INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (6 page)

“The comic character?” Stone’s question earned a hard nudge from Vaughn to which he said, “What? Just asking.”

“It’s how you’re asking.” She shook her head and turned to the boy. “Hercules … I mean Herc.”

The boy was practically drooling, which wasn’t sitting too well with Stone.

Vaughn ignored the Doberman next to her to continue speaking to the puppy across from her. “Did you really mean the comic book hero?”

Oh, the
hero
word went down real well with Herc as a flush lit his cheeks. Vaughn had better watch it or he’d be trailing after her. “Yeah, you know how Spiderman could cast nets from his wrists. Well, I did something like that. Only they weren’t really nets. More like a fine spray mist that could interrupt a shifter’s neurological system for a short period of time.”

“Why shifters?” Nicki asked. “Why not Weres or warlocks or other nasties?”

“Shifters are pretty nasty in my book,” Jaylene murmured.

“Then you need a new book,” Nicki snapped back.

Unsteady ground, but Kelly wasn’t sure why.

“You got a reason to tap dance around shifters?” Man
dy prodded.

Nicki leaned forward on her seat but it was Ling Mai who answered
, “Miss Yarblonski
is
a shifter.”

Chapter Nine

Kelly glanced around the hotel room, very aware of the stunned silence greeting Ling Mai’s words. New
Girl was a bona fide shape shifter.

“Got a problem with that?” Nicki snarled, her gaze cutting to everyone.

Jaylene cleared her throat. “About time we get somebody with fighting power behind them,” she said. What she didn’t say was, now that Alex is gone. But Kelly thought everyone heard it.

Except Nicki
, who’d never met Alex.

“
Before you, Alex was the only member of our team with her own preternatural abilities as a fighter,” Kelly said to Nicki. “She was a shaman and a witch with amazing abilities to cast a spell.”

“When it suited her,” came Mandy’s quick response.

“That’s not fair.” Kelly was tired of Mandy taking snipes at Alex, especially now when Alex couldn’t defend herself. “Alex was our best weapon. Much better than my stupid ability.”

“Which is?” Nicki asked,
sounding curious more than defensive. A first since she’d walked into the room.

Kelly sucked in a deep breath
, though her answer still came out on a whisper. “I turn invisible.”

“What?” Herc
glanced around as if trying to figure out what Kelly had said, or if she had been speaking the truth. “Like the Invisible Man?”

“Or woman
, in her case.” Jaylene knocked her shoulder against Kelly to let her know she wasn’t alone.

“That’s awesome!” Herc whistled.

“It would be if she could control it,” Mandy said, keeping her dark gaze on Kelly.

Kelly couldn’t reply. Not when Mandy was speaking the truth and everyone knew it. Being able to turn invisible sounded like a great thing, but before Kelly had turned three
, she’d learned that wasn’t the reality. By the time she’d turned six she’d discovered just how bad invisibility could be. And that was before she’d discovered the two doors.

“Ladies,” Ling Mai called the room to order. “We’re not here to tear the team apart. We’re here to move forward. Anyone not willing, or able to do that,
may depart—now."

No one looked at Kelly but she knew this was her cue. Her put up or shut up time
, as Alex would say.

So why was she such a big ‘fraidy
' cat? She’d already talked to Jaylene about her concerns, and it was the black woman who told her to bring the issue to the group. So why hesitate now?

“I think
we need to hear what Kelly saw at Versailles,” Jaylene broke the silence, keeping her eyes straight ahead but opening a door for Kelly to walk through.

“Wh
en?” Mandy demanded.

“The day
Alex disappeared.”

A weighted silence descended on the room. The kind
when someone made such an obvious social
faux pas
that no one knew quite what to say.

Vaughn was the one who gently said, “Alex is dead, Kelly. She didn’t disappear.”

That’s when Kelly straightened her spine and jumped off the edge. “That’s not what I saw. Alex was alive when the two Weres carried her off.”

She didn’t expect everyone to be happy with her news, but she wasn’t prepared for Stone to be the first to jump in. “And you’re only telling us this now? What about the after action report? Did that mean nothing?”

If there’d been a hole, Kelly would have jumped into it and pulled the opening closed behind her. But there wasn’t.

“You mean the meeting we had in the hospital? Waiting to find out how bad Vaughn was hurt?” she asked, her voice low but steady.

Stone still glared. “Yeah, that one. You were there. Why didn’t you speak up then?”

