Chapter 13
Snow swirled in the air as Kaitlin found Jake in the walled garden at the back of the house. She wanted to speak to him before they left for London. He had been with her that day when Sam had died. Okay, when she had killed Sam. Time to be brutally honest with herself.
He was alone, deep in thought, and she watched him for a moment.
He’d grown up here on the Rayleigh estate.
Sometimes she forgot that. Apart from her and Sam, all the Kindred had been fostered until the age of sixteen when they’d moved to the compound that had been her home all her life.
Martin Rayleigh had fostered Jake, though it had turned out that Martin was actually his genetic father—well, one of them.
When the government—in the form of the colonel—had first contacted Martin about the possibility of using the old tribe’s unique talents, Martin had told him that they were unsuitable.
Too passive. The colonel had met with them and agreed.
But that was the era when genetic engineering was just beginning, and they’d started a long-term project mixing DNA from humans with the tribe.
Jake had been the first success. Most of the Kindred had two parents, one from the original tribe and one from a normal human.
But Jake, like her, had three genetic parents, two tribe and one human.
Martin had provided the human DNA, though that had only come to light recently.
Growing up, they hadn’t known who their parents were.
She still didn’t. And to be honest, she had no desire to meet her genetic parents.
They were here somewhere—would have been in the meeting—but, as far as she was concerned, they had given up all rights to her when they had handed her and Sam over to a ruthless government and agreed to have no contact.
They were nothing to her.
The Kindred was her family.
Bitter and twisted? Her?
Hell, yes.
She took a step toward Jake, whispered in his mind and he glanced up and smiled.
“Hey,” she said as she stopped in front of him.
“Hey, yourself. I was just coming to find you.”
“To say goodbye?” He nodded. “It’s funny, isn’t it, but this might be the big one. The last goodbye. If everything goes to shit, then in days, or months, there’s a good chance we could all be dead.”
He studied her for a moment. “You’re in a cheerful mood.”
“I’m a little ray of sunshine.”
He grinned. “But seriously, once this thing in London is done, you should head over to Australia. There’s no reason to stay.”
“Maybe.” Actually, no way, but she didn’t want to get into that argument right now. “What about you and Christa?”
“She’s looking at shifting her lab over there. But there’s the time machine to consider.”
“Don’t you still feel like a complete dickhead talking about the time machine?”
“Total dickhead. But it’s real.”
“It’s also fucked and buggered.”
“There is that. Anyway, Christa still holds out hope that we can get it working, maybe even find out why it’s here.”
“My guess is a complete balls-up. It malfunctioned for some reason and landed way too early and in totally the wrong place.”
“That’s Christa’s view as well.”
“Great minds think alike.” She ran a hand through her hair then huddled into her coat. “Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you, before we leave.”
“About the files?”
She nodded. “Have you seen them?”
“Yes. And the files on the others who died or were experimented on. Including Josie.” For a moment, he was silent, pain reflected in his eyes. “I could kill the colonel myself.”
“Except he’s your father-in-law. You really should have thought about that, you know. Bad move.”
“Yeah. I’ll divorce Christa and we’ll kill him together.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She thought for a moment, trying to get her words right in her head. “I wanted to ask you—that night when we found Sam.” She blinked, then forced herself to go on. “Did I do the right thing? Could I have saved him? Should I have tried?”
He didn’t answer right away, and she liked that.
He wasn’t going to just feed her platitudes.
“Do you think I haven’t asked myself that?
So many times. But I always come up with the same answer.
We couldn’t have saved him. It was irreversible, and he didn’t want to exist the way he was.
You would have been going against his wishes.
Doing it for the wrong reasons. Not to save Sam, but to keep him for yourself. You had to let him go.”
She’d known that herself, but it was so hard to accept.
“Sadie said she’s seen him. In a dream or a vision or whatever it is she has.”
“I know. She told me. But we don’t know how Sadie’s visions work.”
“At least she gets the visions. And she can talk to animals. So can Kane. Rose can do the psi-bolts. When am I going to get a new superpower?”
“God forbid. But that reminds me. My mother told me something after the meeting. About you.”
“Really?”
“Apparently, you do have a super-power. You’re something called a Foci.”
“A Foci? And that means?”
“You can channel the powers of others of our kind. Combine them and intensify them. You’re very rare.”
“Cool. But how does it work?”
He shrugged. “I have no clue. And there wasn’t time to get any more details. But when this is over, we can find out.”
“Something to look forward to.” If they actually survived.
“Yeah, we all need that. But back to Sadie’s vision. Maybe she’s just seeing what might have been. Or perhaps another dimension that runs parallel to our own.”
