by W. J. May
Julian still had his shoes on. Devon was sporting a hint of a beard.
“How many places do you think we’ve been in the last year?” Molly asked quietly. “How many hotel rooms, in how many countries?”
Rae shook her head.
“Too many. Too many to count.” A sudden memory flashed through her head, and she smiled. “And the hotel rooms were only if we were lucky.”
A faint grin lit up Molly’s face as she remembered as well.
They had been in Zambia for two tragic days, searching for a hybrid they’d found on Cromfield’s list. According to his notes, she was supposed to have almost unlimited control of the weather. Of course, if that was true, there was a distinct possibility she’d sensed they were coming.
The weather couldn’t have been worse.
The days were scorching hot, and the nights were bitter cold. Oscillating temperatures so extreme the young Englanders found themselves quite unable to cope.
It wouldn’t have mattered so much, of course, if the girl’s village wasn’t out in the middle of absolute nowhere. Meaning that the four friends had to tough it out in the wild.
On the night in question, their food packs had been stolen by what they could only hope was a pack of rogue hyenas. Given the haunting chorus of feral yips and shrieks, ‘hyenas’ was deemed the best-case scenario. The food Rae tried to conjure to replace it made everyone sick. They couldn’t use a tent for fear that people from the girl’s village would somehow see it and she’d go into hiding. And on top of everything else, it had begun to rain.
After about two hours battling hypothermia, their usual social boundaries had disappeared.
The four of them slept together that night. Huddled as closely as they could beneath a giant camouflaged blanket. Hair tangled in jackets. Arms and legs twisted together. Fingers curled in each other’s pockets. Decorum be damned—just trying to keep warm.
It was miserable. There was no denying that. But there was something oddly sweet about it, too. The next morning they had been unusually subdued, feeling quite tender towards each other.
The girls watched them sleeping for another moment, each one lost in their thoughts, then Molly got impatient and grabbed Rae’s wrist once more.
This time, they headed down to the basement. The silent build-up was almost too much to take, but the second they pushed open the door they found themselves waylaid once again.
This time, it was Luke and Gabriel. Fast asleep on a pair of recliners. An emptied bottle of liquor on the floor between them.
The girls turned to each other in shock.
“Since when are they drinking buddies?” Rae whispered in surprise.
Molly shook her head, eyes wide with wonder. “I’ve no idea. Luke left at around two in the morning to go ‘keep watch’ or something by the back gate. Maybe Gabriel went with him?”
That part wasn’t too surprising. It seemed that every guy in the house had taken it upon himself to play protector the second that night fell. A mob throwing rocks through the window would do that to you. The liquor, however, added an interesting spin.
Of all the seven friends, Rae didn’t count Kraigan, Luke and Gabriel had undoubtedly had the least amount of contact. It wasn’t by specific intention, of course; they simply hadn’t had the opportunity to spend any kind of time just the two of them, what with Molly getting pregnant, Gabriel getting shot, and the lot of them saving the world and everything.
It didn’t help that they’d gotten off to a bizarre start.
The first time they’d met, Luke had been in the process of disrobing his girlfriend, not knowing that Gabriel had been hiding, invisible in a towel, on the other side of the bed. From there, it had been your basic post-graduation mayhem. The two of them had gone on to train a supernatural army at a Scottish farmhouse, before attacking a lunatic in an abandoned sugar factory.
But, again, that didn’t leave a lot of one-on-one time to bond.
“There are too many freaking people in this house,” Molly muttered under her breath, taking Rae’s wrist once more. “Come on, Kerrigan, up to the attic.”
Of course, the attic turned out to be where Kraigan had set up for the night. A fact that left them short on patience, and with very few remaining options.
Finally, in an act of desperation, Molly pulled her into the bathroom.
“Okay, enough.” Rae yanked her arm free and put her hands on her hips. “Seriously, Molls, you’re freaking me out. What’s going on?”
