Winters Rising Read online

  “Where are we?” Declan asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  Panic slammed inside Brea. If they didn’t know where they were...

  “What is this place?” he continued.

  Declan’s questions increased Brea’s panic and her heart began to beat stronger and faster.

  What was she thinking coming on board for their job? It could be dangerous...clearly.

  Gabrielle let go of Brea’s hand and she scrambled to grab it back, feeling all her bravery slipping away.

  Jax reached for her other hand. “It’s alright.” He pulled Brea against him in a partial hug and she caught Declan roll his eyes. She looked weak, but Jax’s arm was a blanket of protection and soothed her spiraling nerves. Not even her mother’s touch had felt like this.

  “Are you okay?” Jax asked.

  She knew he would regret having her here.

  Brea nodded, trying not to make more of a fool of herself.

  Her birthmark pulsed more than normal, the irritation running deeper. She rubbed it, trying to relieve the tender twinge. Subconsciously, she knew it beat to remind her of the long overdue bonding to Jax. But now, was not the time.

  Gabrielle left them to walk across the room and stopped at the far window. The light along the floor raced to each foot as she made contact, then spiraled away like fireflies when she stepped away.

  “Um...guys...” Gabrielle turned to them, her face pale. “I think we’re in Lexcon,” she whispered.

  Lexcon? Even Brea knew that was impossible. Lexcon was the spot in time where the elders resided, and where time stood still. No one came and no one went from Lexcon. It was impossible...wasn’t it? Or was that simply a story council created to keep Seconds in the dark?

  The shade of white passing over Jax and Declan’s faces, suggested they knew as much as her.

  “How do you know?” Declan asked.

  Gabrielle turned and pointed out a window. Jax and Declan immediately crossed the room to look. Brea stepped forward slowly, testing the solidness of the ground. She supposed if it could hold the Winters’ brothers, she needn’t worry. Still, she traversed gingerly, each zigzag on the ground carrying away a bit of her fear. When she joined the trio at the window, she wiggled in front of Jax to see what had stilled them into silence.

  Brea’s breath caught in her chest sending numbness down her body. They stood in one of the highest buildings in a city built out of the same crisscrossing illuminations that surrounded them. It resembled an electric light show. As if looking down on foundation wasn’t amazing enough, above them, and stretching into the distance of every direction, were hundreds of thousands of fast moving streaks of white lightning.

  Brea squinted her eyes, arriving at the conclusion that each strip must be a time rip. All the bands streamed together and circulated into a large building resembling the White House.

  “That’s the Lexcon symbol,” Gabrielle said, pointing at the sign on the front of Lexcon’s white house.

  Brea glanced at her husband’s face, and noticed a clear shade of concern. I bet he wished they’d all stayed home instead of going on this rip.

  Chapter Sixteen

  DECLAN CURSED.

  Jax groaned inwardly. There were only two reasons his brother cursed. One, either Declan had read books outlining alarming facts about being in Lexcon or, two, documentation had been limited, so he didn’t know a thing. Either way, it wasn’t a good sign.

  “Don’t panic.” Even as Jax tried to calm everyone down, his mind screamed alarm.

  What the hell were they doing in Lexcon?

  “Don’t panic?” Gabrielle cried. “We’re in the elders’ rip! Where in that sentence do you see the small print saying, ‘don’t panic’? What are we doing here? Is this even possible? Are we supposed to be here? Do they know we’re here?”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper and her eyes fell on all the door-less entrances in the empty room. “They have to know, right? They send us our visions, so they would know that they were sending this vision to calculate this exact location for us.” Gabby rambled on, stepping away from the window and pressing her palms tightly against her eyes. “They know every rip. Right? Right!” She looked from each of them to the next, fear contracting her normally delightful face. “Right?”

  Jax glanced down at Brea, whose blue eyes were wide and dark with horror, silently absorbing Gabrielle’s anxiety attack.

