The Reaping (The Reapers Book 1) (33 page)

Caleb shook with what I assumed was barely controlled anger. “I was in control the entire time.”

“Really? So why risk killing the woman you claim to love? What are you after, Caleb?”

“She was never in any real danger.”

“Tell that to Landon. He had every intention of reaping her and you know what would happen to her on the other side.” He looked at me again. “Sorry, sweetheart, but you’d be on everybody’s list of most desirable to consume and accrue.” I must have looked confused. “Basically, they’d eat you to absorb your power.”

I shivered at that, and Caleb tensed behind me, his grip tightening.

“If you had shown up sooner, Landon wouldn’t have had
time
to reap her. How long did you know about the reaping before you showed up?”

Len stood straight and his face reddened. “You trying to say this is my fault?” He paused and took a deep breath. “I was on the other side of the country. I got here as fast as I could. You’re the one who put her in this situation in the first place.

“She’ll be fine, now, if you do what I want,” Caleb said.

“Now you want something from me?”

“I’ve always wanted something from you, Len, but you never paid enough attention to me to hear it. I’ve got your attention now, though, and you can see that I have a lot to offer as a team member.”

Len’s eyes widened, but he stayed calm. “You want to join my team? Why in the hell would I ever agree to that after the stunt you’ve pulled?”

“Because Kelsey loves me, and she will go wherever I go. You do want her on your team, don’t you? That’s why you came for her and why you stayed with her so long when she was a kid, right? And now I’ve shown you what I can do, you can see what an asset I could be.”

Len looked at me. “Is it true, Kelsey? Do you love this little shit?”

He already knew how I felt about Caleb, so he wasn’t asking to get a real answer. Since Caleb was still in the position to snap my neck, I decided to answer in the way least likely to piss him off “I do, Daddy.”

Caleb’s grip loosened a tiny bit, and he sighed.

Len nodded silently for what felt like forever, but was probably only a few seconds. “There’s just one problem with your little plan, Caleb. I don’t want Kelsey on my team, and I sure as hell don’t want you. You’ve made her a liability, and I can’t protect her. She’d be nothing but trouble to me.”

Caleb’s grip tightened on me again, and I thought for sure I was going to die. He just laughed. “Well, now, Len, you don’t have much of a choice. Cat and Jed believe you set the reaping in motion, and they’re going to be after you. If I can’t join you, I’ll drag you to them myself and watch as they destroy your soul.”

“Huh,” Len said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Guess we’ll be joining forces, then. How about you let go of my daughter, and we head downstairs to discuss this like teammates?”

I was sure that there was no way Caleb would fall for it. He was crazy, but I knew he wasn’t stupid. I almost fell over when he released me and walked over to Len with his hand extended like he hadn’t just been threatening to kill me. Of course, Caleb had been crazy enough to think that his plan would work in the first place, so maybe it wasn’t so hard to believe. He couldn’t exactly hold me hostage forever. Len grabbed his wrist, spun him around, and bent his arm up behind his back. I heard bones snap and Caleb screamed.

“Isobel,” Len called down the stairs and a girl, who looked a tiny bit like me, trotted up with ropes in her hand. “Tie this asshole up, and make sure he can’t get free.”

“Yes, sir,” she said with a quick smile at me.

Len motioned for me to come with him, and I followed him down the stairs and into the bland living room. “Are you okay, honey?”

“Yes, thanks. He told me he was taking me to see Momma.”

Len shrugged. “He always was a good liar. I’ve never trusted him, but then I can’t stand charming people.”

I might have laughed at that, but I was pretty sure if I started laughing, I wouldn’t stop. “What now?”

“Well, sugar, that’s up to you. I would love for you to come with me and join my team, but I don’t have the power to protect you like the corporations can. Cat is every bit the bitch she appears to be, and Jed was unfailingly loyal to his asshole brother for all the years I knew him, but I’d trust either one of them to protect you with their lives. They may be flawed as people, but they’re good at what they do. I’ll take you back to them and you can work it among yourselves.”

I nodded.

Isobel trotted back down the stairs with my suitcase in one hand. “He’s not going anywhere.”

“Good work.” Len nodded, but he looked at me. “His people will pick him up sometime tomorrow. I’m not sure what will happen after that, but he might be right about them blaming me for the reaping. I plan on lying low until this all shakes out, and I’d advise you to do the same.”

I nodded, and followed him and Isobel outside and into the minivan parked next to Caleb’s car. I was still shaking as I buckled myself into the back seat, and all I could feel toward my father at the moment was gratitude. I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have let Caleb kill me, but what mattered was that he hadn’t. I was grateful that he had saved me and I couldn’t help being grateful that he was alive. He was also someone who could cross over into the spirit world, as I could, and that made me feel a little bit less alone.

“Listen, Kelsey,” Len said as he backed the van out of the driveway. “Cat and Jed, or whoever handles your training, is going to pressure you to pick a team and sign a contract. Don’t forget that you are the one with the power. Don’t sign anything unless it’s on your own terms. Get as much as you can from them. Either corporation would pay just about anything to have you working for them.”

I nodded, but my thoughts weren’t really in the future. All the questions I’d been carrying with me for so many years seemed less important. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood to hear any excuses from him, or maybe I finally understood that it didn’t matter. He had left me, and no reason he could offer me would ever make up for that. He was there now, when I needed him, and I couldn’t be happy about that and angry at the same time.

