Relentless (19 page)

Suddenly his hand was on the side of my face, and I jerked my eyes up from the sandwich I’d been making.

“I’m glad,” he said softly.

“Glad about what?” My voice cracked on the words, and I thought I sounded a little breathless. Maybe I was a little breathless.

“That you know who you are and who you want to be. That’s important.”

I thought he moved closer to me. I thought I might have swayed toward him. I couldn’t be sure. Inside, a piece of me I couldn’t control trembled. From the door, I heard Brynna laughing then Robert’s voice saying something to her. Jared’s hand fell to his side, and he returned to stacking sandwiches.

“All this werewolf stuff is new to me. The whole picking the mate thing I really don’t understand,” I said slowly.

“It’s hard for me, too. I guess on some level I see the need because they want to carry on their culture and the pack and keep it genetically as healthy as possible.” Jared stared at the counter. “On another level, it seems so unfair that everyone can’t choose who they want to be with.”

“Right, that’s what I think, too. But Brynna did say that some people are allowed to choose; not everyone has their mate picked for them. To go completely outside the pack, like I did, is a big deal. It’s not like I planned it that way or anything. By the time I found out Eric was a werewolf, we’d already been seeing each other.”

“So if you get to choose your own mate and pick someone who’s Lycernian, you might not have this problem.”

I tried not to hear the hint in his voice. Or maybe I was just imagining the hint. If things had been different, if I hadn’t met Eric first, if we hadn’t fallen in love, then maybe I would have seen Jared differently. Right now, he was a friend, and because of Eric, because of how I felt about him, that was all Jared could be. I shrugged in response to his question because I didn’t have the words to explain to him. Maybe if he fell in love, really in love, with someone, he’d understand. He’d know how I felt. For his sake, I hoped when he found someone, things went more smoothly than they had for me, like Myles and Lana.

He let the subject drop as Brynna stepped inside the coach.

“Can I have a sandwich?” she asked.

“Yeah, I made a bunch.  Here’re some bowls. I heated up gumbo from the freezer.”

“Mmm. That sounds good. I love Louise’s gumbo, and I feel like I haven’t had anything hot to eat in days. Thanks for getting it together, Lex.”

We filled our bowls and settled into the banquette. Brynna scooted over to let Myles sit by her. Jared and Robert leaned against the counter eating.

“Be sure to get out and stretch your legs,” Myles said. “We’ve still got a good bit of driving to do.”

“You don’t think Alexis’ aunt will report her motor home stolen, do you? I’d hate for the police to stop us,” Robert said between bites.

Myles laughed. “I imagine they’ll want to solve this themselves. It’s not like they want us to get a criminal record.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

We all ate quietly for a few moments, then Brynna pushed her bowl aside. “Do we have any kind of plan in mind?”

I shook my head. “I hope I’ll be able to see exactly where they are when I lie down to rest later.”

“What if you don’t?”

“I know where the house is and the general location of the lab. We’ll just have to go from there.”

“If you can get me close enough, maybe I can hear what we need to know.” Brynna said.

“True enough,” I agreed.

I had to remember that I wasn’t the only one with special talents. Brynna’s hearing was so keen she could hear things long before anyone else.

“I still can’t believe they’d take Daryl and Lana because of what they were working on in the lab,” I said.

Robert shook his head. “It’s a huge breakthrough. If they could make it work, we could kill the virus in all Fenryrians, and they’d never get it again. However, it is hard to imagine they’d want to kidnap Lana and Daryll at this stage. The research is really in its infancy, and who knows if we’ll ever actually be able to do it.”

“Maybe they wanted Daryl because his dad’s that big senator and the head of several committees,” Jared spoke up.

We all stopped eating and stared at him.

“What? You guys didn’t know?”

“I’m wondering how you knew?” Brynna questioned.

“Daryl told me.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t have more protection,” Myles said.

“I think he was really trying to have a normal life. It sounded like he hadn’t had much chance of that.”

“If he’d wanted a real life, he wouldn’t have come to our school. If you haven’t noticed, none of us has much of a normal life. At least not by regular people’s standards, not even regular werewolf standards.”

