by Lucy Rains
“Good luck Sanaleen,” Nora whispered, her eyes wet with moisture. “Your victri is strong. The people that hold him will be no match for you,” she said firmly. She smoothed a finger over her eyebrow and sighed. “Matteo will let me know when you are on your way back. I will see you soon.”
I didn’t want her to go. I wanted to ask her more questions about Lothreland, about my mother. But my jaw was stiff and various emotions were running around in my mind.
Unable to do anything but smile and nod, she ended the chat and I sat still as stone in my chair.
The world around me disappeared as I ran over her words again and again. Why did my heart suddenly hurt for a mother I had never considered? Emotion welled up inside me and I struggled to remain composed.
“Can I do anything for you?” Pierce broke my trance.
My eyes came up. I looked at him but didn’t see the man before me. My head shook numbly and I swallowed.
“Do you mind if I pass along this information to the others?” Pierce asked. “The guys will want to know.”
“I don’t mind,” I whispered. I sat back in my chair and let my shoulders relax.
I didn’t hear Pierce leave. Didn’t see him stand up and walk away. My mind became swallowed up in the truths that I had ignored. The realizations I had not been willing to see. My mother was killed because of her title. Her victri, her protectors, her lovers…
Killed.
The thought was unfathomable. A crushing weight I didn’t want to try to understand.
She was killed for her throne, for her position. A position that I now held. Where was I when she was killed?
What would I do after we had Roman?
Would I go live with my people as Nara wished?
A sharp stabbing sensation went through my head and I exhaled heavily. Too much. It was all too much.
There was a knock on the office door and Alex stuck his head in. “We need to talk.”
I nodded and all four guys filed into the room, closing the door. Pierce went back to his chair, and Kyson sat in the other available seat. Alex and Gavin both stood with arms folded, eyebrows furrowed. I tasted the disgruntled moods from all of them.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We need to discuss what Nara said,” Pierce started.
“Do we have to bring her?” Alex asked, looking at Pierce.
“We can’t risk trying to get him out of the facility and him not cooperating or having a mental breakdown,” Pierce explained. “The woman is right, Jade needs to be there.”
“I don’t know if we can do this mission with Jade,” Gavin said sourly.
I raised an eyebrow, “Nara didn’t seem to think there was a problem with it.”
“Who the hell cares what this Nara thinks?” Alex scoffed.
Pierce and I looked at each other. He didn’t like Nara’s statement anymore than Alex did.
“I’ll stay in the back,” I said softly. “I don’t want to put any of you at risk.”
Gavin hissed through a curled lip, “There is little risk to us.”
My cheeks burned at their harsh reactions. It wasn’t personal, I told myself. But it felt like a condescending rebuke.
“How about we bring Charles?” Kyson suggested. “Have him stay in the rear with Jade?”
“No way,” I shook my head. “No. We are not getting him involved in this.”
“Too late,” Pierce said, his eyes going to the floor.
I shot up from my chair, “What does that mean?”
Pierce shrugged, looking at Kyson, then at me. “He already asked to come.”
“When?” I demanded.
“A couple days ago.”
My heart skipped a beat and I paced around the room. “I don’t like it.”
“He can help,” Kyson said.
“He can die!” I yelled. “A lot easier than we can!”
No one said anything and I huffed in frustration. Tucking my hands under my armpits, I bit back a shiver. A chill ran through my body and my teeth chattered.
After a several seconds Pierce spoke again. “It will help us feel better if we have him in the back with you. We can be faster, more efficient.”
My head shook at every word he spoke but I didn’t speak.
“I’m still in favor of having her not come at all,” Alex offered.
“Agreed,” Gavin said. “We can just tie up Roman and drag him along.”
“Oh, that sounds like a wonderful way to bring him into the group,” I drawled sarcastically. I turned to Pierce. “I wish common sense was a little more common.”
“She doesn’t even know the plan,” Gavin added.
It took most of my control keep the tears from my eyes. The constant sting from their words was burning my throat and testing my patience. “We have plenty of travel time to go over it.”
“We can’t talk about these things in public,” Gavin said like I was an idiot to suggest such.
“I still can’t bring myself to the idea of even bringing you along, Jade.” Kyson said, leaning on his elbows onto his knees. “Every day, your body weakens more and more. The T-Cell function within your immune system is decreasing, your body is becoming increasingly intolerant to any exertion.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what you body would do if something happened to you.”
Every guys face hardened at Kyson’s words and I knew he wasn’t helping my cause. “Am I one of you?” I asked with barely controlled emotions.
Gavin wouldn’t look at me. Kyson also studied his shoes. Pierce was the only one that would look at me. His emotions were screaming into my head, full of terror and anxiety.
“We want to keep it that way,” Pierce said.
“And you say I’m lacking common sense?” Gavin scoffed.
My jaw clenched and my fingers began to dig into my palms.
I walked passed Gavin and threw the door to the office open, stomping down the hallway to my bedroom. Pierce and Kyson called out to me, but the footsteps I heard behind me did not belong to them.
