When I woke up, I could hear the storm still raging outside, but the water felt calmer. Embry was asleep with a tiny pool of my drool on his shoulder. I would have been embarrassed, but the more awake I got, the more I felt sick. I decided to try Embry’s advice and went onto the deck.
The sky was still dark, with grey clouds and rain, but it looked bluer. It was like this rain was trying to wash us clean while the other had been trying to drown us.
“Everything okay?” Gabriel asked, putting away a telescope as he came over to me in his bright yellow raincoat. He opened the door, so I could follow him into the glass shelter.
“Are you using the stars to navigate?” I asked. “We have GPS and satellites now.”
“I’m making sure we’re going the right way.” He rolled his eyes at me.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s a safe house for people like us.”
“Whereas that was Terrence’s house-house,” I understood, having stayed in the room his great-granddaughter usually sleeps in.
“If the safe house gets compromised we just find a new one. No one gets discovered or is in danger.”
“Do you think he’ll find us there as well?” I asked.
“Eventually,” he admitted, causing a shiver to run down my spine. “But we will hopefully have moved on by then. We’ll try it for a couple of weeks. If everything is safe and quiet we will stay longer. If we hear whispers or rumors about you, we’ll find somewhere else.”
“And that’s our game plan?” I asked, not very reassured. “Keep running, making sure we’re one step ahead so we can leave by the back door when he knocks in front?”
“You don’t want to be lied to anymore, right?” he verified before answering.
“Right,” I agreed. I was certain that I wanted to know what was going on instead of the lies they had been giving me, but I was also aware that I would regret the decision.
“Right now, it’s all we can do. We can protect you and keep you safe, but hiding and running are our main defenses. In open battle, against him and his army all together, we don’t stand a chance.”
“So we always need to escape before he reunites with his army,” I said like it was simple rather than terrifying.
“Exactly,” he agreed.
“Forever?” I asked.
“From my experience, he usually gives it his all for a few months, then leaves us alone for a while.”
“How long is a while?” I asked. I could deal with this for a few months, but I wasn’t sure I trusted the possible calm before what would definitely be the storm.
“Months, years…it depends. I’m just saying this isn’t what the rest of your life will look like.”
“We just need to keep me alive long enough for him to give up for a few months,” I summed it up.
“Exactly.” Compared to the alternative it was good news, but it still painted a pretty bleak picture.
I stayed in the cabin until it stopped raining, right before the sun peeked through the clouds to light the horizon. It would have been absolutely beautiful if the waves hadn’t threatened to pull us to the ocean floor. I went out onto the deck at that point, holding on to the rail for dear life. Embry was right that being outside helped. He joined me not long after the sun claimed its spot in the sky, then took over in the glass cabin so Gabriel could get some sleep.
By the time Gabriel woke up from his nap, I was starving, and my empty stomach liked the rocking of the waves even less than my fed stomach had.
“Perfect timing,” Embry said when he saw him.
“Why?” I asked, spotting what looked like a shipwreck graveyard in the distance. Some of them looked like old pirate ships, some were fishing boats, and there was even a rowboat by an orange buoy. I told myself its occupants had jumped ship, rather than imagining that something from the water came out and got them.
“We’re here,” Gabriel explained.
“I think I’m safer with the minions,” I voiced my concern.
“You’re better at this part,” Embry told Gabriel, leaving him the wheel in the glass cabin so he could maneuver us through jagged rocks, coral and ship carcasses. I spotted an eel and possibly a crocodile, but refrained from asking them if the kraken and inferi were real, deciding I would rather not know until we were out of this particular area.
“What was that?” I asked, bracing myself when the entire boat shook.
“Not what, who,” Embry said with a smile.
“Caleb,” Gabriel explained like he’d had the same reaction once upon a time.
“I was worried you wouldn’t make it.” The voice belonged to 6 feet of pure muscle, but he had the kindest face when he smiled over to Embry.
