The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (33 page)

Khol nodded. “Exactly.”

“So what are we going to do?” Going back to all the problems I left behind seemed like a horrible idea, and yet I knew it was my responsibility to fight the alien creatures simply because I was the only one getting visions about them.

“We’re going to have to go back, aren’t we?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.

“I’m afraid so,” Khol responded through gritted teeth.

Fabulous.

After a lot of discussion—okay, argument—it was decided that our little band of misfits; made up of myself, Bryn, Khol, Jeremy, Jenna, and Macon, who seemed unwilling to leave Jenna’s side, were going to venture back to Pittsburgh. The primary goals were to see if I could get any helpful premonitions/visions and to see what had happened there since Khol had taken me on an involuntary vacation to Dragon Land. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that the fallout of my leaving was going to be more than I was going to be able to handle.

Khol and Macon shifted us into the quiet dark of my parents’ backyard—funny how I had already stopped thinking of it as my own backyard. It was early evening, and yet my parents’ house, along with all the neighboring houses, was silent and dark—uncharacteristically so. I swallowed the sudden rise of bile in my throat and slid my hand into Bryn’s large warm one. “Something’s not right,” I whispered into the night.

“I don’t sense anyone around,” Khol muttered in response.

“I don’t feel any weird energies though. That’s something,” Jeremy said with hope, although tension was still evident in his voice.

Dizziness swept through my head, and my vision blurred, just as pain abruptly tore through my skull, whisking me up and out of my body like every other time I’d had visions before. What I saw was like watching several different channels on T.V., but all at the same time. Most of it was too convoluted for me to make sense of except for one scene, one that threatened to rip my heart right out of my chest.

Cops wearing black S.W.A.T. gear battered in the front door of my parents’ house, taking mine and Bryn’s families by surprise. I was guessing they had been there discussing both of our disappearances. Bryn’s father was the first to react with his superior Guardian reflexes and abilities, and then everything happened so fast, or maybe I just couldn’t focus on it properly. In the end, both of our families were led out of the house in handcuffs. Bryn’s father was bleeding from a bullet wound in his arm, but at least he was still alive. I then watched as every family in the neighborhood that had any Seers, Gatekeepers, Guardians, or Speakers in it, was taken away in much the same fashion. And I knew why they were targeted, why they were taken to who knows where: because of me. It was obvious the alien . . . riders felt threatened by the fact that I could see them and have visions about them, so they were trying to remove all of us. Until I had tried to interfere with the school shooting, my kind hadn’t even registered on the Riders’ radar, but now things had changed.

I slammed back into my body and found myself in Bryn’s arms. He looked down at me, his face pinched with concern, and his eyes churned with dark emotion. “What did you see?”

“Nothing good,” Khol answered for me. “Her visions were jumbled and more confusing than normal, but I was able to understand the gist of what she saw.”

I fought the impulse to demand how Khol was still able to share my visions with me since I was bonded with Bryn, especially because a small part of me was glad for his deciphering help. I’d be damned if I had to figure it all out myself.

But Bryn wasn’t above demanding answers from Khol. “How did you share her vision? If anyone should be sharing her visions, shouldn’t it be her
Anam Cara
? Which is me.”

Khol gave Bryn a feral smile. “Yes, well, it seems your
Anam Cara
bond doesn’t translate out here where your Guardian and Seer sides take dominance.”

“Hey, yeah,” Jenna piped up. “Those tattoos are gone from your necks. Weird.”

“What?” I exclaimed, twisting to try and see the back of Bryn’s neck, which was now completely unmarked. I reached my right index finger up to trace the spot where it should have been. A sadness seeped into me despite everything else that was going on.

Bryn caught my hand and tipped my face back so he could look into my eyes. His voice went low and gruff as he spoke. “I told you before, the marks don’t matter, and we don’t need them to know we belong to each other.” It was just with the marks, it somehow seemed to guarantee that we would be together. Without them, it felt like we were right back where we started.

I fought back tears that were welling in my eyes. Bryn was right, and besides, how shallow was I that I was worried about the lack of some stupid marks on the back of our necks when our families had essentially been kidnapped? I bit my lip and turned towards Khol. “Why were they taken? I mean, what reason was given for S.W.A.T. to take them? Obviously, it’s the aliens that wanted them, but they came in using the police and government under the guise of something else—what was it?”

“Suspicion of plotting terrorist acts. They have fake intel, of course, that I’m sure also implies all the families here were part of a cult.”

I felt Bryn tense, and for the second time since I’d known Jenna, she was temporarily rendered speechless. Jeremy spoke first. “Explain,” he said.

“They took our families—those things, those alien riders—by using the government and law enforcement as their tools. And who would stop and question them? Once all of our kind are out of the way, there won’t be anyone to stop them. They’ll take over—they’ll rule this world just like they did all the others before this one. Oh God—what do we do now?” I covered my face with my hands and slumped against Bryn. What could we do? Who was going to believe us? It was probably all over the news about the cult that was planning major terrorist activities. In fact, the whole situation could serve as a double whammy—they’d probably “find” all kinds of weapons that this cult had in their possession so the gun control legislation had a firmer platform to stand on.
“Oh no, you can’t trust anyone, gun control is for your own safety, fellow Americans.”
And then there would be nothing left to use to protect ourselves from our “protectors.” “What do we do?” I mumbled into my hands.