“Maybe he was attracted to the glamour and excitement,” Brynna said with a smile.

“Right.” Jared waved his half-eaten sandwich in the air. “You have to admit, it’s not your everyday garden variety school. I never learned fighting and weapons or running bloodwork in a lab at my old school. When I first came, I wondered what the point was. I thought I could stay home and figure out the whole werewolf thing by myself or at least with the families in my community. But now that I’m here and we have this in front of us, it’s like…I know why I am what I am. I know what I need to do with my life.” He stopped abruptly and bit into his sandwich as the rest of us looked at him. “Okay, you guys probably think that sounded weird.”

“I was kind of thinking it sounded like something I need to write down as a quote,” Brynna said.

I nodded. “I only hope we can get in and get out on this rescue.”

“And I hope that if they see it’s you, they don’t decide to kill you on the spot.” Brynna pushed Myles on the shoulder so he’d let her out of the seat.

Myles gathered up his leftovers and dumped them in the garbage. “We have a long way to go. Let’s get started.”

“I’m going to try and take a nap.”

They all went quiet.

“No, a real nap. I don’t intend to travel around anywhere in my head.”

Brynna climbed into the passenger seat as Myles took the wheel. Robert threw his plate and cup away then stretched out on the sofa. Jared followed me to the back of the coach.

“Mind if I lie down here with you? Robert’s on the sofa, and there’s not really anywhere else for somebody my size to lie down.”

“So long as you don’t snore, we’ll be fine.”

“I don’t think I snore.”

“I’ll let you know if you do, then I’m kicking you out.”

I snuggled in the soft comforter and stared at the ceiling above me. The mattress swayed as Jared lay down. I wiggled over, trying to make more room.

“Geez, you take up a lot of space.”

“Sorry.”

“I guess we’ll be glad of that at a later point in time.”

“I hope so. Even though I don’t have all the skills you guys do.”

“Yes, you do. You haven’t found them yet. You were naturally born with some things, but I promise, if they didn’t think you had super special abilities, you wouldn’t be at this school. Not just any werewolf gets to be part of The Project. You have to have special abilities in science or special physical abilities.”

He turned his head toward me. “What do the rest of the normal werewolves do?”

We both laughed. “Right, the normal ones. They get to stay home and be normal. They go to regular high schools and colleges. You probably had some at your school. I did. I found them after I learned I was a werewolf.”

His head twisted on the pillow until he was staring up at the ceiling again.

“So you can really hear people’s thoughts?”

“Sometimes, but that one is really hard. It has to be a werewolf and he has to be in wolf form, or I can’t hear him. I’ve only been able to do it occasionally, and usually it was in a highly stressful situation. Except with Louise, who I can hear all the time while in wolf form. I don’t know why it’s that way with her, it just is.”

“Brynna said the traveling and the telepathy are linked.”

I twisted my head on the pillow to grin at him. “Well, yeah, it’s all in my head.”

He laughed. “I’d say that means you have a pretty interesting head.”

“Hmm. I don’t know about that.”

“I do.”

Neither of us spoke for several minutes, and I wondered if he might be asleep. He wasn’t.

“He loves her, you know.”

I frowned. “Her who?”

“Lana.”

“Of course Myles loves her. They’ve been mated for years.”

Jared shifted on the bed, causing me to roll toward him. We lay on our sides now, facing each other.

“I’m not talking about Myles. Robert loves her.”

I sat up so I could see through the hall into the living area where Robert lay on the couch with his eyes closed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. They’re friends, co-workers. Of course he cares about her. They spend time together.”

He propped himself up on his elbow, resting his head in his hand. “Come on now. I know Myles is your friend, but I thought Robert was going to kill you that night in the cafeteria. That’s love.”

I shuddered, still feeling the weight of Robert on top of me, the saliva dripping onto my face from his bared teeth. Dropping onto my back, I studied the ceiling, trying not to see Jared out of the corner of my eye.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Jared rolled onto his back. “Not talking about it doesn’t make it not true.”

