Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) Page 15
Chapter 25
Peanut, who had been quiet for over an hour, without any warning jumped up to the window and began barking. I stepped behind him to see what had caught his attention. Near the top of the driveway, Max stepped through the fence. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Without hesitation I was out of the living room, through the kitchen, off the porch and running to him - closing the gap between us in seconds. He looked terrible, haggard as if his body hadn’t seen rest in weeks. I wrapped myself around him tight in an embrace, my hands trembling. I was speechless, unable to say anything, I could only hold him tighter.
Max was also at a loss. His hand stroked my hair as he looked at me; it felt like so many nights before when we had wordless conversations. I began to feel as if maybe everything would be okay. I had missed him so desperately, my heart ached for him, and my body reacted like a magnet to his. I needed to know where he had been and what had happened, but in this moment I didn’t have the strength to ask, and I was sure I didn’t have the stamina to hear what he had been through.
I felt the heat from his body, knew he was alive, that he was back in my arms, this time forever. Max gripped me tightly as I started walking him toward the house. His strides were stiff; I could see blood oozing from his shoulder and his leg. I walked at his pace, not pressing him to go faster while trying to help support his weight.
My mind whirled into action. I realized I didn’t have alcohol, peroxide, gauze or even a band aid in the house. I yelled with all the volume I could produce, “Mike!” I waited a few seconds and could see him standing at the door, “Mike, come here and help me get Max inside.”
Having Max right here drowned out the hopeless feeling I had felt from the text messages. All my senses were going haywire. I could feel danger all around me. I wondered when this sense would finally go into sensory overload, and I truly, from the bottom of my heart, didn’t care that there was danger enveloping me because Max was okay. I don’t know how he got here. From the looks of him, getting to me out here in the middle of nowhere may have nearly killed him.
Mike stepped off the porch in no hurry to give aid. He had a strange look on his face, somewhere between pain and anger. My heart sank. Something must have happened to Mike when I left him in the house. Had one of Samael’s demons taken possession of him? Max had to have felt my body tense, or maybe he had developed a danger sense of his own, because his forward motion halted. Max and Mike watched each other as if sizing up an opponent in a match about to begin.
I looked at all available escape routes. My van was only twenty feet away. I knew if it were just me, I could make it easily, but getting Max that distance and into the van before Mike could intercept us seemed unlikely. I saw my gun in Mike’s right hand and heard, “Lauren, step away from him. It’s not what you think.” Mike was raising the Glock, and I knew I didn’t have time to find another way out.
I grabbed Max hard, pushing him toward the van, shielding his body with mine. I heard a shot, but it was nowhere close. Whatever was possessing Mike shouldn’t be able to. He was on the Council - they were supposed to be immune to demon attacks. Whatever had Mike was significantly more powerful than the demons that had possessed Max and his family. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get Max as far away from this place as possible.
We were at the van. I gave him another aggressive shove in. He was so weak he could hardly move out of my way as I slid into the driver’s seat, pushing him further out of danger’s way. “Get down, keep your head down!”
Max did as I told him. I saw Peanut tear through the screen door on the porch, blow past Mike, trying to get into the van, barking louder and more ferociously than I had ever seen before. He jumped up the side of the van begging to be let in, but I couldn’t lose even one more second. Mike was charging the van, gun still drawn. I stepped on the gas, terrified of what Mike would do to Peanut, but unwilling to risk Max to save him.
Mike had no car, so there was no way for him or whatever was possessing him to follow us. As soon as we were a few miles away, I slowed down enough not to be a danger to other drivers. I started running through our choices: we could go to my parent’s house, Joe’s house, Max’s house, a hotel or somewhere a little more remote. My mind was spinning and didn’t seem to be landing anywhere.
