Luke's Dream (26 page)

A minute later, she woke with a gasp. I
gently stroked her cheek, wiping away the tears that had started to
fall.

“You all right?” I asked.

She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers.
“They cut off my fingers. One by one.” She exhaled shakily and
closed her eyes once more. “Can we stop for an energy drink or
something?”

Grey turned to glance at me.

We can’t stop.

I know.

“What?” Bethi said, looking between us.

I picked up her hand and massaged her fingers
as I looked out the window.

“You were only out five minutes,” Grey said.
“Gabby said the Urbat seem to be tracking us. We’re heading for the
interstate. She’ll let us know as soon as it’s safe to stop.”

Bethi groaned and dropped her head back to
the seat. Determination wrapped around her, and she reached out to
roll down the window.

The cold November air swirled in the car. Her
fingers chilled in seconds. Despite her attempt to find something
to keep her awake, her blinks slowed. She slept restlessly for the
next three hours, waking between dreams to wipe the sweat and tears
from her face. I hated seeing her suffer so much.

“Not much further,” Grey said. “Gabby says
the Urbat who were following us seemed to have lost our trail two
highways ago. We’re going to stop for the night. Hopefully, Bethi
can get some real rest soon.”

Just before we pulled into the parking lot,
Bethi woke. She looked around with relief as the four vehicles
parked close together. With impatience, she watched the others get
out of their vehicles. As soon as Carlos put our car in park, she
scrambled out and hurried after Charlene and Thomas, who were
walking toward the hotel entrance.

I quickly grabbed our bag from the trunk and
followed.

“No credit cards,” Bethi said when she caught
up to Charlene.

Charlene nodded as Thomas held the doors
open. While they approached the desk, Bethi waited by the door for
Michelle.

“How much cash do you have?” Bethi asked.

Michelle looked at Emmitt. “Three hundred,”
he said.

Bethi turned to Gabby. “You said we needed to
go east. We need enough cash to make it there. I don’t know how
deep the Urbat are into the human world. If they have any
connections, they could use credit card transactions to track
us.”

“I have no doubt Blake could,” Michelle said,
speaking softly. She kept an eye on Jim and her brothers as they
went down a side hall to check out the pool. “I have someone I
trust who can wire me some money.”

“Good.” Bethi turned and almost ran into me.
But, I caught her by the arms before she could hurt herself.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.

Charlene and Thomas joined us before Bethi
could move away.

“They only had five rooms. One is the
honeymoon suite,” Charlene handed a key card to Emmitt with a
smile. “And the others are double queens.” She held up the
remaining cards.

“Sam can room with us,” Gabby said. Whatever
resentment she’d had for Sam seemed set aside for now.

Charlene looked at Winifred. “I thought you
and the boys could sleep with us, Nana.”

“Jim can join us,” Grey said, looking up at
Carlos. “Right, darling?”

Carlos stoically agreed.

That left Bethi and I with a room to
ourselves. Good. She’d finally get some sleep. I took the card from
Charlene.

“Let’s meet in the suite right away,” Bethi
said. “If they catch up to us, I want a plan laid out.”

Everyone agreed.

Bethi remained quiet as she walked with me to
our room to drop off our bag. The king sized bed looked inviting. I
waited for her while she used the toilet then we walked to Emmitt
and Michelle’s room. She stayed close to my side, but didn’t touch
me or take my hand. Her mood was pensive and her scent laced with
fear. It always seemed worse when she wasn’t rested.

When we reached the suite, Jim, the cubs, and
Winifred were absent. Before Bethi started to lead the discussion,
I caught Charlene saying something about them playing in the pool.
I wondered if Jim was watching the cubs, or if the cubs were
watching Jim.

“I’ve been all over the board with my
explanations,” Bethi said, gaining everyone’s attention. “So let me
be clear with what I’m trying to avoid. Dying. It’s not fun. We
need to stop their power trip. I don’t mean just in this life and
cycle but future lives and cycles, too. We need to rob them of
their chance to control us in this life. We need to make their
search hard and their goal nearly impossible.” She paused for a
moment. “We need to change the game.”

“What do you have in mind?” Sam asked.

