“What did you do?” I gasped, quickly revising my thoughts that older people were nice.
“We’re ready. We don’t need him anymore. The families have packed and the last one is leaving. The unmated are following as escorts. Gabby has given the location of the last ten so they can be avoided. We are all that remain.”
I stared down at Joshua’s lifeless form and felt like crying. His death didn’t bother me as much as the timing of it. I’d meant for him to live to pressure Luke to replace the Claim. Now there was no reason for Luke to give up his stubborn determination to keep me at arm’s length.
“Come, Bethi,” she said lifting my bag and holding out a hand. Lethal hands, I thought still dazed.
We walked through a quiet compound. A sense of cold anticipation filled the halls. Doors to apartments stood open. Small things like lamps and blankets were missing. The large pieces of furniture remained. What had I started? They all trusted me. They’d listened. For the first time in all the lives I’d recalled, the people around me had run before it was too late. Did it mean things would change this time around?
Outside, the remaining cars left the parking lot in an orderly fashion. Sam stood on the porch watching it all. Three cars waited nearby with their doors open. Gabby stood near one, her eyes unfocused. Clay stood just behind her, a hand on her shoulder. They both faced the Compound.
“The Urbat have turned,” she said when I stepped onto the porch. “A small group, though.”
“I’m not surprised,” I answered distractedly. I couldn’t see Luke.
Nana nudged me aside, and I watched Carlos stride past carrying Joshua. I hadn’t even known he’d been following us. He stepped off the porch and headed for the woods.
“Where’s he going?” I asked. We didn’t have much time if the Urbat were headed toward us.
“Taking him to the woods. Charlene put her heart into this place. Maybe they will leave it be if he’s found out there,” Nana said moving past me.
She slid into the backseat of one of the cars, sandwiching two little boys in between her and Jim. Michelle and Emmitt sat in the front. I doubted they’d been given the time they wanted to cement their Claim. Emmitt started the car forward as soon as Nana closed the door.
“Sam,” Gabby said, “we need to leave
now
.”
Carlos emerged from the woods at a run with Luke at his side. My heart went crazy. Deep down, I’d thought he would leave without me because of what I’d done.
Sam held out his hand and helped me from the porch. He, Clay, and Gabby climbed into his truck while Luke, Carlos, Grey, and I quickly filled the remaining car. Luke kept his distance from me, leaving the space of the middle seat between us. I hugged my arm to my stomach, not so much for the stitches, but for the emotional maelstrom of doubt that lived there. We left in a hurry. Everyone followed the same road heading south. From there, cars in the caravan started taking random turn-offs.
“Does everyone know where to go?” I asked.
Grey answered. “Gabby gave everyone several safe locations where the Urbat population is low. The Urbat are mostly in the north-east so everyone will avoid that area.”
“Tell Gabby we need to find somewhere safe enough to stop for a few hours. We need to plan how to get Peace before the Urbat find her.”
Grey nodded but said nothing. Hopefully, he was talking to Sam.
I glanced at Luke and found him watching me. It hurt to look at him. My eyes burned, and my lips trembled. I struggled to keep it all in. I didn’t think a simple apology would make up for what I did to him but said it anyway. He gave the barest of nods and reached across the seat to clasp my hand.
His touch, the light rumble of the tires over the road, and an already long messed up day did me in. My eyes fluttered closed and a single thought floated to the surface before a dream pulled me under. I hate car rides.
I woke with a gasp. Luke’s hand was stroking my cheek. My head lay back against the seat.
“You all right?” he asked softly. He’d turned toward me, but he still kept his distance.
The tires still rumbled over the road as I lifted my arms. I flexed my hands and wiggled my fingers as I swallowed hard. “They cut off my fingers. One by one.” I let out a shaky breath and closed my eyes again. “Can we stop for an energy drink or something?”
The car remained quiet, and I opened my eyes just in time to see Luke and Grey share a look.
“What?” I demanded looking between the two of them.
Luke picked up one of my hands and started massaging the fingers. After what just happened to them, it felt great. But, he looked out the window while he did it without answering me.
Grey gave me a wink. “You were only out five minutes. Gabby said the Urbat seem to be tracking us. We’re heading for the interstate. She’ll let us know as soon as it’s safe to stop.”
I groaned and dropped my head back to the seat. Even with Luke holding my hand, I’d dreamt of death. It wasn’t enough.
Shifting my position often and rolling the window down to let in the cold air helped, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to fight off the dreams while sitting still like this.
* * * *
Five deaths later, we finally pulled into a nice hotel crawling with people. Our four vehicles parked close together. Michelle’s brothers tumbled out of the car, climbing over a laughing Jim. Emmitt quickly walked around the front to open the doors for Michelle and Nana. Thomas did the same for Charlene. Clay opened the door and stood aside while Gabby slid out. She looked tired, too.
As soon as Carlos put our car in park, I flung open my door and scrambled out. My skin still crawled from the last dream. Charlene and Thomas walked ahead to book us rooms. I hurried after them.
