Shifting Fate (8 page)

The words came less often than the visions,
but they held more gravity. They hit with a force, and my hand
trembled, fumbling the metal to thunk loosely on the table. I
caught it before it had a chance to roll to the floor, setting it
to rights just as the door swung open.

Logan stood, hand on the lever, freezing as
the sight of me unharmed prevented whatever rescue he’d been
planning.

“
Sorry,” I whispered,
indicating the sculpture with a vague hand motion as my apology
trailed off.

He looked like he’d had the wind knocked out
of him.

I met his eyes, concerned for a moment that
my clumsiness had not been the cause of his reaction, but it was
not fear that held him there. It was something else. And then I
remembered I was wearing his shirt. Only his shirt.

In his bedroom.

Logan’s fingers were tight on the lever; he
stood stock still. His gaze didn’t shift from my face, but there
was no question he’d noticed.

I felt my bottom lip draw in, but stopped,
clearing my throat. “I, uh …” I ran a hand over the hem of the
shirt, cringing when it hit the bare skin of my legs too soon.
“Sorry,” I said again.

His other hand tightened on the door frame,
as if it was holding him there.

“
I was just …” His jaw
tightened, and I couldn’t help but recall his words from the hall,
wonder if those were the words running through his mind.
Is it now?
I cleared my
throat. “… going back to bed,” I managed.

He nodded, seeming to recover himself, and
pulled the door closed behind him. The latch touched frame, but
didn’t click shut. It was a full minute before his footsteps
receded.

My hip fell to lean against
the table, heart pounding.
Days, Brianna.
You’ve known him for days.

I’d eventually fallen asleep by placing a
pillow over my head to smother the nonexistent sounds of silence.
It had taken a while, given the new words of prophecy and my
encounter with Logan, but he let me sleep until late morning, when
the scent of pancakes made its way into the room. I splashed my
face and pulled on a pair of jeans before hanging the borrowed
shirt on the rack and replacing it with my navy blue
sweatshirt.

Logan didn’t look up at me when I came into
the kitchen, so I took a stool at the narrow island behind him. He
stacked three pancakes onto a plate and slid it across to me, not
meeting my eyes as he turned back to clear the counter. He opened
the refrigerator, and checked the date on a box of juice before
pouring it into a short glass. I had a forkful at my mouth when he
sat down and finally, deliberately, looked at me.

His hand flattened on the countertop. “When
you’re ready, there are some documents we think might help.”

I swallowed the too-big bite. “We?”

“
Aern. We discussed the
problem you were having, and he’s agreed to give you access to the
secured texts.” Logan shrugged a shoulder. “There probably isn’t
much difference in what you’ve already seen, but anything we can do
to help.”

“
The prophecy?” I
whispered.

He nodded, and purposefully looked away. I
took one last big bite before hurrying to get my shoes. Halfway to
the bedroom door, I remembered myself and turned to thank Logan for
making breakfast. He was watching me, a dishtowel wadded beneath
his hand on the counter, and I stumbled over the words in my
haste.

He waved it away. “Get your shoes,
Brianna.”

We were in the car within minutes, and I had
a hard time sitting still. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what the
prophecy said; I had learned it by heart before I could write. It
was that I was finally going to see it. To touch that document, the
indisputable proof that the words were in place a thousand years
before I was born. I scrunched my nose. It was silly of me, I knew.
The prophecy had been spoken in my own head, after all. But still,
it mattered.

“
Wait, shouldn’t we be
headed that way?” I asked when I realized the car had been
traveling in the wrong direction from the city.

“
We aren’t going to
Council,” Logan said.

“
But I thought …” I trailed
off as Logan glanced at me, his eyes hidden behind dark
glasses.

“
The documents were moved.
To keep them safe. We’ll find them at the Adair house.”