Molly opened her mouth, but took one look at Rae’s face and panicked. Instead, she raised up a strict finger in between them, warning off troubles soon to come. “You have to promise,” she demanded in a hush, “promise me that you’re not going to hate him forever.”
“Hate who?” Rae asked in bewilderment. “Luke?”
“Yes, Luke!” Molly gestured around in exasperation. “Why do you think we’re in here?”
“I don’t know,” Rae countered defensively, “because the men in our lives haven’t figured out the subtle implication in having a bedroom?”
Molly slid her hands down over her face, shaking her head in dismay.
“He wants us to leave.”
There was a pause. Then an explosion.
“WHAT?!”
The sound ricocheted off the four tiny walls, reverberating against the marble tile. If the house wasn’t awake before, it certainly was now.
“Great job, genius,” Molly said dryly. “And to think… we elected you president.”
“You’re leaving?” Rae’s face was pale. Her mind raced, but she couldn’t, not even for a second, imagine a world without Molly in it. “The two of you are actually going to—”
“No!” Molly cut her off quickly. “We’re not going anywhere. That’s what the whole fight was about. He wants to leave, but I don’t.”
Rae’s pounding heart slowed just a fraction of a degree, but she was in no way reassured. On the contrary. The fact that she and Molly were having the conversation in the first place was bad enough. The fact that they were having it whilst hiding in a bathroom spoke volumes to the grave seriousness of the matter. It also implied that it had been in no way resolved.
“But Luke’s…” Rae struggled to find the right words. As if she convinced Molly here in the bathroom, it would somehow convince Luke as well. “I thought he was happy here.” Molly shot her a sarcastic look, and she was quick to amend. “Well not happy, but you know what I mean. Until recently, no one even knew about this place. Things were finally starting to calm down.”
Molly nodded patiently, but that wasn’t the entire story. “And then your dad came back from the dead. And then an angry mob threw rocks through our window.”
“Well, yeah, if you want to split hairs—”
“And I’m pregnant.”
All the fight went out of Rae the second she heard the word, deflating her every opposition as she stared in horror at her friend. Then at her friend’s deceptively flat stomach.
How could she have been so selfish? Luke was right. He and Devon were frustratingly similar in that regard. They were both unfailingly, infuriatingly, right.
“Where does he want you to go?” she asked softly. “Back to London? Or Scotland, maybe?”
Molly’s brow tightened in confusion for a split second, like she had been expecting something very different. Before confusion turned to instant rage.
“Are you kidding me right now?” she cried. “You’re coming down on his side?!”
Rae flinched, taken aback by the sudden volume of the outburst.
“Of course not,” she answered quickly. “I’m always on your side. No matter what. You know that. It’s just…” Her face crumbled miserably as the obvious truth hit home. “Molls, he has a point. You’re pregnant. You can’t just—”
“What?” Molly cocked her head to the side, looking suddenly—dangerously—reminiscent of Angel. “I can’t just stay with my friends? My family? A place that I’ve earned? That I’ve fought f
or?”
There was an escalation with each breath, and by the end she was nearly shouting. Not at Rae, although all evidence pointed to the contrary. Not at Luke. Not even at the angry mob that had shone a sudden, unwanted spotlight on her precarious situation. But at the situation itself.
The most beautiful, wonderful thing to happen in her life had turned into the most deadly.
It was horrible. Unthinkable. Devastatingly unfair. And all at once, she couldn’t stand it for even a second longer.
“I don’t know what to do.” She collapsed against Rae, sobbing into her shoulder as all the pain, and fear, and loss of the last few weeks came pouring out. “Rae, how can I be pregnant now? I mean…right now. When your dad just came back. When the entire world decided to turn against us. This isn’t the right time for me to go languish on the sidelines! It’s the worst time!”
A shuddering gasp ripped through her as a thousand tears streamed down her face.