“No credits cards,” I said to Charlene, walking beside her. She nodded and approached the desk.
I waited for Michelle to enter the lobby. “How much cash do you have?”
She looked at Emmitt. “Three hundred,” he said.
Shaking my head, I glanced at Gabby who had joined our group. “You said we needed to go east. We need enough cash to make it there. I don’t know how deep the Urbat are into the human world. If they have any connections, they could use credit card transactions to track us. ”
“I have no doubt Blake could,” Michelle said, keeping her voice soft. Her eyes followed Jim as he took the boys down a side hall to check the pool. “I have someone I trust who can wire me some money.”
“Good.” I turned and almost ran into Luke. He caught my arms before I could walk into him. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
Just behind him, Charlene turned away from the desk. “They only had five rooms,” she said joining our group. “One is the honeymoon suite.” She handed a key card to Emmitt with a smile. “The others are double queens.”
She held up the remaining cards.
“Sam can room with us,” Gabby quickly offered. I didn’t miss Clay reaching up to sooth her back. She looked over her shoulder to give him a shy smile.
“I thought you and the boys could sleep with us, Nana,” Charlene suggested. Nana agreed, and Michelle looked relieved. Her brothers would be well protected.
“Jim can join us,” Grey said, looking up at Carlos. “Right, darling?” Grey teased.
Carlos stoically agreed.
Luke grabbed the remaining room card without a word. A room to ourselves. A room with two beds. Yeah, I didn’t let my hopes get too high.
“Let’s meet in the suite first,” I suggested. “If they catch up to us, I want a plan laid out.”
Five minutes later, we gathered in the suite minus Jim, the boys, and Nana. They splashed in the pool.
“I’ve been all over the board with my explanations. So let me be clear with what I’m trying to avoid. Dying. It’s not fun,” I said. “We need to stop their power trip. I don’t mean just in this life and cycle but future lives and cycles, too. We need to rob them of their chance to control us in this life. We need to make their search hard and their goal nearly impossible.” I did
not
want to live through another brutal death in my next life. Old age would be a new experience for me.
The thought sparked inspiration. “We need to change the game,” I said with a growing smile.
“What do you have in mind?” Sam asked.
Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for the argument that I knew would ensue. “As I mentioned, there are six of us. We represent different things. Prosperity, Hope, Wisdom, Strength, Peace, and Courage. According to Gabby and Michelle, the Urbat already have one of us. Courage. They can’t have
any
of us because all of us are needed to make a Judgement this cycle.” I knew in my heart I spoke the truth. The world was so unbalanced it wobbled. “We can’t get to Courage. There’s just no way with our numbers. That’s why we need to expose werewolves and Urbat to the humans.”
As expected, denial broke out.
“You can’t be serious,” Thomas said.
“We’ll be at their mercy,” Sam added. “We don’t go to hospitals for a reason.”
“I first saw you at one,” Gabby pointed out.
“I was visiting a human friend,” he waved away the reason. “We’ll end up in cages.”
“No,” I said, but no one listened. “Just calm down,” I shouted, quieting the room.
“Hear me out. They have the advantage. There are more of them. They know what’s going on, and we don’t. Not fully...not yet, anyway. They’ve been building up connections in the human world.” I looked to Michelle, and she nodded in agreement. “We need to come into the light before they do. Show the world that Werewolves exist, show we’re not bad, and then expose the Urbat, too. We need to show that we’re different from the Urbat and that they are trying to hurt us.”
“If we direct human concern toward the Urbat and not Werewolves, we will have less to worry about. The Urbat won’t be able to creep around trying to hunt us because the humans will be watching. Urbat won’t be safe.”
“Neither will we,” Sam said.
“Not in your fur, you’re right. You’ll need to let everyone know to keep it under wraps. And the ones that can’t, shouldn’t go outside. But we can’t expose everything until we have Peace. She takes the panic and anxiety down to almost catatonic. And Charlene can help keep everyone on the same page,” I added. “Werewolves are good, Urbat are bad.”
Charlene looked uncertain.
“We’ll keep the initial group small,” I assured her. “We need to find someone at a TV station to take us seriously enough to give us air time. We want this to be recorded at their studio to give it more credibility.”
“I might know someone,” Michelle offered hesitantly. “She interviewed me once.”
“Perfect!” I said, excited and feeling like I was on the right track. “When we’re there, Charlene will need to grab everyone in the room and keep them from thinking they should call the National Guard to make us into lab rats. Meanwhile, Peace will keep everyone in the studio from freaking out. The first impression werewolves will give is a calm and kind one. It wouldn’t hurt to have a spokesperson who looks sweet and unable to snap someone’s neck,” I said, knowing the Elders were communicating.
Grey laughed slightly. “Winifred is not comfortable with being the spokesperson and wants me to remind you clothes don’t change with us.”
