Chapter 1
Skye
Thunder boomed outside, and the heavy pattering of rain quickly followed. It was so heavy, we could hear it even down in the basement.
I stared at the wall, keeping my breathing as even as possible. Zephyr was chattering away on the other side of the room while Levi fed.
My brother had over a decade worth of bullshit to explain to Levi. He was currently showing him a smartphone, explaining how apps worked. Levi knew of the novelty apps from years ago, but now he was getting a crash course on all the useful things modern apps could do.
I, meanwhile, was fighting nausea.
Guilt nudged at my stomach.
I didn’t want to be here.
Aiden, my one connected Link, was upstairs.
I could feel his presence above me as if it were a tangible pressure pushing down on me.
I slipped into his mind every five minutes, monitoring his dreamless sleep, checking his pulse.
He wouldn’t object, but I made a mental note to tell him about it when he woke.
His mother had tried to kill him not twelve hours ago, and then we’d both been in a battle at the academy.
Aiden had killed some attackers.
I’d killed some attackers.
I’d killed…Landon.
I stared hard at my hand, imagining my affinity looking back at me. I liked to imagine my affinity was some type of animal. Some days, it was a cat, doing whatever it wanted while ignoring me. Other days, it was like an excitable puppy, looking for a bone to chew, or…people to squeeze.
I winced, then flexed my fingers.
My affinity had taken on a static-type quality since the battle at the academy. I’d touched metal several times in the last several hours trying to rid myself of the sensation, but it seemed like it was here to stay.
The static made me think of Aiden.
I checked him over again.
Heartbeat was even. Breathing was even. He wasn’t dreaming, but was in deep sleep.
Aiden was safe, that was all that mattered.
That was all that should have mattered, but my chest squeezed as I thought of my other two Links, the ones I’d left behind.
Wyatt. The asshole counselor.
Rafe. The fucking Prince.
My Chain was shaping up to be a fucking mess, and I had no idea how to fix it. No wonder my mother used to let Levi be a dick, it was probably easier than trying to control him, especially when she was having a bad day.
“Skyes?”
I turned, looking through my brother as he tried to get my attention.
“What?”
Zephyr rolled his eyes.
“I was just showing him that one music app you like.”
I hummed in response.
Levi chuckled, and I glanced over to see he was looking at me with something dangerously close to pity.
“Good to see that hasn’t changed,” Levi chuckled again. “She still thinks we’re boring.”
Zephyr looked at him with a frown, but I turned my head away, not wanting to see his expression.
“Baby girl still has her head in the clouds,” Levi went on with a sigh. “Iris wouldn’t be surprised.”
I gritted my teeth.
He’d mentioned my mother three times now, and not once did he seem as upset as I expected him to be.
Sure, he’d gathered that mom and Ben had died in the massacre, but he’d yet to ask what became of them. Where they were. Pictures of the graves.
I sighed as quietly as possible.
Of course there was a chance he’d asked Zephyr all those things. Of course it was more likely that he knew they were gone and didn’t want to think about it. They were members of his Chain. Losing them would be painful.
Although, from what I’d been reading recently…losing every member of his Chain should’ve killed him.
And yet…here he was.
Fine, for better or worse.
“That control improved yet?” Levi asked. “I’m assuming you wouldn’t have come down here just to tell me you killed a bunch of people.”
“Dad,” Zephyr said, frowning.
A flare of annoyance went through me.
“Actually, I did kill a bunch of people. There was an attack on the academy yesterday.”
Levi hadn’t even bothered to ask why I was covered in blood when I’d arrived earlier. He’d asked where I’d been, then moved on to speaking out loud with Zephyr, who hadn’t realized he’d healed Levi’s ability to speak.
That, and Levi wasn’t completely paralyzed anymore. He was able to move from the waist up, now. We were going ahead with regular feedings via his feeding tube until we did more research on how to get him back to real food.
Levi’s eyebrows rose ever-so-slightly. “An attack?”
I nodded curtly. “Pilgrims. The same ones who–”
“Mm. Of course.” Levi dismissed me with a sigh, looking back to Zephyr. “There a news application on that thing?” He gestured toward the smartphone.
Zephyr looked a little shocked, then gave me an apologetic glance before he showed Levi the news application.
I looked away, blinking to clear my vision.
Something was wrong, here. I just didn’t know what.
I was unsettled. My brain still hadn’t accepted that Landon was dead. I’d gone to text him more than once, only to remember what’d happened right before I sent the message.
I stared down at my phone, wondering when the fuck Rafe had added his number. He must have done it at some point when he stalked me, and since I’d never had a reason to go through my contact list, I’d never noticed.
Wyatt’s number was there, too.
I opened up a group chat with the two of them, then paused.
What the hell would I even say?
Hey, sorry for teleporting and leaving y’all high and dry?
Hey, sorry I picked Aiden and not you?
Hey. What’s up?
I shook my head internally, pocketing my phone. The battery was about to die, anyway.
Willow and Mia were alive and well. Willow had tried to call me several times and then sent a slew of messages with live updates of the aftermath.
Levi laughed loudly at something Zephyr said, and I winced slightly. Zephyr gave me another apologetic look, but I dropped my gaze again.
Another form of guilt was nudging at me.
When Levi was hurt, my entire world was flipped upside down.
I’d gone from a little girl to an adult overnight.
Zephyr couldn’t heal him, and my telekinesis could only do so much to help…
which was next to nothing. I’d only been able to get us to safety and I’d been able to perform CPR, and that was about it.