“You should try to get some sleep.” Len smiled at me in the rearview mirror.

I was bone tired, but I didn’t want to close my eyes and wake up in Montana. “Isobel,” I said. “Are you my sister?”

Isobel looked at Len before turning halfway in her seat to look at me. “I’m your half-sister. Isobel Montefort.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She nodded and started to turn back to face forward.

“How long have you worked for Len?”

“That’s enough, Kelsey,” Len said. “I don’t want you carrying information about me back to Varius or Harvest One.”

“But she’s my sister. I want to know her.”

Isobel smiled weakly at me. “If you come to work with us…”

“Yes, Kelsey,” Len said. “In a few years, when you’re ready, you can come work for us and get to know all of your brothers and sisters.”

“Caleb said—”

“Caleb is a great liar,” Len said.

“So it’s not true that you…”

“I can’t get into it, Kelsey. The less you know, the safer you will be. Just understand that there is a very good reason for everything I’ve done. There’s a war coming, and we will all need to be prepared. I tried to tell that—”

“I’m going to tell Mom that you’re dead,” I said. Len was starting to sound as crazy as Caleb, and I thought it was time for a subject change.

“I’ll never give her reason to doubt it,” he said, without looking at me.

We were silent then. I watched the scenery pass and my ears started to close up as we headed into the mountains. Caleb must have taken me East to the flat lands and now we were heading back into the Rockies. I should have stayed quiet, but anger threatened to consume me if I did. “You let me believe that I was crazy. You should have told me that the ghosts were real.”

He glanced at me in the rearview mirror, but I could read nothing in his eyes. “It wasn’t my best moment, but I was trying to protect you. I hoped that maybe your mother and that psychiatrist could destroy your ability, and you’d be spared from some of the pain I’ve—”

“Caleb is a much better liar than you.” I sank back into the seat and stared out the window. Talking to Len was a waste of time and energy.

Tucker popped up in the seat next to me. “I don’t like him,” he said, his eyes on my father.

“I can hear you,” Len said, looking at Tucker in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t trust him, either.” I spoke to Tucker, but I watched the rearview mirror for Len’s reaction. His eyes glinted hard with anger before he looked away. Tucker shook his head when I looked at him and was gone again.

I made small talk with Isobel, to help me stay awake, until she fell asleep around midnight. Len didn’t say a word to me until he dropped me off back at Caleb’s condo in Briarton. “Good luck, sugar,” he said.

“Goodbye, Len. Tell Isobel goodbye for me,” I said as I grabbed my bag from the seat next to me, opened the van door, and started to step out.

“Remember what I said. Don’t let them pressure you into doing something you don’t want.”

I smiled at him, before I realized what I was doing. “I’ve been thinking about those words all the way home. I don’t intend to let them push me around.”

“That’s my girl.”

I got out and closed the door behind me, trying to ignore the hard lump in my throat. My father’s support mattered to me, no matter how much I wished otherwise. I watched Len back up and drive away and then I went inside.

The condo was dark and I dropped my bag on the living room floor. I fell onto the couch, and Cat squealed under me and sat up. She punched me hard in the shoulder. I jumped up and moved to the safety of the doorway.

“Cat, it’s me, Kelsey.” I flicked the light switch by the door and the living room lit up.

Cat squinted in the light, her dark hair a rat’s nest. “What the hell, Kelsey? Are you okay? Where have you been?”

I crossed back over to the couch, but I didn’t sit down. “Can we talk about it later? I need to get some sleep.”

“Okay. Sure. Jed’s out looking for you, but I’ll call him back. Tomorrow, we can talk about it together. We can figure out who you want to work for and start training you right away.”

“I’m not working for anyone. I’m going to find my own place to live tomorrow and I’m going to go back to work, if I still have a job.” I started to head back toward one of the bedrooms, but I couldn’t decide where to go. I didn’t want to sleep in a bed that smelled like Caleb and I didn’t want to be in Jed’s bed in case he came back in the middle of the night.

“You won’t survive a month without protection,” Cat said, interrupting my debate.

“That’ll be my problem.” I turned back to the couch and sat down next to Cat’s feet. “Can I sleep on the couch?”

“Um, okay.” Cat swung her feet to the floor and sat up. “I can’t let you go out there alone, Kelsey. I have to protect you.”

I sighed and leaned back against the couch. “I don’t trust you and I don’t trust Jed. The only person I trusted was Caleb and he screwed me over in every way imaginable…”

“What did Caleb do?”

“Tomorrow. Right now, I need to sleep.”

“Kelsey, I can’t let you leave this house tomorrow without protection.”

I was so tired I was shaking. I was scared of the monsters waiting for me outside the condo, but if I gave in to that fear and gave up my job and my life in Briarton, Landon would have won, anyway. “I’m not staying here, Cat. If you want to protect me, teach me how to fight the reapers and then leave me alone.”

• Title page
  
• CHAPTER ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWO
  
• CHAPTER THREE
  
• CHAPTER FOUR
  
• CHAPTER FIVE
  
• CHAPTER SIX
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER NINE
  
• CHAPTER TEN
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE