Burn Read online

  “You are improving,” Kindred’s voice cut in. The sudden intrusion made me jolt in my seat. “With this shield, I can contact you, but not get a good read on you.”

  My hands began to shake, so I gripped my gloves hard in an attempt to hide my sudden fear. With the cause of my problems in my mind right now, it took nearly all my concentration to keep my fire wall from pushing him out.

  An act that would end my plan of keeping my powers a secret.

  “Not feeling talkative right now?” my tormentor asked. “Not a problem. Just know this: I am not done with you. We have more work to do. Don’t worry. If you don’t fight me too hard, I won’t harm anyone innocent.”

  I clenched my gloves tightly and mentally responded. “How ‘bout not harming anyone at all? This could end here and now. Keep playing with me, and you’re going to get burned.”

  He laughed. “Threats, little fire-child? You truly think you can harm me? You can’t even find me.” Kindred’s answering voice danced with amusement, and a distinct lack of fear.

  I felt my mouth curling up in a feral smile. “I’ve already proven once, I don’t have to touch you in order to burn you. Now, leave me ALONE!”

  My eyes closed, and I allowed my power to fully protect my mind. The killer’s presence vanished with a shocked yelp, and I felt a fierce sense of pride that I’d been able to protect myself from his toxic words.

  A hand nudged my arm, and I almost forgot to shove my mental flames back before I opened my eyes to see Jim’s concerned frown aimed in my direction. Again.

  “All good, bud,” I answered before he could ask. What had felt like forever in my mind had apparently only been a couple minutes.

  The frown remained in place, but he nodded. “We’re almost on scene.”

  The radio beeped, and—after listening for a few seconds—Quentin swore loudly. “Update, people. There’s someone stuck in the house. Delgado, you’re going in. Peterson…”—he eyed me critically—“You good to go?”

  “All good, boss,” I assured him with a confident grin.

  He nodded sharply. “Good. You’re in too. The rest will be working outside to put the fire out.”

  Jim’s frown deepened at my lie. “All good, huh?” He gestured toward my hands, where I was still twisting the gloves.

  Forcing myself to stop, I nodded. “I can still do my job, Jim. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

  He clenched his fist, but finally stopped staring at me with his accusing eyes.

  The truck screamed to a stop and we moved out. Nick clapped me on the shoulder, and Quentin yelled, “Get geared up, and get that person out.”

  THIRTY

  Jade

  Most of what I read from my friends was sheer frustration. Their attempt to push their powers together into one concentrated burst of energy had so far been a bust.

  Lena’s eyes snapped open and she shook her head. “It’s not working for all of us to connect at the same time,” she admitted. “Cole, Cade, your powers are similar enough; you should be able to combine them more easily. Try to push together and focus on Kindred. If you manage, I’ll attempt to join.”

  The brothers nodded. “Ready, little bro?” Cole asked with a smile.

  “Not sure,” Cade answered with a grin of his own. “Don’t know if I want to be quite that close to you, Cole.”

  I grinned when Cole snorted. “Let’s do this.”

  They gripped hands and stared into each other’s eyes. Despite their joking, every ounce of their focus was on making this plan succeed. “I think it’s working,” I said when I felt their thoughts begin to mirror each other.

  The thought was further confirmed when their eyes went white at the same moment. “Concentrate on Kindred. Focus on getting through his walls,” Laurie directed.

  Her voice was soothing. It was why she was chosen most often to direct the brothers when they attempted to track someone down. She was able to make them focus on certain elements while not distracting them so much as to disrupt their reading.

  “We’re in.” Even knowing they were connected mentally right now, the two speaking in unison was disconcerting.

  “What do you see?” Laurie asked.

  “Anger. Pain. A plan,” they answered, still speaking together.

  Laurie frowned, and I tried to read Kindred through them. “What plan?” she asked.

  “Revenge. Retaliation for being burned,” they answered.

