The Reaping (The Reapers Book 1) (23 page)

“You better not put any of your moves on her, Caleb. If she comes back saying she’s going to work—”

“For once in your life, Cat, shut the fuck up,” Caleb said without turning around as he led me out of the apartment.

I followed, leaving Angelica alone with Cat, because I wasn’t sure I wanted her to hear any more and because I felt certain that I would get the answers I needed more quickly without waiting for Caleb and Cat to finish arguing.

He led me to his car, silently gestured for me to get in, and sat down behind the wheel. He drove us to his place in silence, led me up the stairs, and sat me down next to him on the couch. “I can’t imagine how Cat and I could have possibly fucked this up any more than we have. I’m sorry, Kelsey.”

I looked at him and wanted to make him feel better. He looked miserable and lost. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand what he was apologizing for well enough to accept his apology. “You and Cat really don’t get along at all, do you?”

He shrugged. “We have our moments. She’s better than most of the alternatives and I think she feels the same way about me. If you want, I can ask to be replaced by someone else. If that would make you more comfortable.”

A prideful part of me wanted to say yes, but the larger, terrified, utterly lost part of me wanted him to stay. “No, I trust you, Caleb. You have saved my life at least once. I’m sorry about the way I’ve been acting. I didn’t want you to see the bruises and think…”

“Yeah, I get that. I’m sorry. I haven’t handled any of this well at all. I thought that Reid gave you those bruises… . I never thought…I’m usually much better at my job.”

“No. Now that we are on the same page, I’ll tell you what’s going on. I wish you had told me about this earlier. Why waste all of that time pretending you were my friend?”

He winced and shook his head. “I wanted to tell you, but we’ve had problems in the past with people who don’t have the skill level we’ve expected or who have learned to ignore their abilities. Secrecy is imperative in this business and approaching people who don’t believe in our world can create the sort of scene that draws way too much attention.” He paused. “But Kelsey, you should know that I—”

“So, when were you going to tell me?” Maybe I was just too tired to get it, but it didn’t make sense to me. Were they just going to watch me until they caught me talking to ghosts?

“It’s not like that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We usually maintain a distance. You know, we interact with the potential talent, but we don’t become their friends. We just spend enough time around them to be able to tell if they are communicating with reapers and, if they are, slowly get to know them better until they trust us enough to open up…”

“And you expect them to trust you after that?”

“It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got. We can, sometimes, send in a reaper who’s on staff and get him or her to make first contact, but the reapers aren’t always interested in what’s best for the corporation or the individual. We don’t trust any reaper enough to try that with someone as potentially valuable as you…”

“Valuable?” I snorted. “If I could give away my abilities, I would, Caleb. I don’t want any of this. Don’t you ever let anyone just walk away?”

His shoulders slumped. “It’s too late for that with you. There’s no way Landon is working alone. Too many people know what you can do.”

“Landon doesn’t know I can see gho—reapers.”

“Cat does, and she’s probably on the phone to Harvest One about you right now…but I’ll talk to her for you, Kelsey. I’ll see what I can do.” His voice changed as he said the last words and so did his entire demeanor. He was sitting up straighter and his tone was light and as smooth and warm as honey.

“Are you trying to be charming?”

He ducked his head. “Shit. I’m sorry, Kelsey. It just happened.”

“So there’s no chance of me walking away from this and having a normal life?”

“No chance in Hell.”

I nodded and let that wash over me. I felt a bit numb and shaky. If what he said was true, I would have no reason to fight Landon. I didn’t know anything about the corporations he was talking about, but if they knew what I could do and if scary reapers knew what I could do, my shot at a normal, ghost-free life was gone. I’d never be free to be myself or live my life as I chose, if so many people knew what I could do and wanted me for my “talent.” So I determined to prove him wrong. I would be the first person to walk away. There had to be a way.

“So, do you know where my dad is?” I asked, changing the subject. A teeny tiny part of me thought my dad might be able to help me get away.

