Guardian Of The Grove Read online

  He moved his hands out from behind him and placed his cap back on his head. “I sure am, but the media requested a word with you before we leave.”

  “Damn it. Are they really here already?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I knew they had scanners, but this was quick even for them. Something felt off here. Had the lieutenant called them just to trip me up, to get my face out there in front of the circling vultures? I wanted just to get in the car and go, but this was part of the job. It had to be done. I nodded to the officer. “Get the car started; this shouldn’t take too long. When I’m done, I want to get the hell out of here.”

  He impressed me again by following me down the porch stairs and heading straight for the car without saying a word. He knew what I needed from him, and he gave me the space I needed to work. I had never been assigned a rookie who picked up on the intangibles of the job so quickly. I made my way slowly toward the front of the property. The four officers had their hands full holding the media back. If I knew whose house this was when I got the call, I wouldn’t have sent the other two away.

  Bright lights on top of the cameras flared to life as I approached the wooden barrier. At least the officers had been thinking ahead and had blocked off the driveway. I could see the red lights from the cameras, and they were all pointed at me. I pushed my loathing of the media to the side and found a smile to put on my face. We needed them on our side if we could swing it. Cops were getting enough bad press as it was—giving a bad interview now could keep that golden shield dangling just out of reach.

  Before I could make a statement, a blonde reporter shoved her microphone out and asked, “Is it true that we have two victims and that their son is the primary suspect?”

  I frowned at her for a moment. What was she doing, hoping for a sound bite? And who had told her that we had two victims and that they were the parents? “We aren’t far enough along in our investigation to release any details. We do have two victims, one male and one female. Until we learn more from the crime scene, we haven’t focused on a suspect yet. Unlike the media we have to have evidence in place before we accuse people of a crime.”

  Damn, did I really just say that out loud? So much for building goodwill with the reporters.

  The reporter tried to press the issue. “This was a boy who not long ago was the primary suspect in an arson investigation at this very address. An investigation the police perused to no avail. My sources inside the department tell me the general feeling was that the son, Jackson Fairfield, was guilty of the crime. Do you think your failure to arrest him then led to his parents’ deaths, Detective?”

  Damn, that blonde was a real bitch. I’d love to get my hands on whoever her inside source was. It was hard for me not to let out a sigh. They paid well for the information, and not all of our officers were immune to the temptation. It was even harder for me not to reach out, grab her microphone, and shove it down her throat, but I couldn’t do that with ten cameras in my face. I wondered just how well she would be able to ask these questions with my foot planted firmly up her ass. That thought brought my smile back out. I shoved my hatred for them aside and got down to business.

  I gave the camera a cool stare but kept the smile. “The Fairfields were cleared of any wrongdoing in the arson investigation. Not only by the police but by the county fire inspector and the private investigator sent in by the Fairfield’s insurance company. It would be a stretch to tie these two tragic events together. During the impending investigation into their deaths, we will pursue any and all leads. If we find evidence of any correlation between the fire and the murders, I will let you know. Until such a time as that evidence present itself, it would be unwise to draw any correlation between the two events. We will go where the evidence leads us, and not jump into the realm of wild speculation. Thank you for your time.”

  I turned away as the media continued to hurl questions at my back. I’d had enough of their bullshit to last me a lifetime, and I had been out there for less than five minutes. I climbed into the passenger seat of the car, and we headed out of the driveway.

  “Where to, Detective?”

  “I’d like to stop somewhere and grab some beer, and then you can take me home.”

  “This is going to be a rough one, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  “If you need anything besides a driver, let me know.”

  “I’ll do that, Officer. For now, though, just a quick stop at any convenience store and then back to my house.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The car sped along the deserted late-night streets. I was ready to get home and relax. This would probably be the last night that I would be afforded that opportunity for a long time. Once I started in on a case, I knew that I wouldn’t stop until I had all the answers. The lieutenant knew it, too, which is why he had assigned me to this clusterfuck of a case to begin with.

  Chapter 2

  Jackson, Present

  I had the dream so many times. The dream where I catch the man with the scar on his face and kill him. Sometimes it’s in the room where my parents died. Other times it’s after it happened, as if I woke up this morning and just knew where he was. That one act fulfilled my lust for revenge, but it also sent me into a downward spiral. Each night my dream lasted a little bit longer, and I watched the horrors I committed play out as if they were a movie. Something was driving my decisions, the worst part of me, my dark passenger. Tonight the dream was different.

  I knew my parents were waiting for me in the kitchen, but I didn’t really want to go down there. The talk we were about to have was going to be awkward, and I wasn’t sure that I was ready for the answers they might have. Sure, I had demanded the truth, but did I really want to hear it? Finding out the people you thought of as your parents weren’t actually your biological parents was a shock. I had lived with them for eighteen years and never even had a clue. They had always treated me as their own, and I loved them more than anything in the world. Once I learned what it meant, there would be no way to put it back into the box.