  I couldn’t read Kindred, but I was able to get more detail from the brothers. In this state, they wouldn’t speak in full thoughts, only broad strokes. “Kindred contacted Brennan again,” I said softly. “Brennan’s fire wall burned him. But his plan had already been in effect. Most likely retaliation for Brennan’s escape.”

  Laurie nodded. “Okay, what is he doing? How is he planning to retaliate?”

  Oddly, this time they answered one at a time. “Fire for fire,” Cole said.

  “Burn for burn,” Cade added.

  “They’re separating,” I told the others. “I think-”

  Both men flinched back with startled cries as Kindred’s power flung them from his mind.

  “-they’re about to be thrown out,” I finished.

  Lena frowned. “They didn’t separate because of Kindred. Their powers forced them apart. Apparently, that’s a trick that has a bit of a time limit.”

  “Helpful, though,” Rae said. “Seems like we got at least some information out of it.”

  Cole nodded, then winced at the motion. “Yeah. Kindred started a fire that he’s forcing Brennan to go to. He still doesn’t want the guy dead, but apparently he isn’t averse to him potentially seriously injuring himself.”

  “Anything on the location of Kindred? Or this fire he wants Brennan to fight?” Laurie asked, her soothing tone now gave way to one with slightly more urgency.

  The brothers looked at each other, each giving a slight shake of their heads. Cole answered. “I got nothing location-wise. Only a vague sense that Kindred knows more about Brennan’s day-to-day life than he should.”

  A huff drew my attention back to Lena, who shook her head. “Stalking isn’t a new thing for him. I’m pretty sure he’s done it to most of his victims, and those he considered allies.”

  “Great. So, we know he wants Brennan to suffer, but we don’t know anything else,” I complained.

  Brennan had asked us here to help him. So far, all we’d done was hit one dead-end after another. And we’d nearly lost him to Kindred once already!

  Rae touched my arm, and a soothing calmness took over. “You’re getting upset. It’s not going to help.”

  I wanted to be angry, but the relaxed emotions Rae caused wouldn’t let me. “We’re not helping. Not really. Tell me one thing any of us has done that has done Brennan a bit of good?”

  Tray was the one who answered. “We came. He knows we’re here for him, and we aren’t going to judge him. He knows we’re trying, even if we haven’t succeeded. Yet.”

  “Yet. Not yet. We discovered who it was that was using Brennan. We know he isn’t the one behind the fires hurting people around the city, despite his power being the weapon. He knows his blackouts aren’t due to some mental issue, but because a psycho decided he’s something to be played with,” Laurie continued on from where Tray left off. “And we aren’t giving up on him. We won’t leave until Kindred isn’t a threat to him anymore.”

  “See,” Rae said, a gentle smile crossing her face. “We have helped.”

  “His mental state, maybe,” I conceded. Kindred was going to hurt Brennan, and we had no idea where he was. Or did we?

  “We need to find out where that fire is,” I urged. “I think Kindred will be there.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Lena

  Jade was certain my cousin would be at the site of the fire he’d use to get back at Brennan. “Kindred would want to see for himself whether his plan succeeded. With Bren now able to block him, he wouldn’t be able to use their connection to know whether or not
it worked as he wanted it to.”

  Laurie rushed to make a phone call while the rest of us prepared to head out. I’d already failed in using my power to connect with the brothers. Maybe my familial connection to Jeremiah would allow me to be of some use if we got close to him.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Jade cut through my thoughts. “It was worth a shot, and they wouldn’t have been able to get the information without pushing their powers together like you suggested.”

  “They’re already on scene at a fire,” Laurie informed. “Paul said the report stated there was someone trapped inside. We won’t make it in time to make much of a difference in how things play out, but we might be able to find Kindred, if he’s there.”

  “Got the location?” Cole asked. At her nod, he waved us all to the door. “Let’s go.”

