Around the table, Caleb and his teammates seemed to consider everything she’d said as they went back to eating. Brielle finished the slice on her plate, then reached for another, stunned to see that they’d almost polished off all five pizzas. Well, Caleb, Harley, and Sawyer had done most of the damage, but she and Hudson had helped.
“I have another question about your gift,” Harley said, picking up her glass of wine.
Brielle was okay with that. She’d already told them so much that it didn’t make sense to hold anything back now. In for a penny and all that.
“You talked about there being a time limit for how long you can use another person’s gift,” Harley said curiously. “Does that mean you can’t use someone else’s abilities until the first one is gone?”
“I can jump from person to person if I want, but that’s exhausting,” Brielle said. “When I broke Julian out of that prison in Turkey, I had to borrow from about a dozen people, one after the other. I was so weak by the time we got free that I nearly passed out. If I’d pushed any harder, I likely would have killed myself.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Brielle saw Caleb tense all over again. His eyes even flared with that blue glow for a second. She would have asked what that was about, but then the waitress came by with the check, telling them the takeout pizzas were ready whenever they were.
Harley, Sawyer, and Craig seemed more than ready to get back to the safe house, and considering it was almost midnight at the end of one hell of a long day, Brielle couldn’t blame them. But with the nap she’d had on the plane, she wasn’t ready to call it a night quite yet.
“I think I’m going to walk around and see some more of the city,” she announced as they walked out of the pub. “I’ve never been to Odessa before and figure I might as well see some of the sights while we’re here.”
“I’ll go with you,” Caleb said, handing the pizza boxes he’d been carrying to Hudson. “Nobody should be out wandering the city alone, especially at night,” he added when Brielle turned and raised a brow in his direction.
She decided not to berate him too much, since she would prefer to have some company if she was going to walk around a city she wasn’t familiar with at this time of night. Harley warned them not to stay out too late since they had no idea when they’d need to leave for wherever the chase for the nukes led them next.
“And call if you get yourselves in trouble,” Sawyer said as the three of them started walking away. “Or even if you get a sense you’re being followed or anything like that.”
Brielle couldn’t imagine what sort of trouble she and Caleb might get into or who’d be following them but assured Sawyer they would all the same.
Caleb seemed content to let Brielle take the lead on their late-night stroll, falling into step beside her as she turned left on the main road outside the pub and headed that way, not familiar enough with the city to have any particular destination in mind. He didn’t say anything as they wandered but simply walked along beside her as she took in the sights along the brightly lit streets.
She realized she’d picked a good part of the city to explore as she caught sight of the beautiful Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater. The ornate neobaroque architecture of the circular building made her wish it were open so they could go inside and explore, but since it wasn’t, she contented herself with digging out her cell phone and taking photos of the exterior. From there, they wandered past Vorontsov Palace, where they stopped again so she could get more photos, once more wishing they were on this little sightseeing walk during the day, so she’d be able to see even more of the historical landmarks.
When they reached the top of the impressive Potemkin Stairs fifteen minutes later, they both stopped again, this time on the bridge, and gazed out at the shimmering expanse of the Black Sea beyond. Brielle was so caught up in the lights of the city sparkling off the water that she didn’t realize Caleb had spoken.
“What?” she said, glancing at him.
“I asked how old were you when you first realized you could borrow other people’s abilities by touching them,” he said patiently, as if realizing she’d been lost in thought.
She turned to gaze out at the water, a smile curving her lips. “Remember that family friend I told you about? The one who let me work in his grocery store?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, one night he was doing the store’s inventory when his wife called and told him she needed him at home. I knew he was stressed about getting the inventory done, but I couldn’t offer to help because I didn’t even know how to use the computer program. He was in such a hurry that he almost left without his coat, and when I handed it to him, my fingers brushed his, and all of a sudden, I knew how to do the inventory. I finished the whole thing in a few hours, which surprised the heck out of him. Especially since I could barely remember how to even start the program the next day.”
“That must have freaked you out,” he murmured as they started walking down the broad stairs.
“Not really.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her coat. “I wasn’t even fifteen years old at the time and was so focused on everything going on in my life that this one weird moment barely registered on my radar. It wasn’t until a year or so later, after the same scenario played over and over with different people, that I finally figured out what was happening. And yeah, at that point, it did freak me out.”
“Did Julian ever figure out what you could do?” Caleb asked, pausing along with her on one of the steps to watch a big cruise ship sail into the harbor. “I mean, at some point before you helped him escape from that Turkish prison.”
She nodded, standing close enough to Caleb that she could feel the heat his big body generated in the cold night air. “Julian can be a bit slow sometimes—and since I’m his sister, I’m allowed to say that—but he noticed after I slipped up and borrowed someone’s martial arts skills to fend off a mugger as we were walking home. After that, he wanted me to use my ability all the time, while I went out of my way never to use it.”
“Why don’t you like to use your ability?” he asked curiously as they started walking again. Whereas before she’d been warm and toasty, the temperature must have dropped five degrees when he put a couple feet between them. “I would have thought they’d come in handy, considering how things were so difficult for you at that point in your life.”
“You sound like my brother.” She sighed. “He always wanted me to use my ability to take advantage of people. He saw it as nothing more than a way to make money and was jealous that I had this ability when he didn’t. Whenever I refused to use it the way he wanted, we’d end up arguing.” She swallowed hard at the memory. “I can’t tell you how many times I thought my ability would be the thing that finally pushed us apart.”