Chapter 34
Erich
Sipping some heated canned soup, I look over at Nyx and Zephyr from the small table in the kitchenette area of the safehouse.
One of the small teams before us had set this particular safehouse up as a central location between the airport and the train station that will take us to Long Island.
Our Omegas stick close to one another, and I’m not sure if Nyx can feel Zephyr’s heightened alertness, but I sure can. So can Laurant.
We both keep peering at him, sometimes at the same time. We’re all worried about her on this mission, but the last thing I want is for anyone to make mistakes, get reckless over what could be just a nightmare.
Who am I kidding? I know it wasn’t just some dream. Laurant is smart enough to understand the difference, and I do have trust in my pack brother. No matter how begrudging.
Now that the three of us males are on the same page, we are ready and willing to rip anyone to shreds who threatens a member of our pack.
We don’t even need to voice this as fact, we just know it instinctively.
I feel it deep in my chest, just like that strange movement inside me whenever my emotions are heightened.
Like now.
Nyx is on edge now, too. I can feel it as well as I see it. And there’s confusion in her stress.
That’s probably my fault.
I sigh quietly through my nose.
Back at the academy, when I went to Nyx’s room under the guise of helping move her stuff, I let my emotions get the best of me. Said things I shouldn’t have—at least not the way I did.
Shit.
She should be relaxed and resting up for the big mission tonight. Instead, she fidgets, squints, looks all around on and off.
I can’t pretend I don’t see this, and I don’t want her thinking I don’t care. “What’s up, Little Spark?”
Her big, brown eyes zero in on me, but they’re flickering from side to side, just a bit. “I… don’t know,” she says slowly. “I just have this feeling. I’m sure it’s only jitters for our first real mission, though.”
“Perhaps Nyxeris should stay here in the safehouse,” Laurant suggests, and I shoot him a death glare.
“We all need to stick together and watch one another’s backs.” My jaw is tight as I seethe. Is he serious? Didn’t he ever watch a fucking movie growing up?
“Come on, Nyx.” Zephyr rises from the table and holds his hand out to her. “Let’s try to get some rest.”
He leads her to the couch which we’d converted to a bed, the two of them speaking quietly as they curl up together, wrap themselves in one of the blankets.
I shoot another glare in Laurant’s direction, and he has the sense to look sorry, although I don’t know if it’s for making such a wild suggestion or for something else going on in his head.
“I’ve never been on a train before.”
Nyx tilts her head at me in surprise, looking sexy as hell in her new fancy clothes, something left for us all in the safehouse. Along with new IDs and burner phones pre-loaded with our train tickets.
We had shimmied our way through the subway ducts from the safehouse and kept a low profile, sneaking around the subway station before heading up to street level, walking all the way to Penn Station, where we boarded the last train to Long Island for the night.
I’m sure we’re doing this on a weeknight by design. The rebellion has been extra cautious since the previous teams ran into trouble.
Nyx smiles at me. “I used to take the train to and from the city almost every weekend growing up. My dad worked in the city and knew his way around, so he’d act as a tour guide, taking me and Mom around to all the cool spots.
Museums, historical buildings, all the best restaurants. ” She gets a faraway look in her eyes.
“I didn’t know you were from New York.” Zephyr voices my thought before I can open my mouth.
Her smile is closed-lipped and doesn’t reach her chocolate eyes. “I lived on Long Island, where we’re headed.”
This makes me blink at her, my brown tightening. In the over ten years that I’ve known Nyx, we never talked about where we were from. I don’t know anything about her past.
When I look at Zephyr beside me, and Laurant beside Nyx across from us, I realize I don’t really know anything about their pasts, either. Though Zephyr’s is a more difficult situation.
The past shouldn’t matter, not to a fated pack. But maybe learning a bit more about where we all came from could, I don’t know, strengthen our bond or something.
“I grew up in Southern California,” I find myself offering. “An orphan. Never knew my family. So you can guess what happened when things got out of hand.” I know they’ll understand my meaning.
In reality, when one of the punk older boys wouldn’t let up on beating the shit out of me, I just snapped, set his ass on fire. I had no idea what was happening in my ten-year-old mind, but there were witnesses, and I was collared and shipped off that same day.
Not that a collar was going to stop my new power from doing things authorities didn’t like. I had no control, and they knew it. But they saw me as an offensive cash cow, so discipline for my mistakes wasn’t as harsh as it had been for other kids in the juvie facility.
“I’m from Northern England.” Laurant lets out a small laugh. “I suppose that’s apparent. But I come from a small, affluent family with government ties going back generations. It was easy for them to hide things from the public. And the authorities.”
We all understand his meaning.
“Didn’t stop them from carting me off the first chance they had, however.”
Nyx winces beside him, grabs his hand, and laces their fingers together.
Zephyr opens his mouth, then shuts it, appearing to think of how to phrase his next words. “My family is gone.”
My heart skips a beat. I’d never heard this part of his story. It can only mean one thing.
I take a page from Nyx’s book, grab Zephyr’s hand and hold it tight.
This is what we’re here for. This is what our mission is going to help stop from happening in the future.
And it’s worth all our efforts.
“Here.” After more than an hour on the train from Manhattan to eastern Long Island, Laurant stops outside a white SUV in the train station parking lot as the lights flash in the darkness and there’s a little honk from the horn when he clicks a button on the key fob we brought with us from the safehouse.
He opens the back hatch, and there’s a duffel bag there, all alone.
Zephyr takes it to the back seat and I assess the trunk lining, running my fingers along the perimeter, slipping one beneath the outer lip.
“You’re clear.” Laurant’s tone is low, his gaze set into the distance.
I peel back the liner to find a door latch, which I open to reveal a large storage space below, filled with strategically lined-up firearms, grenades, tactical armoring, and some electrical devices.
I know collar remotes on sight, and there are four of them here.
My gaze meets Laurant’s then, and we both nod at each other before I pull back the liner, shut the hatch, and we both get into the car, him in the driver’s seat, me sitting shotgun.
The windows are tinted, especially in the back, and at night, it’s almost like they’re blacked out.
Our Omegas change clothes again, then Nyx passes me a pair of black tactical pants and a long-sleeved black shirt.
Careful not to slap Laurant in the face—no matter how funny that would be, if he weren’t driving—I change out of my clothes, stuff them under my seat, and change into the all-black gear.
It’s all very “spy movie” vibes, for sure, but I have faith in the rebellion leaders to know what they’re doing.
We’re on the move at night, wearing all black, nothing reflective. The SUV is white, the most overlooked vehicle color because it’s so abundant.
Yeah, the rebellion knows what they’re doing.
About twenty minutes later, Laurant cuts the lights, pulls the car off the highway into a wooded area well past the shoulder, and throws it in park.
He pushes his seat back to change his clothes, too, after Nyx hands them to him.
Then he takes a deep breath, peers at me beside him, then up into the rearview mirror.
“Time to go.”