“As I mentioned, there are six of us. We
represent different things. Prosperity, Hope, Wisdom, Strength,
Peace, and Courage. According to Gabby and Michelle, the Urbat
already have one of us. Courage. They can’t have
any
of us
because all of us are needed to make a Judgement this cycle. We
can’t get to Courage. There’s just no way with our numbers. That’s
why we need to expose werewolves and Urbat to the humans.”

My gut soured at the idea, and everyone
started talking at once.

“You can’t be serious,” Thomas said.

“We’ll be at their mercy,” Sam added. “We
don’t go to hospitals for a reason.”

“I first saw you at one,” Gabby said with an
arched brow at Sam.

“I was visiting a human friend,” he said,
waving away the reason. “We’ll end up in cages.”

I agreed with Sam. There was a reason we kept
ourselves hidden from the world. The world didn’t accept the
strange and unusual; it feared what it didn’t understand. Fear led
to violence and death.

“No,” Bethi tried saying. No one listened.
“Just calm down,” she shouted.

The room quieted.

“Hear me out. The Urbat have the advantage.
There are more of them. They know what’s going on, and we don’t.
Not fully...not yet, anyway. They’ve been building up connections
in the human world.” Michele nodded. “We need to come into the
light before they do. Show the world that werewolves exist, show
we’re not bad, and then expose the Urbat, too. We need to show that
we’re different from the Urbat, and that they are trying to hurt
us.

“If we direct human concern toward the Urbat
and not werewolves, we will have less to worry about. The Urbat
won’t be able to creep around trying to hunt us because the humans
will be watching. Urbat won’t be safe.”

“Neither will we,” Sam said.

“Not in your fur, you’re right. You’ll need
to let everyone know to keep it under wraps. And the ones that
can’t, shouldn’t go outside. But, we can’t expose everything until
we have Peace. She takes the panic and anxiety down to almost
catatonic. And Charlene can help keep everyone on the same page,”
Bethi said. “Werewolves are good; Urbat are bad.”

Charlene looked uncertain.

“We’ll keep the initial group small,” Bethi
said. “We need to find someone at a TV station to take us seriously
enough to give us air time. We want this to be recorded at their
studio to give it more credibility.”

“I might know someone,” Michelle offered
hesitantly. “She interviewed me once.”

“Perfect! When we’re there, Charlene will
need to grab everyone in the room and keep them from thinking they
should call the National Guard to make us into lab rats. Meanwhile,
Peace will keep everyone in the studio from freaking out. The first
impression werewolves will give is a calm and kind one. It wouldn’t
hurt to have a spokesperson who looks sweet and unable to snap
someone’s neck,” Bethi said, watching the Elders.

Grey grinned slightly. “Winifred is not
comfortable with being the spokesperson and wants me to remind you
clothes don’t change with us.”

“We’ll bring a robe,” Bethi said. “By
exposing ourselves—no pun intended—we are robbing the Urbat of
their advantage. They can’t hope to win against humans in an
outright war. There are too many. Their technology is too advanced.
A bullet in the head would kill any of the three races just the
same. If we tell the world we’re the good guys, and warn them to
watch out for the bad guys, we’re more likely to make it harder for
the Urbat to win this time around.”

“More likely?” Carlos said, speaking for the
first time.

“I didn’t think you actually talked,” Bethi
said. “Okay. Well, historically, the Urbat would find as many of
the Judgements as they could, and torture us to get our obedience.
But one of us always dies too late in the cycle for rebirth and
stops them from obtaining their goal. So I can’t promise this will
work. It’s never been done before.”

She was asking us to give up our anonymity.
We’d lived among humans for a long time now and understood that
most of them feared what they didn’t understand.

“We agree we should find Peace before the
Urbat do,” Sam said slowly. “But we will need to further discuss
revealing our race before we make a decision. We need to do what’s
best for the pack.”

“Exactly,” Bethi said. “The pack will die as
it is. It can’t stay hidden. The Urbat are crazy desperate. The
things they’ve done...”

I took her hand in mine, trying to stop the
direction of her thoughts. I didn’t like what she was suggesting,
but I could see why she thought it our best chance. Wasn’t
adaptation the reason our numbers had increased since Charlene’s
arrival? Yet, my skin still crawled with the idea that humans would
know we existed. Protecting Bethi would become infinitely harder if
humans knew about us.

