Chapter Eight
Feralyn
Eight Years Ago.
Frantically reaching through my bookbag for my cell, I walked twice as fast as I normally did across the campus. “Come on, come on.” Where the hell was my phone?
I glanced behind me again.
The creepy dude I saw outside two of my classrooms yesterday, the same one who’d followed me after I’d left the art building tonight, he wasn’t there, but I didn’t trust it.
Not trusting anything right now, I picked up my pace as I hit the edge of the darkened parking lot and started jogging right as my hand closed around my phone.
Practically weeping in relief, I yanked it out and quickly dialed.
Ares picked up on the fifth ring. “Feralyn. Why are you still at school?”
I wasn’t surprised by his greeting or the fact that he tracked me.
Both he and Helios had the tracking enabled on my cell phone so they could see where I was at any moment.
“I’m leaving now. I’m walking to my car.
” I zeroed in on my 4Runner parked in the very last row, where the only open spot had been earlier today.
“You’re out of breath from walking?” he demanded, his tone suddenly abrasive.
I tried to fake a laugh. “I’m not that out of shape.
” I probably was if my racing heart was any indication, but I knew that wasn’t why he was asking.
“My asthma’s fine.” Sorta. It’d gotten way better since I’d started running two years ago, but it acted up when I was stressed, like right now. “I’m just rushing is all.”
There was a beat of silence, then Ares’s voice turned hard. “Why?”
Using my shoulder, I swung my bag in front of me so I could reach into it with my free hand for my keys. “I, um….” Footsteps sounded behind me, and I glanced back.
No dark-haired man.
No students.
No one at all—which was weird.
“Feralyn?” Ares asked in a clipped tone.
“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, I just….” My fingers brushed against my keys, and I grabbed them.
“You just what? What’s wrong?” Ares demanded.
“Nothing.” I yanked my key ring out of my bag, aimed the fob at the 4Runner, and hit the Unlock button. “I just, um, miss you.” I ran at the driver’s door.
“Feralyn,” he warned.
Wrenching the door open, I threw my bag across the center console and jumped in, then slammed the door shut and locked it.
“I’m good.” I scanned the parking lot as I started the SUV.
“I’m in my car now. What are you doing?” I put the call on speaker and tossed the phone on the dash as I buckled my seat belt.
Ignoring my attempt to change the subject, Ares played the role he always did with me—protective older brother. “Tell me what’s wrong or I’m looping Helios in on this call.”
I almost snorted. “I’m eighteen, not ten.” Throwing the SUV into Drive, thankful I’d backed into the parking spot, a trick I’d learned from watching Helios, I gunned it. “That threat doesn’t work on me anymore.” It totally did. “Besides, Helios wouldn’t answer you anyway.”
“He would if he knew you were in trouble.”
I wanted to say bullshit, but the truth was, I didn’t know what Helios would do anymore.
I didn’t even know where he was or what he was doing.
Other than the fact that he’d been with Delta Force for years, which I was forbidden to speak about for obvious reasons, I didn’t know anything about what Helios did.
I hadn’t even seen him since my sixteenth birthday when he’d said my outfit sucked without actually coming right out and saying that, which was worse in Helios speak.
“I’m not in trouble.” Glancing back at the parking lot, I didn’t see anything, but something felt off.
Something I didn’t know how to explain and knew better than to talk to Ares about.
I’d just needed to hear the comfort of his voice, to feel connected to someone or something as I hustled through that parking lot.
But I knew how Ares was. He wouldn’t let this go, not unless I gave him some part of the truth.
He knew me enough to cut through any lame excuse or lie anyway, so I went with the obvious.
“The parking lot just looked extra dark tonight.”
“Again, why were you on campus so late?”
Turning onto the access road that fed all of the university’s parking lots, I tried to think of an excuse that didn’t give away how much I hated college.
Or that after only a couple weeks into my first semester, I was already behind because I hated how the classes seemed arbitrary or contrived, especially the art ones.
And I really didn’t want to tell him that I no longer wanted to go to college at all, not after he and Helios had paid the tuition.
“You’re stalling,” Ares accused, but the tone of his voice had shifted from overprotective to brotherly concern.
