The Quest (17 page)

I agreed with Terry that this kind of thing was none of our business. As long as we were all getting along, or at least getting by, I’d cook and clean and teach CQC and learn blocking, and I wouldn’t stick my nose into anything that didn’t directly concern me.

“I’m so glad for Rachael and Scott,” said Candace one evening as she helped me prepare dinner. “Those two are the perfect couple.”

I shrugged. “I suppose it’s a good thing.”

Candace was my only assistant in the kitchen that day because Scott and Heather were training with Terry. Fortunately, we had all gotten quite used to the cooking routine and I no longer needed everyone in the kitchen for every meal.

“They look so happy together, don’t you think?” insisted Candace.

I gave a non-committal nod, my focus more on the carrots I was rapidly slicing.

“Adrian?” Candace asked hesitantly at my side. “How would you like to go out with me sometime? You know, just the two of us?”

I nearly sliced off my hand.

“Excuse me?” I said, hastily putting the knife down and turning to her. “You – you mean like, going out?” I stammered. “Like a – a couple?”

Candace giggled embarrassedly. “Well, maybe not a serious couple, but yeah. I thought we could just go out and have a coffee or something. I’m sorry. I didn’t know exactly how to say it. I’ve been meaning to ask for a while, actually, but…”

I shook my head and smiled, saying, “I’m deeply flattered, Candace. But I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

“You don’t like me?” asked Candace, visibly deflating.

“It’s not like that,” I insisted. “I think you’re really nice.”

Candace blushed. “Then what’s the matter?”

“Well, for starters, I’m already psionic, so I’d need hiding protection just to leave the house.”

Candace wasn’t buying that in the least. “What kind of excuse is that?”

Thinking of another excuse as quickly as I could, I suggested meekly, “I don’t date students?”

“Adrian!”

I sighed. “Look, it’s just not a good idea, okay?”

“Why not?” pressed Candace, gently fingering my hair. “Is it because I’m older? I heard from your sister that you used to date someone older than you.”

I pulled away and snapped angrily at her, “Well, maybe you didn’t hear that she was killed at the blood trial last year!”

Candace flinched. As often was the case when I lost my calm, my words had come out in a much harsher tone than I had intended. I stared down at the floor, feeling ashamed and embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” Candace said in a subdued tone. “I didn’t know. Alia wouldn’t give me any details. I just thought you had broken up or something.”

“I’m sorry I shouted, Candace,” I said quietly. “I really do like you. It’s just that I promised myself that I would never… you know… It hurts too much.”

“It’s just coffee, Adrian,” Candace said soothingly. “It’d be my treat, and we can just be friends if you like.”

I picked up the knife and went back to slicing up the carrots, refusing to meet Candace’s eyes.

It’s not that I didn’t see Candace’s point of view. There was no telling when Walnut Lane might be attacked, or who might be dead or converted a week from now. Might as well have all the fun we could while we were free and breathing.

And I had meant what I said to Candace. I did like her. I liked her cheerful voice and I liked her gentle, dark blue eyes. Candace had the most angelic smile which she dispensed at every opportunity. She always seemed to find the lighter side of things. While I couldn’t deny that something about her personality reminded me just a little of Laila Brown, Candace was more relaxed, more carefree, more the way I wished I was sometimes. In a better world, I would have been the one asking her out, months ago. But in this world, it really scared me. I wasn’t sure if I could survive another loss like Laila.

“What was her name?” Candace asked softly. I didn’t reply, but she figured it out. “Your sister named the baby after her, didn’t she?”

I closed my eyes and nodded.

“Alia says you sometimes cry yourself to sleep,” whispered Candace. “Is it for her?”

I wasn’t about to answer that for anybody, but I put my knife down and faced her again. “I’m sorry, Candace. I really am. At least I want to wait until this awful war is over.”

“I understand,” Candace said sadly. Then, before I could react, she leaned forward and lightly kissed my forehead. “But I think you’re in for a very long wait.”

February.

Merlin praised our progress in mental blocking. Terry and Steven were still lagging behind the class, but even they could break free of Merlin’s control given enough time. Of course, there was no way to accurately gauge how much psionic focus Merlin was giving us when he took control of our bodies, so I suspected that our instructor was adjusting the intensity of his control to our individual levels. Merlin talked more freely when he was controlling Terry and Steven.

