by Dean Murray
"So you're calling everyone you know to tell them, thereby sending up a massive signal fire as to your current location?"
The scorn in her voice was palpable and for a second I almost changed my mind, but she really was the only option that made sense.
"No, I'm calling you and only you. I want you to take over as a kind of temporary communication node. Get ahold of as many people as you can and let them know to keep their heads down for a few days until I can get us back online."
"Why me?"
"Because you've got Grayson and Lori both there with you. Until Alec is back on his feet and able to fight again, your group is our strongest, most secure force. Your group has the best chance of surviving if the Coun'hij track your calls and come after you."
"Best chance of survival is a long ways off of guaranteed survival. Neither of those two is going to be worth spit against a group of werewolves."
"I know. You'll want to keep moving, use burner phones, and batch your calls so you have a chance to drop out of sight afterwards. Hopefully it's only for a couple of days."
"You're basically giving me the keys to the castle here. You realize that, right? If I've got ambitions for taking over everything this is my golden opportunity. Why me? There are a lot of people here in this group who could do the job."
"I'm not an idiot, Tasha. I know very well that this is a risky move, but the fact of the matter is that I have to put someone in charge. Whoever I put in charge would have the option of trying to wrest control away from Alec, but that's quite simply a waste of time. Once Alec is healthy again it would be futile for anyone to try to keep control of people who are already sworn to his service."
"And if he doesn't recover?"
"He's going to recover, but this is the part where you are expecting me to threaten you so I'll oblige. I'm tapping you for this job because you'll have the threat of your mom backing you up, but if Alec doesn't survive and you try to wrest control of our people away from me then I'm going to make you wish Alec had survived to deal with you. He's got a soft spot where you're concerned because of your history together. I'm not laboring under that disadvantage. Do a good job on this and when Alec recovers he'll reward you. Try to screw Alec and me over and I'll make sure you suffer as a result, even if I have to pull the trigger myself."
Mallory opened up the door to the bedroom within seconds of me hanging up on Tasha. "You have a second?"
"Are we having problems? I was serious about being on the road. Anyone who gives you problems needs to just be left behind."
"No, nothing like that. After you left that same guy tried to convince everyone that you were bluffing, that there wasn't anything you could do to stop them from just tagging along behind us, but I reminded him that Donovan is a crack shot with the sniper rifle he took off of the shooter back at the ambush site. That shut him up instantly."
"That one's going to be a problem."
"Yeah, but that's not why I stopped by. I've got teams of three people each collecting cell phones. We'll be moving again within the next two or three minutes."
"I'm glad my performance did the trick."
"Actually, that's what I wanted to ask you about. Do you realize how much of a chance you took back there?"
"Yes—that's actually why I took it. It was a risk, but the alternative was having people press harder and harder as time went on. I needed to nip the rumors in the bud or everything was going to fall apart in the next few days."
"How did you know you could pull a lie of that magnitude off? I've been around some pretty high-level players and I'm not sure that any of them would have done that, even if they could have. When Alec dies you're going to have zero credibility with these people."
"I'm aware of the risks, Mallory, but it was the only choice I could live with."
"You're playing a risky game, Adri. One that is going to eventually come back to bite you, but I'll stick with you. You're the only game in town and Donovan believes in you, but be careful. Now that you can get away with lies like that it's going to be very difficult to stop yourself from lying any time you run up against a truth that you don't like. The problem is the more lies you throw out there the harder they are going to land when they come home to roost."
"Thank you for your concern, Mallory. I'm managing the risks. Please get us on the road as quickly as possible. I had to make one last call to Tasha just now so it's important that we get moving. Hopefully Alec's hackers are still managing to keep our images off of the satellite feeds. I need to check up on Alec again."
Despite what I'd said, several long minutes passed after Mallory's departure before I moved from the room's only chair. I really did understand Mallory's worries, but at the same time they felt like something with no relevancy to my world.
I could see the appeal to being able to lie about anything and having people believe you because their very senses told them you were telling the truth, but I could only lie about one thing. Alec was going to survive this and he was going to come out the other side sane and very much still his own person.
It was going to happen because I was going to use up myself—and everyone else around me if it came to that—to make it happen.
Chapter 10
Adriana Paige
Downtown
Denver, Colorado
Seeing Dominic again was like seeing the sun again for the first time after a long, cloudy winter.
We were reunited amongst a flurry of activity that went much better than I expected it to. I was still worried that the Coun'hij was tracking us via preternatural means, but even if that was the case, it was only a matter of time before the bullet holes in our RV occasioned some kind of attention from law enforcement. The logical answer was to change vehicles, but I'd been reluctant to insist on it because of the difficulty involved.
I raised the question with Donovan though once he woke from his nap and came in to check on Alec. It took us less than five minutes' discussion to decide to change up every vehicle in the convoy.
The actual logistics ended up being both easier and more difficult than I'd been expecting. The only thing Donovan was worried about salvaging from our existing RV was the trio of aerodynamic antennae affixed to the top of the roof and the large touchscreen attached to the wall. Beyond that, everything else was easily moveable.
