Accordance (42 page)

“Dad, you’re gonna make me cry,” I said and smiled but could feel the tears pricking the back of my eyes.

“OK,” he conceded. “Love you, baby girl.” He grimaced at his words again and thought to himself that was going to be a hard habit to break. “Goodnight, son.” He shook Caleb’s hand. “Thank you again for keeping her safe.”

“You don’t ever have to thank me for that, sir.” Dad nodded at that. “No one knows we’re here so we shouldn’t have any problems but you might want to set the alarm.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dad thought. “You know, I don’t think I’ve set that alarm more than five times the whole time we’ve lived here.”

He set out to find the manual and after I hugged Bish, we went upstairs. When we came inside the room, I felt my cheeks flush once more as I looked at the bed. Caleb chuckled softly behind me as he shut the door.

“I just promised your father no funny business.” He moved to kiss my neck from behind and whispered his words into my neck. ”You’re safe for tonight.” I shivered as goose bumps ran rampant down my arms and he caressed them, satisfied by my reaction. “Alright, you. Let’s get to sleep.”

He texted his dad to tell him where we were and after putting on some cherry print sleep shorts and a cami, which I hadn’t worn in forever, we climbed into bed.

Caleb’s hand rubbed my hip over my shorts.

“I like you in my t-shirts but I kinda miss your fruit shorts.”

“You do? Which is your favorite?”

“Right now, these,” he said and moved his palm again making me giggle. “But I really love your bananas.”

“They’re my favorite too. I’ll be sure to bring them to London.”

“You do that.”

I smiled but sobered as I remembered all the events of the day; some happy, most nerve wracking, some downright heart breaking.

“We won’t tell him,” Caleb assured me.

“I don’t care what some piece of paper says, Caleb. He’s my father. That doesn’t change anything. I don’t even feel any different for him. He’ll always be my dad.”

“I know.”

“Promise me.”

“Promise what, babe?”

“Promise that he won’t find out, and we’ll be ok in London, that Bish and Jen can be together, that everyone will be safe and that everything is going to be figured out and we’ll get happy endings.”

Caleb sighed in sympathy for me.

“I can’t promise that but, I can promise you, we’ll try like hell,” he said firmly.

I nodded and snuggled closer.

“That’ll do.”

In the morning we ate breakfast that Bish cooked for everyone and then made our way back to Kyle’s. It looked the same but there was a lot of mind chatter on the inside. At first I thought our family had come to all go to the airport together, and there were some of them there, but then I realized as I reached for the door knob that it wasn’t. My skin crawled with slime and as the door swung open I knew who I’d see.

Sikes.

“Maggie. Caleb,” Sikes said seriously. “Good of you to join us.”

Caleb yanked me behind him without even thinking about it.

“Sikes,” I muttered and looked around at the ten or so other Watson’s lines up around him.

“Caleb,” Peter bellowed from the front of the line where they had everyone piled in the living room. He stood front and center like a shield for his family. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I believe I can clear this misunderstanding up,” Sikes said. “You see, I told them that we had taken you both hostage and if they put up a fight, we’d kill you both. And they believed me.”

Peter fumed looking at Sikes with disdain.

I should have killed you when I had the chance. The code of the council be dam-.

I tried to block out Peter’s rant and focus on Sikes’s mind to see what he had in store for us. I knew they knew already. I was sure that Marcus had told them and I saw him smugly standing in the corner, though I didn’t see Sikes’s wife. I took my jacket off and lifted my chin in defiance but also, to make my mark known beyond a shadow of doubt, no hearsay. They’d see it for themselves.

A few Watsons gasped but most just stared at me. There was a reason I was the Visionary and I didn’t know if it was for this purpose or another one but I had to do something. As I looked over and saw Jen and Gran looking so scared, I knew I had to do something.

Kyle and Lynne were there too, in the back. Sikes didn’t know they were imprinted I realized. He would have been livid about that one. One more imprint for our family and none for his that he thought was so deserving of it.

Lynne looked at me and chewed her lip. She glanced unsettled around me and I saw the light above me honing in and out of bright to dark as I got worked up. I looked away unable to comfort her.

I was mad enough to make my power work without much effort and when I slammed the kitchen door, smacking one of them with it in the back and he fell unconscious to the floor, I almost smiled. I heard Jen’s scared thoughts but didn’t understand why until…they brought out Maria. They had her and the one who held her had a blue blazing fire in his palm. He grinned at me as if they’d won already. I had to keep myself in check so as not to throw something at him.

Caleb took my arm from behind him and I felt him shaking with rage.

“Villainy 101; always have a backup to your backup,” Marcus said happily and laughed at the look I shot him.

“What do you want?” Peter asked Sikes, back to business.

“I want Maggie to come with us and for you all to not put up a fight. I figured this was the only way to do that. Now…what do I have to do to get you to understand that I mean business.” He tapped his finger on his lip like he was thinking and I yelled a ‘no’ before he even finished his sentence. “Kill Caleb maybe? That way there’d be no reason for you to come after her.”

“Take my blood,” I told him, begging, “I don’t care, just leave them alone.”

