Chapter 30

Crew smacks me in the head with a pillow, making me bolt upright and reach for my gun.

“Lara wants to talk to us.”

“I could have shot you in the face. I still might,” I snap when he yanks the blanket off me.

“Just get your ass out of bed. I don’t know what’s going on, but she looks pretty fucking freaked.”

I look at him for a second and frown before climbing out of bed and heading to the bathroom.

I take care of business and wash up before pulling on a pair of jeans and a faded black t-shirt.

Walking out into the kitchen, I smile at Lara as she walks in from outside and takes the coffee mug Crew offers her.

She takes a sip as she sits at the table. If I wasn’t watching her so closely, I would have missed the slight tremble of her hands.

I look at Crew and frown. “What’s going on?”

“She spoke to Oz, Zig, and Greg.”

“What did they say?” I ask, but he just shrugs.

“Not sure. One minute they were talking, and now she looks like she’s about to have a nervous breakdown.”

“You know I’m still here, right?” Lara snaps.

“Yeah, we know. So tell us what’s wrong.”

She clamps her mouth shut and looks down at her mug.

“Talk to us.”

She gets to her feet, leaving her cup on the table. She walks to the window and wraps her arms around herself.

“I have two things to tell you. One is my secret. One is someone else’s. I’m telling you both because I think you should know. If you hate me afterward, I’ll understand. It will hurt like hell, but I’ll get it. No matter what, I’d never be able to remember you without remembering how happy you made me, even if it was just for a little while.”

“I know you’re stalling. We literally buried a body for you. Whatever it is can’t be that bad.”

She bites her lip, tears in her eyes.

“Lara,” Crew soothes, but she shakes her head.

“Nash came to me when we were at the swimming pool.”

I stand frozen in shock. “What?”

“Nash is alive. But, and I’m so fucking sorry to be the one to tell you this, Hendrix didn’t make it.”

“I don’t understand. Why hasn’t he come to us? He doesn’t even know you,” Crew questions, his voice sharp.

“He wanted confirmation of something.” She runs her fingers through her hair.

“The explosion started as a fire. A fire that burned too hot, too fast. He wanted to know if I knew of anyone with that gift.”

“And do you?”

She nods. “When I was a kid, there was a boy who wielded fire. He and his sister were at the Division before they were both moved somewhere else.”

“The Division killed Hendrix?” Crew snarls.

“Nash thinks so. The woman they were seeing, we think, was the pyrokinetic’s sister. She had the gift of allure.”

“Was she sent to target Nash and Hendrix?”

“It seems like it.”

“Did you know?” Crew asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

“No, of course not.”

“But Nash came to you, not us,” he states, anger and hurt in his tone. I almost step in and tell him to cool it, but I’m still in shock.

“I told you. He came to ask me if I knew a firestarter.”

“Why didn’t you tell us? Why all the secrecy? You knew how worried we were.”

She swallows. “He asked me not to. He doesn’t understand how he and Hendrix were targeted. Until he can get the answers he’s looking for, he doesn’t know who he can trust.”

“He can trust us. We’re his fucking brothers,” I snarl.

“Cooper and James betrayed Apex, and now his best friend is dead. He’s grieving and not thinking clearly.”

I scrub my hand down my face.

“You still should have told us. Hendrix might have been his best friend, but he wasn’t just his. Hendrix was ours too, and we deserved to know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I told him I didn’t want to keep it from either of you, but he insisted. And when I still said no, he blackmailed me.”

“What exactly is he blackmailing you over?” Crew asks as I watch Lara, who is desperately trying to make herself seem smaller.

“He knows about my gift and threatened to tell you about it before I was ready to tell you myself.”

“We already know about your telekinesis, so that’s bullshit.”

“That’s my secondary gift. The one I inherited from my mother.”

“Wait, you have two gifts?” I ask, thrown for a moment. It’s been hard enough to get my head around the possibility of having a single gift, but the thought of people having more than one is more than my brain can handle.

“How many people have dual gifts?”

“Hardly any. It’s incredibly rare to inherit both parents’ gifts. Usually, a child will get the gift that is the strongest, though not always. I think since the Division’s inception, there have been two recorded cases of dual gifts.”

