Intuition: The Premonition Series (49 page)

He shakes his head and says, “No.”

“I blew him a kiss,” I admit, remembering the giddiness and euphoria that had pushed it’s way through the pain in that moment. It was the moment when my enemy had been reduced to a feast on the floor of the place he had helped make my prison. It was the moment when my uncle was avenged for what was done to him because of me. I know that a part of me loves Brennus for giving me that gift, and that scares me more than I can say.

“Red… ya got his toxic venom pollutin’ yer body. It’s distortin’ yer reality. Y’all just spent some time in hell and they worked ya over pretty good down there, I can tell,” Russell says, trying to reason with me. “Freddie killed what was essentially the only parent ya ever had and terrorized ya for months,” he adds, and when I won’t look at him, he grabs me by my chin so that I have to look at him. “He planned yer total annihilation and I’m glad he’s dead, and if I could’ve been the one to do it I would’ve enjoyed it, but it would’ve taken me longer ‘cuz I think he died too quickly. He should’ve suffered longer and that doesn’t make me evil. That makes me an angel.”

“It was Alfred, Russell…he turned in Reed and Zee. I betrayed them. Alfred couldn’t turn them in while I was with them because then he wouldn’t get my soul. But, when I left them, I took that reason with me,” I say. I can’t look at Russell because the shame I feel is strangling me. “Are they dead?” I whisper.

“Red, this is not yer fault…” Russell begins.

In a rough voice, I repeat, “Are they dead?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “The girls are having trouble gettin’ any information because they aren’t Powers so…”

“So, they don’t have the rank to pull,” I say, finishing for him.

“Yeah,” he frowns. “We’re gonna take Zee’s plane to his island. Once we’re there, we’re gonna work on findin’ out where they are. In the meantime, Buns has some contacts that are gonna…”

“No,” I murmur.

“No?” he asks. When I don’t answer him he asks, “No to what?”

“No, I’m not going to the island,” I reply.

“Yer not?” he asks, and I shake my head. “Then, where are we goin’?” he asks in confusion.

“I’m going to Dominion,” I say. “You are going with the girls to the island.”

“THE HELL YA ARE!” Russell yells at me as he buries the needle of the car and turns the headlights off so that humans won’t see us. He is breathing hard and staring at me like he would like to strangle me. “How is goin’ in there gonna help them, Red?”

“I haven’t worked that part out yet, but I can’t let them die for me. I have to try,” I reply.

“Yer just gonna make them look like traitors. Y’all will confirm what they are suspected of,” he says, trying to reason with me.

“I’m not a Nephilim. There is a gray area here that we can exploit. We’re different… what did Brennus say…I’m as new as an archetype. If you have a new model of something, you wouldn’t necessarily know what to do with it. They could’ve been studying me to see if I’m evil…not protecting me, but protecting the world from me,” I say, looking at Russell. “Until they decided if I needed to be destroyed.”

“No,” he says, and then wipes his hand against his mouth. “Y’all don’t even know if they will let ya in the front door before they attack ya,” he points out, talking through his clenched teeth again. “It’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”

“How can it be worse than your last plan?” I counter.

“Because there’s no way out of it for ya,” comes his dark reply.

“But, other than that, it’s a good angle, right?” I say with a calm I don’t feel.

“How’s tradin’ yer life for theirs better?” he asks.

“Two for one,” I reply.

“Or, all three of ya dead,” Russell says with pessimism.

“Maybe they won’t kill me. You know, I’m like a danger magnet and they love that. They eat it up for breakfast,” I argue.

“Red, do me this one solid and just get on the plane when we get to the airport in Marquette. We’ll come up with somethin’ that isn’t a suicide mission,” he says, really angry now.

“It makes sense, Russell,” I say in a whisper.

“How does walkin’ into a room full of assassins that have been huntin’ for ya make sense?” he asks, not at all sorry that I’m having a hard time arguing with him because I feel like I’m dying.

