Confusing Feelings

Confusing Feelings
Iris POV

"Half-brother?" I screamed into the phone. "How is that even possible?"

Alex's voice in my head was calm, almost amused. "It's a long story. One I'll explain when you're safe. Right now, you need to get back here. Your family is waking up, and they're confused and angry."

"We can't just—"

"Iris, Natasha's people will be there in eight minutes. Move. Now."

Ian was already starting the car. I jumped in beside him, and we tore out of the cemetery.

"This is insane," Ian said, driving faster than I'd ever seen anyone drive. "Alex is our brother? How did nobody know this?"

"I don't know. But if he's lying—"

"He's not lying. I felt his mind when he connected with us. Everything he showed us was true."

We raced through empty streets, running red lights and ignoring stop signs. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst.

"What does this mean for you and him?" Ian asked carefully.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, Iris. I can feel your emotions, remember? You have feelings for him. Strong ones."

Heat rushed to my face. "That was before I knew he was family."

"Half-family. And not really family since his dad is Enzo Torrino, not Robert Kane."

"It's still wrong."

"Is it? You didn't grow up together. You didn't even know each other existed until a few days ago."

"Ian, now is not the time for this conversation."

"When is the time? After we all die?"

He had a point. In this world, tomorrow wasn't promised.

We screeched into the area where we'd left everyone sleeping. Dad was sitting up, holding his head. Elena was leaning against a tree, looking sick. Marcus was checking his gun with shaking hands.

And Alex was standing in the middle of them all, perfectly calm.

"Seven minutes," he said when he saw us. "Natasha's people are close."

"How do you know?" Dad demanded.

"Because I can feel their minds. Just like I can feel yours."

Dad stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"He has our gift," I said quietly. "He's like us."

"That's impossible. The gift runs in the Kane bloodline, not the Torrino bloodline."

"Actually," Elena said weakly, "it runs in both."

Everyone turned to look at her.

"Elena?" Dad's voice was dangerous. "What did you just say?"

"The Torrinos have the gift too. They've had it for generations. They just hide it better than we do."

"You knew about this?"

"I suspected. But I could never prove it."

Alex stepped forward. "My mother was a Kane before she married into the Torrino family. Victoria's younger sister, actually."

The world stopped spinning for a moment.

"Victoria has a sister?" I whispered.

"Had. She died giving birth to me. But before she died, she made Enzo promise to keep my gift secret. To never let the other crime families know what I could do."

"So you've been hiding it for forty-two years?" Marcus asked.

"Forty-two years of pretending to be normal. Of watching people with gifts get exploited and destroyed. Of waiting for the right moment to reveal the truth."

"And this is the right moment?" Dad asked.

"This is the only moment. Natasha knows about me now. She felt my mind when I connected with Iris and Ian. There's no point in hiding anymore."

A distant engine sound cut through the night.

"They're here," Alex said. "Everyone in the cars. Now."

We piled into two vehicles. Dad, Elena, and Marcus in one. Alex, Ian, and me in the other.

As we drove away, I saw black SUVs pulling up to where we'd been standing just seconds ago.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Somewhere Natasha can't find us," Alex said. "Somewhere even her mind can't reach."

"Where's that?"

"A place my father built years ago. A bunker lined with materials that block psychic abilities."

"That's a real thing?"

"When you have enemies with mental powers, you learn to protect yourself."

We drove for what felt like hours but was probably only thirty minutes. Finally, we pulled up to what looked like an abandoned factory.

"This is it?" Ian asked.

"This is the entrance."

Alex pressed his hand against a rusty metal panel. It glowed blue for a moment, then a hidden door slid open.

We drove down a ramp into an underground parking area. The door closed behind us with a heavy thunk.

"Welcome to the last safe place in Chicago," Alex said.

The bunker was bigger than I'd expected. Not fancy, but functional. There were beds, a kitchen, bathrooms, and a control room filled with monitors and computers.

"My father had this built during the gang wars of the nineties," Alex explained. "He knew someday he might need a place where nobody could find him."

"How long can we stay here?" Dad asked.

