Kindred (22 page)

FIFTY-FIVE

Hannah

How sad was it that I couldn’t remember how I’d kept myself busy before Jason had moved in? He’d left only about a day ago, but already I felt at a loss anytime I was home, because usually he was there, and I spent my time worrying about his mental state or making sure he was eating. Of course the worries were still there, but the object of my anxiety was out of my reach. I wondered sometimes if he’d always be out of my reach.

Alice had called a couple hours after Jason left, angry that I’d let him go, and I found myself arguing, using the reasoning Jason had given me. He was an adult. We had no authority over him to make him do anything. If he wanted to go out and help find the people who were after him, there was very little I could do to stop him. It did surprise me that he went out with Tony as his contact person, and I didn’t envy him working with my sister in the mood she was in. Tony was a nice guy and a good cop. In this case, he showed good judgment using Jason as a resource. As much as I would prefer Jason away from the dangerous elements of society, I knew he wanted to be involved. To help.

And for now, all I could do was to be there when he came back. Hopefully not broken, as he had been last time. He’d been able to put the pieces back together after his traumatic childhood, and was working to piece himself together after Mason, but I wasn’t sure how much more he would be able to handle. Eventually he would think it was too much, and he’d be gone. He would take Sam and run to someplace where they would be safe.

What would I do if he left? The way I was feeling right now, I’d probably follow him. Or try to convince him to stay. Of course I was aware that when he made up his mind to do something, it was quite hard to change it. If he decided to leave, and that he didn’t want me with him, I would have to respect his wishes. But that wasn’t anything I needed to think about yet. He hadn’t made any move to show that he wanted to run away; instead, he was pushing to act more normal. Something he knew little about considering how he was raised, and the power he wielded.

When I realized I’d been pacing around the house for the past hour, I decided it was time to get out and do something. I could act normal too, for at least an afternoon. That the friend I’d called happened to be Dustin didn’t mean I wanted to spend the day talking about Jason, it just meant that I thought he too needed an ordinary activity once in a while.

I kept trying to distract myself, but my mind kept drifting toward wondering what Jason had told Dustin during their talks. I wanted to know whether my college friend knew more about my best friend than I did, or if Jason had stayed bottled up, and told Dustin nothing. Somehow I thought Jason may have opened up to him, at least about some things, since there were times when Dustin acted like he now understood more about why Jason acted in certain ways in some situations. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I didn’t think so.

I opened the door as I saw Dustin’s car pulling into the driveway. He gave me a slightly surprised look when I climbed into the passenger seat before he even shut off the car. “Hannah, everything okay?”

“Sure. I just didn’t want to sit in the house anymore.” He shot me a knowing look, but thankfully said nothing. Searching for a topic that wouldn’t involve Jason or the case he was currently working, I finally came up with, “How’d you do on your finals?”

That led to several minutes of conversation about the end of the school year, what we were planning for next year, and how we thought our other friends had done. We were sitting in the park talking about nothing when someone approached us. I stood back slightly, not sure who it was or if he was a threat. “Can I help you?” Dustin asked, not in his most friendly voice, but not coldly either. The man looked worried about something, and he didn’t want to be mean to someone who might need help.

When he spoke I felt shivers running down my spine. “I need you to give this to your sister. She has to help me.” He handed me an envelope. “This is what I know. Tell her she needs to find me, to know me. Or the Tracker won’t be safe,” he warned coldly, and I gasped, realizing who it was.

“Kindred,” I whispered.

His face showed a slight frown. “I am only Kindred to the Tracker. I have nothing in common with you.”

I narrowed my eyes and stepped into his space. “Jason,” I stressed his name, “has nothing in common with you. You need to leave him alone.”

He laughed and shook his head. “The Tracker and I are more alike than you know, little one. Just deliver my message.”

Kindred turned to leave. “Wait,” I called, Dustin trying to hold me back. “If you don’t want us calling you Kindred, then what should we be calling you?”

He wagged his finger at me as if to scold me. “That’s exactly what your sister is supposed to find out. Until then, I am the unseen. The ghost of a man who used to be, and will never be again.” He disappeared as he spoke, and Dustin and I gasped at the same time, looking around frantically as if he might reappear. “Deliver my message, little one,” his voice returned, right into my ear, and I froze. My heart pounded in fear. “You won’t like the consequences if you don’t.”

I stood stuck in that moment until Dustin glanced around. “I think he might be gone,” he said, sounding more hopeful than sure.

