The Rift (2 page)

“Kelsey, I—”

“I’m fine. So just back off okay.
Guy…Antonio…whoever he is, was a mistake and it won’t happen
again.”

He nodded, his expression resigned. He’d
known me long enough to know better than to argue. “I’ll see you
tonight.”

I nodded and stormed into the bathroom and
the refuge of the shower.

“You’re being sent out on a mission with me,”
Jed said, his eyes on the file in front of him.

“What?” Surely, this was some sort of joke.
Yvonne had refused to train me or allow me to work because I
refused to perform deletions for her. When I’d signed the contract
to work for Varius, in exchange for Varius removing the reapers
from Briarton and saving my best friend, I’d insisted on a clause
stating I wouldn’t kill anyone for Varius. Once I moved in, Yvonne
said that deletions, the complete destruction of a reaper, weren’t
technically killing since the reapers were already dead. She
decided that until I agreed to perform deletions and submitted to a
series of tests and genetic samplings, I would get no training or
salary, and I would not begin working off the three years I owed
her. She’d even restricted my access to the gyms on the Varius
campus. I didn’t want to take the risk that Varius would clone me,
or something, and I’d refused the testing and sampling as ardently
as I refused to perform deletions. I wasn’t there to be a killer or
a baby maker. I was there to be trained and to fight the reapers
out of the territories they were trying to claim. Henry, who knew
Yvonne and Varius better than I did, was sure she was trying to
guarantee my loyalty in some way before she wasted training on me.
She didn’t want to spend three years on me to have me just up and
go work for my dad, Len, the leader of a sort of rogue group of
reaper fighters. Which is exactly what I planned to do. So we’d
been at a standstill.

Jed glanced up at me before returning his
attention to the file. “You won’t be expected to fight or perform
any deletions. Henry and I will accompany you and we’ll do any
fighting that needs to be done. You are there strictly to observe,
and to learn what you can about the reaper situation in Vale
Hollow.” He slid a sheaf of papers across the table. “Here is your
general itinerary and the weather conditions where we’ll be, so
you’ll know how to pack.”

“Tropical, I’m hoping,” I said.

He didn’t crack the slightest smile. “No, it
won’t be tropical. Is there anything else you’ll need?”

“I don’t think so.” I wasn’t about to turn
down a mission, but Jed was acting weird. “When do we leave?”

“In six hours.” He snapped the file shut and
stood. “I’ll pick you up at your door at four.”

“Okay, fine.” I forced a smile, but inside I
was melting down. I wanted training, I wanted to learn how to
protect myself, and I wanted to get out of Varius, but I had a bad
feeling about that mission. I’d never known Yvonne to do anything
out of the goodness of her heart, but I couldn’t conceive of any
ulterior motive, so I tried to ignore my misgivings.

I followed Jed out of the conference room,
but he turned left and headed down a brightly lit hall when I
continued straight to the exit and outside. I went out to the
courtyard, a two acre park with walking paths and a playground. I
jogged there every day, and just being out there calmed me and took
me to the same place my jogging took me. I felt stronger and more
at ease, the monotony of just putting one foot in front of the
other and the rush of endorphins so firm in my memory that it
echoed there and gave me a tiny runner’s high by association. I
paced the walking trails and breathed in the fresh, cool air. The
trees were just starting to bud and daffodils were poking their
heads out of flower beds. The air was crisp and chilly, but the sun
was bright and warmed the top of my head.

The courtyard was edged, on its North side,
by three five-story apartment buildings that housed employees who
chose, or were forced, to live on campus. I was surprised at how
many people chose to live there. According to Henry, people liked
the extra protection the wards provided and didn’t relish the idea
of paying for such protection on their own. Beyond the apartments
were the modern, glass-covered buildings where Varius employees
spent their days. If anyone ever inspected the buildings they would
question why a pharmaceutical company needed six gyms, including a
boxing gym, but visitors weren’t allowed past the first building,
which was made up to look like a true pharmaceutical lab and
actually employed chemists who believed they were making drugs to
be consumed by the general public.

