Rock Bottom (The Gifted Realm #4)

  Rock Bottom

  The Gifted Realm: Book Four

  Jillian Neal

  Cover Design By

  Ana Cruz of Ana Cruz Arts

  Contents

  1. Sons of Diapoley

  2. In The Mind’s Vault

  3. Repercussions

  4. I’ll Be There

  5. Recollections

  6. The Many Moods of Emily Haydenshire

  7. To Restore a Receiver

  8. Contented

  9. In The Mourning Light

  10. War Cry

  11. Let It Go

  12. Remember

  13. Dr. Pepper

  14. Gifted Sex Ed. - 101

  15. The Subconscious Mind

  16. Because of Who You Are

  17. Punishment and Reward

  18. Pleasures

  19. My Every Fantasy

  20. Part of His Soul

  21. Killer Curves

  22. The Giving and the Taking

  23. Give Thanks

  24. Emerge and Bloom

  25. Babysitting

  26. The Way It’s Supposed to Work

  27. Your Father

  28. The Swan

  29. Memories

  30. The Passive Interrogation

  31. Lessons Off the Field

  32. Vindico vs. The German Board

  33. On Opposite Sides

  34. No Good Deed

  35. Rock Bottom

  36. The End of the Line

  37. Wishes and Habits

  38. Dr. Pepper Gets Married

  39. The Right Combination

  40. The Entrance and The Exit

  41. No Outlet

  42. The Shield and The Receiver

  43. Plans, Discoveries, and Desires

  44. Navigations

  45. Learned Conversations

  46. Prayers and Confessions

  47. Eager

  48. The Chicken Queen

  49. To Fight Your Own Shield

  50. Hungry Past

  51. Deep In The Sea

  52. My Solemn Vow

  53. Angels and Demons

  54. All Your Secrets I Will Keep

  55. Tales Over Burgers and Beer

  56. Buffed, Waxed, and Beautiful

  57. A Night Out

  58. Tea With the Prince

  59. The Daughter of the Prince

  60. Protocol

  61. A Change of Venue

  62. The Wrong Men to Billiards

  63. Better Every Time

  64. An Australian Outback Monster

  65. Me Too

  66. Coffee and Conversation

  67. Her Father’s Daughter

  68. Good Mornings

  69. An Adeline Out of Water

  70. Latitude

  71. Wind Instruments

  72. Take It From Me

  73. The Truth May Get You Killed

  74. Questions and Answers

  75. Christmas

  About the Author

  Also by Jillian Neal

  Copyright © 2014 by Jillian Neal

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-940174-11-2

  I, for one, do not believe that our souls reside entirely in our own bodies. No, I believe that occasionally we are given the extraordinary gift of finding a piece of our soul in a friend.

  * * *

  To understand someone on a soul level is rare and a great blessing of this life. So, I dedicate this work to a person who understands my soul.

  * * *

  To my dear friend, Gabby, whose soul I will always cherish, for it shares a piece of my own.

  1

  Sons of Diapoley

  ~Rainer Lawson~

  After spending the weekend moping around the house and trying to stay out of Logan and Adeline’s way, Rainer was thankful to fall into his desk chair Monday morning. No one deserved to be privy to his irritated mood.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Logan chirped, just to annoy him.

  “Bite me,” Rainer growled.

  “Geez, she’s only been gone three days. You can’t be that stiff yet.”

  It was so much more than being mildly sexually frustrated. Rainer missed talking to her, seeing her smile, feeling her sleep beside him, and hearing her laugh. Three and a half weeks sounded like a lifetime to him at that moment.

  He narrowed his eyes at Logan, who was still giving Rainer an annoyed glare, and threw his hands in the air. “I miss her, ok? I miss everything about her, not just that. So, could you just shut it, please?” He was thankful that no one else was in the office yet.

  “Ok, ok, I get it. I’m sorry for trying to get you to quit acting like a prick.” Logan rolled his eyes and glanced around his desk for something to do.

  “I’m sorry,” he knew that the assessment was fair. Logan’s scowl let Rainer know it was going to take more than an apology.

  Before Rainer could continue his lamentations, Vindico breezed through and ordered them to meet him in his office.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been an ass.” Rainer sighed as they stood and followed Vindico’s path. He bit his tongue to keep from informing Logan that he was being more sensitive than Emily.

  “Whatever, man,” Logan wasn’t letting him off the hook.

  Vindico was pacing. He still looked exhausted; his eyes were spinning slightly. He’d come from the weight room, and it appeared he’d been lifting for hours.

  “All right,” Vindico began as soon as Logan closed the door behind him. “So, I’m still not certain that this is even a problem for Iodex, but it could certainly become a problem for us if I don’t come up with a solution.”

  “What exactly is the problem?” Logan asked.

  Rainer noted that Vindico seemed distracted. It was extremely odd; Dan Vindico was never distracted. He’d been the chief of Iodex for the last eight years. Rainer’s father, the most beloved Crown Governor of the Gifted Realm, had appointed him.

  Dan Vindico was the youngest appointed Chief of Iodex in the history of the American Realm. His sheer size, mass, and determination made him appear immovable. Everything about him was chiseled and hard, but this morning something was different.

