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"That
one's going to be a problem."

"Yeah,
but that's not why I stopped by. I've got teams of three people each
collecting cell phones. We'll be moving again within the next two or
three minutes."

"I'm
glad my performance did the trick."

"Actually,
that's what I wanted to ask you about. Do you realize how much of a
chance you took back there?"

"Yes—that's
actually why I took it. It was a risk, but the alternative was having
people press harder and harder as time went on. I needed to nip the
rumors in the bud or everything was going to fall apart in the next
few days."

"How
did you know you could pull a lie of that magnitude off? I've been
around some pretty high-level players and I'm not sure that any of
them would have done that, even if they could have. When Alec dies
you're going to have zero credibility with these people."

"I'm
aware of the risks, Mallory, but it was the only choice I could live
with."

"You're
playing a risky game, Adri. One that is going to eventually come back
to bite you, but I'll stick with you. You're the only game in town
and Donovan believes in you, but be careful. Now that you can get
away with lies like that it's going to be very difficult to stop
yourself from lying any time you run up against a truth that you
don't like. The problem is the more lies you throw out there the
harder they are going to land when they come home to roost."

"Thank
you for your concern, Mallory. I'm managing the risks. Please get us
on the road as quickly as possible. I had to make one last call to
Tasha just now so it's important that we get moving. Hopefully Alec's
hackers are still managing to keep our images off of the satellite
feeds. I need to check up on Alec again."

Despite
what I'd said, several long minutes passed after Mallory's departure
before I moved from the room's only chair. I really did understand
Mallory's worries, but at the same time they felt like something with
no relevancy to my world.

I
could see the appeal to being able to lie about anything and having
people believe you because their very senses told them you were
telling the truth, but I could only lie about one thing. Alec was
going to survive this and he was going to come out the other side
sane and very much still his own person.

It
was going to happen because I was going to use up myself—and
everyone else around me if it came to that—to
make
it happen.

Adriana Paige
Downtown
Denver, Colorado

Seeing
Dominic again was like seeing the sun again for the first time after
a long, cloudy winter.

We
were reunited amongst a flurry of activity that went much better than
I expected it to. I was still worried that the Coun'hij was tracking
us via preternatural means, but even if that was the case, it was
only a matter of time before the bullet holes in our RV occasioned
some kind of attention from law enforcement. The logical answer was
to change vehicles, but I'd been reluctant to insist on it because of
the difficulty involved.

I
raised the question with Donovan though once he woke from his nap and
came in to check on Alec. It took us less than five minutes'
discussion to decide to change up every vehicle in the convoy.

The
actual logistics ended up being both easier and more difficult than
I'd been expecting. The only thing Donovan was worried about
salvaging from our existing RV was the trio of aerodynamic antennae
affixed to the top of the roof and the large touchscreen attached to
the wall. Beyond that, everything else was easily moveable.

It
took another ten minutes to draw up a list of things we were going to
need and tasks that were going to need to be done, and then I began
splitting the tasks into separate lists for Mallory to distribute out
to the teams she was going to have to put together.

We
rolled into town forty-five minutes before the arranged meeting time
with Dominic, and stopped at a large truck stop half an hour away
from the meeting place. A short conference was all that it took to
bring Mallory up to speed and then we all sprang into action.

A
couple of burly guys who looked like they knew their way around power
tools started grinding off the serial number stamped into the engine
as soon as Mallory got the other RV in place to screen their
activities from anyone driving past on the road.

Most
of the rest of the group was sent off, either shopping or dumping
their cars in a variety of different manners, all of which should
help make sure that they wouldn't surface and lead the Coun'hij back
to us anytime soon. That was actually one of the more dangerous parts
of the plan. I didn't like having everyone spread out like that, but
neither Donovan nor I had been able to come up with a way around it
any more than we'd been able to find a way around replacing our
vehicles without putting large sums of money in the hands of the
people tapped to go do the actual purchasing.

The
last three cars to leave all waited to go until after we'd extended
the large canopy that was one of the features of the RV. We backed
each of the three cars up next to the RV in turn before they left. I
was in the second vehicle, a minivan that we'd dropped the two back
seats down in so that they formed a large flat surface that was an
adequate bed for Alec.

Donovan
cleaned Alec up and draped a clean sheet over him before we moved him
with a second clean sheet used as an improvised stretcher. Alec still
looked bad, but he looked good enough for people to think that he was
on the mend, and the top sheet hid the fact that we'd tied him up so
that he wouldn't flail while being moved and thereby let everyone
know he was being attacked by Dream Stealer.

Mallory
had carefully picked the group that had been left behind to see Alec
and our hope was that she'd correctly picked people who weren't
inclined to ask a lot of questions, people who would be relieved to
see Alec was still breathing, and most importantly people who would
be believed when they said that Alec looked like he was in a
peaceful, healing sleep.

I'd
been most nervous about having our people dispersed, but Donovan had
been most concerned with the idea that Alec and I were going to be
driven around by Ruby. I could understand his worries—frankly I
wasn't as sanguine about the whole thing as I tried to let on.

Ruby
had a one-in-three chance of being the Coun'hij agent who had ruined
our communications equipment, if indeed that was what had happened.
Mallory had obliquely questioned all three of our possible saboteurs
without any of them mentioning that they'd noticed anything odd, but
that still wasn't proof that the malfunction had been solely the
result of shrapnel from the bullet that had punched through the
communications closet.

