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"We're getting closer. Drive faster." I sat up and pressed my hands to the dash, my heart racing inside of my chest.
"I'm going over a hundred, Rouge. We'll be lucky if I don't roll this thing over." His tone was demeaning, though I knew he didn't mean for it to be. He was tired and most likely broken up over everything that had happened with Caleb. The man was like a father to Michael and Grace.
Too bad their real father is a scary-ass monster.
"Drive faster," Grace barked from the backseat.
I wanted to thank her, but I left my thoughts unspoken. Michael was on edge. We all were. There was going to be a horrific fight on our hands by the time we reached my brother.
"How long have we been driving? Where are we?" I turned to my boyfriend and reached out, squeezing the thick muscle of his thigh.
"Hours. Probably five. We're three hours away from the facility from what I can tell on my phone. They have to stop for gas or food sometime soon. Can you see Rob still? Is it like an all-the-time thing when you close your eyes or what?"
"It's like astral projection. I can force myself into the back of the van with him, but I'm worried about doing it too often." I pressed my fingers to my face and rubbed softly. Weariness had set in a few hours back and I was sure I'd dozed off again.
"Does it leave you feeling weak?" He glanced over at me. “We don’t want it to hurt the baby.”
I glanced down and rubbed my hands over my stomach. It wasn't obvious I was sporting a baby bump unless someone knew what they were looking for. Even then, you couldn’t tell. “It does make me a little tired.” I tried to brush it off as not effective enough to hurt anything inside of me.
"Then don’t do it again." Michael reached out and pressed his hand to my stomach as I glanced up at him. "You sure know how to create distractions to avoid talking about the serious stuff." He winked at me. “When we get Rob back, you and I are having a sit-down conversation.”
“Okay.” I smiled and covered his hand with mine. "I'll be careful, I promise. But I’m probably going to need to peek in on them to see where they are. The beacon is still as bright as it was during the night and definitely a lot closer."
Grace yawned in the backseat loudly. "Can we please make a restroom stop? I'm starving and need to go."
"Sure." Michael took his hand back and pulled into the next convenience store we saw.
Grace hopped out and I followed her into the store with Michael right behind me. He and Grace went to the restroom while I waited in the small hall outside.
I pressed my back to a rack of cans and closed my eyes, willing myself back into the van with Rob. He was sitting up, his knees bent and head pressed to his hands. From the slump of his posture I could tell that he had given himself over to defeat.
"I'm coming," I whispered, not at all expecting him to respond, but he did.
His head jerked up and eyes went wide. He moved to his knees and reached out toward me.
"Jamie? What’re you doing here?" His voice was nothing more than a whisper, and his eyes darted back and forth between the front seat and me.
"I'm coming for you. We've almost caught up. Where are you?" I glanced toward the front, getting more than I did the night before. The guy driving wasn't someone I knew, but the woman sitting in the passenger-side seat was Rebekah.
No!!!!! Anger burned through me and I jerked my attention back to Rob.
"We're headed for Salt Lake City." Rob moved back to his seated position and put his head in his hands as a male in the front seat jerked around. I didn’t recognize him.
"Who are you talking to, mutt?"
Rob ignored him and I jerked back, scared that he might see me like Rob had, but he glared at my brother for a split second and turned back around.
Sadness rolled over me at the fact that our mother hadn't said anything in Rob's defense. It was bad enough that the hunters had my brother and were carrying him to his death, but to know that our mother was intimately involved was horrifying. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she might be responsible for this. What the heck was her connection to Caleb? Or was there even one?
Was Rebekah not really Rob's mother? Maybe she was just someone who took care of him when he was younger. He was a Grollic. Bentos had a habit of killing off his children, what about a wife or two as well?
Rob moved and my vision focused back on him. "We'll be there in a couple hours. That’s what the GPS is reading. Hurry. I'm going to fight like hell, but I'm outnumbered already and it's only going to get worse." He looked up from his hands at me as a smile played on his lips. "I knew you would come."
"I’ll always come for you, just like you would for me. We’re trying to catch up. Hold on and keep fighting till we get there." I wanted to reach out and steal a warm hug from him, but I was nothing more than a ghost in the midst of his tribulation. I pulled back and let out a cry as Michael walked from the bathroom.
"Rouge. What's the matter?" He took me by the arms and half held me up as my knees threatened to buckle.
Large tears dripped down my cheeks and it was suddenly so hard to breathe. I reached for him and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my face against his shoulder.
"Are you in pain, Rouge?" His voice was all business. He sounded like Caleb.
"No." I managed to get out one word before a soft sob left me. The situation with my brother was horrifying, but the heartbreaking part was that the woman he believed to have birthed him, to have loved him like no other was part of his coming death. Why?
"Hey, what's going on?" Grace moved up beside me and put her face in mine. "Is something wrong with Rob?"
"He's alive," I mumbled and pulled back before wiping at my tears. "They're a couple of hours away from the facility. We need to hurry."
"Why are you so upset?" Michael glanced between me and Grace and held up his hands in a show of surrender. "I mean, beyond the obvious reasons."
"Rebekah’s in the passenger seat.”
“What the hell?”
I understood Michael’s confusion all too clearly. “It breaks my heart... for my brother." I shook my head and turned, disappearing in the restroom and leaving Grace and Michael to work the rest out. Their story wasn't much different from mine or Rob's, but having Sarah and Caleb there to raise them had to help out a little. Rob had Rebekah, but I had no one.
I almost felt like I was in the better position because of it. Caleb had sunk his knife in deep with Grace and Michael back at his house. His deceit over promising sanctuary and then attacking us the minute we got there had to hurt deeply.