I continued to study him from the corner of my eye for a few more minutes. Lana and Robert, together, more than friends, I couldn’t even let myself think of it, not now. I closed my eyes, and the rocking motion of the vehicle made sleep easier to find.  I don’t know how long my eyes had been closed, how long I’d slept, but slowly my eyelids seemed to open, and I was in the coach. Jared was propped up on his pillows watching me sleep. I was above myself looking down on the two of them. Okay, that was kind of weird. I was thinking about myself in the third person. It seemed as if I was somebody else.

I hovered for a few seconds, noticing how Jared lay on his side now. His hand reached over to gently sweep back a strand of hair that had fallen across my face. Then I was gone. Out the roof, into the sky, and even though I hadn’t been trying to travel, I did. Within seconds, I could see the mountain range ahead of me, the log house below me. There, just behind the cabin, only a few hundred yards up the mountain, was the entrance to…something.

Trees grew on the rocky cliff.  I knew the door was behind them. From high above, I watched a figure approach.  I moved closer, through the trees and into the brush. I stopped in front of a rocky wall covered in snow and dead plants. A young man stood in front of the wall, and I hovered behind him. He reached out and moved a piece of rock that jutted out from the rest, and the flat stone in front of him slid aside. At first glance, it appeared to be just a cliff face. But when I studied it closely, I could see how its edges were a bit too perfect, too nicely fitted. If I’d been on a hike, I would have never given it a second glance. Wind lifted my hair, and suddenly I passed through the door and into a hallway right behind the young man.

To my left, an archway opened to a room with tables and a counter. There was a refrigerator and a microwave. It was a small kitchen or break room. A man and woman sat at a table eating. They didn’t look up, and I knew they couldn’t see me. My heart rate increased anyway. The stone floor had been honed to a smooth finish and covered with a shiny lacquer. Muffled footsteps approached, and I pressed myself against the rough-hewn ceiling and started moving again. Down the hall, past rooms with archways and other rooms with closed steel doors. I shivered even though I knew I didn’t really feel the cold. The place seemed colder the deeper I went into the tunnel. There were no choices to make, only one hallway, and I followed it. Finally the hall came to a dead end with passageways to my right and left. To my right, there was darkness, but to my left, the lights illuminated what looked like cells. I moved in that direction. Large rooms had been carved into the stone, and bars formed the front wall. The entrance, here off the hallway, was barred, too. At the back of each cell was a door to what I guessed might be a bathroom. Each room had two twin beds. Lana and Daryl had been placed in separate rooms, and they both waited in their respective cells. I studied the ceiling but saw no skylight, no venting system. I moved farther down the hall, hoping for some other way in and out besides the front door. To get in and make it all the way back here and then get out might be impossible. Only a few yards past the rooms, the tunnel ended. I wanted to scream. There was likely some other way out, but it would take time to find it. Somehow we’d have to come up with a major distraction to gain entry. I heard voices again and hurried back to the front of Lana’s cell. The voices grew louder, and I knew they were coming this way. They turned the corner and stopped in front of Daryl’s cell. I hovered above them, pressing myself to the ceiling. It was Eric, standing beside his father. Their resemblance was uncanny. Back in Louisiana this summer, there had been another man Eric had said was his father. Obviously all part of the elaborate lie he’d been living. This was his father. This was Brodin. My hands knotted into fists as I resisted the urge to touch Eric’s hair, smooth back the piece that hung into his eyes. He was part of this. I wanted to believe he was only doing his father’s bidding, that he didn’t have a choice. Then another person rounded the corner. The boy was as big as Jared, with red hair. I wanted…needed to stay and hear what they said. But I saw the boy stiffen the minute he came to a stop. I slid across the ceiling past them. I could vaporize myself through the roof, or at least I thought I could, but I really wanted one more look at the entry.

“Someone’s here.”

Eric and his father turned to the boy.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.” His eyes focused on me as I hovered. “I feel like we’re being watched.”

Eric studied the ceiling. “Where? Is it a camera?”

