House of Leights (Secret Keepers #3)(64)

We were not alone.





19





A man stepped out from the shadows. He was about twenty feet away, appearing from behind a nearby rocky outreach. He had dark hair slicked up in the center, olive skin, and a sharp but still handsome face. Tattoos ran across his neck and down into the black long-sleeved shirt he wore.

He looked familiar. Ish. But I couldn’t recall how I knew him.

Daniel made a grumbling noise nearby and I turned toward him. “Fraizer,” he said, sounding more than a little annoyed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The boys closed in even further on Emma, Callie, and me. Jero included. He had lost every ounce of sadness now, wearing a mask of fury. He looked very fallen angel. Whoever this “Fraizer” was, he was not a popular guy in this group.

I realized then why he seemed familiar – he kind of looked like Daniel. Less rugged, more attitude, but there were similarities. I tilted my head up and mouthed “brother?” to Chase, and he nodded once.

“I’m here because I think we need to talk,” Fraizer said, crossing his arms over his chest. His stance was relaxed, legs slightly spread, boots firmly planted. But there was uneasiness in the way he held his shoulders, tension there that betrayed his confident persona.

Jero took a threatening step forward. “There is nothing you could say which we want to hear. So I guess you’ve come here to die.”

Lexen reached out and grabbed his brother, but Jero threw that hand off with a violent jerk. “He was part of the group which killed Marsil,” Jero said, followed by a string of hurled curse words. “He needs to die.”

Daniel didn’t say anything, and the look on his face was difficult to interpret. There was clearly no love between him and Fraizer, but he also didn’t look ready to join the lynching squad.

“I didn’t kill Marsil,” Fraizer protested. “I was there to try and stop it all from happening. I hoped to let you all know beforehand, but as usual, no one was interested in what I had to say.”

“You tried to contact me through the network,” Daniel said out of nowhere. “On the day Marsil was killed.”

When Fraizer turned to his brother, there was a crap-ton of anger in those narrowed eyes. “Even though you don’t deserve it, I was trying to keep you from getting killed. For Mom.”

Daniel’s face shuttered, and I saw the look Callie threw in his direction. Their mom was definitely a sore point.

“Aren’t you on Laous’ side?” Lexen drawled, a hint of death in those words. “Now you expect us to believe you have switched sides … that you were there on the day Marsil was murdered because you wanted to warn us?”

Fraizer let out a huff of air, his cheeks puffing out. “At first Laous offered me what I wanted, a chance to belong. He is family, after all, and I have always been sorely lacking in that department.” Another side eye at Daniel. “But … our goals are no longer the same. I don’t want … if we break the treaty everyone will suffer, and … I don’t think my parents would be proud of the way I acted, so I’m trying to make amends.” He looked between all of us. “He’s on the way now to find the last secret keeper, so I came to the only ones with the power to stop him.”

The silence felt heavy. No one seemed to know what to say.

“Where is Laous going to try and find the final keeper?” Daniel finally asked him.

“Hawaii,” Fraizer said without hesitation. “He’s heading across with some of his trusted inner circle as we speak.”

Daniel’s question had been a test, to see if Fraizer was actually speaking any truth at all. He’d passed the first step, confirming the location I’d gotten in the network.

“How did you even know we were in House of Darken?” Chase asked.

“Laous knows where you are,” Fraizer replied quickly. “When he had Callie the second time, he took her to House of Imperial and planted a tracker just under her skin. Near her right ear.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Callie stomped her foot hard, letting a ton of swearwords drop, and then she headed toward Fraizer. “Let me kill him. Seriously.”

“It wasn’t me!” Fraizer protested again. “Ever since Laous hooked up with the humans, he’s gone even crazier. A lot of the technology he’s using, private planes and all that, comes from this group called Gonzo.”

I stilled, an instant feeling of revulsion washing over me. “I know that group,” I told them; every face turned in my direction then. “My parents often talked about how they were an anti-government extremist group who want to ditch the current democratic way of running our country. They want to bring in rule by the people.”

“They want anarchy?” Emma asked.

I nodded. “Yep, they believe that if they break down the entire way America is governed, raze it to the ground, then they can rebuild as something much stronger. Less corrupt.”

“But in doing so, they’re willing to sacrifice millions of innocent lives,” Callie guessed.

I nodded again. “Yes, it must be a big deal because my parents were rarely ever able to speak about their jobs and lives. It was classified above top secret, because of …” I shrugged. “The alien thing. But they did mention this group more than once. They wanted to warn me. Apparently they have people stationed everywhere, even in high schools.”