No Love for the Wicked (4 page)

“Er, no. Not really. It’s more like when we were investigating the break-in at Banks’s house last year—I knew power had been used, but I couldn’t tell who exactly had used it or what they had done. Anyway, this man at the estate had heard all kinds of horror stories about what happened to people with power who crossed paths with our family. For whatever reason, the guy was feeling brave. He stopped for some lunch at one of the delis near Kelch Inc.’s headquarters. Father might never have felt him if he’d eaten somewhere else. As it was, when Father’s driver took him past the deli—the street only a few feet away from the deli’s entrance—Father sensed the man’s power. He went inside, found the man among the crowd, and picked him up. The man’s bravado didn’t last past the estate’s main-house foyer. But his screams echoed even into the north barn, where I was being held.”

Thirteen sucked in his breath. He hated it when I talked about my life on the estate. I moved on quickly.

“So like I said, no way another person with power would come near here without it involving my family. Is Uncle Max doing a political thing, establishing a relationship with an African ambassador or something?”

Thirteen took my offered glass of whiskey. “Well, now that depends. Colin and his team are Network agents. Their activities are privy only to those within the Network.” He eyed me carefully. “Are you a part of the Network, Magnolia?”

I studied my glass. “You said I was. If I wanted to be.”

“Yes, but typically we do not allow our agents to leave their base of operation for unspecified months at a time with no communication to their division chief.”

The subtle edge behind his calm words gave me pause. “I had to leave, Thirteen—you know that. It had nothing to do with you or the Network or the team. There was just too much going on. I mean, you saw what happened, what I turned into. How could I be around everyone else after that?”

I looked down at my hands. Such slight, feminine things that could turn so terrifying and grotesque. And they weren’t the only part of me that could transform. I remembered that night with Markus, how my face had contorted into such a monstrous sight, with glowing red eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth. Thank God I had control over that now.

“Your team knew from the beginning that you had preternatural abilities.”

“It wasn’t the same, and you know it.” I cleared my throat to keep my voice from wavering. “I killed my own brother.”

“You saved the lives of several Network agents, including mine.”

“I became something else. I was transformed into some kind of beast and ripped Markus’s throat out with my teeth. Everyone on the team thought I was a monster.”

“No,” Thirteen said, setting his untouched whiskey on the table. “No one thought that about you.” I gave him a dry look. “They were intimidated by the level of power that you wielded, but that was all. If you had stayed long enough to hear their thoughts, you would have known that.”

He was wrong. I had heard their thoughts. “I had no choice.”

Thirteen peered down at me, his lips in a tight line. “You had a choice to remain in contact. You chose not to.”

The urge to look away nearly undid me, but I forced myself to hold his gaze. “I needed time, Thirteen. To understand what was happening to me. The powers inside me have changed since I escaped from the estate. Some have gotten stronger. Some I never even realized I had before. I knew the changes were happening while I was training the team last year, and I thought I could handle it. But when I turned into that…thing, I knew I needed to get control over myself, and I couldn’t do it here.”

“Why not here?” he said sharply. For the first time, I saw the hurt behind his commanding blue eyes. “I could have helped you. The Network has resources that could explain why your powers were acting up.”

“No, they don’t have resources for this, Thirteen. Not when it comes to
my
powers. You might have been able to help me deal if it had been one of those traits that all people with supernatural powers share, but it wasn’t the extra strength and speed that I needed to worry about. I’m not like the other people the Network monitors. You know that. Hell, I’m not even like the other people in my family. I don’t have just one ability, like Uncle Max’s telepathy or Father’s telekinesis. I can do everything they can do and more. It was the more that I needed to get control over.”

“And did you get the control you felt you needed?”

I poured another finger of whiskey. “I wouldn’t have come back unless I had.”

He nodded, but I knew he wasn’t satisfied. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, whatever your reasons for leaving,” he said finally, “I’m glad you’ve decided to return.”

I let out a long breath and felt like a balloon deflating. He wasn’t really mad at me. I felt like I’d just lost fifteen pounds in thirty seconds.

“It was time,” I said. “And like I said before, I have total control over that whole claw-and-beast thing now. No transforming unless I want to.”

Thirteen’s expression went carefully blank. “And have you? Wanted to, that is?”

I thought about the predators I’d tracked while honing that particular ability. The rush I felt after each surge of transforming power. “I have control over it. That’s all that matters.”

He eyed me a moment longer, then picked up his whiskey again. “So now that you’ve returned, what are your plans? If you don’t mind me asking.” There was still a carefulness to his words that made me want to kick myself for not checking in before now.

“Well, I figured, you know, that I could, like…help. Again.” His expression stayed blank. “I know your task force doesn’t really need any more training to fight my family’s powers, but you said I was a part of the team—that I’d always be a part of the team.”

“Are you certain that’s what you want? If I recall, joining the front lines in the fight to bring your father and uncles to justice wasn’t always an ambition you wanted to pursue. And if what you say about their reactions to other supernaturals is true, rejoining your team means taking a greater risk than simply exposing your continued existence.”

I took another long drink. Power grew warm beneath my skin. I thought of the years I’d spent at the mercy of my sadistic father. The pain. The blood. The experiments and unending hatred. My family might have brought horror to their adversaries, but that was nothing compared to what had been done to me. How many times had Father killed me, only to have my powers bring me back? How many times had my brothers stalked me or watched in excitement as Father and Uncle Max tried out a new method of torture for their enemies on me?

“I’m not scared of them anymore,” I said. With deliberate control, I flexed my power until it was a warm hum of energy in the air around us. Thirteen lifted his arm, watched all the hairs stand on end.

