Burn Read online

  She leaned closer to Brennan, and squeezed his hand. Interesting. For not having seen the guy in three years, she seemed awfully cozy with him.

  The light blush on her face when she looked at me told me she knew I’d noticed. I noted that she didn’t move away or loosen her grip. Good. She deserved some happiness. I could only hope Brennan was worthy of her.

  She met my eyes and gave a slight nod. I managed to smother the grin that wanted to escape. Jade really seemed to like this guy. And she believed he was worth the problems, now.

  “So, shall we call her? Lena, I mean,” Rae asked. “If she wants to find her cousin, we do have a possible lead. Even if it’s a false one, there’s at least some chance that he’s here.”

  I broke in. “There is one more thing about Lena. She’s like sixteen or seventeen. I’m not exactly sure who her legal guardian is at this point, but I don’t know if she’s actually able to come here.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s staying with Alice and Hannah for now,” Laurie informed me. “They’ll probably want someone to come with her, but they might let her come.”

  “What about this Jason guy? Would he be able to help?” Brennan asked.

  Thinking about Jason made me frown. The guy had been put through the ringer, and was barely back on his feet. Literally.

  Thankfully, Laurie answered Brennan’s inquiry. “He’s still in rehab. The incident with the Mastermind left him nearly paralyzed due to severe swelling around his spinal cord. Other than his therapy and short walks he’s still mostly confined to a wheelchair.”

  Even Jade seemed a bit shocked by the news. Apparently, she hadn’t read us very thoroughly yet.

  She shook her head. “I knew from what you were thinking, and by what you told us, that he was in rough shape. When you said he was home from the hospital, I thought that meant he was back on his feet.”

  “So, he’s not exactly up for tracking anyone for us. No matter how familiar he is with Kindred,” I said.

  “Then we call Lena, and see if she can come,” Laurie decided. “If nothing else, she can grant us more insight into what we’re dealing with.”

  Brennan looked down at Jade’s hand, then pulled away and took a couple steps forward. “What you’re dealing with is so far beyond anything you’ve ever handled before.”

  The voice was Brennan’s, but the words definitely weren’t. My whole body shook with tension, and there was a slight rattle as every loose object in the room began to shake. “Who are you?”

  Brennan’s body shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if I tell you or not. None of you will remember this conversation. It doesn’t matter who you call in. I was given the fire-child to play with as I willed, and I’m not through with him yet.”

  “Given him?” Jade was fuming, her voice shrill with anger. “He doesn’t belong to anyone. Let him go!”

  The smirk that crossed Brennan’s face was cruel. “Possession is nine tenths of the law. I possess him, therefore he belongs to me. Good luck in your attempts to reclaim him. The one who could have stopped me is helpless, and you are powerless against me.”

  “Yeah?” I sneered and pushed my power toward him angrily.

  He yelped as he found himself flying toward the wall. “You think this can stop me?” he yelled. “I could use his powers to burn each and every one of you. But I won’t. Instead, I think I’ll just make you FORGET!”

  FOURTEEN

  Brennan

  When I looked around this time, I almost breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t at a fire again. Instead, I simply felt confused. “Why am I stuck to the wall?”

  Jade looked at one of her friends, a blond guy who stood in front of me with his hands raised threateningly. “Tray, let him down.”

  Tray looked at his hands as if surprised to find himself in that position, then took a deep breath. He let the breath out slowly, and lowered his hands. The pressure against my body vanished and I moved back toward Jade, eyeing the other man warily.

  “What just happened?” Tray asked. “Why don’t I remember?”

  Cade let out a low hiss of pain, and I remembered. “You need to rest, man. I have the room set up upstairs so you can relax.”

  He shook his head slowly. “No, that’s not the problem. Or… well… it is, but not the main one. I think we might be in over our heads here, guys. Do any of you remember a conversation about bringing in someone named Lena to help us find whoever is controlling Brennan?”

  “You think someone… wait, this all seems a bit too familiar,” I said.

