Page 27 of Brother's Keeper

Speechless, I stayed in place until the door began to shut, and the investigator stomped one spike-heeled boot in its track.

Make that a patent leather thigh-high boot, which I stared at as it carried her into the car alongside me. Spinning around, she stabbed her finger on the Close Door button. I watched it shut, then studied the blur of my reflection in the scuffed stainless steel.

Vesper rubbed her palms down the sides of her mini skirt. Her whole outfit was red today, complete with a ruby choker that made it look like her throat was leaking blood.

The elevator began its descent. It must have been summoned by someone below because neither of us had touched the controls. Vesper stepped forward and pressed the Emergency Stop button, and the car stuttered to a halt.

“I’m going to get straight to the point.” She faced me, eye-to-eye with the added inches from her heels. “You have to be the most badass motherfucker I’ve ever met. What I got from you the other day?” She shook her head. “Unreal. I’ve used telekinesis before. That’s not it.”

My attention alternated between her awed expression and the button panel. As much as I didn’t like being trapped, she’d opened with a real ego booster, one I could use after the thrashing Jax gave me the other day.

Still, this was a taboo topic. Our mutual boss had forbidden me from discussing it. Not that she needed to know what happened in a stalled elevator car.

“Have you talked to Holland? Or has she talked toyou?” I arched a brow at Vesper.

She propped one hand on her hip, her nails long and glossy black. “I thought it was hype. Exaggerated, at least. Marionette, the puppet master?” She snorted. “Sounds like bullshit.”

So, it was agreed. What Holland didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“But they had you pegged,” Vesper continued. “And the fact that you got away with it? Legend.” She looked genuinely impressed, envious even. It was the glint in her eyes, set like gemstones in the ivory expanse of her face.

“I had a good lawyer,” I said.

“Explain it to me,” she said.

“My lawyer?”

“Your power,” she corrected. “You took some basic mental magic and gave it the devil’s tune-up. How?”

I smiled. How could I resist such eloquent flattery?

“I can move things with my mind,” I said. It was hardly a revelation and, judging by her sudden scowl, Vesper agreed.

“People aren’t things,” she said.

“Why not?”

“They’re organic. Living material. Not objects.”

“Sounds like a technicality to me.”

When my father first taught me about magic, he explained it just as simply. Years of training and practice never changed that basic principle. I wasn’t limited to bending spoons and parlor tricks, but I didn’t apply my abilities to violence until the Bloody Hex forced my hand.

“So, you’re saying any telekinetic could do what youdo, they just have to think about it differently?” Vesper asked.

I shrugged.

“What about line of sight?” she asked. “Bones and body parts are under the skin. If you can’t see them, how do you grab them?”

“I know they’re there,” I said. “I may not have finished high school, but I understand basic anatomy.”

She scrutinized me for a long moment. “You’re not lying,” she said at length.

“No.”

“So, you don’t have a cracked power, just a cracked brain?”

“Youused it.” I gestured to her. Besides an occasional tingle, my left arm was back to normal. I did have a few gnarly scars to show for my near-death experience, but the damage they had done to half a sleeve’s worth of tattoos was possibly the worst part of the whole ordeal. “You got me out of a panther’s mouth,” I said. “Doyouhave a cracked brain?”

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