14. Raegan
Chapter fourteen
Raegan
Boats tap together on either side of the pier as the gentle pulse of the ocean beats against them. The sound should be soothing, but it’s too ingrained in my childhood memories to make me feel at ease as it should. Even the smell of salt in the air is a reminder. It makes me wonder how Aiden and the others can bear to live here with the ocean so close to them.
Unless I’m the only one of us still haunted by the past.
It’s those memories that brought me here tonight. After a poor attempt at going to bed early for a change, I was plagued by nightmares.
I woke up desperate to see the ocean and prove to myself that I’d escaped. I can come and go from anywhere as I please now.
I draw the whiskey I picked up on the way to my lips to take another drink. My legs dangle over the edge of the pier, and my feet move back and forth through the water.
The sea looks so peaceful tonight under the waning glow of the moon. The waves are big and soft, pitch black, so I can’t see anything but the moon’s reflection. I close my eyes and lean my head back as my mind drifts off to pick right back up in my memories where my nightmare left off.
The smell of smoke and burning bodies permeates the air. My chest heaves in a desperate grasp for air, even as the taste makes my stomach clench and protest.
Everything hurts.
Another piece of concrete crashes to the ground nearby. Where there was once ceiling above me, there’s blue sky.
What have I done?
I force myself to a sitting position. An involuntary sob slips out at the pain of doing so, and then again when I see the blood on and between my thighs beneath my skirt. W-where is he?
The room, no, the manor, has been destroyed. Piles of concrete and debris fill the room and area around me where a wing of the building no longer stands. There’s a thick coating of dust on my skin from the wreckage, but I’m somehow unscathed from the collapsing building.
There’s no sign of Gordon.
There’s no way he escaped . He’s been crushed.
Tears slip down my cheeks at the slow realization of what he’s done.
At what he’s taken from me.
I’d thought I had hit rock bottom when he forced me to pleasure him. But this…
A sharp scream grabs my attention, and I swing my head around to the rest of the manor.
The guys!
I shove off of the bed, falling to the ground when my legs don’t hold me as I’d hoped. They wobble and shake from both pain and fear, but I can’t just stay here. I have to find the others and make sure I didn’t hurt them too.
I don’t know how, but I’m sure that I did this.
My gift did.
As I push myself upright, part of Gordon’s lab coat that’s stuck in the rocks catches my attention.
Relief overwhelms me and threatens to take control, but I force it down. Not right now. I’ll break down later over everything.
I steady myself back on my feet, gritting my teeth to hold on to the strength to find my way to them before I pass out. I take a few tentative steps first and then push until I’m hurrying down another wing of the manor that’s still falling apart. I jog down a ravaged hallway where cracks are spread like vines through the walls. This side of the mansion isn’t in as rough shape. There’s nothing left of the building on the other end. It’s a mausoleum now.
Even so, the fire that started there is spreading to this side, filling it up with smoke and burning anything in its wake.
There’s a loud crack , and I bolt forward into a run just as the ceiling comes crashing down behind me. I keep going through other rooms and corridors until I find the stairs, taking them two at a time while my body screams from pain and exhaustion. The adrenaline helps mute the pain and keeps me going. I’ll be done for once I stop moving.
I slam into the closed door of the room I want, not wasting any time.
“We have to go—” I take in the empty room.
Were they on the other side of the mansion? Are they hurt? Or were they taken away already?
Where are they?!
Movement out the window catches my eye, and I jerk toward it, my chest heaving with exertion now that I’ve stopped moving for a second.
I see Kellan first, running around on a boat at the docks like he’s getting it ready. Dane is helping untether the ropes, while Jackson and Aiden are talking with each other.
I breathe a deep sigh of relief.
They’re all safe.
My chest aches as they all work together to escape the island. Without me. Of course, they would. It’s been a year since Vera died and we’ve even seen each other. Would they let me go with them if they knew what Gordon put me through?
I push away from the window.
They wouldn’t. I’m still responsible for Vera’s death.
I can’t go with them, but I can do what they’re doing. I can escape the island. Just because Gordon is gone doesn’t mean someone else won’t try to use me. Or perhaps they’d just kill me this time, since I was only worth the trouble to Gordon.
I make my way down the stairs and outside toward another pier, determined to get on a boat while I still can.
“Stop!”
I stumble upon hearing Aiden’s voice. He’s standing a few paces away.
His brown eyes take me in, and for a heartbeat, he looks worried about me. I know I’m covered in blood and dirt, my clothes are torn, and I’m honestly not sure how I’m still standing and moving. Maybe he’ll realize I’ve been through hell and let me come with them. Maybe, deep down, they still care about me too.
Then his gaze hardens, and his face flattens to something cold and angry.
“I can’t let you leave this island.”
“What?”
He moves forward, and I step back, but he keeps going until he’s grabbed me by the shoulders. I’m careful to keep my hands at my sides, but my entire body tenses while my mind is still catching up with what he’s saying.
“I can’t trust you. And you’re too dangerous to be on their side. I’m sorry, but we’ve agreed this is the only way.”
“Aiden, what—”
Something hard slams into the side of my head, and everything goes black.
Wood creaks behind me, and I spin around to catch five guys dressed in black and with guns trying to creep down the pier.
Fuck.
They’ve found me again.
It’s faster than the last time, even though I haven’t used my gift on anyone. How do they keep finding me?
They break into a run now that I’ve seen them, and I take one last drink before chucking the heavy liquor bottle at them to slow them down. Then I slide off the edge and into the water.
I swim underwater below the pier a good distance before resurfacing .
“Nothing over here,” one of them calls out.
“Negative,” adds another.
“Well, fucking find her then,” a third voice snaps.
It’s at times like these that I wish I had a non-tangible gift.
I hope Jackson knows how lucky he is that he can fight from a distance.
And Aiden owes me a fucking gun.
Heavy boots move up and down the pier as they search the ocean. I move quietly through the water under the pier, careful not to make too much noise to give me away. All it will take is one of them to smarten up and look underneath, and I’ll be trapped.
My feet skim the sandy beach when I draw closer to the start of the pier, but I curl my legs up and keep swimming until I can stand with the water at my waist. Then I wrap my hands around one of the large posts and call on my gift.
There’s a fire in my gut when I call on so much at once, building it up and stoking it until I release it into my hands all at once. My hands glow and burn . The post cracks once, loud and clear for everyone to hear.
There’s a split second of silence.
“Get off the pier!” the one still on the beach commands, but it’s too late.
My gift thrusts out of me and into the post, spreading up and across the planks like wildfire. The thick wood disintegrates before they can take two steps and then they fall into the water.
I run at the one guy not in the water, fisting my hands at my sides and keeping my gift active and at the ready for him. My weapons are useless until I turn this off, and I’m not willing to lose the advantage I have now that I’m warmed up.
He curses and widens his stance while angling to face me. His body blurs for a moment and then there are five of him.
Shit. Not just a regular goon.
A gifted goon.
I keep running at the one who’d been standing there first. He can multiply all he wants, but as long as I keep my eyes on the first one, the others don’t matter.
Or so I thought.
Two leap and tackle me to the ground, breaking my line of sight. Sand scrapes against my cheek. I reach back for anything I can touch, and I grasp whatever I feel behind me.
He screams when I make contact. He tries to pull away, but I latch on to make sure I finish it.
Something sharp sticks into my back, and I buck and push onto my hands and knees, then spin around while reaching back to the syringe sticking out of my shoulder to yank it out. It doesn’t fall apart in my hand right away like I expect, and I check in with my gift. The stab broke my concentration on it, but I hadn’t even noticed with how my hands are throbbing with pain.
One of his clones is dead on the ground. His skin is split, and there’s blood leaking from his eyes, mouth, and ears.