  There was a strange pressure in my head, and I rubbed at it wearily.

  “Lena’s Kindred’s cousin. One of Jason’s friends,” Tray said. “When did anyone mention bringing her here?”

  Cade rubbed his head. “I don’t know, exactly. I’m sensing the room, and there was a presence here that seems the same as what I sensed at that fire. I think someone put the whammy on us.”

  The whammy? Really? I raised an eyebrow at the man for his use of terminology. He shrugged. Getting ‘the whammy’ put on me could explain why I’d found myself at so many fires without any memory of leaving the house. “Strange turn of phrase aside, what do we do about it, exactly?”

  “We call Lena, and bring her here,” Laurie said. “She has pretty strong mental powers, and may be able to combat whatever we’re up against now.”

  Tray grabbed his cell and started to move toward the kitchen. “I’ll call her now,” he said. “Before something else happens.”

  “Meanwhile, I think we should have someone stay here with Brennan. Cole, how ‘bout it? You feel like spending a bit of quality time with our new friend?” Laurie asked. “I think I’ll have Tray stay here as well.”

  “To keep an eye on me?” I asked with a resigned sigh. “I’m good with it. I guess I’d rather have babysitters than end up at another fire.”

  Jade rested a hand on my arm, and gave me a sympathetic look. Her green eyes were soft and concerned. “I don’t know exactly what just happened here, but I’m guessing it has to do with whatever has been going on with you. It’s not normal for all of us to lose track of what we’re doing so easily. Cole and Cade might have a chance to figure something out if they take a read of you.”

  “What does that even mean? What exactly do they do?” I asked.

  “We have similar abilities,” Cole began, the slightly older man’s dark eyes solemn with emotion. “We can get a sense of anything not quite right in people’s minds, including predispositions to violence or anything like a mental attack. We might be able to get a sense of a person behind the situation, or what might be motivating them. It depends on the situation.”

  Jade shook her head a bit. “Their power is hard to explain, because they can read so much from so many different things. If they touch an object that holds any kind of value to a victim or a perpetrator, they can also sometimes see through the eyes of the person, or get an idea of where they might be. It really just depends on what the situation is.”

  “So they’re like the kind of psychics that cops would want to use to solve a murder or something?” I asked. Jade was right, their powers did seem a bit more complex, and hard to explain.

  She smiled. “I guess. We have definitely helped the police solve those kinds of crimes before. We like to use our abilities to help those like ourselves, though. It’s part of why Laurie and Tray went to find the Earthshaker, and why everyone wanted to come to help you.”

  I narrowed my eyes in confusion. “So, why all of you for me, but only two for the Earthshaker guy?”

  Jade shrugged. “Kind of a timing thing, I guess. Also, they didn’t know exactly where he was. Tray was mostly excited to meet the guy he’d seen in a video online a couple years ago. He wanted to prove to himself it wasn’t a hoax.”

  “And it wasn’t.” Tray stepped back into the living room, his seemingly ever-present grin on his face. “He was even stronger than I’d thought from the video, and is now a good friend. A good friend who apparentl
y helped convince Lena to leave him and come here to help. He’s sending her with Paul,” he added as an aside to Laurie.

  “Paul is one of Jason’s kids,” he explained. “From what we were told, Jason had been a street kid, and took in a bunch of younger kids to protect. They made their own little family. Paul was the first.”

  I was a bit confused as to who Jason was, but figured if I needed to know, they would tell me. Somehow, the name was familiar. “So, now what? How long will it be until she gets here?”

  It seemed less than ideal to wait to do anything until yet another psychic person arrived. The situation was not great, and I still worried I would go to sleep in my bed and wake at another fire.

  Tray answered my question. “Sometime tomorrow, probably. Maybe the next day. Paul was going to help Jason with his physical therapy tomorrow before they come, and it depends on how that goes.”

  As much as I wanted them to rush here now, I could respect staying and helping someone who needed it. Paul sounded like a good person, from what I could tell.

