28. Quentin
T he rest of us Saints are only beginning to rouse from our sleep when Louise blows through the front door like a hysterical wind—her voice high and sharp.
“We need to get off the island now!” she shrills—already flying around the small cottage, pulling her things together.
I find myself in motion at her words, even though I don't quite know what's going on.
“Why? Is somebody here? Are we about to have company?”
Sébastien and Caz sit up in bed, watching Louise, bleary-eyed.
“Dennis was here,” Louise snaps, holding out a square of white fabric with carefully embroidered initials in one corner.
I blink the sleep out of my eyes and swipe my pinky around my right ear, making sure I haven't misheard.
“Dennis McBride!?” Frank snarls, suddenly on his feet and moving toward the door.
“He's gone now—on his way back to shore. Our Red Bishop came to us. To warn us. There’re cross departmental plans to begin a full scale manhunt for the Saints with Dennis leading the team.”
This seems to take Frank aback.
“How the fuck did he get here? I thought you said nobody else knew about this place!” Frank growls, getting up into Louise's face.
“I never said he didn't know where it was.” She crosses her arms over her chest defiantly, but I can see that it costs her—the expansion of his alpha aura threatening to make her crumble in on herself.
“Well, that's that then, our location is compromised. We gotta get the fuck out of here,” Frank snarls, spinning away from Louise to begin packing his own things.
“Wait, wait. I thought we'd run out of places to go?” Caz flounders nervously. “I thought that's why we're here.”
“Yeah, well, turns out this place isn't as well protected as Louise led us to believe…” Frank sniffs.
“Stop playing so high and mighty, Frank. You're the one who kidnapped me to get revenge for our lost, fated mate. Sorry that I ended up being more that you bargained for—that all of us ended up being more than you bargained for,” Louise challenges.
Frank presses his eyes closed and clamps his hands hard over his ears like he does sometimes when he's about to totally lose control.
All of us wait for an explosion, but instead his posture softens and his eyes ease open. His features, once more, placid, calculating.
“Our next move was to rendezvous with the Red Bishop, anyway. Fine, he came to us. One less stop to make. After that, our next move was always going to be to pursue the cure for the virus. So, we make our way to the scientists.”
It's obvious that there's not much more room for conversation and all of us are too exhausted and too burnt out to argue.
Silently, we collect our things. Once we've got cell signal again, it'll be my job to line up our next safe house.
I’ve already arranged for passage by boat as far as the Caribbean, as part of our plan to meet up with Dennis and make a break for it.
Even though he won’t be joining us—we’ll continue as planned. From there, we'll have to make our way across the pond to the United Kingdom: the last known location of one of the Penny's collaborators.
Time starts to lose meaning around hour thirteen of our drive from the Penny’s seaside cottage down the east coast to portage in Miami, where I have called in a favor to get us onto a contact’s yacht.
On the small vessel we will travel from the coast of Florida to a cruise line and resort owned island in the Caribbean, where another of my contacts will help us board a large commercial cruise ship, almost the size of a floating city, posing as staff.
Provided that we can make our way through the last leg of the cruise without being detected, we will be able to make contact with one of my passport guys in Jamaica and make meaningful progress toward being able to rendezvous with the Penny’s contacts in the UK.
If all goes well, we'll be on a private flight from Kingston to London in a little under two weeks.
Not optimal, but considering the circumstances, it's the best I can do.
We're stopped at a 24-hour service station.
Sébastien and Caz roam the mini mart, loading up with snacks, energy drinks and cigarettes for the road while Louise sleeps fitfully in the back seat of our newly stolen Hybrid SUV.
Her head lolls to one side without Frank and Sébastien to keep her propped upright.
I stand, stretching my legs at the back of the car as Frank pumps gas—a twenty-something attendant watching Frank nervously through the storefront window—an unlit cigarette dangling from Frank's lips.
Out of nowhere, Frank speaks.
“Q, It's got to be you who convinces her.”
I search his face, entirely lost.
“Me? Convince her of what?” I can tell that he's talking about Louise, but I have no idea what it is I'm meant to convince her to do. Though this entire situation is madness, she's done nothing but cooperate since the hunting lodge. I don't know what more he expects from her.
“Well…You know—after the heat and everything, now that we know—now that we have proof it just makes sense, I guess, that we should do it,” Frank bristles, refusing to come out with it.
“No, I don't know. What makes sense? Spit it out, Frank.”
“We should bond. You know, bite in. Pack up ,” he snaps out haltingly.
I feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me. Only a few hours ago, Frank was smashing furniture, insisting that it wasn't possible for us to be fated mates, that it was some sort of mistake—that we weren't actually fated.
It was some manipulation, some trick; even back at the hunting lodge when the question had been more academic, before we'd seen the recordings on the Penny's computer.
Frank was having none of it.
“Why the sudden change of heart?” I bite out, my own irritation flaring.
“The landscape is changing, Q. I thought I understood what was going on, but now? Now I'm not so sure.”
The two of us stand, hands in our pockets—the dull hum of the lights overhead the only sound.
“If you're serious, it's not a decision that we can make for her. I can talk to her, but I don't know if she'll ever accept any of us truly… Not after what we've done.”
The truth hangs in the air between us, uncomfortable.
“She has to,” Frank growls under his breath. “It's the only way that we can keep her safe.”
“Frank, I'm not sure anything that we do for her now would keep her safe.”
I let loose a joyless sound—not a laugh, not quite a sob.
Frank whirls on me, that murderous look in his eyes, that man who is still so many times a stranger to me.
“I'm telling you, Q, it's the only way. You've got to make her see reason—if we have the bond, if it's open.” He waves his hands through the air. “Then that's a line of communication that?—”
I cut my hand through the space between us.
“I hear what you're saying, Francis. I understand, but at the end of the day it's Louise who must decide whether or not biting in is something that she wants. You know as well as I that the bond won't take if it's not what we choose.”
“But you promise you'll ask her? You'll be the one to show her that it's the only choice, right?” he pleads.
“I'll certainly do my best,” I sigh, unable to give him what he really wants.
He turns away from me, and I know the conversation is over.