It’d taken us a few months of using Levi’s credit card before we were able to get all the equipment we needed just to keep him alive.
I’d missed him so badly. I’d cried myself to sleep every night for over a year. So many of my nights were spent in Zephyr’s bed, the two of us unable to be apart in the dark. We didn’t have our own rooms for years, choosing to sleep on the couches together. Being alone in a bedroom was too scary.
That’d changed once Zephyr bought the café and attached apartment. It’d taken him months to find the right place, something with a basement where we could keep Levi. The massacre trial wrapped up too quickly, the King wanting to get it out of the papers so the people wouldn’t revolt.
It was a lifetime ago for me, and yet…Levi just began speaking again like nothing had changed.
I’d missed him so much. I’d missed him every night. Every day after school. Every holiday, every birthday. And yet…
Now that I could speak to him again…I was missing when he was silent.
Had Levi always been this critical toward me?
Rifling through memories from over a decade ago wasn’t easy.
My view of things in the past was warped by my child mind.
Everything I remembered about Levi was through the lens of a little girl who’s dad was her hero.
Little Skye didn’t see Levi as critical.
I saw myself as impulsive. I didn’t think things through. I made mistakes frequently. My affinities were dangerous, and they needed to be treated as such. I needed to master my control so I couldn’t unintentionally hurt anyone.
In my memory, Levi was stern. He got after me plenty, especially where my affinities were concerned. I hadn’t considered him to be overly critical, but as an adult looking back…
And now that he was talking again, he’d scarcely said anything positive to me. Even when Zephyr had explained how I’d done all the research at the academy, copying down the books by hand so I could send them to Zephyr, Levi had only smiled indulgently, like I was a kid showing him my favorite toy.
I felt icky.
But I felt even ickier for thinking Levi was being rude. He’d spent years in this bed, never seeing beyond this room. He’d grown tired of me before, whenever he got into his moods and shut down.
I couldn’t blame him, either. I’d been a wreck after mom and Ben died. I wouldn’t have wanted to be around me then, either.
He’d spent years trying to teach me the importance of paying attention to my affinity, and yet, when the moment came…I ignored it.
I’d ignored the prickle of awareness that day. I’d ignored the feeling in my gut that something was wrong. I’d been an anxious child –no surprise there– and my parents had been trying to teach me to keep my cool.
So I had. I’d kept my cool.
And then my mom and Ben died, and so did a lot of other people, and I was left mostly unharmed.
I could have saved a lot of people. Or at the very least, my parents.
I didn’t blame Levi for being disappointed in me. I was in disappointed in me.
But it was still stifling.
I hadn’t been offered a lot of grace growing up, but as an adult, I was beginning to think I’d deserved even a little. Especially from my parents.
“Her head isn’t in the clouds, it’s on her Link.” Zephyr said carefully. “His mom did try to kill him several hours ago.”
Levi breathed out slowly. “Hell of a start to a family Chain you got there, baby girl.”
As if I had any control over that.
As if my hidden, paraplegic father wasn’t also a hell of a start to a family Chain for my Links.
I clenched my jaw, squeezing my hands so that my nails cut into my palms, because that thought was shitty. I bit back my equally shitty retort, and it took a lot out of me. Zephyr and I had grown up to be sarcastic and snappy. Keeping it in check wasn’t easy.
I kept my gaze down, burning a hole in the floor. Something told me if I saw a condescending grin on Levi’s face, I’d snap. Understanding of his feelings as I was, I still didn’t like it. Even my affinity seemed to get annoyed, which was new. I hadn’t noticed that before.
“She can’t control that,” Zephyr laughed. “Don’t you wanna hear how she saved the day?”
Levi was quiet for a second, then nodded. “Sure. Tell me.”
Zephyr looked to me, his eyes pleading, seemingly because he could feel the tension in the room.
Zephyr had missed Levi just as much as me, of course, but he was a man.
Men needed their fathers differently than women.
Zephyr had missed out on years’ worth of guidance.
He desperately wanted things to go back to normal, but I was starting to think the tension wasn’t entirely my fault.
“She injected him with drugs, he was having an overdose. I was able to find it and remove it before it killed him.” I said quietly.
Levi’s eyebrows rose slowly. And then he shook his head. “Why would she do that?”
“Because she’s a cunt?” Zephyr supplied, “Why else?”
“She finds him disappointing,” I explained quietly. “Until the attack on the academy, he’d only had one affinity.”
“How did he get into the academy then?” Levi asked, his tone suggesting he didn’t believe a word of anything I’d just said.
“His family Chain has money. Lots of it.”
“Hm. Unlike us, I guess.” Levi said, glancing down at his blanket.
Zephyr tilted his head. “What does that mean? We have plenty of money.”
And so did Levi. I’d never met any of my grandparents, but we knew Levi had come from money. He’s the one who’d bought our parents first house. Why was he acting like we were broke now?
“Well, you do now. I’m sure that life insurance came in handy.” Levi sighed. “I could’ve done a lot with it.”
Zephyr and I went silent.
What.
The fuck?
Zephyr looked at me, his expression torn between concern for my reaction, and a plea for me to keep my cool.
I need to go, I said to Zephyr.
“I think Aiden’s awake,” Zephyr said immediately, acting as if we hadn’t spoken. “How about I go get him while you get your room ready?”
I nodded as I stood, ignoring Levi’s scoff.
I opted to take the stairs instead of teleporting away, figuring Levi would have some opinion about that, too.
Levi didn’t even say goodbye. Zephyr’s heavy footsteps behind mine were the only sound as we made our way up the stairs to the main floor.