Dissever (Unbinding Fate Book One) (32 page)

“It’s nothing personal
against your family—they’re just tired of being a fraction of what we should be,”
Matt said.

“Something’s been bothering
me,” Tanner said, dropping to the floor from where he was perched. “Why take
the Overseer’s Stone and bring it back so quickly—it seemed like a waste of
time.”

“We needed a good look at
the symbols on it.” Renee laid her hands in her lap. “We also needed to delay
Jax claiming the stone; we weren’t ready to try to take him out.”

“But it’s nothing personal
against Addy’s family.” Tanner rolled an empty wooden reel from some type of
wire over near Addy, laying it down on its side. They sat down on it across
from Matt and Renee.

“There’s a lot of panic at
the moment. Everyone has a theory about how to get the power back.” Matt
shrugged his shoulders. “It wasn’t smart. We lost a lot of good people too.”

“What happens if we find the
book? Even if it exists I’m not gonna just hand it over.” Addy didn’t trust
them and wanted them to be perfectly clear about that.

“Once you have the book, if
it details how to destroy the stone and bring Gage back, I trust you to do
what’s necessary,” Matt said.

Addy didn’t know what to think
anymore. She’d been convinced they were completely evil, but what they were saying
made her question that. If Gage could really be brought back, then she was
gonna work with them regardless of how she felt.

Addy pulled her feet up,
wrapping her arms around them. “What do you guys know about Ashford
Worthington?”

Renee and Matt exchanged
glances.

“He’s big trouble,” Renee
said. “Why?”

“Last night he approached me
at a club. I was lucky Tanner was there.” She told them glancing at Tanner. “It
wasn’t the first time Ash tried to get me alone.”

Renee leaned over to Matt. “I
can’t believe they sent Ash after her.”

Matt’s face paled as he
looked at Renee and he shifted his eyes to Addy. “Does your brother know?”

“Yeah, he’s concerned.”

“He should be.” Matt looked over
at Tanner. “Keep her away from Ash.”

Renee nodded as Matt spoke. “He’s
got extremely strong compulsion abilities—so strong he can even compel other
Akori. He and his father presented some ideas to our leaders about how to get
our powers back. Most of them just boiled down to picking your brother apart to
see what makes him so special.” Renee looked at her brother. “I wonder if they
know about the book, Matt.”

“I’m sure Preston and Ash
know about it.” He reached over and squeezed his sister’s hand. “Don’t worry, they’ll
find it first.” He told her, gesturing toward Tanner and Addy.

Sitting with Matt and Renee
after everything they’d put them through was probably one of the strangest
things she’d ever done. They told her and Tanner that their family had been a
part of the Mesen since they broke off from the rest of the Akori. Matt
explained that he and Renee were sent to live at the estate with Josh
intentionally because of their ages. It was an attempt to get spies inside
Tremain. The
Mesen
hoped Renee and Addy would
become friends or she and Matt would eventually date.

Matt dropped his hands in
his lap and shook his head. “It’s strange to think about you out at some club
without me, Addy.”

“Matt,
don’t.
” Addy
put the palms of her hands against her eyes. She couldn’t deal with thinking
about that.

Tanner put his hand on
Addy’s back at the same time Renee put her hand on her brother’s shoulder.

Matt turned his eyes toward
Addy. “I just miss—”

Renee cleared her throat.  “
Anyway
,
everyone at Tremain just became our family, when it was time to make our move
it was so hard for us—we didn’t want to. We never wanted to hurt you.”

“I’m not gonna lie to you
Addy, I
was
trying to Scatter Gage the day we attacked the estate to get
you to help me,” Matt said. “But Renee was only fighting with you because I
told her to. We didn’t want one of the others hurting you.”

“How is it that you even
have abilities, Renee?” Addy had always been told that like Molly, she didn’t have
any power.

“I didn’t—not until Uncle Josh
gave me some of his power and unlocked mine,” she said. “We all have abilities
but some of us—”

Matt’s phone rang and after
a brief conversation he was on his feet grabbing Renee by the arm. “We gotta
hit it, your brother and his crew just rolled up in the parking lot.”

Tanner and Addy jumped up
and looked at each other.

Addy put her hand on her
forehead, turning to Tanner. “Do you think he knows we’re here?”

“It’s
Jax
—of course
he knows.”

Matt moved to hug Addy but Tanner
quickly got in the way, making him step back. He and Renee headed for the
stairs, saying they’d be in touch through Kim.

Tanner tipped his head. “Well
girlie, what now?”

Addy decided she didn’t care
if Jax was outside, and she didn’t care if he didn’t like her being with Tanner.
“Now we go back to your bike and get out of here.”

Chapter
30

When Tanner dropped Addy off
at the estate, she went to the weapons vault to put her gear away first, then
headed to the library to look around for anything that might be a Sanders
family heirloom. That’s where Jax caught up to her. He’d been surprised when
she and Tanner just walked out and greeted them in the lot of the warehouse.

Jax stood leaning against
the table, watching Addy as she inspected the items on the mantle of the
fireplace. “I’d just like to know what you were doing at the warehouse, that’s
all.”

“I wanted to go back to see
where Gage Scattered. Tanner came along just in case there was trouble, and
obviously there
wasn’t.”
She didn’t have any reason to explain herself
to him and she wasn’t about to tell him anymore than she had to.

He put his hands in his
pockets. “You can’t just be taking off without—”

“
Fine
.” She was
standing by the fireplace with her back to him.

Before she could react, Jax
had her spun around and pressed up against the stone wall. He was gripping her
wrists tightly in front of her. She looked up at him, watching as anger and
frustration burned on his face.