“And how the hell have they decided to turn against us anyway?!” she shouted, suddenly enraged once more. “After all the crap we did for them! After everything it took from us! All the sacrifice! After Carter—”
She broke off once more, weeping without restraint, her arms around Rae’s neck like the entire world was coming down around them. As usual…that wasn’t too far off the mark.
“And now Luke wants to go,” she cried. “He wants to pack up and leave. Leave you all stuck here in the middle of it, while the two of us slip away somewhere safe. Like there’s anywhere left!”
Rae’s arms tightened as her heart shattered to a million pieces. It was hard enough seeing a person you love cry, without hearing the note of absolute hopelessness behind it.
“Molly, we can find you somewhere safe,” she vowed. “I swear on my life. No matter how impossible it seems, I will find you somewhere safe. I don’t care what it takes—”
But Molly pulled back, shaking her head like Rae had gotten it all wrong. “What place is possibly safer than with you?” she asked incredulously, blinking up with a pair of watery eyes. “Than with Devon? With Julian? Even Angel and Gabriel?” The tears kept spilling over, but it looked like she’d finally caught her breath. “Everyone keeps acting like this pregnancy is a reason I should leave. But it’s the most important reason that I should stay.”
Rae stared at her best friend. When had Molly grown up so much?
A hint of that same tender smile flickered in her sky-blue eyes. “You guys are all I have left. You’re my family. I can’t just…just leave. We need to fight this thing, together. This last thing, we need to settle it. Then we can all leave together. Move into the city like we’d always planned. Live some semblance of a normal life. As super agents, with super powers, and a whole mess of normal, boring problems. Together.”
A rush of emotion crashed over Rae, and she bit her lip as the tears spilled down. Molly did have family. Her dad was a sweetheart. Her mom kind, like a grown-up version of Molly. What would they think of all this? “Are you sure?” she whispered in a hush. “Because I think things are going to get worse before they get better. They always seem to get worse before they get better. And if anything ever happened to you or the baby—”
“The baby and I are exactly where we’re supposed to be,” Molly said firmly. “Right here, with our family. There’s just…there’s just no place else that we’d ever be.”
That’s when both girls lost it entirely. They collided in the center of the floor, hugging each other and sobbing loudly all the while. The force of it was enough to send them tripping backwards into the shower, where they landed in a watery heap.
It was still going strong a few seconds later when the door banged open in alarm.
“Molls?” Luke gasped in panic. Devon and Julian were just a second behind, followed a second later by Gabriel. All four of them gaped in shock at their beloved women. Both of whom were currently having a meltdown in the shower. “Are you…? I mean, what’s…what’s going on?”
“Hang on,” Gabriel closed his eyes like he was trying very hard to remember something, “I just had this dream, like, two days ago. They were holding each other in the shower…”
Devon and Julian punched him at the same time.
“We’re fine, babe,” Molly giggled, getting shakily up to her feet. Rae did the same. “We were just talking, and—”
But Luke’s face tightened as his eyes flashed warily to Rae.
“—and now you want to kill me, right?” he interrupted.
Rae shook her head and opened her mouth to reply, but he was too worked up to notice.
“Well, you can just save it, alright, Kerrigan? Because she may be your best friend, but she’s going to be my wife! I didn’t want to leave any more than she did; I was just trying to think of what would be best for her! Best for the baby!” He shot Rae a totally unnecessary glare before pacing anew. “And anyways, you’re too late. Because, Molls, I was thinking about everything you said, and you’re absolutely right. The strongest people we know are standing right here in this room, and that means the safest place for you is right here by their side.” He ran his hands manically back through his hair before coming to an abrupt standstill. “And at any rate, they’re our family.” He came to stand in front of her, and took her by the hands. “There’s no leaving family. It’s permanent. Unconditional. Especially now that we’re adding to it with a baby of our own. So…we’re staying. Alright? That’s the last word I’ll say on it. Ever.”
The speech ended abruptly, leaving everyone standing rather awkwardly in its wake.