"As long as we need to. There's food, water, and air filtration for six months."

"Six months?" Elena looked horrified. "We can't hide down here for six months."

"We won't have to. We just need time to plan."

"Plan what?" Marcus asked.

"How to stop Natasha. How to rescue your Irish cousins if they're still alive. How to take down your grandmother's organization before she destroys everything."

Dad sat down heavily. "This is a nightmare."

"This is reality," Alex corrected. "And we need to face it together."

For the next hour, we talked strategy. Who our allies were, who our enemies were, what resources we had.

But I couldn't focus. My mind kept drifting to Alex.

My half-brother.

The man I'd started falling in love with.

How was this fair?

Finally, everyone decided to get some rest. We'd been awake for almost two days straight.

Dad and Elena took one room. Marcus took another. Ian crashed on a couch in the common area.

Which left Alex and me standing in the hallway, alone.

"You should sleep," he said quietly.

"I can't. Every time I close my eyes, I see everything that happened. The violence. The blood. Natasha's face."

"It gets easier."

"Does it?"

He looked at me with those dark eyes. "No. But you learn to live with it."

"I don't want to learn to live with it. I want to go back to being normal."

"Normal doesn't exist for people like us."

"People like us. You mean people with gifts."

"I mean people who are caught between two worlds. Too dangerous for the normal world, too human for the criminal world."

He started walking down the hallway. Without thinking, I followed him.

He led me to a small library filled with old books. It smelled like paper and dust and something else. Safety, maybe.

"This was my hiding place when I was younger," Alex said. "When my father would bring me here for training, I'd sneak away and read."

"Training for what?"

"For the day I'd take over the family. For the day I'd have to make impossible choices."

"Like now."

"Like now."

We stood there in silence for a moment.

"Alex, about what you said. About being my half-brother."

"We need to talk about that."

"Do we? Maybe it's better if we don't."

"Iris, you need to understand something. My mother was your mother's sister. But we're not really siblings in the way that matters."

"How can you say that? We share blood."

"We share an aunt. That's different from sharing parents."

"It's still family."

"Is it? Because I didn't grow up with you. I didn't watch you learn to walk or help you with homework or protect you from bullies. I'm not your brother in any real sense except biology."

"Biology matters."

"Does it? More than what we feel?"

The question hung between us like a knife.

"I don't know what I feel," I admitted.

"Yes, you do. I can sense it. Every time you look at me. Every time our hands accidentally touch. Every time you think I'm not watching."

My face burned. "Stay out of my head."

"I don't need to be in your head. Your emotions are loud enough that I can feel them from across the room."

"Then you know this is wrong."

"Wrong according to who? Society? The same society that's trying to kill us? The same society that thinks people with gifts should be weapons or prisoners?"

He had a point, but that didn't make it easier.

"Alex, I'm twenty-one. You're forty-two. Even without the family connection, this is complicated."

"Life is complicated. Love is complicated. But that doesn't make it wrong."

"Love?" My voice came out as a squeak.

He stepped closer. Close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his body.

"Yes, Iris. Love. I've tried to fight it. Tried to tell myself you're too young, too innocent, too good for my world. But every time I see you, every time you surprise me with your strength and courage, I fall a little more."

"This can't happen."

"Why not?"

"Because..." I couldn't think of a good reason. Not one that mattered in this moment. "Because everyone will think it's wrong."

"Let them think what they want. When have we ever done what other people expected?"

He raised his hand slowly, giving me time to pull away.

I didn't.

His fingers touched my cheek, gentle as a whisper.

"You don't belong in my world," he said softly. "But I don't want to let you go."

My heart hammered against my ribs. Every logical part of my brain screamed that this was wrong.

But every other part of me wanted to lean into his touch.

"What do we do?" I whispered.

"We figure it out. Together. Like everything else."

He started to lean closer, and I knew he was going to kiss me.

Part of me wanted him to.

Part of me wanted to run away.

But before either of us could decide, alarms started blaring through the bunker.

Red lights flashed.

Alex's face went hard. "That's impossible."

