Consequence (4 page)

              It felt like an eternity had passed sometimes since our wedding, but it had only been ten years in actuality. Still, ten years was a lot to wrap your head around. All those years of letting him love me and trying my best to love him back even more, in return.

I palmed his cheek and rubbed my thumb over his dimple when they made an appearance with his grin. His hands on my sides flexed and caressed up and down my torso as he watched me watch him.

              “It’s amazing to me that you’re still surprised by it,” he mused, one of his hands drifting to my neck—to my Visionary mark. He brushed his thumb across it several times before leaning in and kissing it, staying close to me to speak, answering my silent question. “That I love you and this is really our life.”

              I leaned to the side, gripping his head and sighing into his hair. “It’s a good life. It’s not uncommon to be grateful to the point of disbelief.”

              A flash of the visions I had played in the back of my mind and I couldn’t help but let it seep into our perfect moment. He wrapped an arm around my lower back and pulled me to him, pressing his face against mine. “I will fix this for you, baby. I will make all the bad things go away. I promise you.” I nodded slightly, but he shook his head. “Believe me when I say that whoever is behind this will regret the day they made you suffer.”

              I leaned back just enough to see his eyes—his honest blue eyes that never lied to me. “You think someone did this on purpose? Not something supernatural?”

              He sighed. “This isn’t your ability, sweetheart. If it was, then I would see the visions, too. I’d have them with you like I always do. This is something else. It just doesn’t feel right. It feels…” he rubbed my upper arms to soothe me as he said the words, “evil.”

              “The Watsons,” my mouth spouted immediately, almost as if the words weren’t my own. The Watsons were always the first people who came to mind when I thought of anything that came against us that had evil intentions.

              “I can’t prove it, obviously, and I have no real reason to think that. They’d be stupid to show up now after all this time, with no powers and no way to defend themselves. But I feel like they have something to do with it for some reason, like they’ve been waiting in the shadows for the right time to strike.”

              He was right. His words rang true in my ears and my veins, but I still felt like I needed to rebel. “Please, no,” I begged in a whisper. “Anything but that.”

              “Right now,” he said, taking my face in his hands, “I’m taking you for a quiet lunch and we’re not going to think about that.” He kissed the corner of my mouth and helped me stand.

I stalled and rubbed my palms over the tattoos on his forearms. They were new, one on each arm for each of our kiddos. Rodney’s name was on a cog wheel on Caleb’s left arm, and Ava’s was across a piece of filigree fence with a vine crawling over it. The man carried his whole life on his skin.

Taking my hand, he towed me into the street and ducked into the deli. I knew he could hear Kyle’s thoughts as he borrowed my ability. He and Lynne were in the deli already and were waiting for us. They knew we’d come when we were…finished. They knew we’d hear their thoughts and know where they were. Kyle was sorry for being an ass, but still believed that Caleb was wrong for looking at me as the Visionary second. He was a true Ace in his thinking. They all thought that way. He would never understand.

              “Maggie is my business,” Caleb told him as he pulled my chair out for me, “so let’s stop talking about it since we’re not going to agree. We don’t
have to
agree; that’s the beauty of it. She doesn’t belong to you.”

              Kyle rolled his eyes, but lifted his hand as Caleb sat down across from him. “All right, all right. I give, Champion.”

              “You know I hate it when you call me that,” Caleb grumbled and told the waiter he’d have water.

              “I know,” Kyle rebutted and looked over at me. “Any idea what’s going on?”

              “No Visionary talk,” Caleb ordered. “Maggie has been through enough this week.” His hand inched over to mine on the table, his thumb rubbing my knuckles. “We’ll figure it out, we always do, but right now we’re going to enjoy this last day in London before we go home.”

              “I think there’s probably more important things.”

              Caleb kept going. “And let Maggie have a few minutes of calm before we go back, because when we do, we’ve got to figure out who on the council is trying to sabotage us. Because someone is working with the Watsons. We’re almost sure of it.”

              Kyle looked at me and scoffed. “You agree with this bologna?”

I nodded. “Every word.”

              He gulped. “Whatever you say, boss. I’m right behind you, always.”

              I told Caleb to order for me. It was our thing. He always ordered for me when we went somewhere new. He knew me inside out and knew what I liked, but today, my mind could barely focus on the glass of water in front of me, let alone what kind of food I wanted. My mind churned with possibilities of who could be behind things and what purpose it could serve.

             
Stop it
, he ordered softly.
Don’t make me pull rank.

             
I outrank you, Jacobson.

              Technically
. He grinned, his dimples winking.
I’m still your Champion, however, and I order you to stop worrying until we have to. Whatever this is…we’ll deal with it, together.

              Okay.
I nodded and sighed, cracking my neck side to side.
I’ll try to have fun.

              That’s my girl.

             
The waitress interrupted our flirting with our food of real shepherd’s pie, and Kyle and Lynne’s kippers. After we ate ourselves full, we walked down Market Street to the shops and marketplace.

              The tingling started in the back of my mind softly, like a reminder, but Caleb seemed oblivious to it, so I tried not to think about it at all. I was going to give Caleb the perfect day he wanted if I got nothing else done on this trip.

              After a few hours, we finally made our way back toward the lift and I was sporting a new charm for my bracelet—an infinity charm Caleb found. We got Ava and Rodney some things, too, my husband’s arms loaded down, making him very cute.

