay on the active roster.”

My gaze drifted toward another desk not far away from mine, but standing alone—not paired with another, like mine was paired up with Alex’s. In a dim, darkened yesterday, I could feel my back hit the wood of that desk, hear the pens and papers scatter across the floor, skirt sliding up my thighs, feel warm lips against mine—

“Ryce?”

I sucked in a breath and looked at Alex. “What were you saying?”

“Never mind what I was saying. You were staring at his desk again.”

Again. How long had he been gone?

Hell. Even that was fragmented. I couldn’t even remember why that desk’s owner was so important—other than he feel of his hands against my thighs and his lips against mine.

“He wants you to call him,” Alex said after a moment. “He said it should be safe. Agent Scarborough won’t freak out. Shouldn’t, anyway. Don’t think the Feds are ever going to give him back, though.”

“When you’re good,” I murmured, leaving the words to hang, not finishing the thought.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “When you’re good.” He dropped into his chair across from mine. “I’ll never figure out what you see in my brother, Ryce.”

“Something his baby brother can’t see, apparently,” I said quietly, staring at that empty desk but swallowing my questions. Try to sort it all out yourself first, Marshall. Then roll from there. You don’t want to come at this from a position of weakness. I leaned back, running my hands across the blotter before my gaze flicked back toward my partner. “Are we catching today?”

“God, I hope not,” he muttered, snagging a folder from the pile at the corner of his des. “Been trying to catch up on paperwork. Captain’s had you and I reviewing cold cases for the past few weeks—before your vanishing act, I mean. Guessing that lead on the Castleton case was a bust.”

“If it wasn’t, I don’t remember what I found out and my notes weren’t on me when I woke up.” Abandoned dirt parking lot, ground wet beneath my back, head ringing, blood on the ground a few feet away and not a soul in sight…

“Dammit, Ryce, will you cut that thousand yard stare?” Alex was staring at me as I blinked back to the present. His eyes were wider than usual, his jaw slack but brows knitting. “You sure you’re good? You don’t seem it.”

“Fine,” I assured him. “Absolutely fine.”

“Uh-huh.” He sighed as he slapped the folder in his hand down flat onto his desktop. “I still think you should take the day. Call Jesse for a booty call or something and get your head screwed back on straight.”

A little shiver shot down my spine. I shook my head. “Somehow I don’t think that’s the answer to all my problems, Alex.” I reached for the first file in my own stack and slid my desk drawer open, searching for a notepad and pen. In my blind groping for both, my fingers brushed against the smooth, flat touchscreen of a smartphone and I pulled back, blinking and staring at the silver-sheathed thing lying silent and forgotten in my drawer.

“You left it,” Alex said helpfully. “Took your work cell. The prepaid. Found your cell on my desk with a note saying you were chasing a lead and you’d call later.” He gnawed his lower lip. “You never called, Ryce.”

“I—I’m sorry, Alex.” What else could I say?

He sighed. “No, I am. I should’ve come after you as soon as I realized you were gone. I’ve got no idea what’s been up with you lately—”

“Alex, I got you shot.”

“And now I’m fine. All of my parts still work. Don’t beat yourself up about shit that’s not worth beating yourself up over.” He stared at me across the desk, over cold case files. “Give it a week. We’ll be catching something other than cold files by then and life will get back to normal.”

“Normal,” I echoed. Do I have a normal anymore? My fingers curled around my phone and I coaxed it awake. “Sure. You’re right.”

“Usually,” he agreed. “Now settle down. You want a drink?”

“Coffee’s fine,” I said absently, poking at my phone. Texts, emails, three voicemails…I squeezed my eyes shut as Alex got up and headed for the coffeemaker in the squad room.

Four of the texts were from a number I had labeled as Jesse Stole—Alex’s brother, apparently, and the owner of the desk I kept staring at.

And if my memory and Alex’s colorful commentary are to be believed, some kind of lover of mine.

“Hell,” I muttered harshly, then started checking my messages. The first one from Jesse was nothing but an address and the words “meet me.”

