Seduced by the Storm (29 page)

She
nodded. "Then again, some of them can do damage to the rest of the world.
They need to be helped—controlled."

He
laughed, couldn’t help it, because it was something he’d heard over and over
from the shrinks.
Your boy needs to be controlled. Your boy has a severe
mental problem. Your boy shouldn’t be allowed out in public.
"Yeah,
like you can’t do fucking damage, right, Faith?"

"I’ve
upset you. Again."

"Don’t
worry about it. Nothing I haven’t heard before. Everyone who has superpowers
pays a high price for them—sometimes it almost doesn’t seem worth it." He
thought back to the time, months earlier, when he’d come across Remy—then
simply a man ACRO was recruiting. Remy was trying to make the decision as to
whether or not he should go on living, having realized that his powers made him
a threat if he was ever to get into the wrong hands. Wyatt remembered telling
him,
It’s not your time, Remy,
and Remy had asked,
How will I know?

Wyatt
told him,
You’ll know.
Every agent ran up against that decision at some
point in their careers—some, more than once. Times when the choice to end their
own lives for the good of the world seemed like the only option.

It
was nothing new to the military world—special operators made choices like that
at times too, talked about what would happen if and when they were captured.

If
Remy had made the wrong choice back then, he wouldn’t be able to help handle a
major hurricane that was threatening New York now. So yeah, Wyatt had been
right about that one.

And
now he was risking himself in a way that Dev would have his ass for—in a way
only Dev could probably understand. The woman sitting next to him was his
nemesis, his kryptonite, and the only woman he’d ever met who could handle all
his shit…and like it. Maybe even love it.

"How
did you finally get released?" she asked.

"I
pretended I was normal," he said. "Sold out myself and my powers in
order to get back to the real world. Stayed on the family rig for a while and
then went into the military. Chose the SEALs because I love the water."

"And
you never used your powers."

He
shrugged. "Rarely. Some of them saved my ass, but I didn’t want to count
on them. I was finally in a place where I was accepted as normal—as crazy as I
could be, as crazy as I felt, there were other normal guys around me who were
just as crazy, for all different reasons."

"Did
you ever…try to hurt someone?" she asked tentatively. "I mean,
without realizing that you were doing it?"

That
question hit far too close to home. "I don’t want to talk about this
anymore, Faith." He stood and felt the earth shift under his feet. Faith
was by his side in seconds.

"Wyatt,
what’s wrong—are you all right?"

"I’m
fine," he told her through clenched teeth, even as another wave of
dizziness overtook him. "Shit."

"Come
on, let’s get you inside."

He
leaned on her as they made their way through ML’s house, up the stairs slowly
and into Faith’s room, which was closer.

Wyatt
sank down on the bed and scrubbed his face with his hands. "Something
weird is happening to me."

"Can
you explain more?"

"Things
inside of me are shifting. Changing."

Faith
sat next to him. "When did you first notice this?"

"My
powers are gaining strength, faster over the past months than they had in my
previous years at ACRO. But they also fail me sometimes. Something that’s never
happened before." He’d gone to Sam after aiding in the rescue of Remy—when
he’d tried to take down a helo during that op, he couldn’t do more than make
the bird wobble and had to resort to throwing shit at it instead.

Fucking
humiliating.

"What
happened when you tried to take down the helo?" Faith asked, and he
realized he must have been voicing his thoughts out loud.

"I
knew it was something I should’ve been able to do—I knew I could do it,"
he said, running his hands through his hair in extreme frustration. "I
tried and I couldn’t do shit."

"How
did you feel?"

"Fucking
pissed. Agitated. Tight."

"You’d
probably been underutilizing your powers for too long. They don’t like that—you
must’ve had to fight to get them back."

Yeah,
he’d fought. Practiced, watched his powers return. "My powers feel uneven,
like I’m constantly off balance in so many different ways, always trying to
right myself. But when you touch me, when your hands are on me—even if it’s
just a light touch—I feel better. Whole. Like things are connecting."

"You
said something when we were on the beach, about understanding what it’s like to
feel guilty about family. That’s not the first time you mentioned your family
to me in an unhappy context." Her hands covered his gently, hands that
were capable of killing man or woman. Hands that roamed his body as if claiming
him for her own…hands that connected him.

"I
don’t see what this has to do with my powers," he told her.

"It
might not. I think I can help you, but if you don’t tell me, if you don’t let
me in, I’m not going to be able to."

He
wanted to snap that, in so many ways, she
hadn’t
helped him—she’d thrown
off his game, put him in a perilous position, with the fate of the world
literally in her hands. But she’d let go last night, had shared her most
painful memory. The least he could do was match like for like.

"I
might’ve killed my half brother."

She
blinked. "I don’t understand—how could you not know?"

"I
can’t remember. I’ve blocked it all. ACRO nabbed me before the MPs got me.
Saved me, renamed me and gave me a new life. And I can’t remember anything
about the night Mason was found murdered. So when I told you that I understand
guilt, Faith, that I understood what it meant to want to help family…well, if
the motherboard held the possibility of getting me my memory back, I’d use it
any way I could, to the point right before it actually got into enemy
hands."

He
hung his head, felt as if that confession sucked the life out of him. But Faith
was there, at his side, urging him down onto the soft mattress with firm hands
on his shoulders.

"There’s
no shame in asking for help—in needing help, you know?"

He
laughed a little. "Yeah, you’re really good at that yourself."

"I’m
trying, Wyatt. With you, I’m trying."

