by Gloria Craw
“Knock yourselves out,” she replied.
Theron grabbed his soda. “Her gaming systems are set up in the den,” he said.
“Don’t spill on my stuff,” Stacy called after them as they hustled out of the room.
“Theron is happier than I’ve seen him in a long time,” she said, twisting her can back and forth. “Having you around must be good for him.”
“How can you tell he’s happy?” I asked, sarcastically. “He seems the opposite of happy most of the time.”
We shared a smile. “He’s gone through a lot this year,” she continued. “He broke up with his girlfriend a couple months ago. It’s been hard on him.”
I nodded. “He mentioned that.”
“I never thought they’d work out,” she continued. “Amy wasn’t as committed as Theron was. It was almost like she thought she was better than him. I think he suspected it, but was too in love with her to give up. When she broke it off, it really shook him up.”
Learning that Amy may not have been as in love with Theron as he was with her made my heart break a little more for him.
“What was he like before her?” I asked.
“He joked around and laughed more. He’s always had a serious side, though. I appreciate that about him. He thinks before he speaks, so you know he means it. He’s not showy like your boyfriend, but he’s steady.”
“You like him, don’t you?” I asked.
She chuckled. “He doesn’t see me the same way I see him, so it doesn’t matter. He’ll move on from Amy and find someone else. It’s just a matter of time.”
I took a drink of sweet grapy soda. Stacy and I had more in common than she knew.
Ian and Theron weren’t gone long. They came back looking disappointed.
“One of your friends wants to game with you,” Theron said. “If you don’t get online, he’s going to tell BlueDog45 where you hid the treasure in Fantasy Marathon.”
Stacy’s eyes got so big they almost bulged out. “He wouldn’t,” she muttered.
“He seemed pretty serious about it,” Ian replied.
Truly upset, she looked at me. “I’m so sorry to just leave you here, but this is an emergency.”
My brother was a gamer, too, and though probably not as hard-core into fantasy games as she was, he’d freak if someone told where his treasure was stashed.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”
She was gone in seconds. Which was good because my phone rang and the caller ID read Katherine. I turned it so the boys could see.
“Let’s go for a ride,” Theron suggested.
The phone continued to ring until all three of us were in the Land Rover. I answered and put it on speaker.
“Happy birthday, Alison,” Katherine said.
“Thanks,” I replied. Then, wanting to get down to business, I asked, “When are Bruce and Amelia coming to get Nikki?”
“We haven’t told them,” Spencer replied.
“They should know as soon as possible.”
“We’re going to wait a little longer.”
Frustrated, I said, “I thought helping Bruce and Amelia was what this was about.”
“There’s a bigger issue now,” Katherine replied. “Six more Truss couples are scheduled to fly in today. We confirmed they are Elders. Yvonne is going to call for a vote on the clan chief this weekend.”
Theron had driven a couple blocks from Stacy’s. He pulled off to the side of the road. “Just like you thought,” he muttered.
“What?” Spencer asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “What does that have to do with telling the Dawnings where their daughter is?”
“We can’t scare the Truss right now,” Spencer continued. “The Elders are already reluctant to come back to the clans. If the Dawnings know they have Nikki, they’ll storm the place. That would offend the Elders, making them even more likely to support a leader who thinks coming back to us isn’t a good idea.”
“So you’re going to leave her there while Yvonne and Robert get the clanship?”
“No. In fact, they aren’t even being considered. Robert died two months ago. We just found out earlier today.”
I let out a breath. So that was why he hadn’t been at the Truss dinner. Phoebe had only mentioned her father twice. What a horrible thing for her. She’d lost the father she’d been close to, and even if her mother was a thief, Phoebe was going to lose her as well.
“We think Yvonne is campaigning for someone else,” Katherine said. “The most logical guess would be her son, but he seems to be an unlikely candidate. He’s young and undistinguished. In fact, he’s barely ever set foot outside of Virginia. If it’s him, we have no idea what his plans for the future of the clan might be. He never worked for Sebastian, but he may have the same ideology as he did.”
“But it could be someone else altogether,” Spencer added. “We don’t know anything about the candidate yet. We need to stop the Elders from voting before we find out more.”
“You mean I need to stop the Truss Elders from voting,” I said, clipping out the words.
“Yes,” Katherine replied.
My stomach churned, and my chest tightened. And there it was. My suspicions were confirmed. The danger level had gone up another notch.
Ian’s brows were drawn together. Theron’s brows were drawn together. Mine were probably drawn together, too. None of us were happy with the situation.
I sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“First, we need you to talk to Nikki directly,” Spencer said. “We need to know who took her.”
I laughed disbelievingly. “Talking to Nikki would be like asking the grim reaper for a haircut. She never liked me. She’ll go straight to Jacob or whoever and tell them who I am.”
“She’s got to be hurting and scared,” Katherine continued. “You’re a familiar face. You can offer her hope. Tell her you’ll let her parents know where she is. You won’t be lying, and it’s probably an opportunity she won’t pass up.”