The timestamp was eleven days ago. Had I met him there as he’d asked? Where was that place, anyway?

The next message was sent a few minutes after the first, a date and time set for ten days before. I bit my lip.

Either I’d met up with him or I hadn’t.

The third: Are you okay?

I shook my head. Of course I wasn’t. He’d sent that message nine days ago.

The last message was from a week ago. Don’t do anything stupid. Be careful.

There was only one text that hadn’t come from Jesse, it instead came from a phone number with an area code I recognized from Long Island. He’s safe. Where the hell are you, Detective?

My lips thinned and my stomach flopped over itself. The message was from four days ago.

What had happened during those two weeks when I’d disappeared off the map, off the face of the Earth?

“Everything okay?” Alex asked as he set a cup of coffee down near my elbow.

“Yeah,” I lied. “Just checking my messages.”

“Jesse said you should call him,” Alex said again as he sank back into his chair.

I nodded slightly as I dialed into my voicemail on autopilot. “I will,” I said, lifting the phone to my ear.

“Ryce, I don’t know why you’re not picking up, but call me. I don’t want to just leave things like this. Love you.” Click. The voice sent odd tendrils of emotion through me—my stomach twisted, throat tightened, heart beginning to beat a little faster as other parts of me gave an excited little twitch. I swallowed hard against the tightness. Alex was watching me, his expression knowing and a little sad.

“Take the day,” he mouthed at me.

My nose wrinkled. The second message began to play. The voice wasn’t the same as the first, didn’t cause the same visceral reaction. This one was male, quiet, coolly professional with the barest edge of anger. “Detective Marshall, I’ve got no bloody clue what you and Stole got up to the other night, but I need you to tell me. He’s gone off the radar and off the reservation and I’m thinking you’re my best shot at reeling him back in again.” The voice rattled off a phone number and an address before the message ended.

Alex’s hand was on my arm. I wasn’t sure when he’d come around the desk, but he had. “Ryce.”

“I’m fine,” I whispered.

“You’re not. The last time I saw you this color, your hands were full of blood and you were screaming at me that I’d better not die on you.” He gently took my phone out of my hand and hung up for me. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

“Alex—”

“I’m not arguing with you about this,” he said. “Not today.”

“I’m not arguing.” I pressed my keys into his hand. “But we’ll take my car. I’ll pay your cab fare back here.”

“I’ll take the subway. C’mon.” He slid a comforting arm around my shoulders as we moved away from our desks, signed out—me for the day, he for a couple hours—and then took the elevator down to the garage. It wasn’t until we were safely ensconced in my little blue-gray sedan that he looked at me and asked, “So who left you the voice messages?”

“The first one was from your brother, I think,” I said quietly, knuckling suddenly stinging eyes. “Not sure who the other one was, but he was talking about your brother going ‘off radar and off the reservation.’”

Alex winced. “Probably Agent Scarborough. Jesse said something about a knock-down drag-out with him last week.”

“Who is he?”

“A Fed,” Alex answered, tone implying that the statement should explain everything. I just looked at him until he elaborated. “He’s assigned to some kind of task force investigating the connections between local organized crime syndicates and the new drugs that have been hitting the streets.”

“He tapped Jesse because of your connections.” I wasn’t sure where the words came from, but I knew they were true.

“I guess,” Alex said. “Not every day a capo’s daughter pops out a couple of cops.”

No. It’s really, really not. I smothered a frown and slumped low in my seat. “How long?”

“Six months. Since right before that Christmas party when you and Jesse had a private affair on his desk.”

I blushed. “You—”

“Half the precinct knows. If you two weren’t good, the fallout would’ve meant your jobs. Luckily—or maybe not—seems like the Feds are trying to recruit my brother, which would mean problem solved.” Alex sighed. “Call him.”

“Your brother?”

“And Agent Scarborough,” Alex said. “If he left you a voicemail, he’s expecting call back.”

“It’s over a week old.”

