by April Hunt
Tank hummed his agreement. “And our camp will be four clicks away from the most eastern New Dawn perimeter. If that’s still within their range, then we’ll be at six. Or eight. Or ten. You get the idea.”
They’d been through the plan a million times that morning alone. Grace could recite it in her sleep. “And if we can’t meet up without compromising ourselves, don’t do it.”
“Exactly,” Roman agreed. “If that means you guys have to go old-school and improvise Sarah Brandt’s extraction, that’s what you have Cade for.”
Grace bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“Did you call me old?” Cade took the bait.
“No, your age is calling you old. I’m calling you resourceful. It’s a compliment.” Roman’s low chuckle said otherwise.
“Yeah, well. Just remember that I’m only a year more resourceful than you, asshole.”
Grace laughed, and it felt damn good. Almost as much as working alongside her family, and everyone associated with Steele Ops was her family. Even Tank and Jaz. Even Cade.
He slid her a look, and this time it was without the worry from before. His lips twisted into a grin as he linked his fingers through hers and brought them to his mouth. “We go in. We get Sarah. And we get the hell out. We got this, Gracie.”
Every time Cade said “we,” she got a surge of confidence.
“Damn right we do.” As they crested a hill, an old, windowless building advertising live bait came into view. “We’re at the gas station. Mics gone.”
“Stay safe,” Roman ordered.
Grace took both her and Cade’s comms and stomped them with her boot. As she dropped the fragments into his lukewarm coffee, he pulled his truck into the gas station’s stone lot. “Surprise, surprise.”
He nodded toward the silver van and the familiar couple leaning against it.
Stephanie and James waited for them, the young assistant DA giving them a small wave and a sheepish smile. Grace honed her inner actress and waved back, muttering under her breath, “Wonder what kind of shit she does for Rossbach in the DA’s office.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and find out.”
Grace exited the truck, grabbing Cade’s cold coffee cup, and dumped the contents—including two busted comm pieces—onto the gravel lot. She grimaced for Stephanie’s benefit. “Nothing worse than lukewarm coffee.”
“Except hot coffee.” Stephanie grinned.
Grace gave Cade a playful smack on the chest. “See. I’m not the only one who thinks coffee could fuel a Hummer. He thinks I’m not normal because I’m partial to keeping my stomach lining where it’s meant to be.”
“Inhuman, babe.” Cade dropped a kiss on her temple. “There’s a difference.”
“Not much of one.” She turned toward the New Dawners. “So…may the New Dawn shine upon you.”
“And upon you as well,” Stephanie and James repeated.
The blonde wrapped Grace in a sheepish hug. “I’m sorry for all the secrecy. It’s my least favorite part of bringing new—well, old and new—members to Sanctuary. But with the way the world is today it’s even more important that the community remains free of Outside influence.”
Cade shook James’s hand. “It’s not a problem. We’re just excited to finally be on our way. With all the stories Grace has told me about the Order, I feel as though I’m coming home too.”
“And you are.” Stephanie smiled. “You two have an entire extended family eagerly waiting to help you find your path. But before we finish our pilgrimage we have a few inconveniences to get out of the way.”
The other woman pulled a scanning device out from the van’s cargo hold. Not unlike one of Liam’s toys, it detected bugs and GPS trackers. “Cade, you’re going to stay here with James while Grace and I hit the ladies’ room. Then we’ll grab your bags and get moving.”
“We’ll follow you in?” Cade asked.
“You’ll have to come with us, but we have a very reliable friend who’ll keep your truck safe while you’re in Sanctuary.”
“You mean I’ll be seeing it again?”
Stephanie flashed him a puzzled look. “Of course. Unless you want to get rid of it. If that’s the case, I’m sure Father Teague would help you with alternate arrangements when you’re ready to trek back to the Outside.”
Grace blinked, trying to clear her sudden confusion. “Do you mean that Order members come and go to Sanctuary as they please?”
