by Jude Marquez
“There is. Sometimes I think people who grow up here are survivalists by nature. If you can survive Glenwood Lock, you could probably survive anywhere.”
We went downstairs and back to the teacher's lounge. Although we had no more answers and more questions than we started off with, I tried to keep my hopes up.
“Where did you get that gun?” Dante asked, interrupting my thoughts.
I held up the rifle and looked at it. “Azolata gave me keys to a locker he has. It’s overflowing with weapons. Didn’t you know he had that?”
Dante gave me a look, flat and uncompromising. “The things I know about Azolata couldn’t even fill out a pamphlet.”
I nodded. “Yeah, he’s like that.”
“But that doesn’t seem to bother you, does it?” Dante said.
He was them approaching a subject that I was not sure I was ready to have. So I shrugged. Dante studied me for a minute longer before he seemed to move on.
“So, where is it, this locker?” Dante asked.
“In his apartment. There is a bookcase in his room–” I started.
“Wait, I’m not going to let this part go. You’ve been to his apartment? You were in his room?” Dante sputtered.
It was my turn to shrug, trying to be casual. “It was a late night. I got tired. He said that we could go upstairs –”
“I bet he did.”
I rolled my eyes. “He let me sleep in his bed. It wasn’t a big deal. He doesn’t sleep. In the middle of the night, I heard something and when I sat up, I saw him pushing the bookcase aside. I’m sure he knew that I was awake and let me follow him. Inside, there were dozens of rifles, hundreds of guns, more ammo than I could count. There were all kinds of knives, hell, I even saw a few swords. Right before last night, when everyone went down to the town square, he gave me the keys to his apartment,” I said and fished the keys out of my pocket.
When I held them up, I couldn’t help but remember Azolata doing the same thing, the moonlight glinting off the silver of the key ring. It reminded me of the silver chain Billie wore around her neck, the one where she kept our father's wedding ring.
Dante met my eyes and we both seem to agree on the first part of our plan.
“We will need some kind of transportation,” Dante said.
“Something roomy. Something that can move,” I agreed.
We both jumped when a hand appeared on the window next to Dante’s head. I had the rifle up and aimed just as Dante put up a hand.
“Wait. I think I know who it is,” he said.
“Good. Then we know who I am about to kill,” I said and lowered the rifle.
Dante went over to the barricaded door and shoved the fridge out of the way. He jerked the door open and disappeared for a minute. When he came back, he had his arm around his brother.
“Why am I always the one who ends up bloody?” Marcus gasped when he stumbled in.
Dante lowered him to the couch. “It’s because you’re an asshole.”
Marcus groaned and put a hand over his side.
“What happened?” I asked.
“That’s an interesting story. Is there any water around here?” Marcus asked.
“Catch,” Dante said and tossed one to Marcus from the broken vending machine.
I caught it for Marcus and uncapped it. As I handed it over to him, I shook my head at Dante. Normally he was a very nice guy until his brother came into the room.
Dante grabbed a chair and spun it around so he was sitting in it backwards. “Talk.”
Chapter 4
We were headed north. Savannah kept checking her phone, with one hand on the wheel. I kept looking behind us, waiting for someone to come after us. I didn’t hear any sirens, but that didn’t put my mind to rest at all.
“From the way you talked, I thought the mirror would be much smaller,” Savannah finally said.
I also looked to Gerri, who was staring out her own window, entranced with the passing scenery.
“Compared to the mirror we have in the court, it is small. The one we have is about the size of the building that we were just in,” Gerri explained.
I turned around and looked behind us. There was a pair of headlights there that had been following us for at least ten minutes now.
“How long until we get to the forest?” I asked.
The headlights weren’t too close, but they had been following us for longer than I felt was necessary. It was too late it and the roads were too empty for this to be anything but a coincidence.
Savannah let out a breath. “Hard to say. Maybe an hour, but we’ll need to stop for gas soon,” she said.
They didn’t like it. And I didn’t want to stop for gas soon either.
“Are you watching them too?” Savannah asked.
I turned back around I was facing the front of the vehicle. I met her eyes and nodded. I should have realized that she also knew that there was someone on her tail. Savannah had better instincts for this sort of thing, anyway.
“If it’s just one vehicle, even if they are packed in there, I think we will be okay,” she reassured me.
“I don’t doubt that. The only thing I am worried about is leaving behind evidence. The last thing we need is a tenacious detective on our heels old man and a bunch of dead people,” I said.
Savannah made a face but nodded. “Well, here’s a thought. What if we don’t? What if we just hurt them really bad?”
I had considered that. It was the preferable option. Then I glanced between both Gerri and Savannah. “No offense, but do you think it is possible for you to control yourself, with all your new-found powers and everything?”
Gerri turned to Savannah, interested in her reply.
Savannah’s brow creased, and she shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I understand what you’re saying. I have all this new strength and speed, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t hold back if I don’t need to.”
“I trust you, but I just want to be sure,” I explained delicately.
In the distance, I could see that we were approaching a rest stop. There was a bar attached to a gas station and small diner. Even from this far away, I could see that it was open twenty-four hours a day.