"What?"

"Someone breached the outer doors."

"How? You said this place was hidden."

"It is. Which means only one person could have found us."

"Natasha."

"Worse."

He pulled up a security camera feed on a nearby monitor.

The screen showed someone standing at the entrance to the bunker.

Someone I recognized.

Someone who should have been unconscious with everyone else.

My mother, Victoria Kane, was standing outside the blast doors.

And she wasn't alone.

Behind her stood an army of at least fifty armed people.

"Hello, children," her voice came through the intercom. "I know you're watching. I know you're scared. And I know you're wondering how I found you."

She smiled at the camera.

"The answer is simple. I've always known where Alessandro's little hideout was. I helped his father build it, after all. Back when we were still partners."

"Partners in what?" I whispered.

Mom's smile got wider, like she could hear me.

"And now, I'm going to give you one chance. One single chance to do this the easy way."

"What way?" Alex asked through the intercom.

"Open the doors. Come out peacefully. And I promise nobody gets hurt."

"And if we refuse?"

"Then I blow the doors, flood this place with gas, and drag you out unconscious. Your choice. You have five minutes."

The feed cut out.

We stood there in shocked silence.

"She's bluffing," Ian said, appearing in the doorway. "She wouldn't really flood this place with gas. We're her children."

"She would," Elena said, leaning against the wall. "I've seen her do worse."

Dad appeared behind her, gun in hand. "We need to decide. Now."

"Fight or surrender?" Marcus asked.

Everyone looked at Alex.

Then they looked at me.

"Why are you looking at us?" I asked.

"Because," Dad said quietly, "you and Alex are the strongest. If anyone's going to get us out of this, it's you two working together."

"What can we do that everyone else can't?"

"You can use your gifts together. Combine your power. Maybe even control all fifty of those people at once."

"That's impossible."

"Is it?" Alex was looking at me with intensity. "We've never tried. Not really. Not with our full strength."

"It could kill us. That much power—"

"Better to die trying than die hiding."

He was right. We'd run out of places to hide.

"Okay," I said. "Let's try."

I took Alex's hand. The moment our skin touched, power flooded through me. More than I'd ever felt with Ian. More than I'd ever felt with Natasha.

This was different. Stronger. Like two rivers becoming an ocean.

"Do you feel that?" Alex whispered.

"I feel everything."

Together, we reached out with our minds. Through the walls. Through the doors. Toward the fifty people waiting outside.

We touched their minds gently at first. Testing. Learning.

Then we pushed.

Sleep, we commanded together.

Nothing happened.

"They're blocking us somehow," I said.

"The helmets," Alex realized. "They're wearing helmets that block psychic abilities."

"Then what do we do?"

Before he could answer, the doors exploded inward.

Gas poured into the bunker, thick and green.

"Everyone get back!" Marcus shouted.

But there was nowhere to go. The gas was filling every room, every hallway.

I started coughing. My eyes watered. My legs felt weak.

"Iris!" Alex caught me as I fell.

Through my fading vision, I saw Mom walk through the gas wearing a mask.

She looked down at us with something like sadness in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, baby," she said. "But you left me no choice."

Everything went black.

When I woke up, I was in a chair in a room I didn't recognize.

Ian was in a chair beside me. Alex across from us.

All of us tied up.

All of us staring at Mom, who sat calmly in front of us.

"Welcome back," she said. "Now, let's talk about the real reason I've been looking for you."

"What reason?" I asked groggily.

"The reason I faked my death twenty years ago. The reason I separated you from your siblings. The reason I've been building an army."

"What reason?"

She leaned forward, her eyes intense.

"Because there's something coming, Iris. Something worse than crime families or corrupt FBI agents or power-hungry grandmothers. Something that will destroy everyone with our gifts unless we're ready to fight it."

"What's coming?"

Mom's face went pale.

"The others."

"What others?"

"The other bloodlines. The other families with gifts like ours. They've been hiding for centuries, but now they're coming out of the shadows. And Iris?"

She grabbed my hand.

"They're coming to kill every Kane who's ever lived."