(Sur)real

I glanced at Emmitt, nerves twisting in my stomach. The last time I’d touched his mom, she’d passed out. It had taken her a long time to regain color and stand on her own.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I said.

Charlene looked at me and smiled wider.

“You are so sweet for worrying about me, Michelle. But we need to think about the people depending on us to stop Blake.”

My thoughts immediately turned to my brothers. I’d managed a quick call to them once we’d gotten here. Aden had cried while telling me that Aunt Mary had died. Liam hadn’t, and that scared me more than Aden’s tears. Blake had almost stolen his childhood from him once. I wouldn’t let him do it again.

“You’re right,” I said. “You can pull away when it gets to be too much, right?”

She nodded.

“There’s no need to pull away,” Olivia said.

I glanced at her, trying not to shudder at the sight of her eyes. If she had irises, I couldn’t tell because her black pupils seemed to consume them. How was no one else bothered by her stare?

Emmitt’s thumb smoothed over the back of my hand, and a gentle nudge in my mind brought a wave of comfort.

“Why is there no need?” Charlene asked.

“If Thomas holds you, you won’t feel as drained.”

“Really?” Charlene asked in surprise.

“Really. That’s the purpose of our Mates. To anchor us.”

Jim, who still stood near Olivia, frowned slightly as he continued to watch her. A surge of worry and pity welled up inside me. I loved him like a brother. The knowledge that he’d given up any chance of a family of his own to go after my brothers made me want to cry.

What’s going on in that head of yours? Emmitt’s thought interrupted my own.

Jim and Olivia. The way he looks at her. The way he fell to the floor the first time he saw her. It’s just like your dad and Grey. History repeating itself. I thought that was what we didn’t want.

It’s not exactly repeating itself. Grey never saw a potential Mate.

You’re not helping me feel any less guilty that he gave up his chance for a family to save mine.

Those boys are his family. He wouldn’t like to hear you thinking otherwise.

“So if Thomas holds me when I touch Michelle, I’ll be fine?” Charlene asked, unaware of our conversation.

“I believe so. The Lady’s not exactly clear with all of her answers,” Olivia said.

That didn’t help my nerves.

Charlene glanced at me then the bed.

“Thomas, you should sit behind me. Michelle, why don’t you sit next to me?”

The four of us got into position with Emmitt sitting behind me. Charlene took a deep breath then held out her hand.

“Promise you’ll pull away when it gets to be too much,” I said.

“I promise.”

With that, I clasped her hand.

The black void swallowed me. The feel of Emmitt’s arms wrapped around me or Charlene’s reassuring hold no longer existed. Turning slowly, I watched for the pinprick of white light. It came from the right, zooming toward me like the last time, until I stood within its blinding brightness.

I blinked, trying to force my eyes to adjust. After a few moments, they did, and what I saw shocked me. I floated, suspended in the center of the vacant space surrounded by images of the future. Before, there had been layers upon layers. Images stacked so thickly I had no hope of going through them all. Now, there were less than a quarter of what there had been before. Why? What had changed?

I focused on one at random. The reflection of Gabby and Clay resting on a hotel bed came toward me. While she slept with her head on his shoulder, he lay beside her, very much awake. His facial hair made it hard to tell his expression, but a glisten in his eyes hinted at tears. Uncomfortable with the private moment, I focused on a different scene to the right of it. The image of Clay and Gabby flew behind me to the other side of the room.

This one showed Isabelle and Carlos mid-spar. Bruises covered her arms and calves. Her capris probably hid more. I began to wonder how far into the future these images portrayed. They all seemed like something that could be happening now.

I flipped through more images, trying to hurry and study them at the same time. Many of them were of different members of the group together. Bethi sleeping while Luke lay beside her, eating chips. Olivia and Jim lying in separate beds, facing each other like they were talking. Another of Isabelle and Carlos sparring in an exercise room. Her bruises looked darker in this one, though. Clay and Gabby under the covers together, which I flipped past really quickly. Olivia and Jim in a restaurant, seated near a window. The way he looked at her, the intensity of his gaze a blend of anger and devotion, gave me pause. Her hand lay on a cell phone on the surface of the table. The paleness of her face and worried shock of her expression hinted at something wrong. Something important. As much as I wanted to study the image to figure out what, I knew I needed to hurry.

Between the images of our group, several desertscape scenes left me worried. While the images clearly displayed the towering pillars of brown-red rocks and barren expanses of long-dry valleys, the main part of the scene remained blurred. Almost as if someone had taken a picture with the camera out of focus.

An array of varying colors made up the center. Only after staring for several moments did I place what I was seeing. A large-scale fight. Why were the people in the image blurred, though?

