The Locket (18 page)

“You know what to do, Claire,” she hinted.

More tears spilled, leaving a small puddle on my hand. I released Maggie, slumping into Brent’s arms as he joined me at some point. I didn’t have any idea what to do.

“She gone, she’s really gone,” I wailed, sinking into his chest. He enfolded me, kissing me softly on top of my head.

Couriers appeared in front of us. There must have been hundreds. The thin iridescent strings came looking for information to take back to Kace. Brent stood tall and as he had at Maggie’s, he started absorbing them, but there were so many and they were darting all over the room. A few were around Reese’s head, pulling memories from him they would share with Kace, telling him where we had been – where we were. I had to do something.

Bravery took over and I hauled myself up next to Brent putting my hand out in front of me, hoping I had the same ability to absorb the strings. I focused on pulling the strings towards me, encouraging them to enter my hand. Gradually, they started to comply. Reese watched with astonishment as each string left him and entered my hand easily. Their movements became erratic, flying in every direction, exiting the boat house.

After several minutes, all of the strings were gone.

Reese interrupted the silence. “Guys, we need to get out of here now,” he demanded.

“What? What about Maggie? We can’t just leave her here,” I choked, holding back tears and kneeling down beside Maggie, brushing loose hairs from her cold face.

“Claire, she is with the Agents, now,” Brent coaxed. “They will take care of her, don’t worry. Reese is right. We have to go. We don’t know what the Couriers saw and will deliver to Kace. He could be here soon and we aren’t ready for him.”

I wasn’t sure how I could possibly walk out of there without taking her with me, but I knew they were right. I finally agreed.

“Fine, but we go to Maggie’s and wait for an Agent,” I told them, rising to my feet.

“No, Claire,” Brent scolded. “I forbid it, you aren’t going there.”

“You forbid it?” I mocked, lightly jabbing my finger in his chest. “You can’t control what I do, Brent.”

“I can, and I will, Claire,” Brent threatened with an edge to his voice that made me want to scream.

I protested, stomping my feet. “I’m going!”

Brent’s face was expressionless but his voice was commanding. “Would you stop being irrational and listen to me. What we need to do is get somewhere safe. It’s not safe at Maggie’s,” he reminded me, softly squeezing both of my arms just above the elbows.

“It’s not safe anywhere, Brent. Kace has found me before,” I declared, pulling from his grasp. He looked at me questioningly and I continued. “On my way to school the first day, he was in the middle of the street, glaring at me. I almost hit him with my car.”

“What?” They both shouted.

“He was just there. I lost control of the car for a bit. When it settled, I pulled over to look for him, but he was gone,” I explained.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Brent asked.

“I didn’t know it was him. When it was over, I thought I imagined the whole thing.”

“Claire, it’s too dangerous to go to Maggie’s. We aren’t going.” He was unyielding, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to be controlled anymore for my protection by anyone.

“Fine! I’ll go alone!” I yelled, stomping out of the boat house towards the Audi. Both of their footsteps pounded into the earth behind me.

“Claire, you’re being ridiculous,” Brent voiced. “You don’t even know if an Agent will show up. We’re not even sure how they get there.”

“The mirror in my room,” I said succinctly, turning to face the two of them. “I saw Maggie in a vision, consoling me through that mirror. She said I would know what to do, so I’m going. You can come with me if you want, but you can’t stop me. Kace is not getting away with this. Haunting people is one thing but killing people is something else. Kace has to be stopped.” I urged Brent and Reese to understand.

Brent was pacing and I knew he was struggling with my ultimatum. “Okay Claire, we’ll go, but twenty minutes is all you get. If an Agent doesn’t show, we leave. You can’t argue with me about it, not a minute more. It’s too dangerous. You have to trust me, okay?”

I agreed but it was a flat out lie. I would stay at my aunt’s house until this ended no matter what the outcome. If Kace wanted me, then he would have me, but nobody else I loved would be hurt.

While watching the coral-pink sun set, I reflected on everything that happened to me over the last few days. My life would never be quite the same as it was four days ago when Brent literally stormed into my life. My parents were gone. My grandparents were gone. My aunt was gone. I was completely on my own. Ironically, a few days ago, all I wanted in life was to have complete independence, and now that I had it, I wanted nothing more than to give it all back.

We were quiet on the drive to Maggie’s house. No one was quite sure what to say. Occasionally, I inhaled sharply and bit my quivering lip to catch my breath in between crying spurts. How did Kace know where to find me? It was suspicious. After all of these years, Kace somehow knew where I was. Logan had surely spilled everything he knew, but how had Kace found Logan to start with?

I squeezed the sides of the frame thinking a little pressure would make something happen. Feeling hopeless, I saw tears begin to swell.

“Claire,” Brent said delicately. I knew what he was going to say and he was not going to like my response. “You’ve been in front of that mirror for a half an hour. They’re not coming. We need to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Brent,” I said through gritted teeth.

I had to find out how Kace had found me so easily. My intuition screamed that Kace had help. I was determined to find out who was helping him, because whoever it was played a part in Maggie’s death.

“Goddammit, Claire. Listen to me. We’ll find another way. I promise you. You can’t continue to put yourself in danger. It won’t bring Maggie back. It won’t.” Brent emphasized his last few words, placing his hands firmly on my shoulders.

I clenched my fists by my side. “You don’t have to be so controlling, Brent. Seriously, that’s enough.”

He cocked his head and raised his brow. With a deadpanned expression he asked, “Really?”

“Yes,” I sighed, feeling a soft warmth come to my cheeks. It was his design. Something was ingrained in every fiber of his genetic makeup to take charge and protect me.

“It’s all I’ve ever known, Claire,” he confessed, honesty emitting from his gaze.