“Are you one of them?”

She shakes her head. “No. They’re both dead. Avoiding burnout with one gift is hard enough, but trying to handle two…” She shakes her head. “As far as I know, I’m the only one with dual gifts right now, but you won’t find me in any database. It stands to reason that there are others out there who hide the fact they are dual-gifted too.”

“What’s your second gift, Lara? Why hide it?” Crew folds his arm over his chest, but I’ve already figured it out.

“Gifts are inherited,” I say slowly.

She looks at me, fear written in every line of her face, and nods.

“Jesus fuck. You have the same gift as your father.” Crew curses.

She nods again, wrapping her arms around herself once more.

“Have you been manipulating us this whole time?” As soon as the words are out, I want to take them back. Her body jerks back like I’ve hit her, her pain so visceral it hurts to look at her. But I don’t apologize because I need to know the truth.

She moves her gaze from mine to stare at Crew, waiting to see what his reaction will be.

“Just answer his question, Lara. We deserve that much.”

“The fact that you even have to ask tells me everything I need to know,” she whispers and moves to walk away, but I intercept her and grab her arm.

“Let go of me, or so help me God, I’ll make you.”

I release her and take a step back, not wanting to risk it now that I know what she’s capable of.

“Look, let’s just calm down a little. Tell us what you did, and we can work through it,” Crew tells her softly. Fire flashes in her eyes. That was clearly not the right thing to say.

“What I did was fall in love with two idiots who don’t deserve me.” When I open my mouth to speak, she holds up her hand to stop me. “Nothing I say now matters. You won’t believe what I say, and I don’t trust that you’ll have my best interests at heart now.”

“We are men of our word,” I bite out.

“Bullshit. Just leave me alone. I can’t be in the same room as either of you right now.”

“Fine, run away. It’s what you do best, right?” Crew snarls.

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. She drops her head like she’s disappointed and heads to the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.

As silence blankets the room, I think I would have rather she’d stay. She should have screamed and shouted and slammed the door. How are we ever supposed to sort anything out when her go-to response is to walk away?

“Fucking hell, can you believe this?”

“Honestly, not much surprises me anymore.”

Crew throws himself down in one of the armchairs, his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands.

I walk over to where Lara was just standing and gaze out the window.

“Do you really think she manipulated the way we feel about her?”

I look over at Crew. Instead of answering with a knee-jerk reaction, I think back. “When we first met her, we were drawn to her, but she was standoffish, like she didn’t know what to do with us. Then, when we found out who her father was and went off on her, she was pissed. But so were we. She sure as hell didn’t use her gift on us then.”

“No, it was talking to the guys and seeing her with the kids that made us think differently about her after that. She tried to stay away from us. We’re the ones that tried to force a friendship with her, and then she left.” Crew groans.

I close my eyes and realize Lara’s right. We are idiots.

“After how we reacted to finding out who her father was, I can’t say I blame her for not telling us what she can do. When I think back, I can’t think of a time she’s ever used her gifts—unless it was to calm down one of the children.

“She could have made us forgive her. She probably could have made us all forget that she was related to Penn altogether. She didn’t strip our anger from us, even though it hurt her, and she didn’t make us develop feelings for her. If anything, she tried to avoid us.”

Crew sighs. “We just keep fucking this shit up.”

“I think it was hearing about Nash and Hendrix. But still, it’s not an excuse.” Now it’s my turn to sigh. “We’re going to need to start coming up with creative ways to say sorry if we keep this up.”

Crew nods.

“Let’s give her some space. I’m not sure she’ll listen to anything we say right now anyway.”

“Fine. What about Hendrix and Nash? You think it’s true? About Hendrix being dead, I mean?”

“Nash wouldn’t leave him behind,” I tell Crew softly, even though deep down he already knows this.

“We need to let the others know.”

“I know. Maybe Ev can find a way to track him now that we know he’s back in the States.”

“If what Nash said about them being targeted by the Division is true…”

“Then we’ll destroy them,” I reply without hesitation. If the Division wants a war, then a war they shall get.