Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Raegan
Closing the door to the spare room, I take a deep breath.
Talking to her, sharing those pieces of my past..
. it took a lot out of me. I feel disoriented.
Weak. Brittle. Each slow breath helps to reinforce my mental and emotional walls, clearing my head so I can focus on what’s next.
So I can look the others in the eye without shame or guilt.
Once I think I’m safe, I look around the room and notice one of them is missing. “Where’s Dane?” I ask, trying not to panic that he’s out of sight again.
I’m not losing anyone else.
“Waiting in the hall,” Aiden replies, standing at the edge of the corridor to the entry door so he can see both spaces.
“Is she still asleep?” Kell asks, crossing his arms and staring at the closed door.
I nod, walking toward Aiden with Jackson close behind.
He’d used his gift to help me carry her into the room, staying with me until we were out before giving me some space.
I love he can sense that about me. When I need him, he’s right there.
When I need time, he’s out of sight. I can’t say he’s completely gone; he probably had been watching me from somewhere close, but as long as I have the illusion of being alone at that time, that’s all I need.
“Do you want to return to the Loft? You’re still recovering from the fight and your gift,” Aiden croons, almost a lulling sound as if to ease me into agreeing with him.
Unfortunately for him, it has the opposite effect, bringing out my disagreeable side to dig in my imaginary heels as I step in close to him. “And you’re recovering from near-death. If anyone’s going back to the Loft to rest, it should be you.”
“I'll sleep after the Tower’s secure. We’re lucky we found her. There could be others.”
“And how the heck am I supposed to relax when you say something like that? No, I’m coming with you. We’re doing this together. When you rest, I’ll rest.”
Aiden slides his hand around my neck, lifting my chin with his thumb. He leans in close. “You’re always testing my patience. Especially when I try to look after your well-being,” he murmurs, an edge to his tone.
“Pot calling the kettle black?” I challenge and catch the ghost of a smile before he releases me and heads to the door.
“Let’s go.”
“Did I just win that one?” I ask in shock to Kell.
He laughs and catches me with an arm to bring me out of the apartment with him. “That’s what I heard.”
Dane’s waiting with his back to the opposite wall, his head down and face shadowed.
“Dane?” I trot out of Kell’s arm to reach him, and he swings his head up at the sound of my voice. Whatever expression was there clears to a smile.
“Hey. All good in there?”
Jack closes the door as the last to leave while Aiden taps his phone several times. There are a couple of clicks and booms that tell me he’s locking up.
“Yeah. What are you doing out here?”
“I forgot my laptop,” he says casually, lifting it in one hand. I don’t buy it. There’s something off about him. I can’t see anything specifically to call him out on it, but I can feel it.
Is it Harvey? Harvey's sister?
Fuck.
His sister.
Vera.
How? How could I have forgotten? I was so worried about Aiden, about what’s happening next with GE, that she didn’t even cross my mind until now.
Every time he’s looked at me since I woke up, his smile has been so tender. So comforting.
Guilt eats at my chest. “Dane...”
“Elevator’s here,” he says at the same time, taking my hand and pulling me inside.
“Did you say something?” He looks at me, his amber gaze warm, and the tufts of hair at the top of his head sticking out haphazardly as usual.
Or maybe a bit more. The blond is fading at the roots, filling in with his natural brown, so more than half of its length is brown.
He’s wearing a loose shirt and jeans, exposing the sleeve of tattoos on his left arm and crawling up the side and back of his neck.
“You eye-fucking him, beautiful?” Kellan calls me out. “As much as I’ve been waiting for my time to shine against these three, I can’t say I’ll perform my best crammed in an elevator with them unless we all get real comfortable with each other’s dicks real quick.”
Dane scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Shut the fuck up, man.”
Kell throws him a wink with a smirk. “Not you, Rapunzel. I know you’re already familiar with the sight of mine.”
The elevator dings just in time as Dane curses at him, and I drag him away before they start a fight in that cramped space.
“I’ll get it!” Tinsley calls from the apartment following Aiden’s knock. The door swings open a millisecond later, and Reid fills the doorway instead, his back to us.
Seeing his protectiveness for her makes me smile. I’m happy he has someone he cares about so fiercely, like how the guys and I feel about each other. It’s a relief that she’s back from GE, unharmed. Maybe he’ll be less grumpy all the time.
Tinsley smiles at him and shrugs. “We knew they were coming. It was safe.” She stretches to her toes to kiss his cheek. “Love you!”
He grabs the back of her head and pulls her mouth to his long enough for Tinsley to melt against him.
Aiden clears his throat, and Kell chuckles, squeezing my hip.
They separate, Tinsley wearing a dazed expression and smile.
“Mm, okay.” She turns and happily strolls back into the apartment while Reid spins to us.
“Come in,” he offers, ignoring Kellan’s wide grin and the fact that we’d just watched him kiss Tinsley into submission.
His blue gaze lands on me, and he gives me a small nod.
I’m not completely fluent in Reid gestures yet, but I think he’s telling me he’s glad I’m okay.
Just like I’ve become accustomed to him always seeking me out, looking for me within the group to make sure I’m there and okay.
I think we’d be hugging right now if either of us were hugging people, but since we’re not, I return his nod with one of my own.