“We have to stop them,” she said.

“We agree,” Grey said. “We just need to think
everything through.”

“Fine. But we need to plan our next stop. I’m
not sure if traveling together is a good thing or not, but in case
we get separated, we should have a place picked ahead of time.”

Michelle used her phone to locate another
hotel a day’s drive east, which everyone agreed on. While she
called to make the reservations, Charlene and Thomas quietly left
to bring us food.   They returned several minutes later with
containers of the meal she’d been working on before we left the
Compound.

She and Thomas set things out on the only
table in the room, and everyone lined up to start piling their
plates full. Bethi and I hung back, as did Charlene.

Bethi’s guilt spiked again when she looked
over at the pack’s mother.

“I’m really sorry you didn’t get to have your
nice meal,” Bethi said.

“No, Bethi. What we’re doing now is much more
important. For years, I’ve felt a...itch, I guess you’d say. Like I
was supposed to be doing something, but I never could figure out
what. The itch is gone now. I know what we’re doing is right.”

Charlene wrapped Bethi in a hug. Both women
stilled. Bethi gained color while it drained from Charlene’s face,
and they started to collapse at the same time. Thomas and I slowed
their descent and lay them carefully on the carpet.

“Bethi,” I said, tapping her cheek.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Go. Away,” she
mumbled.

“What happened?” Thomas asked.

Bethi turned her head and saw Charlene.

“She really shouldn’t touch any of us too
much,” Bethi said. “We drain her.” Thomas looked worried as he
studied Charlene, until she opened her eyes.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just takes me a bit to
pull it all back in.” She turned and looked at Bethi. “What happens
when we do that? Besides draining me.”

“Our abilities flare. Gabby’s lights ignite
with no effort on her part.” Gabby’s fork hit her plate in shock.
“Oh, sorry. The dreams are chaotic and usually painful rather than
helpful, but I have actually learned a bit about us. I didn’t mean
to say something you’d rather I didn’t.”

“No,” Gabby said. “It just keeps surprising
me how much you know.”

“And yet there’s so much I don’t.”

Bethi hadn’t made any move to sit up. I knew
better than to think it was because she was content on the
floor.

“Do you need help up?”

Bethi nodded, and I slid an arm behind her
back and did all the work so she wouldn’t strain the stitches. She
carefully got to her knees then I helped her to her feet.

Once she was safely in a chair with Gabby
sitting beside her, I went to fix us both a plate. Winifred, Jim,
and the two cubs came in looking for food, too.

I half listened to their discussion as I
piled Bethi’s plate with food, making sure to add a piece of the
pie she’d liked yesterday. When I turned to her, I heard Gabby ask
if she could travel with us the next day.

“Sure,” Bethi said, accepting the plate I
handed her. “But I’m not much fun. I tend to fall asleep all the
time.”

“Maybe conversation will help,” Gabby
said.

Bethi shrugged. Nothing really seemed to help
her fight sleep. I understood why she wanted to avoid it, but it
was easy to see how badly she needed it. Maybe after a good night’s
sleep tonight, the car ride wouldn’t be as bad tomorrow.

Standing to the side, I kept an eye on her to
make sure she ate. She lifted a forkful of stuffing to her mouth
and closed her eyes as she chewed and moaned.

“Yeah, Mom’s stuffing can do that to a
person,” Jim said, between bites.

Her expression slowly changed as she
swallowed. I’d never seen her look so sad before. When she opened
her eyes, she looked for Winifred.

“Nana?”

Winifred stopped eating to give her attention
to Bethi.

“Would you call my mom and let her know I’m
okay?” Remorse, not just Bethi’s, filled the room.

“I ran away to try to save her. I don’t know
if it worked. I can’t know if it worked.” She swallowed hard. “At
least not until we take away their advantage. But thinking of her
alone…” She looked down at her plate. “I just want her to know that
I’m okay if she’s still there.”

“Of course, Bethi,” Winifred said.

Jim handed Bethi a piece of paper and a
pencil. She wrote two numbers down before handing the paper to
Winifred. “The first one is my mom’s. The second one is a friend,
Dani, in case my mom doesn’t answer. Find out what you can. But
don’t tell me. Whether you reach her or not, don’t tell me.”