Revival (The Variant Series, Book 1) (7 page)

“Where are you?” Her aunt’s voice had turned hollow.

“Some cabin.” Alex wandered to the windowsill. “We’re in the mountains. Near a lake. I’m still not sure where, exactly.”

The line went dead.

“Aunt Cil?”

Silence.

Alex hung up the phone, turned it back on, and redialed. Halfway through the second ring the sound of raised voices carried up the stairs. Curious, Alex left her place at the window and walked out into the hallway. She came to a stop at the banister and stared wide-eyed at the scene unfolding downstairs.

The phone clattered to the hardwood floor, forgotten.

“What were you
thinking
bringing her here, Jonathan? Of all the idiotic,
irresponsible
—”

“And hello to you, too, Cecilia,” Grayson sounded tired. “Long time.”

“
Aunt Cil
?”

Declan and Nathaniel wandered into the living area from the kitchen. Alex barely noticed. Her eyes were glued to the frazzled form of her aunt standing in the room below.

Alex gripped the banister railing for support. “How did you…?”

Her aunt finally looked up. “Alex!” she cried.

Alex watched in disbelief as Cil took one step forward and disappeared in a ripple of violet light. A split-second later she had reappeared on the landing beside her.

Cil pulled her into a fierce hug before Alex could react.

“Oh, Lee-Lee!” Her aunt pushed her back to arms length, looking her up and down. “Are you alright? You’re not hurt are you?”

Alex’s head was spinning. “I… You…
How did you do that
?”

She heard Declan address Grayson downstairs. “You never told me she had Variants in her family tree. Or that she was
that
Alexandra.”

Declan sounded angry. But why? Which Alexandra was she supposed to be, exactly? And what was a variant?

“Need-to-know,” Grayson replied. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, Lee-Lee,” her aunt said again. She was staring at Alex, a mix of grief and fear in her expression. “You weren’t supposed to find out. Not like this.”

Cil reached for her arm, but Alex shrank back, just out of her reach.

“Find out
what
, Aunt Cil?” Alex continued backing away from her aunt, eventually running out of room and bumping into the hallway wall. “What’s going on? Since when can you do…
that
? How do you know these people?”

Grayson was making his way up the stairs.

Cil looked helplessly from her niece to the dark-haired man. Alex thought she could see tears welling up in her aunt’s eyes.

“There are some things you need to know, Lee-Lee. Things I was hoping I’d never have to tell you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Her aunt sighed. “I thought you’d be safe so long as I stayed out of it and you stayed ignorant to the truth… But I guess that’s no longer an option.” The look she sent Grayson was icy. “Our family’s a little…
different
. Your mom and I, we were both born with the ability to teleport—to move instantaneously from one place to another.”

Alex nodded slowly, trying to turn off the cynical voice of reason that was loudly protesting this turn of events in the back of her thoughts. This morning, such a declaration from her beloved aunt would have had Alex calling Dr. Moran—the psychiatrist Alex had been forced to visit for years after the death of her parents—and scheduling Aunt Cil for the next available appointment.

But now… She’d just seen the laws of physics shattered for the fourth time in a single evening.

The thing was, this time she couldn’t write it off as some stranger with a parlor trick. This was family. This was
her
family.

And if her mom and her aunt were
different
, then what did that make Alex?

Declan was standing by the front entryway downstairs watching them, his hazel eyes intent.

Nathaniel walked up beside Declan and placed a hand on his shoulder. He nodded toward the door.

Declan’s gaze didn’t waver.

Nathaniel glanced upwards. Catching her eye, he sent her a brief, sympathetic smile before exiting. A few long, silent moments passed before Declan finally looked away and followed him outside.

Alex closed her eyes and tried to focus on what her aunt was telling her.

“Teleport,” said Alex. “Like Declan. That’s how I got here, right? Teleportation?”

“Yes, sweetie. Like Declan,” she said slowly. “Declan and Mackenzie’s parents, Nathaniel’s mother, your parents… They all worked together when you four were kids.”