The lack of response from Kin…the ghost, or whatever he wanted to be called, seemed to prove he was right. “We just saw him, didn’t we, the man who’s been tormenting Jason? We saw him, and he…” I trailed off. How could he have just vanished like that? If he could disappear at will, how could we find him? How could we fight him?

“He did exactly what we were suspecting he could. If he can place images in people’s minds, why shouldn’t he be able to make it seem like no one is there? Besides, when Jason is around he’s able to tell when Kindred is here.”

“We need to go talk to Alice,” I said glancing down at the envelope he’d given me. “I don’t want to open this in case he left fingerprints or something.”

“He wants us to find out who he is, Hannah. I think he probably did leave some fingerprints. All we can hope is that they’re useable, and that they are in the system somewhere.”

We began to make our way to Dustin’s car. “What I’m wondering is how is it he doesn’t know who he is? Through all of this he’s seemed pretty confident that he was an assassin with an odd way of saying thank you,” I said.

Dustin raised his eyebrows at me. “He was thanking Jason for setting him free from Trevor Mason. The same man who tried to torture Jason into becoming a tool for him. Do you have any doubt he’s done the same thing before? Kindred basically just told us that he feels he and Jason are the same. They’ve both experienced pain on a higher level than anyone else I know. Only unlike Kindred, Jason was able to fight back and win against their captor.”

“That makes him seem stronger than Kindred, right? So is it possible that he feels Jason is a threat to him? That if Jason decides Kindred isn’t worth his time, he might do to him what he did to Mason?”

Dustin considered for a moment, staring into space as he thought. “It could be,” he admitted with a nod after a few minutes. “That could explain why he’s been on the offensive so much. If he’s worried Jason is stronger than him, he could be trying to make himself appear tougher than he is. Although I don’t believe he needs to worry about that too much. His mental capabilities can override Jason, even if it is only temporary. Eventually Jason’s mind shuts him out, and maybe it would be the same for everyone, but I don’t think so.”

The buildings flew by outside the car as I stared out. “It’s because of his abilities that he can shut Kindred out, isn’t it,” I said without inflection. “His mind is wired differently, even though he can’t control anyone else’s mind with his gift, he can protect himself if someone else tried manipulating him.”

“Most likely,” he agreed with a slight nod. “We’re here,” he added unnecessarily as we pulled up outside Alice’s precinct. When we tried to see Alice, we found out that she and Dan had gone to check out a suspected drug warehouse that a CI had found. I assumed it had something to do with Jason, but there was no way to know for sure since the department had several CI’s on the payroll. “Are you going to leave that here?” Dustin asked.

Shaking my head I said, “I think I’ll give it to her when she gets home. Or leave a message for her to call us once she’s back in the office. Can you stay around until then?” I tried to hide my nerves and sound relaxed, but I think he probably saw right through me. I just didn’t want to be alone today.

“No problem,” he replied easily. “We can watch a movie or something while we wait.”

As easily as he probably read me, I read him right back. He was afraid. His hands were a little shaky, and when he smiled it didn’t appear as bright as normal. Kindred had approached, and proven without a doubt that he could get to us without a problem.

And we would never even see him coming

FIFTY-SIX

Kindred

Approaching the girl and her friend, while entertaining, was also a bit of a risk. The Tracker wouldn’t like me getting that close, and could choose to retaliate in some way that I wouldn’t be able to fight against. I shivered remembering the whirlwind of dirt and rock in that small town police department. If he got me trapped like that again, I may not get out of it.

It wasn’t completely necessary to work that way. I could have dropped the envelope at the house as before, but the verbal and physical threat may give them more incentive to find out what I wanted to know. For now it was time to find Ivan and get him off the streets for good. He was a threat to the Tracker and to me. Even though I may have to kill the Tracker, I didn’t want him to go through what Ivan would do to him. And I’m sure if he had the choice, he wouldn’t either.

There were several places he could be, and I wasn’t exactly sure where to start, or what to do when I got there. He might know who I was, so I couldn’t kill him right away. I could have some fun with him. A smile stretched across my face. I would pay him back for what he helped do to me, and what he was planning on doing to the Tracker.

The smile died when I got another flash of the woman from my dream. She was shaking her head, a small frown lining her face. I growled slightly at the hint of memory, and the fact that I no longer found the prospect of creatively making Ivan talk as appealing.

Was Carver right? Was I once been a better person? If I had been, was there a way back, or was I now stuck being the killer Mason had created?

And the most important question of all: did I want to go back to what I’d been?

