Marked (34 page)

"Honestly?
Not great. We've had a series of reverses that none of us saw coming.
Things are pretty stressful right now. I'd love to catch up and find
out how your trip with Wyatt has been so far, but I'm afraid I just
can't—not today."

"I
really don't think this is something you can help me with, Adri. How
long will it be until Alec can call me back?"

"Jess,
right now we don't have the capability to make outbound calls without
alerting the Coun'hij as to where we are. You're going to just have
to trust me to pass the message on."

"I
could call back…"

"You
could, but the odds of you catching Alec are so close to nonexistent
that you would be wasting your time. Just tell me what you need.
Please."

"I've…well,
there are a lot of things I've learned since I arrived here. Alec
needs to know this stuff, but I've promised not to say anything to
anyone other than Alec. He needs to be down here—he really
needs to be down here. A lot depends on it."

"You're
going to have to give me a lot more to go on than that, Jess. A lot
depends on Alec being up here with us."

"I
can't
,
Adri."

"What
kind of timeline are we working with?"

"Alec
needs to be in Florida later today."

"There's
no way that is happening, Jess. It's not physically possible to drive
that fast and trying to take some kind of flight would just result in
a big fight with the Coun'hij."

"You'll
be able to fly—we can make it so that the Coun'hij won't be
able to track you for the next few hours."

It
wasn't much to go on, but I'd spent the last several days getting a
crash course in what it took to drop completely out of sight from Dom
and Donovan. There was only one possible explanation for her
certainty.

"You've
got access to someone with an ability, a really powerful ability.
That's how you're going to smuggle us aboard a plane."

"Yeah,
there's someone here who can make that happen."

It
was an answer to a prayer I hadn't consciously voiced. We didn't know
how the Coun'hij had managed their recent breakthroughs, but I was
pretty sure that if we could fall off of their radar—even for a
few hours—that it would make all of the difference in the
world.

"Jess,
I need you to have your person there mask us for a few hours right
now. The Coun'hij is breathing down our necks. If your people can get
us clear of this current round of craziness, then in a couple of days
you can call me back and we can work out something as far as a trip
down to Florida."

"I'm
sorry, Adri, it doesn't work that way. I don't have that much pull
down here. This is a one-time offer and it's only valid if you're
using it to come down here."

"Really,
Jess? That's how you want to play things? You do realize that Andrew
is here with us, right? Even if you've switched sides and don't care
about the rest of us, surely you still care about him…"

"That's
not fair, Adri. My hands are tied."

"Well,
so are mine. Alec can't drop everything and just fly down to Florida
on nothing more than your say-so. Don't bother calling back if this
is all you're going to do—you've wasted precious call time that
I should have been spending with people who are loyal to Alec."

I
looked over at the tablet and saw that it was at eighty-six percent.
I'd spent too long on the phone with her already. I started to hang
up, but Jess stopped me.

"Please,
Adri. Everything depends on Alec being here later today. You have no
idea what it took for me to get permission to call you. I wouldn't
have done any of this if it wasn't important."

"You're
right, I have no idea what it took because you're not telling me. You
have a very narrow window in which to explain, but you'd better start
talking fast or it will close forever."

"I
can't tell you any of that, Adri! I want to, but I can't."

"What
can
you tell me, Jess?"

"I
can tell you that it's wrong for Alec to try and restore the
monarchy."

"That's
insane, Jess. You of all people know how terrible the Coun'hij is.
Oblivion took
everything
away from you. Alec has to restore the monarchy if there's ever going
to be any hope of the shape shifters having normal lives."

"I
didn't say it was wrong for Alec to want to stop the Coun'hij, I said
it was wrong to try and
restore
the monarchy
, Adri."

There
was a pause as someone said something that was too low for me to
catch, and then Jess sighed. "I'm sorry, Adri. I really wish I
could tell you more, but I can't. If there is any way for you to
convince Alec to come down to Florida, then please do it."

She
hung up before I could get off any kind of parting shot, and I was
left with a monitor that showed an eighty-seven percent risk profile
and a bad taste in my mouth. I wondered if it would have made any
difference if I'd just come clean with Jess and told her that Alec
was currently unconscious and under attack from Dream Stealer.

We'd
reached the end of our resources. There hadn't been any word out of
Jasmin—not surprising considering the fact that she'd been
headed into a fight she couldn't possibly win—and nobody had
managed to capture a mentalist vampire yet.

Mallory
had us headed east in the hopes that we'd be able to capture a
mentalist in one of the higher-population areas along the coast, but
we all knew that was a long shot. It had seemed so simple back before
the Coun'hij had been hot on our tail, but now all I could think
about was the fact that stopping to hunt vampires would probably mean
that we would have kill teams in the area hunting
us
.

Maybe if I'd come clean with Jess then Wyatt's people would have
had a solution, but I didn't think so. It had been hard enough to
believe that some fringe group that had spent the last hundred years
flying under the radar would have two hybrids with major abilities in
their ranks. The idea that they might have a third hybrid with a
power—a hybrid who could track down Dream Stealer or kill him from
a distance—in addition to Grayson and Jess' mystery 'cloaking'
hybrid, just boggled the mind.

I
felt reasonably comfortable in my decision not to tell her, to
control the rumors that would have started spawning as soon as I
began admitting that Alec was fading fast, but there was a tiny part
of me that was worried I'd been wrong, that I'd just sentenced Alec
to death despite my best intentions.

I
looked over at Alec and my stomach knotted up the tiniest bit more at
how pale he'd gotten. I stood up and crossed over to his bed, taking
his left hand in mine as I wished there was something productive I
could do.

