Independence (6 page)

"You mean…everything?" she said coyly
and smiled, too
.

"Exactly."

"I'm perfect
," she whispered. "Bett
er than fine. I know I
was kind of…crazy
before
.
I'm sorry. I felt a little out of control, a
nd you're
right,
I just feel so strange about everything and this
thing
in my body…just wants you." She shook her head. "Thank you for not taking advantage, for knowing me inside out and understanding that I'm such a girl sometimes."

I chuckled. "I love that you're a girl." She smiled and waited, knowing I had more to say. "I know the pull of our bodies is crazy, but my first priority is to protect you. I'll never hurt you in any way."

"I know." She smiled, thinking about the events of the night. "I like to st
raddle the line with you, though
."

I growled my words, "Oh, w
e're going to do more line straddling soon. It's a fact."

She gig
gled and man
, it was sexy. "Caleb Maxwell." She shook her head.

"Maggie Camille," I whispered and let her borough in once more. This time, we slept.

I woke to a
nuzzling at my neck. I moved my hands to find Maggie under them and still in my lap. She lifted her face and smiled before lifting her arms over her head and stretching.

Hell…

I gripped her sides through her thin shirt and
watched her as she looked around. And I saw the change come over her. She saw where we were and remembered what we were doing there. The afterglow was over, but that was OK. It was time to get to work.

I lifted
her
off my lap and set her to the side to help her put her socks and shoes back on. She watched me, biting her thumb nail, and
smiled softly until I was done. "Ready?" I asked her, knowing the answer.

"Ready."

We climbed up front and I sped down into the valley. She handed me another jerky stick and tore into a honey bun.
Her eyes peeled the hills apart.

The hours passed as we drove. The terrain was beginning to get ridiculous
,
even on the road.
The cabins that Ralph had been heading up to were all the way through the valley and up the mo
untainside. The SUV handled
it just fine, but I had to pay attention extra hard on the thin roads, which didn't let me look around much. Even I was beginning to get discouraged.

But when we came up on Ralph's car, Maggie was just done.

I screeched the car to a halt and Maggie was out of the car before I even stopped barely. I growled, "Maggie."

I knew she was worried, but
the girl was crazy if she thought I was going to let her hurt herself.

She ran and I jumped out to follow her.
She threw open the passenger door and her face crumpled when she found no one there. I reached her and put my arms around her from behind to keep her from running any further. "We knew they had abandoned the car. We need to go further in."

"I just thought maybe…they had tried to come back."

"
We won't stop looking," I promised. "Come on."

She obliged easily and let me put her back in the passenger seat of the SUV. The tyrant in me was front and center.
I took deep breaths as I jogged back to my side and climbed in. I drove around Ralph's
car and bounded through the open gate that led to the new road. Maggie was quiet and that was all right. I turned on the radio again and gripped her hand as we kept looking.

She squeezed my fingers in silent thanks. She leaned forward on her elbows and let her eyes sweep the terrain and trees. I heard my phone beep and pulled it out of my front pocket. It was letting me know cell range was now gone.

Great.

We needed to be careful or we'd end up stuck out here ourselves. At least I had told our fathers where we were. And I hadn't even checked their return text messages from that. I was sure they were
n't
pleasant, especially Jim's, b
ut I was the Champion of my clan
now. It wasn't like I needed anyone's permission to take the Visionary on a quest that she'd gotten a vision for.

I winced thinking about Jim. The man already struggled to like me. I was sure this hadn't helped the situation any. But Maggie was what mattered most. Not being down with the in-laws wasn't unhe
ard of by any means
.

I glanced over at her. She was so focused she wasn't even picking up anything I was thinking. She had no idea what I had planned for the house that was to be her wedding present. I was going against everything the Virtuoso had done before me. I was sure my family would be upset and appalled, but the one thing Maggie had taught me was that I had to do what was right for me, right for us.

I knew exactly what I was going to do, it was just the manner of executing the plan without heads rolling that was tricky.

By the evening I had to refill the tank. It was all we had
left
and I hated to say it, but I had to tell her that if we hadn't found them by the morning, we had to head home. She nodded in understanding, but was frustrated. She'd gotten the vision for Beck, so why couldn't we find her?

We got out and walked for a while. She called for Beck and I called for Ralph. We searched along the bush and hedge line for any kind of place that people could hide in…or in this case, fall asleep from exhaustion and hunger.

When nightfall came
,
I took Maggie back to the car as she cried softly.
She felt like a failure and I had no idea what to tell her. Her ability was to get visions as the Visionary, so why would she get a vision for Beck only to never find her?

This time we lay in the back as I folded the seats down.
I laid my hoodie down and
climbed onto
it, beckoning her to me. She nuzzled her face into my neck, for comfort but also
as
a way to hide. I sighed, but sa
id nothing as I stroked her hair. I was starving. The beef jerky was gone and we wanted to save the drinks and crackers for when we found Beck and Ralph, but it was looking more like
if
we found them.

But I saw it when she saw it. The vision smacked into her with enough force that she flew onto her back. She sat up and saw the cave behind her eyes in her mind. She started to go
and I knew she was being le
d by some other force
,
just like she had been before. I didn't say anything. I just followed close behind as she ran.