  Why had he brought her along? Of all the rips of all his career of time-traveling, why was this the rip he’d chosen for her? They could be in Egypt with Pharaohs chasing them or walking the plank on the pirate ship. Pharaohs and pirates were effortless compared to this.

  “There’s only one way to find out what’s going on and why we’re here,” Jax said. He calmed his mind and took a deep breath. They still had a job to do, even if they didn’t know the details. Maybe the elders had made a mistake...only the elders never made mistakes.

  Jax shook the thoughts from his head and said, “To begin, we need to remain calm.”

  Gabrielle rolled her eyes and shook her head. Negative and unladylike ranting, came from her mouth next, sounding a lot like their father.

  Thankfully, Declan took advantage of Gabrielle’s outburst to offer his opinion.

  “There is not one book noted in our library about the elder’s rip. Not one,” he said. “I know as much as you two know about this rip and that’s only what we’ve learned in school. This is where the elders live and our visions come from here. No one comes and no one leaves.” He paused and a smirk crossed his lips. “The documentation we’ll bring home with us will be incredible.”

  “If we get home.” Gabrielle swiped her hand on the wall watching it part like vapour but then quickly filling in the space. A thin wall of electric lights but not a wall at all. “Look around. You can walk through walls and there are no doors attached to the entrances,” Gabrielle pointed out the fact Jax hadn’t missed. Without doors, there was no possible way of opening a gateway back home.

  Jax touched the wall. Energy flowed through him as it parted and he found flat metal bars beneath his touch, making it impossible to actually walk through the wall as Gabrielle assumed. At the same time, it would still be impossible to build a door.

  Jax draped a comforting arm around Gabrielle’s lean shoulders and felt her move into the touch. His siblings had managed through dangerous rips before, so they would succeed today. But first, he needed to reassure his sister, who was on the verge of crumbling apart. It was unlike his sister to express so much fear. Even their first rips had been more exciting than terrifying for her, but today she seemed on edge. And who could blame her after discovering only yesterday that Unborns were actually born and then stabbed by the doctor who delivered them? She had almost been killed herself.

  Guilt weighed on Jax. He had been so wrapped up in himself, Brea, and council, not to mention his dad demanding he bond with Brea immediately after he’d returned from a rip, that he hadn’t considered the consequences of Gabrielle’s traumatic experiences. It had been selfish ignoring her texts last night and even more, asking her to send him and Brea to the island this morning. Maybe Brea was right about him, maybe he was a jerk Gatekeeper.

  What were the elders thinking sending Gabrielle a vision when she should have been resting? And sending them to the elder’s rip induced more stress and panic. Jax needed to deflate the situation, now.

  However, Gabrielle wasn’t finished airing her concerns. “Without walls or floors, there’s no way for us to even make a door,” Gabrielle said. “No gateway, no time rip. No time rip and we’re stuck here. Stuck in the elders’ time rip. In the elders’ rip. And why? Why are we here?” Her eyes fell on Brea. “It’s you two.” Her glare moved to Jax. “Your refusal to bond is going to get us killed.” She was blowing the situation way out of proportion. Being melodramatic wasn’t new for Gabrielle, but pointing fingers and shifting blame lacked her usual flair.

  Jax stepped away from her, folding his arms across his c
hest, and putting on his most convincing, at ease look. But, damned if he didn’t feel terrified to the bones. Could this be about the bonding and, if so, why the baby vision? It still didn’t explain yesterday and the Unborns. Plus, it seemed a little odd to have two baby visions in two days. There was so much unanswered, but Jax wasn’t about to add his unease to Gabrielle’s.

  “Killed, Gabrielle? Really?” Jax asked.

  “Yes, Jax,” she snapped.

  “There has to be a door somewhere in Lexcon,” Jax said. “The elders would need a door to come and go, so all we have to do is find it.” He wasn’t sure whether he was reasoning with them or himself.

  “I have to find the library,” Declan said. “There’s likely an amazing library here with the Gatekeepers entire existence documented. If there is a gateway here, the books will tell me.”

