Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
ASH
Idon’t look back. Don’t change into dry clothes. Anything. Just saddle Winnie and head for the Grange.
I recognize trucks I didn’t expect when I arrive, and Mags greets me at the door. Her face looks like she already knows too much.
Inside, the lights flicker, intimate. Almost too low. Dust and old tobacco linger like something that refuses to die.
“They’re inside already. Called them when I felt the air shift,” she whispers. Then, stops and looks at me long and hard. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head, past words.
Inside, I see Clay and the other council members gathered. A row of five somber faces.
Mags starts the meeting, and I sit silently, waiting. Not at the table this time, but away. Hands balled in my lap, doing everything I can to deny there’s a bond at all—sever it.
But I still feel her soft warmth, still remember the way she kissed me back as if I wasn’t different. Or strange. Like I could be hers.
My tongue presses to the roof of my mouth—an old trick to keep from reacting.
“Ash Merrick, please come before the council.”
I rise, heading to the front of the room and the podium, trying to ignore the consternation and judgment flying thick around the room. My hands ball at my sides.
“It has come to our attention that the Department of Homeland Security raided the Raven Ridge Museum today. The Reyes Ranch, too. A matter of national security. What can you tell us?”
Air escapes my throat like relief. I thought this conversation would be different.
I clear my throat, choosing my words carefully. “I was at home when agents showed up. Made myself available for questioning and assistance.”
“What kind of assistance?”
“Loading boxes. Redirecting attention. Keeping focus.”
Clay’s eyes narrow.
Mags’s lips turn up at the corners. “Very good.”
“And the artifact?” Clay asks.
“Still buried.”
The other council members nod, but Clay’s eyes narrow on me. “Any clue who triggered the raid?”
“Agents said it had to do with GPS coordinates recorded through an archaeoastronomy app. Something Reyes’s granddaughter was working on.”
“The project you’ve been monitoring?” Wilton cuts in, bushy gray eyebrows waggling.
“Yes.”
The room falls silent, eyes casting away, faces tightening. Like they’re all thinking the same thing but refuse to say it.
Until Mags cuts in. “And the anomalous readings we picked up this afternoon?” Her forehead knits, hope tinging her voice.
“Nothing.” It comes out flat.
She looks stunned for a moment, eyelashes fluttering.
Clay’s face remains guarded.
“You’re certain?” she asks.
“More than certain,” I grumble.
“Because it’s inconvenient? Dangerous?”
“Because it’s impossible,” I say, like a hammer driving a nail home in one swing.
“Enough,” Clay cuts in. “Back to the artifact. How will you ensure its safety moving forward?”
This is the part I don’t want to say but have to. It’s the only way. “Relocation. Gonna get a jump on winter. Head up pasture early. Remote, isolated. Won’t be anyone there. Not even DHS.”
Nods of assent line the table. But Mags doesn’t hide her disappointment.
“Self-imposed exile, then?” Wilton says, more statement than question.
“Change of perimeter assignment. New focus.”
“And Reyes’s granddaughter?” Mags asks.
I fight the ache behind my sternum. “The raid was a blow. Can’t imagine she’ll stay much past this.”
Or much past what happened at the rocks today. My total loss of self-control.
“In other words, control maintained. Containment restored,” Clay states.
I take a deep breath. “There were sketches and notes. Photos among her personal papers that could be cause for concern.”
Mags’s eyebrows lift.
“A photo of you from nineteen ten. One of me from nineteen sixty-six.”
“Anything else?” Clay asks.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Nothing that isn’t already present in public records,” Mags chimes in. “Can’t be old enough to shoot and rope for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and not leave a mark or two.” She winks.
Clay doesn’t move. But Wilton nods.
“And as for the granddaughter? She never suspected anything?”
“I can’t say that. But she won’t tell anyone.”
“How can you be sure?” Wilton asks, leaning forward.
“Because she’s a college-trained archaeologist preparing for her doctoral program. She won’t risk that for conspiracy.”
“Very good,” Clay says, dismissing me back to my chair.
Heat still pours off me, steaming against my rain-drenched clothes. Body aching for what I tasted.
Instead of satisfying me, it only made the need more acute. I press my fingers into my temples, rubbing them slowly.
Mags notices.
Afterward, she pulls me aside. “There’s much you left unsaid.”
I nod once. “Better that way.”
“You sure about that?”
The kiss flickers again. The peace that came with it. Breaths synced, hearts in time. Can’t go there anymore.
“Certain. She’s too human. Too analytical to understand. It would be a psychological rupture. A containment failure.”
She stares at the ground for a long moment. “How long will you stay away?”
“As long as it takes.”
Worry creases her forehead, mouth working without speaking. Her hand comes up, flattening the lapel of my damp Carhartt. “Oh, my dear boy. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I grumble. “Distance is discipline. You taught well.”
“I also taught you something else,” she ventures, looking up at me with clear, perceptive eyes.
I wait, uncertain of where this is going.
“Wildbloods… we’re far more powerful than we know. Not accident. Not abomination. Evolution.”
I nod once.
“Never forget,” she adds so softly I have to lean closer to hear her. “It wasn’t obedience that brought us into being. It was rebellion.”