The Fugitive Legacy Read online

  With that done, she hauled the kid up, dug in her leather jacket, and retrieved a small explosive charge. She set the timer for five seconds and slapped it over the covered window. Quickly, she took him out of the room, stood to the side, and held his face away. The explosion almost made her ears bleed.

  The room was full of dust, but the morning light shone into the room. Lexi raced to the hole in the wall, turned her face into it, and forced her eyes open to the daylight. She clamped her jaw to stop herself from screaming. The fire-like pain tore into her brain and the light was almost too much to bear.

  Finally, she heard her family moving through the building. She held her eyes in the light until the others were close. Before they reached the doorway, though, she held the sobbing boy to the light and examined his eyes. She knew they were watching her.

  For a brief moment, she wondered if she should come clean. It was probably the right thing to do but she didn’t feel like she was a danger to anyone and didn’t think they’d understand.

  Braxton narrowed his eyes at the hole in the wall. “What was the point of that? You should have brought him down.”

  Lexi passed the child to Maggie. “I think he’s okay. I’m sure his parents will be relieved to get him back.” She waited until the girl had headed down before she turned to Braxton. “I thought I might have to…you know. I didn’t want to do it in front of Maggie.”

  She waved her hand in front of her face like the dust was bothering her. For added effect, she coughed and looked at Braxton and Isaac. “Are you going to check me so I can get out of here?”

  Braxton sighed. “You look okay. Head out.”

  Relieved, she walked along the hallway. When she reached the top of the stairs, she heard Braxton say her name. Her brain, sped up with the vamp blood, told her it was too quiet for her to have heard. He was testing her. She didn’t even break her stride. Several steps down, she heard him exhale with relief.

  Isaac sighed. “Thank God.”

  Lexi looked out of the window of their SUV into the bright daylight. They mustn’t see my eyes. She reached for her ring but stopped herself when she remembered it was a nervous tell.

  The car rolled into the garage and she decided the safest bet was to get into her bedroom as fast as possible. She had taken only two steps toward the door when Braxton called, “Lexi, it’s your turn to clear the car.”

  The others headed in and she raced through the trunk and the back of the car, clearing weapons and storing them in the lockable cupboards in the garage.

  She moved into the front of the vehicle and her gaze froze on Braxton’s handheld UV light. Instinctively, she glanced at the house door. All clear. She snatched the little device before she crouched on the far side of the vehicle with her back against the door.

  Lexi took two breaths and flicked the switch. Her hand flew into her mouth and she bit down. It was like having her eyes burned by the sun. Tears ran down her face as she forced herself to stare into the purple light. After a minute, she heard the house door open and switched off the UV device before she shoved it into her pocket.

  “Lexi?” It was Maggie.

  She wiped her eyes. “I’m here. I lost a shuriken under the car.” She stood and blew on it as though it was dusty.

  The other girl shook her head. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  As calmly as she could, she locked the car and joined Maggie at the door. She started to fake a yawn, but it turned into a real one. “You can eat? I’m going to bed.”

  Her Kindred sister deepened her voice like Braxton. “Not until you’ve completed your report, young lady.”

  Lexi headed to her bedroom. She put music on, pulled her laptop out, and began to write her report. She printed off the one from earlier in the day and one for the rescued kid, leaned back, and smiled. There was a considerable amount of killing in her job but very little rescuing of toddlers. She felt good and knew she wouldn’t need to be counseled. Her kill was justified.

  Every few minutes, she pulled the UV light out and stared into it. It was uncomfortable but bearable.

  Maybe the blood’s effect is wearing off.

  She pulled the sheets from the printer and found a pen to sign them with. It crushed in her hand.

  Okay, maybe it’s not quite worn off yet.

  It was a bitter-sweet feeling. As a legacy, this was how strong she was supposed to be—like Isaac and Braxton. She climbed into bed and went to sleep.

  A knock woke her. “Lexi, lunch is ready. It’s pizza and the counselor’s on his way.”

  Lexi’s eyes flew open and shut immediately. “Okay.”

  She breathed slowly. The pain made her dizzy and she wanted to vomit.

  Keeping her eyes screwed shut, she stumbled out of bed, opened her drapes, and sat facing the window on the side of her bed. Over the space of a few minutes, she opened her eyes gradually to the daylight. No wonder vamps don’t come out in the day.

  As she sat there, she wondered why the counselor was coming. Counselor was the name they gave to a mage who removed difficult memories from Kindreds. Neither of the jobs they’d been on had been traumatic, so they couldn’t be coming for that. Her fear was in the other part of their role. They could also perform extractions, which was the name they gave to looking at someone’s memories. If she was given an extraction, they’d know she’d been tainted. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Braxton the day before when she asked what happened when people were contaminated. You don’t want to know.

  After a deep breath, she wiped tears from her cheeks, picked her reports up, and made her way to the open-plan living space. Two folders rested on the breakfast bar. She checked the labels and added the correct report to each folder. That done, she wandered to the dining table and snagged a garlic-dough ball from the middle of the table before she sat.