It took another ten minutes to draw up a list of things we were going to need and tasks that were going to need to be done, and then I began splitting the tasks into separate lists for Mallory to distribute out to the teams she was going to have to put together.
We rolled into town forty-five minutes before the arranged meeting time with Dominic, and stopped at a large truck stop half an hour away from the meeting place. A short conference was all that it took to bring Mallory up to speed and then we all sprang into action.
A couple of burly guys who looked like they knew their way around power tools started grinding off the serial number stamped into the engine as soon as Mallory got the other RV in place to screen their activities from anyone driving past on the road.
Most of the rest of the group was sent off, either shopping or dumping their cars in a variety of different manners, all of which should help make sure that they wouldn't surface and lead the Coun'hij back to us anytime soon. That was actually one of the more dangerous parts of the plan. I didn't like having everyone spread out like that, but neither Donovan nor I had been able to come up with a way around it any more than we'd been able to find a way around replacing our vehicles without putting large sums of money in the hands of the people tapped to go do the actual purchasing.
The last three cars to leave all waited to go until after we'd extended the large canopy that was one of the features of the RV. We backed each of the three cars up next to the RV in turn before they left. I was in the second vehicle, a minivan that we'd dropped the two back seats down in so that they formed a large flat surface that was an adequate bed for Alec.
Donovan cleaned Alec up and draped a clean sh
eet over him before we moved him with a second clean sheet used as an improvised stretcher. Alec still looked bad, but he looked good enough for people to think that he was on the mend, and the top sheet hid the fact that we'd tied him up so that he wouldn't flail while being moved and thereby let everyone know he was being attacked by Dream Stealer.
Mallory had carefully picked the group that had been left behind to see Alec and our hope was that she'd correctly picked people who weren't inclined to ask a lot of questions, people who would be relieved to see Alec was still breathing, and most importantly people who would be believed when they said that Alec looked like he was in a peaceful, healing sleep.
I'd been most nervous about having our people dispersed, but Donovan had been most concerned with the idea that Alec and I were going to be driven around by Ruby. I could understand his worries—frankly I wasn't as sanguine about the whole thing as I tried to let on.
Ruby had a one-in-three chance of being the Coun'hij agent who had ruined our communications equipment, if indeed that was what had happened. Mallory had obliquely questioned all three of our possible saboteurs without any of them mentioning that they'd noticed anything odd, but that still wasn't proof that the malfunction had been solely the result of shrapnel from the bullet that had punched through the communications closet.
Being only a wolf, Ruby wasn't particularly dangerous compared to most of our people, but she didn't need to be very dangerous to be a threat to Alec and me. Donovan had wanted me to use someone else as a driver or barring that to drive us himself, but in the end simple logic made him agree that she was the only option. Donovan was the only one who could do some of the shopping that needed to be done and Ruby already knew—and seemed to be keeping secret—the true extent of Alec's injuries. I didn't trust Ruby, not totally, but I didn't want to risk anyone else finding out that Alec was in such bad shape.
All of which explained the great degree of comfort I took from the pistol that Mallory slipped me just before Ruby, Alec and I left. Ruby couldn't attack me while she was driving the van, and now that I was armed I had the ability to make sure she didn't take us somewhere I didn't want to go.
It wasn't a perfect plan, but it wasn't that big of a departure from what we were already doing. We'd let her drive the RV because there hadn't been any other way to both isolate her and keep her too busy to get into any mischief, and she hadn't wrecked the RV, so there was a reasonable chance that she wouldn't crash the minivan.
Ruby didn't say anything until we'd been driving for nearly a minute. "You don't trust me, do you?"
"You can smell the gunpowder?"
"Yeah, a little bit. Mostly it's the gun oil."
"No, Ruby, I'm afraid that I don't trust you, not completely. I'm sorry if I'm doing you a disservice, but I just can't afford to take that chance right now."
"That's fine, it's better than fine actually. Believe it or not, I want Alec to come through this every bit as badly as you do."
"Okay, for now just keep to the route we talked about and get me to Dominic and James."
The rest of the trip was thankfully uneventful. Twenty minutes later we pulled under the overpass and something unknotted when I saw the large, black van waiting for us.
A tiny part of me had been convinced that Dominic and James were never going to arrive, that I was going to have to try to keep Alec alive with no more help than what Donovan and Mallory could provide. Knowing that I was going to have two more friends with me, friends I could trust without question, took away some of the burden that I'd been carrying since Alec had been shot.
Ruby parked a couple of feet behind the black van and then turned off the engine and handed the keys back to me without having to be asked. I still half expected her to try to make a run for it as soon as she was out of our minivan, but she simply stood between the two vehicles while I locked all but one of the doors and then exited myself.
As soon as they could see me, James and Dominic both climbed out of their vehicle. Dominic crossed the distance between us in a flash and pulled me into a hug before I could even blink.