“Parents?” she asked. “Plural? As in, my Dad, too?”

“Your Dad, too. He was telekinetic. He could move objects with his thoughts.”

Like Nathaniel.

“Wait. If Nathaniel and Declan can do the same things as my parents, does that mean… Are we related somehow?”

Cil shook her head. “No. Teleportation and telekinesis are actually two of the more
common
abilities that Variants possess. And for the type of work your parents were doing… Well, those skills were very useful.”

Alex swallowed the information, feeling numb. Eventually her thoughts circled back to the second part of what her aunt had said. The bit about all of their parents having worked together.

“What sort of work did they do?”

Cil pursed her lips and looked once more to Grayson. He cleared his throat.

“Twenty-two years ago, I’d just emigrated from England and was working for the NSA.” He looked uncomfortable. “The United States government had been aware of people like myself, your parents and your aunt… of individuals with unusual talents, for quite some time. They referred to us as Variants—human beings whose DNA possessed slight variations from a normal human’s genetic code. Variations that allow us to do incredible things.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “On account of my history with the NSA and my precognitive abilities, I was selected to head a newly formed bureau—one that would employ Variants in an attempt to aid the NSA, and other government organizations, with sensitive missions where our skills might prove…
useful
.

“The Agency started off small. Just a handful of us, really. Some paper-pushers to handle the bureaucratic affairs in the office and a single unit to work in the field, which I commanded. There were ten Variants on our team; four women and six men. We worked together for eight years. The unit was a great success. We were a bit like family.”

Grayson paused, his jaw clenching. “They
were
my family,” he said quietly. “Your parents were two of my very best friends.”

Alex watched the older man pull himself back from the abyss he’d been peering into.

“One day, a powerful Variant named Masterson got it in his head that…” He appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “Well, let’s just say he came after one of our own. The team tried to stop him.”

Grayson paused again.

Realization dawned.

“My parents didn’t die in a car crash,” Alex whispered, “did they?”

It was more a statement than a question.

Cil blanched. Alex felt her knees give way beneath her and she sank slowly down the wall. Her borrowed sweater snagged on the cotton t-shirt underneath and hitched it up around her waist. She tugged it back down.

“All these years…” she heard herself say.

Alex had only been a kid when her parents had died.

Just a little girl.

These days she was hard-pressed to remember a time before she had gone to live with her aunt. A time before the “accident.”

A time when her family had still been whole.

She kept the few memories that remained locked away inside of her, to be brought out only when the darkness was at its worst… or any time she was feeling
particularly
masochistic.

The memories were few, but they were everything.

They were all she had.

She closed her eyes.

It was the smell of her mother’s perfume—the light, flowery scent of honeysuckle mixed with the heavy sweetness of orange blossoms.

It was riding piggyback, high on her father’s shoulders—so scared of slipping, but so certain that his strong arms would always be there to catch her, should she fall.

It was learning to swim in the chilly waters of the creek out behind their house. It was a picnic on a summer day. It was the smell of her mother’s pumpkin pound cake in the fall.

And more than anything, it was love.

Every other thing she knew about her parents—all of the facts and anecdotes she’d collected like valuable treasures over the years—had all come from Aunt Cecilia.

And they’d all been lies.

Anger.

Betrayal.

Despair.

Alex couldn’t quite name the feeling that had started to drain all the color and light from the world around her—that had caused her chest to tighten so painfully—but she thought that, perhaps, it was something entirely new. Some horrible combination of all three.

She glared at her aunt. “You said my mom was a school teacher… That my dad was an accountant! Now you’re telling me that they were
spies
? That they were
murdered
? Was there
anything
you told me about my parents that was true?”

Her aunt’s face crumpled. “Oh, Lee-Lee… Your parents loved you! They would have done anything to protect you! When they realized what was happening, they told me… They told me that if anything were to happen to them, that I was to raise you as normally as I could. They didn’t want you to know about any of this, if it could be helped. They didn’t want their life to be yours. They wanted you to be…
normal
.”