  I clutched at my new necklace and felt the strength that it gave me. It seemed to fill me with determination. A gift from my biological father, maybe, a gift he hadn’t been alive to give me in person. There was nothing to do now but face the music. The cat was out of the bag, and I had to put on my big boy pants and man up. They were waiting for me, and there was no stopping the conversation we were about to have.

  I started down the stairs and knew instantly that something was wrong. There was no sound coming from the kitchen. It was like the kitchen was wrapped in a bubble, or had somehow been sound proofed. There was no sound coming from the kitchens TV, and as far as I could tell no one was cooking. My parents weren’t even talking. With all that had happened over the last few days, I found that odd, especially when they had promised me breakfast. I pushed open the door to the kitchen in time to see my father getting hit in the face and a man slitting my mother’s throat.

  I wasn’t going to let it happen, not again, not this time. I rushed into the room, calling on my gift to send the two men by my mother flying into the walls. They hadn’t been shielded, and that was their first mistake. Their bodies made sickening crunches, and they fell to the ground in a heap. The man beating my father pulled out a gun, but I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I placed a hand over my mother’s throat and felt the power pour into her. Her skin knit together under my hand, and she let out a gasp for air as the wound finally closed.

  The man with the gun looked at me with disbelief on his face. I continued to ignore him as I helped my mother to her feet. I moved to position myself between her and the man with the gun, and slowly moved her back toward the kitchen door. “Mom, go wait outside.”

  “What about your father? We can’t leave him,” she said with panic written all over her face.

  She couldn’t see the look on his face like I could. I kept her behind me so that she couldn’t see it; I didn’t want her to be here
for this. I kept her out of the kitchen and kept my eyes on my father. His eyes screamed out for us to go, that we should leave him and save ourselves. That wasn’t going to happen, not this time. “Mom, I can’t worry about you and him at the same time. Go outside. I promise that we will all be together soon.”

  She tried to push around me, and the man with the scar on his face only smiled, turning the gun toward us. My father shouted, “Damn it, do what he says!”

  I turned toward my mother. She looked shocked at his outburst. I put a hand on her shoulder. “It will be ok. I promise.” Then I pushed her down the hallway toward the front door.

  “That was touching, really it was, but you can’t possibly think that anything will ever be ok again.” He turned and fired the gun. I heard my mother’s screams from outside.

  I sighed with relief as the bullet bounced harmlessly away from my father. I had spent the time arguing with my mother creating a shield in front of my dad, just in case. It turned out that it had been the right call. My dad looked shocked now, and I understood why. By all accounts, he should have been dead with his brains splattered across the wall behind him. He reached up slowly and touched his face, almost not believing that the bullet hadn’t found its mark. He would be happy now but not when he got the bill for replacing the cabinet destroyed by the bullet meant for him.

  The man with the scar sneered at me. “That was a nice trick, but it won’t save you.”

  I motioned to my dad for him to leave, and unlike my mother, he ran out of the other side of the kitchen without looking back. As long as they got away, everything was ok. I wouldn’t let them sacrifice themselves for me. This time, it was my turn to save them. The gun swung back toward me, and I laughed as the bullets bounced harmlessly away. He was going to have to do better than that to try and stop me.

  I picked up the knife from the ground, the one his men had used to slit my mother’s throat. It felt heavy in my hand as if it carried with it a great burden. One of the men I had tossed to the side stirred. I used my gift again to send him flying back across the room and into his unconscious friend. This time, he didn’t try and get up again.

  The leader of their group looked at me with hate filled eyes, his scar pulled down into a tight line when he spoke. “So it’s going to be like that, is it.” He tossed the gun to the side, and a stream of blue fire leaped from his hands.

  Instead of dodging around the fire, I matched it by sending a stream of water from my own hands. The flames intensified as if he thought that he could simply overpower me. That might have been true once, but my power had grown, and this man was no match for me. I reached out with my gift and started to remove the air from his lungs. A nasty bit of magic but a neat trick to have at your disposal.

  The first indication that the spell was working was when the flames stopped sprouting from his hands. His face grew panicked, and he reached for his throat as if that was how I was choking him. I watched as he started to turn blue and fell to the floor. The second he hit the ground, I stopped the spell, giving him the gift of life. Something he had been more than willing to take away from all of us.

  I walked slowly forward and bent down to see if he had a wallet on him. Hopefully one with a driver's license. My hand brushed against his back pocket, and I felt a hand close around my wrist like a vice. Bones crunched and ground together as my wrist broke. Without thinking, I lashed out with my other hand. The knife stuck into him, but it wasn’t like the movies—it didn’t slide right in. I had to work for it. The knife didn’t want to go in further, and my grip was slippery with his blood. But I kept pushing and twisting the blade in further. Eventually, the knife hit something important and blood started to bubble from the man’s lips.

  “You’ve won nothing here today. They’ll be coming for you.” He smiled up at me, blood leaking from the corners of his mouth. His eyes shown with an intensity that he wanted me to see. His job here had failed, but there would be others.