Because it sure as hell wasn’t that way seventeen years ago.
“After the Connection to the Order is complete and Father Teague feels as though you’re ready to go in search of your New Dawn, of course.” Stephanie chuckled. “I mean, you should know that, Grace. Your quest was the first one Father Teague blessed. Because of you, we have countless followers on the Outside working for the good of our community…and their New Dawns.”
Cade’s stare lifted the hairs on the back of Grace’s arm, but she wasn’t sure which revelation was the worst one: the blatant lie Rossbach used to explain her abrupt departure or that there were Order members mixed in the general public—people who’d do anything for Rossbach’s approval.
People who, like Todd Winston, felt owed.
People who didn’t care what they had to do in the name of finding their New-fucking-Dawns.
A modest strip search and thirty minutes later, Grace still couldn’t get Stephanie’s words out of her head. But they all disappeared the second James held up twin black hoods. “For the ride.”
“What? You guys ran out of peanuts?” Grace joked, her throat drying.
Stephanie patted her arm. “It’s just precaution. Everyone gets one. It’s how—”
“We keep Sanctuary safe.”
“Exactly.”
Cade squeezed Grace’s hand and grinned. “Everyone gets one except whoever’s driving, I hope. These roads aren’t exactly a straight-line deal.”
Stephanie chuckled and helped secure the hoods into place before guiding them into the back of the van. “Sit back and relax. Take a nap if you want. We’ll be at Sanctuary in a little under three hours.”
“I can’t wait.” Grace’s stomach rolled.
She took five slow, deep breaths, and when that didn’t resolve her nausea, she continued on for another ten. Cade settled into the seat next to hers, their shoulders rubbing. She slid her fingers through his and held on as if he were a life preserver.
And maybe he was.
The whirling thoughts in her head made her dizzy. But the one that settled on the forefront of her mind?
Her mother.
They’d never had a great relationship. She’d been a daddy’s girl, through and through, her world caving in on her when he died. But instead of relying on each other to get through the tough times, Rebecca Steele uprooted their lives again and again. Until they reached Sanctuary.
A young, naïve Grace had been hopeful that her mother’s newfound friendships meant they were finally done moving. Never in a million years would she have thought it could be so much worse.
Cade shifted closer, tucking her hooded head beneath his chin. “We got this, babe.”
“Yeah, we do.” Because they worked well together. She wouldn’t be half as confident if it had been someone else sitting next to her, even one of her cousins. Despite all their history, in this one thing, Grace knew Cade would never let her down.
She wished that she could trust him with her heart as much as she did her life.
About three hours and a lot of backtracking later, James pulled the van off a severely potholed road and onto ground that couldn’t be described as anything less than off-roading.
They bounced in the rear cargo hold, Grace sliding off the bench seat no less than four times before Cade shifted her onto his lap.
“You guys okay back there?” Stephanie asked from the front.
Grace grunted. “Okay, but in serious need of a bathroom.”
“Then I have good news for you. We’re here.”
The
van came to an abrupt stop. Doors opened and closed, and a soft murmur of voices droned on before the van’s back door creaked open. James’s firm hands helped her out of the back and onto shaky legs.
Her hood lifted. Grace winced, blinking against the harsh light from the setting sun, and as her vision adjusted, acidic bile rose in her throat. Her past collided with her present, and once she got over the aftershock, she cursed under her breath.
Mixed in with the crowd, and more notably around the compound’s perimeter, were men and women decked out in tan-and-white camo…
And armed with automatic weapons.
At some point within the last seventeen years, Teague Rossbach had created his very own private militia.
Chapter
Thirteen
Through his years with the 75th Regiment, and then with DCPD, Cade had found himself in some seriously fucked-up situations. He’d dead-dropped into alligator-infested swamplands. Led a car chase through a field of active land mines. And he’d never forget the Narcotic Nanas—a drug ring of not-so-sweet octogenarians who’d been smuggling heroin and angel dust through a downtown DC senior center.