Kelly glanced at he
r hands—held so tight her knuckles turned white—before she notched her chin and aimed it at Stone. “Because you were in such an all-fired hurry to call Alex dead and bury her that I couldn’t get in a word in edgewise. That’s why.”

Chapter Ten

If Kelly thought the hotel room had been quiet before she dropped her verbal bomb
, it was nothing to the strain afterwards, with gazes skittering around the room, not quite meeting before they danced away.

“Well, hot damn. You can fight
.” Jaylene whistled, helping to ease the tension a smidge, but only a smidge if Stone’s granite expression was a clue.

“Explain,”
he demanded. He always was the most black and white thinker of their group. “We were told she died.”

“No.” Kelly threaded he
r hands together in her lap to still their trembling. She looked directly at Vaughn, too afraid to glance toward Ling Mai who had been the one who’d officially announced Alex’s death. “Remember when you, Mandy and Jaylene were fighting the Weres, and someone you couldn’t see started hitting them from behind?”

“Saved our asses,” Jaylene mumbled.

“That wasn’t me,” Kelly explained. “I’m sure you thought it was, but it wasn’t.”

“But you’d become invisible.” Mandy sat up straighter. “If it wasn’t you
, who was it?”

“Alex.” Kelly released the single word as a sigh.

“She hadn’t ever turned invisible before.” Mandy’s tone said she was going to be the hardest to convince. Plus, the fact she clung to the past tense of the word. To her, Alex
was
dead. End of a difficult relationship.

“Doesn’t matter
,” Jaylene shot down her friend. “Hear Kelly out.”

All gazes cut to Kelly. After years in front of a classroom
, you’d think speaking in front of a group would be easier. But it wasn’t. Not with this particular group at least. She swallowed and thought about Alex, who needed their help. Which she’d never get if Kelly couldn’t tell everyone what she’d seen.

“It’s true. Alex was near you three
, and I was farther away. Across the grass and closer to where Alex’s brother was. At least I’d assumed it was her brother.” She’d never met him but the man she’d watched change from human to wolf had Alex’s ink black straight hair, tanned skin and stunning good looks. Or he would have if he hadn’t looked so gaunt and exhausted.

Plus
, three other men had him wrapped in chains. So it had to have been Van.

“Go on, Miss McAllister.
” Ling Mai nodded in Kelly’s direction. Sort of like having an executioner giving you the go-ahead nod.

Kelly swallowed past the hard rock in her throat and continued. “
As I said, Alex was alive when I saw the two Weres carry her away.”

“You’re sure?” Stone asked.

Kelly nodded. “The Weres said so, but …”

“But what?” Vaughn prodded.

“Alex had been bitten by her brother and was bleeding. Badly.”

“Fuck a bunny,” Jaylene breathed.

“Don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mandy shot back, but Kelly thought it was meant as a joke and not an accurate assessment. Plus, it reminded her of something Alex would say, which gave Kelly a small reason to smile.

Stone looked at Ling Mai, his expression dark and closed. “How trustworthy was the information you received about Alex’s death?”

It wasn’t a straight-out accusation, but close.

Ling Mai remained calm
and poised, but then the room could be crumbling around them and the director would probably act the same way. “I would have said very trustworthy.” She then looked at New Girl. “Tell us, Miss Yarblonski, based on your knowledge of shifters, how likely is it for someone bitten by one to survive?”

Nicki paused, a furrow lining her brow. “There have been humans bitten who’ve become shifters.”

Kelly’s smile started to increase.

“But the numbers are so rare they’re the stuff of legends,” Nicki
said, her voice low but solid. “Weres can be created by a bite, but not shifters.” Then she paused, rubbing her palms along her jeans before looking up and asking, “Didn’t you all say this Alex was a witch?”

“And a shaman,” Kelly offered, aware she’d been holding her breath, waiting for good news instead of only bad news layered on more bad news.

Nicki shook her head. “Then I think that’d decrease her chances of surviving.” She lowered her voice, as if aware of the lethal nature of her words, before looking up and spearing Kelly with a direct look. “Sorry, wish I had better news.”

“But you could be wrong?” Kelly pushed. Alex was her friend and she wasn’t going to give up. Not without a fight.

“Yeah.” Nicki splayed her hands before her. “There’s always an unknown factor when shifter blood mingles with another being’s blood. Make that being someone who is both a magic carrier and who can walk among spirits and who knows what can happen.”

That weighted, strained silence returned to the room.

Mandy broke it when she raised her head. “I haven’t found Alex in the spirit realm,” she said.