“There.” He raised his hand and pointed directly at me.

I started moving fast up the hall. I tried to take in as much as I could, but the big guy was right behind me, reaching out as though he could grab me. He couldn’t. I wasn’t really there, or at least my real body wasn’t. But how could he see me?  What if he caught me? Would I die? Would my real body somehow materialize here? I didn’t have answers to the questions, and I pushed hard upward, the cold rock surrounding me. I couldn’t see where I was going and didn’t know how to get out of the mountain. The pressure of the earth and stone felt like it was crushing me. I could barely breathe. I pushed my hands over my head, reaching for the sky, wherever it might be.

Light filled my brain, and the intake of air into my lungs was audible. I jerked to a sitting position and was nose to nose with Jared.

“You’re back.”

“What do you mean? Did I leave, like, really physically leave?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. Your body was here, but you wouldn’t wake up, even when I called your name. Your breathing was almost nonexistent. I tell you, it freaked me out. I don’t think you need to do that again.”

He was still in my face, and his words seemed to roll across my skin. Our eyes met, and he stopped, even though it appeared he might be going to say something else. We stared at each other.

“I…” My voice shook and stopped.

“I know,” he said softly. His hand pushed back the wild hair that kept drifting into my face. “I’m just glad you’re back. You scared me.”

I nodded.  He leaned away, and I took a deeper breath. Whatever had been between us dissipated. He moved to the edge of the bed and got up.

“Come on. We need to let the others know you saw something. You did see something, right?”

I nodded and followed him.

Myles was behind the wheel, and Brynna sat in the passenger seat. She turned as we came up. Robert rolled to a sitting position.

“It happened again, didn’t it?” Brynna said. “I can tell by your face.”

“They’re definitely in Durango, Colorado. Not in town, though. It’s out near the mountains. I’m not sure about the roads, but I think I’ll recognize the way as we get closer.”

Myles nodded as Brynna spun around and began to punch at the screen of the GPS attached to the dash.

“How hard will it be to get to them?” Myles asked.

I didn’t answer immediately but met his eyes in the mirror just above his head.

“Very.”

He turned his attention back to the road. “We can do it,” he said.

“Of course we can.” I needed to be confident, for Myles’ sake. I wasn’t sure at all.

The motor home slowed and veered off the interstate along the ramp. Myles rolled up to a gas pump and climbed out.

“After I gas up, I need you to drive, Jared. I want to talk to Alexis about what she saw.”

Jared nodded then went out the side door of the motor home with Robert and Myles behind him.

Brynna spun in her seat. “Is Lana okay? Is she hurt?

“She didn’t look good, but she didn’t look injured, either.”

“It would kill Myles if something happened to her.”

I nodded. There wasn’t much else to say. Brynna was right.

The other girl pushed out of her seat and went to the door. “I’m going in the store to get a soda. Want one?”

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

Halfway across the parking lot, I realized where we were. “We’re in Louisiana. Not that far from Lebeaux where I met you guys last summer, where all this started.”

“Maybe where it all started for you, but this didn’t just start last summer. We’ve been battling the Fenryrian horde since long before my great-great-five-more-times-great-grandparents were born.”

“Okay, so it’s where everything started for me. And they’re not really a horde.”

She glanced at me. “You defend them because you’re stupid in love with one of them.” She lowered her voice as we entered the store.

“I defend them because they aren’t all monsters,” I hissed back at her.

Brynna stopped with her hand halfway to the refrigerated case. “Alexis, we’re all some kind of monster to the average human.” She leaned closer to me. “Or did you forget for a second that we’re all werewolves?”

Frowning, I reached past her and jerked the door of the case open and grabbed a soda. “No, I didn’t forget. They don’t look like a deadly horde. They have a different culture, different beliefs than the Lycernians, but that doesn’t mean that everything about them is wrong.”

She stared at me, her eyes widening, still holding the door open without reaching in to get her drink.

“What?”

She shook her head. “That’s the first time you’ve said something that really made sense. I guess some of them are only doing what they’ve grown up knowing to do their whole life, so maybe to them it’s not wrong. It’s just their way of life.”