  For a few minutes we sat in silence. I assumed they were thinking about the situation and how best to proceed.

  An assumption proven correct when Jade broke the silence. “I think we need Cole to take a read from Brennan. We’ll probably want Cade to as well, but until he’s recuperated, I think we’ll go with Cole’s read for now.”

  “Wait,”—I held up a hand—“will this… I mean, do I have to do anything?”

  Everyone shook their heads. “No,” Cole answered. “You won’t feel anything. I simply need to touch you and concentrate. I’m not like my brother. I won’t feel anything, and neither will you.”

  Won’t feel anything? Like what? From what the others had said, I thought the brother’s powers were basically the same.

  Probably sensing my confusion, Rae explained. “Cade, if he connects to someone who is in pain, will take on that person’s injuries. Temporarily. It hasn’t been too much of an issue so far, but we do watch out for him.”

  Wondering at the lack of reaction from the other man, I glanced over at the couch. Cade had somehow managed to fall asleep, head leaned way back on the couch and his mouth slightly open.

  Holding back a bark of laughter, I answered, “I can see why.”

  I could, too. Asleep, the guy looked like a kid. Even to me, and I made the guess that we were about the same age. Cole and Jade were a few years older than Cade and me. Rae seemed younger, but I couldn’t be sure. Laurie, I guessed, was a bit older than Cole. Tray would be about the same age as myself and Cade. All guesses on my part, except for Jade. She’d been twenty when I met her for the first time. Just under three years older than I.

  Oddly, now I was the same age she’d been when we met.

  “So, how do you wanna do this?” I asked Cole.

  He looked around. “Let’s sit at the table. I’ll use eye contact and your hand to make the connection. Jade,”—he met her eyes—“you should try to read me as I read him. The two of us together will hopefully remember everything that comes up.”

  Jade nodded, her face set in stone, emerald eyes glittering in the light. The three of us moved into the kitchen. Rae and Laurie opted to remain in the living room. From what I’d gathered, they could read emotions easily, regardless of whether they were in the same room.

  Which, of course, meant they’d been able to read my hesitance to call Joe for help. With all the different powers in the room, it wouldn’t surprise me if most of the group had already figured out exactly why I was so unwilling to call him.

  “Are you ready, Bren?” Jade asked. She and Cole were already sitting at the table, leaving me a seat across from the other man.

  My hands twitched, and I sat on the chair. “I guess. Just… I don’t know. Just do it.”

  I put my right hand on the table for Cole to hold, and clenched the fist of my left under the table. Every muscle felt taut and ready for action. Not exactly the most relaxed I’d ever felt.

  Jade pulled my clenched hand from my lap, and gently worked to loosen my grip. Her efforts made me take a breath and force myself to relax a bit.

  “That’s better,” she said. “This isn’t going to hurt you, Bren.”

  Cole’s hand felt cool in mine, but I couldn’t decide whether that was more because mine was hot, or his was actually cold.

  “Just concentrate on the fires. On what you felt once you realized where you were and what was happening.” Cole’s voice was mesmerizing, and I found myself sinking into almost a trance-like state. Flickering flames made their way through my mind.

  “Good. Now, try to focus on how you access your powers,” he continued. “Absorbing the fire, and expunging it.”

  Here, I felt a hesitation, a sense of fear that something was going to go wrong. I put out fires. I stop them from hurting people. Starting them… harming others… could I be?

  My eyes flew open, and I knew. “I can’t be here.”

  The chair clattered—a sound that barely registered to me, but startled my two companions—and I pushed to my feet. “I have to go.”

  Before they could stop me, I had disappeared out the door.

  FIFTEEN

  Jade

  Cole and I exchanged a quick look. Despite our abilities, Brennan had succeeded in startling both of us. Without a word, we both raced to the door, hoping to catch Brennan before he got too far away.