“I am,” I admitted
“Why?” he asked quietly.
Gripping the 4Runner’s steering wheel, I blurted out the truth. “I hate it here.”
Dead silence.
Oh God. “I’m sorr—”
“Quit.”
Braking for a stop sign, I looked at the phone as if it were a video call and I could see his face and know if he was kidding, but Ares never kidded. “What?”
“Withdraw. Or stop attending.”
“But you and Helios paid for it.” And it wasn’t a small amount of money.
Neither confirming nor denying what I’d said, Ares made me once again realize how lucky I was to have him.
“Your classes ended hours ago. I hear the stress in your voice. You’ve grown up in an unconventional way, and you’re old enough to know what you want and don’t want.
Withdrawing from classes you hate isn’t going to hinder you, Feralyn. ”
I exhaled a breath I’d been holding for two weeks. “I love you.”
“Same. Now keep driving. Text me when you get home.”
I was so relieved, I smiled. “Okay.” Then the other shoe dropped. “Wait. Are you going to tell Helios?”
“Do you want me to?”
I looked across the campus toward the main road that fronted the university and watched the six lanes of cars rushing northeast and southwest for a second. “I don’t know.” I was old enough to handle my own battles. “I should tell him myself.” He was going to be angry as hell, though.
Ares didn’t answer immediately. But when he did, he surprised me because he usually played mediator between Helios and, well, everyone else. “You can’t live your life for him.”
Headlights came up behind me, and I squinted in the rearview mirror as the car flashed its brights. Throwing on my turn signal, I turned left.
“You mean I can’t live my life for anyone except myself.
” Isn’t that what Ares had said once when I was younger?
Isn’t that what our parents were doing? But that wasn’t what Ares and Helios were doing.
They were, in fact, doing the opposite. Serving in our military, protecting our country, selflessly willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of over three hundred million people.
“That sounds selfish when I say it. Especially when you’re risking your life every day. ”
“You’re not enlisting, Feralyn,” Ares warned, his voice suddenly all domineering authority.
“I know.” Not only because he and Helios had drilled into me that joining was a calling, not an excuse to fall into when you lacked motivation or direction. Plus, there was the whole asthma thing.
“Do you?”
I tried not to get defensive. “I’m not a kid anymore, Ares. I know my limits.” The car behind me stayed on my tail after I took the turn.
“Asthma isn’t merely a limit, Feralyn.”
Like I didn’t know. “I got it.” With nowhere to pull over unless I turned into another parking lot, which I wasn’t going to do this late, I stepped on the gas.
“I wasn’t asking why you were out of breath earlier for banality. You need to carry your inhaler with you at all times.”
“I do. I promise,” I added, because this was how Ares showed his love, through concern. “I’m okay.” I glanced again in my rearview mirror. The jerk was still on my tail. Another reason I hated college. Stupid drivers.
Ares exhaled. Then, ever practical but also a Ranger, he both issued orders and reiterated what he’d said. “Text me when you get home. Don’t worry about Helios, and drive safe.”
“Roger that, Master Sergeant.” Smiling, I turned onto the main road that’d take me home.
“Good night, Feralyn.”
“Night, Ares.”
He hung up, and I flipped on the stereo.
Cranking up the volume, feeling lighter than I had since I’d walked onto that campus, I sang at the top of my lungs almost all the way home.
Feeling that telltale wheeze in my chest as I turned onto our street, I reached for my bookbag and grabbed one of my inhalers from the side pocket.
Taking a puff as I slowed near our driveway, I was about to turn in when the roar of an engine, followed by bright lights, blinded me.
I hit the brakes, but it was too late.
Tires screeched.
A massive grill slammed into my side of the SUV.
Metal crunched.
A violent force punched into me with a deafening bang. Every bone in my body rattled, and the wind was knocked out of me.
Then my door was yanked open, shouting erupted, something was thrown over my head, and a jab pierced the side of my neck.
Choking, panicked, dizziness hit.
Giant hands gripped my arms, and I was yanked out of the 4Runner.
The muffled scream caught in my airless lungs, then something slammed into my head.
Everything went dark.