Revival (The Variant Series, Book 1) (8 page)

“Innocent?” He snorted. “That’s a laugh.”

“That girl in there doesn’t even remember what happened. And no one’s told her. She’s been lied to her entire life. You can’t possibly hold her accountable for something that happened when she was
four years old
.”

Declan fell quiet.

Kenzie fought back the urge to read his mind. Normally she didn’t have to. Predicting her brother’s thoughts and moods usually came as naturally to her as breathing.

And while Declan possessed a stubborn streak roughly a mile wide… Something about this felt different. It wasn’t usually this hard to make him see reason.

“You weren’t old enough to remember it either, Kenzie,” he said bitterly. “You don’t have those images burned into your brain.”

“Oh, like hell!” she snapped. “God knows you replayed them enough times growing up. I saw them in your head whether I wanted to or not.”

“I’m sorry, Kenzie.” Her brother’s face twisted with an emotion she couldn’t identify. “I didn’t… I would have saved you from that if I could have.”

She sighed. This wasn’t about them.

“You can’t focus all of your anger on Alex, Decks. She didn’t do it. Masterson did.”

“It was
her
he was after, Kenzie. Not
them
.”

“No,” she said. “They were protecting an innocent child from a madman.”

“Yeah. And they
gave their lives
doing that, Kenzie. Eight people. Dead. And for
what
? What could
possibly
be so important about that girl?”

“It’s not her fault,” she said again. “Declan, it’s not Alex’s fault our parents are dead.”

*   *   *

Alex paced slowly around the spacious living room, unsure of what to do with herself and too wound up to sit still.

After their conversation, Aunt Cil had followed Grayson outside, apparently to discuss Alex’s situation. She had reappeared ten minutes later, intent on leaving once more to carry out some damage control back home.

Cassie was still out driving around in search of her and something like half the town knew that she’d gone missing already. Okay, maybe it wasn’t
half
the town, but it sure seemed like it after Cil finished listing all the people she had phoned while trying to find her. 

Cil had also
insisted
that Alex stay at the cabin until she had things sorted and knew it would be safe for her to return home.

When she had asked how long that might take, her aunt’s reaction hadn’t been promising.

Alex sank into the corner seat of the tan leather couch, tilted her head back and stared up at the cathedral ceiling.

At this point, it wasn’t a matter of
processing
all these revelations. It was a matter of
accepting
them.

Alex let her eyes drift closed.

Mutant powers—which Alex had always assumed to be the stuff of sci-fi movies and graphic novels—were not only
real
, they also appeared to run in the family.

Her parents had been spies and were murdered by a psychopath.

Oh, and in an attempt to kill her, a crazy Scottish man had
incinerated
Mr. Ballard and burned his bookstore to the ground.

Alex fully expected to wake up at any moment and find out this whole nightmare had been just that. It had all been just a dream.

And you were there, and you were there, and there’s no place like home…

She opened her eyes to find a smiling face staring down at her.

“Hi, Alex.”

“Hi, Brian.” She smiled. She couldn’t
not
smile at the kid. His grin was infectious.

“Are you going to be staying with us for a while?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I guess it looks that way, doesn’t it?”

The boy’s smile grew wider.

At least
someone
was happy about the arrangement.

The door to what Alex thought might be an office opened and Grayson stepped through it.

“How are you, Alex?” Crossing the room, he took a seat across from her at one end of the immense flagstone hearth.

“I’m alright,” she said. “Just trying to sort through it all, I guess. Wondering where I go from here.”

He nodded.

Brian plopped down beside Alex on the couch just as a blast of cooler air reached them from the front entryway. Nathaniel had appeared in the doorway toting a leather firewood carrier overflowing with small logs. He dropped it beside the hearth and set about building up the fire, using a poker to stoke the pile of glowing embers.

The front door opened again. This time, Declan and Kenzie strode through it wearing identical masks of exasperation.

“Ah, good,” said Grayson. “You’re all here. There are some things we need to discuss.”