“You’ve looked?” Jaylene asked what Kelly couldn’t. Not without choking on the words. Mandy was the last person Kelly expected to raise a finger to find Alex. The very, very last.

As if Kelly had spoken her thoughts out loud, Mandy dared the group, “What? Alex was a teammate. Without a body, I wanted to make sure she’d passed over.”

“And she hasn’t?” Stone asked, his voice quieter now, more thoughtful.

“Not that I’ve found.” Mandy paused, then continued, “But there’s one person who’d know for sure.”

All heads turned to Mandy, which was fine by Kelly.

“Who?” Vaughn asked what was on the tip of all their tongues.

Mandy gave a shrug. “Bran.”

“Who’s Bran?” Herc asked, followed closely by, “Not THE Bran? Clothing designer?”

“You don’t look like someone who follows sartorial news,” Stone mumbled.

“He was on the cover of
Entrepreneur Magazine
last month.” Herc glanced at Stone, his gaze saying little-do-you-know. “And
Forbes
three months ago.”

Vaughn placed a restraining hand on Stone’s arm before the instructor clipped the young man. Kelly was i
mpressed that Herc didn’t start humming, “Nah nah na nah nah.”

Instead
, the new weapons guy looked around. “I’m not sure what Bran has to do with finding this missing witch shaman?”

“Bran’s a mage, a powerful warlock,” Jaylene explained, looking mostly at her shoes as if not sure Mandy’s idea was going to lead anywhere.

“He’s also combined magic with Alex before. On more than one occasion,” Mandy said, her voice more insistent.

“Which means what?” Nicki asked.

Mandy released a huff of breath before saying, “It means they are connected in a way few individuals are. If anyone can find out if she’s alive, he can.”

Stone glanced at Ling Mai
, his tone as hard as his name as he said, “We talk to him then. Act.”

Kelly caught the slightest moment of hesitation before Ling Mai nodded. “By all means.”

Kelly wanted to jump up right then and there, high-five everybody, and twirl around. But Ling Mai’s expression put a damper on that. Then Stone dashed more cold water on the group. “I’ll speak to Bran.” Before Kelly could offer to come along, he added, “Alone.”

It wasn’t like
Stone and Bran were enemies but neither were they best buddies. Kelly shot a quick glance at Jaylene before nudging her when the black woman remained quiet.

“You have something you want to add, Miss McAllister?” Ling Mai asked. “We are looking into your concerns.”

Kelly understood a rap on the knuckles more than the average person. So why didn’t she feel like Stone’s approach was enough?

“Concerns that should have been brought to our attention immediately,” Stone growled in the role of
badass instructor to idiot recruit. “You don’t wait nearly forty-eight hours to help a fallen comrade.”

“She gets it
.” Vaughn nudged him hard enough he almost toppled from the chair arm. “Continuing to beat her isn’t helping.”

“It’s helping me,” he said, his jaw tight as he spoke to the room at
large. “From now on, if you have something to say, the time to say it is in our after action debriefing. If in doubt, speak up.”

Easy for him
, but Kelly bit off her retort, remembering how wild-eyed he’d been waiting for word on Vaughn and chewing out the rest of them for going on an unsanctioned mission to help Alex.

He still was het up, which made it easier for Kelly to make her next c
hoice.

Carrie would have been disappointed in
her, though when Kelly cleared her throat. “Nothing to add. I’m sure Bran will be glad to help.”

If he could.

Her last quick glimpse of him the other day wasn’t a pleasant one. He’d been even bloodier than Alex, and that was saying a lot. Plus, Bran had been limping away with an older man who might have been Alex’s father. Since Alex’s father was a member of the Council of Seven, and Bran was in trouble with them, it was hard to say if Bran could help or not.

Once the conversation resumed with other agency business, with Stone giving orders to the team as to what they should be doing while he contacted Bran, Jaylene leaned closer to Kelly and whispered
, “You should be looking happier.”

“I am happy,” Kelly answered, whipping out a
wobbly smile.

“But?”

Kelly lowered her voice and admitted what was bothering her. “You sure Stone will
really
find Bran?”

Jaylene’s eyes widened. Kelly knew why. Questioning their team instructor’s honesty was like pointing
a finger at the Dali Lama and asking if he was one of the good guys.

“I know, I know. I’m a worry wart,” Kelly admitted
, shrugging her shoulders. When Jaylene nodded and turned her attention back to the room, Kelly let the smile slide off her face.

She just wished she’d spoken the whole truth. That she wasn’t really sure she trusted either their instr
uctor or the director, after action report or not.

Which didn’t bode well with remaining a team player.