I looked at Max slumped over in the passenger seat. His eyes were closed, but I could see him breathing. Whatever did this to him was still going to be coming after him. I needed to find a safe place that no one knew about, where no one would ever think to look for either of us. Hiding in a larger city would make it easier to blend in, somewhere we could be faceless strangers. I was on the interstate headed to Columbia. There were hundreds of hotels in the city and probably at least that many all night drug stores. Finding a hotel where we wouldn’t be noticed shouldn’t be too hard, at least until I could come up with a better plan.
In the back of my mind, I could vaguely hear Rewsna talking to me, but her words were jumbled. I had to concentrate on the road and couldn’t lose focus to try to figure out what she was saying. As I looked at Max, I realized that truly I didn’t care what she had to say. These last couple days, my sole purpose in life had been to destroy Samael, to make sure he could never hurt another. That mission almost cost me Max, and there was no way I would ever make that same mistake again. In this moment I couldn’t care less if Samael attacked another person, my family, or for that matter a hundred people. There was really only one person in this world whose absence would make the world stop turning for me, and he was right here with me now.
I would miss my family and my friends, but I could not imagine ever going back. The protectiveness I felt for Max now must be close to how he felt for me after the bear attack. Nearly losing him had significantly realigned my priorities. Knowing my mistakes, owning them, should be enough to keep me from repeating them. I just needed to get him somewhere safe, take care of whatever injuries he had, and make him whole again.
Rewsna’s voice was still echoing somewhere in the back of my mind. I did nothing to hear it more clearly because whatever she needed to say was now irrelevant to me. I reached over and turned up the radio to drown out her nagging jumble of words.
Chapter 26
I found a budget motel along the interstate. It must have been fate, because right next door was a drug store proudly flashing a sign that it was open twenty-four hours. I left Max in the van while I went into the lobby and got a room. The man behind the counter paid as much attention to me as he would have a bar of soap.
His hygiene was horrible - even from five feet away. He was one of those people who didn’t have to invest much money in toothpaste anymore either. I paid cash and decided to check out the room before trying to move Max. It was a one-floor motel, and our room was the one farthest away from the office.
For this being such an old dive, the room was reasonably clean. As I walked in, I could smell the room’s age with stale cigarette smoke in carpets and drapes that were easily two decades old. No one would ever think to look for us here. The regular clientele didn’t appear to be interested in seeing anything that wasn’t their business.
I made my way back to the van. Max was still out of it. I moved the van further down into the dark parking lot and backed it into the space closest to our room’s door. This would prevent anyone from easily seeing the license plate number if they were just spinning through the parking lot, and it would make for a quick getaway, if necessary. When I turned the key off, Max stirred, but made no effort to speak.
I reached my hand over to his and took it in mine. Max’s eyes remained closed but I saw a smirk appear, so I knew he could hear me. “We made it. I need to get you inside. I’ll run over to the pharmacy and get some things to clean your wounds. I don’t think I can carry you. Can you walk?”
His eyes remained closed, but I could see a slight motion forward when he gave me a partial nod. I got out of the van and walked around to his side, slowly opening the door so he wouldn’t tumble out onto the pav
ement. He eased himself out and put some of his weight on me. I was pleased that he was able to walk under his own steam for the most part, but as soon as we were inside, he made his way to the bed and collapsed.
I knelt beside him and spoke quietly in his ear, “I’m going to the store across the street to get some things to take care of you. I’ll be right back. Don’t open the door for anyone.” He made no movement, but I knew he understood.
The cashier inside the drug store was watching the evening news, and I tried to listen to the broadcast while I walked up and down the aisles, filling my basket with the supplies I needed. There was no mention of a massive massacre in Charleston. If all those texts had been legitimate, that’s all that would have been on the news, even as far away as Columbia. I told myself it had to have been some sort of a ruse. I would watch a later telecast when I got back to the room to make sure I was right. As I turned this evening over in my mind, I knew there was not enough time for the Beast to have found everyone’s families and systematically killed them. The more I thought about it, it didn’t make sense to kill any of those people.