By now, I can hear the others splashing out of the water to join us.
The clone who’d stuck me grabs me by the throat and shoves me back onto the ground. “That fucking hurt, you stupid bitch.”
I slide the thin blades from my thigh holster while he’s busy spitting crap at me for losing a fucking copy of himself. I grip them all in my hand at once and then slash them across his throat as hard as I can. Blood spurts and then sprays over me as he chokes, wide-eyed.
I shove him to the side and scramble to my feet just as something latches around my wrist. I swipe my blades across it without thinking. I don’t care who or what it is. Anything or anyone who touches me is an enemy.
Turns out it came out of one of the other goons who’d been in the water. He sends another rope-like appendage after me, and I’m able to dodge it.
Then it curves.
For fuck’s sake.
Time to start throwing knives.
I aim and pitch the first one at the guy with the weird, growing limb. It embeds into his chest, and he staggers back just as his appendage wraps around my thigh. It drops to the ground, and I heave a second knife at another guy.
This one only hits his shoulder, and aside from roaring in pain or anger, he doesn’t seem fazed by it.
I’m down to one more throwing knife and my dagger in my boot.
Against five more guys.
Someone grabs me from behind, and I cry out when my arms are yanked painfully behind me. Another jab from a needle bruises my neck.
Nope.
I’m done.
I don’t care how much my hands hurt; my body hurts. I don’t care that it feels like I’m burning myself alive inside my skin right now.
I draw every ounce of my gift up under my skin until I’m a goddamn lightning bug and listen to the screams of the man who’d been holding me. The syringe in my neck crumbles to the sand. The knife in my hand is gone too, but it’s a loss I’ll take over the possibility of being knocked out by whatever is in these syringes.
I leap at the next guy, wrapping my body around him.
His screams of terror pierce my ears, and he punches and claws at me, drawing blood from my arms, but I don’t relent. The others move up around us, but they don’t intervene. What can they do? Pull me off and risk my gift?
Once this one is well and done, I drop down and run at the next one.
A gunshot rings in my ears, and concentrated fire sears into my shoulder. My gift flickers and dies as I stumble and reach for the injury. I pull my hand away, and there’s blood on my fingers.
Ah, shit.
I yell and run at them anyway, refusing to give up until my last breath.
One of them falls to the ground, but I’m too preoccupied with pulling out the dagger in my boot and launching myself at one of the guys to see what happened to him. I aim for his eye, but he grabs my wrist to hold me back. His foot kicks out my legs, and he falls on top of me, pinning me to the sand.
My arms are shaking with the effort to stab him, but he’s much stronger than me and not only holds me back, but starts to twist my wrists to the side at a painful angle. I cry out and release the dagger .
He drops on top of me, and all the breath in my body leaves me in a wheeze. I pause for a second when I realize he’s not moving and then peek around him.
Black combat boots greet me.
The guy on top of me rolls away, and I take a deep lungful of air.
A hand in fingerless gloves appears before my face, and I reach for it. A cool breeze sweeps across my heated skin, and I remember that my gift might still be charged. I push off of the ground instead.
Jackson doesn’t get angry or snap at me for refusing his offer. He merely tilts his head to the side and watches me. His cerulean gaze is intense and laser-focused on me. It’s not asking or demanding anything from me. He’s just…there if I need him.
I swallow and hold my hands to my chest. Even though he didn’t ask, my gratefulness for his help loosens my tongue. “Sorry. I’m not sure I’m…off…yet.”
He smiles at me, the kind where it exposes the dimple in his left cheek, and brings his hand up to my face.
I step back on reflex, baffled that he’d try to touch me after what I’d admitted.
“You won’t hurt me,” he murmurs softly. I don’t understand how he can have that much trust in me after everything I’ve done. And after not knowing me over the last six years. How can he believe that?
“I might, Jack. You shouldn’t touch me yet.” I’m not sure why I added ‘yet’ at the end of that. He shouldn’t touch me at all.