“You said yourself that you don’t know if you can stop Brennus from getting me back all on your own. He’s going to find me, Russell—you know he will. Brennus has so much money it’s sick and he will use all of his resources to find us.” I have to pause to take a few panting breaths. “He has tasted me and he wants me—and I know for sure that I won’t be able to resist him next time,” I admit, beginning to shake again with fear as I remember the terrifying trip I just experienced. It had felt like I was slowly losing my mind. “We need Reed and Zee if we are going to survive. If they don’t survive, then all of this was for nothing,” I say, working the angle that I know he will be unable to dispute. “Brennus is going to come after you now, too. He wants you dead because you killed Ultan and Driscoll and because you are my soul mate. I can’t stop him alone and I don’t think the Reapers will fare very well against the touch of the Gancanagh. It will probably affect them and there is no telling what they will do to our girls.”

“But—” Russell says as he watches me shake.

“Russell, he is ancient and I don’t even know if he is from this world. Do you hear what I’m saying? If the initiation into their little family is that brutal, what is it going to be like when they really want to torture us?” I ask harshly. “If I go to Dominion, at least we have a shot,” I add, wrapping my arms around myself. I’m crashing, just like a junkie coming off of a drug and my body is reacting like I’m detoxing. I’m sweating and trembling with hot and cold flashes. Laying my head back against the seat, I smell Reed all around me.

“If yer goin’, I’m goin’,” Russell states firmly.

“No, they don’t know about you,” I reply. “It might freak them out if they think I can make more of us.”

“Can ya, do ya think?” he asks in a serious tone.

“I don’t know and I wouldn’t try because I wouldn’t wish being hunted like this on anyone—except maybe Alfred, but he’s not doing much of anything anymore,” I reply, and I begin to laugh hysterically because I’m no longer in control of my emotions. Tears spring to my eyes as I try to stop the inappropriate laughter that is bubbling up inside of me.
I must sound possessed,
I think, wiping tears away from my eyes that the laughter brings on.

“Why can’t y’all ever listen to me? Why can’t y’all just do what I tell ya?” Russell asks me with lassitude in his tone. Slumping his shoulders, I hear him say, “I just can’t figure out how to save ya…why won’t ya let me save ya, Red?”

Those are the same words he said to me before, when he had woken up on the floor of the convenience store after Alfred had stabbed him in the leg. “You can’t save me, Russ. God, I wish you could,” I whisper. “I wish that I could crawl into yer lap and just rest there forever. I would, you know, if it were that easy—I think I was very happy there once—but I can’t now—that’s not my destiny anymore,” I want to sob, to cry my heart out because I miss him and us.

“Yer exhausted, Red, and sick,” he says with a sad look in his eyes.

“You know, I just want a home—a family, somewhere that I belong—there isn’t any place like that, is there? I can’t hide anymore. There is no place to hide because something bad will always find us. Remember when you told me that this is all meant and we can’t stop what’s coming?” I ask, seeing him nod. “Well, I believe you. We can’t stop what’s coming.”

Seeing pain in his eyes, I know that there is nothing I can say that will stop it. I crawl over the console, breaking his grip on the steering wheel as I curl up in his lap and rest my head against his chest. I begin to sob big choking cries because my body aches everywhere and I’m so afraid. “Thank you for saving me, Russell,” I say as I snuffle and weep into his chest. “I didn’t want to die down there.”

His arm wraps around my waist, pulling me tighter against him. He rests his chin on the top of my head. “It’s all right…everythin’ is gonna be all right,” he murmurs in a soft southern drawl, trying to reassure me, but we both know he is lying. He holds me in his arms as he drives through the night, my ear pressed against his chest. I fall asleep listening to the steady beating of his heart.

CHAPTER 15

Goodbye

The private airport in Marquette is small; it’s just one airstrip with a couple of hangars to house planes, or any other aeronautic vehicle one might possess. When we pull up to a hangar that Buns has designated as the rendezvous, it’s little more than sheets of pressed metal riveted together to form a frame for the concrete floor and tin roof to enclose.

However dilapidated the hangar is, the contrast of the vehicle that the hangar houses is shocking, if one is inclined to be shocked by the strictures of angels. I’m not at all surprised that Zephyr’s plane is turning out to be a jet. Unfolding myself from Russell’s lap, I crawl back into the passenger seat of the car and stare at the sleek lines of the aircraft that is painted a high-glossed, jet black.
What else?

