Chapter 29 #2
Dane rejoins us. He comes up behind me, sliding his hands around my waist and tucking his chin over my shoulder in a backward hug.
“Somehow, Harvey is looking like the most well-adjusted sibling,” he remarks, earning a middle finger and sour face from Alice.
He lowers his voice for only me. “Sorry about before.”
I hold his arms over my stomach and kiss his cheek. “It’s okay. You guys have been at this for a while. Maybe I can help change things up.”
“How’d your training go?”
When I spin in his arms, he effortlessly adjusts to holding my hips while I settle my hands on his chest and share a wicked smirk. “Oh, well enough to almost cause a mass panic in the crowd.”
His eyebrows lift.
“Because Kellan almost turned into a fucking dragon,” I continue, laying that bombshell down.
Dane’s mouth pops open. I peek around him and find even Jackson looking a bit surprised. “He, what?!”
“No wings or tail popped out, but he looked like he was right there. Horns and claws and all.”
“Fuck.” He cranes his head to peer over his shoulder at Jack. “What’s the death rate for leveling up again?”
Jackson smirks. “Sixty percent, according to Thorne.”
“That’s a forty percent chance of surviving and getting stronger,” Dane muses when he turns back around.
I smack his chest. “That’s still too high a risk, Dane.”
“What if I could do more, though? More people. Or make it stronger some other way.”
Alice snorts. “I bet it’d just glow brighter.”
“Says the girl whose idea of trying is just squeezing my arm to death,” Dane retorts.
“Can Sam turn others invisible?” I ask before another squabble breaks out.
“Yeah, but he won’t spit out how,” Alice grumps.
“If he won’t teach her, we should just ask him to do it. At least he’ll be quiet,” Dane murmurs. He grabs and spins us. A shoe slaps to the floor.
“I heard that, asshole!”
“Dane,” I admonish, pushing away from him. “Stop antagonizing her. Alice, can I try talking to Sam?”
She shrugs, flapping her hand at the door. “You can try.”
A quick glance at Jackson shows he’s still sitting on the stool at the kitchen counter, one foot up and the other dangling while he leans into his fist and watches the room.
The amount of patience he must have had working with these two all day is astonishing.
I’m glad I didn’t walk in to find bodies instead.
Unless letting them fight it out is somehow part of his training plan.
The corner of his lips lifts in a secretive smirk, and I realize I'd been staring.
I head to the bedroom door and knock lightly. “Sam? Can I come in?”
There’s no answer.
“You’ll be standing there all day if you wait for him to give you permission,” Alice remarks.
Right.
Turning the handle, I poke my head in. He’s not at all what I expected.
Alice did say he’d been spying for a long time, but I still pictured a kid.
This is a grown man—maybe mid-twenties—based on his size.
His hair is a shaggy white-blond, as if he chops it off himself without a mirror every few months.
It covers most of his eyes like a curtain, so he has to look through the small slits where his hair isn’t.
He’s skinny, too, making me wonder how often he ate while undercover.
Sam sits against the headboard with his knees to his chest, his eyes staring at the television, reminding me of a child. He doesn’t look up when I enter.
“Sam?”
Nothing.
I move inside slowly, then sit on the corner of the bed furthest from him. Dane follows quietly and stops just inside the doorway. Glancing at the screen, I recognize the movie and smile. “Oh, this is a good one. Have you seen it before?”
He blinks at me suddenly, as if just now realizing I’ve been talking to him. His cheeks flush, and he nods once, casting his ocean blue eyes downward.
It’s then I notice there’s no other sound in the room. The movie is quiet. “Do you want me to turn the sound on?”
No reply.
Dane and I look at each other.
Did he mute it on purpose?
“I heard you haven’t left your room much. You know it’s okay for you to leave it, right? We could go with you downstairs to meet some people, if you want. Or maybe with Alice if that’d make you more comfortable.”
He gives a tiny shake of his head.
“Okay. We can stay here, too.”
Sam stays frozen. Like a frightened animal hiding from a predator. It makes my chest ache.
“I’m Raegan. I don’t know if Alice told you, but I’m your half-sister.”
His gaze slides to mine. Or, my nose, maybe. It’s not quite eye contact, but it feels like this is as close as I’ll get right now.
“Do you know sign language?”
Sam shakes his head at the same time as Dane scoffs and goes, “Do you?”
I shoot him a look, catching his teasing smirk. “No, but I could learn it, asshole.”
The bedroom door crashes open as Alice waltzes inside. She stands on the opposite side of the bed with her hands on her hips. “Talk, would you? Or are you going to sit there until you melt into the bed?”
His shoulders hunch as he leans away from her.
She throws her hands up and sighs in exasperation.
“Look, I know it’s probably been a while since you talked to people.
But your job is over now. Your assignment is dead.
You’re free, Sam. You can make noise”—she knocks her fist into the headboard, then shakes it—“you can be seen. Be loud! Tell us what you want, for fuck’s sake!
Because none of us know you well enough yet to figure it out. ”
“How come you’re not afraid to speak up?” I ask her, genuinely curious.
Alice’s eyes narrow on Sam, waiting for something from him.
When he doesn’t give her anything, she huffs and responds, “My assignment didn’t require as much supervision, so Dad would pick me up a lot to help him with other things.
And anytime I was with the guy, he’d be doing boring stuff.
So I’d go in the den to watch TV. Made his staff think the room was haunted,” she adds with a snicker.
Dane scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “So even then, you slacked off. When’s the last time you pushed yourself? I’m not trying to be a dick this time. I’m serious.”
She flips her hair and sits on the bed with a bounce. “Look. Not all of us can do the same exact thing as the others. Maybe it skipped me. Maybe only my brothers can do it.”
He gives me a look, like, see what I’ve been dealing with?
“Can you try again with me?” I ask her softly. She frowns, and I lift a shoulder. “It can’t hurt. Maybe trying with a different person will help.”
“Fine.” She scoots to the middle of the bed and places her hand on my arm.
Sam looks up, watching us.
Alice closes her eyes, her face tightening like she’s straining to get something out, then gasps and lets me go. “See? Nothing.”
I mean... I saw something, but I’m not sure if that was real or not.
“How do you make objects invisible?”
She leans past Sam to a pillow, touching her hand to it as she had to me. It vanishes almost as soon as she makes contact. “Like that. That’s what I tried to do with you.”
Sam shakes his head.
“What is it?” I ask.
He disappears at the same time as Alice.
I look at Dane. He shrugs, but gently nudges the door closed and stands in front of the smaller opening.
They both reappear a few seconds later.
Sam taps the sides of his index fingers together.
“What does that mean?” Alice prompts.
I mirror him, as if that might help me understand. Then think about how they’d both disappeared together. “Together? Do you mean at the same time?”
He nods.
Holding my hand out to Alice, I offer her a short head bob of encouragement. “Try it. Make me invisible at the same time as you.”
She frowns, her brow pinching with concentration before she takes my hand.
I give it a second before looking around. Nothing looks different…
“I still see both of you,” Dane answers my unspoken question. Alice releases me with a dramatic sigh. “But,” he presses before she can say anything negative, “I started to see you fading away. It was only a little, but it was there.”
She perks up. “Really?”
“Yup.” He smirks. “Looks like you have a lot more to practice now.”