Alex

"Where the hell have you been?"

Grace frowned, obviously not at all interested in what I had to say or what I thought at the moment. "Helping out at the stables, like you said," she answered sourly, shrugging one shoulder at me as she kicked her shoes off.

"Don't lie to me," I retorted irritably. "Cassie hasn't seen you all day. We've been going out of our minds, Gracie!"

She shot me a cool look. "I never knew you cared so much." I glowered at her, my fingers twitching angrily. Her expression faltered for a moment, and she sighed heavily with another shrug. "I just needed some air, okay?" she muttered.

I hesitated, searching her expression carefully. Slowly, I forced myself to relax and take a deep breath, reminding myself over and over again that she had every right to be worked up at the moment. "Don't run off like that again, Gracie," I frowned quietly. "I'm not used to you acting out, I thought something had happened."

"So it's perfectly fine for you to run off when you feel like it, but I have to stay here and be a good little sister?" she scoffed, dragging her jacket off and launching it at the coat rack.

I shot her a bemused look. "I'm trying to be good."

"By attacking Zed, you mean?" she glowered irritably. Honestly, I was surprised she hadn't brought that up sooner, but then I supposed finding your soulfinder could be a little distracting.

"In my defence-"

"You don't have a defence, Alex, so stop talking before you annoy me even more," she warned darkly.

"Okay," I agreed slowly, holding my hands out in surrender. "Anyway, I have a surprise for you."

She hesitated, lifting an eyebrow at me cautiously, but before she could say anything, something behind me gave a high-pitched yap. She blinked. "Was that . . .?"

I grinned at her, stepping to the side to let her past and into the living room. Sat on the end of the sofa with its tail wagging and a pink bow tied around its neck was a tiny Dalmatian pup, its body and legs covered in small black spots, the tip of its tail entirely black, and one black ear and one white. Yapping happily, its tail thumped against the sofa behind it, its tiny front paws skittering on the spot in its excitement. By the looks of it, it was too scared and too small to jump off the sofa, despite its obvious desire to get as close to Grace and me as possible.

"You bought a puppy," she stared, taken aback.

"The woman I got her from didn't really want to give her up," I told her with a smile as she stepped forward and scooped the pup into her arms. Immediately, the pup yapped again and stretched to lick Grace's face, her tiny tail thumping against her side as she scrambled excitedly. "Her name was Blair," I continued, chuckling. "But she's young enough for us to change it if you want."

She stared back at me, her expression unreadable. "You bought a puppy, Alex."

I laughed lightly, shrugging. "And? Don't you remember? You had a puppy when we were little. Mum bought you a Dalmatian because you were obsessed with the Disney movie."

"I was three," she protested sourly, tickling Blair behind the ears.

"You called him Spot," I reminded her with a smirk.

"I was three!"

"Oh, and you were an imaginative kid," I laughed sarcastically. She scowled, perching herself on the edge of the sofa and sitting Blair on her lap. She yapped again, happy enough to curl up and let Grace tickle her stomach while we spoke. Watching my sister's expression slip again, I pursed my lips and shifted forward, slumping to the ground in front of the sofa.

"You didn't need to buy me a dog, Alex," she mumbled with a small frown.

I shrugged again. "I know. But every house needs a dog, right?"

She scoffed. "You hate animals, Alex."

"I don't hate them," I winced through my teeth. "I don't appreciate it when they pee in my shoes, that's all."

"So you bought a puppy," she sighed, watching Blair fidget on her lap. However much she complained, I knew she loved the dog. Never one to socialise, Grace had always been more comfortable around animals than she had people. "Alex, we need to talk," Grace muttered reluctantly. "Things are . . ."

She trailed off, gulping hard and I glanced up at her with a tight grimace. "Yeah, I know. I've been trying to figure out how to talk to you about it without putting my foot in my mouth. If you hadn't noticed, I'm not good at this kind of thing."

"I noticed," she promised me with a soft snort. "I'm just not sure what to say . . . or do, or even think. This wasn't exactly how I hoped things would pan out when we moved here."

Taking a deep breath, I pulled myself up onto the sofa beside her, a small frown settling between my eyes. "You can't be thinking about moving," I muttered. She shrugged a shoulder, wincing sharply and I shifted on the spot. "He's your soulfinder, Gracie. We can't turn out back on him, or the rest of them for that matter. You know that."

She pulled a face. "They'd be better off."

There was no point in lying to her. She knew the truth even if she wouldn't admit it. "Maybe," I agreed with her. "Maybe if we'd moved the moment we found out the Benedicts were Savants, but it's too late for that. The truth is, we knew there was a chance you could be Zed's soulfinder, but it was that remote, we decided to stay. Then, despite the odds, Zed found you and now we can't leave."

"And if we stay, they'll only start asking questions," she frowned, and something wavered in her expression.

"What if they already have?" I replied calmly. She dropped her gaze, pulling Blair a little closer to her. "Gracie, the eldest brother Trace is a cop. I have no idea what the others do, but there are rumours enough to make an educated guess, and it's not good. Sooner or later, one of them is going to check up on us, because that's the way they work. It's only natural they'll want to protect their brother. They aren't going to have any idea what kind of attention they'll be bringing on themselves unless one of us tells them."

She hesitated, flicking her gaze toward me. "I'm starting to think that's a bad idea."

"You've done nothing wrong, Gracie," I frowned at her. "It's not like they'll arrest you."