“How does everyone know we’re coming?” I asked, figuring the Big Bad would find us as easily.
“I heard what happened at Terrence’s. You were either heading to me, or to Rosenberg, and he’s better at confrontation.” They exchanged a look that made me feel like I didn’t ever want to meet Rosenberg.
“Is Terrence okay?” I asked of our last host.
“They were using Silas, so they didn’t even bother sending him into his next life.” Caleb didn’t sound happy about it.
“Really?” I was relieved Terence was okay, but it did not make sense to me that this evil person who was hell-bent on killing me would get their hands on someone who harbored me, and let me escape, but just let him go.
“Silas is similar to the man who’s hunting you. He won’t control you, but if he touches you, he can read your mind. Even after he’s gone, that touch is a bond and it’s like he’s right in front of you,” Embry explained as if he’d experienced it before.
“If Terence eventually found out where I was, Silas would just have to check in sporadically so the Big Bad would know as well?”
“Yes. Which is why Terence is now persona non grata and won’t be checking his messages until The Big Bad or Silas enter the next life,” Caleb assured me, adopting my name for him.
“We don’t always come back and we’re not always the same when we do. It’s a last resort,” Gabriel answered the question I didn’t ask.
“I wasn’t…”
“It’s a valid question,” he assured me. “If you get hurt, why not finish the job and be good as new? Eli lost an ear during a drunken duel in Marrakesh and stayed half-deaf for three decades because he lost half his powers in a previous life and didn’t want to risk it.” I was equally fascinated by their stories as the fact that they had friends and lives outside of protecting me and mourning Annabelle.
“You must be starving,” Caleb broke from the conversation he was having with Embry to address everyone. He was looking at me like Sam did sometimes.
“Food would be welcome,” Gabriel agreed.
“Etta here?” Embry asked, looking over to a lighthouse, the only building on the island. The remnants of ships in the peninsula told me it wasn’t doing its job.
“She likes to come a week or so when I’m stationed at the safe house, but I think she enjoys running things when I’m gone,” Caleb smiled.
“She runs things when you’re home as well,” Embry pointed out with another smile.
“100 percent. But this is when she gets to remodel and throw away the stuff I never use.”
“Didn’t she already enact the Two Lifetimes rule?”
“I think that’s more for hats and shoes she swears will be making a comeback.” He even smiled while he rolled his eyes at her.
“You don’t live here?” I asked of the island while Caleb crouched down beneath a row of bushes. There had been a faint humming, but then I heard a click and it went silent. He emerged with a pebble, but Gabriel beat him to it and threw a rock at the wooden fence ahead of us. When it hit the wood and fell without getting electrocuted, Caleb went ahead and opened the gate for us all to go through.
“This is a refuge for The Gifted,” Caleb answered my earlier question. “If you get discovered, if you’re on the run, if something terrible is going to happen and you need to contact someone…We each do our time.”
“Even you?” I asked Embry. Gabriel had some extended absences, but Embry always came by.
“You can trade if you find someone who is willing, or who loses a bet,” Caleb shared.
“But the last time I was the guardian was 1841, back when it was in Argentina, and I’m not supposed to be back until 2086,” Embry told me, explaining why Gabriel was the one who knew how to get to the island.
“How can you plan that far ahead?”
“People move on, others step forward…Corbett will step in for any no-shows because he enjoys being here all by himself,” Caleb shrugged.
“How do people find you?”
“It’s not like all The Gifted are enrolled or on a mailing list. We don’t advertise, so a lot of them will never know we exist. Most of them fly under the radar so we don’t know about them. Lola can track Gifteds once they’re in their second life, but no one is ever forced to be a part of our club.”
“We need a treehouse,” Embry teased.
“Does everyone like fish?” Caleb polled when we got to the back of the lighthouse. Spears of fish were roasting atop a tiny campfire, surrounded by wooden logs and Adirondack chairs. An interesting setup for a mostly deserted island.