When I got to my room I tried to slam the door closed before Gavin could follow me in but I wasn’t fast enough. He pushed through the door and I turned away to begin throwing stuff into my duffel bag.
“Jade,” he growled.
“Just shut up and leave me alone,” I said, rolling up one of my heavy sweatshirts and putting into my bag.
He leaned onto the wall, his arms folded again. “You know I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
I ignored him and kept packing.
He cursed under his breath, “I care about you, Jade. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
I chuckled dryly, stopping to turn and stare at him. His words were so contradictory to his actions. “Care? You have a shitty way of showing you ‘care’ about someone.”
He reached out for my arm but I pulled out of his reach and went into the bathroom.
I was twisting caps onto my toiletry items when Gavin appeared in front of me. “Jade,” he hissed. “My body literally aches of the thought of something happening to you.”
My fingers stopped and I looked up into his eyes. “You can’t control this,” I said. “The more you try to control this, the more it will control you. You need to stop trying to control what happens to me.”
“I’m just trying to help you,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “You don’t get to soften your disrespect to me with sweet words.” I looked down and slammed my toothpaste into my bag. “This mission isn’t about you, it isn’t about how you feel. That was the lab. This is for all of us. For me!” I turned and threw an empty box into the trash can with perfect aim. “Stop treating me like I’m an annoying little sister tagging along with you.”
Gavin clamped a hand on my hip to stop me from leaving the bathroom and I stilled, allowing him to be close to me. His chest was heaving and his nostrils flared. His emotions were so jumbled I couldn’t quite make out what he was feeling. His face came close to mine and I finally lo
oked up into his eyes. His hazel eyes were filled with need and looked into mine with a sort of desperation.
My eyes rolled. “Yes asshole, I do care about you. I care about what you think and how you feel. But you can’t hold that over me like a weapon of control. You are worried,” I shrugged, “fine. Be worried. But I will not change myself, my needs or what I feel is best for our situation to help you feel better.”
Gavin’s eyes pinched closed and he gave one single nod.
“And if you can’t start being more respectful to me,” I held up a finger, “I will ignore you so hard you will start to doubt your own existence.”
Still not ready for a physically intimate moment with Gavin, my feelings still needed time to heal, I turned and pulled out of his grip. I grabbed my things off the bathroom counter and walked around the bathroom door. Straight into Alex.
I huffed as I collided with his hard body and stepped backwards. “Alex?!”
He put his hands up in surrender, “I was just coming to tell you that we’re going to stay overnight.”
“What?” Gavin and I asked together.
“Matteo shipped Tobias out of the apartment until we leave.”
I relaxed, my shoulders dropped and my eyes closed.
“We will leave in the morning to head to the airport.”
Since I would need my toiletries that night I turned around and went to put my bag back on the bathroom counter.
Spots flickered in my vision and my legs suddenly felt like Jell-O. I wobbled, the room starting to tilt before arms went around me.
“I’m fine!” I assured them, panic spiking into my mind. I let my eyes close for a minute as I took a deep breath.
Footsteps sounded and suddenly my room felt very small. Pierce walked in cursing and I had to reassure them that I was okay.
Gavin lifted me up and moved me to the bed so that I could regain my energy. My hands went to my temples, “I’m fine, seriously. I just needed to rest for a minute.”
All four males stared down at me with frowns. I sat up and moved to the edge of the bed, trying not to show that it felt like the room was spinning. “So, what are we doing today?”
No one spoke for a second. My act was not fooling them.
“We’re heading downstairs to workout,” Kyson answered.
I pouted, knowing that did not include me. “Can I just come hang out?”
Alex rubbed a hand through his hair and sighed. “I don’t know.”
My mouth gaped open, surprised he would not want me along.
He sighed, putting an arm around my waist to lead me out of the room. “Sometimes you’re not invited because you steal all the attention. Remember that.”
Chapter 27
I huddled deeper into Pierce’s chest as we sat in the office area of Matteo’s apartment. A thick fleece blanket was wrapped around me, as well as his arms. I had been placed in his lap and did not object. His arms were tucked tight around me, helping to ease my shivers.
“Whether you go to the building during day or night, it does not matter,” Clive explained with a thick french accent. “They vill detect your movements no matter vhat.”
“Our eyesight is fine either way,” Gavin said, rubbing a hand over his chin.
“What about the perimeter guards?” Alex asked. “Do they have more at night than during the day?”
“From the photos we have seen, there is always the same number of guards, and they change the schedule of when they switch them out every day. There is no way to predict their movements, or plan around this.” Clive shook his head.
“So what do we know?” Pierce asked.
Clive leaned over and grabbed a highlighter from the top of the table. He placed a dozen random yellow dots around the compound. “This is where guards stay.” He dropped the yellow highlighter and grabbed a blue one. “This,” he made several dots, “is where cameras are.”
“We know where the security room is,” Kyson pointed at the map. “We know where Roman’s room is.”
“We know where the windows are,” I added.
There were a lot of windows in the building for it being such a high security facility.
“But are they bulletproof?” Alex asked. “Are there bars on any of them?”