I recognized that name. Aern had sent a team
there, the day Morgan had attacked the Division at Southmont.
Brendan had been angry, certain his own men could protect the
occupants of the house. He’d said they couldn’t spare their best
team, but Aern had insisted. My gaze found Logan. “The others don’t
know.”

His jaw flexed. “There were three who knew,
before the fighting. The case at the Council building holds a
replica, and that version has always been regarded as the original.
But the true text was hidden, passed down between the elders for
safe keeping for centuries.” He turned off the main road, taking a
deserted lane lined with potted trees. “When the disputes boiled
over, one of those elders was killed. And so, it was passed on to a
new protector.”

I stared at him. He wasn’t only Morgan’s
protector, he was responsible for the prophecy. “You said Aern
agreed ...”

“
Things went bad. There are
only two of us now. He and I.” He wet his lips before continuing,
somewhat reluctant. “I know what you are, Brianna. I know you’re
trying to save us. But it was just something I couldn’t do without
Aern’s accord.”

I nodded. “I understand.” He hadn’t needed to
apologize for hiding the prophecy from me. I had gone through my
whole life keeping secrets. I was doing it still.

Chapter Nine

Prophecy

We drove down a wooded lane, where the road
turned toward a private park. Ivy climbed over a tall, wrought iron
fence that ran parallel to the path and then opened into an ornate
double gate to the Adair house.

Logan pulled the car around the building and
we went in through a side entrance. It reminded me of the Southmont
house, but the colors were lighter, more welcoming, and the
furnishings a bit more modern. And, like all Division houses, it
was fully stocked with well-dressed guards and attractive young
staffers, which we met right away. The guards, apparently
recognizing Logan as a superior, simply gave us a small nod of
acknowledgement before averting their eyes. A slim brunette in a
business suit, however, marched directly toward us in her four inch
designer heels.

“
Mr. Black,” she said
evenly, “we were not made aware of your visit.”

Logan slid a hand onto my lower back to guide
me in an attempt to subvert her, but she adjusted course,
determined to stop us in our path.

She straightened the sleeve of her blazer
without taking her gaze from us. “I’m certain Mr. Samuels will want
to be informed of your itinerary. How long will you be
staying?”

“
You can tell Brendan we’ll
be here for two nights,” Logan said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us,
Brianna has been suffering from a great lack of sleep.”

The corner of her right eye twitched, but her
expression did not change. “Miss Drake,” she said finally, tilting
her head slightly as she stepped aside.

Logan pressed me forward, apparently eager to
be out of the main areas of the house. We took a wide staircase to
the second level and walked down a hall lined with doors.

“
We’re staying for two
days?” I asked.

One side of Logan’s mouth rose. “I said she
could tell Brendan we’d be here for two days.” He glanced over his
shoulder before stopping at the fifth door on the right. “I was
trying to buy us some time.” He keyed the door open and ushered me
inside. “We won’t have as long to work as I’d hoped.”

A four-poster bed draped with sheers centered
the large, windowless room. Two dressers lined the far walls, and a
desk and reading chair sat near the entrance. Gesturing for me to
stay there, Logan crossed to the smaller of the dressers and worked
it across the thick silver-gray carpeting until it was clear of the
wall by several feet. The second dresser, a low, six drawer antique
model that looked to weigh about five hundred pounds, didn’t slide
so easily across the pile. I bit my lip as he labored against it.
It was unsettling how much I enjoyed watching that man move
furniture.

When both dressers were clear of the wall, he
drew a folding knife from his pocket and cut a long strip of carpet
free. He tucked the loose end of it under a knee and dug at the
wood flooring beneath with the knife to reveal a pair of dark metal
fasteners. I had to stand on the tip of my toes and crane my neck
to see how he released the plank that revealed the cubby hole.

He glanced up at me as he removed a few small
containers, and I dropped my heels back flat. He took them to the
desk and I moved to stand beside him as he opened the first case
and unrolled a canvas on the dark glossed wood before us.