“Where we all live happily ever after. How do I get there?” Except she didn’t believe in happy endings. “Perhaps I should steal the time machine and go back and save him.” She watched his face for a reaction. Horror perhaps. But he just shook his head.
“It would need to work for that to happen.”
“Yeah. And then Kane wouldn’t get to do his mission and the world would end, or maybe it wouldn’t.
This time travel thing seriously messes with your head.
” She blew out her breath. “On the good side, I didn’t kill the colonel, so I’m definitely getting better.
Maybe part of me doesn’t want to. Maybe I see it as letting Sam down. He wouldn’t want me to kill anyone.”
“He was a good person.”
“The best of us.”
She sniffed. Jake opened his arms, and she stepped close.
He tightened his hold, and she laid her head on his chest as he stroked her back.
Other than Sam, Jake had been the first person ever to hug her.
He’d been father, brother, friend. Now the familiar scent of him filled her nostrils and a small sense of peace settled on her.
He went still, and she pulled away a little and peered into his face. “Your boyfriend is here,” he said.
“Hah.” She punched him on the arm but looked over his shoulder. Kane was heading their way and a tingle of something she didn’t recognize—or maybe didn’t want to recognize—shivered through her. She pulled out of Jake’s arms, stepped away, and watched as Kane strode toward them across the lawn.
He stopped in front of her and, looking into his face, she knew that something had happened.
His dark blue eyes glowed with excitement and a smile tugged at his lips.
He looked...happy. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him happy before.
He was even more of a miserable bastard than she was. With far less reason.
Maybe he’d found out what his mission was, and he was going to save the world, instead of destroying it, after all. She knew he’d been thinking about it a lot.
“What’s happened?” Jake asked.
“Leila called. The time machine is working.”
What the hell did that mean?
“How is it working?” she asked.
“Lights flashing. And a door has appeared.”
“Well, a door always helps,” she muttered.
But her own excitement was rising. A real honest-to-God time machine.
It opened a whole world of possibilities.
But she was getting ahead of herself. Just because there was a door, that didn’t mean they could actually use the thing. “Has Leila been inside?”
“No.”
Of course not. Kaitlin had met Leila on her one trip to Uganda.
The woman was seriously freaky. Even more mission-mad than Kane, if that was possible.
The time machine was like something sacred to her.
It wouldn’t surprise Kaitlin if the woman actually prayed to it.
The big silver god. No way would Leila lay a hand on it, never mind go inside. That would be like total desecration.
“We need to get back,” Kane said. “See what’s happening.”
“What about the London trip?” she asked.
“We’ll have to delay it.”
She looked at him. He was back to “it’s-all-about-the-mission” mode.
Well, not her. He might think his precious mission was the most important thing in the universe.
And maybe he had to. Maybe that was the only way he lived with himself and justified the things he had done, the people he had killed.
But the destruction of 95 percent of the planet’s population came a little higher on her list.
She wasn’t being selfish; this was their chance to uncover some concrete information, and she wasn’t giving it up. What difference would it make anyway, if he was there or not?
Though something twisted inside her at the thought.
She ignored the sensation. She didn’t need him. He’d let her down before. Why should she be surprised he was doing it again? And for the same reason. His stupid fucking mission.
“No, we won’t delay it,” she said.
He must have seen something in her face. He took a step toward her. “Kaitlin?”
“You go to Uganda and do whatever it is you have to do. I’m going to London.” She glanced over at Jake, and he gave a small nod.
“I’ll go sort out the transport. Christa will want to get back as soon as possible.” Jake stepped toward her and kissed her on the forehead. “Stay safe,” he said. “Don’t take any risks.”
“I won’t.”
“And come home afterward.”
Home? She knew he meant Uganda. Or rather, wherever the rest of them were. Australia maybe. “I will.”
She watched as he walked away, then she hardened her heart and turned to face Kane. “I know what this means to you,” she said. “And I’m not being difficult. I believe we have an opportunity here, but who knows how long it will last, whether they’ll stay around.”
“They might already be gone and you’re wasting your time.”
“Maybe, but I’ve got to try. Just as you have to.”
He shook his head. “Why do you have to make everything so hard?”
She thought about taking a look in his head, but she was guessing that wouldn’t change anything. She knew how he felt. She’d always known. “Just the way I am, I guess.” And she turned and walked away.
She’d find the guys from the future, and maybe she’d discover that the cataclysm had nothing to do with the Kindred. Nothing to do with Kane’s mission. Then she could go to Uganda, steal his goddamn time machine, and save Sam.