The Airbnb apartment Elijah had been staying in wasn’t just ransacked—it was destroyed.
Knickknacks were knocked off their shelves and smashed to the floor, chairs were broken, and the mattress had been dragged halfway off the frame. His clothes were everywhere, but that looked like a result of his suitcase having been knocked over and caught in the middle of a scuffle. Even so, the sight of Elijah’s clothing trampled and torn up shook Holden. Elijah was tough and mouthy when he needed to be, but could he defend himself against hulking Community cronies? Probably not. And the mental image of his petite frame being dragged out of the apartment made Holden want to vomit.
He knelt on the floor and ran his hand over the broken chair, a ripped T-shirt, and the shards of a smashed porcelain ornament. The impressions washing over him were so strong he had to jerk his hand away. The stink of fear permeated the area, but it was punctuated by the determination of Elijah’s attackers, Elijah’s rage and then frustration. It was all so strong that Holden was temporarily transported from this reality and into another one—where the struggle played out dimly before his eyes.
“Holden?”
Snapping out of his daze of visualizing, Holden looked up at Lia. She was stricken. Big eyes bloodshot and mouth tight at the sides. She was as shaken as him, maybe more so, but she held herself together with grim determination, refusing to show her fear and worry to someone she didn’t fully trust. Someone with the last name Payne.
“They didn’t ransack the place,” he said hoarsely. “Nothing is taken. They only came for him, and he fought back. I can feel how annoyed they were that this easy mark, a short gay kid who’s barely a hundred and thirty pounds, was causing them so much trouble. I’m sure they didn’t expect him to be such a wildcat.”
“I’m sure they didn’t. And I bet he kicked at least one of them in the balls.”
Lia sank to the floor beside Holden and stared down at one of Elijah’s Dreadnought tank tops. For just a minute, it looked like she would shatter. Her eyes grew moist and her lower lip trembled. Holden knew that if she cracked, he would too. His stomach had been roiling since he’d fled Six’s apartment, and his self-control was frayed. Elijah had been close to him for as long as Elijah had been in the Comm, and the idea of someone hurting him . . .
“Fuck. If you cry, I’m going to cry,” he croaked.
Lia blinked and ripped a hand across her face. “Who’s crying?”
“No one. Never mind.” Holden sniffed and staggered to his feet. The abrupt movement left him lightheaded. “Why would anyone do this?”
“It’s not anyone,” she said harshly. “It’s the Community. And you know.”
His stomach soured. He wanted to deny it with every fiber of his being, but how could he? It had been Comm thugs trying to get to Elijah for months. Trying to coax him to go with them, and then stalking him after he said no. Maybe that was even what had happened now. They’d once again tried to talk him into compliance, he’d refused, and their orders had been to drag him along regardless of his consent.
“Are you really going to pretend this isn’t related to the Comm?” Lia asked, voice rising. “You can’t be that far in denial, Holden. You knew they were following him.”
“I know,” he snapped. “I just . . . Listen, I believe there may be a dark element inside the Community, but I’m more inclined to think this is all connected to covering up the situation with Beck than some other wild conspiracy.”
“‘Wild conspiracy,’” she repeated. “They dragged Elijah out of his apartment by force, and you still think what I said is unlikely? For fuck’s sake, Holden. What will it take to convince you that all of this—the CW, the board, the rules to keep us quiet and compliant, the money—it’s all designed to have an army of ignorant, loyal psychics, so you can all be used for whatever the hell they want to use you for. And it helps if they can cherry-pick the stronger of you to be their super soldiers and plants.”
“Because that sounds absolutely batshit,” he shouted. “And tell me what all of that would have to do with Elijah? He’s a precog, but he’s not a powerful one. He knows the details of what went down with Beck, but so does Chase. Why would they need Elijah?”
“You just answered your own question.” Lia stood with a groan, wincing and favoring her knee. “Chase knew what Beck was up to, and he told Elijah everything at the end. Now they’re both gone. And like you said, the board, your father included, is very invested in covering that situation up.”
Holden’s heart seized, and his gut clenched again. “You can’t mean . . . You don’t think they’d . . . that someone would kill them, do you?”
“I don’t know. Someone killed Theo. Jericho.” Lia closed her eyes briefly. She took a deep breath. “I think Chase is too powerful an asset for them to get rid of, but I have no idea what they’ll do to Elijah. Maybe they’ll subject them both to realignment up at the Farm and put them on display as good little Comm groupies to win back some sense of calm and trust. Or maybe they’ll—”
His mother’s voice filled Holden’s head. The empty platitudes, the automatic defense of the Community and Holden’s father, and the shrill panic in her voice when he’d mentioned the investigation. How she’d sounded like a different person. Or worse—a vessel for Community propaganda.