 “Don’t
ever
just say
fine to me. Grandfather put pieces in place and we have to play by his rules.
Regardless of how you feel about me—you have to do what I say. These aren’t
my
rules.” His features were dark and he was speaking in a hushed, but urgent
tone.

Addy stood there knowing she
could easily get away from him, but she didn’t even try. Something in his
expression made her want to hear what he had to say.

 Her wrists were burning and
tingling under his clenched fingers. “Jackson, you’re
hurting
me.”

His eyes dropped to her
wrists. He released his grip and took her hands, examining the red marks he’d
left on her wrists. She was still pressed up against the cold stone wall, and
it was digging into her back.

“With everything that’s
going on I can’t have you and Tanner running around—”

The heavy wood doors to the
library opened, startling them.  Juliette walked in and shouted his name when
she saw them.

Jax dropped her hands and turned
to Juliette. Addy watched her give him an uneasy look.

“Relax,” he said to Juliette,
walking back to the table. He leaned over and studied the book Stubbs brought
out earlier with the symbol to trap Eva.

Addy really wished Juliette
hadn’t come in. It was the first time Jax had ever spoken to her in any way
that hinted he wasn’t picking his words carefully to hide things. She was
pretty shocked that he’d totally raged out on her though, and tried to ignore
him as he talked to Juliette about plans for the morning.

Addy walked around every
inch of the library, stopping to examine anything that might work as a hiding
place. Nothing stood out to her and the next logical place to search would be Fate’s
old wing of the estate which unfortunately belonged to Jax now. Getting in
there unseen would be impossible. She needed a reason to go in.

Addy pasted a smile on her
face. “Hey Jax?”

He looked up at her and
raised his eyebrows.

“The other night when I came
in here to wake you, I thought I noticed a scroll of Akori symbols on the table.
I think it had the same ones Tanner and I have.”

Jax seemed surprised she was
speaking to him. “Yeah, there may have been some drawings of them.”

“Can I see the scroll?” she
asked, hoping that it was still in his room.

He hesitated. “It’s in my
sitting room. I’ll bring it down tomorrow.”

“I don’t mind going to grab
it. I’d really like to look at it tonight, you know, before you summon Eva
tomorrow.” She continued to smile at him sweetly.

After a little persistence she
was able to convince him, probably out of guilt, to let her go grab the scroll.
She really wanted it anyway, so it was a bonus and she’d be able to check
quickly for anything that might be used as a hiding place for Oren’s book.

Slipping into his wing of
the estate, she knew she’d have to be fast. She wanted to be fast anyway—the
last time she was in there was when their grandfather died. There was a lot of
ground to cover. She scanned the shelves for anything that might hold a book. She’d
never spent much time in that part of the house, and it was like being in a
whole other building. She ran around frantically looking for any place the book
could be. She spotted the scroll she told Jax she wanted on the table by the
davenport and put it under her arm.

In the hallway, between the
bathroom and the sitting room, she saw a tall statue that only had one arm. She
looked at it closely and realized it was the match to the creepy statue guy in
the library holding the severed arm.

Addy leaned up against it
trying to think of where to look next. She was running out of time.

Something flashed behind her
and she looked up at the statue. The expression on his face made her look
closer, particularly at the eyes. She could see a reflection in the shiny
marble, but it wasn’t her own. It appeared he was looking at a building with a
tall obelisk extending up from it. On top of the obelisk, carved in stone was
an urn with what looked like a cloth draped over it. Angels stood by the door,
their arms outstretched. She squinted to see better, but it was too small. She
thought there was something etched in the stone above the door. The entire
scene looked familiar to her.

“Addison?”

The sound of Jax’s voice
caused her to jump and she ran quietly back to the sitting room. She hurried
and plopped down on the davenport, unrolling the scroll.

“In here.” She called back
to him.

He walked in, looking around
the room. “I thought you were coming back to the library?”

She stood up and started to
roll the scroll back up.

“I am. I just sat for a
minute to look over the scroll and make sure I had the right one.” Right,
because there were so many scrolls lying around, she thought, mentally kicking
herself. “Looks like I do, so I’ll get out of here. Thanks again.”

He started to say something
but she was out the door in a flash. Tangling with Jax again was low on her
list of desired things to do.

Unsure about what to make of
the reflection in the statue’s eyes; she ran through the library doors and
tossed the scroll on the table. She hurried to the creepy statue guy holding
the arm. Addy prepared herself to gaze into his eyes the way she’d done to the
other one. She stood up on her tiptoes and fixed her eyes on his only to find
that the statue’s eyes were closed. She took a step back and tapped her finger
on her lip. She could’ve sworn they were open when she’d glanced at it with
Fate.

After examining the statue
thoroughly she found nothing remarkable about it. She’d never looked closely at
it because Fate had told her not to. The statue appeared to be an Akori with
fine lines of symbols carved into his hands. The severed arm didn’t have any
symbols on it.

Feeling frustrated, Addy decided
she needed to pick Tanner’s brain. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and
dialed him. After a few rings, a girl answered and she could hear a lot of
noise and laughing in the background. Rather than interrupt whatever it was he
was doing, she opted to hang up. She slipped her phone back in her pocket,
feeling completely alone.

Addy walked back to the main
area of the library and sat down at the table. Leaning back, she tried to
recreate the scene in her mind. She caught sight of the painting with Andrew
and Eva hanging above the fireplace.

“Unbelievable—
the
painting,”
she said, walking over to it.

“You’re up late,” Stubbs
said as he walked in carrying a stack of books.

She pointed to the painting.
“Why were they painted in a cemetery?”