Kindred Spirit - Noah Harris Page 0,33
him because he honestly didn’t know who would come out on the other side alive.
Jacob set the gun on the floor by his hip. “I was sent by the DDI with two objectives. One, to observe you for any supernatural or psychic abilities. Anything I found was to be reported back to the DDI.”
“Why?” Levi asked, knowing damn well they were looking for more human test subjects.
“The DDI operates under the auspices of the government to contain any and all evidence or threats from the supernatural, including those with psychic abilities. If you were, in fact, one of those two things, then the DDI would need to keep an even closer eye on you.”
“Yeah, cages let you see the person real good.”
Jacob shook his head. “The only people I’ve ever seen them take direct action against were psychics who went off the deep end.”
“Is that what you call minding their own business?”
Something dark flit across Jacob’s eyes and then was buried beneath his neutral expression once more. “No, they definitely weren’t doing that.”
“Right, because people like my dad… he wasn’t just minding his own business. Or my mom.”
“Your,” Jacob began, then shook his head. “That’s not how they operate. That’s not how I’ve been made to operate.”
“So what, you just, show up here, pretending to be someone else to keep an eye on me, and that’s it?”
“And to keep you safe?”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Levi snorted. “And that’s it? That’s all you had to do.”
“Those were my orders, yes.”
“And you just accepted them, and came out here to do it like a good little soldier boy?”
He expected his sarcasm to earn him a look of shame, maybe even anger from Jacob. Instead, the neutral expression dropped for a moment as Jacob tilted his chin up and looked him dead in the eye.
“Yes, sir,” Jacob told him.
The shotgun wavered slightly in Levi’s hand, taken aback by the sheer pride burning in Jacob’s eyes. For a moment, he could picture Jacob in his old uniform, back straight, saluting.
Just shoot him. We have to get out of here.
Levi grimaced. “I know that. But I’m not…”
If you won’t do it, then let me take care of it. I’ll take care of you Levi, I always will.
“I know you will, but…”
But what?
He didn’t know what, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill Jacob or to let Lou do it either. Jacob had lied to him, pretended to be someone he wasn’t, and Levi had felt himself growing close to the person he’d thought Jacob was. To find out it had all been a lie, that he’d been catching feelings for a person who didn’t exist, who was only there in service of the same people who had been hunting him his whole life, was pure pain.
But he couldn’t kill him.
Jacob cocked his head. “You’re...who are you talking to? Lou. You’re talking to Lou. I think I’ve even heard you say that name when you think no one can hear you.”
Levi’s eyes widened. “Shut up. There’s no mystery for you to solve here, nothing for you to find.”
None of them knew for sure about Lou, not one person. It was the only thing that had kept him safe from so many people. Oh sure, they suspected, but they didn’t know for sure, and Levi had to keep it that way.
“Yeah, I just flew through the air and slammed into this table because I’m really clumsy,” Jacob told him.
“Go back to your boss, your master, your commander, whatever you want to call him. And tell him to leave me the fuck alone,” Levi ground out.
“First off, my boss is a woman. Secondly, no.”
Levi blinked. “No?”
“No.”
“The fuck do you mean, no?”
Jacob’s jaw set. “It means no. I haven’t done everything that I was supposed to do here.”
“There’s nothing to report!”
“Right, and the two guys who came here to kill you, that’s not part of my job.”
“No!”
“Protecting you from danger was one of my objectives. And you can threaten me with your gun or your...friend, all you want. But I’m not leaving.”
“I’m not playing around, Jacob,” Levi warned him. “I just want to be left the hell alone.”
Jacob’s eyes widened. “Get down!”
Levi had no idea why the hell he was bothering to listen to the man, but he flung himself down to the floor. Jacob’s arm flashed out quicker than Levi could have imagined, snatching up the gun and with two sharp reports, he fired it. Levi rolled onto his back, looking in the direction Jacob had aimed. The first of the