He sighed. “No, I don’t. He used to work for Varius, that’s the corporation I work for, but he left suddenly one day about two years ago and went to work for Cat’s corporation, Harvest One. Then, about six months ago, Cat claims he left there and no one knows where he’s gone.”

I was having a hard time processing all of the information he was throwing at me. “If my dad worked for you, then he must have some sort of skill or ability, right?”

Something like anger flashed on Caleb’s face, and he looked away from me. “Not everyone who works for Varius has a skill, but your father did. He was one of the more powerful mediums in the company.”

“He could see…” I had never imagined it possible to feel as angry and hurt as I did at that moment. “All those years, he stood by and did nothing when my mother told me that I was crazy for believing…and he…Then he just leaves us, without a word? For what? What was so important?”

Caleb stood and paced the room a couple of times. “How much do you really want to know?” he finally asked as he stopped in front of me.

I’d had a few moments to calm down, but in those few moments, my anger had been replaced by a hurt and disappointment that threatened to dissolve me into tears. “Tell me what was so wrong with me that he could just leave me like that?”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. Caleb looked like he was wishing he’d left this job to Cat, and I swallowed hard and shook myself. “I’m sorry. I’m exhausted and not thinking straight. Just tell me everything you know, please. I’ve wondered for so long, and…I just need to know.”

Caleb nodded, his tawny hair flopping over his eyes, and sat back down next to me. He made a motion like he might put his arm around me and I scooted farther down the couch. I didn’t need his pity or his false comfort.

“Your dad is an arrogant, selfish asshole. He’s also the best medium that anyone dead or alive has ever come into contact with.” He paused and looked at me. “Kelsey, you aren’t his only child, and your mother… We’re pretty sure she’s not the only woman he’s married.”

The idea that my father might have another family was not a new one for me, but to hear it as truth was different than believing it as possibility. “How many other children?”

He must have seen something in my face that he didn’t like, because he looked away from me. “I hate to have to be the one to tell you this, Kelsey. Len should have to do this, but he… I don’t know how many other children he has. When I knew him, he had two sons, who both had promising skills. He brought them in to Varius and let them be trained, but their abilities did not progress to the level Len felt they should. He blamed the training. He was untrained, and he thought people with skills should be allowed to grow into their abilities naturally. For the most part, skills seem to be passed on genetically, so he was asking the skilled people at Varius to risk their sons and daughters to his theory. Understandably, no one wanted to chance it. Len was often off-site on missions and, in the last couple of years, it’s become clear that he fathered other children. We’ve been trying to track them and that’s how we found you.”

“He wanted to create more people with his abilities, so he ran around getting women pregnant and then leaving them and their children?”

He nodded. “That seems to be the case. We’ve only found two other of his children and, if it helps, he didn’t stick around for either of them past confirming that their mothers were pregnant.”

I guess I should have felt sorrow or anger, but I couldn’t really feel anything at the moment. “Thanks for that, but it doesn’t change the fact that he left me. He got to know me, and he left me, anyway.” I stared at the carpet. “Do you think I could crash here for a little while? I just don’t have the energy to face Cat and Angelica tonight.”

“Sure. You can take the bed in the guest room. It’s got clean sheets.”

I nodded and leaned back on the couch, trying to sort through everything I’d learned.

“Can I ask a few questions?” I turned to look at Caleb and found him staring at me, a worried line between his brows.

He sighed and a little of the tension eased from his face. “Yes, please. I don’t think I’ve been making much sense.”

I picked up a few strands of hair and started to bring them to my mouth before I stopped myself and folded my hands in my lap. “So, you and Cat work for two separate corporations who do what exactly?”

