Free Secret Legacy by Anna DeStefano

things have to get worse before they can get better.” Richard wrapped his arm around her, his mind, too, and led her toward the rusted-out screen door at the top of the back porch. “Something’s calling to you here. Something real I can sense. That gives us leverage with the council. It’s time to prove to theBrotherhood that you can be trusted to align your personal search for Trinity with our strategic needs. Let’s get this done and get out of here.”
    He nodded to Jeff, whose hand gesture sent the team fanning around the house’s perimeter. Sarah sensed more was being communicated among the men. But Richard was shielding her from the Watchers’ telepathic communications while he blocked the team from picking up on the growing sense of dread consuming her.
    He led her up the rickety steps, guiding her around loose, splintering floorboards until they were at the dilapidated door. The frayed edges of the torn screen were razor sharp. Sarah’s fingers twitched, feeling again how the latch to her ocean dream’s door had sliced into her tender flesh.
    “This is wrong,” she said.
    “Yes.” Richard pulled against the weather-roughened frame. The door opened, its hinges protesting with an unholy screech of metal against metal. “But I’m going to help you see it through.”
    It was a living nightmare, stepping back into what had been a sunny kitchen, seeing the cobwebs and layers of dust and rodent droppings covering everything. It was as if the darkness that had consumed her and Maddie’s legacy had cloaked this place, too.
    “How did this happen?” She didn’t resist as Richard led her through the kitchen to the equally empty dining room, the tattered curtains there no match for the moon. Its light sought out each speck of decay. “My parents sold this house to another family after they moved. They had a little boy, Mom said. Lenox is the perfect place toraise children. How could those people have abandoned everything like this?”
    “Our research turned up police reports,” Richard said. “Five years ago, the family began reporting strange sounds. Unexplained damage and accidents. Voices racing through the house at all hours of the night. No perpetrators were ever caught. The father finally fell down the stairs one night after hearing a commotion below. He said he’d been pushed. There was no evidence of a break-in. The family moved away but has been unable to sell the property. It’s developed the reputation of being—”
    “Haunted.” Sarah could feel a malevolent energy seeping through the place. It was the same consciousness that had been calling to her for a month. Richard could buffer his team’s thoughts from her mind, but there was a presence here stronger than even his powers to block, and it was glad she’d come.
    “Help me
. . .
”
a child’s voice called from Sarah’s memories, and from—
    “Upstairs.” She raced through what had been her family’s sitting room. She couldn’t stop herself, no matter how badly she wanted to run back to the he li cop ter instead.
    Her foot caught on uneven floorboards that had warped from years of disuse. She lurched toward the ground, her balance still compromised from the dream’s aftereffects. Strong arms caught her, pulled her close, and wrapped her in the present, while the past screamed for her to give it control.
    “I’m with you, remember?” Richard said into herear. It wasn’t a whisper, but she could barely hear him. “Every dream. Every memory. We’re doing this together.”
    Sarah struggled to get away from him. She had to get away from him. The house was insisting. Her nails bit into the intimidating muscles of his arms. He calmly set her on her feet as something inside her, beyond her, kept building, hating, demanding that she make him pay. That she make all of them pay.
    “Pay for what?” Richard’s grip tightened. “Why would she want to make us pay for anything?”
    “She, who?” Sarah pressed her hand against the