"I'm so glad to see you, Adri. I've spent this whole time worrying that something was going to happen to you and Alec before we could meet up."
"Yeah, I was worried about you too. Have you had any more luck with your ability?"
She looked so crestfallen that I wished I'd waited to ask until later. "No, nothing yet. I've tried a dozen times to heal James' mother of her scars, but it's all been to no avail."
She'd pulled back a little while acknowledging her failure, but I reached forward and gave her hand a squeeze before turning to James, who was keeping a wary eye on Ruby at the same time that he tried to keep a watch out for other threats.
"Thanks for coming, James."
"Yeah, how's Alec doing?"
"Not as well as I'd like, but a lot better than he could be doing. This is Ruby. So far she's been very cooperative and helpful, but I'm still not completely positive I can trust her, so watch yourself around her."
"I was already planning on doing exactly that."
"Good. Can you two please move Alec to your van? There's room, right?"
"Yeah, just barely, but it's not like Andrew or Mrs. Graves is going to notice if we crowd the two of them a little."
Apparently James could smell the gun I was packing too. It was the only logical reason for him to be treating me like I was actually capable of backing him up if Ruby suddenly went crazy. It was flattering, but I was actually a lot less confident in my ability than he seemed to be. Shooting someone from less than five feet away who was seat belted into one spot was probably something I could manage, but anything beyond that was pushing things.
James kept an eye on Ruby while I unlocked the back of the minivan and then once I had a clear line of sight to Ruby again he went over to help Dom move Alec.
"Oh, no. He's hurt so badly!"
"Yeah, that's why I've been so anxious to get you and him in the same place."
"I'll do my best, Adri, but I'm just not sure I'll be able to help. I'm starting to think the past healings are some kind of cruel prank, that or just a fluke."
"No, one time could be a fluke, but you've healed more than a dozen people on two different days. You've got a power, it's just a question of how long it will be before it manifests fully."
"I hope you're right."
Once they had Alec safely tucked away in the back of their van, I stepped forward and handed James a slip of paper.
"We need to ditch the minivan. James, can you take Ruby with you and lose it somewhere reasonably close to the Park Hill area, please? That will put you close enough to make the rendezvous point in plenty of time."
"Yeah, I can do that. Take care of Dom and the rest of them for me until I get back."
I nodded and tossed Ruby the keys. Dom was already climbing into the van. I followed her, taking a seat in the passenger's seat next to Addison, who favored me with a dirty look.
"You just couldn't let well enough alone, could you? You had to drag all of us back into the crosshairs with you."
The old Adri probably would have let her get away with it, but I knew I couldn't allow that kind of blatant disrespect. Alec could, simply because he was so much more powerful than the rest of us that it almost didn't matter if he had two or three people openly sniping at him. My position wasn't anywhere near as secure as that.
"Listen, Addison, I'd like to get one thing straight. I'm not going to put up with that kind of garbage from you. Not now, not in the future, not in private and definitely not in public. You know as well as I do that we are alive for one reason and one reason only. Alec has put his life on the line for all of us repeatedly and while that doesn't make him some kind of infallible saint, it should earn him some pretty profound respect."
She opened her mouth, but I cut her off with a glance.
"If that doesn't cut it for you then know this. It's the Graves money that has been putting food on your table since you were injured.
Alec may feel some kind of vicarious guilt over what happened when Agony came through here and killed his father, but I don't share that feeling. If you have constructive ideas or legitimate concerns then I'm all ears, but if you keep digging at me or Alec, either one, I will see you thrown out on your ear so fast you won't even know what hit you. Maybe then you'll realize that you've had a target on your back since before Kaleb died."
"You wouldn't dare. I'm the one who takes care of Samantha. Alec would be furious."
"Maybe, maybe not. I can hire any nurse off the street to take care of someone in a coma, it's not like Samantha would notice a difference. Actually, come to think of it that would probably be the case even if she was conscious."
That last bit hadn't been something I'd been planning on saying, it had just kind of happened, but it obviously struck home in a major way. Addison's eyes narrowed and she went bright red.
"If you send me away then James will come with me."
"Don't you ever get tired of using your own son as a bargaining chip? I'm not so sure that James would follow you off into an exile that you earned for yourself, but if he did then that would be fine by me. I need James, but I need a James I can count on. If his loyalties are that divided then I'm better off without him. For however long Alec is out of commission I'm going to need people I can trust."
She shook her head at me as she turned the van on and put it into gear. "My, my. Somebody put on her big-girl pants today."
I reached over and turned the key in the ignition, killing the motor as I grabbed the burner phone I'd brought with me out of my pocket.
"Take the phone and get out. I'll give James your number when I see him at the rendezvous. He can call and let you know whether or not he's going to accompany you into exile."
Her knuckles went white on the steering wheel, and in that moment I was very aware of the fact that despite her no longer being able to participate in combat operations she was still a shape shifter and I was very much within arm's reach of her.
I could almost see her juggling through responses, picking between options that would either escalate or defuse the situation.