My hand went to my chest, air suddenly hard
to come by. I looked at Logan, unsure, and his solemn nod confirmed
the parchment’s authenticity.

I was seeing the prophecy.

I reached out, knowing I shouldn’t touch the
ancient material, but unable to resist being closer. As my hand
hovered above the fine script, so different than those that I’d
been studying for the last days, I was overtaken by a giddy,
child-like excitement. I glanced at Logan, uncaring that I had
flushed cheeks and a too-wide grin, and he smiled back at me.

“
Go ahead and take a look,”
he said. “I’m going to close things up a bit.”

He tucked a pair of thin white gloves into my
hand and returned to the space beneath the flooring.

I meant to thank him, but wasn’t sure I’d
said the words out loud. As I tugged the gloves on, I glanced about
the room, but there were no cameras in the bedrooms of the Division
houses. No one was watching. No one would see my gloved fingers
tracing the worn edge of a thousand-year-old document.

But the moment they contacted parchment, the
trembling in my hands ceased. It was real. All of it. The visions,
the prophecy, the coming destruction. Too real to deny anymore.
There was no more room for doubt. No more uncertainty or
possibilities.

This was it.

These words were for me. I was the prophet.
It was all there was.

Vaguely aware of Logan’s movements across the
room, I recited the words in the old tongue; the words I’d known by
heart before the first time they’d even come to me through a
revelation. It took several minutes, but they seemed to move at a
drawn-out pace, each one cementing themselves once more in my
consciousness. The gravity of them had somehow changed. The import
shifting from burden to substance. Power. These would be the words
that saved us.

As I came to the end, I realized Logan was
standing behind me. I took a deep breath, and for the first time in
a very long while, it didn’t ache.

“
Thank you,” I whispered,
sliding off the gloves as I turned to Logan. He noticed the change
in me, I could see that, but before he had a chance to speak, his
phone vibrated.

He pulled the device from his pocket, pressed
two buttons, and tucked it back away. “Looks like we’ll have to
finish this up later.” He moved past me to roll the prophecy into a
tube, and placed it and a few other documents in a satchel before
looping the strap over his shoulder. “Ready?” he asked.

I was. I didn’t know what for, exactly, but
there was no doubt left in my answer.

We exited the room to turn the opposite
direction we’d come in, and Logan led me by the elbow at an even
faster pace, not stopping to round the corners before me. I glanced
behind us, but the halls were empty. He took us down a set of
narrow stairs, pausing only briefly to check the screen of his
phone. From my vantage point one step above him, I saw not a text
message, but a small red dot on a blackened grid. Like a tracking
signal.

“
Is that
Brendan
?” I hissed, more out of shock
than anything else.

He glanced at me, surprised, and the corner
of his mouth drew back, despite an obvious effort to still it. He
turned his upper body toward me as he watched me, leaving his face
inches from mine while the step made us closer to the same
height.

“
Brianna,” he said, and I
thought he was going to tell me his reasons, explain why it was
necessary. I was fully prepared to tell him I understood and it
didn’t matter, until he finished. His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Is it now?”

My breath caught in my
throat.
Oh God, was he serious?
His eyes never left mine, and all I could think
was that he was thinking of kissing me, that he was asking because
it had crossed his mind to do so right then. The image of that kiss
from my visions came swiftly to me, and I fought hard to not focus
on it.

Though I was sure he’d see the flush that
colored my skin, Logan didn’t budge, only waited for my answer.

I swallowed hard. “No.”

His gaze stayed on me one full second more
before he made a gesture that might have been a nod and turned to
take the last few steps.

We’d been turning the corner three blocks
from the property when we passed a line of dark, expensive looking
cars. I’d glanced at Logan, but he’d not acknowledged the event,
simply watching the road as he took the scenic route to Council. To
Aern and Emily.

My sister gave me a sad, half-smile and I
knew Aern had told her we’d seen the prophecy. She must have
thought it would upset me, bring up the painful memories of our
mother, but it hadn’t.