“Maybe they’ll hold them at the Farm and brainwash them both,” Holden said softly. “Erase what happened, erase their doubts and what they know, and then turn them loose again to show that all of these rumors and gossip are untrue. That everything is fine and there was never a crack in the Community’s wall of trust.”
Lia said nothing, but she was nodding slowly.
“What I don’t understand is how they found him,” Holden said. “He got this place just a week or so ago. Unless he used his real social media to connect to the website and book the room, I don’t understand how they tracked him when he’s been laying low. They haven’t had the opportunity to follow him.”
Lia strode to the windows and peered through the curtains. “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”
“Me? No, I—” Holden shut his mouth with an audible click. The sick feeling returned. “Six. Six has been following me.”
Lia stilled but didn’t look back at him. “You’ve seen him?”
“No, but he told me. He . . .” Holden braced a hand against the wall. “He’d previously made me aware of the goons tailing Elijah. This morning, I ran into him after I left here. He’d admitted to following me around sometimes but said it was to make sure no one else was. Claimed he didn’t like his assignment being . . . infringed upon by Community thugs.”
“Do you believe him?”
There should have been doubt in Holden’s heart now that he was sitting in the ruins of Elijah’s brief hideaway, but there wasn’t. He couldn’t get inside of Six’s head and verify his words, or feel any vibes that would have given away whether he was lying or not, but Holden believed him. Even though he couldn’t explain why.
“Yes. I do.”
Surprisingly, Lia didn’t scorn him for the statement. She turned and pressed her back to the window, her face drawn with exhaustion. “Then we need to figure out how they found him. Six would have noticed if he was being followed. He’s good.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I’ve heard of him and what he’s capable of.”
“What’s that?” Holden asked, bewildered. “He’s practically a void.”
“There’s that toxic Community attitude that turned your girl Beck into a monster,” Lia scoffed. “Listen, Holden, you need to get it out of your head that not having abilities makes a person just anything. They’re not lesser. Six definitely isn’t. If Chase is the superhuman version of a psychic, Six is one minus the psychic talent. Since he was a kid, they taught him to be formidable enough to protect the Community. He may not have the mental gifts, but be sure that boy can take on every single person in the Comm when it comes to hand-to-hand fighting. He has a different kind of strength.”
That Holden believed. He’d felt it in that body when it had been so close to his own. And he’d felt it in those hands as they’d gripped the back of his head.
He ran a hand through his hair and released a ragged sigh. “If it’s not Six, then we have no idea how they tracked me or you,” he said. “And we don’t know where to start. So, if you don’t have any other ideas, I think it’s about damn time I confront my father.”
Lia’s eyes went so wide the whites around her pupils were visible. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
“No. I haven’t. But this isn’t a game, Lia. We’re not the psychic version of Veronica Mars sleuthing around for clues. Real people are missing. Our friends are missing. We need to—”
“First off? Don’t talk down to me, Holden. Your dumb ass didn’t even have a clue about anything being wrong in the Community until it was explicitly spelled out for you.”
Holden nearly swallowed his own tongue. “Sorry. I’m just upset.”
“Understandable, but getting on my bad side will do nothing but get my foot up your ass.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down like she was seriously considering doing just that. “I’m gonna tell you right now that talking to your father about this is a bad plan. If he knows that me and Elijah are affiliated with Ex-Comm, that Six is—”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’ll just—” Holden gestured vaguely, searching for a way to demand an explanation without giving too much away. “I’ll just say what I’ve witnessed at the club. That I’ve seen people following Elijah and now he’s missing. I don’t have to bring up anything else at all.”
“And when he denies being involved?” she challenged. “Or worse—when he decides to confess that he is involved and tries to reel you into his plot? What will you do then?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know? Because you don’t think your father is the sociopathic monster that I know him to be?”
Holden bristled. “I know my father only cares about his own agenda and his goals. And I know he can be cold. I just don’t think the entire Community is a manifestation of that. And I refuse to believe that’s why it was created.”
For some reason it was those words that softened Lia. “Fine. Feel him out. I’ll trust you to not fuck it up.”
“Well, thank you for that vote of confidence,” he said drolly. “Any advice?”
“Yeah—keep your cool. Your father may be basically a void, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other Evolution employees under his thumb. Keep your shields up, Holden. And keep your fucking cool. Don’t show your hand.”
“I won’t. If there’s anything I can do, it’s be phony. I learned the art of white knuckling through a false smile from the woman who married my awful father.”
For many people, Richard Payne was the Community. Maybe not the only founder, but certainly the most prominent one. He was the face everyone saw at Community Watch, and the one who appeared to play bad cop if someone broke a rule or needed to be put into line. Everyone knew him. The other founders—Kyger and Hale—were more of an enigma. And people preferred a recognizable face to a cipher.