"I
know that."

"No,
you don’t know it yet. But you will." She spoke slowly, staring at the
floor instead of looking at him. "Lie back, make yourself comfortable. I’m
going to be here the entire time with you, keeping you safe."

"You’re
afraid I’m going to hurt myself?"

"I’m
afraid you’re not going to let yourself heal. And you need to heal."

"Tell
me about it," Wyatt muttered, let himself relax on the bed. "Look,
I’m tired—maybe I can get some rest and we can get to the touchy-feely shit
later…"

"No.
Not later. We’ve got to get this figured out, Wyatt. Otherwise, you’re going to
become a loose cannon."

He
felt like one already. "All I remember is standing in the office of the
oil rig where I grew up. Mason’s there—my half brother. And he’s
laughing."

"Are
you?"

Wyatt
closed his eyes, shook his head hard and the colors in the scene in his mind
began to change to reds and oranges. "No, I’m not laughing at all."

"And
then what?"

"Then
next thing I remember, my hands are on either side of Mason’s face." Wyatt
knew it was only a matter of one sharp turn to break a man’s neck cleanly.
"I killed him, Faith. There’s no other explanation. There’s a tape of me
sneaking onto the rig. Why else would I be there?"

Faith
rested her hands on his chest and immediately the now familiar rush of comfort
enveloped him. The room stopped spinning, his brain stopped spinning and he
heard her say, "Think, Wyatt."

He
screwed his eyes shut and thought about that day in September. He’d been on
leave, had gone to the rig…but for what? He hadn’t kept in touch with his
family from the time he left for the military at nineteen. So for him to go
back there, something big must’ve been going on.

"Who
else was on the rig that day?"

"My
father."

"Did
you see your father, did you speak with him?"

"Not
until after Mason was dead. He came in, found me over the body."

"Where
was your mother?"

"She
died right after I went into the military."

He
hadn’t been very close to his mother—had respected her the way a son should,
but had always lived with the sting of her betrayal at not understanding his
gifts. He’d shown them to her when he was younger, in private—and as he’d
learned each new trick, he’d shared it with her.

And
she’d sold him out to his father when he was a teenager, the final nail in his
coffin that sent him on his way to the hospital.

"How
did she die?"

"They
said it was a heart attack. I wasn’t on the rig when it happened." A chill
began at Wyatt’s feet, and within seconds he was shivering and curled up in a
fetal position. All around him, he could hear things breaking, his telekinetic
powers looming out of control.

"Listen
to me, Wyatt, you need to calm down. What did Mason have to do with any of
this?"

"I
don’t know." His teeth were chattering so hard, he could barely understand
himself.

"Wyatt?"
She put her hand on his biceps and squeezed. "You’re going to feel a
tingle in your head. It’s just me. I’m accessing your hippocampus, your memory
center."

Instantly,
warmth flowed through him, easing the shakes that wracked his body, and a
tingle spread over his scalp. "I feel it," he whispered.

"Good.
Now, why did you go to the rig?"

"Mason
called. Said he had something important to talk to me about." Weird. That
little forgotten detail had popped right into his brain and out of his mouth.

"When
you got there, was Mason alone in the office?"

"Yes,"
he rasped, because now the memories weren’t a pleasant tingle. God, it hurt,
made him feel like his brain was popping and ripping, and his entire body
burned. But he stayed in the flashback and watched himself holding Mason’s
head.

Mason
was lying on the desk. "My hands are on his face."

"Look
closer, Wyatt. Something’s not right."

Wyatt
forced himself to look into Mason’s eyes, to feel. The tape in his mind began
to play backward, excruciatingly slowly.

Mason,
dead on the desk, Wyatt holding his face. And then, Wyatt was pulled back,
gently replacing Mason’s head on the desk and backing up.

"I
didn’t do it," he heard himself say softly. "It wasn’t me."

"Go
farther back, Wyatt…back out of the room."

In
his mind, he did—stayed with the vision in a way he never had. When he was
completely out of the room, he watched what really happened—Mason was laughing,
laughing at something his father said.

"I’ve
got proof, old man. And Wyatt will too. He has every right to know what you
did," Mason said.

And
then suddenly Wyatt’s father was breaking Mason’s neck, cleanly, while Wyatt
stood there, stunned. And the shock only grew worse when his dad revealed
everything—that Mason had been about to turn their old man in for killing
Wyatt’s mother.

"He
killed her."

"Who?"

"My
father. He killed my mother. She was divorcing him—she had proof that he’d been
embezzling money from his investors and she was going to come forward. He
would’ve been ruined. So he killed her, and Mason knew it."

"What
are you going to do about it, boy? Everyone knows you’re crazy. Everyone knows
you have the training to kill with your bare hands. If I tell the cops you
killed him, you think anyone will believe you didn’t? You, who was
institutionalized in a mental hospital? Who lied about it to get into the
military?" His father pointed at Mason’s lifeless body. "If you leave
now, maybe the police won’t catch you."

"I
didn’t do anything, Faith."

"You
didn’t. You know that now."

"I
mean, I didn’t do anything about Mason, I didn’t turn my father in. I…just
left."

"You
were scared and in shock. Your family put you through hell and you’d just found
out about your mother." Faith paused. "Where is your father
now?"

"He’s
dead. Died on the rig a couple of years ago."

"Then
he’s already getting his punishment in the afterlife. And you’ve got to stop
punishing yourself."

It
was all Wyatt could do not to cry. "Just leave me alone. Leave me the fuck
alone. Please."