Epilogue Forever
EPILOGUE
Forever
~Joss~
With its cherry-black, glossy exterior, all-black leather interior, and shiny chrome big block engine Brady the genius mechanical tinkerer had assembled just for me, Cleo was one sweet ride. He said he owed me, that they all did.
He didn’t owe me a damn thing. I’d risked my eternal life for theirs, yeah, and it had majorly sucked. But it was nothing any one of them wouldn’t do for me.
Still, I giddily accepted the unnecessary token of his appreciation. My 1999 Ford Mustang SVT Cobra coupe had gone from a junkyard salvage rust bucket to a wet dream.
Gliding my hands around the leather of the steering wheel, I admired Griffin as he stretched out his legs in the passenger seat.
Now he … he was a wet dream.
My dream guy.
He caught me checking him out, offered me that sly, sexy grin I’d never get enough of.
“What? Like what you see?”
I revved Cleo’s engine, just ’cause I could—just like Griffin revved mine.
“Love what I see.”
His grin softened, grew tender. “I love you, baby.”
“Love you back.”
At last, we could speak openly in our cars and know our conversations were private.
Bobo piped up.
Well, almost private.
he said with a jump atop the blanket I’d draped across the back bench seat for him so he wouldn’t scratch Cleo’s leather. He’d only sprained the leg he’d previously broken and was back to his normal, energetic self.
With the drash vanquished, my pittie had gotten pushy. It was that same determination that had driven him to save me.
It had taken Bobo and Griffin urging me back to them, and a shove from the lushina, along with an infusion of their collective power, for me to pull a Lazarus.
Magnum hadn’t counted on the lushina giving me a temporary boost. And he, thank fuck, was no longer around to regret his miscalculation.
Not only had the original Magnum absorbed every one of his duplicates before I killed him, but it seemed his freaky alieny companions couldn’t survive without him, either—some sort of hive dynamic.
Fanny, Zoe, Rich, a dozen more of our classmates, including the moron Pike Bills, lots of townies, such as a regular grocery store clerk and the dude who manned the counter at Hughie’s Hoagies we’d thought was kind of our friend …
their empty bodies and many others were found all throughout town—dead without a single outward sign of what did them in.
Even Tracy Westwick, the scientist who’d served as the inspo for Griffin’s supposed mother Mitzi, and Mr. Thompson, Ridgemore High’s principal, had been hiding a nasty gray secret beneath skin suits.
To our surprise, however, the many mercenaries Magnum hired were plain ol’ human.
The soldiers genuinely bought into the Magnum worship he was selling.
They actually believed he was the solution to the earth’s many global problems. The misguided dudes were actually trying to help—and didn’t mind killing a kid or five when they got in the way—making great money while they were at it.
Sheriff Xander Jones sent them packing, explaining that they’d served a terrible and devious archvillain—but not that he was some kind of creature from another world—while my crew and I were focused on recovering.
Although our physical injuries were devastating, with the help of some fine surgeons and some even finer preternatural healing abilities, in mere days we were back to normal.
At least on the outside.
New scars marred our flesh, but they were shrinking and fading quickly. Brady no longer sported any sign that rebar had once speared him through the chest at the Fischer House party, and the evidence of the five bullets that had ringed my chest at the high school gym had vanished entirely.
With time, there would be no indication that we’d battled for our very survival here at the institute either.
The lingering trauma of all we’d endured … that recuperation would take longer. But each day it got just a little easier to forget what it was like to have a predatory Magnum hunting us.
Bobo said, then barked.
Griffin chuckled easily, obviously not lost to heavy thoughts as I was.
Griffin told him.
Next, Griffin broadcast into the telepathic link that only he, Brady, Hunt, Layla, and I shared.
When seconds passed and she didn’t answer from within Bonnie, idling directly behind Cleo, Brady grumbled,
I was about to say that Layla wasn’t exactly big on consideration in general, much less so when sex was involved, when Brady spoke again.
Brady’s “cougar” was no such thing. He was almost twenty-three—we all were—and Yolanda was twenty-eight.
But there was no talking Brady out of his supposed “kink for the older ladies.” We’d all tried, especially Yolanda.
