No Peace for the Damned

three guards posted outside. I can keep you invisible until I find Thirteen upstairs. Get in place as quickly as possible and be ready for your cover to drop. The stairsare just to the right of the door. That’s where you need to watch for Thirteen. Are you guys ready?
    All three thought
Ready
at the same time.
    My powers heightened in anticipation. Each man vanished before my eyes. We were all invisible again. I turned back to the barn and went to the door.
    Theo was at my back; I could sense it. I welcomed the calm his nearness provided right now. My powers shimmered, anxious to use this new level of energy inside me.
Here we go
.
    With a deep breath, I pulled on the door’s long metal handle. It opened easily. I moved quickly along the inside wall, leaving room for the others to enter behind me. The guards at the end of the hall jumped to attention. To them the bolted door must have seemed haunted—opening and closing all on its own.
    “Who’s there?” a tall guard called out. He stood in a ready fight stance, his hand moving for his gun. The two behind him mirrored the move. They wore solid-colored wife-beaters and baggy jeans as if they were a uniform. Like wannabe gangsters with white trash roots. Father must be hurting to find decent guards if he’d lowered himself to hire these guys.
    “Sir? Is that you?” the same guard called out.
    Whoa—what?
These new guys knew the family’s supernatural secret? How? Most staff had to be employed for at least a year before being exposed to the Kelch “otherness.” Something wasn’t right here. Someone brushed against me. Theo, Jon, and Shane made their way down the partitioned hall. I took a step to follow them, then stopped.
    No. This was their fight, not mine. They could handle themselves.
    I turned my thoughts back to Thirteen and sprinted the short distance to the rusted staircase. All the bolts were so rusted outthat it barely hung from its joints on the second floor. I flew up the stair on tiptoes, hoping not to collapse the whole thing.
    The narrow second-story loft stretched the length of the barn. The ceiling angled with the roof and had more cobwebs than secure nails. Slowly, I inched over the plywood floor. The stall-turned-room was at the far end.
    Thirteen’s thoughts were weak but alive. His guard’s thoughts made me frown. Something about that guard…
    A stroke of my brother’s energy hit me from across the barn. I froze midstep. My stomach dropped.
Markus
. His voice echoed through the rafters from the barn below.
    “…big one will give,” he said to a guard. “We just need to find the right pressure point.”
    My confidence wavered. The pain, the hatred—he wasn’t as bad as my father, not by a long shot, but he was still part of my life here. I closed my eyes and focused. His voice was barely recognizable. I knew it was him, felt it in my bones. But he sounded deeper, scratchy. Like he had a sore throat.
    That was weird. None of us
ever
got sick
.
    Whatever. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was downstairs. Not in the room ahead of me. I crept through the loft toward the open doorway. An enormous masculine shadow passed by the doorway. A clang quickly followed.
    “We both know that you’ll give up
l’annuaire
eventually,” the guard growled. “Might as well make it easy on yourself.”
    My heart leaped into my throat. I recognized that guard now.
Shit
.

“Do you have any idea what will happen to you, Thirteen?” Banks asked. His gravelly voice paralyzed me where I stood. “It will be unbearable. You get that, don’t you? You
will
be broken. And the directory will be taken anyway.”
    A loud metal pounding shook the cobwebs from the rafters. Banks passed the doorframe once more. “Damn it, man! Do you think I
want
to watch you suffer?”
    Thunder clapped. The barn brightened in front of me, pulsing red with every step I took. I didn’t even try to push it back. I could see Banks through the doorway. My hands shook as I inched closer. There was a burn inside me now, and it was spreading fast. I ignored the hot ache and continued forward. Still invisible, I slipped into the small room.
    My heart stopped as agony ripped through me. Banks stood hunched over Thirteen, his hands wet with the blood ofhis former boss and mentor. The red hue of my vision vanished. There was only dark crimson now. True rage.
    I stood opposite the door, taking in both men’s profiles. Banks, in all his distortion, leaned far over,