He was right, just as my parents had been before him. This was all for my safety. I hated it. Knowing he had to be this way, but that wasn’t going to change until Kace was no longer a threat to us. I reached up and placed my hand on his, looking at him through the reflection.

His face was concerned and sincere, rousing emotions inside of me.

“Okay, we’ll go.”

But just as the words left my mouth, light filled the room around us and the mirror began to glow. We waited apprehensively, anticipating what would happen next.

Side by side, we stared into the blurry mirror, no longer able to see our reflection. As it came back into focus, a man was looking back at us.

“Hello Claire, I am Omni. I’ve been expecting you,” he said, surprising me with this news.

The man’s voice was gentle, bringing my nerves to a peaceful flow, shutting down my emotions, and storing them away while he spoke. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but was truly baffled as Omni was a man like anyone else. I guessed I had pictured a ghost. Not like a sheet with two eye holes cut out, often seen on Halloween, but more spirit-like. Thinking of the shows my Dad used to watch, ghosts were always streaks of light that resembled human form. The image in the mirror was very much a man in the flesh. Omni had long graying hair – salt and pepper – as my Mom would have called it, and he could have been anyone of our neighbors. But he wasn’t. He was the person I needed for answers.

Brent squeezed my hand reassuringly. Reese looked as though he was about to faint.

Lifting my head to Omni again, I asked, “My aunt, is she okay?” The memory of the last time I saw her was still strong. Those pesky tears threatened to return as I waited for his response.

“Maggie is fine,” he reassured me. “The Agents have taken good care of her.”

His report brought only a miniscule amount of relief.

Omni noticed Brent’s fingers tangled in mine and I expected him to be upset.

“I see you have discovered that Brent is your Paramour and Reese is not,” he stated, obviously not bothered by it. The Doyens and their Agents apparently knew things had changed.

“Yes, well, it seems many things have differed from the original design.” Brent and I flung our joined hands in the air. “That’s why I brought you here. We don’t know how this happened. We have other questions, too. Kace found me, although I have no idea how. I don’t think he did it without help.”

“He didn’t,” Omni replied. He shot a glowering look over at Reese who shifted uncomfortably.

I turned to Reese and pinned him with a wide-eyed glare. “What did you do?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” Reese said defensively. “I told you, I kissed Brooke.”

Spinning back to the mirror, I looked to Omni for answers.

He ignored me, addressing Reese. “Why aren’t you telling her about your betrayal? This is your opportunity to redeem yourself Reese.”

Reese had betrayed me?

Did he tell Kace where to find me? The walls started shaking and paraphernalia started to fall from the shelves around me. I knew I was creating the disturbance but I was helpless to stop it. Too upset to control my rage, the quake continued.

“Calm down, Claire.” Both Omni and Brent’s voice acted as a bridle to my thoughts and I steadied my anger until the vibration ended. Reese’s shame-faced expression aggravated me further telling me he had the answers I longed to hear.

“I didn’t mean to, Claire. I wanted to take the words back the second they flew out of my mouth.” He stumbled over his words, hanging his head apologetically.

“Out with it, Reese, now!” My patience was extremely thin, but I forced a smile his way, concealing my soaring anger.

“Kace came to me the day before school started. He told me he knew I was your Paramour and must be sick of the waiting. I was. I just wanted to be with you, Claire.”

“So, you told him where to find me?” I folded my arms over my chest, exercising every bit of control I had, to rein in my anger.

“God, Claire, no,” Reese insisted.

“What then?” Brent growled. I squeezed his hand to keep him from lunging at Reese.

“Kace said if he knew where you were, the waiting would stop,” Reese continued. “I told him I would never tell him how to find you. He said if I just gave him
something
, then we could be united. It was inevitable. We were designed to be together, so why wait? I thought about it and realized he was right. I didn’t think there was any harm in hurrying something along that was going to happen anyway.”

“You’re still stalling.” I had a difficult time controlling myself and then suddenly, it hit me.

“Logan…,right?”

Reese’s expression confirmed it.

“I knew Logan thought you and your family were a bunch of freaks. He pointed you out in the market one day telling me what he thought of you. I told Kace this information and figured he’d use Logan and eventually it would lead him to you. I just thought it would take longer. You would have your abilities and we’d be this strong force that could bring Kace down like they said we would,” he confessed, pointing to Omni.

“How could you!” I yelled, moving toward Reese. Brent grabbed both my arms before I reached him. Fortunately for Reese, Brent was there because I would have hurt him. “Maggie’s dead, Reese. You killed her, you did this. I hate you, do you hear me? I fucking hate you!” I swore and I didn’t care how inept my vocabulary sounded.

Reese was ashen. “Please don’t say that, Claire. I never meant for anyone to get hurt.” He cowered, begging my forgiveness. I would never forgive him. I wanted to strangle him.

“But someone did get hurt Reese, more than hurt. Maggie’s dead. Gone! You killed her. Get out! Get out right now! I can’t even look at you. You knew this all along and you kept quiet. Go! Go away now!” I shouted so loud my throat constricted and I swallowed against the dryness.

Reese’s footsteps were heavy as he descended the stairs. Since I didn’t hear the door close behind him, I assumed he was waiting to see if I would calm down. Fat chance! He was probably sitting downstairs in Maggie’s favorite chair. I should march down there and throw him right out the front door. How could he stay here after what he did?

Omni began talking and again, his soothing voice was like a drug, forcing me to relax.

“When we discovered what Reese had done, we suspected we made an error. He would not have been so easily manipulated by Kace if he was you Paramour. It was your denial of him that confirmed it. You should not have been able to fight your feelings for him. A bond should have formed quickly between the two of you. When it didn’t, we knew we had made a mistake.”

“Don’t put this on me. Reese is the one that betrayed me,” I shouted defensively.