No Peace for the Damned

voice. His comfortable scent of Old Spice and ginseng.
    Nothing. After a few minutes more I gave up. I couldn’t sense him.
    I took a long drink. Thirteen was a tough guy. He’d been fighting my family for years. He was probably just working through something with one of the other teams. I mean, he came back last time, right?
    But the others weren’t worried last time. This time they were.
    The gore from Uncle Max’s thoughts flashed in my mind. Blood coated his every thought. Pulsing inside him, just like my dream. Did he draw strength from that darkness? Did his powers swell inside him every time he made someone bleed?
    Uncle Max had said that their powers grew as more vessels carried our bloodline. Torturing his victims wouldn’t grow his powers, would it? When I lashed out at Jon, throwing him against the kitchen wall like that, everything had turned red—just like when I was near Uncle Max. The rage and fear had come easily, naturally. Had I gotten more powerful in those moments? I couldn’t be sure.
    In my dream I’d recognized the source of the supernatural pulse inside me. My powers fed from that place; in my dream, whenever I’d resisted the red, gold light flashed. The same color gold I dreamt of lying beside Theo last night.
    So what the hell did that mean?
    …
    Markus hid in the cover of the tall shrubs that surrounded the estate’s southern gardens, watching as our father and uncles stood in a semicircle before Grandmother. Each man wore a pressed suit—tailored and expensive, just the way Grandmother liked
.
    Her long silver hair and flowing red dress blew in the breeze. She would have been beautiful, radiant even, but her face was contorted with so much rage that her features looked sharp and frightening
.
    She hissed words that had no meaning
.
    Suddenly, Uncle Max’s face turned menacing. Inhuman. His posture hunched, his hands fisted. He launched himself at Father, tackling him to the ground. Power sizzled in the air. Rocks from the garden path levitated and the breeze gained strength, swirling debris all around them and shaking the bushes where Markus hid
.
    He wanted to run, but was too terrified. He couldn’t move
.
    Father and Uncle Max grabbed at one another, tearing, strangling each other with their strength. Then, as if he had to join the fray, Uncle Mallroy grabbed Uncle Max by the throat and flung him across the garden, smashing his body into a tree some fifty yards away
.
    Father’s eyes were liquid fire. He crouched—more animal than man—and leaped at Uncle Mallroy, taking him down with a roar. It was like watching wild dogs attack one another, unable to stop even if they wanted to
.
    Uncle Max returned, sending a mental shock wave into the other two, but both were on guard and returned the fire and attacked again as mindlessly as before. Blood coated all of them, suits shredded
.
    Grandmother’s hair whipped around her face. Her eyes burned with excitement. A smile stretched her lips. Then she turned to the bushes where Markus hid, and she laughed
.
    …
    It wasn’t my memory. I’d seen it in Markus’s mind when I was a child. I’d been surprised he’d had the guts to spy on them, but glad he did because it gave me the most detailed memory I’d seen of Grandmother.
    Kelch had been her surname, not Grandfather’s, and she had epitomized what it meant to carry the legacy. Callous, manipulative, bloodthirsty. Evil. She hadn’t needed supernatural abilities tocontrol her powerful sons. And power was all that ever mattered. Economic power, political power, supernatural power—it didn’t matter. She wanted it all, and through her sons, she got it.
    Soaking in the blood of my dream, feeling the rage and fear pulse around me, it had felt soothing, right. Just like I imagined it would have felt right for Grandmother. But something was changing inside me—new feelings, new powers. And those felt right too. My knees curled up to my chest and I buried my head in my arms.
    The night before, Theo had wrapped his arms around me. Comforting as my confusion washed away. God, how I wanted to feel that again. Even more, I wanted to be someone who Theo
should
want like that. I wanted to not be a Kelch.
    Enough of this
. I wiped off my face and finished off my drink. Then I went to the kitchen for a refill. I was what I was. No amount of want or self-loathing would change that.
    The double beep of the alarm sounded. Soon after, I heard footsteps on the porch. Heat flared inside