I began to get worried when it had been ten minutes and she was still hustling
along the dirt
. She began to stumble over the rocks and
things. "Maggie," I complained, but she kept going.

"I can't stop," she said softly and then gasped as her body swung her to make a sharp right. And then we were looking right at a bright red shoe peeking out of the small cave. We both took off toward it.

"Beck
," Maggie sighed as she knelt down to the prone forms of her friends. "Ralph," she barked and shook his arm. "Beck!" Maggie's hand touched Beck's cheek and she patted it gently.

When Beck's eyes flew open I sighed and thanked the big guy. Maggie didn’t squeal or
laugh or say anything at all. She just lifted Beck's head to rest on her knees. And then she told her over and over again that everything would be OK, that they were fine now, that we were taking them home.

I told Maggie in our minds that I was getting the car and ran all the way. The bumps and
bangs on the SUV had me cringing as I bounded over the rocks and hills and bushes to get back to them, but I'd apologize to Uncle Ken later.

A million bad things were going through my head as I slammed the car to a stop and got out to go to Maggie. Was Ralph even alive? And Maggie's vision…she only showed them alive, it never said they would make it. And if Maggie's friends didn't make it, I could only imagine the amount of guilt Maggie would bury herself with.

I pushed that to the side and knelt down next to Maggie. She was exactly as I left her and when I touched her arm to get her attention, she jolted a little. "Baby, let me have her," I told her. She gulped. "Let me take her."

She nodded and I lifted Beck into my arms and ran as quickly as I could to the backseat with her. I laid her down gently, settling her legs in the seat with her, before running to the back hatch and lifting it open. I went back to Maggie and saw her wet face as she stroked Ralph's hair.

Hell.

"He's alive," she said to stop my thoughts. "Barely."

She backed away and I reached down to heft him over my shoulder. Dude was a freaking tank. I grunted all the way before slamming him as gently as I could into the back. Maggie climbed in the back, too. I wasn't surprised. She immediately began opening
a
water
bottle
and trying to pour some into his mouth.

S
ee if you can get her to drink, Caleb. Please.

I opened the other door on my side and
looked down at Beck's face. I reached for one of the bottles and saw her eyes open. She tried to sit up so I helped her. She drank and drank and drank. She wiped her mouth with the back of her shaky hand when it was drained and asked where Ralph was. I pointed to Maggie in the back.

That must've been what she was waiting for, because when she saw Ralph taking small sips from Maggie's bottle, she lost it. She gripped by arm so she wouldn't fall over and was wracked with sobs. I slid onto the edge of the seat and put my arm around her. I was glad that Maggie was too focused to be reading their minds right then. I did not want to live the hell they had lived. I was sure it was nothing but
absolute hell
.

She cried, but there were no
tears on my shirt. She had nothing in her system to produce them. I closed my eyes and was thankful we found them, and apparently, just in time. They were safe now, and Maggie was now safe from her own guilt…I hoped.

Beck looked back once more over my shoulder and watched for a second before leaning forward and whispering to me. "Did I imagine all that glowing light when you found us?"

Crap. "It was a flashlight," I tried.

"No," she insisted and shook her head. She gave me the
'no bullcrap'
look. "No, it wasn't."

Double crap. How was I going to explain the energy ribbons from Maggie'
s gift to a human?
So I took the coward's path a
nd changed the subject. "You lie
down back here." I shifted to ease her back down gently. She sighed, letting me know she knew something was up and knew I was playing the deflection card.
"So what happened?"

Her lip started to quiver. I leaned down and put a hand on her head to hopefully offer her some comfort. I felt a little s
t
ing go through my arm. I realized it was my body warning me that this girl didn't belong to me
and I wasn't supposed to be touching her. She wasn't Maggie
. I pushed it away and tried to keep up my comfort
of Maggie's best friend
. She started slow. "We ran out of gas. But Ralph had just filled up about an hour before that so I knew something was wrong. The gauge said we were empty, but that wasn't possible. Our cells didn't work. We waited and waited and then decided to try to find
someone or something when night came and… and we knew no one was coming for us. But then we got lost and couldn't find the car again."

"It's OK," I soothed, but under my breath I was cursing Marcus. I
knew
he had something to do with this. Knew it. "Shh. Sleep, all right?"

She nodded and let a breath go that said she was exhausted.

"Babe," I called
quietly
back to Maggie before rounding the back and sitting on the edge of the trunk. "How's he doing?"

"He drank the whole bottle down
." She smiled in relief. "I think he'll be all right."

"OK
, well…" I hated this next part. "We can't take them
to a hospital…or
home, you know that right?"

She sighed and nodded. "I know. The Watsons can't know that they're alive."

"
We'll find a hotel in town and then we'll go back to my place tomorrow. Figure out what to do from there."

"Are you going to be OK with that? All of us invading your space?"
She bit her
lip. "I mean, I've never even been there."

"Are you kidding? Of course I'm fine with it.
I would like
to have you there all alone, but…" Even I heard my voice go all husky.
She scooted out from under Ralph's head, who had passed back out, and met me at the back. I helped her down and wrapped my arms around her. "You in my space is what I've wanted from the very beginning."