The Wanderers Beginning: The Wanderers, Reborn, & Unforgiven (49 page)

  
              “But aren't most guardians used to protect royalty and the wealthy?”

  
              “Yes, but not all,” he said. He looked at me unsure at what I was getting at.

  
              “Wouldn't you rather be out fighting the good fight then babysitting a bunch of stuck up snobs? I mean doesn't it get boring?”

  
              He took a sip of his drink and looked at me over the top of his cup. I could see the corners of his lips twitching. “I've dealt with worse,” he smirked.

  
              “Did you just insult me?” I asked, trying to hide my smile. He said nothing. I stole a piece of pepperoni off my pizza and popped it into my mouth. “So wouldn't this make you more like a secret service agent?”

  
              “If you prefer to call it that,” he shrugged. Clearly he wasn't one for titles.

  
              “So Gabe, you got a girlfriend?” I teased.

  
              “That is not an appropriate topic of conversation,” he said, regressing back to serious mode.

  
              “Why not, oh...gay,” I whispered. “It's cool with me.”

  
              “No,” he said a little louder than he intended to. He cleared his throat to try and correct himself. “No, I am not gay. This is just not a conversation I should be having with my employer.”

  
              “Technically my dad is your employer so...”

  
              “Miss Ella, it is not very professional to discuss my personal life on the job and therefore this is the end of the conversation,” he said, tightening his lips. Clearly this was a touchy subject and I didn't want to push his buttons. I didn't want Gabe to go back to his all work and no play, not after I got him to open up. So I let him be while we finished our pizza.

  
              After we finished eating I wasn't quite ready to go back yet, so I decided to walk around the hotel and check things out. Gabe offered up no conversation, but it was a comfortable silence so I didn't mind. On our way back I thought it would be nice to get some pizza for the rest of the guardians who were hard at work upstairs. I had a feeling they didn't get a chance to eat and thought they could use a nice break.

  
              My dad was pleasantly surprised when we came back with the pizzas. “Thank you, Ella. That was very thoughtful of you,” he said.

  
              “I figured you guys needed a break.”

  
              “Indeed we did,” he smiled.

  
              He let everyone relax and have a few slices before getting right back to business. I wanted to call Josie, but it was too late and I knew she would probably be sleeping. So instead I just went back to bed.

Chapter twenty-four

The next few days went by the same. My dad and the guardians worked all day every day and my mom just stayed out of their way. Josie came by to visit me a few times, but I still wasn't in the mood to talk. I basically just kept to myself, isolated in my room, and sulked. By the time the weekend rolled around, Josie said she had enough of me being miserable. “That's it Ella, I'm breaking you out of here.”

  
              “Josie, you know my dad is not going to let me go anywhere and I really don't feel like it either.”

  
              “That's why we're sneaking out,” she said mischievously. I gave her a look letting her know that was not a good idea. “The Halloween party is tonight and you and I are going.”

  
              “Josie, I –”

  
              “No excuses. We found some kick- ass costumes and you need to get out of this hotel room. I'm tired of you moping around and feeling sorry for yourself. You need to get out of here, but first you need a shower,” she said, crinkling her nose at me.

  
              “Hey,” I said, hitting her. “I took one this morning.”

  
              “Whatever.”

  
              I knew Josie was right. I did need to get out of here, but I still didn't think going to the party was a good idea. “No worries, I already talked to Billy and no one has seen or heard from Tristan so I'm sure he won't be there,” she said, taking my skepticism the wrong way. I sighed. That didn't make me feel better about the situation. I would have rather been told someone heard something from him. Hearing nothing made me worry more. “Ella, I know you're upset about Tristan, but he left. That was his choice, nothing you did. He was a dick for doing it but you can't spend the rest of your life holed up in this hotel room.”

  
              The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go, and getting out of this hotel room would probably be a good idea. I couldn't remember the last time I saw the light of day. “Okay, what's your plan?”

  
              Josie cheered giddily. “You're going to tell your mom you're staying in my room tonight and I'm going to tell my mom I'm staying with you.”

  
              “What about the guardians, they're everywhere?”

  
              “Already taken care of.”

