Eternity of Vengeance : Book 7 of the Heku Series (62 page)

“I know,” Alexis told him.
“He had a girlfriend back then.”

“Right… her name was…
Heidi?”

Alexis nodded and looked
over when Mark put his cell phone to his ear. They all waited for a
few seconds before he shut it, “It went to voicemail.”

“We have to tell the
Elder,” Silas said.

“No!” Alexis gasped. “Dad
would kill him.”

“This is big, Lexi. We
can’t just let it go.”

“Mom’s taking care of him… but I’m
afraid she’ll ash him and hide it like she did
Frederick.”

“She may, depends on her
mood.”

“Mad is what she was, I could
tell.”

“Yes, mad it would be,”
Mark said. “Or furious more like.”

“See! She’s going to kill
him,” Alexis said, and then tears filled her eyes.

“Calm down, ok? We’ll go look for
them… but the Council is going to start asking questions,” Kralen
told her.

“Damnit, we run the risk
of a lot of trouble for not telling the Elder,” Mark sighed.
“Kralen’s already on thin ice from the coffee trip.”

“Please, Mark,” Alexis
said, and touched his arm lightly. “She’ll kill him, but if Dad
finds out… he’ll torture him first.”

“Silas take Alexis… Kralen
and I will go out together. We’ll see if we can find her and figure
out what’s going on,” Mark said. They all ran for the garage and
Kralen chuckled as he buckled in.

Mark looked over at him,
“What?”

“You have a soft spot for Em and
Alex.”

“So?”

“So… all they have to do is bat their
eyelashes and you cave.”

“That’s not true,” Mark told him, and
headed out of the city.

***

Emily shivered in the dark night, “If
that’s what you say.”

“It is! I swear, we’re just friends,”
Gabe explained.

“But you left your
girlfriend?”

“Yes, while you were gone.
It wasn’t because of Alexis.”

“Was it because of someone
else?”

“No”

She sighed, “You know I spent time
with the Encala’s Chief Interrogator and picked up some
tips.”

“No… I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, I did. Now
start telling me the truth. We’ve wasted 3 hours out here with you
lying to me and I’m not all that happy about it.”

Gabe looked down at the ground, “I
didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“She’s 15,
Gabe.”

“I know! I realize that,
ok?”

“Here’s the real problem…
I don’t really care that she may have a boyfriend at 15. However, I
think Chevalier will have problems with that.”

Gabe nodded.

“I’m not sure if you quite understand
how he may react to this.”

“I do, Ma’am. We were just
friends. I can’t help it if it turns into more.”

“Yes you can, Gabe… and if you value
your life, then you may rethink that.”

Gabe looked slowly around
the park, “He has to understand that at some point, she may find
someone.”

“He’s not unreasonable, so
I’m sure he does. I just don’t think he would agree with the
age.”

“You were married at 17.”

Emily sighed, “Damn, does everyone
know everything about me?”

“Probably,” Gabe said, and then
grinned.

“Mom, it’s going to rain
soon,” Dain said, walking back over to the picnic table. He’d been
surveying the area and had just caught the scent of
rain.

Gabe stood up, “I
appreciate the warnings, but I’d also appreciate it if you could
keep this from the Elder.”

Emily nodded, “Sure…
unless it gets out of hand, and then the entire Council and Cavalry
will come find you.”

Gabe’s eyes grew wide
before he walked back to the truck. Dain grinned and followed him
while Emily looked around the small park and then climbed into the
truck.

Emily cranked up the
heater when they got into the truck and then took off for Council
City. With the dark clouds of the approaching storm, the night was
pitch-black and it wasn’t long before lightning lit up the sky and
the truck was pelted with hail.

Gabe turned in his seat to
face Dain, who was sitting in the backseat, “So is it true that you
fed from your Mom for a year?”

Dain’s eyes narrowed and Emily gasped,
“What?”

“Just curious is all.”

Dain growled slightly before speaking,
“That’s none of your business.”

“You can’t expect to be as
famous as you two are without speculation and rumors. I simply
wanted to see if it were true. If it is… I say kudos.”

Emily looked over at him, “Mind your
own business.”

“Fine,” Gabe said, still
watching Dain in the backseat.

“What?” Dain asked, now
irritated.

“How is it you’re full heku and Alexis
isn’t?”

“No one knows.”

“I’m glad, don’t get me wrong… heku
women aren’t built like your sister.”

“What the hell?” Emily asked, glaring
at him.

He shrugged, “Do you have any mortal
traits at all?”

“Yeah,” Dain said.

“Like what?”

“Like the sudden urge to
remove your arm.”

Suddenly, the truck
slammed into a tree. The force of the impact threw both Gabe and
Dain out the front window and they slumped down against the mud.
The night fell eerily quiet as the two heku healed, but no sound
came from the truck.

Gabe was the first to heal
enough to stand up, and he stumbled over to the truck as steam
poured out of the engine. He tore open the driver’s door and
studied Emily, not quite sure what to do. She was leaned forward,
still in her seat belt, and the airbag was deflated in front of
her. She had blood covering her neck and chest, but he could tell
she was breathing.

Dain roughly shoved Gabe away and
leaned into the truck, “Mom?”

“I need an ambulance at mile marker
321 on County Road 22,” Gabe said into his cell phone.

“Mom… can you hear me?”
Dain asked, and took her hand. It was completely limp in
his.

“There’s an ambulance on
the way,” Gabe said, and then he inhaled deeply and a soft hiss
escaped his lips.

Dain turned toward him in
a crouch, and Gabe’s feral eyes turned to the young heku as the
smell of blood filled the area and his primal instincts came
forward.

