Burned (20 page)

She sighed. "So
that's why I need to be nearby. If I'm three miles away from you, I'm
not going to be able to see anything smaller than a bomb going off. I
considered just phoning in this particular guard assignment, but I've
never let Shawn down before this, and I don't want to start now."

"Okay, the
closer you are to me, the better you're going to be able to protect
me. I'm sure we could find a way to mask your scent from everyone if
we were to stick you in an SUV, but it wouldn't be a comfortable
solution. I can only see one other way to do this. I'll go back and
get my RV, and meet you a mile or two away from our camp. You'll
spend the next few days in my room until I can get someone to pick up
another RV for you. We'll stick some air fresheners out in the main
living area, and I'll just keep everyone out of my RV between now and
then."

"They'll
know that something is up. They'll know that you've got someone in
there with you."

"Yeah, but
they won't know who."

Vicki
considered the plan for several seconds and then nodded. "Okay.
I'm not sharing your bed though—you'll be sleeping on the
couch."

"Of
course. I'll get started back now—my phone has been off for
long enough that people are going to be worried about me."

Alec Graves
The Caravan RV Park
Tucson, Arizona

When I stepped
into my RV, I found Jasmin and Jess both clustered over Brindi,
giving her motionless form CPR.

My mind was
whirling as I sprinted over to the three of them. I couldn't remember
for sure when I'd last seen Brindi—when she'd last gotten the
fix she needed. I'd thought that she still had a few hours before she
would be getting to the critical zone, but it seemed I'd somehow lost
track of time and not been here when she'd needed me to be.

"Have you
called 911?"

Jasmin shook
her head as she continued with chest compressions. "We didn't
know if that would be okay. You were pretty clear about the need to
keep a low profile out here."

I already had
my phone out and was dialing.

"How long
has she been like this?"

"We've
been here for ten minutes—she's not cold yet, so she can't have
stopped breathing very long ago. Check her pulse, Alec, I'm having a
hard time getting back into position after taking my hands off of her
to check."

I grabbed
Brindi's wrist right as Jasmin stopped compressions and Jess leaned
back down to resume mouth-to-mouth, and felt a shock that was an
order of magnitude more powerful than just static electricity. I
recoiled instinctively from the spark, but Brindi started gasping for
breath and my insides started to unknot.

"Alec, you
came back."

Jasmin was
trying to take Brindi's pulse now, but she batted Jasmin's hands away
with one hand while reaching for me with another.

"Of course
I came back. I'm so sorry I wasn't here when you needed me. I thought
we still had time before you were going to need me. I guess I lost
track of an hour or two in there somewhere."

She looked
around disorientedly, searching for a clock. "I thought we did
too. I would have called you otherwise. I was starting to get
nervous, but I wanted to give you your space. I was feeling so tired.
I sat down to rest my legs—I guess I fell asleep."

I was trying to
fit the pieces together, but nothing was matching up with our
experience so far. Brindi had fallen asleep dozens of times leading
up to needing her next fix, but before this she'd always woken from
the shaking that accompanied the onset of the severe withdrawal
symptoms. If she was getting to the point where she was going to slip
into the danger zone without actually experiencing the shakes, then
we'd just entered dangerous new territory.

"How are
you feeling, Brindi? Do we need to get you to a doctor?"

She shook her
head. "No, I actually feel pretty good. My ribs are a little
sore, but other than that I think I'm okay. How come?"

I closed my
eyes, wishing I could clone myself. There were too many pieces in
motion right then for any one person to give them all the attention
they deserved.

"I have
something I need to do right now, something that shouldn't wait. If
you need to go to the doctor then I'll take you right now, but if you
think that you can wait, then we need to go do that thing."

"I'm
okay—Jess or Jasmin can wait here with me. If something starts
to go wrong they can drive me to the hospital."

I shook my
head. "Which will do absolutely no good. Until we figure out
what's going on, you're not leaving my sight. If you're to the point
where you don't start shaking before you collapse, then it's too
risky to let you get more than a few feet away from me."

Jasmin finished
checking Brindi's pulse, and stood. "Don't they have heart rate
monitors that people can wear on their wrists? We should outfit
Brindi with something like that so that you'll get an alert if she
stops breathing."

"That's a
good idea, Jasmin. Jess, can you please see to that? Jasmin, I'm
going to need you to let Carson and Taggart both know that Brindi and
I are leaving camp for a few minutes. We should be back before
anything bad happens, but I don't want them relaxing their guard
right now just because they heard that I'm back in camp."

The girls both
started toward the door. I could tell that they were curious about
what would make me drag Brindi away so soon after she had such a
terrible episode, but they knew that most of what I did these days
was need-to-know.

Before either
of them could disembark, Adri opened the door. "Alec, can we
talk? I wanted to…"

She trailed off
as she saw my arm around Brindi, hand pressed up against the bare
skin of Brindi's waist in an effort to both support her and make sure
she didn't fall back into withdrawal so soon after having her heart
stop.

I opened my
mouth, unsure of how to respond to Adri, but before I could come up
with the right words Carson stuck his head inside of the RV.

"Alec, I'm
sorry to interrupt, but we're starting to see odd power outages along
the southeast edge of the Tucson pack's territory. It's possible that
the local utility is just having problems in that area, but if not it
has all of the normal signs of a large werewolf pack. We've got maybe
twenty minutes before they arrive here—assuming that there
isn't another group ahead of the one that we're seeing."

I walked past
both of them and helped Brindi into the passenger seat. "I've
got to leave for a few minutes, but with any luck I'll be back here
before they arrive. Pull all of our people back here. We want the
biggest deterrent we can muster."

"That
isn't going to work if Puppeteer is controlling this batch—they'll
attack regardless of how many of us there are."