  
              “How?” I asked, not liking the sound of this.

  
              “Well, I was doing some investigating and it turns out the first floor bathroom has an entrance to the back halls for the staff. We're going to excuse ourselves to go to the bathroom and sneak out through the back where Billy and Dixon will be waiting for us.” Before I could protest she was pulling me off the bed and out the door. I did as Josie said and told my mom I would be spending the night in Josie's room. She thought it was a great idea. I think she was just happy I was getting out of the bedroom even though I was just going to another one.

  
              I felt bad for lying to my mom and hoped when she found out she would understand. She suggested I take Gabe and one of the other guardians with us. I knew my guilty conscious would eat at me if I gave Gabe the slip, plus I knew he was too smart for that, so I came up with some story telling my mom that I thought he would be better use to my dad. She agreed but still sent two other guardians with us. We told them we wanted to go shopping in the gift shops down on the first floor. Twenty minutes into it we said we had to go to the bathroom.

  
              Josie shoved open the door to the ladies room and checked all the stalls for occupants. When she saw that it was clear she waved for me to join her by the back door. “Ready?” she said. I nodded and watched as she turned the knob on the back door only to discover it was locked. “Okay, I never said my plan was fool-proof,” she shrugged.

  
              “Well, at least you tried,” I said, walking back to the front.

  
              “Hey, since when did I give up that easily?” Josie said, hands on hips. I looked at her thinking there was no way out. She looked around eying everything. I could see the wheels turning in her head, coming up with another plan of escape. “I got it! The window.”

  
              “Josie, that window isn't big enough for us to fit through, not to mention it’s too high.”

  
              “We're not going through it,” she said, confusing me. She took out her phone and made a call. “Babe, change of plans. That backpack I gave you, bring it to the window of the woman’s bathroom on the first floor,” she paused, letting the other person talk.  “I don't know how you figure out which window it is. You just do,” she said annoyed, pausing again to let the other person talk again. “Okay, see you soon,” she said, hanging up the phone and sticking it in her back pocket.

  
              “Josie, what's going on?”

  
              “We're going out the front door,” she smiled.

  
              “What? They'll never let us leave.”

  
              “They're not going to know it's us,” she said, shaking her head like I was an idiot.

  
              “Huh?” I was getting more confused by the minute.

  
              “It's Halloween Ella, haven't you noticed all the people walking around in costume?”

  
              “Wasn't really paying attention.”

             
“Of course you weren't,” she said, rolling her eyes. There was a knock at the window. “Ella, give me a boost.” I interlocked my fingers, palms up, and Josie stepped on my hands. I lifted her up as high as I could so she could reach the window. “Thanks, babe,” she said, pulling through a black backpack. “Now meet us at the front entrance in ten minutes.” I let her down and she pulled out the contents of the bag. “Here, put this on.”

  
              It was our Halloween costumes. “Josie, how is this going to work?”

  
              “With our wigs and masks they're not going to be able to tell it's us,” she said, getting undressed.

  
              “I don't think this is going to work,” I said, getting worried.

  
              “Is everything okay in there?” One of the guardians called, knocking on the door.

  
              I looked at Josie, panicked. She just threw my costume at me and told me to get dressed. Then she walked closer to the door. “Sorry, you're going to have to give me a few minutes. I think I had some bad Mexican food earlier,” she groaned. She made some gagging sounds, pretending to get sick and then some farting noises with her mouth. I had to keep my mouth covered to keep from laughing out loud.

  
              She ran back over to me and said, “Hurry, we don't have much time.” I quickly changed into my costume and then helped her with hers.

  
              “Hey, what did you tell Dixon this was all about?”

  
              “He still thinks this all has to do with just regular people getting killed and us having overly protective parents,” she shrugged. “Okay, ready?”

  
              “Ready as I'll ever be,” I said, taking a breath.

  
              We walked right out of the bathroom and straight past the two guardians. “Excuse me, ladies?”

  
              I froze. I thought we were busted for sure. “Just relax,” Josie whispered and turned around.

  
              “Did you seen two young girls in the bathroom?” asked the one guardian.