I
couldn't make any calls out to the rest of the world, and the monitor
was now showing an eighty-eight percent risk profile despite the fact
that I wasn't even on the phone with anyone. Even if someone called
in I would probably have to ignore their call—I was completely
useless. Donovan, Mallory and the rest all looked to me for
direction, but I had no idea how to stop the disaster I could feel us
sliding towards.

Lori
was a ticking time bomb that could destroy the Coun'hij for me if I
could hunt them down before she went off, but the odds of
accomplishing that were getting slimmer by the hour.

I
must have closed my eyes and started to nod off sitting up, because
the sound of my phone ringing made me jump. For a second there it had
felt like something had been pulling me down a long dark tube. I'd
been terrified of what was happening, but at the same time it had
felt oddly right to be headed wherever I was headed.

I
went to hit the 'ignore' button on my phone, and then realized that
it was Isaac who was calling. The monitor had dropped back down to
eighty-six percent—still too high to risk a call of any length,
but I hit accept regardless. I'd promised Alec.

"Isaac,
is that you?"

"Adri?
Where is Alec? I'm sorry, but I don't have much time and I really
need to talk to him."

Isaac
sounded worried and stressed, but he also sounded like home. Isaac
had been different lately, more angry and unbalanced, but in my heart
he was still the same guy who had accepted me into the pack over
Jess' objections. He was still the guy who had risked death to come
watch out for me while I'd been in New York.

"I'm
sorry, Isaac. Alec isn't available, but he made me promise that I'd
pick up no matter what the next time you called."

I'd
been trying to sound as normal as possible, but apparently I hadn't
succeeded, because there was a change in Isaac's voice when he
responded.

"How
long will it be before Alec can call me himself and talk to me?"

Maybe
someone else would have started to resent the fact that everyone
wanted to talk to Alec, that I wasn't good enough to solve their
problems, but not me. Nobody was more conscious than me of just how
poorly I was doing when it came to filling his shoes.

"I
don't have an answer for you on that one, Isaac. Why don't you just
tell me what you need and we'll see what we can pull together for
you?"

Even
I heard my voice catch on that response, there was no way that Isaac
could miss it.

"What's
going on, Adri?"

I
suddenly wanted to just start crying. Part of me wanted desperately
to just hand all of these problems off to someone else. Isaac had
always felt so solid and strong. He wasn't strong enough to take over
and do everything that Alec was supposed to be doing, but surely he
couldn't do any worse than I was already doing.

"The
Chicago pack is in ruins. Nobody has heard from Shawn or Ulrich in
days. The Coun'hij has kill teams scouring the country for our people
and they are scary good at finding people they shouldn't be able to
find. My two best weapons are Jaclyn who refuses to pick up her
phone, and Grayson who told me directly the last time I called him
that he can't help me with any of my problems."

"That's
not what I was talking about and you know it."

I
don't know what I expected out of Isaac after listing my problems off
like that, but that wasn't it. I'd just been more honest with him
than I'd been with anyone else for days, and he was acting like I was
trying to jerk him around.

"Sorry,
Isaac, that's all you're going to get unless you're ready to come
meet up with us so that I can tell you in person. I'm not saying any
more over a phone line regardless of how secure you or anyone else
tell me it is."

"Where
is Alec?"

There
was something to his tone that put my back up even further than it
had been, but that was okay, it was better for me to be angry. Anger
had its own set of dangers, but at least anger made me want to keep
fighting rather than just giving up and waiting for the end to come.

"Not
another word, Isaac, or I'll hang up on you right now and Alec can
just deal with the fact that I broke my promise to him."

"He's
not dead." There was an element of concern to Isaac's voice
despite his certainty. It was reassuring, like maybe the old Isaac
was still there underneath everything. All of the warm, fuzzy
feelings in the world couldn't change the fact that the monitor had
just crept up to eighty-nine percent though. I needed to get Isaac
off of the phone.

"No,
he's not dead. What do you need? I've got problems here that need to
be dealt with."

"I'm
in Louisiana. Those kill teams chased us here and then Onyx backed us
into a corner. I'm about to go fight Onyx, but I know that I can't
win. I was hoping that Alec could come put him down for me."

The
monitor hit ninety percent and started flashing a warning that the
call would be dropped in the next few seconds in order to stop the
Coun'hij from locking in our position. I closed my eyes for half a
second and then cradled my phone against my shoulder so that I could
hit the override button on the monitor. It was risky, but this was
Isaac and he'd just told me he was up against a fight that he
couldn't win. I had to try and do something to help him. I
desperately ran through a list of the people still calling in on a
regular basis, people who might be located close enough to Ash's old
home to get there in time.

"That's
not going to happen, not with everything else that's going on right
now, but I might be able to get some hybrids down there to help you
out. I think that there are two from the Tucson pack I could shake
loose along with four or five wolves."

My
override had spurred Donovan's beleaguered hackers into a frenzy of
activity. The risk profile was still holding steady at ninety
percent, but I knew they wouldn't be able to protect us for much
longer. I needed Isaac to say yes and then give me an address and a
time.

Isaac
sounded frustrated. "No, that isn't going to do the trick. You
can't just throw bodies at this guy. He's got an ability that drops
people from a dozen yards away. Sending a dozen hybrids wouldn't be
enough, you'd just end up with more corpses on our side when all was
said and done. I need Alec, he's the only one who can definitely
neutralize Onyx."

I
felt like I'd just been punched in the gut. Alec couldn't help Isaac
out, but there was another option if I was willing to use it. Lori
would be just as effective against Onyx as she would be against any
other male. The question wasn't whether Lori could save Isaac, the
question was whether she would keep Onyx alive and use him as her own
personal weapon.

I
opened my mouth to tell him that help was on the way, but that wasn't
what came out. "I'm sorry, Isaac, I really wish there was more
that we could do, but there isn't. Are you sure that there isn't some
way to get the three of you out of there?"