by Melissa Haag
“Jim can join us,” Grey said, looking up at Carlos. “Right, darling?”
Carlos stoically agreed.
That left Bethi and I with a room to ourselves. Good. She’d finally get some sleep. I took the card from Charlene.
“Let’s meet in the suite right away,” Bethi said. “If they catch up to us, I want a plan laid out.”
Everyone agreed.
Bethi remained quiet as she walked with me to our room to drop off our bag. The king sized bed looked inviting. I waited for her while she used the toilet then we walked to Emmitt and Michelle’s room. She stayed close to my side, but didn’t touch me or take my hand. Her mood was pensive and her scent laced with fear. It always seemed worse when she wasn’t rested.
When we reached the suite, Jim, the cubs, and Winifred were absent. Before Bethi started to lead the discussion, I caught Charlene saying something about them playing in the pool. I wondered if Jim was watching the cubs, or if the cubs were watching Jim.
“I’ve been all over the board with my explanations,” Bethi said, gaining everyone’s attention. “So let me be clear with what I’m trying to avoid. Dying. It’s not fun. We need to stop their power trip. I don’t mean just in this life and cycle but future lives and cycles, too. We need to rob them of their chance to control us in this life. We need to make their search hard and their goal nearly impossible.” She paused for a moment. “We need to change the game.”
“What do you have in mind?” Sam asked.
“As I mentioned, there are six of us. We represent different things. Prosperity, Hope, Wisdom, Strength, Peace, and Courage. According to Gabby and Michelle, the Urbat already have one of us. Courage. They can’t have any of us because all of us are needed to make a Judgement this cycle. We can’t get to Courage. There’s just no way with our numbers. That’s why we need to expose werewolves and Urbat to the humans.”
My gut soured at the idea, and everyone started talking at once.
“You can’t be serious,” Thomas said.
“We’ll be at their mercy,” Sam added. “We don’t go to hospitals for a reason.”
“I first saw you at one,” Gabby said with an arched brow at Sam.
“I was visiting a human friend,” he said, waving away the reason. “We’ll end up in cages.”
I agreed with Sam. There was a reason we kept ourselves hidden from the world. The world didn’t accept the strange and unusual; it feared what it didn’t understand. Fear led to violence and death.
“No,” Bethi tried saying. No one listened. “Just calm down,” she shouted.
The room quieted.
“Hear me out. The Urbat have the advantage. There are more of them. They know what’s going on, and we don’t. Not fully...not yet, anyway. They’ve been building up connections in the human world.” Michele nodded. “We need to come into the light before they do. Show the world that werewolves exist, show we’re not bad, and then expose the Urbat, too. We need to show that we’re different from the Urbat, and that they are trying to hurt us.
“If we direct human concern toward the Urbat and not werewolves, we will have less to worry about. The Urbat won’t be able to creep around trying to hunt us because the humans will be watching. Urbat won’t be safe.”
“Neither will we,” Sam said.
“Not in your fur, you’re right. You’ll need to let everyone know to keep it under wraps. And the ones that can’t, shouldn’t go outside. But, we can’t expose everything until we have Peace. She takes the panic and anxiety down to almost catatonic. And Charlene can help keep everyone on the same page,” Bethi said. “Werewolves are good; Urbat are bad.”
Charlene looked uncertain.
“We’ll keep the initial group small,” Bethi said. “We need to find someone at a TV station to take us seriously enough to give us air time. We want this to be recorded at their studio to give it more credibility.”
“I might know someone,” Michelle offered hesitantly. “She interviewed me once.”
“Perfect! When we’re there, Charlene will need to grab everyone in the room and keep them from thinking they should call the National Guard to make us into lab rats. Meanwhile, Peace will keep everyone in the studio from freaking out. The first impression werewolves will give is a calm and kind one. It wouldn’t hurt to have a spokesperson who looks sweet and unable to snap someone’s neck,” Bethi said, watching the Elders.