              We passed the fountain across the street, the one that I had heard the splash from and seen the vision. I walked cautiously over, half expecting it to be filled with something other than water, but it was crystal clear.

              The fountain was beautiful, old in its design and architecture. The woman who sat on top covering herself with a stone blanket smirked at us from her perch. I wondered who she was modeled from, who she was supposed to be. I let the tips of my fingers float across the water, and the vision hit me like no other vision had ever come.

              I was falling. It was me, actually me. I wasn’t watching them fall. The scream screeched from her lungs—my lungs. I watched the ground come closer and closer, knowing the end was coming, my time was almost over. The fountain was below me like a mirror, portraying an eerie copy of myself and my death.

              Right as I braced myself for impact, I was on the roof. I was someone else. I was taller, broader. I couldn’t move, but was moving. People moved and talked around me. I was conscience, aware, but not able to interact. They stood me upright when we got to the lift and I saw one of the Watson clan members. I gasped inside my head, but nothing came out of my mouth.

              We moved too fast, too swift and with purpose for it to be anything but a plan. I felt a grimy substance all over my thoughts, just like the times I had been in Marcus’ and Sikes’ heads. What was going on? I reached my mind out, feeling for anything that would bring me some sense of understanding. My own powers no longer worked. I was useless.
No
. I shook that thought away and focused. This was happening for a reason. This was meant for me to see.

              When we reached the bottom, we passed the fountain. That fountain… The scream sounded again, but this time, they all heard it. They covered their ears, letting me tumble to the ground. I fell with an awkward thud, like I was stone, molded and unyielding. “It happens sometimes when we come past here,” one of them remarked. “Marla’s last mark on this world replayed over and over in the fountain’s water.”

              “How come the humans can’t hear it?”

              “We didn’t save her. It’s meant to torture us. Only her family can hear it.”

              That one statement was a dagger to my very soul.
Only her family can hear it…

I could hear it.

My mother’s betrayal was coming back to haunt me yet again.

              We were moving. They shoved me in the back of a truck, and in the blink of an eye we were in a house. It was a beautiful place. Clean, bright. They stood me upright in a corner with a room full of people looking at me as if I were the key to all their problems.

              “Well, how do we get him out of there?” a woman said.

              A man stepped forward. I recognized him from the reunification. His name was Chase.

Chase Watson.

“We don’t. He’s the only one who could do this; he’s the only one who can get himself out. He’s stuck like this. He’ll make a nice conversation piece right here in the corner for all of eternity.” He turned to look at his family. “While we figure out how to avenge him and all our other family in these pathetic human bodies, given to us by the one who was supposed to bring our people more power, not take it away.”

Oh, my… I was in Donald’s body.

As soon as the thought entered my mind, I was yanked from him and was running in someone else. My feet moved without thought and my eyes wandered around the woods as if looking for someone. I was so tired, I didn’t know if I could keep going. I reached the edge of the trees and saw a building. I sprinted for it. My body ached. When I looked down, I saw my belly was bulging and pregnant. I was very close to giving birth. I gasped and cried out, my mind aching, unable to release my own voice and thoughts.

I heard voices behind me and took off again…but didn’t get far. They gave chase and soon caught up to me. My mouth spouted words that weren’t my own. I listened to them as the men surrounded me and was horrified—beyond horrified—at what I heard.

“Please don’t take me back there. Please. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. You can have your way with me.” My knees hit the dirt as I begged. “I’ll do anything! Please, just let the baby and me go! Please!”

“You know that’s not going to happen.” The one speaking looked down at me without pity or emotion, like I was a job. Like I was something he was supposed to do and nothing else. “You know you’re going to have to come back. Just come back the easy way, Gabrielle. You know we don’t want to hurt you.”             

              “But you do,” I whispered. “You do. And you let him hurt me.”

              “We want to help you. He wants to make you powerful and help you so that husband of yours can never hurt you again.”

              I felt my mouth sneer. “He just beat me. Even he never poisoned and tortured me the way you and your family do. You’re doing the things you do for you, not me. Don’t make it sound like you’re helping anyone but yourselves.”

              He didn’t smile. I recognized several of them from the reunification from the Watson family, and I could tell from the clothes they were wearing that this was recent. He pointed his hand toward the truck we all could hear coming in the distance. “Get in the truck, Gabrielle. No one wants to deliver a baby in the woods. He’s coming, isn’t he?”             

              A sob escaped my chest and I rose to go with them. I fought inside myself. Me— myself—I wanted to fight. I didn’t want them to have this baby. This woman, Gabrielle, she was weak from what they’d put her through. She was just…done. But me, I was ready for a fight. I knew what going with them meant. I knew what Sikes and his family had done to people in the past and apparently his family was carrying the torch in his stead.

              Well, I wasn’t about to let that happen. I had to do something. There had to be a reason I was seeing this. I focused, I made myself look around and see everything, but Gabrielle climbed into the front seat of the truck, followed by the guy who kept giving orders, and slouched, leaning her head back, giving up. They drove her all the way back to the Watson compound and he took her arm, albeit gently, as he pulled her from the truck and took her back toward the house. “You’re going to change things for us, Gabrielle—you and this baby. Doesn’t that make you happy? You’re finally a part of a family.”

              “I know you’re going to just get rid of me after he’s born,” Gabrielle whispered.