Terry had to reprimand Scott and Rachael twice for breaking curfew and once for staying out all night. Meanwhile, Felicity’s overprotective attitude regarding Susan’s relationship with the two boys frequently led to shouting arguments between the sisters. Personally, I agreed with Felicity’s view that Susan was being a bit of a flirt, but I kept my mouth shut.

On Valentine’s Day, Candace gave me a large heart-shaped card in front of everyone at the dinner table, drawing cheers and catcalls from the crowd. Despite how embarrassing that was, I felt guilty about not giving Candace anything in return. Still, I had to keep this nipped in the bud, and it was better to seem uncaring than to risk Candace thinking that she had a chance with me. It would have been a lot easier if she wasn’t so sweet and pretty and… Oh, never mind.

The very next day was Cat’s birthday, but this year I forgot it as easily as I had forgotten my own.

I only remembered three days later when Terry asked in passing over breakfast, “Isn’t your sister’s birthday sometime this month?”

“No, it’s next month,” I replied, thinking of Alia.

Then it hit me.

“Oh, right,” I said awkwardly. “Cat’s fourteenth. I forgot.”

Terry laughed, but I shrugged it off, saying, “What do I care, anyway? She’s Catherine
Divine
now.”

“Then why do you still wear that stone around your neck?” asked Terry.

Touching my amethyst pendant, I replied simply, “Force of habit.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but I didn’t want to continue this discussion. Right now, I was much more concerned about Alia than Cat.

My second sister had returned ashen-faced from Patrick’s house yesterday evening. She had overheard Patrick’s foster parents talking about an airplane that had been hijacked by the Angels last year as it tried to escape New Haven. It was believed that all aboard had been taken captive, and that they were already converted.

I had checked and double-checked the story with Alia, and also with Patrick’s parents over the phone. There was no hard evidence that the plane in question had actually carried the New Haven Council. There had been quite a few Guardian planes leaving New Haven that night, and even now, many of them were unaccounted for. Of course, they hadn’t all crashed or been hijacked. Most of the Guardians fleeing New Haven by air had probably hidden their tracks just as Terry had done with our plane, and then simply disappeared so as to avoid pursuit by the Angels.

However, “disappearing” wasn’t the course of action anyone would have expected of the New Haven Council, which still remained missing in its entirety. I secretly agreed with Alia’s opinion that the hijacked plane probably was the Council’s. It took hours last night to halfway convince a teary-eyed Alia that there was still hope. I wasn’t even sure why I was trying to keep our spirits up anymore. It had been more than half a year. Though Merlin still maintained that Lumina wasn’t under a single hiding bubble, that in itself was no guarantee that Cindy hadn’t been converted. Cindy had once been the personal hider of the last Guardian queen, Diana Granados. Who was to say she wasn’t traveling with King Randal Divine now? If we really wanted to find Cindy, our best bet was to simply turn ourselves in and accept Angel conversion.

“So how’s Alia doing?” Candace asked me as she helped me wash the dishes later that morning. My sister hadn’t been at the breakfast table.

“She’s still in bed,” I replied. “She said she wasn’t hungry, but I’ll take something up for her later. Max can go to Harding’s by himself today, and if Alia’s not up by noon, I’ll call up her kids and cancel their lesson.”

“I wish there was something I could do,” Candace said sadly.

“She’ll be okay,” I said. “Alia’s pretty tough. We’ll just give her some time.”

My sister did get up for lunch, but she ate very little. I moved her kiddie-combat lesson to the next day so that she wouldn’t have to face her students in a weakened condition.

But it was the next day that everything once again fell into chaos.

Steven hadn’t come down for breakfast, and I had sent Walter up to fetch him. But Walter returned alone, saying that there was no answer when he knocked on Steven’s bedroom door.

“He’s not there?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Walter. “I knocked a lot. You didn’t expect me to actually open the door, did you?”

Steven was snappish and rude with everyone including me, but particularly with everyone excluding me. Still, that was no excuse. We had lived with Steven for a long time and Walter should have been used to that by now.

