Chapter 13 Family Reunions

Marcus - POV

The medical center's emergency exit leads directly to the faculty parking garage, exactly where Kane said it would. I've been watching the building for hours, waiting for the right moment to approach Emma without her four protectors interfering. The psychic link we've shared since childhood hums with her confusion and pain—she's still inside, still recovering from whatever procedure Kane performed.

Three years of searching led me here. Three years of following rumors about enhanced individuals, tracking down former foster kids who'd shown abilities, until I finally found someone who knew Dr. Vera Kane's real work.

I didn't volunteer for her experiments. I hunted her down and demanded she help me find Emma.

"Marcus." My phone buzzes with a text from Sarah. "We're in position at the dormitory. Where are you?"

I don't respond. Sarah, Tommy, and Luke think we're here to offer Emma a new binding, but they don't know what I learned about Kane's true intentions. They don't know what the enhancement process has cost me.

The medical center's side entrance requires a keycard, but Kane provided access codes along with Emma's location. The corridors smell like disinfectant and fear, leading me deeper into the building where I can sense Emma's presence like a beacon.

I find her in a recovery room, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed with IV tubing still taped to her arm. She looks fragile in the harsh fluorescent lighting, but her eyes carry the same strength I remember from our childhood.

"Emma." My voice cracks saying her name. "It's really you."

She turns toward me, and her face goes completely white. "No. You're dead. I went to your funeral."

The words hit me like a physical blow. "What funeral?"

"The group home fire. Mrs. Patterson called and said—" Her voice breaks. "She said you didn't make it out. That they found your body in the basement."

My hands shake as I process what Kane did. "Emma, there was no fire. I ran away from the group home when I turned sixteen. I've been looking for you ever since."

"That's impossible. I saw the news report. I held the memorial service program." Tears stream down her face as she pulls out her phone, scrolling through old photos. "Look."

The image she shows me makes my stomach turn. A newspaper clipping about a group home fire, complete with my picture and a list of casualties. The fabrication is perfect, down to quotes from fake social workers expressing condolences.

"Kane staged my death," I breathe, the full scope of her manipulation becoming clear. "She wanted you to think you'd lost everyone from your past so you'd be more dependent on whatever family she provided."

Emma's enhanced abilities flare with her emotional state, making the monitors beside her bed spike erratically. "How do you know about Kane?"

"Because I've been tracking her for two years. After I aged out of foster care, I started researching enhanced individuals. Your name kept appearing in files I wasn't supposed to see." I move closer, careful not to touch her yet. "Emma, Kane isn't trying to save you. She's been studying conduit bonds to perfect a process that will let her harvest your abilities directly."

"Harvest them how?"

"By killing you slowly. Every conduit in recorded history has died by age thirty because the binding process drains their life force to fuel their heirs' abilities." I pull out a tablet showing medical records I've stolen from Kane's research. "Your grandmother lasted longer than most, but she died the same way they all do—burned out completely."

Emma's face goes pale as she processes the information. "If that's true, then why are you here? What can you possibly do to help?"

I roll up my sleeves, revealing the network of scars covering both arms. "Because I found someone willing to experiment on ways to break conduit bonds safely. The process nearly killed me, but I learned how to sever psychic connections without destroying the people involved."

"Someone experimented on you?" Her voice carries horror and disbelief.

"A rogue researcher who'd escaped from Kane's program. He'd been developing countermeasures to conduit binding for years before Kane's people found him." I don't mention that he died protecting his research, or that I barely escaped with the information. "Emma, the scars aren't just from experiments. They're from the enhancement process that's letting me survive proximity to your amplified abilities."

Through our childhood connection, she can sense the truth beneath my words. But she can also feel something else—the way my life force burns like a candle in a windstorm.

"You're dying," she whispers. "Whatever they did to you, it's killing you."

"I have maybe four months before complete neural breakdown. But that's long enough to teach you the severance technique." I finally risk taking her hand, and our psychic link flares with painful intensity. "Emma, I can show you how to free yourself from all of this. The university boys, Kane's manipulation, even our own connection if that's what you want."

"Our connection?"

The moment I touch her, everything changes. Power floods between us like water through a broken dam, but it's not new energy—it's something that's been building for years, hidden beneath the surface of our childhood bond.

Emma gasps as she feels it too. "Marcus, this isn't possible. We were just friends. Just foster siblings who understood each other."

"We were more than that. We've been psychically linked since we were twelve, since the day you had your first major precognitive episode and I instinctively knew how to help you through it." The realization terrifies me as much as it does her. "Emma, I think you've been a conduit longer than anyone realized. And I've been your first heir."

The recovery room door opens, and Blake Rivers steps inside with the fluid grace of a predator. His eyes take in the scene—Emma and me holding hands while energy crackles visibly between us—and his expression shifts to cold calculation.

"How interesting," Blake says, his voice carrying dangerous calm. "Emma, it appears your childhood friend has been more than just a concerned foster brother. The question is whether his secret bond makes him an ally in our current crisis, or the greatest threat we've ever faced."

Behind Blake, I can sense the other three approaching with lethal intent. Through my connection to Emma, I feel her torn between relief at seeing me alive and terror at what my presence might mean for everyone she's trying to protect.

Four months to live. An unstable bond that's been hidden for years. And now four very dangerous men who view me as either salvation or competition.

This reunion isn't going the way I planned.