She didn’t push the topic too hard though.
The stoic, badass ninja instructor had fallen head over heels for Brady.
She’d tried to play it cool; the dreamy looks she gave him on the regular gave her away.
Not that it wasn’t reciprocal. Brady had gone from a full-on himbo to an eager and devoted monogamist seemingly overnight.
When he gazed at his girl, stars practically sparkled in his eyes, like a damn cartoon.
Yolanda was rarely far from his side nowadays, which meant it was a good thing the rest of us really liked her too. She perched in Bonnie’s passenger seat.
Armando was stretched out across Bonnie’s back seat. We wanted him along on our very first road trip out of Ridgemore, because Armando was just that cool. The Brazilian had turned out to be a feisty fucker, with a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue, who was just our style.
My Mustang wasn’t the only one we fixed up.
Making full use of the decked-out garage below the institute’s mansion, we finally each had our own car.
The long hours of dedication it had taken to convert three rust buckets into beauties was a soothing balm to our shredded insides.
The familiar, regular companionship of my crew had gotten us through.
Behind the wheel of his sleek, red 1967 Mustang Shelby GT500, whom Hunt had named Bolter, he said into our telepathic link,
He was in Bolter with a gorgeous powerhouse from the Aquoia tribe.
Her name was Kaya Blue Cloud. Of all our new friends, she was secretly my favorite.
Hunt’s father, Joseph Waking Bear, had introduced them.
Since that day they’d scarcely been apart, and they shared a bed every night. I’d never seen Hunt so happy.
Brady grumbled.
Not everyone knew my crew and I shared a telepathic connection, but Kaya, Yolanda, and Armando did, along with a few select others. They were accustomed to the silences when we spoke to one another inside our heads, though we did try not to be rude about it.
No one was aware the five of us could speak with Bobo, though, much less that he could talk back.
We were psyched to finally be free of so many secrets, but there were those we held on to.
Some things—like Bobo as my compan—felt too precious to share.
Our circle of trusted friends was expanding, but our experience with Magnum had taught us a variety of lessons, prime among them: caution.
My phone and Griff’s vibrated with Brady’s messages into our five-way thread. We had a separate one for us and our extended crew.
Brady: Dude
Brady: WTF
Brady: Put it back in ur pants & get over here
Brady: Tired of waiting
Brady: Givin U 5 more then we’re leaving ur ass behind
Of course, we wouldn’t actually leave Layla behind while we exited Ridgemore for the very first time in decades. But since it was Brady texting, she maybe wouldn’t be sure. If any of us would leave her, it would be him.
When I killed Magnum, whatever ability he was using to keep Ridgemore looping so that my crew couldn’t escape its boundaries ended too. We discovered that Ridgemore squatted smack-dab in the middle of the vast Aquoia generational lands.
As soon as we were sufficiently recovered, we allied with the Aquoia to return the sacredness Magnum had tainted to its land.
The tribe’s leaders, which included Hunt’s dad, believed my crew had worked with their ancestors from beyond to free them from the rich white man with the dark, evil heart.
According to Joseph, a spirit-talker who saw and heard his tribe’s ancestors almost as if they still lived, they were very pleased with our efforts and considered us great friends to the Aquoia.
According to them, we were brave warriors who fought for their people.
The tribe’s elders extended us the great honor of officially inducting us into their tribe, with the appropriate ceremony soon forthcoming.
Joseph and Kaya had been teaching us their ways.
And though Magnum’s team had drugged and taken Joseph’s sperm by trickery, and used his genetic material to produce Hunt without his consent, Joseph was eagerly embracing fatherhood.
For the first time ever, Hunt had a parent who never lied to him, but who shared sage truths about the universe, daily existence, and most everything in between.
Hunt threw out the silver hoop earring with the dangling turquoise that had never belonged to his father and replaced it with a similar earring that did belong to Joseph, who proudly wore its mate.
Hunt might have come about his Aquoia genetics in a questionable manner, but he was enjoying the sense of belonging to a larger community than just our crew. So were the rest of us.
Joseph said appearances didn’t matter. Inside, we were Aquoia now, just as we were Sky People.