  “And, we need to find that baby,” Jax said. “Gabby and Declan, you two go find the library and any clue that brings us to a gateway. Brea and I will start looking for clues to the baby and the Rogue. Let’s sweep this building and meet at the exit. I don’t want to get too far apart. We’ll walk through the city together.”

  They nodded and stepped through the open doorway into a long deserted hall of other doorways.

  Jax bent down and swiped the floor to see what was beneath them and the same flat metal appeared. The charged substance linked back together as Jax stood, slapping his hands together. He evaluated the building, deciding the structure held the same bars throughout.

  When Jax caught sight of Gabrielle and Declan heading the opposite direction, he called, “Hey! Be careful and on alert at all times.” He didn’t want to frighten them more, but he also wanted them to be attentive. “We don’t know who’s here and why we are.”

  Nods answered him.

  “We have this floor,” Declan said.

  Leading the way, Jax tightly gripped Brea’s hand, not sure what awaited them around each corner. They descended stairs onto the next level and started a floor check. Each room came up empty of belongings and people. They didn’t pass a single person, and the few they’d seen outside the window had disturbed him. For such a huge empire built in the time rip, it seemed awfully empty.

  The stress of everyone’s worry overwhelmed Jax. He knew they were standing, and walking, searching through the elders’ rip. A rush of adrenaline hit him. The elders’ rip!

  Brea shifted again and he caught her rubbing her branded birthmark area under her light hair.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She snapped her hand to her side. “I’m perfect.” Her comment dripped with sarcasm. It seemed to be the only way she knew how to respond. “I’m just traveling around a time rip with my husband, who I recently discovered has been screwing around with other Seconds. I’m so perfect, just perfect.”

  “We’ll discuss that when we get home,” he said gruffly.

  “Is there something to discuss?” she asked. Again her tone was laced with sarcasm, but he didn’t miss the note of disappointment, too.

  “No.” They didn’t have time to deal with her jealousy or anger right now. They were in the elders’ rip and such a place required their complete focus.

  When she failed to keep up, Jax gripped her hand tighter and pulled her close behind him. She didn’t object and he thanked the gods.

  “Do you think this has anything to do with yesterday’s rip?” she asked. “You know, the Unborns being born.” He wished she would whisper. There could be ears listening.

  Curious as to where she was going with her thought, he asked, “Why would you say that?”

  Brea shrugged. “I find it a little strange that you learned the Unborns are born, right before the three of you end up in the elders’ rip. A rip no one has documented seeing, let alone, being inside...” Another shrug. She appeared less alarmed about their predicament than she had been earlier, but that could be because she was still stewing about his extracurricular activities. “I just think it’s all a little convenient. But what do I know? I’m just a Second.”

  Jax stopped and turned to look at her. “Don’t hold back. I agree with you that it’s a little coincidental.”

  “And you’re scared...”

  He straightened. “I am not scared.”

  Brea’s eyes fell on his hand locked around hers. “My mistake,” she said, sardonically.

  Jax sighed and his free hand worked at rubbing some of the tension away from the back of his neck. “This wasn’t a rip I would have taken you on had I known we would end up here,” he said. “Do you know how to defend yourself?”

  “Fight?” Brea looked appalled.

  He nodded.

  “In an elders’ rip?”

  “Coincidence, remember?”

  “I’ve never been taught to fight. I’ve been taught to be a good little Second−”

  He interrupted her pity party by saying, “Then don’t let go of my hand.”

  They searched three floors and, upon arriving on the main floor, stepped outside into what seemed to be a perfectly regulated atmosphere.

  Lexcon proved to be as much a ghost town as the building. Each street, in all directions, devoid of people.

  Soon, Declan and Gabrielle joined them.

  “Clear,” Declan said. “But I bet if there’s any information it’s inside that building,” He continued, pointing at the White House replica.

  They all nodded and made their way the five block toward the building.