But an army of private citizens dressing up like Rambos topped the scales.
Around them, people stopped and stared, more concerned about the new arrivals than the armed guards walking around the grounds.
“You forgot to mention that finding a New Dawn requires AK-47s,” Cade murmured for Grace’s ears only.
“Guess more has changed in seventeen years than I thought.” Grace glanced around the commons. “But this can’t alter our plans. Keep your eyes open for Sarah, and in the meantime, pray that those guys”—she nodded toward the guards—“are the biggest hurdle we come across.”
Stephanie bounded over to them, smiling ear to ear. “It looks like we got here just in time for Evening Nourishment, and I should probably warn you, I heard it’s going to be a feast to celebrate the return of one of the Order’s very own.”
Grace turned a grimace into a smile and shoved down her sarcasm. “That’s not necessary.”
“Oh, hush. It’s completely necessary, or Father Teague wouldn’t have given the instruction.” Stephanie hooked an arm through Grace’s and led them toward the building where a group of people already headed. “I’m sorry we didn’t get here in time to get you settled into your cabin, but we’ll do that first thing after Nourishment. It’s been a long day, and you two must be completely zapped.”
“We get a cabin?” Cade asked.
“Of course. If we have the space for it, Father Teague likes to make sure couples are housed together. It can have a very positive influence on outcomes.”
“And everyone else?”
“Our younger flock and those still single stay in something equivalent to a dormitory, but that too has positive sides. The more people surrounding you, the larger your support system.”
Next to him, Grace muttered softly, “And the more chances for someone to turn you in for insubordination.”
Cade couldn’t believe the sheer number of people filing into the Nourishment Center. In the glorified mess hall, long tables were arranged in rows up and down the length of the room. And for the number of people—a hundred and growing—the crowd seated themselves with surprising ease.
More than one group glanced their way as they passed. Grace focused straight in front of her, or on Stephanie as they talked. The stark difference in her behavior compared to the light-headed chuckles in the car put him on alert.
They found open seats, and nearly immediately, in the back of the room, large double doors opened, and the murmur of voices instantly stopped. A couple in their sixties, dressed in slate gray robes, slowly strolled down the center aisle to an elongated table up front. Behind them came two middle-aged women and an older man.
“They’re members of the council,” Grace whispered for his ears only.
At the next arrival, Grace stiffened.
Her face paled as her gaze fixed on a man close to their own age. Wearing the same slate gray robes as the others before him, he scanned the room and stopped on Grace. The instant the man’s mouth curled into a predatory grin, Cade knew who the bastard was.
Todd Winston.
It took everything Cade had to keep from crossing the room and throat-punching the fucker. Winston still smirked as he walked past them to sit with the other members of Rossbach’s council, and then chairs scraped against the wood floor as people stood.
Unlike the gray robes of the others, the new couple entering the room wore bright gold, an intricate weave of silver ribbons wrapping around their waists in fancy belts. Salt-and-pepper hair helped peg them solidly in their early to mid-fifties, and the man smiled, licking up the adoration as if it were his damn dessert.
Teague Rossbach looked every bit the narcissist that Grace had painted him as. But in a complete contrast to the cult leader’s smile, the woman on his arm frowned. Posture stiff, she looked over the room as if unimpressed…or bored.
Until her gaze slid over them.
Her eyes widened in surprise before her entire expression hardened in a calm, cool mask. Familiarity ran through Cade as the woman took the empty seat next to Rossbach.
Once dark as night hair.
Pale golden-brown eyes.
Strong cheekbones.
Fucking A.
Cade snapped his gaze toward Grace. The second he saw her face, he knew he’d guessed right.
Rebecca Steele sat at Rossbach’s side—and looked like she was a lot more to the cult leader than a simple dinner companion.
