by Mikayla Lane
A part of Gracus realized that he was being unreasonable and paranoid, but he couldn’t seem to stop the thoughts from running through his head and the fear from gripping him.
The pilot nodded and began pre-flight as Gracus secured himself into a seat behind him. He tried to stop his hands from shaking and the fear from overwhelming him as he waited for the craft to finally take off.
When they left the docking bay, the pilot stated, “Eight minutes to drop.”
Gracus nodded his head and sighed. Even though they were now in flight, his fear and paranoia had not subsided and he hoped that he would feel better when he was finally on the ground at the cabin.
He was so wrapped in his thoughts, he almost missed the pilot’s warning. “Ready to drop in five… four… three…”
Gracus stood too quickly, swaying slightly before the door opened and he was pulled outside. His body, unprepared for the drop due to his inattention, sprawled through the air with arms and legs flailing wildly before he hit the ground so hard his air was knocked from his lungs.
He stared up at the sky as he lay on the ground a moment, trying to get his breath back and felt the whoosh of air on his face as the transport craft headed back to Dillon. He sat up, knowing that he had a limited amount of time to find Rebecca before Scaden and Amun hauled him back to the Adaria.
Gracus stood slowly, making sure he was steady and headed into the cabin. He sighed in relief at the sight of all of his gear and pulled off the sweat pants, putting on his own tact gear instead.
He had expected the fear and paranoia to diminish once he had arrived, but it didn’t and he struggled with his slower movements and unreasonable thoughts as he went through the rest of his gear. Gracus knew that they would come to find him and he would make sure that they couldn’t get him before he found his mate.
With that thought in mind, Gracus grabbed the gear he’d already had packed for a long trek into the mountains and headed to the garage. He sighed as he saw the long scratches that ran along the side of the vehicle and threw his gear into the backseat before he got in the driver’s seat.
He was startled when the EAT system came on immediately. “Welcome Gracus. Please specify desired location.”
Gracus stared at the dashboard unit with narrowed eyes. He knew damn well that the others could track his every movement with the annoying system and didn’t want to make it easy on them. So, he leaned down and looked to find a way to remove it. Unable to see an easy way, he grabbed hold of both sides and ripped it out of the dashboard.
Rolling down the window, he threw it out onto the garage floor, with a grin. He hated that damn thing, he thought, happy that he was remembering things, even if it was slowly.
Gracus started the car, only a little nervous about driving it again and backed out of the garage without hitting anything. Just when he thought that his slower movements might be a bonus for some things, he tried to slam on the brakes when he got too close to a tree that was lining the driveway, but hit the damn thing anyway.
Within seconds he was smacked in the chest with the deployed airbag. Gracus punched wildly at the rapidly deflating bag and was grateful that the seat was so far back that he’d barely felt the bag hit him.
He leaned his head against the steering wheel and now deflated airbag for a moment before realizing that the vehicle was still running. Gracus looked in the rearview mirror and saw the back hatch door of the vehicle was crumpled inward and assumed that it must still be fine to drive if it was still running, so he put the vehicle in drive and tried to pull forward. When he saw that the SUV was running fine, he maneuvered it out onto the road, reminding himself to stay on the right side of the yellow line.
He pulled his comm out of his side pocket and completed the security measures that he’d taken at Dillon, to make sure that Scaden couldn’t track him with the device before he activated the navigation to find Rebecca’s house.
Gracus had never rolled up the window after he’d thrown the navigation system out and marveled at the feel of the wind on his face as he drove through the scenic mountains. He put his head out of the window and grinned into the wind, enjoying the feel, when he was startled by a honking sound behind him.
He jerked the steering wheel and barely managed to keep the SUV from hitting the guardrail on the shoulder of the road. The car honked again as it flew past him and Gracus watched in surprise as a long line of cars followed, some honking at him as well.
“Stay off the damn road grandpa!”
Gracus looked up in time to see what appeared to be a human teenage boy, hanging out of a passenger window and showing him both middle fingers. He was stunned and immediately wondered where all the cars had come from. When he’d left the cabin and began the drive to Rebecca’s house, the road had been empty.
His paranoia took hold of his mind and he began to wonder if all those people were going to Rebecca’s house to try to stop him from finding her and he felt a renewed urgency to get to her. He checked the road behind him to make sure it was safe to pull back onto the road and felt the telltale jolt at the same time that he heard the familiar crunch. Gracus leaned over the steering wheel and realized he’d hit the guardrail.
With a growl of frustration at the flawed human technology that made maneuvering the vehicle so difficult, he pulled gingerly away from the guardrail and back onto the road. He briefly wondered at the grandpa comment and seeing that he was going twenty miles an hour according to the speedometer, which seemed much faster to him, he leaned back in his seat and tried to adapt to driving the human vehicle.
Two hours later, he pulled into the long driveway of Rebecca’s cabin. Curious about his mate and where she lived, he looked around as he drove slowly, trying to take it all in. And promptly ran over a bed of flowers. He jerked the wheel to the left to avoid crushing more of them and overcorrected, running over the bed of flowers on the other side of the driveway.