Grey grinned slightly. “Winifred is not comfortable with being the spokesperson and wants me to remind you clothes don’t change with us.”
“We’ll bring a robe,” Bethi said. “By exposing ourselves—no pun intended—we are robbing the Urbat of their advantage. They can’t hope to win against humans in an outright war. There are too many. Their technology is too advanced. A bullet in the head would kill any of the three races just the same. If we tell the world we’re the good guys, and warn them to watch out for the bad guys, we’re more likely to make it harder for the Urbat to win this time around.”
“More likely?” Carlos said, speaking for the first time.
“I didn’t think you actually talked,” Bethi said. “Okay. Well, historically, the Urbat would find as many of the Judgements as they could, and torture us to get our obedience. But one of us always dies too late in the cycle for rebirth and stops them from obtaining their goal. So I can’t promise this will work. It’s never been done before.”
She was asking us to give up our anonymity. We’d lived among humans for a long time now and understood that most of them feared what they didn’t understand.
“We agree we should find Peace before the Urbat do,” Sam said slowly. “But we will need to further discuss revealing our race before we make a decision. We need to do what’s best for the pack.”
“Exactly,” Bethi said. “The pack will die as it is. It can’t stay hidden. The Urbat are crazy desperate. The things they’ve done...”
I took her hand in mine, trying to stop the direction of her thoughts. I didn’t like what she was suggesting, but I could see why she thought it our best chance. Wasn’t adaptation the reason our numbers had increased since Charlene’s arrival? Yet, my skin still crawled with the idea that humans would know we existed. Protecting Bethi would become infinitely harder if humans knew about us.
“We have to stop them,” she said.
“We agree,” Grey said. “We just need to think everything through.”
“Fine. But we need to plan our next stop. I’m not sure if traveling together is a good thing or not, but in case we get separated, we should have a place picked ahead of time.”
Michelle used her phone to locate another hotel a day’s drive east, which everyone agreed on. While she called to make the reservations, Charlene and Thomas quietly left to bring us food. They returned several minutes later with containers of the meal she’d been working on before we left the Compound.
She and Thomas set things out on the only table in the room, and everyone lined up to start piling their plates full. Bethi and I hung back, as did Charlene.
Bethi’s guilt spiked again when she looked over at the pack’s mother.
“I’m really sorry you didn’t get to have your nice meal,” Bethi said.
“No, Bethi. What we’re doing now is much more important. For years, I’ve felt a...itch, I guess you’d say. Like I was supposed to be doing something, but I never could figure out what. The itch is gone now. I know what we’re doing is right.”
Charlene wrapped Bethi in a hug. Both women stilled. Bethi gained color while it drained from Charlene’s face, and they started to collapse at the same time. Thomas and I slowed their descent and lay them carefully on the carpet.
“Bethi,” I said, tapping her cheek.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Go. Away,” she mumbled.
“What happened?” Thomas asked.
Bethi turned her head and saw Charlene.
“She really shouldn’t touch any of us too much,” Bethi said. “We drain her.” Thomas looked worri
ed as he studied Charlene, until she opened her eyes.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just takes me a bit to pull it all back in.” She turned and looked at Bethi. “What happens when we do that? Besides draining me.”
“Our abilities flare. Gabby’s lights ignite with no effort on her part.” Gabby’s fork hit her plate in shock. “Oh, sorry. The dreams are chaotic and usually painful rather than helpful, but I have actually learned a bit about us. I didn’t mean to say something you’d rather I didn’t.”
“No,” Gabby said. “It just keeps surprising me how much you know.”
“And yet there’s so much I don’t.”
Bethi hadn’t made any move to sit up. I knew better than to think it was because she was content on the floor.
“Do you need help up?”
Bethi nodded, and I slid an arm behind her back and did all the work so she wouldn’t strain the stitches. She carefully got to her knees then I helped her to her feet.