“It smells delicious,” was my answer.
“Then dig in,” he invited us.
Caleb handed us all a plate and fork, then brought the spear around so we could each take a fish. Once the first spear was empty, he scooped some sauce from a pot in the fire onto our plates and gave us each a tin foil-wrapped potato.
“No electricity on the island?” I asked of his primitive cooking practices.
“I like a little outdoors every once in a while,” he corrected me with a knowing glance at the guys, before going inside.
The food was delicious, and Caleb re-emerged with a stick of butter and a bag of shredded cheese.
“No onions?” Embry asked.
“Or sour cream?” Gabriel looked around.
“This is perfect,” I voiced.
“The garden has some onions you can dig up, but I don’t even know what sour cream is made of.” Caleb shrugged his shoulders apologetically.
While I dressed and ate my baked potato, I took the time to look around and explore the island, and the lighthouse. In addition to the fire pit and garden, there was a potato field, a forest and a lake. Unfortunately, the lighthouse, however beautiful, didn’t look like it could fit even one person comfortably.
“Are we camping?” I asked.
“Because of the campfire?” Embry asked me.
“And you’re taller than the lighthouse is wide,” I explained.
“It has a basement,” Caleb shrugged.
We stayed at the fire until it got dark, with Caleb offering everyone coffee from an iron pot, which only Gabriel accepted.
“You caught me on a cowboy day, but I can Martha Stewart like nobody’s business,” he let me know.
“No judgment,” I assured him.
“Ready to call it a night?” Embry turned to me in a way that told me the others would be staying up. I wanted to say no and be a part of whatever conversation they were about to have, but a yawn escaped. I felt exhausted.
“Sure,” I agreed instead.
I followed Caleb inside the lighthouse, which looked as rustic as I had expected, but with a shiny fridge in the corner that looked out of place.
“Etta?” Embry asked.
“If the water isn’t ice cold, she won’t drink it. She forgets that she used to drink from a well, but it’s either this or she leaves me for Clyde.” He winked at me before lifting up the rug in the middle of the room to reveal a latch.
“A basement?” I asked. The lighthouse might be like the manor, that held more secret passageways than I could count.
“Isn’t that what you call the town-like tunnels under your house?”
The ‘basement’ was like a submarine with huge iron doors that could lock off sections.
“Is the new plan to lock me up in here until he gets tired or I run out of food?” I asked, thinking it might be their endgame.
“This has been the Safe House since 1918. That’s when we made a sturdier version of the tunnels. Bringing trench warfare home,” Gabriel explained the décor.
“Your very own bunker tomb,” I commented.
“Not everyone gets a head start like you,” Caleb pointed out. “Some locations have been exposed, but others were destroyed when their Big Bads caught up with them…it’s only a safe haven for as long as it’s safe.”
“I appreciate it,” I said, feeling the guilt. I wasn’t a fan of my situation, but I was incredibly grateful everyone I cared about was okay.
“It’s what I’m here for,” Caleb assured me before explaining the system. “Pick a room and write your name on the chalkboard, so people know it’s yours. Erase it when you leave.”
“Thank you,” I told him before going off and doing as I was told.
From what I could tell, all of the rooms were identical, with a bunk bed, a desk and a small wardrobe. There were communal washrooms at the end of the hall, but I had no idea how many rooms this place held. The first chalkboards had names on them, but we were the only ones on the island at the moment. Delia had a heart beside her name, someone else drew a top hat on Jacob’s and there was a note that read ‘food stays in the kitchen!’ on another one. I chose the first empty room on my right, not wanting to venture too far into the maze and get lost. The guys went off, either to explore or to reclaim their own rooms. I put my bag inside the wardrobe and sat on the bed. At first, I was just going to look around and organize my thoughts, but then I got so tired that I fell asleep on the bed, without even bothering to get under the covers.