FIFTY-SEVEN

Jason

The wait at the warehouse seemed like forever, although when I glanced at my phone for the time I realized it had only been a few minutes since I’d watched the Boxer drive away. In the following time, I’d seen no activity from the warehouse to indicate any knowledge of my presence outside, so I thought my newly formed hill had gone unnoticed.

I continued thinking that until I felt footsteps approaching my hiding spot. They moved cautiously, but not enough that I couldn’t feel them coming. So far the only person who’d been able to keep me guessing was Kindred. For now they were far enough away that I could easily conceal myself. I rolled onto my side and allowed myself to sink into the ground, leaving a small air pocket in front of my face. Whatever they’d used to find my hiding spot was apparently pretty accurate. The vibrations from their footsteps were right above me, and they paused long enough to make me hold my breath in anticipation.

With the right tools they could find me, but it was unlikely that they’d have those tools with them. Unless they knew specifics about where I was and what I was capable of, it was improbable that they had a body heat sensor. I remembered too late about the bruised shoulder, realizing only after concealing myself that I’d rolled onto the injured limb. It took quite a bit of self-control to not groan with the pain, although it still didn’t compare to what I’d been through in the past.

They were speaking above me, and I could understand only bits and pieces, but it was enough for me to know their boss had noticed the hill and sent them out to explore the area. I heard the word ‘freak’ in their conversation several times, and also, in a slightly more worried tone, the name ‘Earthshaker’. It made me smile a little to realize they were afraid of me, but it also worried me that so many of the criminals in this city knew who I was and what I could do.

I couldn’t live a normal life in a city full of people who knew my secret. Eventually I’d have to leave. Take Sam, and just go. If I wanted to be able to finish school and get a decent job, I needed to be someplace where no one knew anything about me.

The men disappeared down the slope back to the warehouse, and my tensed muscles relaxed. I waited a couple minutes in case they were watching and slowly drew back the damp dirt. I peered over the edge, relieved to see nobody watching, and climbed out. I gently rubbed my aching shoulder, trying to relieve the newly awakened pain, before deciding it would go away eventually on its own and allowing my hand to drop to my side.

I’d almost blown it. Making that hill and leaving it there could have led to my capture. Even now I could have wrecked our chance to get at the Boxer, who—now that I knew he was there—was the obvious choice for who put the hit out on me.

Familiar footsteps approached. “Alice, Tony, Dan,” I greeted each of them in turn as they reached me. “I think I know who arranged the drive-by. But I don’t know his name. He’s not here right now, and he may not come back for a while,” I couldn’t tell them why, not while Detective Dimartino was there. “He wasn’t at the warehouse the first time Mason grabbed me, but he was there when I was grabbed the second time. I don’t think you guys ever saw him, and he didn’t appear on any of the wanted posters I’ve seen, but the impression I’d gotten was that he was just another thug.”

“That was probably intentional, so you wouldn’t realize how important he was. It’s gotta be Ivan,” Dan muttered the name, and I looked at him curiously. “I’ve heard rumors from the gang unit about a man Mason had been grooming to take over the business. The only name I have for him is Ivan, and I don’t have any pictures, but it’s gotta be him. He’s obviously kept himself out of trouble, probably by design. Mason was a smart man. This guy may be smarter.”

“Only if he realizes the mistake Mason made, and doesn’t repeat it,” I said darkly. If he tried to do to me what Mason had done, he would likely end up in the same place. “Did you want to bust the warehouse?” I asked, trying to get the worried look off Alice’s face.

“No,” she and Tony answered at the same time. “We’re going to watch it, and see who comes and goes. If we bust it now, Ivan disappears again,” Alice explained. “If we leave it, he could come back, and then we can nail him.”

“Keep in mind; we never could get Mason on anything. If Ivan is as smart as him, he won’t be connected to any of the crimes he’s committed,” Tony warned.

What we found out about what Kindred could do led us to believe he was the only reason Mason had skated on so many charges. Without Kindred, Ivan couldn’t possibly get away with everything. “We’ll get him,” Alice said.

“Meanwhile, we should set up surveillance. Jason, can you give a description of Ivan that we can give them?” Dan asked.

I nodded. Eventually I’d have to tell them it might be a waste of resources. If the Boxer was Ivan, then he would know not to come back. He knew I’d found his warehouse, and that I knew he was around. The Boxer knew what I was capable of. He was a threat to me and the people I care about.

And now that I knew he was back, nothing would keep me from finding him, and ending the threat. Permanently.