“Call anyway.” Alex shook his head. “Never know when you’ll need a friend like him, Ryce. Score points while you can and just tell him that your personal cell was in your desk. He’ll probably believe it.”

“It’d be true,” I said.

“See? Even more reason for him to believe you.”

We lapsed into silence for a few more blocks before I broke it.

“Which do I call first?” My voice sounded tiny, frightened. I hated myself for the weakness it betrayed.

Alex winced. “I want to tell you to call my brother first,” he said after a moment. “But I think maybe you’d better call Scarborough. Just in case something’s going sideways.”

“I thought Jesse told you it’d be okay for me to call.”

“He did, but I don’t think he knew his handler had left you a voicemail.”

Handler. This is a little deeper than on loan, I’m thinking. “Right,” I whispered. There was something vaguely unsettling about calling anyone but Jesse first.

So why did you ask for his opinion? I withheld my sigh and squeezed my eyes shut.

Alex reached over and touched my shoulder, fingers tightening briefly. “Keep it together or fall apart if you need to, Ryce.”

I snorted. “Real gallant, Alex. Going to offer me your shoulders to use as a hankie now, too?”

He grinned as I looked at him. “There she is. Miss Snark rises again.”

I shook my head. “This is hard for you.”

“You’ve got no idea. We’ve been doing this for a long time now.”

“We were patrolmen together.”

He nodded. “You were a couple years my senior, but yeah. You were my first partner—and let me say it right now that you’re the only one I’d ever want.”

“Oh, Alex.” All I could do was smile and shake my head. “Thanks.” What else could you say to that, after all?

“Yeah, well, it’s the truth.” We hit another turn and he pulled into a parking garage and found my spot two levels up. As he shut off the engine and tugged my keys out of the ignition, he asked, “You want me to walk you up?”

I gave it a moment’s thought, then shook my head slightly. “No, I think I’ll be good. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay.” He dropped my keys into my upturned palm and kissed my cheek. “Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.”

Then he got out of the car and left me there in the parking garage of my apartment building, sitting in the passenger seat of my car. I dug my phone out of my pocket, stared at it.

Which one do I call first?

My head said one thing even as my heart screamed another. I silently promised myself that I’d come to a decision on the matter by the time I made it upstairs to my apartment.

That was how I ended up in the corner of my green overstuffed couch with a mug of cocoa, hitting Jesse’s number on speed dial before logic could overrule emotion.

He picked up halfway through the second ring, sounding vaguely breathless.

“Ryce? Is that you?”

His voice did things to me—things I couldn’t fathom, understand. I swallowed against sudden tightness in my throat. “It’s me. Alex said I should call.”

“I—Ryce, where have you been? I’ve been going crazy.”

“Sorry,” I whispered. Something about that made me hurt but also gave me a strange sense of satisfaction—a feeling that surprised me and sparked more than a little self-loathing. “I didn’t—fuck. Jesse, I don’t remember anything. Did I meet you? What happened?”

Dead silence answered my question.

“Jesse?”

“Where are you?”

“At home. I took the day.”

I heard him suck in a deep breath and then exhale it slowly. “Stay there. I’m coming.”

“Won’t that—”

“Get me into trouble? Probably. There are some things that shouldn’t be done over the phone, though.”

What the hell is he talking about? “Like what?”

“Like begging for your forgiveness. Stay put. I’m coming.”

“I—okay.” The knot in my throat wasn’t going away. “Jesse?”

“Yeah?”

“I—I love you.” The words came out and the tightness began to ease even as my eyes began to sting. On the other end of the line, Jesse exhaled a heavy sigh of relief.

“I love you, too, Ryce,” he murmured. “Half hour, okay? I’ll be there in a half hour.”

“Be careful.”

“It’s me.”

“I know. Be careful.” I was holding the phone so tightly my fingers hurt. “I’ll see you in half an hour.”

“Count on it.”

He hung up then and I just sat there frozen on my couch as the minutes ticked by and my cocoa grew cold, unable to fathom the maelstrom of emotions playing through me.

What the hell was going on—and did I really want to find out?