“Get back,” Dain yelled.

Gabe again inhaled and exposed his
teeth menacingly moments before Silas slammed into him and they
blurred into a fight in the muddy woods.

“What happened?” Mark asked, and moved
Dain out of the way so he could check on Emily.

“We wrecked,” Dain said,
frowning slightly. The smell of blood became stronger and he
started to shake.

“Oh no you don’t,” Kralen
growled, and pulled Dain off into the trees.

“Em?” Mark asked, and
touched her cheek lightly. He looked up when he heard sirens, and
ordered the heku all back into the trees instantly. He watched
silently from behind a tree as the paramedics gently put Emily on a
backboard and then strapped her onto it before putting her in the
back of an ambulance.

Police arrived shortly
after the ambulance and they were going through the old Chevy
pickup, trying to find out what happened. When the Ambulance left
for the hospital, Mark ordered Kralen to return Gabe and Dain to
Council City, while he and Silas blurred to the car waiting a mile
away and sped off toward the hospital.

They pulled up in Emergency Room
parking just as Chevalier and Quinn arrived.

“What happened?” Quinn asked, after
Chevalier disappeared into the hospital.

“We aren’t really sure.
Dain just said they wrecked. Looks like Em hit a tree, but not sure
how. She was a ways off of the road,” Mark explained. “When we got
there, Gabe was about to attack her. There was a lot of
blood.”

Quinn nodded, “Let’s go see what they
found.”

The three heku went into
the Emergency Room and waited while Chevalier spoke to the nurse.
After arguing with her for a few minutes, Quinn took his arm, “Come
on, we’ll wait out here.”

Chevalier glared at the
small nurse and then turned angrily and sat down in the waiting
room. A few hours later, a young doctor came out to talk to them.
She was in blood covered green scrubs and looked exhausted and
worried.

“Who is Emily’s husband?”
she asked the four heku.

“I am,” Chevalier said, and stood
up.

The doctor shook his hand
before she spoke, “I’m Dr. Webb… have a seat.”

She sat down after
Chevalier and then leaned forward with her elbows on her knees,
“I’ll just make this brief. Your wife is still unconscious, but
it’s not from the wreck.”

“Then why?”

“We ran a CT and MRI on
Emily and found signs of past strokes, but one new one. I suspect
she had a stroke while driving and then fell
unconscious.”

Quinn glanced nervously at
Kralen.

“So she’s not injured from the car
wreck?” Chevalier asked.

“Not that we can find. She
had a nosebleed and blood pooling in her ears, but we can’t find a
cause for those. The strokes wouldn’t cause that. My main concern
is how someone as young as Emily has that many strokes.”

“She has blood pressure
problems,” Dr. Edwards said, walking into the Emergency
Room.

“You are?” Dr. Webb
asked.

“I’m Dr. Edwards, Emily’s
personal Physician.”

Dr. Webb shook his hand
and waited until he sat down, “We are suspecting they are just
TIAs, but we won’t know until she wakes up and recovers for a few
days.”

“Did you CT?” Dr. Edwards
asked.

“Yes, she’s having
Ischemic
strokes. I’ve can
clearly see six previous and then the new one today, but the
bleeding has stopped.”

“What antiplatelet is she
on?”

“We’ve started her
on
Clopidogrel, Aspirin, and dipyridamole,
but when she goes home we’ll drop the Aspirin.”

Dr. Edwards nodded, “When
can we take her home then?”

“I’d like to wait until she wakes up
and we can evaluate her for brain damage.”

“Can’t Dr. Edwards do
that?” Chevalier asked her.

“Yes, but I still don’t
feel comfortable sending her home unconscious. Let’s just wait it
out until she wakes up.”

Dr. Webb stood up and left
the heku in the waiting room. They all turned to Dr. Edwards and he
spoke, too softly for the mortals to hear.

“This is good, now that I know what
kind of strokes she’s having, we can take preventative
measures.”

“Like what?” Chevalier
asked.

“Those medications she
mentioned… We’ll keep her on those but I’ll warn you… they are
anti-coagulants. If Emily is to be fed off of, she could bleed to
death.”

Chevalier hissed softly.

“I don’t know if the
medications will work. I lied to the doctor about her having high
blood pressure, but that’s the best excuse for strokes in one
listed as young as Emily is.”

“What else can we do?” Quinn
asked.

“That’s it unless we can
find out what’s causing them.”

“Could this all be caused by her age?”
Chevalier asked, mostly to himself.

“She doesn’t age,” Dr.
Edwards said.

“What if part of her is aging though?
She’d be 46 years old now.”

“That’s still pretty young to be
having strokes.”

“Who all was in the car with her when
it happened?” Chevalier asked, and turned to Mark.

“Dain and Gabe,” Mark
said, and then sighed. He had to tell the Elder the
truth.

“Gabe? Why?”

“I think you may need to take that up
with Emily.”

“But you know?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Tell me.”

Mark looked down at the
ground for a second before addressing the Elder, “Emily caught Gabe
and Alexis talking. From what Alexis said, Gabe brushed hair away
from her face, thereby touching her and…”

“What!?” Chevalier whispered
harshly.

“Emily then ordered Gabe
into the truck and took off with he and Dain.”

“Are we sure he touched my
daughter?”

“Yes, Elder.”

“Put him in prison until I can deal
with him.”

Mark nodded to Kralen, who disappeared
from the waiting room.

“Is her old truck destroyed?” Quinn
asked.

“I would imagine so.”

“Good, it was untrustworthy and badly
in need of repair.”