Luke looked absolutely mortified with himself. These sorts of emotional outbursts were usually left to his fairer half.
But everyone else, the boys included, looked profoundly touched. And deeply amused.
Only Molly was still frozen in place, staring at Luke with wide, unblinking eyes. In fact, she hadn’t taken a single breath since the rant had first begun. “I’m sorry…” she said slowly, her eyes sparkling with the beginnings of a smile, “did you say I’m going to be your wife?”
Luke dropped her hands like he’d been burned, his face turning pale white as he realized his mistake. At once he began stuttering his denials and qualifiers, but he might as well have saved his breath. The rest of the room could scarcely contain themselves, and everyone present knew that Luke had wanted to put a ring on Molly’s finger since that first day he woke up in the hospital and gazed adoringly up into her eyes.
“I wasn’t asking,” he concluded lamely, trying his best to save face. “That wasn’t me asking.”
Gabriel’s eyes twinkled with a mischievous smile. “Oh. So you’re not even going to ask then?” He nudged Devon conspiratorially. “I like this guy’s style. He just takes what he wants.”
Luke paled in horror, his eyes darting to Molly. “That’s not what I meant!” Then back to Gabriel with a vengeance. “Tell her that’s not what I meant!”
Rae just giggled, staring between the two with a heart so full she felt like she could hardly bear the weight of it. “What do you think, Jules?” she asked quietly as the rest of the room began to banter and take sides. “Is there going to be a wedding sometime in our future?”
Julian’s eyes flashed white… then opened, a smile touching his lips.
Chapter 6
It was the morning in Zambia all over again. Nothing brought people together like a brush with an angry mob followed by a meltdown in the shower. The gang was officially back together.
By the time they got down to the kitchen, even Angel—who usually remained on the periphery of such things—had been pulled along for the ride. Gabriel had literally snatched her out of bed as they passed her room, and set her zombie-walking towards the coffee machine. She and Julian were keeping a careful buffer of distance between themselves, but it was a start. And given the suddenly precarious social position the house found itself in, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Because, speeches and newfound resolutions aside, there
was still a lot of work to do. The untimely discovery of Simon Kerrigan had sent the world crashing down upon them.
Turning friend against friend.
Ink against ink.
If the seven of them didn’t pull together, if even they couldn’t manage to unite, there was no telling what further devastation lay in store.
That being said, the odds might not have been as stacked against them as they thought.
A sudden knock on the door cut short all merriment. Devon paused with the coffee pot still hovering over his empty mug, and a few preemptive sparks shot from Molly’s fingertips.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Luke asked under his breath, edging automatically towards the window to peek outside. “Anyone from the Council or the Knights? My father didn’t tell me.”
Rae shook her head, eyes fixed on the door. She hadn’t taken a breath since they first heard the sound, and when the doorbell rang twice impatiently, she felt her heartbeat stutter as well. “Jules?”
His eyes flashed white, and the people standing on either side reached out an automatic hand to steady him. He swayed for a moment as the bell rang twice more.
Rae was expecting the worst. Expecting an all-out assault as the people who’d come to confront them last night marched back again, double the numbers. Hounds and shotguns.
But the second Julian opened his eyes he started walking towards the door, a bright smile tracing his lips. He opened it before anyone of them could tell him not to, pushing it wider to reveal the group of people just beyond.
Rae’s jaw dropped open, and for the first time since that first ring she pulled in a shaky breath.
“They sent you to open it, huh?” Andy clapped Julian on the shoulder as he made his way inside, stomping the ice off his boots on a mat in the foyer. “The sacrificial lamb.”
“They psychic lamb, is more like it,” Alicia chided, although she too cast Julian a teasing grin as she slipped past him. “Took you long enough to see us, though. It’s freezing out there.”
By now the rest of the gang had stepped into the foyer, staring with unbridled relief as a dozen or more of their old friends from school swept inside and made themselves at home.