“First things first.” Khol took on an authoritative tone. “We need to get all of you out of here. Just because no one is here now, or spotted us yet, doesn’t mean it’s safe to be out in the open like this.”

Macon strode forward, as if by silent command. “Where should we take them? P.J. needs to be able to get her visions but also be somewhere safe.”

“Don’t state the obvious,” Khol snapped.

Macon bowed apologetically and averted his eyes. “I’m merely thinking out loud, my Lord.”

Khol spoke as if Macon hadn’t said anything. “We’ll set up temporary quarters in the caves just outside the boundary line of the spells covering my land. My—” Khol stopped and eyed me warily. “P.J. will be able to get her visions, and you’ll be safe there until we can figure out something better.”

“We have to save them!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going back into hiding and leave them to fend for themselves. I’m the reason they were taken to begin with.”

Bryn tightened his grip around me. “They’re obviously being kept alive because of you—us. They’ll probably offer them in some kind of exchange for you.”

My eyes pricked with tears again. “Because of my visions.” Yep, and to think just a short time ago, when I hadn’t yet come into my Seer abilities, I had prayed and wished for visions to come to me. Now look at the trouble they had caused. “Be careful what you wish for” was really hitting home for me. “I wish I’d never started getting visions. I wish we could go back to the way it was before.” I turned my head and buried my face in Bryn’s chest, not wanting to deal with any of this.

“But then who would protect our world? Who would know the truth?” Bryn said gently before kissing the top of my head. “Ignorance isn’t always bliss, Peej.”

He was right. Of course, he was right. I knew in my heart if I actually had the chance to go back to the way things were before, I wouldn’t take it. I simply wished things were actually as simple as I thought they were before, even though they never actually were anything but complicated.

“Let me just talk to some of my friends before we go,” Jenna said over her shoulder before skulking off into the woods. By friends, I knew she meant of the local little furry persuasion.

“At least we have an entire team with us,” Bryn muttered.

“Yeah, that’s at least lucky,” Jeremy agreed. “Maybe we should try contacting some of the other teams that are centered around the other gates. Surely they haven’t been affected by all of this. Maybe the Riders don’t even know about them yet.”

“I’ll send out some scouts,” said Khol. “We’ll know shortly who our allies really are.”

Jenna came scurrying back to our little group with a grim look of determination on her face. “The good news is that my friends are able to see the Riders inside of people, too. That could come in handy in the future.”

“Yes. We can use any help we can get.” Khol bared his teeth in a mock smile. “Now let’s get out of here before we’re spotted.”

“I kind of liked our other accommodations better,” Jenna grumbled as she slumped down onto her makeshift bed that was nothing more than an air mattress with a bunch of blankets.

Macon smiled at her indulgently. “This is only for tonight, and then we’ll figure out something better. I’ll stay here with you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jenna muttered as Macon disappeared to probably get more unnecessary things for her. When he was gone, she scooted over to sit by me and rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I wish he would just give me a little space, you know?”

“You seemed really into him before. What happened?”

“He just wants sex all the time. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t break me,” Jenna said with a sigh.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Could it actually be true? Could you have actually met your match?”
Wow. Who would have thunk it?

Jenna scrunched her face up at me with annoyance and flipped her rapidly fading rainbow hair over her shoulder. “I guess I never had a guy stay interested in me for so long.” She glanced around to make sure Bryn, Jeremy, and Khol were still setting other things up around the cave and not paying attention to us, before leaning in to whisper, “What do you do with Bryn?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know—when he wants to get it on and you’re not in the mood, or he wants to do something you’re really not into?” She stared at me waiting for my answer.

“Well, Bryn and I haven’t been having sex all that long, but—” Had I ever not been in the mood when Bryn wanted me? Had I ever not been into something he wanted to do to me? My cheeks flushed as I realized the truth. I didn’t know if I could actually deny Bryn anything he wanted from me. He owned me in a way I wasn’t sure I wanted to let anyone else know about. Of course, I knew in my heart that Bryn would never be able to deny me anything either—he was mine as much as I was his—but things like that are still hard to explain to an outside party. “B-but—” I stammered again. I didn’t want to tell Jenna, but at the same time, with her Speaker abilities, she’d probably figure it out eventually and just be mad at me for not telling her to begin with. I really didn’t need the headache. “But whenever and wherever Bryn wants it, I don’t deny him. I just don’t want to. I love him too much.”

Shock played across her features. “So you’re telling me that no matter what, you’d give him what he wanted?”

I thought about it for a second, just to make sure before answering. “Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what I’m saying.” When Jenna didn’t say anything right away, I had the urge to explain more since it was already out there. “I love him. I mean, I love him with everything that I am. I would lay down my life for his. Hell, I almost did,” I said, thinking about my botched suicide attempt.

Jenna started twirling a piece of her rainbow hair around her fingers, her eyes glazing over. “I wish I could find that.”