Clive shook his head, “No bars. Possibly bullet proof.”
Charles walked in and sat in a chair beside Pierce. My heart was torn between anxiety and gratitude on his behalf.
“You don’t have to come,” I insisted, the words falling out of my mouth. My eyebrows pinched together in worry.
Charles head tilted down as he looked at his hands. The worn, weathered skin was dotted with age spots that I had known almost my whole life. They had cleaned my kitchen, made my food, folded my laundry, taught me how to throw a knife, and kept my yard looking meticulous.
They had killed my mother.
“Miss Jade, I am happy to come. I would like to help.”
I shook my head.
“I have more military experience than you will ever know.” He smiled. “This is not a situation I am new to.”
“But you were a lot younger,” I argued.
“Ah, but now I am much wiser.” He reached over and patted my hand that was peering over the edge of my blanket.
I trust him. He will be an asset to us. Pierce said to me.
But at what cost?
He will stay in the back with you. Keeping you out of all the main points of attack and line of fire.
I nodded, trying to pull from the confidence I felt within Pierce.
“How did Zraa find us?” Alex said from the side. “Has anyone found that out yet?”
I jerked my head towards him, my eyes widening. “You mean...that wasn’t a dream?”
Gavin and Kyson both frowned at my question.
“They tracked you through your passports,” Matteo explained. “A visual search for your pictures through the database matched up with theirs.”
A jolt of fear rocked my body. “What?! But all of our passports have the same pictures. How are we going to travel out of here?”
Matteo opened a drawer from a metal cabinet behind him and pulled out a thick yellow envelope. “I took the liberty of creating new passports for you.” He set them on the table and Pierce leaned forward to reach for them. “I figured you might need new ones by the time you left here.”
Pierce and I looked at them together, the pictures in each passport had been digitally altered just a touch. Enough to look different from our old ones. And even different from our true selves. My hair was bleached blonde, my eyes brown. Kyson’s hair was also blonde, and hung down to his ears. Pierce’s hair was styled into a mohawk that he definitely didn’t have.
“This won’t work,” I said softly. “The security won’t accept these. Passports have to match a person's physical identity.”
Kyson stepped closer to me and leaned down, “Unless, you have a Gavin.”
A Gavin, of course. We just needed Gavin close enough to warp the security personnel’s mind to let us through.
“Well, you might has well have made my hair green, and Kyson’s gray,” I said.
Matteo laughed openly, “Next time,” he smiled.
“What do you think they were going to do with us?” I asked, my question not directed towards Matteo.
“They wanted to kill us,” Pierce answered softly. “Us, as in the guys. Not you.”
My body stiffened, “How? How do you know that.” I turned in his lap to look at his face.
He tapped his temple, “I felt it coming. Their aggression was at a new level I had not felt before. They wanted us dead.”
“But not me?”
Pierce shook his head.
“He and my mother?” I asked, unable to put the words together. Charles coughed softly and cleared his throat. My body twisted in his direction. “You knew?”
Charles shrugged. “Everyone knew.”
“I didn’t know,” I argued.
“You did not need to
know, Miss Jade. It was not important to your circumstances.”
“But,” I stuttered. “Of course he would want to avenge her! I mean, it would have been nice to know we were going to piss off someone emotionally attached to her.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kyson spoke up. “They would have come for us anyway.”
My face fell and the argument inside me vanished. “So...will we always be running from them? Hiding? We can’t exactly take them out, or destroy their organization.”
“We do what needs to be done right now,” Gavin stated firmly. “We worry about that later.”
I knew he was trying to keep me focused, trying to keep me from worrying about too many things at once. But it was too late. A dark cloud of worry was already rolling through me.
I patted Pierce’s hand that was wrapped around my waist and inched my bottom forward to stand up. “I need a drink.”
“I am happy to assist you,” Charles spoke up.
“Charles, you have served me for most of my life, surely you are tired of it by now?”
“Old habits die hard, Miss Jade.”
I smiled and stood up. “I need to move around, helps my blood flow.”
I kept the fleece blanket tight around me as I padded into the kitchen. Lettie was flipping through a large binder at the counter while eating a salad. Her blonde head lifted and she smiled at me. “How are you?” she asked with genuine concern.
I offered a small smile. “Fine.” I shrugged. “Ready for the next step.”
“Um,” she pushed lettuce around the bowl, “I’m really sorry about Tobias. He was such a dick.”
I cringed slightly, “Is he like that with other girls?”
Her shoulders shrugged, “He seemed a bit more,” she paused to find the right word, “assertive with you.”
I grabbed a glass cup from the cupboard, not knowing how to respond to her. Remembering his advances made my hands twitch with energy. The rage in Kyson’s eyes still fresh in my mind. “You don’t need to apologize for him. He should be the one to do that on his own.”
She nodded and looked back down at her binder. “There was one other thing I wanted to say.” She set her fork down. “I didn’t realize, I mean...I’m sorry about being friendly and all...with the guys. I just,” she moved salad around her bowl. “I’ve kept tabs on them for so long, kept track of them, meeting them in person was just, exciting I guess.”