  During their walk not a single person passed them. As they arrived at the arched front grand entrance, no security waited for them. They parted into pairs of two again, and went to search for the baby and a library.

  As they made their way to the fourth floor, the emerging sounds of babies brought hope to Jax’s senses.

  He picked up his pace, letting go of Brea’s hand and taking the stairs two at a time. This could be the break they’d been looking for. He paused at the top of the stairs and felt his jaw drop. Before him lay a massive nursery. Bassinettes sat in perfectly aligned rows. Young women, wearing white outfits, tended to babies who could be no more than a month old.

  He heard Brea’s gasp behind him, before he felt her hand on his forearm and the front of her body ever so gently graze his back. This familiar position gave Jax hope. Whether Brea believed it or not, this pose indicated she trusted him and the thought warmed his heart.

  “What is this?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know.” But he would find out. “Come on.” He grasped her hand again, heading to the back of the room where women were busy working behind a wall of windows. These women would give him the answers he sought.

  Brea tugged at his hand, making him pause. He turned to find her fingers stroking a baby’s arm. The baby couldn’t be older than a few weeks. Jax couldn’t help but think of the Unborns from the day before. What was going on?

  “Can I wait here?” Brea asked, bending closer to the baby. She tickled its nose and laughed as the baby’s mouth crinkled.

  Jax had heard of women having ovary explosions at the sight of a man and child...he didn’t know what you would call that when it happened to a guy, but watching Brea with this baby, right now, had him envisioning Brea with their future children. It was the best moment since they’d returned from the island. He felt almost normal and wanted to take Brea back to his wing and continue spending time getting to know her.

  “Jax?”

  He looked at Brea’s raised eyebrows.

  Glancing around, he decided it seemed harmless enough as he could see Brea from every angle.

  “Fine,” he grumbled.

  Brea rolled her eyes back to the baby.

  Jax turned to leave when a gleam from the bassinette caught his eye. It flickered at Brea’s touch, but that wasn’t what stopped his breathing. Beyond Brea’s blonde waves, her birthmark glowed.

  Jax’s chest compressed and his stomach plummeted.

  He reached up and swept Brea’s hair off her shoulders, finding her birthmar
k glowing exactly like the Unborn taken by the doctor, and exactly like the baby at her fingertips. He’d already had a sickening feeling this one was an Unborn. If this little glowing baby was...

  Jax dropped her hair.

  Was Brea an Unborn?

  His eyes traveled the length of the room where hundreds of babies, all branded with a birthmark, lay in their cribs. In Lexcon. And this was only the fourth floor. How many were there?

  Brea glanced at his hand on her shoulder. “Everything okay?” she asked, softer.

  “I’ll be right back,” Jax said, his frustration, confusion, but mostly his assumptions, freaking him out.

  He stormed up to the woman sitting behind a long desk at the back of the room. She looked like she was in charge and would give him the answers his wife depended on.

  “Are there any babies missing from this nursery?” he demanded, less subtle than he knew he should.

  The nurse glanced up at him through wireless rimmed glasses. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  Jax gritted his teeth to keep from snapping a remark that would get him no answers. He breathed in his nostrils and forced his lips to curve into all he could muster for a smile. “I was wondering if there is a baby missing from this floor.”

  Her inquisitive grey eyes ran down his body and back up. “Since when does maintenance care about the baby ward?” she asked, perching her eyebrows in question.

  “We’ve been having reports of a crying baby.”

  “You’re standing in the baby ward,” she whispered mockingly, as if he didn’t know. “There are hundreds of crying babies.”

  “There have been reports by people past the walls of this building.”

  “People?” she asked. “What people?”

  Jax leaned his elbows on the counter and moved threatening closer to her and asked, “Do you have a missing baby?”

  The nurse stood up, placing the palms of her hands down on the surface of the desk, leaning toward him. “When the heat acts up again, I will give you a call,” she said.

  Jax didn’t believe her and he caught the note of sarcasm again. “The heat doesn’t act up, does it?”