Free Kindred by Adrianne Lemke Page A

but his relaxed demeanor was getting on my nerves. I took a breath and realized: irritation aside, he was right. I needed to calm down.
    "We need to get this guy, and soon," my voice remained urgent, but the tone was quiet. The other officers who'd been attracted by my outburst disbursed when Alice glared and waved them away.
    "I know we do, Jason. We are trying. This is a little out of our league, you know. Until you, we didn’t even know there were people with abilities. Now Kindred has popped up, and he can apparently disappear at will, and control you!”
    "I know you’re trying,” I said, a little taken aback by her outburst. Still upset I continued, “But meanwhile, I'm stuck never knowing when he's going to take control. We're lucky he hasn't decided to use my abilities for anything yet," I said quietly. My voice betrayed my hopelessness.
    "Maybe you should get out of town for a while," Dan suggested quickly. It seemed that he too was a little overwhelmed by the Kindred situation, despite his feigned calm.
    I opened my mouth to answer. "He can't," Alice said before I could. "Kindred would probably either disappear until he came back or follow him to wherever he goes. And," she directed the next statement to me. “I would rather have you where we can keep an eye on you, and protect you. If you left, we wouldn’t know if you were safe.”
    "Then what can we do?" I asked, not thrilled with the powerlessness I was feeling.
    Both Alice and Dan shrugged uncertainly, but another, unexpected voice chimed in. "The Bureau could probably lend you a tracking anklet. At least then you'd always know where he is."
    "Jones, what are you doin' in our neck of the woods?" Dan asked, giving the other man a firm handshake.
    "I was going to be asking Alice to join me for a late lunch, but now I'm going to see if I can help you guys with keeping track of Jason."
    I narrowed my eyes, "How much did you hear?" I asked, not liking the idea of yet another person knowing my every move.
    "Enough to know that you guys are going after a very dangerous opponent. Do you know his footsteps?" Jones, the one FBI agent I felt I might be able to trust, had been thrown into that trust without any option; could I rely on him to help with the Kindred problem?
    I shrugged, making the decision I once again had little choice in. "Yeah, but they are hard to find. He treads very lightly, and leaves almost no echoes. I didn't feel him today when he took over, but he was nearby last night." I frowned thoughtfully.
    "What is it?" Alice asked, sounding a bit tight. The situation was stressful; not only for me, but for my friends too.
    "I felt a tingling in the back of my mind, and a slight buzzing in my ears before I ended up in the warehouse," I answered. It seemed unrelated at the time, but maybe it was my mind's way of warning me that something bad was happening.
    All three of my companions frowned. "What warehouse? When?" Alice asked.
    "The one where I found that note. He… took me there, I guess. Still not sure why he didn't just deliver it as normal," I frowned, feeling the tingling again. The others were unaware of my slight discomfort as they glanced at each other.
    "Where is the warehouse, Jason?" Dan asked, standing a little straighter as he slipped into the role of investigator.
    "It's the one…" I stopped, wincing as I felt the tingling increase in frequency until it was painful. "It's happening again," I said through clenched teeth, trying to keep control. "There's something…" The tingling stopped, and I was speaking again, but it wasn't me.
    "He won't be answering any more of your questions, officers," Kindred said.
    I could still see Alice and Dan, and they were staring at me in horror. “Kindred?” Alice asked hesitantly. “What are you doing?”
    He shrugged. “You weren’t getting the message any other way, so I decided it had to come from Jason’s mouth. This is your last warning. Keep Tra—Jason out of this investigation, or I will