“We’ll bring a robe,” I promised. “By exposing ourselves—no pun intended—we are robbing the Urbat of their advantage. They can’t hope to win against humans in an outright war. There are too many. Their technology is too advanced. A bullet in the head would kill any of the three races just the same. If we tell the world we’re the good guys, and warn them to watch out for the bad guys, we’re more likely to make it harder for the Urbat to win this time around.”
“More likely?” Carlos questioned, speaking for the first time.
I blinked at him. “I didn’t think you actually talked.” He didn’t answer, just continued to look at me. “Okay. Well, historically, the Urbat would find as many of the Judgements they can, and torture us to get our obedience. But one of us always dies too late in the cycle for rebirth and stops them from obtaining their goal. So I can’t promise this will work. It’s never been done before.”
“We agree we should find Peace before the Urbat do,” Sam said slowly. “But we will need to further discuss revealing our race before we make a decision. We need to do what’s best for the pack.”
“Exactly,” I stressed. “The pack will die as it is. It can’t stay hidden. The Urbat are crazy desperate. The things they’ve done...” Luke’s fingers threaded through mine.
“We have to stop them.”
“We agree,” Grey said. “We just need to think everything through.”
He was right. We had time to discuss the necessity of revealing the Urbat and Werewolf races to the humans. I held in a sigh and contented myself with his “maybe.”
“Fine. But we need to plan our next stop. I’m not sure if traveling together is a good thing or not, but in case we get separated, we should have a place picked ahead of time.”
Michelle used her phone to find another hotel a day’s drive east of where we were. We all agreed on it, and she made the reservations.
Charlene excused herself and promised to bring back something to eat. When she and Thomas returned, they had one of the turkeys and several containers of the meal they’d been working on before we left the Compound.
Everyone piled food on the plates she brought. I sought her out. “I’m really sorry you didn’t get to have your nice meal.”
“No, Bethi. What we’re doing now is much more important. For years, I’ve felt a...itch, I guess you’d say. Like I was supposed to be doing something, but I never could figure out what. The itch is gone now. I know what we’re doing is right.”
She lifted her arms and offered a hug. I went in willingly and fell into the abyss.
“Do you have Courage?” the Taupe Lady whispered from the black.
“No. They have her. But I hope to change that.”
“You must have Courage,” she answered. A cool hand caressed my face and, for the first time in months, I felt completely at ease and free of the terror and desperation.
“Unite,” she whispered. “Before it’s too late.”
Someone tapped my cheek, and I struggled to stay under, but the Taupe Lady had already faded taking the serenity with her.
I lay on the ground looking up at the bottoms of everyone’s plates. “Go. Away,” I mumbled. I couldn’t even sit up. It would kill my stomach.
“What happened?” Thomas asked. I turned my head and saw Charlene lying next to me.
“She really shouldn’t touch any of us too much,” I muttered. “We drain her.” He frowned at me, but Charlene opened her eyes forestalling whatever he’d been about to say.
“I’m fine,” she reassured him. “Just takes me a bit to pull it all back in.” She turned and looked at me. “What happens when we do that? Besides draining me.”
“Our abilities flare. Gabby’s lights ignite with no effort on her part.” Gabby’s fork hit her plate in shock. “Oh, sorry,” I apologized. “The dreams are chaotic and usually painful rather than helpful, but I have actually learned a bit about us. I didn’t mean to say something you’d rather I didn’t.”
“No,” she assured me. “It just keeps surprising me how much you know.”
“And yet there’s so much I don’t.”
“Do you need help up?” Luke sat on his heels beside me. He already knew the answer, but I liked that he asked first. I nodded, and he slid an arm behind my back.
Luke helped me stand then walked me to the table to a chair. I felt fine. Gabby followed and sat with me while Luke went to fix me a plate. Nana, Jim, and the two boys stormed the room looking for food. Emmitt caught one of the boys mid-run and lifted him into the air.
“They have a waffle maker,” the boy said with a smile, wrapping his arms around Emmitt’s neck.
“Really?” Emmitt looked very interested. “We’ll have to beat Jim down there, then. Will you come wake us up in the morning?”
The boy nodded and started the put-me-down wiggle.
Gabby distracted me from watching the happy family. “Could we ride together tomorrow?” she asked.
Luke walked over with a heaping plate. My stomach cheered for both of them, plate and man.
“Sure,” I said to Gabby. “But I’m not much fun. I tend to fall asleep all the time.”
“Maybe conversation will help,” she offered.
I shrugged and bit into a forkful of stuffing heaven. But as I tasted it, I thought of home and had a hard time swallowing. I really wanted to call my mom. She had to be beyond crazy with worry by now. But I was too afraid I’d find out they had her, too afraid of what I’d do to try to help her. I knew I should wait until we exposed the Urbat to give her a call. My eyes fell on Nana who was speaking to Charlene. Charlene’s color was coming back. She and Thomas sat on the edge of the bed eating together.
“Nana?”
She turned her head to look at me.