  No one had a key for Brennan’s house, so Tray used his power to lock the door. If he needed to, he could let us in later, since we planned to meet there after Brennan was off work anyway. As long as everything went well at the fire we were heading to.

  The drive took nearly fifteen minutes, since the fire was on the other side of town. When we got there, the scene was as active as a beehive. Fire fighters moved quickly in an attempt to put out the current fire and prevent it from spreading to any of the other buildings nearby. A mental scan revealed that I still couldn’t connect to Brennan.

  “From what I can read from Jim, Brennan is inside. There was someone trapped, and he was one of the two chosen to go in,” Jade informed me after doing her own scan of the area.

  “Who else?” I asked. I wouldn’t put it past my cousin to hide himself as one of Brennan’s coworkers in order to get close to him.

  Jade frowned slightly before she answered. “Nick Delgado. Another young guy. Been there for a little over a year.”

  If Kindred was here, he would most likely not use his own face. The scarring that covered half of it would draw attention, and he was already prone to hiding it anyway. One of the powers he was strongest at was hiding himself. For him, it was second nature. One of the first things my father—and I use the term extremely loosely, considering I’d never met the man—“taught” him.

  After all, an assassin who can make people see him as anyone is a valuable commodity. Knowing what I now knew about my father, he had viewed his cousin as a useful tool. Never as a person. Never as a relative. Only something to be used and abused in whatever ways his twisted mind could come up with.

  Jeremiah, as I wished I could continue thinking of him, had been a good man. Kindred tried. At one point, anyway. From his actions here, it seemed he’d given up on even the pretense of being a good person. At least for now, he still only went after other criminals. His twisted moral code wouldn’t let him kill innocent people. At least not that I was aware of. I attributed his reluctance to kill innocent people as a side-effect of his wife and child being murdered by my father.

  Trevor Mason, such a great guy to claim as a father. Everything that happened with Jeremiah, Jason, and now Brennan, could be traced directly back to him.

  I’m not a violent person by nature, but at this moment, I was thankful for what Jason had done to him. I would never have to deal with him in person. Only deal with the situations his criminal dealings had created.

  My thoughts now firmly on my cousin, and his motivations, I tried to scan the area for him. If he was in the area, he would know we were here. He always knew when people were tracking him.

  After several minutes, the only thing I picked up on was Brennan’s coworker coming up empty in his search for the possible trapped person.

  “They aren’t finding anyone. What’s going on?” Jade asked. “This doesn’t seem like anything unusual.”

  With a frown, I realized she was right. Nothing on this scene screamed trap. I didn’t sense Kindred anywhere.

  “Did you really think it would be that easy, cousin?” Kindred’s voice flowed into my mind. Mocking, and almost… cheerful.

  Strange. I wouldn’t have thought he would be overly happy about being hunted down again. He’d seemed quite upset about Brennan’s escape and use of the fire wall.

  His mental laugh echoed in my mind, and I saw Jade turn toward me, her face pale. “Your friends weren’t exactly subtle in their attempt to get into my mind. I felt them every step of the way.”

  “Which of course, means we can’t trust anything we thought we learned,” I responded. “Why the games, cousin? Why not try to live your life as normally as you can? You could help people, instead of hurting them. Let the criminals you kill face justice. Not this facsimile you seem intent on handing them.”

  The almost happy thoughts transformed into an angry storm. “I help people by preventing those who would harm them from having any further opportunities to do so. Your so-called justice allows them freedom. Mine ends them. Ends the threat they pose to everyone.”

  “What of the threat you pose?” I asked. Honestly, I almost hated myself for what I was insinuating. “Every time you use Brennan to set a fire, you risk harming innocent people. This is not a controlled way to take out those you believe have done something to deserve death. You are risking Brennan’s life and livelihood.”

  Dark amusement flitted through my mind. “I’ve been manipulated by enough people in my life, little cousin. You barely register as a blip on my radar.”