“This might all be for nothing. For all we know, those headlights aren’t even following us. It could just be someone out for a late night drive,” Savannah said, hopefully. She turned into the gas station a few moments later and our hopes were dashed. A dark SUV, much like ours, pulled in right behind us. Savannah looked behind her and met my eyes.
“You get the gas, and I will take care of this,” I ordered.
She pressed her lips together in a tight smile and nodded. I could tell that she wanted to be the one on guard, but I appreciated her not arguing.
“What do you want me to do?” Gerri asked, sounding politely confused.
I glanced back at the SUV, where she was sitting in the front passenger seat. She was smaller than even Billie and gave new meaning to the word waif.
“I don’t want you to get hurt. The last thing I need is another enemy in your mother,” I hissed.
From behind us, I saw there were men and women emerging from the SUV. They were all dressed in tight, black clothing. Easier to hide bloodstains, I guessed.
“If I am taken down by a bunch of humans with guns, then I am not worthy of my mother’s throne. I believe that I could be of some assistance,” she said.
I saw that some people emerging from the SUV had guns strapped to their hips or their thighs. I wanted to order Gerri to stay in the SUV, because I just wasn’t comfortable fighting alongside someone whose talents and abilities I wasn’t remotely familiar with. And there might have been a tiny part of me that still remembered the fairy tales we were told as kids. How bloodthirsty the Fae could be.
But if it was just me against all of them, I knew I would get hurt. I knew Savannah wouldn’t let them take me, but I didn’t really feel like getting shot all over again.
“I don’t suppose you know ho
w to pump gas, do you?” I asked desperately.
Gerri left at me.
Then she opened her door and met me at the back of the SUV has Savannah began to pump gas. She leaned casually against the SUV and studied each of the people that were approaching us.
“Honestly, handle them on their own. Honestly, I think you could handle all of them on your own. I guess the brightest were on a different mission today,” Savannah muttered.
“You know them?” I asked. This was not a dynamic I had foreseen.
Savannah nodded. “I do. They are more like the junior varsity team. I don’t really think we will be here for very long.”
“Just let me know when the tank is full,” I said.
“Well, your grandparents will be glad we found the traitor,” he said as she approached us. She didn’t even look at me, only kept her eyes on Savannah.
“Hey Sarah. Did they finally let you take the training wheels off? Did they let you have your own team and everything?” Savannah called back.
Sarah remained expressionless. “Your grandparents will be so happy to hear from you. Do you want me to tell them anything in particular?”
“Yeah, you can tell them to die already,” Savannah said cheerfully.
Even I winced at that comeback.
The people with Sarah shifted uncomfortably when Savannah said that. I knew that Savannah’s grandparents were the heads of the Ascendancy and such blatant disregard for their authority could not sit well with the good soldiers gathered in front of us.
“You can just move on,” I said.
Finally, Sarah looked at me. She was a plain girl, with dirty blonde hair tied back at the nape of her neck. She didn’t seem particularly bright and I could see on her neck three scars that went below the shirt of her tactical uniform.
“Ortega, you know that we would never do that. You could do us a favor, and come quietly,” she offered.
Behind her, a man held up handcuffs. I recognized them as the same ones they used on me the first time Bianca had come to town. Maybe not the same ones, but they were definitely made for an alpha.
“I think you will have to do much better than just offering me a chance to come with you. What kind of incentive do I have? Why should I come with you? Do you have something that I want?” I said.
I wanted her to talk more, to give Savannah a chance to get plenty of fuel in the tank.
“We sure do. You might know him. This kid named Eli? His little boyfriend, Lou? We have them,” Sarah said, and a gleeful smile spread across her face, stretching her nonexistent lips to their absolute limit.
“Is that right?” I asked.
A few of the people behind Sarah laughed and two of them gave each other a high five.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and without looking down, I pulled the cell phone out and flipped it open. I hit redial and halfway through the first ring, Eli answered.
“Hey, moonshine. Now is the worst time for you to call. I’ll call you back,” Eli snapped, and the phone went dead in my ear.
I didn’t like what I heard on the other end, with bullets and erratic driving and a roaring engine. I thought I heard Lou saying something, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent.
“So you have him? Really?” I said.
Sarah shrugged. “He’s within our grasp. We’ll have him shortly, just like you.”
She didn’t understand who my brother was. She had never met him and with Lou by his side, I knew the pair of them were damn near unstoppable.
“I don’t think you should underestimate those two. They are slippery. They are much harder to catch than you would think.”
Behind Sarah, a man pulled a gun, and pointed it at me.
From the other side of the vehicle, Gerri stepped forward.
No one, including myself, had paid much attention to her so far. I had almost forgotten that she was there.
When I glanced over, I wanted to laugh. She was still dressed in her torn skinny jeans and a loose top. She was barefoot.
“If you would like to keep that hand attached to you, put the gun away,” Gerri ordered quietly. Even if I didn’t already know that she was royalty, I would have guessed so. The way she spoke with such quiet command, the ease with which she ordered people around, it was clear that she was a leader of some sort.