The text messages had to have been sent to drive a wedge between my family, friends and me. If it were true, after the initial shock, it would have rallied us together and united us in a single cause. Killing so many families not only would have been reckless of the Beast, but would have been his demise.
It felt like Déjà Vu, the same situation I had been in weeks before: no phone, no good idea of who I should contact, or how much would be safe for them to know. Our meeting tonight gave each one of them enough information to protect themselves and those closest to them. My inability to call and check in with everyone was a problem, but not one I had to remedy this evening.
After my purse incident at Joe’s house, I stopped carrying one. Now all my identification and plastic, as well as an emergency two hundred dollars were tucked safely in a pocket sized wallet. No matter what I wore or where I was, my wallet was always with me.
I looked in the shopping basket and had everything I needed to treat Max, plus a couple sodas and some snacks. They even had a meager selection of t-shirts and shorts stuffed in a clearance box at the front of the store. By the time I was crossing the street, I had everything we needed for the night. I finally caught my breath. I was appreciative of our good fortune, that I would finally be able to sleep knowing Max was okay. We would simply be together tonight.
I let myself into the room. Max hadn’t moved an inch since I left. I laid all of the items out on the night stand beside Max. I gently removed his shirt and my eyes drew to the large gaping hole in his shoulder, I couldn’t tell if he had been shot or punctured. If it was a bullet hole, the bullet had passed completely through him. I put a towel under his shoulder and poured peroxide into the wound. His body tensed but he kept his teeth gritted tight.
“I’m so sorry, I know it hurts. I need to get it cleaned up before it gets infected.”
Max kept his jaw locked tight and nodded his understanding. I continued cleaning it as fast as I could and wrapped it up. He needed to go to a doctor, but this would be good enough for tonight. He looked exhausted, filled with pain, and he didn’t say a word. I let him ease off to sleep. I could still hear Rewsna’s calling distantly in my mind, but whatever it was, it could wait until morning. I tuned her out and eased closer to Max. I didn’t want to take a chance of jarring him in the night, so I gave him plenty of room. We weren’t as close as I would have liked after so much time away from each other, but there would be plenty of time for that.
I shut off the lights and closed my eyes. That familiar tunnel appeared in front of me, but I didn’t want to look in on anyone anymore than I had wanted to converse with Rewsna. The tunnel didn’t disappear as quickly as normal when I opted not to step through it. I willed it away in favor of some much needed sleep.
****
The sun streaked in through the top and bottom of the curtain. I looked at the alarm clock; it was after nine, but I wasn’t in any huge hurry to start my day. Sometime in the night I had a small bit of clarity and knew Columbia wasn’t far enough away. I could hear the shower running. Max must be feeling better if he was up and moving already. I didn’t have unlimited funds, but if we were careful we could drop off the grid for a few months. Maybe California. I fell in love with Carlsbad Beach years ago and would love to go back. The weather’s decent enough, we could stay in national parks.
My stomach began to knot as I worried that Max might not want to disappear with me. Whatever the Beast did to him, Max might now think he had a score to settle. I knew last night he didn’t have the strength to answer any of my questions, so I didn’t ask anything, but the fact that he was able to escape at all was amazing.
All those talks with Rewsna about how special I was, maybe my gifts paled in comparison to Max’s? Maybe there was a reason I couldn’t be without him. I’ve known all along he was supposed to be in my life, but the feeling hit me that he might be more than moral support. After all, he was the one who made sure I knew how to shoot, he bought several guns for me, he got Peanut and helped me hide. After looking at his gunshot wound yesterday, I think I came pretty close to losing him. Rewsna told me the Beast would never attack me directly. The closer I kept Max to me, the safer I could keep him.
The shower shut off, and I leaped off the bed to take a quick look in the mirror. I ran my fingers through my hair, but there wasn’t much to be done for bed-head without a brush. I stepped back behind the wall just as the bathroom door opened.