  I smirked, certain he would be able to feel my disbelief. “Oh, I register, all right. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t bother talking to me right now. You would get on with whatever plans you have and ignore my presence. Face it, Jeremiah, you’re intimidated by me.”

  His mental presence cringed back from my use of his name. Otherwise, I couldn’t tell exactly how he felt about my claim. I felt fairly certain it was the truth, but couldn’t be one hundred percent sure.

  “Whether or not that’s true, I will finish what I’ve started, Lena. You and your new friends won’t stop me.”

  If I could be fully honest, I wouldn’t have come if all Kindred was doing was going after criminals. It was mostly his insistence on using Brennan to accomplish his goals that led me to come. Most times, I couldn’t disagree with him on how the justice system worked. If it did what it was supposed to do, my father would have been in prison long ago. Not free to build his criminal empire.

  Much would have been solved by someone taking him out in the same way Kindred was dealing with what was left of my father’s empire.

  “You know that wouldn’t be a good thing, right?” Jade broke through my thoughts. “Killing isn’t justice. It’s revenge. The way Kindred seems to be doing it indicates anger. It isn’t a noble quest. It’s a vendetta.”

  I shook my head, then nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I know. Sometimes it just seems like the world would be a simpler place if criminals were taken out before they could do too much damage.”

  “Thus making murderers of those killing the criminals. Kind of a slippery and dark slope,” she said with a shake of her head.

  She was right. And I was off my intended target by going on a tangent about justice.

  “A tangent, no doubt caused by your cousin,” Jade suggested with a frown.

  I wanted to slap myself, but only lowered my head for a moment before nodding at her. “It was his way of distracting me. He was right. I’m not as good as him. He’s faced master manipulators before and come out on top. I’m not going to be able to fully outthink him.”

  “What were you able to learn?” She glanced over at the house and frowned. “Wait… I can hear Brennan. He’s trying to use his powers.”

  I felt my eyes widen, and we watched the house with identical looks of concern on our faces. All I could get from Brennan when I tried to read him was determination and a feeling of extreme heat. It was hard to keep my focus on him. My ability was almost repelled by the burning sensation, but it wasn’t the same feeling that his fire wall gave off. It was more akin to holding your hand over an open flame.

  “He found the victi
m,” Jade said. “They were trapped, and he had to drop his shield to use his power.”

  We made our way toward the rest of our group in order to get whatever information they were able to come up with.

  “Nothing,” Cole said when I asked. “Neither of us sensed any malice in this fire. In fact, I think it was caused by a faulty space heater. The homeowner was worried about it, but never got around to replacing it, and their furnace didn’t work.”

  Jade and Laurie frowned. “So, not the trap Kindred was planning then?” Laurie asked.

  “It would seem not,” I agreed. “However, from what I learned, he does have something up his sleeve. Some of what we found out from him earlier may have been a misdirection.”

  “Directing us away from what, exactly?” Tray asked. “We haven’t exactly been right on his tail so far.”

  I chewed on my lower lip and my brow furrowed. He had a point. Was the true misdirection what Kindred had told me here?

  “We have, however, managed to help Brennan stay away from him,” Cade argued. “We shielded Brennan when he couldn’t protect himself, and I would guess Kindred wouldn’t like that very much.”

  Another good point. One Tray had to agree with as well. One I had to admit seemed like the most likely reason Jeremiah would even acknowledge anyone in this group. Along with the perceived challenge in facing those who had worked with him before. From everything I knew about him, he was definitely open to facing challenges.

  I tried to focus on what was happening in the house, but my cousin chose that moment to speak up again.

  “You may be right. I am a threat you all need to face. This is something that will never change. No matter what I try, I always seem to be the enemy of what is seen as right.”

  He sounded almost regretful. Regretful… yet resistant to change. Instead of changing his ways, he would continue to do what kept him from being accepted. What my father had done to him… it damaged him in ways that would never be repaired.