I doubted very much that the chemists truly
believed in what they were doing, but they were paid well enough
not to ask questions, or so I’d been told. I suspected Yvonne had
friends in very high places who made sure no one ever visited
Varius or asked to go past the main building. In the other
direction from the office buildings was our little town, which had
six restaurants, a night club, a bar, a grocery store, and shops.
The town was owned and operated by family members of Varius
operatives who had been born unskilled, but who wanted to stay
close to their families. Almost all of them lived in the apartments
I strolled past. I hadn’t met any of them. I hadn’t met many people
at all, but Henry was a gregarious guy and everyone loved to tell
him their stories.

I was considered a flight risk and a security
concern, so I wasn’t permitted to leave the Varius campus for any
reason. Yvonne assured me it was for my own safety, but I suspected
the limitation was yet another way to make me miserable enough to
bend to her will. I might have fought her on it, but I had no real
desire to leave. I had everything I needed there and I had nowhere
else to go without breaking my contract and going to work for my
dad. I didn’t want to risk bringing Yvonne’s wrath down on him, so
I stayed.

I paced the paths, trying to walk off my
exhaustion and my hangover, and trying to wrap my mind around the
news Jed had just given me. I was finally going on an actual
mission and I was glad to be leaving campus, but something, some
dark part of me that no longer trusted anyone or anything, kept
shouting at me that something was wrong. Why hadn’t Jed looked me
in the eye? Why had Yvonne spent the last two months refusing to
train me or send me out in the field, only to give in now? It
didn’t make sense.

Town was set up to look like a bucolic main
street from some TV show where everyone still wore poodle skirts
and saddle shoes. There wasn’t a piece of litter or a cigarette
butt in sight, and all of the shops were kept clean and
well-painted. I saw Henry, already seated at our usual table,
through the window of the delicatessen. I gave him a big smile that
I didn’t have to fake at all. Henry was the same age as me, but he
looked younger. His blonde hair glowed in the sunlight, and he gave
me an easy grin. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been
holding when I noticed not a trace of anger on his face.

Henry pushed his chair back and opened his
arms wide, when I walked into the deli. Obviously, Tucker had given
him the same advice he’d given me. I didn’t hesitate to skip
forward and climb into his lap. “Hi sweetie,” I said. Then I
wrapped my arms around him and gave him a kiss that left us both
gasping for air. When I kissed him, I didn’t feel anything beyond
the same enjoyment I might get from the hug of a dear friend. It
still felt weird to kiss someone I wasn’t attracted to, but I knew
it was for a good cause. Henry and I had learned how to make it
look like we were kissing with tongue when we weren’t. Now, when he
pulled away and looked into my eyes, trying to do that, ‘I’m so in
love with you, I can’t take my eyes off you’ thing, it took
everything I had not to laugh. Especially when I saw the corner of
his mouth twitch. “I love you,” I said.

His mouth stopped twitching and he got
serious. “I love you, too.” He and Tucker were the best friends I
had, and I knew I was lucky to have them.

“Get a room,” someone shouted, a smile in
their tone. I smiled at the crowded deli and noticed Jed, at the
counter, staring at me with something in his eyes I’d never seen
before. He looked away too quickly for me to figure out what it
was, and his presence soured my mood.

Henry noticed where I was looking and shook
his head. “He was debriefing me on the mission,” he whispered in my
ear, before kissing it. “You aren’t going to like it.”

I stiffened as his words echoed my earlier
concerns and hurt washed over me. I knew it was too good to be
true. I climbed off Henry’s lap and sat down across from him. If
Henry could tell me more he would. “I’m so glad you’ll be going
with me.”

Despite his laid-back attitude, Henry was one
of the most skilled mediums who worked for Varius and tough as
nails. He’d grown up middle-class and socially awkward, and his
abilities just gave kids one more thing to pick on him about. He
was a small kid, and an easy target, so he’d started taking every
kind of self-defense and fighting class he could and hitting the
gym hard. He’d been recruited by Varius and thought he’d made it to
heaven, a place where he felt he belonged for the first time in his
life. Even so, he didn’t trust easily and he’d hidden half of his
supernatural ability and all of his street smarts and fighting
skills from Yvonne. Tucker had met him shortly after he’d started
working there and convinced him to keep those talents hidden.