“Can ya walk, Red?” Russell asks me as he opens his door and the dome light turns on in the car. I shield my eyes from it because they are still used to the darkness of the cave and firelight.

“I don’t know—” I begin to say, before I am interrupted. My car door is wrenched open and I am unceremoniously dragged through it and group-hugged by Brownie and Buns, whom I never see coming.

“You are in so much trouble, Evie,” Brownie says as a tear escapes from her eye when she pulls back to look at me. “If you ever do that again,
I
will kill you,” she says furiously, before hugging me again. Buns doesn’t say anything. She just sniffles and hugs me tighter. “Come here, Russell,” Brownie orders. When he nears us, she pulls his arm so that he will come closer, and then grips his shoulder to pull him into the group hug. “You did it, Russell! Good job,” Brownie whispers to him.

“Had I known I would be surrounded by three beautiful females, I would’ve called y’all sooner,” Russell says, hugging back and pressing a kiss on the top of her platinum-blond hair, and then one on Buns’s honey-blond head. Then, he says in a serious tone, “Thanks for the car. All y’all were right, we needed it. I don’t know if we were followed or not, so we had better get on the plane. Where should I put the car?” he asks.

Brownie and Russell break away from the hug, but Buns doesn’t let go of me as she continues to hug me tight to her, crying softly into my hair. I cry too, even though I’m amazed that I have any tears left to cry, since I thought I had cried them all into Russell’s chest on the way here. Russell gets back into the car, pulling it into the hangar as Brownie guides him in. He parks it next to the jet, leaving the keys in it, and then he begins to pull out the bags he had stowed in the trunk. Presumably, it’s our money and some of our things from our apartment, but I don’t ask him.

Finally, Buns pulls back from me and scans me from head to toe. Her eyes come back up to my neck that I’m aware is still bleeding. Self-consciously, I touch the puncture marks that brand me as Brennus’, just as if I were his cattle and he had branded his mark into my flesh.

“Sweetie, those boots are hot, they make your legs go on for miles,” Buns says, referring to my black, thigh-high, suede boots that hug my legs like stockings. Buns bites her bottom lip to stop it from quivering.

I clear my throat so that I can answer her. “Thanks,” I say, trying to take a deep breath, but it hitches a little as I go on, “the Gancanagh have an evil eye for fashion.”

Buns’s eyebrows come together in a scowl. “I’m going to carve Alfred into a thousand pieces and feed them all to the griffins,” Buns says in anger as another tear escapes her. She dashes it away with the back of her hand.

“Too late, the Gancanagh already ate him,” I whisper, and see her eyes grow wide.

“Oh my God, sweetie! What happened?” she asks, and then she notices me sway on my feet. She clutches me under my arm, leading me toward the shiny black jet in front of us.

Silently, we enter the aircraft and I don’t know why I was expecting it to be like a commuter plane with rows of seats crammed in it, but it’s nothing like what I had expected. The décor of the plane is black and camel with accents of butter cream and off-white. It’s elegant with large, graceful seats clustered in several different areas. The seats are covered in black leather that’s so soft and supple, that I can imagine falling asleep in one of them if I’m not careful. But there is no reason to sleep in a chair because the plane has a couple of bedrooms with large beds that can be used for that purpose.

Buns leads me by a kitchen. It’s equipped with stainless steel appliances and highly polished dark wood cabinetry, which makes it seem very sleek and masculine. The bathroom in the back of the plane, which is inside the master suite, is just as impressive as the rest of the place. Under different circumstances, I would’ve felt elated by it, but instead, I feel like I’m an intruder on a plane owned by someone I have bitterly betrayed.

Turning on the shower to warm it up for me, Buns pulls out toiletries. She rests a towel on the sink, along with a black silk robe that is several sizes too big for me. “After you are finished in the shower, I have something that we can put on your… cuts,” she says, instead of bites. I just nod, not looking her in the eyes because I don’t want to start crying again.