I nodded. "I
know. Even if Puppeteer isn't involved, it could still backfire on
us. Sensing this many wolves and hybrids together in one place could
scare them off, or it could just make them hang out in the area until
they feel like they have a big enough force to overwhelm us.
Unfortunately, it's our only option until I get back."

Carson shook
his head. "I know that you wouldn't be planning on leaving us
without a good reason, but we need you here. Your presence could make
all the difference in this fight, Alec."

I knew that he
meant my ability could make all of the difference. He was wrong about
that, but he was right in thinking that I was more valuable than most
of our hybrids—even without my ability. The massive sword I'd
stolen from my father had originally been created to give hybrids an
advantage when they fought against werewolves and the more powerful
jaguars out of South and Central America.

Carson had
spent untold hours with me forging me into a fighter capable of using
my weapon. I still probably wasn't quite a match for a single
werewolf all by myself, but I would be close—much closer than
any of the rest of my people.

"I'm
sorry, Carson, but I have to do this. My ability doesn't work on
werewolves. If it did we'd probably be having a different
conversation altogether, but it doesn't. The help I could provide
with my sword isn't as valuable as the help I'm headed off to get."

Carson
hesitated, obviously full of questions, but he knew that our
relationship was changing. The days when he could do more than
respectfully suggest an alternative course of action had come to a
close.

"I'll get
everyone rallied together and have them ready for whatever is headed
our way."

Adri shook her
head. "We still need to talk, Alec. If Brindi is going with you
then I should be able to go too."

"I'm
sorry, Adri. I know that this is terrible timing, but you can't come
with me. The help that I'm headed out to pick up isn't going to like
Brindi being with me, but there isn't any choice—Brindi could
die if I leave her here without me."

I could smell
her anger starting to rise, but even without that I would have known
she was unhappy—it was obvious in her stance and expression.

"No, you
can't do this. If she goes, I go."

My beast was
unhappy with the way that she was contradicting me, but I was having
a surprisingly easy time separating my emotions from his. I was angry
too, but my anger was a cold, controlled thing.

"Don't do
this, Adri. If you want to talk about Brindi then we can talk about
her, but not right now. I should have been on my way thirty seconds
ago, and every second we're sitting here puts our friends—my
people and yours—in more danger. You can go happily, or you can
go pissed off, but right now you're putting your feelings ahead of
the lives of everyone out there. It wouldn't matter how much I cared
for you, that isn't a contest you can win."

I turned away
from her and started flipping switches to bring in the pop-out
sections of the RV. I could hear her shift around, torn between her
anger and her common sense.

"Fine,
I'll go, but we are going to have a conversation about Brindi. I'm
not okay with another girl living with you like this—you're
going to have to come up with another solution to keep her alive."

I didn't
respond. I knew that ignoring her wasn't going to help my case when
we did finally sit down to talk, but with my anger in the forefront
like it was, there was too much of a chance that opening my mouth
would just make matters worse.

Twenty seconds
later we were on the road. I looked back in the rearview mirror just
before we turned onto the main road. Adri was still standing there
watching us drive away.

Alec Graves
Halfway between The Caravan RV Park and The Socorro Motel
Tucson, Arizona

I called Vicki
on my way to the motel where she was staying and asked her to meet us
at the halfway point. I didn't say anything about Brindi, but I knew
how she was going to respond when we arrived.

Saying that
Vicki wasn't happy about Brindi's presence in the RV was an
understatement. I think the only thing that saved me was that I'd had
Brindi go back into the bathroom and lock herself in just before we
arrived.

That meant that
I could escort Vicki back to the bedroom without Brindi seeing her.
Vicki's scent was full of barely-leashed anger, and her body language
promised that there would be an accounting at some point in the near
future, but apparently she could see that I wasn't in the mood to
brook any kind of argument. My people were in danger and between Adri
and Carson I'd already wasted too much time getting Vicki and her
people back to our base of operations.

I got Vicki
safely back to my bedroom, waited for her to lock the door, and then
helped Brindi back up to the front of the vehicle. We got the RV back
in motion in near-record time, and Vicki got her people to follow us
in two of their SUVs. It meant that we were leaving more of a trail
for anyone watching by satellite than I would have liked, but there
wasn't anything that could be done about it.

As we pulled
back into the RV park, I turned to Brindi. "Could you dig around
back there for something to spray in the air to mask our visitor's
presence? We need to make sure that nobody can figure out their
identity."

"Sure
thing, I grabbed some air freshener when we stopped for groceries."

I parked the RV
and did a quick survey of the area as I unbuckled my seatbelt. It was
still dark, but there was a hint of light off to the east. That might
not save us if Puppeteer was controlling the werewolves to the north
of us, but if that wasn't the case then the threat of sunrise might
be sufficient to prevent the attack we were worried about. Werewolves
tended to only shift forms at night.

It was one of
the things that nobody understood about the earthborn. They didn't
seem intelligent enough to understand the dangers inherent in
humanity knowing that they were more than just a legend, but they
still kept a surprisingly low profile.

I opened up the
door to the RV and stepped out, leaving it open so that I would be
able to hear if Brindi collapsed again. Carson materialized out of
the darkness a second later.

"We're
still getting reports of electrical grid issues up north, but they
don't seem to be getting any closer. It's looking like it might have
been a false alarm."

I rubbed my
eyes. It was long past the point where I should have gone to sleep.
"Okay, there are some SUVs headed this way. They'll be pulling
up behind my RV and stopping there. They won't get out of their
vehicles unless we're attacked, and I don't want anyone approaching
closer than twenty yards of them."

"Your
help?"

"Yeah, but
the kind of help that is trying to keep a low profile so that the
Coun'hij doesn't find out they are working with us."