Henry worked as a field operative, and he’d
had to use everything he knew to survive, but he’d made friends
fast and his team mates, if they’d seen him do more than he should
have been capable of, kept their mouths shut. As far as Yvonne
knew, he was a level 3 medium, who could see but not hear reapers
and his only fighting skills had come from what he’d learned on the
street. She didn’t know he could hear reapers, and sense them even
when they were hiding behind the second curtain, where no mediums,
except me, could see them, or that he was trained in karate, ju
jitsu, and Krav Maga.

He nodded. “It’s not my usual sort of
mission, but I’m happy to get to spend more time with you.”

I smiled and raised my eyebrows in a
question, but he shook his head. He couldn’t give me details and I
knew he was in training all afternoon. I probably wouldn’t see him
again until we were on the plane. His training included a
debriefing about all known reapers, their interests, skills, and
affiliations, and a karate class. Henry’s stories of trying to make
himself appear unschooled in karate when he was actually a black
belt were hilarious.

“So, I want you to know I’m sorry,” I said in
a low voice. “I screwed up.” If we weren’t leaving that evening,
the conversation could have waited until we were somewhere more
private, but I wanted to clear the air before we left. I had no
idea when we’d have another opportunity to talk.

He shook his head. “I’m so lucky to have you
in my life, Kelsey.” He took my hand under the table and squeezed.
“We’re good, okay?”

“Good.” He’d already ordered for me and I
unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite of it, realizing suddenly
that I was starving. No wonder my stomach had been roiling all
morning. “I got way drunk last night.”

He grinned. “You are such a light weight.”
Then he got more serious. “Did you have fun?”

“Oh, hell, yes.” I studied his face between
bites and saw nothing but relief and happiness there, maybe a tinge
of worry, but I ignored that. “Do you have any idea how much I love
and adore you, Henry?”

“Obviously. How could you not?”

When Jed knocked on my door that afternoon, I
was packed, dressed and fully made up. I’d never been much for
make-up but, with all of my free time at Varius, I’d found a shop
with a very bored proprietress who loved to give me make-overs and
free samples. It was actually fun. I felt like I was pretending to
be someone else when I got all dolled up. That evening, I really
wanted to be someone else to face Jed. The expression on his face,
slightly stunned and off-balance, was worth all my hard work.

I walked past him without a word and headed
down the stairs toward the parking lot. “What did you do to
yourself?” he asked.

“It’s called make-up.”

“You don’t look like you.”

“That’s the point.”

He looked like he wanted to say something
else, but we were at the car. I opened the back door and hopped in
next to Henry. He gave me a quick peck and a warm smile, but didn’t
pull me close to him. This was business, after all.

“Hi, Kelsey,” said a bright, female voice
from the front seat. I turned from Henry and saw Angelica. She’d
gotten her hair cut in a short pixie style and she looked older and
wearier than she had the last time I’d seen her. Angelica had been
my best friend until a reaper came between us, and she decided my
abilities and the trouble they attracted were more than she could
handle. Then, I’d made the mistake of saving her life instead of
her boyfriend’s when he was ritually sacrificed by a group of
witches and reapers. Angelica had decided to work for Varius in
hopes that they would be able to reunite her with her dead
boyfriend someday. The witches didn’t have anything to do with
Varius, for the most part, but they’d taken Angelica in and agreed
to train her in the occult. I rarely saw her around campus, but
when I did she was always polite. “It’s good to see you,” she said,
her voice gentle.

“You, too.” I was glad she was being polite,
but that was probably for Jed’s sake as much as mine. She looked
uncomfortable, picking at her nails and glancing away from my face.
“So are you going on this mission, too?”

She turned completely around to face forward
before she said anything, and even then all I got was a vague,
“Uh-huh.”