Lexi almost choked on the bread. “I only managed an hour of sleep. It took a while to wind down. I was amped up from saving that kid. Who else feels awesome about that?”
Maggie grinned as she passed the mac and cheese to her. “We were talking about that. It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?”
“Almost as good as watching Dimitri trying to brush the dust off his entrails before he scooped them in.”
Braxton shook his head. “Not at the table, Isaac.”
“Sorry.”
She ventured her question. “Why is the counselor coming? Yesterday went well.”
He took a slice of pizza from the box. “He wants to talk to you all about the Dimitri job—probably because it involved kids.”
“Yeah, the one who didn’t make it. That’s bad.” Maggie sighed.
Lexi almost sighed with relief. If the counselor was here for anyone, it would be Maggie.
She was glad she’d mentioned the lack of sleep. It made a good excuse for her eyes and distractedness. Unfortunately, she had to put a fair amount of effort into not inadvertently revealing her extra strength and speed. She wondered when it would wear off.
The doorbell sounded as they cleared lunch. A man in his fifties entered the house and Braxton took him into his office. She didn’t expect to get called in. Aside from the fact that her family didn’t seem concerned, she had never been counseled in her life.
As she sat in her room and waited, she looked at the walls. She’d been in this room for as long as she could remember. Other people her age had gone to college, moved out, gotten married, and started a family by now. There she was, about to turn thirty and still living at home. She expected Isaac and Maggie would start their own unit soon.
She heard them call Isaac first, then Maggie. Finally, a knock at the door made her jump.
Braxton shouted, “Lexi, can you come into my office?”
Lexi tried to calm her heart as she entered the room.
The man narrowed his eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I’m tired and a little nervous. I’ve never been counseled in my life.”
He picked a pen up. “Well, we’ll merely chat about the job. Tell me how you feel about yesterday.”
He asked her questions and she answered them for about ten minutes, while he flicked through her reports. Finally, he stood from his chair and poured a glass of water. He walked to her and put it in front of her. “Here you go.” He put his hand on her head.
She felt a temperature change but couldn’t say if it was hot or cold.
“The vamp from your first case yesterday…you left there straight after he was arrested. You saw a vehicle pull up…”
The memory of the grandfather arriving was clear.
“That was a van. Two men in uniform went in to take the vamp to The Hollows. You neither saw nor heard anything to the contrary. You will forget seeing the grandfather of Texas Kindred. You don’t know what he looks like.”
Lexi most certainly did remember him. She wondered if he thought he was counseling her and was maybe off his game. Should she say something?
He continued, “You saved the child from the vampire this morning, but you don’t remember what the boy looked like. Finally, you won’t remember being counseled. You’ve never been counseled in your life.”
Later, she lay in her room, considered what the mage had said, and wondered about the things she’d been told to forget.
She went to find Isaac. “How did it go. Did he have to counsel you?”
He guffawed. “I’ve never been counseled in my life.”
Lexi turned in early.
The woman was pulling her away from Bryan.
Panicked, she tried to twist out of the woman’s hands but her hold was like a vice. “What are you doing to him? Leave him alone. Bryan? Bryan!”
She heard the dull thud of a silenced shot.
Lexi bounded out of bed, looking for something to fight. She stood panting in her room.
They shot Bryan.
As the memories assaulted her, she began to lose balance and had to sit on the bed again. Overwhelmed, she pulled the covers up and sobbed as she turned her ring continuously on her finger. She looked at it and remembered Bryan giving it to her. The memories of her beloved Kindred brother returned to her. They had been as close as Maggie and Isaac were now.
She recalled that he’d been bitten by a shifter and had begun to remember things that had previously been wiped away by Kindred counselors. They had killed him for it.
What the hell is Kindred?
Disturbed by the memories, she left her room and crept along the hallway to the one at the end of the hallway—Bryan’s room. She opened the door and looked into what was now the guest room. Everything was clean and tidy, but she could see it as it had been, with Bryan’s Xbox, his posters and books, and his clothes piled everywhere. She returned to her room and cried again.
The next morning greeted her eyes with more searing pain, but it was nothing to the fresh loss she experienced from the death of her brother she hadn’t known to grieve when they were only fifteen.
Lexi went through the motions. She sat alone in the garage with a whetstone, sharpened her katana, and wondered how she would manage to hide this awful loss.
By eleven am, she’d sharpened every blade in the house. Braxton stepped out into the garage. “Can you come to my office?”
She kept her back to him and pretended as though she was examining a blade. “I’ll put these away. Be there in two minutes.”
When she entered, she realized the counselor was back. She smiled at him a little vaguely. Am I supposed to remember he was here yesterday?
“Lexi, hi. Take a seat. Let me get you a drink of water.” Once again, he put the water in front of her and put his hand on her head. “I want to remind you how