But I’d be lying if I said my body wasn’t trying to push me toward him. I’m drawn to his self-assuredness and calm confidence. I want to wrap myself up in it like a blanket and take a long, deep breath that I’ve gone years without. To wear his inner strength like armor where nothing and no one can touch me.
He’s like a boulder in the ocean, standing tall and strong no matter the temper of the sea crashing against it. That’s what Jackson feels like. And for once, I’d like to hold on to something that won’t break under the waves and will keep me above water.
Jackson’s smile tilts to more of a smirk, and he touches his palm to my cheek anyway.
I’m tempted to jump back, my body trembling from both fear of hurting him and exhaustion. I try to check in with my gift, make sure it’s fully contained and dormant, but when he doesn’t show any sign of pain, I release a breath.
“Jack—” I start to chastise.
“You should trust yourself more, Raegan.” His thumb grazes across my cheekbone. Then his hand slides down to my neck, leaving warmth and tingling in its wake. My pulse beats erratically against his hand. He’s stepped up close, so there’s barely any air between us, but only his hand is actually making any contact.
“I know you’d never hurt me like that.” His eyes lock onto mine, and it feels like he’s peering straight into my soul. “You can trust yourself with me. Like you used to.”
His other arm presses into my lower back, and he pulls me against him. I stiffen at the unexpected, but familiar, embrace. He buries his nose in my neck and inhales like he’s taking a drag of a cigarette.
But it’s of me.
A shiver rolls from my neck to my toes and forces them to curl to do something with the feeling.
Jackson wraps himself around me while I’m frozen like a rabbit in the eyes of a wolf. The smell of autumn surrounds me while his clothes block out any light from the moon or stars until I’m enveloped in him. His hold tightens, and while I’d think that would make me more concerned, it has the complete opposite effect, and my body melts into him instead.
I press into him, my hands burying themselves in his hoodie as the fear and adrenaline begins to drain from my body.
“Come back to the safehouse with me. You can get cleaned up there, and I can patch you up.”
“If the others are there…”
“They’re not. We live in the Tower.” He points to the tallest building in the city skyline that’s visible from nearly everywhere in the city. It’s also oddly the one that Elias had pointed out as where some Guild works out of.
He holds my arm, and I look at the bullet wound. It just grazed me, which is good news. But when I check Jackson’s expression, his face is pulled down in a frown.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him frown.
“What?”
His eyes snap back to mine. “This shouldn’t have happened. I should’ve been here sooner.”
I scoff and step away from him. “I’m surprised you were here at all. Thank you for that, by the way.” He still doesn’t look any more reassured, but I’m not sure what he expects of himself. He’s not my babysitter, and ordinarily, I don’t need one. I may have made it out of that encounter with my life, but it was a little too close.
They’re coming at me harder than before. More goons, better gifts.
The beach is now littered with bodies when I finally take the time to survey the aftermath. “What about them?”
Jackson shrugs and smiles. “I’ll take care of them in a bit.” He waves his hand, and one of the men lifts into the air. One by one, he moves the bodies into a boat. They’re all out of line and banging together now that the pier is gone and their ropes are floating on the water.
My knives come floating back, and I pick them out of the air and return them to their holster. “Which asshole had the gun?”
He raises his eyebrows at me, and I roll my eyes. “Aiden disfigured mine. I could have used a gun tonight.” He nods and takes my hand without hesitation, pulling me with him to walk closer to the boat with the bodies. That simple touch sends me right back to the island. His familiar hold on my hand makes me feel precious and protected.
He leaps toward the boat, using his gift to keep him aloft until he lands perfectly on the edge. Even as the vessel tips and rolls over the waves, his balance doesn’t waver. He picks through the guys and then sails back through the air. Jackson hands me two guns.
“You should have told me. I have plenty of weapons if you need them.”
I tuck them into my pants, double-checking first that their safeties are on. “Duly noted.” I smile, and his reciprocal smile is heart-melting.