"But it isn't us I'm worried about anymore, Alex," she persisted, passing Blair toward me and jumping to her feet, pacing in front of me. I pulled a face as the pup started to fidget again, wriggling in my hold. "If I tell them the truth, they'll try to fix it like everyone else does, and look what happened last time. The entire British section of the Savant Net can't keep this situation contained, and now I have to drag the Benedicts into it all? They'll be killed, Alex, if they're lucky!"

"Then there has to be a way to make them believe us," I frowned determinedly, dropping the pup onto the sofa beside me and standing up to force her to look at me. "To make them take this seriously, because if we sit back and do nothing, then they're as good as dead anyway, Gracie, and you know it. We have to do something. We can't just sit back and wait for him to find us again!"

She gulped, shaking slightly. "There's a chance he'll come straight for us," she muttered. "He might not even go anywhere near the Benedicts."

"Oh come on, Gracie!" I cursed, taking her shoulders roughly. "There was also a chance Zed wasn't your soulfinder, look how that turned out! And even if he did ignore the Benedicts, if he comes for you, they won't ignore him. Do you actually think Zed is going to sit back and let you get dragged off by some maniac?"

"They might not have a choice," she pointed out weakly.

"And you think they'll leave it at that?" I scowled. "Gracie, you said it yourself. They work either in or with law enforcement. They won't roll over and leave you alone. We have to do something. Quickly. Before that psycho finds out where we are."

She bit her bottom lip, and I knew she was holding out on me. Just as an uncomfortable, warning feeling began growing in the pit of my stomach, she sighed and hauled Blair back into her arms. "Zed phoned earlier," she mumbled.

I hesitated, forcing my features to relax slightly as I tried to gauge her reaction. "Oh?"

"It came up as Yves' number," she shrugged as though defending her actions, keeping her eyes on the pup. "Louisa and Niall told them I hadn't showed up to go shopping. I . . . I may have lost my temper and told him I'd explain everything already."

I blinked in surprise, raising my eyebrows. "And now you're having second thoughts?"

"Now it doesn't seem like I have much of a choice," she sighed heavily.

I wasn't sure what else I could say to comfort her. She was too smart to be patronised with the usual 'everything's going to be alright' speech. Instead, we spent an awkward night debating how best to explain everything to Zed and the Benedicts and by the time she went to bed, Grace looked distinctly ill.

It wasn't a good night to be tormented by more dreams of a girl I didn't know, but she was on my mind the moment I closed my eyes. It was a different dream this time. Instead of being shown the same thing over and over again, this time, I saw her curled up in the driver's seat of the car she'd broken into, hands clamped over her ears as the windscreen exploded in gunfire.

She was terrified, it was easy to see. Her crystal grey eyes swam with tears, and she was muttering under her breath in a language I thought might have been Greek. Still, despite all that, she fumbled with the steering wheel and the gear stick until she found the right gear, slamming her foot onto the accelerator without looking where she was going.

Several screams cut through the air, and the girl peered over the dashboard cautiously, fumbling with the steering wheel until she was heading away from the blurry, shining lights of the city she'd just escaped from . The moment the gunshots could no longer find their target, she righted herself in her seat, tears leaking down her cheeks as she swerved down a different road, fleeing the city as fast as she could.

The dark night made driving difficult, but it had nothing on the stream of tears blurring the girl's vision. Her shoulders were shaking, and one of her hands kept finding its way back to the large wound on her side, wincing when her sobs pulled it in the wrong direction. The helpless look on her face, no matter how misleading, made me want to hunt the girl down and keep her protected myself, but I still had no idea where or how to find her.

I wasn't sure where she was trying to get to, but her eyelids were beginning to close in exhaustion. Instead of pulling over and trying to get to sleep, she just shook herself and blinked a few more times than necessary, determined to keep herself awake. But it was useless. No matter how hard the girl tried, she couldn't keep her eyes open. Slowly, they began to close again, and the car began to swerve into the opposite lane.

Seconds later, a loud horn sounded, ripping through the night's silence and the girl started with yelp, swerving out of the path of an incoming lorry and missing it by inches. A flash of the lorry's headlights blared in the girl's eyes, and a rush of panic seemed to seep straight through my body.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, ALEX!"

I woke with a start, my wide eyes immediately locking on Grace's furious expression. She was stood by my bedside, glaring at me accusingly. "G-Grace?" My heart hammered, adrenaline rushing through my veins, but she didn't seem to care.

"Get up," she instructed with a scowl, and I blinked in surprise.

"G-Grace, the girl-"

"Not now," she dismissed irritably, waving a hand at me. A rush of irrational anger made my fists clench but I kept my mouth shut with great difficulty. Only now did I notice that she was full dressed in old blue jeans and a dark green hoodie, her arms wrapped around her middle tightly and her hair scooped into a messy bun at the top of her neck, stray strands flying around her face.

"What's going on?" I asked slowly, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

Grace huffed with a glower. "We have guests."

I stared, shifting awkwardly to glance at the alarm clock beside me. "At half three in the morning? Who the hell-"

"The FBI," she interrupted. "So get up, and please do it quickly, because if I have to put up with Zed Benedict's arrogant smirk for one minute longer-"

"Zed?" I blurted.

Her jaw clenched, and she snatched my hoodie off the back of the bedroom door, launching it at me. I caught it, anger now replaced with a growing concern of my sister's mental stability. "Up, please," she insisted through her teeth, spinning around and letting herself out of the room.

Without hesitating, I scrambled out of bed and threw on the first clothes I could find. If Zed was in the same house as Grace along with the FBI, I had a feeling my night was about to get a lot more interesting.