Page 53 of Brother's Keeper

I couldn’t mistake the pain that flashed across her face.

“You think that?” she asked.

“It was in the subtext. What he didn’t say.”

“Which is?”

A final drag finished the cig, and I flicked the spent butt into the dirt before meeting Holland’s beseeching eyes. “That he loves you,” I said. “That you make his life better. Make him happy. He didn’t say he wanted to marry you because he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. He said you gave himpurposeandgoals.” My mock emphasis and finger quotes around those last words made my disdain clear.

Her nose scrunched. “Purpose is a good thing.”

“If that’s what you want, Investigator.”

My shrug seemed to aggravate her, and she huffed abreath. “Don’t you remember how that feels? I know your dad did it to you, too. You had a role to play. Expectations to fill.”

“Still do,” I muttered.

We fell into quiet again, staring across the water. Waves shimmered with white speckles of stars.

“Speaking of expectations,” Holland began at length, “youhaveto stop giving me hell at work.”

I remembered Grimm’s mention of her call. Ratting me out to her boss or complaining about stress to her father, the end result was the same. I meant what I said in response, that I wished she would fire me. Especially after talking to Briggs and Nancy tonight. In all my time with the gang, and of all the horrific shit I had to feel bad about, infiltrating the Capitol as a backstabbing double agent ranked high on the list.

It was the closest I’d ever been to my purpose because Holland was right, my dad did it, too. He lined out my future for me. He wanted me to do something noble and good, and he would be ashamed of what I’d become.

As for the dissension in the ranks at work, that was less the product of my guilt and more self-defense against a certain investigator.

“Tell Tobin the same,” I grumbled. “The guy lives to infuriate me.”

“He’s afraid of you,” Holland replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Why?”

She laughed. “You have to ask? Vesper and Felix have come around, though. He’ll get there.”

The ground quivered with a tremor so slight I thought I imagined it. When a second ripple chased it, more intense than the first, Holland and I spun toward the house we’d left behind.

“Another earthquake?” I asked the investigator, but she was already gone.

The wooden boards of the deck popped and cracked as I sprinted across them. The back doors were open and spilling over with panicked people, leaving me like a salmon fighting the current upstream. Inside, the quaking continued. Walls spiderwebbed, and items toppled off of shelves, adding the sounds of glass shattering to the cacophony.

Holland directed traffic with shouts and waves. A few feet from her, Vesper stood atop a tall cocktail table, pointing people toward the exits.

Upon seeing me, she barked a command, “Make yourself useful, Farrow!”

Doing what?

I wasn’t sure why I’d come in here when everyone was trying to get out. Not to mention the chaos was uncomfortably similar to the Thorngate prison break, not an experience I cared to repeat. I had one idea, though. I knew—at least, I assumed—this act of nature was far from natural. While the investigators dealt with the side effects, I could go straight to the source.

Lights that had earlier been welcoming and warmnow flickered, casting long shadows of bodies crashing into each other in uncontrolled pandemonium. These upper-class citizens behaved no better than a bunch of convicts with freedom on the line. Elbows were thrown, people shoved into splintering walls, and one man ran face-first into me, nearly taking us both to the ground.

Rapid breaths rattled my chest as I steadied myself and then helped the other man up. He didn’t waste time with thanks or a backward glance before bolting past. As I rounded the corner into the entry hall, a chasm tore across the floor. The spreading line zigzagged from the front door, toppling the people jammed in the doorway.

With cries and yelps, they piled on the floor, effectively blocking the exit. While they floundered, I grabbed them with mental force and pushed their bodies to the sides of the hall so I could pass. The canyon in the floor yawned wider and I straddled it with one foot on either side as I dashed across the threshold and onto the front porch.

On the front lawn, Felix stood with his gun drawn and aimed at a figure buzzing in the sky between the trees. Hair blonder than mine and the fact that he was flying made him unmistakably Ezrah Everett, aeromancer and one of the new Hex members picked up at the recruiting rally. His twin brother, Ethan, was nowhere in sight.

Ezrah dipped and soared, too busy dive-bombing the party guests to notice the investigator ready to blow him out of the sky. Or maybe Felix was lucky enough to remain unseen, a tactical advantage I ruined as I called to him over the noise of the crowd.

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