Ignited (29 page)

He agreed so quickly that I guessed he’d known all along that I would be going in with at least one of the Blackwells. Asher and Lottie would stay behind to watch over my sister and Lucy. Everything would be set in motion tomorrow, and Gabe and I would have to be ready for them to pick us up in the morning.

We hung up, and I turned to Gabe. “Tomorrow. We go get him tomorrow. Sean’s going to pick us up in the morning so we can figure things out.”

Gabe slipped his arms around me. I’d thought I would feel happy or excited, something more than the numbness settling over me. We’d waited so long for some kind of news, and now that we had it, I didn’t know how to react. Tomorrow would change everything. We would find my father, whatever condition he was in, and then we’d decide where to go from there. Would he hate me? What had they told him about me? How would he react when he found out about Laura? Dread formed a pit in my stomach at what was to come when he found out she’d died.

“Remy?” Gabe touched my chin. “Focus on the rescue. We can handle the rest later.”

I nodded. He was right, of course. What was the point of jumping ahead six steps? It could get me killed if I wasn’t paying attention to the here and now. I pushed off the counter and Gabe stepped back to let me. “Let’s go tell the others.”

“I want to go,” Lucy said.

We sat in the family room. Erin, Asher, and she had been playing
Call of Duty
when I found them. Gabe had gone to find Lottie so I was on my own. I understood Lucy’s desire to be there when we found our father, but I couldn’t let her go.

“You can’t,” Asher told her before I could. I looked over at him in surprise. His mouth had tightened into an angry line. “None of us can,” he added, taking in Lucy and Erin. “The three of us would be in the way.”

He expelled a frustrated breath and dropped his head back against the couch.

Lucy cried, and I knelt in front of her chair. “I’m sorry, sis, but he’s right. These men are dangerous, and you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself.”

“But the training,” she protested.

I shook my head. “Think about how I hurt you today. I wasn’t even using all of my strength. And the Protectors are faster and stronger. You can’t go. Dad would never forgive me if you were hurt, too.”

She squeezed my fingers. “Promise you’ll bring him back.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised.

Gabe and Lottie appeared, coming down the stairs together. She walked to the couch and perched on the arm next to Asher, while Gabe stood near me.

“I have to admit, I’m excited,” Lottie said, flipping her hair. We all stared at her like she was crazy, and she added, “I’m sick of waiting around for something to happen. I want to be
doing
something.”

Asher’s jaw tightened another degree, but he didn’t say anything.

“Excited isn’t exactly what I’m feeling, but I get what you mean,” I said in a wry voice. “Erin? Are you okay?”

She hadn’t said a word. In fact, she’d been quiet most of the day. Her gaze didn’t quite meet mine and she flushed as if she felt guilty. I wanted to tell her that it was okay to be relieved that she didn’t have to go. I wouldn’t have if I could have avoided it.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sure. I’m good. What can I do here to help?”

The discussion turned to preparations and what had to be done by the morning. Weapons would be needed, and we wanted to have a backup plan in case Seamus and his men let us down. An hour later, we called it quits, deciding the best thing we could do was try to get a good night’s sleep—a thing I feared would be impossible.

Lucy and Erin hugged me before following Lottie up the stairs. Gabe looked at me, and I motioned for him to go on. I needed to talk to Asher. He gave a small nod and went upstairs.

“Is this where you tell me you’re sorry that I have to stay behind, too?” Asher said, his voice bitter.

I sat on the couch beside him. “No. This is where I beg you to keep my sister and Erin safe.” My answer surprised him, and his eyes searched my face. “I’m afraid. If I don’t make it back . . .” I choked on the words and had to begin again. “If I don’t make it back, I need you to promise you’ll look after them.”

Asher cursed under his breath, and the use of another language almost made me smile. “Don’t talk like that. You’re going to make it out just fine.”

He turned away, but I grabbed his hand, pressing it between mine. “Promise,” I begged. “I can’t go if there’s a chance something will happen to my sister.”

I didn’t say what we both knew. If I didn’t make it back, most likely Gabe wouldn’t, either. He would never leave me behind. The gravity of what I asked didn’t escape me. It wasn’t fair to ask this of Asher, but there was no one else I trusted.