Grace’s mother never took her eyes off her daughter, and never once showed the smallest bit of relief—or happiness—that her daughter was back.
* * *
Grace paced the length of the small one-room cabin and waited for Cade. Following Evening Nourishment, James had approached, asking for a minute of his time. That was more than two hours ago, and while she knew Cade could take care of himself, Grace waited for the other shoe to drop—on their heads.
Since Stephanie brought her to her and Cade’s private “Haven,” she’d been trying to wrap her mind around—and make sense of—everything around her.
New Dawn felt the same, and yet it seemed so different from the Order she remembered. It wasn’t just the addition of a freakin’ militia or the obvious growth in numbers.
It was the complete, total awe that flooded Teague Rossbach’s flock as they listened to him give his evening blessing. They’d devoured every word, eyes glazed over in a look she saw way too often while working with the FBI.
Those looks, coupled with a charismatic sociopath like Rossbach, were a recipe for freakin’ disaster. Grace and Cade couldn’t find Sarah Brandt soon enough.
Someone knocked. Grace mentally hoped it was Cade looking for the right cabin, but before she tugged the door open, she knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t Cade. It wasn’t a welcoming committee.
It was her mother.
Pulled tight into a low bun, Rebecca Steele’s once illustrious dark hair had been overrun by silver streaks. Her mouth, bracketed with nearly twenty years’ worth of wrinkles, tilted down into a severe frown.
But her eyes hadn’t changed at all. They were filled with the same disgust that had been there for as long as Grace remembered.
She didn’t budge from the open door, immediately forcing her mind to quiet. “Mother.”
“It’s really you.” Rebecca Steele stood in front of her daughter with no sign of moving. Not a hug. Not a smile. Not a How have you been doing? Or My, look how you’ve grown. Just an apathetic blank stare mixed with a hint of distrust.
For years, Grace had thought about the day she’d get a second chance to confront the woman who’d abandoned her all those years ago. Because that was what she’d done—even before choosing to stay in New Dawn when Grace begged her to leave.
Rebecca Steele abandoned her daughter the day officers came to their doorstep and told them of her husband’s death. And she left her a
gain when she fell in with the therapist from Georgia. And every day while living on the Order compound, Grace’s mother slipped away more and more.
Until there was the only the woman standing in front of her now.
A stranger.
Sarah Brandt, Grace reminded herself. She and Cade were here to do a job, and that meant fitting in. It meant gaining trust. It meant painfully swallowing a lifetime’s worth of backed up anger.
Grace held the door open a little and gestured to the room behind her. “Do you want to come inside?”
“I won’t be staying long. I simply needed to be sure.”
“Be sure of what?”
“That my selfish, insubordinate daughter really did return to New Dawn—to the very place she once claimed was slowly ‘suffocating the life out of her.’” She paused a beat, waiting. “Did I remember that correctly?”
She had. But there’d been nothing slow about it.
“You did,” Grace said, weighing her words carefully. “But that night was…difficult.”
Her mother scoffed. “Paths to the New Dawn are never easy, Grace. That’s why it was your duty to aid your fellow Order member to the best of your ability. And you failed. Abysmally.”
Grace remembered, all too clearly. And put in the same position, she’d do it all over again—except she would have left with Rhett the first time he asked. Her mother called her act a failure. Grace called an act of humanity.
It took everything she had to not lash out, but there was too much riding on her ability to stay focused.
“I know,” Grace forced herself to admit. “It’s why I’m here. It’s been seventeen years, Mom.”
Her mother’s golden eyes studied her. “I’m very much aware of the amount of time that’s passed. You have no idea how much stress and humiliation your Defection caused.”
“Is that why everyone seems to believe that I’d been sent away to find my New Dawn?”
“It’s not like we could tell them the truth, and don’t for one second think I’ll let you either. Father Teague may believe that being on the Outside for so long without the support of your flock is punishment enough for your transgressions, but I don’t.”