  The sun was nearly gone, the yard now shrouded in shadow. The gate hung open, and it was still swinging slightly from Brennan’s quick exit. For a moment the creaking from the old hinges was the only sound in the yard.

  “We have to find him,” I urged. “I don’t know exactly what we were seeing, but I know he’s not in any kind of shape to be on his own right now.”

  Cole shook his head, dark eyes looking black in the dwindling light. “He wasn’t completely alone. This guy… I don’t know. Maybe his power isn’t quite able to make all of us forget everything, but I remember Brennan speaking someone else’s words. He isn’t alone in his head, Jade. But I don’t know how to help with that.”

  What I’d read from Brennan had been similar. An overlapping of thoughts that didn’t quite match up. Some clearly confused and afraid. The others… well, the others were vengeful, dangerous, and—strangely—a bit playful. Not in the innocent way of a child playing with a toy. More like the way a cat plays with its prey as it hunts. Toying with it; letting it believe it can escape before ripping that chance from its grasp.

  A dark look passed between us again, and we ran through the gate. Brennan was nowhere in sight.

  “We need to get the others. Maybe, working together, we can track him down,” Cole suggested.

  “You get them. I’ll go that way,” I pointed to the left. “I hear him. I think part of him wants to be found. Just send someone else to follow me, and take someone the other way in case I’m wrong.”

  Without waiting for his nod, I raced the direction I thought Brennan had gone. He wouldn’t have run from us on his own. We had to find him. I had to find him. For his sake, I had to find him now.

  There! I caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure in the growing darkness, and pushed myself. I ran harder than I’d run in a long time, trying to reach him.

  “Brennan!” I yelled, hoping he was still himself enough to respond.

  There was a slight pause in his motion before he put on even more speed and disappeared around the next house. By the time I reached the area, he was gone, and I couldn’t pick up his thoughts anymore.

  “Brennan,” I whispered. I strained to see him in the darkness, and ran a hand through my sweaty hair anxiously when I couldn’t.

  Cole reached me a couple minutes later. He slowed to a stop, breaths coming in quick gasps. “He’s gone?”

  I nodded, uncertain how my voice would sound at the moment. After I’d run so hard, and gotten so emotional, I worried my voice would crack. Or that I would simply break down in tears over the whole situation.

  “We can a
t least guess he isn’t acting consciously at this point,” Cole said. “He was definitely not himself when he took off.”

  “You’re right,” I said. I’d finally pulled myself together enough to speak. “The thoughts running through his mind were not his own.” The playful cat analogy stuck in my mind, and I couldn’t help thinking it was more like a wildcat. Deadly and dangerous.

  We stood for a few moments on the dark sidewalk before we silently agreed Brennan wasn’t coming back just yet. From his descriptions of the previous cases, I just knew we would be hearing about another fire tonight. Whether Brennan would be seen there or not… I had no idea.

  Cole and I walked silently back to Brennan’s house. The others had returned already, and waited in the living room where Cade still slept.

  “No sign of him on our side,” Tray reported. A frown marred his normally happy face. “You guys clearly didn’t find him either.”

  It seemed any of the physically powerful people—like Brennan—were bound to have severe complications in learning to use their abilities. Tray never had his mind messed with, but it had taken years to obtain the control he currently had. The man was barely older than Brennan, but had pushed himself to use his powers until he gained some semblance of control over them.

  Tray had always been a ray of sunshine even in our darkest times, and to see him upset now… it almost physically hurt.

  Cole went to him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. “He’s not himself right now. Our new friend is in trouble, but we will figure it out.”

  “Before or after some madman makes him kill someone?” Tray snapped. “Laurie and I saw this exact scenario with Jason. The only thing that stopped him from becoming a killer was Kindred. He stepped up right at the end and killed the Mastermind.”

  Laurie nodded. “He did. But not for any altruistic reason. I believe we’re here now because the Mastermind had been aware of Brennan, and gave him up to Kindred.”

  “Gave him up? As in… what? Traded him for a favor?” Tray growled.