Theron shook his head. “If Nikki is as drugged up as Alison thinks, she may not be able to answer any of your questions.”
“Is that you, Theron?” Spencer said.
“Yes. Ian is here, too,” I added. “I put you on speaker. Theron’s right about the drugs. I might not get anything of value from her.”
“Still, will you try?” Katherine asked. “It would help us figure out who the candidate is.”
Frustrated, irritated, and agitated, I ran my fingers through my hair and winced when I pulled at a tangled piece. “I have the feeling that’s not all you want me to do,” I said.
“We want you to get into the meeting on Saturday and thoughtmake the Elders into a disagreement,” Spencer admitted. “Something big enough that some of them get offended and leave. We need to get them to postpone whatever decision Yvonne wants them to make, so we can evaluate things.”
“Why don’t you just swoop in and stop the meeting yourself?” Theron asked.
Spencer huffed into the phone. “I’ll say it once more. We don’t want to put the Elders on the defensive right now because we don’t want another Sebastian situation. We want the Truss to come back to the clans. They’re already reluctant to do so, and if we make them angry, they’re more likely to appoint a clan chief who doesn’t want to work with us at all.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, glad I didn’t get headaches. If I did, I’d probably be having a migraine from all the pressure I was feeling.
“Thoughtmaking other dewing is difficult,” I said. “It saps my energy and the rebound hurts. I’ll have to cloak a thought just to get into the meeting. Then to create the kind of chaos you’re asking for, I’ll have to cloak a lot more of them. If I manage it, I may not be able to walk out on my own.”
“And if she passes out in the room during their meeting, they’ll figure out quickly she’s been spying on them and get rid of her,” Theron said.
“You mean kill me,” I corrected him.
/> “I’m trying to be more polite,” he said through his teeth.
Ian had had enough. “This is a complete load of crap,” he said. “You’re asking too much of her. There has to be another way to deal with this.”
“That’s a little hypocritical isn’t it, son?” Spencer interjected. “Remember why you went looking for Alison in the first place. You wanted her to risk her life in a fight with Sebastian.”
“She had something to gain then,” he bit back. “She was trying to protect her family. Who is she protecting this time?”
“All of us,” Katherine replied. “The Truss need a chief we can trust. Someone we can work with. Someone who wants peace.”
I knew Ian understood her reasoning, but I could still hear the frustration in his voice. “You’re sending her in alone,” he continued. “Brandy and I were with her last time.”
“She won’t be alone. Theron is there.”
Ian mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
“I won’t be able to disrupt the Elders and hide Theron’s vibration, too,” I said. “He’ll have to wait outside the building until I’m done.”
“We know we’re asking for a lot,” Katherine said. “We know it’s dangerous. I selfishly want you, Ian, and Theron to get as far away from the Truss as you can. Unfortunately, this is not about what I want. It’s about the greater good.”
I loved Katherine, but at that moment, I wanted to shove the greater good down her throat.
“When it comes to the meeting,” Spencer cut in, “we’ll need a real-time relay of what happens. Can you rig up a video device to do that, Theron?”
“I can,” he answered in a voice full of sarcasm. “But it would be breaking my suspension.”
“From the information you emailed me last night, I gather you’ve already done that.”
“After all the times I’ve helped you with my criminal skills, this is the thanks I get.”
“I turned you in for several reasons,” Spencer said. “One of them was to protect you from yourself. You were out of control.”
“You could have talked to me about it. Instead you handed it over to Gage. You know he never liked me. He gave me twice the time up here than is required by tradition.”
“You needed an opportunity to cool down,” Spencer insisted. “Maybe Gage was a little harsh on your sentence, but it’s only one year out of three hundred. Take the time to get yourself straightened out. You’re amazingly talented at just about everything you try, and most of the time you have good sense. You needed a reminder to use it.”
Theron snorted.
“Will you make a device or not?” Spencer pressed.
“Yeah, I’ll put some tech together, but I want to be clear about this. I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Alison. A video feed will help me know if she’s in trouble and needs my help.”
“I figured that’s how it would be,” Spencer replied. “Thank you.”
“Will you send the feed to me, too?” Ian asked.
“Yeah,” Theron agreed.
“So, that’s the long and short of it,” Spencer said. “Alison, will you do what we’ve requested?”
“What about Nikki?”
“When the meeting is stopped, we’ll get her out.”
It was hard to decide. The plan involved Theron, too. We’d both be stepping into something more dangerous than we’d originally agreed to. It was as unfair to him as it was to me.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
It was quiet until my deceased mother said, Do it for the greater good.
Theron’s eyes flickered to me. Of course he’d heard it, too, and like all the other times, it was messing him up. It was kind of funny to see a guy as big as Theron nod his head like a scared child.
“Yes, we’ll do it,” I replied.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Stacy was the only one of us who really enjoyed the Thanksgiving meal. Ian, Theron, and I sat at the table in various states of anxiety. We only picked at our food.
As she finished her second piece of pie, she said, “The clouds are rolling in.”