I shuffled through the images until I reached the bottom layer. On the final screen, swirls of grey covered the pastels of what seemed to be a sunset or sunrise. That was it. There’d been nothing helpful. Nothing that would give me a clue about what we needed to do to make the Judgement. I had to have missed something.

Frowning, I started back through the images again, slower this time. Most of them were of us here at the hotel or in our vehicles. The rest were unfocused stills of a lot of people in a desert setting. Was that it, then? Did that mean we would go from this hotel to the final fight? That we only had a few days, or maybe hours, until the Judgement?

I reached the last image once more. My stomach twisted with fear as I studied the grey swirls. Olivia and Bethi’s warnings rang in my ears. The world would burn, and I was seeing the smoke.

CHARLENE…

It hurt to breathe. To think. I blinked slowly but refused to let go. We needed answers.

Beside me, Michelle leaned back against Emmitt. She seemed to be looking at Jim, but I knew better. Though her body remained in this room, her mind had fled to her white room, searching for the answer to end Blake’s desperate reach for control. And each minute she stayed in there, I could feel my life draining further, just like I could feel Thomas’s concern, his energy, pulsing through our connection. I could feel them all.

My gaze drifted to Olivia. She hadn’t said anything since we’d started. Had she known what I would need to do? What she was asking me to risk? No, she wasn’t asking me to risk anything. I had a choice.

As soon as Michelle had touched her hand to mine, I’d understood why Thomas needed to hold me. Through him, I could pull the energy I needed to sustain the connection with Michelle. Not just his energy, but the energy of every man, woman, and child connected to the Elders through Thomas. A network of power. Of control.

My heart gave a fluttering thump, and I knew I needed to choose now. Take the energy I needed and risk exposing what I could do, or release Michelle and lose the chance for answers about the Judgement we needed to pass? The Judgement that would save the world. There was no real choice.

I opened myself to Thomas and let his energy flow into me. He exhaled suddenly, like I’d punched him, and I opened myself further to those energies that waited just beyond him. In two heartbeats, the ache and exhaustion vanished. I felt ready to run twenty miles and quickly closed myself off.

Thomas’s fingers twitched on my arms, and I waited for the hate and the fear. Instead, love and warmth wrapped around me.

They’ll think it was Isabelle again, he sent me.

I fought not to cry. He understood what I’d done and didn’t care.

I don’t fully understand, but you’re right. I don’t care. I love you, Charlene. And I’ll never stop trying to prove how much. By the time I die, you won’t doubt me.

My heart wanted to burst with what I felt for the man holding me.

Michelle’s fingers twitched in mine before I could answer. This time, she released me. Any lingering strain from keeping her in that white room faded as she looked around, aware of the present.

“What did you see?” Olivia asked.

“A disturbingly large decrease in images. Mostly scenes of us here at the hotel or on the road. Mixed in were scenes of a desertscape. A bunch of people were in those, all grouped close together. I could see the smallest detail of the desert, but everything about the people, who they were, what they were doing, all of it was blurry.”

Our future was blurred? That didn’t sound good.

“Maybe it was blurry because the future is not yet decided,” Jim said.

I watched Olivia and her quietly thoughtful expression. She knew more than she let on, and that worried Winifred because she thought it meant Olivia was going to betray us. I didn’t believe that, though. I knew what it was like to have a secret that couldn’t be shared.

“I’m not sure,” she said finally. “Did you see anything else?” Her gentle, dark gaze shifted to Michelle.

“Just that same desert location. It reminded me of pictures I saw in a magazine of Utah’s desert.”

“You saw nothing else?” she pressed.

“Nope. Just here, the vehicles, and the desert.” She hesitated for a moment. “Wait, there was one other thing that stood out. It was a swirl of grey over the desert, like the whole thing was covered with smoke. A fire maybe.”

Olivia closed her eyes for a brief moment.

“At least, we know we need to go to a desert,” she said when she opened them again. “Just not what we need to do once we get there.”

“Maybe we’ll have the answer by that time,” Jim said. “If you’re only seeing this hotel and driving, it’s clear we’re meant to head to the desert from here. Clay should be well enough to travel in a few hours.”

Michelle shook her head before he finished.

“I know we need to hurry, but we also need time to rest,” she said.

“The longer we sit in one spot, the more we risk everyone. Everything,” he said.

I understood what he was saying, but all we’d been doing was rush around, which hadn’t gotten us any further ahead in this game we seemed to be playing.