The word hung in the air like a guillotine a thread away from a fall.

Nothing about her life would ever be normal after this.

She wasn’t sure who was more deserving of her anger. The man in the bookstore for attacking her and forcing the truth out into the open? Declan for bringing her here? Her parents for insisting the truth be kept secret from her? Or her Aunt Cil for intentionally keeping her in the dark for so many years?

All this time… How had she not known? Not picked up on the clues?

“
Am
I normal?” she asked. “Or am I like you? Like my parents?”

Fear flickered in Cil’s eyes for the briefest of moments.

Was this why Alex had suddenly turned into a walking electro-magnetic pulse, frying unlucky appliances any time she got upset? Had that been part of one of her parent’s abilities?

Seemed pretty useless, if you asked her.

 “Not all Variant offspring possess the traits of their parents,” said Grayson. “Some are born completely human.”

Her aunt nodded in agreement. “And some children who
do
inherit the variant genes from their parents never develop their powers, anyway. It just lies dormant.”

They were quiet for a moment as the news sank in.

Alex narrowed her eyes as another thought occurred to her.

“What happened to the others?” asked Alex. “The rest of the unit—where are they now?”

Grayson leaned back against the banister. “Masterson killed the majority of my team.” A shadow had fallen over his expression, seeming to grow darker with each word he spoke. “My wife. Your parents. All of our unit save for two: myself and one other, who I haven’t spoken to for many years.”

“So Kenzie, Declan and Nathaniel… ?” Alex couldn’t find the words to finish her question. This must have been how they’d come to live with Grayson. Masterson had murdered their families. Just like he’d murdered hers.

Grayson folded his arms across his chest. “Orphaned. Like you. I took them in because they had nowhere else to go. No family members left to take care of them.”

“And you?” Alex asked, her eyes narrowing. There was a poorly concealed tone of accusation in her voice. “How is it that
you
survived?”

Later on, she would look back on this conversation and wish like hell she hadn’t asked that question.

Grayson was quiet a moment.  The look in his eyes suggested that he was no longer standing at the edge of that chasm…

The abyss had swallowed him whole.

“The last time I saw Masterson, he gave me two reasons for why I had to go on living. The first was that someone needed to look after the orphaned children.” He unfolded his arms and stood up straight. “And the second was that killing me would have been an act of mercy. One he wasn’t willing to provide.

“That night, Masterson died by my hand… And that is why I’m still alive,” Grayson then turned and walked down the stairs, leaving Alex alone with her aunt.

The silence that followed Grayson’s statement was absolute. She waited for the front door to close firmly behind him before she turned to her aunt.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What did he mean by an ‘act of mercy’?”

Cil was still staring at the door through which Grayson had disappeared. “One of Masterson’s gifts was an ability to see the future,” she said. “And while Grayson can see the potential future of any person, any place… he has never been able to foresee his own. When Masterson finally confronted Grayson, he saw something of Grayson’s future. Whatever it was that Masterson saw… He felt that leaving Grayson alive would be a far crueler punishment than death.”

— 7 —

K
enzie sat down in one of the whitewashed Adirondack chairs surrounding the patio’s fire pit and glared at her brother.

“
What
, Kenzie?”

“You know what.”

Declan ignored her, his attention fixed upon the pile of ashes resting at the center of the pit.

This attitude of his was getting on her nerves.

“Dammit, Decks, it isn’t her fault and you know it.”

He sent her a warning look. “Stay out of my head.”

“I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking right now.”

Nathaniel got to his feet. “I’m going to go finish chopping that firewood. You two try to keep it civil, would ya? There’s enough drama around here tonight as it is.”

Kenzie watched him disappear down the stone steps, then returned to her former activity of glaring at Declan. She kicked at the leg of his chair. “You can’t hold what happened against her, Declan. She was a victim, too. She was just as innocent in all of it as we were.”