Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
My brother Zach.
He was tall and slender, with the same auburn hair and turquoise eyes as me. His skin was milky, but not quite as pale as mine. He wore black from head to toe, right down to his sneakers. Two men entered the bar after him, also dressed in black. But they hovered somewhere behind Zach so I couldn’t make out their faces or see if they were armed. I’d have to be careful. Slowly Zach scanned the room, his face like steel, until he found me. Devon grabbed my hand in a painful grip and tugged. But as my eyes locked with my brother’s, I couldn’t move. His face softened and something stirred in me. I had a brother. He really existed. He gazed at me with warm eyes. It reminded me of the expression I’d seen in the photos and in the recent memory.
“Damn,” Stanley muttered.
Zach’s lips pulled into a tentative smile as if he was happy to see me. But my face was frozen, unsure of how to feel. He was part of Abel’s Army. Maybe he was responsible for Holly’s kidnapping. The softness of his expression made me want to believe otherwise, but I knew better than to trust someone’s face.
One of his men, and now I recognized him as the guy with the red hair who had disappeared with Holly, said something, and every hint of happiness slipped off Zach’s face. His eyes cut through the room and my heart stopped as I followed his gaze toward a booth at the end of the bar. Tanner and Kate were slowly rising from the blue leather seats.
Where was Alec?
Bitter realization set in. After what I’d said to him in Detroit, he was done with me. The FEA still wanted to rescue me, but not Alec. He no longer cared what happened to me.
The other customers started to whisper nervously and most of them got up and moved closer to the only exit, which Zach and his men were still blocking. Where were Benny and Finja? Was there no other form of security?
“This is all your fault,” Stanley said miserably. His hands hit my back and I stumbled into the middle of the room. “Here, take her. She’s why you’re here. Take her and leave.”
I caught my fall with my hands and slowly straightened. Stanley and Devon were fighting. Punches were flying and Devon was trying to get the older man in a headlock. Stanley was spitting, probably to put Devon in a drug haze. But that wasn’t my main problem. Devon was a good fighter. And it was better for him to be part of a brawl with Stanley than to get into whatever was about to go down between Kate and Tanner, and Zach and his men. I could only hope Penny would stay with my mother upstairs. My eyes darted between my brother and my former agent colleagues. Whatever I did, escape was unlikely. One of them would inevitably triumph.
Maybe the FEA was the lesser evil, or maybe not. After everything I’d learned, I couldn’t be sure anymore. Abel’s Army was the great unknown. Could what awaited me with them possibly be worse than being thrown into the FEA’s loony bin and having my life controlled by Major? The unknown held the potential for danger, but it also held hope. And my brother was my ticket to Holly.
Tanner held out his hand. Today his mohawk was blue. Good old Tanner—but his face was missing his trademark grin. “Come on, Tessa. We can get you home safely. This can all be over now.”
“What home?” I retorted bitterly.
“Home is the FEA, where you belong. Major wants you back. Alec is waiting for you,” Tanner said, his eyes flitting between me and Zach on the other end of the room.
“Major just wants to control me. If there were a chance for Alec and me, he’d be here with you. Don’t start lying to me too, Tanner.” I really wished Benny hadn’t taken my gun when we’d entered the bar. Even when it came to fighting Variants, I’d have felt much safer with it in my hand.
“We’re your family,” Tanner said. Kate rolled her eyes and I almost wanted to do the same. Strangely enough she was the one person in the FEA I resented the least right now. Without her, I’d still be clueless. She had set this whole thing in motion, but at least she had told me the truth.
“A family doesn’t do what the FEA did to me,” I said quietly.
And yet part of me still wanted my old life back at headquarters, that feeling of belonging, of having a place where I was safe. I longed for my life the way it used to be: movie nights with Alec, banter with Tanner, laughter with Holly and breakfast with Martha cooking in the kitchen. Maybe I could have forgiven everything if Major had apologized, if he hadn’t planned on locking me away, but even then, broken trust was hard to mend. Especially if there was a lack of trust on both sides. As Abel’s daughter, Major would never trust me completely.