My brother felt the same level of hurt, no doubt. A shudder ran through me, but I forced my thoughts away and worked to wash my hands and my face before rejoining my companions.
After picking up a few bags of chips, some powdered donuts and a soda, I was back in the SUV with Grace and Michael and ready to hit the road.
"You know we're going to have another fight on our hands when we get there," Grace mumbled from the backseat between bites of her corn chips.
"It should be on a lesser scale this time." Michael sat up straight, his attention on the rearview mirror. "There should be four or five hunters there, but none of them will be as strong as Sarah or Caleb. Let's just pray they aren't there."
"Yeah. I'm not at all ready to see them." Grace was hurt, and she should be.
"We need to try to find a place to hide the car and go in on foot." I glanced toward Michael. "Waltzing in there like we own the place is going to get all of us killed."
"There is no 'going in on foot', Rouge. The facility sits on a cleared three-acre plot of land. We'll be driving right up to the front door. All I can tell you two is that you need to be ready to fight. We'll get inside because I'll run through the gates and hit the door with the vehicle. After I do, we get out and Grace and I will rush whoever is in the main hall on guard. Rouge, you find Rob and once you do, get back to the car and we'll join you shortly."
"I don't think she should go in at all. She's pregnant." Grace leaned up in the front seat and smiled at me as I glared at her.
"I'm not sitting in here while you two put your lives on the line for my brother." I shook my head. "It's not happening."
"Michael. Tell her. Seriously. It's not safe." Grace poked at her brother.
He swatted her hand back. "Stop that. I'm driving."
"Tell her," Grace urged him.
Michael glanced toward me and I gave him my best, 'you better not' look. He swallowed and shrugged.
"I'm not telling her anything. She's capable of bringing down the whole place on her own. We're all needed." He took a long drink of his coke as Grace huffed and flung herself back in her seat.
"You really think I can bring the whole place down?" I turned my attention to Michael as his words sparked something to life inside of me.
"Yes. You're the seventh son of the seventh son and a hunter. I honestly think your father had it right. You're beyond important to this fight we have coming up. It's going to be you that wins it for us, and where that scares me to death... it excites me too." He glanced over at me and reached for my hand, pulling it to his lips and kissing my fingers softly.
I tugged my hand from him, not wanting to feel the foreign feelings of lust that lay deep inside of me. Now wasn't the time, and too many battles lay before us to relax into a life well-deserved just yet. The war was still looming in the distance and where I found truth in Michael's words, I still didn't understand it.
Up to that point I'd done well against Grollics and the hunters, but in the fights with my father, I'd lost over and over again. He was beyond powerful and evil incarnate. How many more chances would I get to try again?
None. This next time would be my last. Finality sat heavy on me, but a spark of recognition lay inside my chest. I would win this next time. I was ready... I just needed to figure out what the power of three was and gain the final objects. With those beside me and my friends at my back, we would win this thing.
"I have a question." Grace's voice lacked depth, as if her thoughts had carried her far off, much like mine had me.
"What?" Michael's tone was flat, monotone.
"After this, I assume we're going after Bentos."
"What seems like the right next step?" Michael glanced back up in the small mirror and nodded.
I decided to stay out of their conversation for a minute to see where it would lead to.
"If Rouge kills Bentos, then won't all Grollics die?"
Pain filled my chest at the thought of annihilating a race of beings that everyone thought deserved the sting of death, but me. I knew there were good ones. It was so incredibly unfair.
"I do believe that's how it happens." Michael looked over at me. "Do you know the answer to her question?"
"No," I whispered and turned to look out the window as the sun sat high in the sky. "I'm hoping we figure out a different way around it all by the time our next fight comes."
"The Grollics have to die, Rouge. They're beasts."
I looked back at him and shook my head. "No, they're shifters, which leaves them half human too. You're not different from them. You don't belong here where the humans rule and reign. I don't either."
"She has a point, plus, there are some really good ones just like there are some good hunters," Grace offered up.
"I would say that all hunters are good, but that's not the case at all, is it?" Michael sat back in his seat and pressed his fingers to his mouth.
All of us would have to go through the process of figuring out how to redefine good and evil. It wasn't so clear-cut as we'd thought it to be only six months back. Then it was easy. Grollics were beasts from hell and the hunters were angels from heaven, sent to fight back evil and save the day. Sort of. But not really either. But angels were considered good, right?
But now... Joshua and Rob had blown that theory out of the water, and Caleb and Sarah had muddied the truth. Who was right or wrong was almost irrelevant. The only purpose I had in mind was to remove true evil from our path, which would include my father and Michael's.
I reached over and took his hand, leaving our intertwined fingers in his lap and pressing my cheek to my shoulder.
He needed to know the truth of what I'd discovered. The dark angel was his and Grace's father. I wasn't sure what it all meant, but knowing something and keeping it from him left me feeling horrible.
"I'm not killing my father until I find out how to save my brother," I mumbled while watching the handsome boy who had stolen my heart and planted life in my belly.
He nodded and turned to watch me for a moment. "And if there is no saving anyone... then what?"
"I'm not ready to consider that just yet." I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Wake me up when we reach the facility. I'm so tired."
"Just rest. We'll figure this out piece by piece. This first one is to get Rob back. We'll do that and then figure out what's next. Stop rushing into the future. Stay with me here in the present."
I squeezed his hand and released it, clasping my own in my lap and letting the darkness take me. Michael was right. The future was far too frightening to try and traverse it alone. I needed him and Grace beside me, but I also needed my brother.
We're coming. Just hold on a little longer, Rob.