Once she was safely in a chair with Gabby sitting beside her, I went to fix us both a plate. Winifred, Jim, and the two cubs came in looking for food, too.
I half listened to their discussion as I piled Bethi’s plate with food, making sure to add a piece of the pie she’d liked yesterday. When I turned to her, I heard Gabby ask if she could travel with us the next day.
“Sure,” Bethi said, accepting the plate I handed her. “But I’m not much fun. I tend to fall asleep all the time.”
“Maybe conversation will help,” Gabby said.
Bethi shrugged. Nothing really seemed to help her fight sleep. I understood why she wanted to avoid it, but it was easy to see how badly she needed it. Maybe after a good night’s sleep tonight, the car ride wouldn’t be as bad tomorrow.
Standing to the side, I kept an eye on her to make sure she ate. She lifted a forkful of stuffing to her mouth and closed her eyes as she chewed and moaned.
“Yeah, Mom’s stuffing can do that to a person,” Jim said, between bites.
Her expression slowly changed as she swallowed. I’d never seen her look so sad before. When she opened her eyes, she looked for Winifred.
“Nana?”
Winifred stopped eating to give her attention to Bethi.
“Would you call my mom and let her know I’m okay?” Remorse, not just Bethi’s, filled the room.
“I ran away to try to save her. I don’t know if it worked. I can’t know if it worked.” She swallowed hard. “At least not until we take away their advantage. But thinking of her alone…” She looked down at her plate. “I just want her to know that I’m okay if she’s still there.”
“Of course, Bethi,” Winifred said.
Jim handed Bethi a piece of paper and a pencil. She wrote two numbers down before handing the paper to Winifred. “The first one is my mom’s. The second one is a friend, Dani, in case my mom doesn’t answer. Find out what you can. But don’t tell me. Whether you reach her or not, don’t tell me.”
I recalled the letter she’d left her mother. I doubted hearing from a stranger that she was okay would ease her mother’s mind.
Winifred nodded slowly.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Bethi said quietly, setting her plate aside with the pencil. Jim took both.
“Bethi, you need to eat,” I said, giving Jim a look.
“I just want to go to my room.” She stood and slowly left. I followed and hurriedly ate the rest of my food as we walked the hallway. I knew what would happen to me once she crashed. Starvation.
When we reached the room, I let her in first. While she kicked off her shoes, I threw away my empty plate, turned down the covers, and removed my shirt. She grabbed her toothbrush and paste and closed herself in the bathroom for a few minutes.
I waited by the bed until the door opened. She stepped out smelling soapy and minty, Joshua’s scent a distant memory. The pull tugged at my heart as her gaze met mine. I wanted her in my arms where she belonged.
She crossed the room, and I helped her ease into bed.
“How are the stitches?” I asked, lying beside her and lifting my arm.
“Fine.” She settled against me, nuzzling my chest with her cheek as I wrapped my arm around her. Her hand crept to its normal spot on my waist, and her leg moved just enough to cover my knee. She was holding herself back from a full sprawl, most likely due to her stitches. A part of me worried though. Had I waited too long?
Eighteen
Moments later Bethi’s breathing evened out. I held her for two hours, dwelling on the past, before I finally eased out from under her to use the bathroom and brush my own teeth. Remembering her accusations about leaving her and never being there when she needed me, I rushed. In less than two minutes, I was back. Thankfully, she hadn’t started to twitch or cry in that time.
Getting comfortable, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“I’ll be here in the morning and every morning after, if you’ll still have me.”
I closed my eyes and let myself drift off. Sleep managed to hold me for several hours before someone walking in the hallway woke me. After that, I started counting the bumps in the popcorn ceiling. I made it to one thousand four hundred seventy-two before giving up.
Bored out of my mind, my gaze settled on the television. Not my first choice for entertainment, but it would kill the time. I looked around the room for the remote and saw it on the nightstand.