  Isaac frowned at her. “You look rough.”

  Lexi almost choked on the bread. “I only managed an hour of sleep. It took a while to wind down. I was amped up from saving that kid. Who else feels awesome about that?”

  Maggie grinned as she passed the mac and cheese to her. “We were talking about that. It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?”

  “Almost as good as watching Dimitri trying to brush the dust off his entrails before he scooped them in.”

  Braxton shook his head. “Not at the table, Isaac.”

  “Sorry.”

  She ventured her question. “Why is the counselor coming? Yesterday went well.”

  He took a slice of pizza from the box. “He wants to talk to you all about the Dimitri job—probably because it involved kids.”

  “Yeah, the one who didn’t make it. That’s bad.” Maggie sighed.

  Lexi almost sighed with relief. If the counselor was here for anyone, it would be Maggie.

  She was glad she’d mentioned the lack of sleep. It made a good excuse for her eyes and distractedness. Unfortunately, she had to put a fair amount of effort into not inadvertently revealing her extra strength and speed. She wondered when it would wear off.

  The doorbell sounded as they cleared lunch. A man in his fifties entered the house and Braxton took him into his office. She didn’t expect to get called in. Aside from the fact that her family didn’t seem concerned, she had never been counseled in her life.

  As she sat in her room and waited, she looked at the walls. She’d been in this room for as long as she could remember. Other people her age had gone to college, moved out, gotten married, and started a family by now. There she was, about to turn thirty and still living at home. She expected Isaac and Maggie would start their own unit soon.

  She heard them call Isaac first, then Maggie. Finally, a knock at the door made her jump.

  Braxton shouted, “Lexi, can you come into my office?”

  Lexi tried to calm her heart as she entered the room.

  The man narrowed his eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m tired and a little nervous. I’ve never been counseled in m
y life.”

  He picked a pen up. “Well, we’ll merely chat about the job. Tell me how you feel about yesterday.”

  He asked her questions and she answered them for about ten minutes, while he flicked through her reports. Finally, he stood from his chair and poured a glass of water. He walked to her and put it in front of her. “Here you go.” He put his hand on her head.

  She felt a temperature change but couldn’t say if it was hot or cold.

  “The vamp from your first case yesterday…you left there straight after he was arrested. You saw a vehicle pull up…”

  The memory of the grandfather arriving was clear.

  “That was a van. Two men in uniform went in to take the vamp to The Hollows. You neither saw nor heard anything to the contrary. You will forget seeing the grandfather of Texas Kindred. You don’t know what he looks like.”

  Lexi most certainly did remember him. She wondered if he thought he was counseling her and was maybe off his game. Should she say something?

  He continued, “You saved the child from the vampire this morning, but you don’t remember what the boy looked like. Finally, you won’t remember being counseled. You’ve never been counseled in your life.”

  Later, she lay in her room, considered what the mage had said, and wondered about the things she’d been told to forget.

  She went to find Isaac. “How did it go. Did he have to counsel you?”

  He guffawed. “I’ve never been counseled in my life.”

  Lexi turned in early.

  The woman was pulling her away from Bryan.

  Panicked, she tried to twist out of the woman’s hands but her hold was like a vice. “What are you doing to him? Leave him alone. Bryan? Bryan!”

  She heard the dull thud of a silenced shot.

  Lexi bounded out of bed, looking for something to fight. She stood panting in her room.

  They shot Bryan.

  As the memories assaulted her, she began to lose balance and had to sit on the bed again. Overwhelmed, she pulled the covers up and sobbed as she turned her ring continuously on her finger. She looked at it and remembered Bryan giving it to her. The memories of her beloved Kindred brother returned to her. They had been as close as Maggie and Isaac were now.

  She recalled that he’d been bitten by a shifter and had begun to remember things that had previously been wiped away by Kindred counselors. They had killed him for it.

  What the hell is Kindred?

  Disturbed by the memories, she left her room and crept along the hallway to the one at the end of the hallway—Bryan’s room. She opened the door and looked into what was now the guest room. Everything was clean and tidy, but she could see it as it had been, with Bryan’s Xbox, his posters and books, and his clothes piled everywhere. She returned to her room and cried again.

  The next morning greeted her eyes with more searing pain, but it was nothing to the fresh loss she experienced from the death of her brother she hadn’t known to grieve when they were only fifteen.

  Lexi went through the motions. She sat alone in the garage with a whetstone, sharpened her katana, and wondered how she would manage to hide this awful loss.

  By eleven am, she’d sharpened every blade in the house. Braxton stepped out into the garage. “Can you come to my office?”

  She kept her back to him and pretended as though she was examining a blade. “I’ll put these away. Be there in two minutes.”

  When she entered, she realized the counselor was back. She smiled at him a little vaguely. Am I supposed to remember he was here yesterday?

  “Lexi, hi. Take a seat. Let me get you a drink of water.” Once again, he put the water in front of her and put his hand on her head. “I want to remind you how much you love your family. You are devoted to them and to Kindred. You love your father and you are loyal to him, a fellow Kindred legacy. Your sister, Maggie, your family mage. Your brother Isaac, her blood match, and your legacy brother, and your little brother Bobby, who has great mage potential that must be protected at all costs. They are your Kindred blood family. You love them all, especially your little brother Bobby.”