“I agree with Michelle,” I said. “Winifred is still stitching Clay, and I’m pretty sure Isabelle and Carlos took a beating to keep as many away from us as possible. If we rush into this without everyone healed…”

“We will fail,” Olivia said with a sigh. “How long will it take for everyone to recover?”

“I’ll check with Winifred,” Jim said.

He didn’t move to leave, though, and I knew he was using his new ability to communicate with the other Elders.

My heart broke for him all over again. My baby. My boy. I’d seen the way he’d looked at Olivia. She was meant to be his Mate, and fate had cruelly taken that chance from him. Just like Grey.

GABBY…

Clay didn’t move much as Winifred continued her work. She, Henry, and Sam were the only ones still in the room with us.

Henry watched me from across the room, pity in his gaze. He understood what I was going through better than anyone else. The terror of the moment when I’d felt his pain still gripped me.

A wash of love swept through me, not as comforting as it should have been. If not for all those humans suddenly coming to our aid…

A shaky exhale escaped me.

“Clay will be fine, Gabby,” Sam said.

“Will he?” I asked angrily. “Why are we doing this alone? There were werewolves not far from us. You could have called out to them and asked for help as soon as I told you the Urbat were coming.”

“We don’t want to risk more lives,” Winifred said, not looking up from her work.

“But it’s okay to risk mine and Clay’s and everyone else’s in the group? Why are we less important?”

“You’re not less important,” Sam said firmly.

I ignored him.

“If those humans wouldn’t have shown up, we’d all be dead, and everything we have done would be for nothing. Is that how you want this to end? You expose the existence of werewolves and Urbat to the entire world then die and leave the werewolves without a single leader or Elder?”

Winifred’s stitching paused.

“Because that almost happened. We can’t fight this alone, Winifred,” I said. “I know you heard Olivia say the same things Bethi’s been saying. The world will burn, and humans and werewolves alike will all die anyway if we fail. Who are you really protecting?”

Clay squeezed my hand, and I felt his worry and love brush my mind. He didn’t like it when I talked back to the Elders. Whether they liked what I had to say or not, though, they needed to hear my words.

“How did you know how to call those humans to come to our aid?” Winifred asked when she resumed her stitching.

My frustration boiled. Instead of addressing the real issue, why she didn’t call all the werewolves, she wanted to focus on that?

“I didn’t know. It just happened. I was desperate.” The scene played again in my mind, and I looked down at Clay’s beautiful, furry face. He watched me closely, his warm brown eyes missing nothing. His fingers squeezed my leg gently.

With the last knot tied off, Winifred straightened with a sigh.

“That’s more stitches than I would have liked to put in. But, given the uncertainty of what might happen next, a few extra will hold it better if you need to move.”

My heart sank at her words. More? I didn’t want any more. I wanted to leave and never look back. I wanted a place where Clay and I could hide from the world and just be us.

“Thank you, Winifred,” Clay said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will. If you do need anything, either of you, let me know.”

I nodded numbly and watched her leave. Sam gave us a long look and picked up his bag.

“Henry, grab those pizza boxes. These two could use some quiet time.”

The door closed behind them, and Clay and I found ourselves alone for the first time in a very long time.

“What you’re feeling is killing me,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry.”

“No. I am. I’m sorry you’re suffering because of me.”

“Because of? No. We’re a team. We suffer together.” I leaned over him and gently brushed my lips to his. He tilted his head, giving me better access, and I deepened the kiss.

My heart thrummed excitedly, like it did every time he touched me. Only this time, I understood how close I’d come to never being able to kiss him again. To touch him. To make him mine in every way.

Reaching over him, I gently trailed my fingers down his bare, muscled chest. The hair tickled my fingertips. He groaned and lifted his hands to cup my face, turning a heartfelt kiss into a passionate one that curled my toes.

Clay owned me. He’d wormed his way into my life until he’d become such a part of it I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to live without him again. I poured all that feeling, all the desperation, into our kiss. He growled softly, and I knew he understood.

My head spun when I finally pulled away.

“I don’t want to wait any more,” I whispered. “Life is too short to hesitate.”

He groaned and tried to sit up. The effort ended with a grunt and him on his back next to me.

“Five hours,” he said. “The stitches will be set, then you’re mine.”

I grinned sadly and lay next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. I doubted five hours would be enough to heal what they’d done to him. Not when he’d been holding his insides in with his arm on the way here. His lips were hidden, but I didn’t doubt they were pale, like his exposed arms. He’d lost a lot of blood.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

“Don’t leave me. If something happens where you think you won’t make it, take me with you,” I whispered. “I don’t want to live without you.”

“I love you, Gabrielle Winters. More than you can possibly know.”