Being
only a wolf, Ruby wasn't particularly dangerous compared to most of
our people, but she didn't
need
to be very dangerous to be a threat to Alec and me. Donovan had
wanted me to use someone else as a driver or barring that to drive us
himself, but in the end simple logic made him agree that she was the
only option. Donovan was the only one who could do some of the
shopping that needed to be done and Ruby already knew—and
seemed to be keeping secret—the true extent of Alec's injuries.
I didn't trust Ruby, not totally, but I didn't want to risk anyone
else finding out that Alec was in such bad shape.

All
of which explained the great degree of comfort I took from the pistol
that Mallory slipped me just before Ruby, Alec and I left. Ruby
couldn't attack me while she was driving the van, and now that I was
armed I had the ability to make sure she didn't take us somewhere I
didn't want to go.

It
wasn't a perfect plan, but it wasn't that big of a departure from
what we were already doing. We'd let her drive the RV because there
hadn't been any other way to both isolate her and keep her too busy
to get into any mischief, and she hadn't wrecked the RV, so there was
a reasonable chance that she wouldn't crash the minivan.

Ruby
didn't say anything until we'd been driving for nearly a minute. "You
don't trust me, do you?"

"You
can smell the gunpowder?"

"Yeah,
a little bit. Mostly it's the gun oil."

"No,
Ruby, I'm afraid that I don't trust you, not completely. I'm sorry if
I'm doing you a disservice, but I just can't afford to take that
chance right now."

"That's
fine, it's better than fine actually. Believe it or not, I want Alec
to come through this every bit as badly as you do."

"Okay,
for now just keep to the route we talked about and get me to Dominic
and James."

The
rest of the trip was thankfully uneventful. Twenty minutes later we
pulled under the overpass and something unknotted when I saw the
large, black van waiting for us.

A
tiny part of me had been convinced that Dominic and James were never
going to arrive, that I was going to have to try to keep Alec alive
with no more help than what Donovan and Mallory could provide.
Knowing that I was going to have two more friends with me, friends I
could trust without question, took away some of the burden that I'd
been carrying since Alec had been shot.

Ruby
parked a couple of feet behind the black van and then turned off the
engine and handed the keys back to me without having to be asked. I
still half expected her to try to make a run for it as soon as she
was out of our minivan, but she simply stood between the two vehicles
while I locked all but one of the doors and then exited myself.

As
soon as they could see me, James and Dominic both climbed out of
their vehicle. Dominic crossed the distance between us in a flash and
pulled me into a hug before I could even blink.

"I'm
so glad to see you, Adri. I've spent this whole time worrying that
something was going to happen to you and Alec before we could meet
up."

"Yeah,
I was worried about you too. Have you had any more luck with your
ability?"

She
looked so crestfallen that I wished I'd waited to ask until later.
"No, nothing yet. I've tried a dozen times to heal James' mother
of her scars, but it's all been to no avail."

She'd
pulled back a little while acknowledging her failure, but I reached
forward and gave her hand a squeeze before turning to James, who was
keeping a wary eye on Ruby at the same time that he tried to keep a
watch out for other threats.

"Thanks
for coming, James."

"Yeah,
how's Alec doing?"

"Not
as well as I'd like, but a lot better than he could be doing. This is
Ruby. So far she's been very cooperative and helpful, but I'm still
not completely positive I can trust her, so watch yourself around
her."

"I
was already planning on doing exactly that."

"Good.
Can you two please move Alec to your van? There's room, right?"

"Yeah,
just barely, but it's not like Andrew or Mrs. Graves is going to
notice if we crowd the two of them a little."

Apparently
James could smell the gun I was packing too. It was the only logical
reason for him to be treating me like I was actually capable of
backing him up if Ruby suddenly went crazy. It was flattering, but I
was actually a lot less confident in my ability than he seemed to be.
Shooting someone from less than five feet away who was seat belted
into one spot was probably something I could manage, but anything
beyond that was pushing things.

James
kept an eye on Ruby while I unlocked the back of the minivan and then
once I had a clear line of sight to Ruby again he went over to help
Dom move Alec.

"Oh,
no. He's hurt so badly!"

"Yeah,
that's why I've been so anxious to get you and him in the same
place."

"I'll
do my best, Adri, but I'm just not sure I'll be able to help. I'm
starting to think the past healings are some kind of cruel prank,
that or just a fluke."

"No,
one time could be a fluke, but you've healed more than a dozen people
on two different days. You've got a power, it's just a question of
how long it will be before it manifests fully."

"I
hope you're right."

Once
they had Alec safely tucked away in the back of their van, I stepped
forward and handed James a slip of paper.

"We
need to ditch the minivan. James, can you take Ruby with you and lose
it somewhere reasonably close to the Park Hill area, please? That
will put you close enough to make the rendezvous point in plenty of
time."

"Yeah,
I can do that. Take care of Dom and the rest of them for me until I
get back."

I
nodded and tossed Ruby the keys. Dom was already climbing into the
van. I followed her, taking a seat in the passenger's seat next to
Addison, who favored me with a dirty look.

"You
just couldn't let well enough alone, could you? You had to drag all
of us back into the crosshairs with you."

The
old Adri probably would have let her get away with it, but I knew I
couldn't allow that kind of blatant disrespect. Alec could, simply
because he was so much more powerful than the rest of us that it
almost didn't matter if he had two or three people openly sniping at
him. My position wasn't anywhere near as secure as that.

"Listen,
Addison, I'd like to get one thing straight. I'm not going to put up
with that kind of garbage from you. Not now, not in the future, not
in private and definitely not in public. You know as well as I do
that we are alive for one reason and one reason only. Alec has put
his life on the line for all of us repeatedly and while that doesn't
make him some kind of infallible saint, it should earn him some
pretty profound respect."

She
opened her mouth, but I cut her off with a glance.