  When she thought about her little brother Bobby, she knew she loved him with all her heart. The name rooted itself in her mind.

  “When I’ve left,” the counselor added, “you won’t remember I was here today.”

  She returned to her room, confused and hurt, but told herself that everything would be better when Bobby got home.

  Half an hour later, Maggie called. “Lexi, it’s your turn to help with dinner and Bobby’s home.”

  Yes, Bobby! She knew that all she had to do was see her little brother and everything would be okay. Quickly, she left her room and walked quickly through the house. Bobby watched Maggie hang his coat on a hook.

  Lexi smiled.

  Maggie turned. “Lexi, look—our little man’s home.”

  Bobby’s face lit up. “Lexiiiiii.” He ran to her.

  Everything began to crumble. She hugged him and knew she loved him so much, but also knew in that moment that she’d have to leave. She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that the boy they’d convinced her belonged with them was the same one she’d rescued had never been returned to his parents. All that ran through her mind was that she didn’t have a brother called Bobby.

  Two: After Kindred

  Lexi shouldered the door open and pushed out the drunk who was at least a foot taller and probably three times wider than her. She released his arm—which she’d twisted behind his back—and put a boot to his ass to move him away from the door.

  “No means no, you prick. Go ask your mother where you went wrong with how you treat women.” She slammed the door.

  As she turned toward the bar, the drunk began to pound loudly on the door.

  Jeanette, one of the servers, approached her with a denim jacket. “Kyle left this.” She looked at the sturdy door as it shuddered. “Did you lock it?”

  “No.” She took the jacket. “He’s pushing instead of pulling.”

  The other woman barked a laugh but her face became serious. “Be careful.”

  She pushed the door open and the drunk’s huge fist came through the gap. Lexi had expected it. She grasped the wrist and yanked hard to use Kyle’s momentum against him. His forehead thunked into the door and he sagged, and she threw his jacket on top of him. When she raised her hand again, she noticed the shielding chain she always wore around her wrist was missing. Her heart skipped a beat and her gaze darted about the floor until she saw it glint a few paces away. She pulled the door closed again and retrieved it. The clasp was broken.

  Is the shielding spell broken? Can I be tracked?

  In the three months since she’d left Kindred, she had worked the door at various bars as she traveled around, always in smaller towns that were unlikely to garner much attention from a Kindred Unit. This one in Peoria, Illinois, was no different, except that it was a shifter bar. She assumed their money was as good as anyone else’s. A few dollars for a night’s work usually gave her enough money to get by.

  Lexi tied the chain into a knot, but she felt suddenly exposed. This wasn’t a good time to work in a shifter bar. She stepped into the owner’s office.

  While she had barely any legacy abilities, if she was unshielded, there was enough to be scented by a shifter. Mike leapt to his feet and looked behind her in the doorway for a couple of seconds before he leveled his gaze on her.

  “I need a witch,” she blurted without preamble.

  He stared at her and his eyes flickered to amber. “You’re Kindred.”

  She sighed. “I was but I’m not now. Unfortunately, my charm’s broken and I think they’ll be able to find me. I don’t want to bring them down on you. If you could recommend a witch who can fix this with a shielding spell, I’ll go now. You don’t even have to pay me for tonight.”

  The man stared at her for a moment before he snatched the keys from the little dish on his desk. “Get your jacket.”

  “I left my
bag—”

  “Leave it for now. I don’t want you to walk through the bar smelling like that.”

  They drove north out of town. Lexi looked for possible dangers and went through various fight scenarios in her mind, mainly because it calmed her. When they reached the country roads, it occurred to her that he might be driving her into the middle of nowhere to kill her. She glanced at him.

  He glanced at her. “Oh, please! If I intended to kill you, I’d have done it in my office.”

  Lexi raised an eyebrow. “What, you read minds too?”

  “No, your heart rate increased and your face has fight or flight written all over it.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “If we’re being honest, I’ve known you a week and I can see what a neat freak you are. There’s no way you’d have ripped me to pieces in your office.”

  Although he kept his eyes on the road, he smiled.

  The car slowed and Mike turned into a private road. They approached a single-story home with a porch running along the two sides of the house that she could see.

  “Is this where the witch lives?”

  “No, it’s my kill room.” He parked the car and looked at her as he wiggled his eyebrows.

  Lexi rolled her eyes and climbed out of the vehicle.

  He looked at her over the hood. “And he goes by the name of Louis.”

  A tall, gray-haired African American man stood slowly. He’d been seated in the dark but she had noticed him from halfway up the drive. In silence, he appraised her, then nodded to her companion. “Bring her in.”

  They sat at a large kitchen table. The man picked up a coffeepot that rested on the stove and poured coffee into the three waiting cups. She was more of a latte girl but she was up for the challenge. Still, she waited for the other two to drink theirs before she touched hers.