Winds of Fire (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #5)

by Malone Wright, Jennifer

  Something was up. I couldn’t place it, because Zander was hard to read sometimes, but usually that was because he hid his true feelings behind a wall of humor. I noticed that Chloe kept looking over at him too, so even she noticed.

  The meeting came to an end without much fanfare. We were going to hold our first class at Fort Benning, Georgia, in two weeks and it was going to be a big class. Boy, did we have a crap load of planning ahead of us.

  Everyone shook hands again, except Zander, who left the room without even saying goodbye. He was waiting for us out in the hall because Daniels had stopped him before he could go too far. Zander did not look happy about being detained. When we all filed out, he was leaning against a wall, arms crossed over his chest. That was weird. Chloe stood the exact same way when she was peeved, and I’d never noticed before.

  Daniels escorted us back to our rooms and dropped us off. “Like I told you all before, don’t be running around the building. Stay on this floor, you will find everything you need here. I’m staying on the same floor, so if you need me pick up one of the phones and hit eight, it will ring through to me. Otherwise, I will see you in the morning to take you back to the plane.”

  “Thank you, we will be fine,” I told him and then we shook hands again.

  Daniels gave out little group a once over. “All right, then.” With those last words, he turned and strode off down the hall. I watched until he was out of sight and then turned to the others. “You guys want to get something to eat?”

  “Hell yeah, I’m starving.” Zander appeared to have come out of mood he was in back at the meeting.

  Christina nodded in agreement. “Me too.”

  Gavin and Chloe also said they were up for eating, so instead of heading into our rooms, we headed in the direction that Daniels had indicated. We didn’t have to go too far before the hallway opened up into a space that reminded me of a hospital cafeteria. It was situated like a courtyard, which appeared to be in the center of the building, since there was an entrance from every hallway.

  The cafeteria wasn’t empty, there were a few people in uniforms eating quietly at the round dining tables. No one was sitting together, each of the soldiers sat by themselves at a table, picking at their food. None of them looked up when we entered, they just continued to eat as if we hadn’t arrived.

  Yeah, now that was really weird. Man, everything about this place made me want to go home even more.

  “I wonder what’s on the menu.” Gavin eyeballed the counter where the food was. No one was serving anything, it was set up like one of those buffet restaurants where they have large trays of everything sitting on warmers and you just serve yourself.

  We stayed close to each other as we made our way over to the food. “Looks like some kind of chicken.” Chloe frowned.

  I reached over and squeezed her hand. I knew that she had been hoping for red meat. It was gross, but with her being half vampire, she had a tendency to eat meat that was practically raw. I hated watching her when she ate meat like that. It was always bleeding all over the damn place. Don’t get me wrong, I love her and she has to eat, but it was a blatant reminder of her vampire side.

  “Oh well, it still looks pretty good.” She shrugged.

  We piled our trays with food and then found a table. I pulled out a chair and glanced at the soldiers again. Why were they acting like we weren’t even here. Were they on guard or something?

  “Maybe they are supposed to be watching us.” Gavin flicked his eyes back and forth between the soldiers.

  I nodded. “Maybe they are just guarding the place to begin with, not just watching us.”

  Zander scowled and set his try on the table with a clang. “I really don’t like this place. I can’t wait to go home.”

  I had to agree with him on that one. I stabbed my fork into a piece of broccoli. “Are you all right, man? You looked really strange at the meeting.”

  “I’m fine,” he snapped. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Uh, dude, I have tons of crap to worry about, you are the last thing I’d lose sleep over.”

  He rolled his eyes and picked up a piece of chicken. “That’s good. Keep it that way.”

  Christina shook her head, but I saw her expression and knew that something was definitely off with him. I’ve known Christina since we were kids, so I knew when something was bothering her. I decided not to say anything though, it could wait until we got home.

  We all got down to eating. Between shoving our faces we talked about some of the stuff we wanted to do with the training classes. “They are already trained to shoot, so at least we don’t have to worry about that, but I would have been great at instructing a firearms class.” Chloe muttered between bites.

  “Yeah, you would.” I wasn’t blowing smoke either, she was good. I’d never seen anyone pick up on shooting the way that she had. She almost never missed what she was aiming for, even with moving targets.

  Chloe smiled. “Are you going to make everyone run as much as you did with me?”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Haven’t you figured it out by now?”

  “Figured out what?”

  “I was hard on you … and made you do all that extra time for two reasons. One was that you really did need to train harder to be equal to our level, but also because it meant that I got to spend time with you.”

  Her mouth fell open, “you … you …”

  It was always a superior moment for me when I could render her speechless. I enjoyed my moment of glory and celebrated with a bite of peach cobbler. “Yup, all those runs, that was for me, not you,” I added.

  Zander and Christina were chuckling softly, but Gavin didn’t even crack a smile. Man, some things just did not change. Chloe finally recovered and pointed her fork at me. “You know what?”

  I didn’t answer, I just let her go on.

  “You may have had selfish reasons for making me work extra hard, but I’m glad you did it because you have made me strong and fearless.”

  “No,” I corrected her. “You are strong for other reasons, and you are fearless because you know how strong you are.”