“Returning to your team is about more than just control over your powers.” Thirteen lowered his arm to his side. “A team has to trust each other to accomplish their missions. You left. You’ll have to prove to them that they can trust you again.”

I almost laughed. “They never trusted me.”

“Trust is a two-way street.”

I rolled my eyes. “OK, how about this: if we can make it through an entire meeting without Shane or Charles attacking me, or Marie accusing me of plotting against the Network on behalf of my family, I’ll consider trusting more of them than just Heather.” And Theo. I trusted Theo maybe even more than I trusted Thirteen. I didn’t think Thirteen needed to know that right now.

Finally, he let out a quiet sigh. “Go get cleaned up.”

I threw back the rest of my whiskey and bounded back to my room with an excited spring in my step. Thirty seconds later we were headed out the door.

“Where are we going anyway? Your offices are off I-70.” I squinted down the highway and then looked at Thirteen in the driver’s seat for an answer.

“Kelch Incorporated’s headquarters are expanding—a result of your father’s most recent pharmaceutical acquisition. Several of the buildings surrounding the Kelch Inc. compound have had to redistrict. The Network moved our local offices to the Chase Tower.”

Ah yes, Father’s ever-increasing economic empire. Kelch Incorporated was a world leader in pharmaceutical research and development, military-grade weaponry, and over-the-counter consumer products. The family’s net worth reached far into the eleven-digit range on legitimate business alone. Add in the less-than-legal business, and that amount tripled. Secret supernatural power was easier to hide when you overflowed with more of the mainstream powers like business and politics.

We exited from the highway and were immediately in the heart of Indianapolis. I’d seen several cities in the last couple of months: Chicago, New York, Boston, Saint Louis. Nothing compared to Indy. It had the skyscrapers, the street vendors, the business suits rushing here and there. But it also had a quaintness that the bigger cities lacked. People drove their own cars here, confident they’d find a parking spot. If you got confused on the one-way streets, you rolled down your window and called out to someone passing by, and that person would point the way without hesitation. People were nice here.

How in the world my family ended up in a city like this, I had no idea.

We pulled into the underground garage and parked in a reserved spot. I followed Thirteen to the bank of elevators, rode up to the main level, then walked with him past the sea of tile and glass that made up the building’s main lobby. We hopped on another elevator—a much nicer one decorated with the same deep green as the lobby. When we reached our floor, we stepped out into a standard hallway. No artwork, no nameplates, no signs directing guests to various business suites. Just one set of double doors with no handles.

“Not very welcoming,” I pointed out.

“It’s not supposed to be.” He typed in a code on the keypad next to the door. I expected a click releasing the locks, but instead the keypad flipped open. Thirteen bent over, putting his face directly in front of the open pad. A red laser ran over his face, forehead to neck. The doors opened automatically.

“Impressive,” I said. “Your old offices didn’t have any security like that.”

He gave me a sideways glance. “I never took you to our old offices.”

I shrugged. We both knew I had tailed him constantly in those early days of our acquaintance. And why wouldn’t I? I’d
only known him as an enemy of my father. Why would I trust a guy who was supposed to hate me?

Fortunately for both of us, he didn’t hate me. Turned out that as much as I was in need of a surrogate father, he had been in need of a daughter. At least with me, he knew that there would never be a time when he could lose me to the supernatural threats of his enemies. He hadn’t been so lucky with the child he’d lost.

The doors closed behind us with a silent click. “We’re going straight through to the back office,” he said, leading the way.

The majority of the work space we passed was one big bull pen. Dry-erase boards set up in various desk groups displayed names and timelines with arrows indicating relationships or connections. Agents I’d never seen talked on phones or buried their noses in laptops. No one paid us any attention as we made our way to the far end of the room.

“How can all these people work together like this?” I asked. “I thought Network agents were anonymous to each other unless working directly on an assigned team.”

“These aren’t field agents,” he explained. “They’re support. When an agent is having an issue with their assignment—the target is closing in on them, they require specific equipment or authorization, or the target they’re tracking has abilities the agent was unaware of—they call in to the support center. It takes a different kind of training to work in Network support. Right in here.”

It was a corner office, of course, with a wide, proud desk and windows that overlooked the State Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. Right now, enormous Christmas lights streamed down from the top of the memorial all the way to the street. At sunset, the city would light the colorful strands, making a giant Christmas tree, while carols played through the sidewalk speakers. I had seen the tree lit on TV once when I was young. Father’s temper had been running high, so he hadn’t bothered waiting until we
were in one of the barns. He’d started beating me right there in his study.

The guards found me in one of the more frequently used guest rooms. It had been risky for me to hide there, but it was the best place to eavesdrop on Malcolm and Markus’s tutoring session. Father never allowed me any kind of real education, so if I wanted to learn anything more than what I picked up through my mind reading, I had to listen in on my brothers’ lessons. The vents to this guest room connected directly to those in my brothers’ library. Risky or not, it was the best place to take notes. Of course, it was also one of the first places the guards looked whenever Father summoned me.

When we reached Father’s study, the guards didn’t hesitate to toss me inside the elaborate office-like room and quickly leave, bolting the doors shut behind me. I knew instantly that this father-daughter session would be a bad one—his frustration over a failed business deal screamed in his thoughts. He’d hated me since the moment I was born, when he’d realized that the strength of my power surpassed anything he’d ever felt. Tonight, he needed to work out his anger, and what better way to do that than to beat senseless the only person who could take whatever damage he inflicted and still wake up the next morning ready for more? Me.