What most people didn’t understand was that Richard Payne inserted himself into so many situations because he was a control freak, not a worried Community dad. And he was so prominent at the CW because he lived on the top floor of the building, which was why Holden had keys to the place. Once upon a time, it had been his home as well. He’d come home from his private school with the psychic teachers and administration on the Upper East Side, and run around the building as his mother did her rounds on each floor. While she’d worked to meet new intakes and speak with the staff, Holden had tried to help but mostly observed or got under her feet. Even so, he’d liked to spend time with his mother, and he’d loved seeing the new psychics.
Looking back, Holden could identify how privileged he was. How much of a bubble he’d lived in. How ridiculous it had been for this filthy-rich child to poke his head in the rooms of psychics who’d been rescued from homeless shelters and psych wards. People who’d been thrown away by people who should have loved them. That lack of awareness, even years later, was mortifying.
He entered the high-rise through a back door and took the elevator up, bypassing other people and more populated floors. Even on Christmas, there was activity at the CW. There was an annual holiday party for fledgling Comm members with no family of their own, a gift exchange, and a Christmas movie marathon. As a young person, Holden had taken part in many of these activities and had volunteered his time to help host them. It was why he couldn’t believe the Community, and specifically the CW, had been created solely for evil.
But then again, Lia had a point. It wasn’t the Paynes or the Kygers or the Hales who ran these events, or even who’d come up with them. They were figureheads in charge of bigger issues and had long since left other folks in charge of the programs on the ground. In the past, that distance had bothered Holden. Now, he wondered if they’d started participating less because altruism and philanthropy had never been their true goal.
And, fuck, now he was getting paranoid and buying into Lia’s theories. He barely knew Kyger or Hale, but he’d begun dragging them into it all.
Holden left the elevator while repeating a mantra to forget the conspiracy. He wouldn’t let it color his interactions with his father. Not yet, anyway. If he didn’t go in with a clear head, the conversation would end in disaster. That much was certain.
He told himself that again while working up the courage to actually knock, but all of his resolve evaporated once it swung open before he could raise his hand.
The man who appeared in the doorway was not his father, but he was definitely familiar. He had a tattoo on his face of a thin black band that went over the bridge of his nose and around his bright-green cat eyes. It was the man from Holden’s and Elijah’s dreams.
Holden’s mouth fell open, but no sound came out. Words failed him, and coherent thought fled. He could do nothing but stand and stare at the person only a few inches away. A person he’d never met in person, but who emitted the type of vibes that curdled Holden’s stomach and sent invisible insects skittering over his skin. It was like being face-to-face with a personification of evil.
“Holden,” the man said simply.
“I—” His tongue was too thick and was preventing him from forming words. His mouth too dry and his heart was beating too fast. “Who are you? Where’s my father?”
“Your father is in the kitchen where I left him.”
Holden forced a jerky nod, but he didn’t move. Not into the apartment or out of the man’s way. He tried to take in other things about the man with the cat eyes—how he was thin and lanky with tattooed symbols on each finger, had a shaved head and a down-curved mouth. How every other feature was utterly unremarkable except those eyes and the tattoo.
What was it about him that made Holden want to sprint in the opposite direction? That jumpstarted the electric shocks of impending doom and danger?
Knowing better but unable to stop himself, Holden reached out with his gift. He’d expected a door to slam shut on the tentatively seeking tendrils, but instead he received vibes so strong they were undeniably being projected by the other man. A vague sense of amusement and the colder darker fingers of caution. But was the man cautioning himself to be careful around Holden . . . or was he warning Holden to back off? There was no way to tell, so Holden shut off the connection and slammed down his own mental shields.
“Who are you?” he asked after another beat. “I thought I’d met everyone affiliated with the Community.”
“Most people don’t know me. My name is Jasper. My primary position places me at the Farm.”
The admission made it certain that Chase was at the Farm. And Holden knew without a shadow of a doubt that this man, Jasper, was involved in his brother’s realignment or incarceration—whatever it was they were doing to Chase.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Visiting the man in charge.” Jasper’s smile was sharp and vacant. “We’re working on a special project, and he likes his updates in person.”
Special project. Was that project about Chase? Or Elijah?
A stone formed in the pit of Holden’s stomach.
“You had me at ‘special project,’” he said with a crooked grin. “Care to satisfy my curiosity?”
Jasper cocked his head. “I’d recommend asking your father about that. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
He slipped past Holden in the doorway to make his way to the elevator. They didn’t touch, but an arctic wind seemed to come off the man, and it sent a shudder sweeping through Holden’s body.