  She shrugged. “Think what you will, hunter boy, I blame all this,” she gestured to her entire body, “on you.”

  Oh, the things I could do with ‘all that.’

  Gavin had finished what was on his tray and pushed it away. “Chloe is going to have to be careful during the training classes.” He lowered his voice. “Her jumps and extra strength may surface without her knowing. She has become so used to it now that she uses the vampire side of her without even knowing it.”

  “Shhhh.” I quickly looked around to see if anyone heard. “We cannot talk about that here.”

  “I’m just saying, it’s something we have to consider.”

  “Shut up.” I glared at him.

  As always, Chloe broke in between us before the situation could escalate. “He’s right, Drew. But yes, Gavin, we should talk about that later.”

  Gavin glared back at me and leaned back in his chair. I was about to tell him that he didn’t have to be so smug about it, when we heard voices coming from one of the halls. Something about the female voice sounded familiar so I swung my head in the direction it was coming from.

  Just then, the bodies the voices belonged to appeared. “Sarah!” I called out before I could help myself. There was no mistaking Sarah for anyone else in the world. As always, she had her long, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore what I’d become accustomed to seeing her in, cargo pants and a tight fitting tank top with guns strapped all over her body.

  “Drew?” She flicked her eyes to the others, “Chloe?”

  We all nodded enthusiastically and she picked up her pace, striding toward our table. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed in her thick southern accent. “What are you guys doing here?”

  Chloe stood up and gave Sarah a hug. “Probably the same thing as you are. We are helping train the military to kill vampires.”

  Sarah returned t
he hug by giving Chloe a tight squeeze. “Damn straight, that’s why I’m here. I don’t know how on earth they found me, but I had the soldiers knockin’ on my door. Those idiots nearly got their heads blown off. We are going to have to train them not to be so stupid.”

  I laughed and stood up to face her, “Well, I may have mentioned how we had help from the resistance while we were in New Orleans.” She narrowed her eyes on me and I held up my hands in defense. “But I did not say a word about who or where you were.”

  Sarah’s face relaxed again. “That’s good, cause I may have had to kill ya for giving away our identity to the freaking government.”

  “Well you’re here now, so it can’t be that bad.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “I’m here because I’ll do anything to help get rid of those damn vampires. If working with these guys,” she gestured to a couple of soldiers beside her, “is going to help, then I’m all in.”

  “We’re with you there,” I told her and then asked, “I wonder how come you weren’t in the meeting with us. Seems like they would want us all to work together again.”

  She shrugged. I’ve been here for a few days. I’m going to stay and work with the people here.”

  I could not figure this place out at all. “Well, we’re supposed to be leaving in the morning.” I glanced around at the quiet soldiers at the tables. “I can’t believe you want to stay here.”

  “Like I said, it’s all about killing off the vamps.”

  Well, I guess whatever she did was up to her, but I knew I was going to be worried about her being stuck inside this place. I didn’t really know Sarah that well, but I did know she was a good person who fought and sacrificed for the greater good of the world. So, she was a friend in my book.

  The two soldiers who she had entered with, stood back, silently watching the interactions between Sarah and us. Why were all the uniformed people in this place so damn quiet? As if sensing the unease, Sarah glanced at them and then back to us. “We were just going to get some supper. You want to join us?”

  Chloe and I exchanged a look. As awkward as it was being around all the silent soldiers, I did want to hang out with Sarah and find out what exactly she was going to be doing during her stay at the Pentagon. “Sure,” Chloe smiled. “We just ate, but we can sit with you for a while.”

  “We’re going to go back to rooms.” Christina’s voice sounded strange, so I turned to see what was going on and saw that Zander was doing the same thing he was doing up in the meeting room. Only this time, his fists were clenched at his side and his face was tight.

  “All right.” I gave Christina a look that I hoped said ‘find out what the hell is wrong with him.’

  She nodded and pulled one of Zander’s hands into her own. “Come on.” She tugged until he finally moved and then she guided him toward the exit into our hallway. “We’ll see you guys later,” she called out as they disappeared. “Nice to see you again, Sarah.”

  Dang, Christina was laying on the polite like a thick layer of butter. Christina was never known for being nice, it’s just not who she was.

  “I’ll stay with you guys.” Gavin lifted his tray and walked it to the garbage can. After scraping it off and then setting the tray on the table beside the can, he joined us as Sarah and the soldiers as they headed for the food area.

  “This is freaking me out,” Chloe whispered.

  “I know,” I agreed. “I don’t understand why they didn’t have her with us at the meeting.”

  Gavin leaned in close to us. “I don’t think she’s safe here. We should try to get her to leave with us.”

  None of this made sense. “She looks like she is comfortable and safe, so far,” I observed, more to myself than the others.

  “I agree with Gavin.” Chloe caught my eyes. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving her here alone.” I saw the worry for our friend clearly written in her eyes and when Chloe set her mind on something there was usually no changing it.

  “Chloe, I don’t know if we can get her to leave here. She feels that she is doing the job she is meant to do.”

  “We have to try,” her beautiful brown eyes pleaded with me.