“Kind of like the way you’ve grown up. You’ve learned to hate them your whole life.”

“I don’t hate them.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Okay, well maybe I do hate them. But it’s for our own pack’s survival.”

“Maybe they feel like what they do is for their pack’s survival.”

Finally, she reached in the cooler, grabbed a drink, and slammed the door shut. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop making sense. When did you start making sensible arguments?”

“I’ve always made reasonable arguments.”

“That is so not true.” She turned her back on me. “I’m getting some chips.”

I followed after her. “Maybe you’re just seeing my wisdom now.”

“I said you made a sensible argument, not that you were wise. Don’t push it.”

I had to laugh, and even Brynna smiled.

“I’ve seen him, you know. Brodin.” I kept walking then realized she’d come to an abrupt stop.

“Did you really see him? How did you know it was him? What did he look like?”

“Exactly like Eric.”

She didn’t move from where we’d stopped in the aisle between the potato chips and the candy bars. I picked out a bag of vinegar and salt chips and a Snickers. Brynna grabbed Doritos and a Milky Way. We moved on to the counter and paid. In the parking lot, she still hadn’t spoken.

“What is it? Does it surprise you that he looks just like his dad?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I wanted him to look more like an evil villain. But if he’s an older version of Eric, then he’s just a nice-looking older man.”

I nodded. “Yep, pretty much.”

“I’m still going to hate them,” she said resolutely as she opened the motor home door. “I have to for now, or it completely messes up everything I’ve believed my whole life.”

“You do realize how stupid that sounds, right?”

She went inside and slid into the banquette seat. “I do. But that’s just how it has to be for me, for now, anyway.”

I settled onto the sofa as the guys came back, and we began to bump along the parking lot then made our way back onto the interstate with Jared now at the wheel. When I looked toward the front, I saw him glance up at the mirror and smile at me. I smiled back, though I wasn’t sure if I wanted to or even meant to. Jerking my eyes away, I uncapped my soda and took a long drink, letting the acidic liquid burn my throat.

“So tell me what you saw.” Myles dropped onto the sofa beside me.

“They’re in a cave in the mountains. It’s kind of hard to see, but someone went inside, and I think I can get us there.”

“How many entries?”

The saliva in my mouth dried up, and I took another drink of soda before answering.

“Just the one that I could see. There may be another, but it’s not immediately visible.” The words came out ragged and desperate. Like I felt.

“You’re kidding. One way in and out?”

“One way,” I assured him as I twisted the unopened candy bar on my lap.

Myles fell back into the seat cushions with one hand rubbing his forehead.

“I guess we have to make it work. What else can we do? Are you sure there’s not a hidden escape route?”

“When I go there, I see what I see. If I’d seen someone use a different route out, I’d know about it. But if it’s hidden, well, it was hidden, and I didn’t see it. I can’t read people’s minds.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You do read people’s minds or at least hear their thoughts in some way.”

“That’s only in wolf form, and it doesn’t happen all the time.”

“Maybe you should travel there in wolf form and try and read their minds.”

“And maybe you should realize that I really can’t control any of this stuff. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m just worried.”

“So am I. They’re being held at the very back of the cave, and it’s a straight tunnel with rooms carved out of the mountain on either side. They’re in cells made with rocks and bars.”

Myles was quiet for a moment then looked toward Robert who was sitting across from Brynna in the banquette and asked. “Do Lana and Daryl really know enough about this new DNA treatment for the Fenryrians to want to take them? Surely there are other scientists who know more than two teenagers at some school lab. Why them?”

Robert shook his head. “I don’t know. There are others who’ve been working with it more, but no one’s done extensive work because they need a Fenryrian who’s been born immune to the virus. Those are almost nonexistent.”

Myles nodded. “I guess why doesn’t really matter at this point anyway. Here’s what we need to do. We’ll park the motor home before we get to where they are. We’ll travel to the cave in wolf form through the woods. We’ll need a diversion. Something to draw people out of the cave so we can get in and out.”