Nate paused in his work, stealing a glance in Alex’s direction. He sent her another reassuring smile. This time, she smiled back.

There was a sudden blur of movement off to her left. Declan had collapsed onto the love seat adjacent to Alex’s couch and was sinking back into the cushions.

“Hold up. If we’re having a family meeting, I need coffee.” Kenzie disappeared into the kitchen. “Talk amongst yourselves!”

“Girl’s already wired for sound,” Declan muttered. “She needs to do the rest of us a favor and switch to decaf.”

“I heard that!” Kenzie’s disembodied voice called from the kitchen.

“Homework, Brian,” said Grayson, noticing the boy for the first time.

“But
Dad
…” Brian pleaded. Grayson shot him a look. The boy deflated. “Yes, sir.”

He leaned toward Alex.

“Save my seat! I’ll be back,” he promised in a low whisper, then got to his feet and trudged off toward the kitchen.

As Alex watched him go, her gaze fell on Declan. He was staring at her as though she were some curiosity that he was trying to make sense of.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, but didn’t look away.

Nathaniel cleared his throat. “So Alex will be staying here with us, Grayson?”

“For the time being the cabin will be the safest place for her,” said Grayson. “I’m afraid, Alex, you won’t be going
anywhere
until we can determine how and why you managed to attract the attention of someone like Carson Brandt.”

Her aunt had basically said as much, but coming from Grayson the announcement felt like a prison sentence.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” said Alex. “How did you know to send Declan to follow me? What exactly did you see?”

Grayson’s thin mouth turned down at the corners. “The trouble with my gift is that my visions are sometimes rather lacking in specifics. At first all I could see was a glimpse of you and another young girl sitting on a restaurant patio. A few hours later, I saw a second image—one of you running through a burning bookstore.”

He rubbed his hands together. Just as he had in the hallway earlier, he appeared to be choosing his words carefully.

“Cil and I haven’t exactly kept in touch over the years. I knew you were alive and well, somewhere, but I couldn’t be sure that it was
you
I was seeing,” he said. “Eventually I got lucky and saw a flash of you and your aunt together. Once I knew who you were and where to find you, I sent Declan.”

“Why didn’t you just call my aunt and warn her? Stop me from going to the bookstore in the first place?”

“Doesn’t always work like that,” said Nathaniel. “Calling your aunt might have insured that you went, for all we knew. The best chance we have to change something is to actually
be
there when it starts to happen.”

“So you sent Declan to follow me instead,” she said.

“Yes,” said Grayson.

“Did anything in your visions tell you
why
Brandt wanted to kill me?”

Grayson shook his head. “None of this makes sense. You’d never seen him before? Never met another Variant before today?”

“No,” she said. “Not unless you count Aunt Cil. My life before today was pretty… normal.”

Well, as normal as you could get when you were a walking power surge, anyway.

Brian reappeared with a backpack and a laptop and settled back onto the couch beside Alex.

Grayson sent him a look of disapproval.

“What?” asked Brian. He hoisted what looked like a calculus textbook. “Homework!”

The older man sighed, but said nothing more. Brian smiled triumphantly and opened the book.

“There’s something to all this we aren’t seeing,” said Grayson, returning his attention to the group.

“You’re right.” Declan leaned back further into the love seat, folding his hands behind his head. “To start with, Brandt wasn’t trying to kill her.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Tell that to the wall of flames that chased me through the bookstore.”

Declan shook his head. “The man’s a trained assassin. He kills people
for a living
. If he wanted you dead, it would have taken him two seconds and a wave of his hand.” Declan gave her a look of appraisal. Alex felt her cheeks flare under his scrutiny. “You’re not exactly a threat to a guy like him. Or to anyone else, for that matter.”

She found herself wondering if there was a power out there that would allow her to melt into the couch cushions.

“…No offense,” he added as an afterthought.