Theron looked out the kitchen window. “You’re right,” he said. “Ali and I better get on the road. It could be a bad one tonight. I’ll go start the car.”
“Thanks for everything,” I said to Stacy.
“Sure. It’s nice having people in the house. I hope you’ll come down again.”
“Me, too,” I said, meaning it.
“I’ll walk you out,” Ian said, grabbing my hand as I headed through the mess to get my jacket.
Out of everyone’s eyeshot, he pulled me to a stop and kissed my neck.
“You really shouldn’t do that,” I said. “It’s only going to make things harder in the end.”
He turned me around to face him. “I don’t understand. Why would any of this be harder in the end? You know how I feel about you. And I’m not stupid, I know how you feel about me.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.”
I thought about it, but knowing the how the explanation would hurt him, I couldn’t. Not with everything else I had to deal with.
“We need to talk,” I said. “Just not until we get back to Vegas.”
He crossed his arms over his chest as he looked at me. “Okay, I’ll wait. But speaking of Vegas, I seriously think you should just pack your things and let me buy you a ticket to fly back.”
“I’m tempted to take you up on that, but I can’t.”
I didn’t tell him that part of the reason was because of what my dead mother said.
He let out a breath. “Fine. But can you come down for breakfast tomorrow morning…by yourself?”
“It’s going to snow tonight. The roads will be bad.”
“Let Theron drive you then,” he relented. “But make sure he knows you need some time alone with me.”
“I will.”
The drive back to the cabin was quiet. Theron and I had our own worries to think about.
I was starting to get angry with Spencer and Katherine. I could kind of understand why they hadn’t told me I had Falco relatives. But there was no reason for them to keep my supposed inheritance and being a clan chief from me. I loved Spencer and Katherine, but not knowing those things left me in a vulnerable position. I was easier to manipulate in that state. I was starting to wonder if that’s what they’d been doing all along.
They’d asked a lot of me over the past four days. I’d agreed to it because I wanted what was best for humankind as well as the dewing, but I was starting to feel like a weapon they could point and shoot at a target.
Feeling like my mind was twisting up in knots, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep the rest of the way to the cabin.
It was dark when we got back. Theron flipped the light switch, and the lamp in the window came on.
Running a hand through his spiky hair, he said, “Today is your birthday but it feels more like a funeral.”
“How about for the rest of the night we don’t talk about anything related to what’s going on at the Ledges,” I suggested with a sigh.
He laughed a little. “Do you think that’s really possible?”
“We can try.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “I have something for you. Go sit at the table and close your eyes.”
Suspicious, I narrowed my eyes. “Why?” I asked.
“Just do it, please.”
I did what he asked and heard him moving around the kitchen. Then he set something in front of me.
“Okay, you can look now.”
I peeked open an eye and saw a cupcake with pink frosting and silver sprinkles on a plate patterned with balloons. It looked like it had been made for an eight-year-old. I loved it. There was one candle burning on top.
“Go ahead, blow it out,” he urged.
“Will you sing to me first?”
“Not in a million years. Hurry—make your wish before candle wax gets on your frosting.�
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My wish was pretty simple. I wanted to go home. I blew the candle out and said, “That was very sweet of you.”
“That’s me…sweet.” He handed me an envelope. “This is for you, too.”
I hesitated before taking it. “You didn’t fill this with bugs, did you?” I asked.
“You’re so suspicious all the time. It’s a birthday present. Open it.”
“You didn’t have to get me…”
My words died away as I pulled three sketches out.
The first was of a woman with long pale hair. Her eyes were large and her face heart-shaped. It was done simply, but I could tell she was beautiful. There was a man standing next to her. The two of them were looking down on a child.
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. “Are these people who I think they are?” I whispered.
“They’re your parents,” he replied.
My eyes filled with tears, but I blinked them back so I could see clearly.
“Look at the next one,” he suggested.
The second sketch showed the woman on her knees. She was hugging the child tight. Theron had drawn a mixture of love and anguish in her expression. “Oh my gosh,” I muttered.
I turned to the third sketch. It was of the man. He’d picked the child up. Her head lay against his chest, his chin lowered to rest on top of it. There was no mistaking how precious she was to him.
“You asked how your parents felt about leaving you,” he said. “These are from my memory that day. This is how it was for them.”
I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. They came gushing out.
“Don’t cry,” Theron said, grabbing my hand. “You weren’t supposed to be sad. I wanted to make you happy.”
Managing somehow to get control over my emotions, I said, “I am happy. I’m very happy. You were working on these last night. You have amazing talent.”
He shrugged. We both knew the gift had nothing to do with his ability and everything to do with the subject matter.
I looked at the drawing that showed my parents together. “She was pretty, wasn’t she?” I asked.
He nodded. “Like you.”
“She looks miniature next to him.”
“Your father was around six five, I think. Once, when he visited my dad, I asked if he was a giant. He said yes. I thought it was the coolest thing. You must get your Amazonian height from our side.”