Gah .
I don’t know what to believe about him anymore. If he hated me, why would he have come all the way out here to save me? Why is he acting like no time has passed between us? Like I didn’t kill Vera?
He must see the confusion in my expression because he chuckles and shakes his head at me. “You can ask me anything you want. I’m an open book.” Jackson pulls his hood up to hide his face again and sticks his hands in his hoodie pocket. For someone claiming to be so open, he sure looks closed off and untouchable from the outside.
But he always had, hadn’t he? He kept to himself, making his origami animals in our room or hanging back in class. He was more like a fly on the wall in every room, present but not making himself stand out. No, that’s not right. Maybe more like a raven. Always watching and observing everything happening in the room until he knew anything and everything about everyone. Ready to strike if needed, but content to do nothing until that time came.
“Why don’t you hate me? The others do, and I get it. But not you. I killed Vera. I’ve admitted it to you multiple times. She was one of us. Like a sister to both of us. But…you haven’t batted an eyelash over it.”
Jackson nods and runs his hand back and forth over his hair under the hood while gazing up at the stars. “Mm. Right. That.” His face angles back to gaze at me, his signature smile still there, and he shrugs. “I trust you.”
There’s that word again. “I don’t know why you do, but anyway, how does that answer my question? I’m tired of vague answers, Jack. Just…help me understand why you’re here right now. Why you just saved me or care at all about me. ”
“You wouldn’t have done it without a reason. You said it yourself. She was like a sister to you. Her death must have hurt you as much as it did the rest of us.” His smile drops for a second. “Except for Dane.” Of course.
“So, when you admitted that you’d killed her, I knew there was more to it. I figured you needed some time to grieve, and then you would come find us and tell us what actually happened. When you didn’t, I went to find you, but GE had separated you from us after that. I had to wait until we were both moving between rooms so I could catch you, but before that ever happened, the mansion collapsed.”
He believed in me? And still does? I’d thought…he had turned his back on me. Like the others. That was all I’d wanted from them. Some shred of belief or trust in me after all we’d been through together.
Instead, they’d left me to GE.
To him .
I fight for control of the wetness in my eyes to keep it from spilling over. I clear my throat and press on because that’s not everything. “If you believed in me like you said, you wouldn’t have left the island without me. You wouldn’t have abandoned me there with…them,” I choke out bitterly. A rogue tear escapes down my cheek, and Jackson catches it with a bent finger, then brings it to his lips.
“No. I went to look for you, but Aiden asked me to help guide the boat with my gift. He told me he would find and bring you back.” There’s a long pause, and I wonder if Jackson knows what Aiden actually did .
He did find me. But he didn’t bring me back.
He left me defenseless and alone with our enemies.
“By the time he came back, he was alone and being chased. He had to dive onto the boat and we had to speed away before they could catch us. Once we were out on open water, Aiden said he couldn’t find you, that another boat was already gone and you must have left without us. I didn't learn you were still on the island until years later.”
Aiden did this? On his own?
Why? Why not just ignore me and get on their boat? Why did he hunt me down to leave me vulnerable like that?
Jackson watches me intently as if he’s trying to pry open my head and see what’s going through my mind now. He’s not angry or upset with Aiden. That tells me he has no idea what his “brother” has done.
I could tell him and the others, but what would it change?
Jackson might kill Aiden .
The thought startles me. Shit, would he? Over me? After everything he’s been saying, I can’t rule that possibility out.
Which means I can’t tell him. Not yet, anyway.
I have unfinished business with Aiden first.
“Are you going to share what you’re thinking, little one?”
I smile at him with a faux-sweet look that he sees right through based on the twitch of his lips. “Nope,” I tease, popping the ‘p’. He looks disappointed, and now that I know how he’s felt about me all of this time, it feels right to playfully nudge him and start walking back toward the city. “Not yet,” I amend.
He nods, and his lips curve upward. “Yet,” he echoes like a promise.