I looked at Walter irritably. “He could be sick, you know.”

Overhearing us, Rachael said, “Steven is eating at Mrs. Harding’s today. He asked me to give him hiding protection so he could go over first thing.”

“Really?” I said, surprised.

“Well, he didn’t exactly ask,” said Rachael. “More like ordered.”

That wasn’t what had surprised me. “What did Mrs. Harding want with Steven?”

“I don’t know,” said Rachael, shrugging. “Steven just said that Mrs. Harding had called and asked him to come over.”

Terry asked sharply, “Well, who picked up the phone?!”

Rachael shrugged again. “I don’t know. Probably Steven.”

There was only one phone in a house shared by fourteen, and Steven rarely left his room except at mealtimes and for training. Terry and I stared at each other, no doubt thinking the exact same thing.

Terry grabbed the phone and dialed Mrs. Harding’s number, but I already knew what she was about to hear.

Steven was gone.

We didn’t expect to find a goodbye note, but we checked his room anyway. There was no note, but further investigation revealed that our jar of petty cash in the kitchen had been removed.

“He’s gone home,” I said simply. “Back to Lumina.”

Steven’s father was on the Council. If the hijacked plane really had been the Council’s, Steven might soon be reunited with his family.

“That bastard!” Terry shouted in fury, kicking over a chair.

We wouldn’t particularly miss Steven, but the real problem was that once the Angels picked him up, he would be made to give away the exact location of Walnut Lane.

Mrs. Harding called an emergency meeting for the Walnut Guardian families that very afternoon. Representing the Refugee House, Terry and I attended the meeting together, leaving the rest at home. I had a feeling that we weren’t going to be very popular today.

“We tried to locate Steven before he was out of range of our finders,” Mrs. Harding told the visibly disturbed crowd that had gathered in her living room. “The hiding protection he received would have worn off within less than an hour, but unfortunately no one could sense him even after that time.”

Mrs. Harding looked quite upset, and paused for a moment before saying slowly, “We believe that Steven never made it out of our town. Most likely he was picked up and taken in by our neighbors.”

A few people in the crowd exchanged knowing glances. I didn’t know what Mrs. Harding was referring to so I looked at Terry for help, but Terry seemed just as clueless.

“At this time, I would like everyone to remain calm,” continued Mrs. Harding. “All of the information we have suggests that even if the Angels do plan to attack us, they will not be able to gather their forces for at least two or three weeks. We will relocate well before they get to us.”

There were murmurs of displeasure and worry from the crowd, and we received more than a few dirty looks. I felt the full weight of what we had done here. Because of us, the entire settlement would have to be moved.

Mrs. Harding talked over the noise, saying, “We all knew that this day would come. It was only a matter of time, and it is fortunate that we were not caught unawares. Now, I have already chartered a bus to move the children to our mountain camp. Everyone under eighteen years old will be evacuated first thing tomorrow morning. I will be asking for a number of adult chaperons to accompany them. The rest of us can take a few more days to wrap up our affairs in this town. With any luck, we will be able to leave Walnut Lane without incident.”

“What about them?!” called a furious voice from across the room. The owner of the voice was a middle-aged man pointing at Terry and me. A few others were nodding and staring at us angrily.

Mrs. Harding replied in a no-nonsense tone that quickly subdued the muttering crowd, “If I am not entirely mistaken, these two young Knights will be assisting our evacuation. We all voted for taking Teresa’s lost children into our community, so I see no excuse for your tone.” Mrs. Harding stared coldly back at the man who had shouted, and when he didn’t speak, she continued, “Now, I’m sure that those of you with children will want to get going and prepare for tomorrow. I will be making calls later to your houses to give you details and ask for volunteer escorts.”

The crowd dispersed, but Mrs. Harding asked Terry and me to remain.

“We’re really sorry,” I said once the three of us were the only ones left in Mrs. Harding’s living room.

Mrs. Harding smiled. “Nonsense, dear. As I just told the angry mob, it was only a matter of time before we were discovered. There are so many Guardians being converted these days, who is to even say the Angels don’t already know exactly where we are. At least this way, I have a good excuse to move the settlement before anything terrible happens.”