As I watched him walk back toward the bed in a towel, my heart skipped a beat then began to speed out of control. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and undiluted fear took control of my body as I backed away, trying to melt into the wall.
He looked at me, but I wasn’t looking at Max’s eyes. His eyes understood in that moment that the truth was clear, and his initial greeting smile was replaced by a smug sinister smile. “My dear Lauren, I owe you my life. I would have surely perished last night if you hadn’t rushed me to safety and patched me up the way you did.”
He took a couple steps toward me, and a feral growl nearly crossed my lips. “Stay away from me. If you come any closer, I’ll kill you.”
His smugness didn’t evaporate and my threat was empty, worse - he knew that it was empty. “There is no need to be violent. It will only end badly…for you. Lauren, I’ve got to say, you really surprised me last night. I thought for sure your senses were sharper than that. You truly had no idea you were sleeping with the enemy until this morning, did you?”
I didn’t answer and only continued to glare at him.
“Amazing. All this time I thought you were somehow connected to the Council, that you were using my power of sight and there would be no way to fool you. I’m pleased to see that I overestimated your intuitiveness and skills, but don’t worry - I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
As he was giving his little speech telling me just how inadequate an adversary I was, I looked at his shoulder. The gunshot wound was completely healed. The skin was puckered pink as if it were an injury that were weeks old, not from yesterday. I glanced around the room looking for any type of weapon. There was plastic silverware by the coffee maker. I could easily get to it. I may not be able to slice his jugular, but I was pretty sure I could take an eye out.
“Lauren, have you heard a word I said?” His question forced me to look at him. “Lauren, my dear, the plastic ware wouldn’t make enough of an injury to do any real damage – it would just anger me. I took for granted that you knew I had Max, but again I don’t want to assume anything. You do know I have him, yes?”
His words knocked the wind out of me, and I had to steady myself again. “Where is he?”
“In due time, Lauren, in due time. You see, he’s a bit of an insurance policy for me right now. Last night I went to your residence, I knew I was dangerously close to death, so I shifted into Max so you wouldn’t blast me as I stepped down your driveway. I wrong
ly assumed you would recognize me upon closer examination, but thought you and I could work out some sort of a truce. I was, after all, unable to evade after being shot. You, I was sure, would barter nearly anything to get Max back. I have to tell you I never even dreamed that you would toss me in your van and drive me to safety. Once we got here I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out, but that also turned out not to be the case. There is an old phrase that love is blind - I believe in your case it is also deaf and dumb. Not that I am complaining by any means.”
With every word my stomach wrenched a little tighter, and I knew a couple more minutes and I wouldn’t be able to keep the bile swelling in my stomach down. I commanded as much strength as my body allowed and shouted, “Where is he?”
“He is safe for now, and as long as he is tucked away, I know that no harm will come to me.” I could no longer control my body. I ran into the bathroom barely making it to the toilet before my stomach let loose.
“Oh my, well, that was disturbing. Lauren, I think it would be bad form to kill you now. I mean, you did save my life and everything.” I stepped out of the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out in the sink. Samael came up behind me as I watched him walking to me through the mirror. Every muscle in my body went rigid when I realized he was going to touch me. He gently placed his hands on either of my shoulders, he pressed his body against mine as the towel fell away from him, the repulsion of him leaning into me, made me want to puke all over again. His hands slid from my shoulders to my neck. I could feel the strength emanating through his finger tips as he wound them around my neck. In my mind, I was pretty sure he was going to snap my neck.
I kicked hard with my right leg, trying to catch him in the groin. When I missed, he picked me up off of the floor by my throat. I watched my own face in the mirror, seeing his face right next to mine. I think this was his way of making the moment that much worse for me, in that I was able to see the joy shining on his face as I watched him squeeze the life out of me. I struggled for more than a minute trying to remove his steel grip from around my neck and kicking in all directions.