Kenzie sashayed back into the room, coming to lean against the back of the love seat. Her arms hovered above Declan, a steaming cup of coffee clasped between her hands. Declan eyed the mug warily and slid a few inches to his left.

“As much as I hate agreeing with my brother,” she said, “Declan’s got a point. Carson Brandt doesn’t toy with his victims. It’s just not his style. He’s ten shades o’ crazy, but he’s no sadist.”

Nathaniel tossed one last log onto the fire, crossed the room and then claimed a seat next to Alex on the arm of the couch.

“Alex’s parents were Variants,” Kenzie continued. “Maybe Brandt
knew
that her mom’s side of the family could teleport. Maybe he was trying to see if Alex was capable of jumping, too. You know, by frightening her into it.”

“But I can’t …
jump
.” Alex wondered if she’d used the verb correctly. “You said that not all Variants pass on the mutation to their children. And even if I
could
teleport like my mom, or move things with my mind like my dad… I’m almost seventeen. Wouldn’t I know about it by now?”

Grayson looked about ready to agree with her when Declan interrupted him.

“She’s a Variant.”

He said the words with such assurance that every head in the room swiveled in his direction. Even Brian glanced up from his homework with a quizzical expression.

Alex felt her stomach drop.

“What makes you say that?” Kenzie asked in surprise.

Declan pulled himself back into a seated position and looked squarely at Alex. “Ever had a problem with electronics?”

For a split second she wondered how he could possibly know about that… And then she remembered what had happened in the clothing store that afternoon when Connor had startled her. Declan had been standing right there. He’d seen the whole thing.

“Ever accidentally short-circuited a microwave when you realized you were running late for something important? Or scrambled the television reception when someone pissed you off?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Alex’s mouth had turned as dry as the Sahara.

“Electricity,” he said. The smug smile had returned. “Before I jumped on my own for the first time—before I learned to control it—I used to wreak havoc on nearby electronics. I don’t know why, maybe Brain over there can explain it. There’s something about the electricity we need to be able to harness in order to use our ability. An entry in one of my dad’s journals said that we build up a powerful static charge right before we jump. Until I learned to control it, I had a habit of… frying things.”

Somewhere beneath the smiling facade, Alex could sense Declan steeling himself, as if the mention of his father’s journal and the tiny glimpse into his childhood were opening the door to other, more painful memories.

Alex felt lightheaded.

She wasn’t a Variant. She
couldn’t
be.

Kenzie snorted in amusement. “I remember those days. You were public enemy number one to our household appliances for almost a year.”

“Weren’t we going through, like, four toasters a month at one point?” asked Nathaniel.

Declan rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t half as a bad as you sending the toaster
flying across the room
every five minutes. If we’re comparing cost of damages, you’d take the prize, my friend.”

Grayson cleared his throat and tried to steer the conversation back on course. “Well, if that’s the case, Alex, then–”

“Yeah and don’t forget Nathaniel’s birthday party when Kenzie locked Declan in the utility closet with Joanne Boathouse!” Brian interrupted. His face lit up in another thousand-watt smile.

Grayson groaned, sidetracked from whatever it was he had been about to say by the unpleasant memory. “Thought I’d
never
get that water heater working again…”

Declan scowled. “Brian, I don’t know why you love that story so much. You weren’t even old enough to know what was happening at the time.”

Nathaniel leaned in conspiratorially. “Joanne
Bode
-house was a year older than Declan, built like a tank, with afro-like red hair, an unfortunate case of acne, the temperament of an angry Doberman and god-awful breath. She had a huge crush on Declan when we were younger.”

Declan looked pointedly over his shoulder at Kenzie. “Still haven’t forgiven you for locking us in there, by the way.”

“It was for the greater good,” she said.

“What? And how do you figure that?”

“You’d just melted my computer’s hard drive! You needed to get your powers under control. I figured trapping you in a closet with the Boathouse might provide you with the motivation you needed to finally jump.”

The sound of their bickering continued, but it was soon eclipsed by the escalating clamor of Alex’s thoughts.