  
              Josie cleared her throat. “Oh yeah, poor little thang,” she said, trying out her best southern accent. “She's a sick as a dog. I gave her some Pepto so she should be fine in a few minutes.” The guardian looked back over his shoulder. “But I wouldn't go in there if I was ya, whoooeee,” she said, waving a hand in front of her nose.

  
              The guardian cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Um...thank you.”

  
              “No problem, cutie.”

  
              I grabbed Josie's hand and quickly pulled her in front of me. “Oh my god, that was close.”

  
              “Yes, but thanks to my wonderful acting skills –”

  
              “I'll thank you when we're in the car,” I said, pushing her along. I felt slightly guilty for tricking the guardians, knowing that as soon as they found out we eluded them their jobs were done. I made a mental note to speak on their behalf and do my best to save their jobs, but I might also suggest some retraining.

  
              Billy and Dixon were right out front waiting for us. We quickly hopped in the car and took off. “I can't believe that worked,” I said, breathless.

  
              “You need to have more faith in me next time,” Josie said.

  
              “Says the girl who has gotten me in trouble, more times than I care to admit, for all her great ideas.”

  
              “Whatever. It worked, didn't it?”

  
              “So far, so good. I'm not even going to think about how much trouble we'll be in when they find out we’ve snuck out.”

  
              “Chill out, Ella. You worry too much and all that is going to do is give you premature wrinkles.” I rolled my eyes at her. “Here,” she said, handing me her make-up case and climbing in the backseat with me and Dixon. I took off my mask and Josie and Dixon helped decorate my face with glitter, all kinds of make-up, and some adhesive stars. Once they were done, Dixon and I helped out Josie. Although I don't think I was much help. It was hard to keep a steady hand with all the bumps Billy was hitting.

  
              He ended up stepping on the brakes a little too hard to avoid some trick or treaters and I ended up drawing a big line across Josie's face. “Babe!” Josie yelled at him.

   
              “Sorry,” he chuckled. I fixed the big smudge on her cheek and carefully applied the rest.

   
              “Oh, I almost forgot,” Josie said, leaning into the front of the car. “Where's that little box?” she asked Billy.

  
              “In the console,” he said, lifting up the center once she got out of the way.

  
              She reached around and pulled out a little white box and handed it to me. “What's this?” I asked.

  
              “I don't know. It was delivered to our room the other day and I just kept forgetting to give it to you.”

  
              Curious, I opened it up. “God, I hope it's not a finger,” Dixon said, making me almost drop the box.

  
              I looked at him horrified and Josie hit him. He laughed. “Ella, I was just kidding,” he said.

  
              “That's not funny,” I said, no longer wanting to open it.

  
              “Here,” Josie said, taking the box from me and opening it herself. I closed my eyes afraid of what we might find. “Oh, wow.”

  
              “What is it?” I said, slowly opening one eye.

  
              “Take a look for yourself,” Josie said, handing it back to me. When I hesitated she rolled her eyes. “It's not going to bite,” she shoved it in my face.

  
              I flinched. “Oh,” I said, once I saw what was in the box. Inside was a platinum chain necklace with a diamond pendant in the shape of a star.

  
              “Who's it from?” Dixon asked.

  
              “I don't know, but it's beautiful,” I said in awe. “Here, help me put it on.” I handed it to Josie and turned around so she could fasten it around my neck.

  
              “It surely does sparkle,” Josie said, admiring it. I touched it gently. It fell just below my collar bone. “Why don't you buy me things like this,” Josie whined to Billy.

  
              “Because I'm not made of money like Tristan,” he said, letting it slip.

  
              “Wait, this is from Tristan?” I asked.

  
              Billy shifted uncomfortably in the front seat. “He bought it a while ago...before he left.”

  
              “Then why'd he wait so long to give it to her?” Josie complained.

  
              “He had it specially made. It wasn't ready, I guess, until after,” he paused. “He must have forgotten about it.”

  
              I touched the necklace again, then closed my eyes, and reached around to take it off. “No Ella, keep it on. Who cares if it's from him? It's beautiful and totally goes with your costume,” Josie said. I sighed and decided to leave it on.