“Please,” I said again.

His hand moved to grip mine. “You have my word. Nothing will happen to them.”

“Thank you,” I breathed.

“I wish I could save your father for you,” Asher said.

“I know,” I whispered.

The silence grew awkward, and he waved me on, a sad look in his eyes. “Go on. I’m fine. You need to rest.”

I left him there, knowing that no matter what I said, he would beat himself up because he wasn’t strong enough to protect me like he wanted.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
FIVE

A
sound woke me out of a deep sleep. Before I could move, Gabe pressed a hand to my arm. He touched a finger to his lips in warning. Someone was breaking into my room from the courtyard, and they were being very quiet about jiggling the sliding glass door. The room was oddly still and silent.

I hesitated to drop my guard to discover if the stranger was a Protector. If I did, he or she would be able to sense me and know that I was different from other Protectors. The person—a man, I could see now—pushed the door open in micro movements. Any second now he would be inside the room. We could wait for him to enter and attack, or we could attack first. Indecision held me hostage. Then the man entered, and I could see a face.

Xavier. I would never forget his features. Black hair, olive skin, the lean build. He’d tortured me for two days, suffocating me and cutting me. He’d fired the gun that I thought killed Asher, and he’d been one of his torturers, too. Xavier had been there the day my father was kidnapped, and he’d been in the car that had struck my stepmother.

The Protector had destroyed everything, and a bloodlust rose up in me unlike anything I’d known before. I rolled out of the bed, and Gabe did the same on his side, as another man followed Xavier into the room. I’d kept a knife handy in the nightstand, and I palmed it as I stood. Then I was launching across the room intercepting Xavier as he took his second step into the room, while Gabe went after his friend.

Xavier grunted when I stabbed at him with the knife. He managed to block the blow I’d aimed for his stomach, and the knife sliced into the skin and tendons of his arm. Warm, wet liquid splashed on my tank top. Xavier didn’t feel pain, and the cut had only surprised him. I lowered my guard, letting my energy sift into the air.

“Feel that? That’s only the beginning, Xavier,” I said with satisfaction when he grimaced.

“Bitch,” he said through his teeth.

From across the room, I registered that Gabe was fighting the other man, their movements a blurred symphony punctuated by groans and exhalations as my energy enabled them to feel the pain of the brutal punches they landed on each other’s bodies. Xavier took advantage of my distraction and swung at me. He didn’t expect my speed, though. I spun sideways, and his fingers only caught a strand of my hair. He gave it a tug, and I cried out when the hair ripped from my scalp. But I was loose, and I ducked low, swinging the knife. The blade caught Xavier across the back of his knee, and he tumbled to the ground.

I rose and stood over him as he crawled forward on his stomach, trying to escape me. He gripped handfuls of the bedspread, pulling himself up so that he could twist about to prop his back against the foot of the bed. A few feet away, Gabe ended the fight with the other Protector by throwing him into the wardrobe. The wood splintered and broke beneath the man’s weight. My clothes tumbled out and fell over him. Before he could recover, Gabe smashed his head against the ground, ensuring he wouldn’t wake anytime soon.

“It’s been a while, Xavier,” Gabe said evenly, joining me.

As calm as his voice sounded, his body language told another story. He wanted to kill the man almost as badly as I had. Why, then, had I hesitated?

“What do you want to do with him?” Gabe asked me.

He left the decision to me, trusting I would know what to do. The problem was that I couldn’t kill a man in cold blood, even if he would hurt me.
You’re not like them, Remy. That’s a good thing.

“Can you hand me my phone?” I asked Gabe.

He picked it up from the nightstand and tossed it to me. “Watch him for me,” I said, dialing a number.

Seamus answered on the second ring. “Everything okay?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

“There are two Protectors in my bedroom right now, and there might be more on the way.”

“Morrisseys?” he asked, more alert.

“No, these are my grandfather’s men. How fast can you get here?”

“Twenty minutes,” he said, and I could hear the sounds of clothes rustling as if he was dressing. “If you can get out of the house, you should run now.”

“That’s the plan,” I said. As soon as we found my sister and the others. “Hurry.”