  I nodded. “All right, we can try, but I’m not going to drag her out of here. If she wants to come with us she can, but we don’t force her.”

  Chloe and Gavin both whispered, “agreed,” just as Sarah and the two soldiers finished loading their trays and began to make their way back over to us. We were not going to be able to talk to Sarah about anything with those guys around. Looked like one of us was going to have to get her alone.

  “I totally forgot to introduce these guys,” Sarah announced, jabbing her thumb in their direction. “This is Sergeant Owen and Sergeant Bliss.” She didn’t point out who was who, because it was obvious if we looked at their name tags.

  “Nice to meet you.” I nodded at each of them.

  “Same here.” Sergeant Bliss tilted his head forward in greeting. The other guy didn’t say anything though. He must have taken a vow of silence or something, but then again, everyone in this place was like that.

  “Anyway,” Sarah pulled a chair out and sat down beside Chloe. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you guys again. I thought that was it for us after New Orleans.”

  “Me too. How is it over there now?” I asked

  She scrunched up her nose and made a face. “It’s getting better. It’s not how it was before the apocalypse, but then again, it probably won’t ever be like that again. It’s a new age we are living in now.”

  That was true, even with the ruin of our country aside, the mere existence of vampires changed everything.

  “Are your people from the resistance helping out with the re-building of the city?”

  “Yeah, our little group wasn’t a real big secret, so they found us.” She picked up a roll off of her tray and bit into it. “Most of our guys are with the police department now.” Her words were muffled by the roll in her mouth.

  “Oh, that’s awesome.” Chloe smiled. “At least they know the police are people who care about the city and want the best for the citizens.”

  Sarah nodded. “That’s exactly why they asked them.”

  I wanted to ask her why none of her guys were with her, but I couldn’t in front of Owen and Bliss. I couldn’t see her coming here by herself.

  “I have to use the restroom.” Chloe pushed out her chair and stood. “Sarah, do you think you could show me where it is.”

  Please, I thought to myself, take the hint Sarah.

  And she did, but only after she glanced at the blatantly obvious doors off to our far left that read Men and Women. “Oh, uh … of course.” She stood and glanced at the two soldiers. “I’ll be right back, I have to go too.”

  I watched Chloe and Sarah head off to the bathrooms and thanked the lord that Chloe and I read each other like books sometimes. Now that was a connection that she and I shared, which she didn’t have with Gavin. Hopefully she would ask Sarah the right questions in the short amount of time they could be in there alone.

  While the girls took off to the bathroom. I stared at our silent duo and tried to think of something to ask them. I had lots of questions, but none for them. Sergeant may seem like a fairly high rank, but in reality it wasn’t. In the Pentagon, they were the low guys on the totem.

  Gavin shifted his eyes toward me and then back at the soldiers, obviously thinking the same thing that I was. So, we were all left to sit there in silence, while they picked at their food and eyeballed us. Talk about uncomfortable.

  When Chloe and Sarah pushed open the restroom door, I was entirely ready to go back to the room and sleep until it was time to get up and go home. This trip was wigging me out. “Sorry it took so long.” Chloe stood by her chair. “We were having a bit of girl talk.” She fluttered her lashes at me.

  Yeah right, my Chloe didn’t girl talk. The closest thing she came to girl talk was when it concerned her pink gun.

  So it was a ploy, to make those
guys think she was talking to Sarah about me. “It’s all right, babe.” Yeah, I could play along with this.

  She flinched at the name, but reached up and smoothed down her hair. “I am getting pretty tired, I think we should probably go back to our rooms now.”

  Gavin and I practically jumped from our seats. “Me too,” I mumbled lamely, as I pushed my chair in. Sarah was watching us intently and gave me a discreet nod. I nodded back at her and smiled.

  Gavin went over and gave her a side hug. “I’m glad we ran into you here, Sarah. I’m sure we will see you again since we are all going to be helping with training courses.”

  Sarah offered him a wide grin, “Chances of that are good.”

  “Well,” I moved my gaze from Sarah over to the two soldiers, “See ya.” Anxious to get out of there, I slid my arm around Chloe’s waist and hurried her along. Gavin trailed right behind us until we entered the hall and then he moved up next to me. “That was weird,” he said.

  Chloe nodded in agreement. “Yeah, totally. What is with these people around here?”

  “What did Sarah say?” I moved my arm up so that it was over her shoulders and not her waist.

  “Well, first, I asked her if she came here with anyone and she said that she came with two of her men.” She stopped in the hall and our eyes locked.

  “Where in the hell are they then?” I couldn’t fathom why Sarah would let them out of her sight, she was fiercely protective of her people.

  “Yeah, that’s what I asked her, and she told me that when they got here, they separated her them. They told her they wanted her guys to go into a special section of the building to help in the weapons and ammunition departments.”

  “Spike and John?” I asked

  Her head bobbed up and down, “Yup. She hasn’t seen them since.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, damn, I needed a haircut so badly. “Okay. So, she thinks they are just helping out here and she hasn’t seen them?”

  “Yeah.” Her eyes were wide and the worry was crystal clear within them.