  Rainer’s mind moved back over the events of Friday evening. He supposed that brutally killing your deceased fiancée’s rapist would shake anyone.

  He edged forward. He wanted to help with whatever was going on. Vindico drew a deep breath. Defeat etched the chiseled features of his face. His overly-muscled body seemed to have given up some of its fire.

  “Chancellor Wilshire and the Venton Governors have been calling me all weekend. Seems Candor Pendergrath’s son, Clarence,” he spat the name with disdain, “is quite a handful.”

  Vindico rolled his eyes. “He’s been accused of several counts of harassment, and the Chancellor and the Governors want to expel him, but he’s barely seventeen. He’s a minor, and he has no other living relatives, save his father.”

  “Pendergrath murdered Clarence’s mother right after he was born. She knew too much, and he wanted an heir to raise up in his footsteps. After Clarence was born, she was no longer necessary.”

  Silence loomed for a few seconds before Vindico continued. “Anyway, Wretchkinsides has appealed to the German government to release Pendergrath early, should his son be expelled. Clarence will have to have a guardian, due to his age and his behavior problems. I only managed to get Pendergrath on tax evasion and fraud. The German government has agreed to
release Pendergrath, should Clarence be forced out of Venton.” He folded his arms across his chest as Rainer and Logan nodded their understanding of the problem.

  “Ok, what can we do?” Logan urged.

  Vindico leaned forward and placed his arms on his desk.

  “Now that we have a new Crown Governor, and I feel like the security team that I’ve hired to make certain that your parents and younger brothers are always safe, Elite Iodex is going to get back to taking down Wretchkinsides and the Interfeci for good,” Vindico vowed adamantly. “The rest of the team and I are going to be working to try to find more substantial evidence of Pendergrath’s heinous crimes to see if we can’t keep him in Diapoley for the rest of his life. It took me two years to prove tax evasion and fraud beyond a shadow of a doubt, so we have our work cut out for us.”

  “Nevertheless, Pendergrath’s release from Diapoley is exactly what Wretchkinsides has been waiting for. He’ll bribe most of the German Board of Governors, I’m certain. So, whatever we find has to be damming.”

  Diapoley was a Gifted reformatory in Germany near the Roter Bar Pit. The prison was surrounded by heavy deposits of iron ore, just like Felsink, but the Roter Bar Pit sat in a unique field of magnetic energy. Diapoley was known to cause Gifted criminals to go insane, if left in the prison too long.

  “Wretchkinsides and Pendergrath are an extremely dangerous combination,” Vindico shuddered slightly.

  “What do you need us to do?” Rainer restated Logan’s question.

  Vindico grimaced and offered him a sorrowful glance. “Well, what I would like you to do isn’t exactly what Iodex typically takes care of. I was hoping you’d agree to spend some time at the Academy, keep an eye on Clarence, and maybe scare him a little. Don’t touch him!”

  “Basically, I just need Clarence to stay in the Academy, and for Wilshire and Sherman to get off my back. They informed me that if I wanted Clarence to stay at Venton, then I could provide them a little help. I know you spent most of your dad’s campaign babysitting, but if you two are willing to keep tabs on Clarence during school, and then come back here and pull a few later hours for the next few weeks, then I’ll be happy to give you a few days off when Miss Haydenshire returns from Brazil.”

  “I think I’d better leave that up to my partner. I’ve kind of been an asshole the past few days,” Rainer admitted.

  Logan laughed. “Yeah, it’s fine. Adeline’s got a study group, or whatever, for the next month, but maybe I could convince her to go somewhere with me when Em gets back.”

  Rainer immediately thanked him.

  “What kind of crap has the kid been pulling?” Logan quizzed Vindico.

  “Well, so far, he’s stolen Mentor Durtrox’s Cadillac. He used his own energy for a joy ride.” Vindico was trying not to laugh. Rainer and Logan, however, cracked up instantly.

  “Aww, do we really have to scare him? I think he may be my new hero,” Logan joked.

  Vindico finally chuckled, with a knowing nod. “If that were it, I might take the kid out for a beer, but he’s been harassing several girls. One in particular, a uh…” he searched through some paperwork on his desk until he located a notepad and flipped to the third page, “…Tilly McIntyre?”

  “One of the mentor aides has filed several complaints on her behalf, as have a few of the mentors. It’s getting out of hand. If we don’t do something, they’re going to have to expel him to keep her safe.”

  Logan and Rainer shared a quick, ominous glance. They didn’t have to guess which aide had been filing complaints. Rainer squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.

  Fergus, what did you do, you moron?

  The answer seemed obvious. Perhaps Logan and Rainer’s idiotic sidekick from the Academy hadn’t hidden the fact that he was dating a student all that well.

  “Clarence has also been accused of attempting to set fire to the female Receivers’ dormitories. He’s getting more and more violent,” Vindico sounded extremely concerned as Logan and Rainer nodded their understanding. “Like I said, we can’t touch him. If you catch him in the act of harassment or destruction, you can arrest him, but he’s a minor.”