Shaking himself, he entered the apartment and shut the door behind him. As always, the Payne penthouse looked like an untouched showroom in a furniture store. Beautiful, elegantly styled, but uninhabitable. Like a museum. Richard was in the kitchen preparing a meal, but everything was still unnaturally orderly. Not a stray towel out of place or a water stain on any of the stainless-steel appliances.
“What’s going on?”
Richard didn’t look up. “You’ve decided against announcing your visits, I see.”
“I didn’t realize that I needed to make an appointment.”
“It would be wise given I’m typically not here.” Richard stopped slicing a perfectly sliced onion and brushed his hands on a paper towel. “I’m only here because I had a meeting.”
“With Jasper,” Holden said.
“Yes. With Jasper.” Richard put his hand on the chopping knife and left it there as he scrutinized him. “What can I do for you, Holden?”
It was a straightforward question but asked in such a tone of indifference, as if they were two strangers meeting for the first time in a doctor’s office, that a flip switched inside of Holden. “You can start by telling me why my mother is a zombie, where you’ve put my brother, and why you have Community henchmen following my friends.”
“‘Your friends,’” Richard repeated. “Meaning Elijah Estrella?”
“Yes. Elijah Estrella. The drummer for the Dreadnoughts, part-time bartender at Evolution, sometime lover of Chase, and my goddamn friend.”
Richard moved his hand away from the knife. “What do you gain by being friends with an individual like Elijah?”
An incredulous laugh burst out of Holden’s mouth. “‘Gain’? He’s my friend. I don’t hope to gain anything. And I’m not sleeping with him so you can hold off on that accusation, because I know it’s coming.”
“It wouldn’t have been an accusation. In this case, it’s the only thing that makes sense. The only commonality the two of you have is that you’re in the Community and you’re gay.” Richard pushed the chopping board away and walked around the counter. Everything about him was precise and controlled. Inhuman. “What else could you possibly want with him, Holden?”
“I already told you we’re friends. I could not care less about his net worth or the extent of his psychic abilities. Those things don’t mean anything to me. I’m not like that.” The unspoken I’m not like you hung in the air. They both knew he was thinking it. “What I’m attempting to grasp is, if you think Elijah is a waste of time and a useless addition to our community, why is he being followed?”
Impatience gathered on Richard’s brow, the clouds of the brewing storm of his unleashed temper. It was never shouting with him. Richard Payne’s anger came like a blizzard that blanketed the person on the receiving end of his disapproval. Nothing but cold disgust and very quiet rage.
“He’s being monitored because he knows more than he admitted about the situation with Beck. And lying puts him in breach of Community rules as well as labeled a suspect.”
“Suspected of doing what? Keeping his mouth shut? Trying to stay out of it?”
“Yes. If he had even an inkling that something was going on, he should have reported it. Instead, he followed your brother’s example and hid things from us. And at the moment, it’s unclear what else they may be hiding.”
Holden’s hand slammed down on the counter before he could rein it in. “Are you really going to pursue this, Father? This ridiculous witch hunt to find a scapegoat for your fuckup? Because it was you who placed Beck here. You also missed the fact that she was a goddamn vampire because you were too worried about getting someone to spy on me.” He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound that echoed in the large kitchen. “What I can’t work out is why you sent her. Was it because she was sleeping with you and you knew she’d report accurately due to her loyalty, or was it because you thought she was basically a void, and had no other use for her beyond sex? That seems more your speed.”
Unexpectedly, Richard laughed. A low, long chuckle that brightened his face and gave some life to the still apartment.
“Holden, you really are fixated on how I view people without significant talent, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am,” he said directly. “I used to feel similarly until I realized that social hierarchy does nothing more than alienate members of the community and create people like Beck.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, son. Our social structure didn’t create Beck. Greed did. And jealousy. She knew how we valued her gift, and she knew why power is so key to the Community thriving.”
“I thought you created the Community to help people like Elijah,” Holden said. “And Chase.”
“Initially we did, but change doesn’t stop there. We have to be proactive, Holden. And to be proactive we have to be on the inside.”
“The inside . . .”
“Yes. And we can only infiltrate the circles that influence this country by amassing psychics with real power. Psychics like the men and women Beck targeted, like your brother, and like the Black family.” There was a beat of silence where Richard leaned forward, brows lowered, and stared into Holden’s eyes as if he was trying to see where his interests lay, whether Holden was understanding this new mission statement, and likely wondering whether Holden would help. Are you an ally or a weak link? “For us to succeed, we need power and we need loyalty. And those who aren’t loyal, who aren’t honest and committed, serve as an Achilles’ heel to the entire organization. Their choices are to realign or to be gone.”