  “My family is alive. To me, that means I have won everything.” I twisted the knife and jerked it up. The man below me started screaming then, but it didn’t last long. His screams turned into gurgles, and then he was quiet. I let the knife go and stood up, looking at the blood on my hands. I felt dirty; I hadn’t meant to kill him, but once I stabbed him, I couldn’t stop. I healed the bones in my wrist as I walked outside.

  As soon as I stepped out onto the porch, my parents rushed forward. Before I made it three steps, I was wrapped up in a huge hug and tears were falling from my cheeks. They were alive. I had saved them.

  My dad pushed me away and looked me over. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “That was amazing the way you saved your mother and stopped them from shooting me.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “We’ll need to get rid of those bodies and then we need to get out of here.”

  “It won’t take me long to do that. And I don’t care about leaving. As long as we are together, everything will be all right.” I pulled them back into an embrace. The tears were streaming down my cheeks. They were alive, and we would be ok.

  “Jackson, wake up.”

  I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, and a soft female voice spoke to me. I knew who it belonged to—Britta. And if she was here, that meant my parents were still dead. In some ways, the dream where I saved them was worse than the one where I destroyed Tucson. It gave me hope that I would see them again, and now that hope was gone. They were still dead, and I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. I hadn’t even bothered to go home to see their graves. I wondered if there had even been a funeral.

  The tears started to fall then, and the sobs shook me from head to toe. Warm arms wrapped around me and held me tight. I was a fucking mess. I couldn’t believe this woman had the courage to stand by me. I woke up either screaming or crying. Who would want to deal with that?

  I stopped shaking, and I felt cool lips press against mine. My muscles relaxed almost instantly. I flicked my tongue out and sighed at the taste of her. She continued to hold me tight as we kissed, gently at first and then with more passion. I moaned as we came together. She had done the one thing that could take my mind off of the dreams. We moved together, and the horrible realization that my dream wasn’t real faded away. Britta had that effect on me. She always knew just what it would take to help me. Sometimes it was cuddling; sometimes, like now, it was more.

  After this, I would be able to fall asleep and hopefully remain that way until our alarm went off. It was time to stop thinking about the past. There was only one thing I could do to put it behind me. I had to go home and get the closure I needed. I had to see their graves and find out if anyone knew more about what happened to them than I did. In the morning, I would speak to Adam. I was going home.

  Chapter 3

  Jackson

  I woke up feeling refreshed for the first time in weeks. Britta was lying next to me, and I remembered what happened last night. The thought of it brought a smile to my lips. Was I lucky to have her or what? I placed a soft kiss on her forehead and swung my legs out of bed. It felt good to have finally gotten some dreamless sleep. The decision to go home seemed to have lifted a burden from my heart. I hadn’t realized just how much I had needed to do this until it was almost driving me insane.

  Marcus was going to be waiting for me on the arena floor, so I couldn’t visit Adam yet. As soon as we were done training, I was going to stop by his office and tell him what I needed to do. He would let me go, I hoped. The Ascendancy needed all hands on deck right now, but I needed time to finally grieve my parents’ loss. This was something that I had to do; I hoped he would understand.

  I grabbed a clean set of workout clothes and quickly headed to the door. If I was too late, Marcus wouldn’t be pulling any punches, and I didn’t feel like taking another trip to the healers. My last trip had led to some unforeseen consequences. Mainly the fact that I had ended up in the shower with one of my best friends, April, and now I couldn
’t get her out of my head. She had been slightly aloof since then, probably because I was still with Britta. So much had happened in the last few months that it was hard to wrap my head around the feelings I had for anyone.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Britta was there for me now, and she was great. I knew April would be there for me too, but how could I saddle her with all of my baggage? Plus, she was my best friend. I never wanted to risk losing that. Still, something in the back of my mind told me I would be better off with her. Should I trust that feeling or was that just my brain telling me to go after something new and shiny? April was a true friend and more. Without her help, I’d be dead by now, and I cared about her as more than just a friend. Damn, when had life gotten so complicated? Sometimes I missed the days when I had shunned everyone and everything. It was easier to be alone.

  Marcus smiled up at me and shook out his dreads as I took the final few steps down onto the sand floor. “Hey, sleepy, you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “I’m never sure that I’m ready for an early morning beat down, but yeah, I got this.”

  “I’ve set up some moving targets. I want you to shield yourself from my attacks and then hit the color of the target that I call out.”

  “Anything special I should hit them with?”

  “They are color coordinated. Red for fire, et cetera. Try and use an opposite element. So, if I call out blue, you could hit it with fire, earth, or air.”

  “Cool man, I got it.”

  “Then let’s get started.”

  I could have sworn he flashed me a wicked grin before moving off toward the side of the arena. The targets rose out of their respective places and started to move around the far side of the space. This wasn’t going to be easy; some of the targets were really going to test my range. The targets moved at different speeds, and some of them moved in weird patterns. Hitting all of them would happen, I just wasn’t sure how many tries it would take. Having Marcus hurling spells at me while I tried to do it would make for an extremely interesting morning.