  “We’ll take care of it.” Rainer let the annoyance wash through him. It appeared that he and Logan were going to come to Fergus’s rescue yet again.

  “Don’t forget your dad’s swearing-in ceremony. Full uniform, here in the chamber, seven o’clock sharp,” Vindico reminded them.

  “We’ll be here for that, too,” Logan chuckled at the idea that he would forget his own father’s inauguration to officially become the Crown Governor of the American Gifted Realm. It had been a long, hard-fought battle, but for once, good had triumphed. The Realm had been kept from the clutches of Wretchkinsides. The battle had been won, but no one believed the war was over.

  Rainer hated that Emily was going to miss her dad’s swearing-in. He hated that he was going to go watch the very process his own father had fought and died for without her. He missed his dad so much more when she wasn’t there.

  Rainer recalled sitting in the chamber room, just after his thirteenth birthday. Peace and contentment settled on him from the memory alone. He’d seated himself on one of the observer benches in the grand courtroom. He would cup his hand and watch as his own shielding energies formed their incandescent green glow.

  His shield had become accessible to him as soon as his voice had begun changing and he’d started puberty, just like all Gifted children. Though he’d been instructed not to, he couldn’t help but play with his new abilities.

  With the slight movement of his hand, he could cast his shield over his own body or outwards. He and Logan had been playing with them for weeks. They’d used their shields to throw each other to the ground several times.

  Governor Haydenshire and Governor Lawson had asked them to find something else to do when Logan had ended up with a black eye, and Rainer had landed harshly against the trunk of a massive oak tree on the Haydenshires’ farm. He smiled as he recalled the shock of the air in his lungs escaping in a sharp gasp from the hit.

  Since it was summer, their fathers had decided to bring them into work with them, to prevent any further injury. Rainer had always suspected that Mrs. Haydenshire requested the reprieve.

  They’d been allowed to watch Vindico and the rest of Iodex at work. Both Ioses Predilects, Logan and Rainer longed to be chosen to serve on the Elite taskforce when they were grown.

  That day in the chamber, his father was seated in the center of the Governing board. Logan and Emily’s dad was to his right; Governor Carrington and Governor Vindico were to his left. They were all men Rainer trusted and loved. They’d all had a hand in his raising. The knowledge that they were the men running the most powerful Realm in the world made him feel secure and safe.

  His father had been assassinated one year later. A haunting chill replaced the warm memory. Rainer shook himself. He wasn’t a kid anymore. It was his job, now, to protect all that his dad had given the Realm, and he wouldn’t let him down.

  2

  In The Mind’s Vault

  An hour later, Rainer pulled one of the Expeditions onto Venton Drive, and let his eyes sweep over the vast campus. Venton was definitely most picturesque in the fall.

  As he stared at the noble, brown brick buildings and the well-landscaped lawns, with stone benches where he’d stolen more than a few kisses, his heart ached momentarily. Being at Venton without Emily only further depressed him.

  He could taste her lush, full lips as he stared at one of their favorite make-out locales. His tongue thirsted for the flavors of her. His heart thundered as he swallowed down the need, and slid out of the Expedition.

  “Well, well, well,” Logan pointed to the Administration building. At that moment, Clarence Pendergrath was looking around suspiciously as he eased inside, and tried not to be seen.

  Rainer chuckled and threw himself into the job at hand. “Wanna have some fun?” he grinned at Logan.

  “Finally, you’re back,” Logan sm
irked as they opened the doors and slipped quickly into the Administration building.

  Logan quietly pulled open the glass-paned door between the grand foyer and the office area. Rainer pointed to Clarence, who was very carefully attempting to pick the lock on one of the Venton Academy test vaults. It stood in the rear corner of the building.

  Rainer and Logan eased along the wall. They watched Clarence try repeatedly to get the magnetic pulses of the vault in the correct order. He would glance around nervously, and then continue to attempt to unlock the keys to all of the mentors’ exams.

  With whispered chuckles, Rainer and Logan watched him work. Clearly, Clarence wasn’t aware that the vaults only opened to certain energy sequences done in frequency and in order. Frustration set in as he continued his futile endeavor.

  After several long minutes, Logan spun from his hiding spot adjacent to the vault hall. “Clarence!” he called loudly. “There you are! We’ve been looking for you everywhere, man. What are you doing?” he flipped his wrist and tapped his watch. “Pretty sure you’re supposed to be in Durtrox’s class now, aren’t you?”

  Rainer tsked as they stalked quickly towards a wide-eyed Clarence Pendergrath. “He probably just got lost on his way to class, Officer Haydenshire,” he feigned pity.

  They watched Clarence’s mouth drop open and his eyes goggle. “Who are you?”

  “We’re your escorts, buddy. Don’t worry, we’re gonna take good care of you,” Logan informed Clarence with a heavy smirk. “Why don’t we escort you to class, and then maybe sit in there and make sure you don’t suddenly decide to go wandering around campus again? We don’t want our little buddy to get lonely.”

  “Hey, man, this is a great idea,” Clarence changed his tactic. “Listen, you get me in these vaults, I copy the answer keys, I sell them all over campus, and I’ll cut you in. Cops can’t make that much. Just think of it as a little side money.”