He leads us into the living room where Tinsley’s sprawled in one chair and Cibrina is standing before a wall of information from her gift.
Shimmering, golden lines and text fill the length of one wall.
She glances down at her laptop, scrolls with the mouse, and I catch more text appearing in one of the columns the more she reads.
“I see you’re still deep in research,” Aiden remarks, and Cibrina’s head pops up. She smiles warmly and straightens.
“Yes. Reid shared fascinating information about his gift. It’s not just teleporting like we thought. His gift allows him to connect one space to another, then slingshot himself across a void dimension to get there—”
“Slingshot is a stretch,” Reid corrects.
“Oh, I’ll fix that.” She poises her hands in front of her as a golden keyboard appears and then starts typing away. Some of the text along the wall changes as she works.
“How does that help us block it from being used?” Dane asks, taking a seat and flipping open his laptop.
I walk to the wall. Ever since I first saw her gift, I’ve been wanting to touch it and see what happens.
The letters smudge when I run my hand over them, then fix themselves a second later.
“Cibrina, have I ever told you how cool your gift is?” Now that I know I’m not actually messing anything up by touching it, I play with it some more and watch it rearrange, shift, or sharpen.
“Thank you, Raegan. I do enjoy it.”
The glowing text suddenly changes to outline an image of something. I step back to see it better. Two circles and some wavy lines?
“Reid’s gift is quite similar to Bea’s portal magic.
We’re dealing with dimensional-type gifts for both.
While there’s limited information on dimensions, there have been studies on string theory and M-Theory, which is the closest I’ve found to what we’re looking for.
This is all theoretical physics, of course, but I think there’s something here.
I’ve analyzed all the published studies as well as some scientific journal articles, and there are a few tests I’d like to try. ”
“You did all that this morning?” I ask, amazed.
“No.” Oh. “I started last night.”
...Oh.
Kellan laughs, throwing his arm around my shoulders and pushing my slack jaw back in place. “I’ll bet she’s an expert physicist by the time this is over.”
Cibrina laughs. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“We also need a way to identify anyone at the Tower who’s invisible,” Aiden adds.
Reid shoots a look at Tinsley, who shrugs, then turns to Aiden. “As a precaution, or did something happen?”
“We met one of Harvey’s sisters in the locked-down apartment. She’s still there, and I’ve re-secured it.”
“Her name is Alice,” I tell Reid, sharing the name she’d given me before falling asleep. “Looks like you have another younger sister.” And I have a younger sister. My chest tightens at the realization that I’ve gone from no family to a dozen half-siblings. Maybe even more out there.
It’s... exciting. And terrifying.
They could all hate me like Alice. They might not want anything to do with me.
But they might also want to get to know me, too. Just like I’m becoming more curious about them.
Reid slices through my train of thought. “You’re the only sibling who matters to me.”
I stare at him, shocked. “What? Why?”
He looks away, his face giving away nothing.
Tinsley smiles warmly at him. There’s so much love and understanding in her hazel eyes that I almost feel the need to look away to give them privacy. She touches his thigh. “I can answer that.” Tinsley faces me. “Charles started using and training Reid more around the time he watched you.”
If I was a baby then, that would make Reid still a kid. We’re only five years apart in age.
She continues, “When he was forced to witness and participate in some of the horrible things that Charles did, you were the only good thing in his life. You showed him that the world wasn’t all dark and bloody as it was when he was with Charles.
That there was good in it. You helped keep him grounded in the real world, not Charles’s world, and—”
Reid grasps her hand on his thigh, and she stops. His cool gaze returns to mine. “I wouldn’t be here today, or with Tinsley, if not for you. You also escaped his influence. The others didn’t. They could be just as cruel and manipulative as him. I don’t owe every spawn of Charles any loyalty.”
I think of how Alice had blindly tried kidnapping Dane for Charles and attacked me. But then I remember how she cried for Harvey and what she’d done. “I think it’s still worth trying to help them. I promised Harvey we would save them from Charles.”
He gives me a sharp nod but doesn’t say anything further as if he’s acknowledging my choice, even if he doesn’t agree with it.
When no one else chimes in on that topic, Cibrina responds to Aiden’s original request. “Thermal scans should be able to detect any other invisible... guests.”
Dane starts typing and clicking on his laptop. “I think we have that option on these cameras. I’d gotten the ones with all the bells and whistles when we had them installed.”
“Good. Let’s find a way to compare the thermal readings with what the camera actually sees for body count. If there’s a discrepancy, flag security and notify each of us for a manual review,” Aiden orders, and Dane nods.
“I’ll stay here to work on that and the tests with Cibrina and Reid.”
“Before you go, we received Harvey and Vera back this morning.” Cibrina looks between Aiden and Dane. “When and where should we have the service? There are a lot of members who wish to say goodbye to Harvey.”
My heart sinks like a weighted balloon.
Aiden slants his gaze to Dane, who’s staring hard at his screen. “Tomorrow. We’ll have Harvey’s in the Hall and Vera’s in the unused office, as it’ll just be the five of us.”
Cibrina nods. “Understood. I’ll have Penn and Quinn get everything prepared.”
“Thank you.”