It took some serious stretching, but I managed to grab the remote and turned the TV on with no volume. Even with the volume off, I cringed at the high-pitched electrical squeal coming from the thing. Still, it was better to watch fifties reruns than it was to go back to counting bumps on the ceiling.
* * * *
After almost fourteen hours, Bethi’s breathing changed, waking me from a light doze. I’d given up on the television near dawn when my stomach had started to cramp with hunger. My only escape had been sleep.
She’d moved closer at one point so we were now tangled together, her arm over my waist and my hand on her stomach. Her head lay on my bare chest, and my arm was under her shoulders.
She stretched slightly but didn’t open her eyes right away. Instead, she snuggled against me more firmly. The doubt I’d felt last night evaporated. She was awake and consciously pressing against me. Her lips were almost brushing my chest.
I was loving the feeling a little too much when she lifted her head to glance at the clock.
“You must be starving,” she said, lying her head back down.
“Your arm was looking good about six hours ago.”
“I bet.” She sighed and closed her eyes again. Her fingers moved slightly on my skin. I struggled not to shiver or let my mind wander to places best ignored. I really wanted to let it wander, though. I’d almost lost this…every inch of her pressed against every inch of me.
Something under the sheet twitched.
Think of food, I told myself. Waffles. Emmitt mentioned a waffle maker. Think of that.
My stomach growled.
Bethi laughed. “You win. We’ll go feed you.”
“You, too,” I said, sitting up quickly. “All you ate yesterday was a sandwich.”
“Not true. I had a plate of pie, too.”
I escaped to the bathroom and took a quick, cold shower. I embraced it with a wide grin. Bethi was still mine.
After I was dried and dressed, I was calm enough to look her in the eye when I opened the door.
“My turn,” she said with her arms full of clean clothes.
I stepped aside, and she closed herself in. She took a bit longer in the shower than I had and even longer in the bathroom after turning the water off. I sat on the end of the bed and waited.
When she opened the door, she grinned at me. With her dark hair combed straight against her head, she looked waifish. She needed to eat better.
“Feed me,” she said as if reading my thoughts.
An easy demand to fill. Standing with her bag already over my shoulder, I held out my hand.
>
“Whatever you want,” I said.
When we reached the breakfast area, everyone else was already there.
Winifred watched Bethi closely.
I was going to give you another thirty minutes before retrieving you two. Did she sleep well?
Yes. But I’m not sure how long it will last.
Winifred nodded as we moved further into the room. Bethi’s attention was on Emmitt and Michelle who couldn’t stop looking at or touching each other. New Mates were a bit annoying.
Bethi looked at Gabby and the two shared a grin. Not liking it, I led Bethi to the small breakfast buffet.
I handed her a plate and proceeded to load it with a bagel, eggs, sausage, and a waffle. Looking at her hallowed cheeks, I added a bowl of cereal, too.
“Seriously? I’ll be sick if I eat all that,” she said as I took everything from her and brought it to the table Grey and Carlos shared.
“He’ll eat what you don’t,” Grey said with a laugh.
Bethi sat and started to eat. I went back for my own plate, listening to them.
“Any news?” she asked.
“One of their sentinels must have discovered the Compound empty because they stopped grouping and have fanned out. Gabby said they are creating a net across the states, but there are holes big enough to wind our way through. It just might take a little longer,” Grey answered.
“Bethi,” Winifred said coming up from behind her. “When you’re done eating, I’d like to check your stitches. Let me know when you’re ready.”
Bethi wrinkled her nose but nodded as she pushed food around her plate. I speared a sausage from her plate and held it up to her.
“Eat.”
She rolled her eyes but opened her mouth and took a bite. The bite seemed to motivate her to eat more. She worked through the bagel and eggs then slowly poured the milk into her cereal. My plate was already empty as she crunched her way to the bottom of the paper bowl. I watched her glance at the waffle still waiting for her.
“Too much,” she groaned.
I grinned and took the waffle. She’d done a fair job on the meal, but I knew it would take more than one meal to restore her.