The guy turned on her. “Who are you? Is Celia picking up strays now?”
“That is Alpha Ortega to you, vermin,” Gerri said. There was a flash of movement and the man was screaming, holding his arm and Gerri was by my side once more. Even with my instincts, I barely caught her movement. When I looked over at her, she was elegantly splashed with blood and she was licking her fingers of her left hand and held the gun disdainfully, pinched between her index finger and thumb. She offered it to me.
I looked down at her, aghast.
She looked up at me, confused. The man was still screaming.
“What? I didn’t kill him,” she said.
“My fingers! My fingers!” The man screamed.
I glimpsed his hand and realized that two of his fingers were no longer attached to the rest of him and were on the gravel between the two groups.
It seemed like I wasn’t the only one who had a hard time keeping up with what happened. It took another few minutes before the guards even thought to pull out their weapons.
Movement caught my eye from my left. It was then that I realized that we weren’t alone.
The diner, while not packed, still had more than a few customers inside.
“I don’t know how much things have changed since I left, but I don’t think you want to do this, not in view of a bunch of civilians,” Savannah said and glanced over at the diner.
“You drew first blood. We don’t have a choice,” Sarah said.
Her hand on the gun was not steady. It shook a little, and I was more worried about the gas pumps than I was about being shot. I doubted if the bullets would even affect either Gerri or Savannah.
“Hey!” The man shouted.
He was behind the Ascendancy, in front of me, at an angle. I noted his broad, barrel chest and his bald head. Under other circumstances, I am positive that he would’ve looked friendly, welcoming even. But here, he only looked enraged.
“I have already called the police. Don’t shoot, especially around a gas pump, you bunch of morons!” He yelled.
A few glanced over at the gas pump and realization skipped across their features. Sarah was one of them.
The man that Gerri had attacked was on his knees by their vehicle. He was no longer screaming, but he was whimpering and clutching his hand to his chest.
The man stepped closer, and I realized that he wasn’t holding the shotgun as though he would pull the trigger. He had it in his grasp like he was ready to swing it.
The man seemed to come to a conclusion as he continued to stare at us. That was the impression that I had been counting on; that people would look at the three of us and see young women being pursued by heavily armed people.
“You ladies should get inside,” the man said. He had an apron draped around his neck and tied around his thick waist. I saw that it was stained with food and that his name was neatly right above his heart: Len.
“My friends and I sincerely thank you for your help in hospitality. But I assure you, good sir, that we have the situation under control,” Gerri said.
Len looked over at her blinked. I could only imagine what he was seeing. Gerri was unearthly to behold, especially the first time.
Sarah took three steps towards Len and put her gun to his temple.
To the man’s credit, he did not drop his gun either, and instead let it loose in his grip. His fearlessness impressed me.
“Ortega, get in the vehicle and I will let this man go unharmed. If you don’t, then I will kill him and then I will send my people and bring out more people until you get in the vehicle. Are we clear?” Sarah said in a calm and even tone.
I frowned at her. It was not an unusual threat. In f
act, it surprised me it hadn’t been used sooner.
“Why do you think that would make me any more inclined to do what you want me to do?” I asked.
“We all know how noble you are. How you hate the innocent people die–” Sarah began.
I went for her first. Even though I wasn’t at full strength, I was still faster than any human. I heard shots ring out, but they were quickly silenced. When I reached Sarah, I tore the gun from her hand and heard a few bones break. She let out a pained yelp, but that didn’t give me pause.
Now I was between her and Len. She was defenseless without her gun, and I had one hand wrapped around her throat. Behind her, Gerri and Savannah made quick and easy work of the other people.
The others were in varying conditions of injury. Some of them were bleeding, but all of them without exception were unconscious.
It had less than three seconds to take this small team down.
“You talk about nobility like it’s a disease. Like integrity and honor are horrible traits. Coming from you, and the people like you, it makes sense, I suppose. But I want you to remember something. Are you listening?” I asked and shook her.
Sarah nodded, and I dragged her over closer to her vehicle.
“Put the others in the trunk,” I said to Gerri and Savannah.
Gerri made a face but did as I asked. I couldn’t imagine someone of her standing was used to doing stuff like this, but she picked up the unconscious people from the ground and tossed them into the SUV without complaint.
Once more, bagged Sarah around to the back of the SUV. I caught Lynn watching us, click the turn of events.
“When they finish loading your friends, you will get behind the wheel and drive away. I will let you go. But you have one job. I want to send a message,” I said.
“They won’t listen–” Sarah began before I choked her voice off.
“Then you make them listen. You make them listen to every single word that I tell you. Are you ready?” I asked.
Sarah nodded, but she didn’t look like she was too happy about it.
“Tell them to take their people and their weapons and get out of my town. Because when I am done doing everything I have to do, I will come back and drag them from my home. It will be bloody and I promise you, it will be slow. Do you get that?” I demanded and raised Sarah up so that only the tips of her boots were skating on the pavement.