“Ah, Maggie, so quick to try to resolve things. No, my dear, I’m afraid that won’t do. I need a steady supply until my experiment can give fruition.”

I could no longer hold my anger in and the blue ribbons bounced and writhed in the air around us, glowing brighter than usual.

“Sikes,” Peter employed, “you know this won’t work.”

“It will, or she will die while I try.”

“Like hell,” Caleb growled and moved me behind him further.

“Ooh, I love to see a newly mated couple. So feisty.” And then he glanced at our wrists and his grin turned up even more and he laughed almost as is he was happy for us. “And feisty you are. Already got her to Mutualize with you, I see. And how was it, boy?”

The Watsons laughed and cackled all around us as Caleb’s arm tightened protectively around me.

My face flamed, even in the circumstances, and our families eyes searched our wrists, their faces wanted to smile at the revelation. I held my wrist to my chest as if in protection of it. My mom and Sikes were trying to ruin all our happiness with their doom and gloom.

“Even Maggie, a human, gained a family tattoo. Hmm,” Sikes hummed not sounding too thrilled about the idea but Peter and the families thoughts were fascinated.

Maria whimpered near us and I saw the man putting his fire palm towards her face and then taking it away, over and over. I saw that it was only his left hand and he couldn’t do anything but hold it in his palm. I remembered what Kyle and Marla had told me about their abilities being lame. And I’d had enough. I had a strange feeling coming over me; an ‘urgency’ that told me exactly what to do.

Caleb. We can do this.

What?

We can take them. I know it.

Maggie, I see what you’re thinking but I don’t have my ability. That was a fluke before-

Not a fluke. Trust me. Please, please, trust me. I can feel it.

Alright…I trust you, tell me what you want me to do.

Just feel it out. I’m going to take out fire-boy, just follow my lead.

At that, before they realized we were plotting, I grabbed a vase of flowers with my mind next to Maria and the man and flicked my fingers to send it flying into him. It busted against his chest, soaking him with water and putting out his hand blaze. He snapped trying to make it come back but the water wouldn’t let it. I flicked my fingers on one hand again to make Maria careen as gently as I could toward Jen who caught her easily and used my other hand to send him flying into the china cabinet. Porcelain plates, cups and gravy boats rained down around him and I felt a twinge of guilt for wrecking Kyle’s house.

Then we had a full force war going on. They all piled in to start in on us and Peter bellowed for some of our family to stay back, the ones without abilities, and he came forward taking out one easily with a too quick to be human powerful uppercut with his palm to the man’s nose.

“No!” Sikes roared and looked around at his plan falling apart.

I saw Rachel pushing one hand forward to throw silverware off the table across the room at two men charging her family. One knife then one fork, alternating her hands as one piece of hard metal flew then the other. The men were stabbed several times by several different pieces before they finally fell to their knees and groaned. I turned away when one pulled a butter knife from his chest. It was buried half deep and he screamed in pain as he yanked it free before collapsing to the ground.

Sikes roared and lunged for me.

Caleb stopped him easily lifting his hand out and holding him in the air by just a thought. Caleb’s face beside me was fierce and he couldn’t even be surprised at himself. He was in his element and in the moment, his hand strained in his control. Peter gasped and looked at Caleb as proudly as a father could. He thought he’d gotten his ability, though in truth, we had no idea what was going on with him.

When another Watson made a move to stop Caleb. Caleb used his free hand to call a vine from the yard. It burst through the window, showering Caleb and Sikes with glass shards and then wrapped around the man’s neck and torso, slamming him forcefully into the wall and holding him in place. Caleb’s uncle, the one who’s ability it was to do that, gawked and glanced confused at Peter before doing almost the same thing to another Watson.

Caleb still held Sikes in the air and I stopped another one by flicking my fingers to crash the couch against him and smash him to the wall. The rest of them that were left just stared as if they had no idea what to do now.

I answered their internal questions.

“I suggest you run.”

One did run. Marcus ran right out the front door like the coward he was, but the couple of others that were left seemed torn.

Sikes’s choking and gagging noises were beginning to be annoying in the silence of the aftermath. Caleb lowered him slowly to the ground as we all surrounded them.

I wasn’t the only one wondering what we were going to do with them, especially Sikes, the leader of my lynch mob. It was one thing to use self defense but to outright just kill them…

Out of nowhere, the absolute last thing I ever expected happened.

One of Sikes’s men jumped forward from behind him and shoved one of the silver long sleek knives that Rachel had thrown at them into Sikes’s back. His eyes went wide in surprise and then he fell, lifeless to the expensive tile floor in a very anticlimactic end.

Everyone was more than shocked when the man threw his knife down and fell to his knees, looking right at me.

“I’m sorry, Visionary. He was my family, my clan, my Champion. I felt like I was obligated to follow him but I… He was wrong,” he said firmly and his thoughts were of a tree; a big leafy old tree that’s branches had grown and intertwined into a wrought iron filigree fence. It didn’t make sense to me but I listened. “Please forgive me and take this,” he motioned to Sikes’s lifeless body, “as retribution. Let me go. I’ll go far away. Please.”

He bowed his head low and kept thinking about this strangely mangled and beautiful old tree. I figured it was from his home and he missed it and was ready to go back.