“Starting with the most difficult questions? Okay. Varius is to outside observers a pharmaceutical company. We employ an entire staff who do pharmaceutical work without any knowledge of the real side of Varius. On the other side are people like me, who do various jobs. Cat and I are, among other things, headhunters of a sort who go out into the field and find people with skills. We try to bring those people back to be trained by and to work for our respective corporations. Once trained, those skilled people go to work doing things like trying to stop unauthorized reapings, where a reaper permanently possesses the body of a living person. Another situation—”

“You authorize ghosts to possess bodies?” This was just getting worse and worse. They really expected me to trust them when they allowed reapings?

“In very rare and special instances.”

“Has clearance been given for Landon to reap me?”

He shook his head. “Absolutely not. Landon and whatever group he is a part of are breaking the law and we have the right to use any means necessary to fight them.”

“That sounds good. So you can help me get Landon to leave me alone?”

Caleb ran a hand through his hair. He was touching his hair so much that it was now falling in his face every time he moved and was looking a bit rumpled. I realized that every time I’d seen him before, his hair had been perfect and out of his face. He must use a lot of product to keep it that way.

“We will do everything we can to help you. Cat and I both have a lot of experience helping people who are in danger of being reaped. The most important thing we and you can do is make sure that you are mentally, spiritually, and physically well. In that case, your soul is most strongly attached to your body, and a reaper is less likely to be able to take over.”

I brought my hair back up to my mouth and started chewing on it. “And what is your success rate in these sorts of situations?”

“Fifty-fifty, generally, but both my corporation and Cat’s will be throwing everything we have at Landon and whoever he’s working with.”

I considered telling Caleb about the man I’d seen with Landon, but I wasn’t ready for anymore revelations that night. “So what’s your skill?”

Caleb laughed. “You’re taking all of this very calmly.”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

I realized as I spoke that it was true. Breaking down and freaking out would only give Landon what he wanted, and it wouldn’t get me out of any of this. “So, your skill?”

“I’m a psychic, but I can’t read minds, so don’t even start worrying about that. I can sense the presence of reapers, I can tell whether someone is a taken or a living—”

“Taken?”

“A body inhabited by a reaper.”

“That’s what Cat meant when she asked why you hadn’t seen anything off about Reid.”

“Exactly.” He stood and started pacing again. “I don’t know what went wrong there. I just seem to be really off my game…lately. I’m sorry about that.”

I shrugged. “Ali…a ghost I know saw what Reid did to me, and she said that Landon took off after Reid threw the first punch. Landon wasn’t even there when you got there. Besides, I’m fine. Everything’s working out.”

“But everything you had to go through… That was my fault.”

“It was Landon’s fault,” I said firmly. “What’s Cat’s skill?”

“You’ll have to ask her that yourself. You’ll also have to ask her exactly what her corporation does, because I’m not quite sure. No one outside the company is really sure what they do, except that they turn a profit and help others only when it benefits them.”

“So she’s only here because I’m Len’s daughter, and she thinks I have a skill.”

“That’s what she wants us to think, but I’m pretty sure something else is going on here. She brought up Len and it’s not like her to make a slip like that. She is obsessively precise with the words she chooses.”

“So you think my father sent her to keep an eye on me?”

Caleb considered his words for a long moment. “Yeah, maybe so.”

“And Jed? What’s his superpower?” I already knew he could read auras, and I wanted to know if he was like me, if he could see and talk to ghosts.

Caleb shrugged. “He’s telekinetic.”

He said it like it was no big deal, but I almost fell out of my chair.

“He can move things with his mind?” I asked in complete amazement.

Caleb frowned hard. “Yep.” He stood and walked to the kitchen. “I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like anything?”

“No, thanks. I really should just get to bed. Any advice on how to handle Landon when he visits tonight?”

Caleb froze. “Shit, I’d forgotten about that. I’m sorry but reapers invading dreams is new to me, and I’m pretty sure it is to Cat, as well. Just…act naturally and…see if you can get him to talk about who he’s working with. Make sure you don’t give him any information… Of course, for all we know, he could have been listening to this entire conversation.”

I didn’t really want to lay all of my cards on the table, but if Caleb was going to help me, he should know. “He wasn’t listening.”