I clicked the phone off and crouched near Xavier. There wasn’t time, but I needed answers.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

Xavier laughed. “You think I’m actually going to tell you?”

“Yes. You have no sense of loyalty.” I pressed the knife against his throat, letting him feel the sting of it cutting into his skin. “You only care about yourself. You can tell me what I want to know, or I can do to you what you did to me in California. Do you remember?”

His brown eyes gleamed when Gabe flipped on a light, but Xavier pressed his lips together. We could play this game all night, but I wouldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t believe my threat if I didn’t back it up with action. My stomach twisted, and I took a deep breath. A cry escaped his mouth when I jerked the knife down and slid it across his thigh, slicing through black cotton and skin.

“How many times did you cut me?” I studied him with cold eyes. “Do you know that I counted every injury I healed? I think we made it to thirty-eight before Gabe rescued me. You’re at three. Do you think you can last another thirty-five?”

A tinge of fear crossed Xavier’s face, and I knew I had him. “How did you find us?” I repeated.

Drops of sweat appeared on his forehead, and he pressed a hand to his thigh to stanch the bleeding. “The little Healer,” he finally bit off. “She called home to talk to her mother, and we traced the call here.”

Instant denial had me jerking away from him. Erin had brought them on us. She’d been homesick and lost patience.
Oh Erin. You should have waited.

“Is it just the two of you?” Gabe asked.

Before Xavier could answer, a shrill scream sounded upstairs. He smiled with grim satisfaction, and I turned the knife in my hand so I could grip the blade. Then I smashed the handle into his head and watched his eyes roll back into his head. He tipped sideways, smacking his head on the wood floor with enough force to open a cut on his forehead. The bastard was lucky that I wasn’t like him, because I could have done so much worse.

Gabe was already racing into the family room, and I hit the stairs a few feet behind him. The scream had come from one of the upper floors, and feet pounded up the stairs somewhere above us. We bypassed the first floor and continued up to the next floor. The door to Gabe and Asher’s bedroom stood open, but nobody was in there. We continued up another flight to the top floor, and the sounds of the fighting reached us before we entered the chaos.

Three doors opened off the landing: one to the right for Lottie’s room, one a little farther down that opened onto a shared bath, and one more directly in front of us that was Erin and Lucy’s bedroom. Lights were on in each of the bedrooms. My grandfather’s men had divided to conquer us, and they were winning up here. Lottie fought three men in her bedroom, and Gabe peeled off to help her. I ran on to the other bedroom, where two men and a woman cornered Asher. Behind him, Lucy pressed to the wall, her face wet with tears.

My mind processed the scene in an instant. Asher’s mouth bled, and he already had an eye swelling shut. He could hardly stand, but he refused to move from his spot defending my sister. And I recognized two of his attackers. Goatee Man from Maple, Alabama. The other man was Xavier’s partner, Mark. White-blond hair shone on his head, and I guessed Asher recognized him, too, because his face had twisted with hatred.

I had one moment to wonder where Erin was, and then glass shattered when Asher threw a lamp at Mark’s head. The woman cursed when a shard of glass hit her cheek, and I watched as the fresh cut began to close. She was a Healer. I must have made a noise of surprise because heads whipped toward me, and Mark sprang forward.

Shorter than me, he had more muscles, wider shoulders, and outweighed me by a good seventy-five pounds. His momentum and strength sent me flying into the wall on the landing, and somewhere along the way I dropped the knife. I slid to the floor, catching my breath. Mark sprinted toward me again, and I rolled away, jumping to my feet to face him. We circled each other in silence, and I was ready when his fist flew at my head. At the last moment, I ducked to the side to avoid him, and I brought my foot up between his legs. He doubled over, probably feeling the first intense pain he’d experienced in months. Maybe since the last time we’d met when a truck put in motion by Gabe had rammed into him and broken his legs.

As he was distracted, I dove for the knife where it had fallen on the floor. From the bedroom, I heard a shrill scream—was it Lucy?—and I scrambled to the doorway. Asher fought Goatee Man, fists pummeling bodies in a fair fight since neither of them had powers. The Healer appeared to be trying to reach my sister, but Lucy managed to punch the woman in the jaw.