Page 84 of Secret Gifts
Stay? I can’t stay.
“Who are you?” I scream to the empty room.
I’m answered by silence and the walls stifling a laugh at my seemingly crazy outburst. I turn and walk out onto the balcony, and I speak to the listening ears of the wind.
“If you want me to stay, you have to tell me why. I don’t trust phantoms,” I gripe to the open sky towering over the ant-sized people below, and then I toss the box to the ground while shoving the note into my pocket.
I still receive no answer, and I shake my head at my foolishness for expecting one. I barge back in, lock the door, and then sprint out of the room to catch up with the others. I’m so sick of this mystery man, and I’m tired of feeling like a pawn on a chessboard.
“Hey,” a voice pops out from nowhere, and I scream while jumping so high my head cracks the ceiling of the hallway.
I hear a bit of a snicker, and I turn to scowl at my brother once my feet slap the floor again.
“Damn it, Rex. You know I hate it when people do that,” I scold, and he laughs a little harder before coming to pull me into his embrace.
“I know. I actually didn’t mean to, but you seemed to have had tunnel vision.”
I laugh a little, shrugging off the phantom’s message, and then look back at him.
“I tend to get lost in thought. Why haven’t you called?”
He frowns a little, his eyes moving to the floor.
“I thought I’d give you a couple of weeks to cool down. I knew I’d end up on your next detail, so I was hoping you’d have gone without me long enough to miss me and not be mad at me anymore.”
I smirk a little, and then I lean into him.
“I’m over it,” I sigh out, and I feel his warm breath on my hair as he kisses the top of my head.
“Good. I always hate it when you’re mad at me.”
I laugh again, and then he hands me a file to flip through.
“What’s this?” I hold the file up curiously.
“You asked me to find out if Kellan Maverick was strong enough to do what we saw at the underground massacre. This is everything I could find, and as far as visions go… notta' damn thing. There’s not even a shadow. But I found these pictures. I think you’re right. I think he did this.”
I look down at the pictures, and my hand closes over my gaping mouth as I stare at the horrific scenes I never heard accurately described. This is so much worse than anyone told tales of.
The blood stains the cities he tore apart as though it rained red for ten days straight. Bodies are just as mangled and dismembered as the horrific scene we saw in that underground hell… only worse, because there are so many more. Hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered in the most heinous of ways. Again, guns are strapped to sides, legs, ankles… none of them drawn. How did they keep these disasters such a secret?
“Fuck,” I say in a long exhaled breath that is laced full of angst and dread.
“I know. It took some time to find out how to get these out of the vault. These records haven’t been released yet, so don’t let anyone catch you with them.”
My eyes narrow as I close the file, and I tuck it into my bag while shaking my head.
“By anyone you mean Jase,” I growl, my eyes cutting toward him to cast their uranium dipped daggers.
His lips tighten, and then he takes a deep breath.
“I just mean… look, you haven’t been together long enough to tell him we broke in and stole classified documents.”
“I trust him. Okay? But since you’re the one who broke in and stole them, then I’ll let you be the one who tells him when you trust him too,” I murmur while putting my hand on his shoulder, and a breath of relief falls through his lips.
“Thank you,” he sighs out.
We walk through the large doors of the hotel to make it to the gallant porch, and I see the tall, lean, sexy body of my full blood propped up against a wall as he talks to my uncle. Their whispered conversation is too far away for my hearing to pick up without straining, but I decide not to pry.