Slamming on the brakes, again, Gracus pounded the palms of his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. What the fuck was wrong with this damn vehicle that he couldn’t steer it? He was a damn pilot and he couldn’t keep this stupid thing from destroying everything in its path!
He looked out of the windshield and seeing the roof of the cabin just up the driveway, he put the vehicle in park and got out. He’d walk the rest of the way, he thought, rather than take the chance of running her over if she was in front of her home. At the rate he was going, he’d be lucky not to drive the damn thing through her home.
Gracus went to the back of the SUV and winced at the huge dent in the back of it where he’d hit the tree. The way it was inwardly crumpled had left no doubt of what had caused the damage. Shaking his head, he moved past the previous scratches he’d caused getting out of the garage and inspected the damage to the front where he’d hit the guardrail.
The bumper was cocked at an odd angle and the signal lights broken. Even though the headlight was still intact, it looked like it was pushed out and to the side. Gracus knew that when lit, it would not be pointing straight ahead, but to the left side of the road.
Shrugging his shoulders, Gracus headed up the driveway when he realized that he had no idea what to say to Rebecca when he saw her. He stopped and ran his hands through his hair, willing his mind to help him come up with something quick. What if she didn’t want to see him?
Making up his mind that he would just thank her for finding and saving him and positive that since she was his mate, the rest would come naturally, he headed confidently to the cabin porch and knocked on the door. He couldn’t stop the grin as he waited to see his mate again. And waited.
Gracus knocked several more times over the next twenty minutes and when he continued to hear no sounds from inside he realized that she must not be home. Although, the cabin was in the middle of nowhere, he felt exposed and walked around the wrap around porch to the back of the cabin.
It was beautiful, he thought as he saw the river in the distance and heard the calming sounds of the
water. Such a perfect place. He leaned his head back for a second and took a deep breath until he started swaying and turned to look at the back door.
Out of curiosity he tried the back door handle and was a little surprised that it was unlocked. Suddenly concerned that Rebecca may be home but hadn’t answered because she was injured, he rushed inside.
Gracus looked around the kitchen and not seeing her or hearing anything he began a systematic search of each of the rooms until he ended up in the living room. She wasn’t here, he thought, looking a little perplexed that the door had been unlocked. Why wouldn’t she lock it?
Gracus shook his head. It didn’t matter, he was here now and he would protect her and keep her safe. Feeling a little tired, he sat in a chair near the fireplace and wondered what he should do now. She had to be around here somewhere, this is where she lived.
He was considering his options when he went into her kitchen to get a drink of water for his dry mouth. Out of curiosity, he opened her refrigerator and was a little surprised that the only thing in it was condiments and a few bottles of water.
Grabbing one of the bottles, Gracus realized that she might be in town to get food. Feeling a little more confident that he was close to finding her, he headed out of the back door and to the battered SUV still running in her driveway.
This time, he looked all around the vehicle to make sure he couldn’t hit anything when he went back to the road. Gracus grinned and nodded his head, knowing that he could turn around in the driveway easily without ruining anymore of Rebecca’s flowers.
He hopped into the SUV, confident that he had this, put it in gear and turned the wheel sharply to the left to begin the turn. Gracus felt like it was moving too fast and kept his foot on the brake to slow it down so he didn’t lose control. He made it out to the intersection with the main road and carefully looked both ways before jumping out too quickly and running down her mailbox before he righted the vehicle in the proper lane.
Grabbing his comm out of his pocket, he got the directions into the town and headed slowly, but steadily that way, ignoring the blaring horns behind him and the vehicles that seemed to fly by him periodically at what seemed like overly excessive speeds.
*****
Scaden and Amun looked around the MedLab and realizing that Gracus was gone they immediately sent out alerts through the Shengari’ to find him. It wasn’t long before Grai was striding up to them as they were using the comm system to locate his cell signature, still thinking their friend was in the HQ building or the docking bay beneath it.
“What’s going on?” Grai asked, even though he’d heard the alerts and knew Gracus was missing from MedLab.
Scaden sighed and threw his hands up in the air. “He’s gone. He’s not in the building at all. Nowhere. His signature is gone. What if he wanders into the damn animal sanctuary? Would the Sibiox protect him from Jax’s other creatures?” Scaden asked worriedly as he paced the room.
Grai laughed and shook his head. “Jax keeps her animals very well fed and they are much smarter than you think. They would not harm him unless he tried to harm them. And yes, the Sibiox are very protective of their Valendran’s. Do not worry, we will find him.”
Scaden nodded his head, thinking that Gracus couldn’t have gotten far and grateful that Grai was here to help them.
Amun smacked his own forehead. “His comm is gone!”
Scaden rushed to the control center, his fingers flying across the keypad as he tried to pull up the tracking information on all comm systems and was surprised when the screen flashed, “Inactive”.
“What the hell does that mean? It can’t be inactive,” he muttered as he tried again. Again the screen flashed, “Inactive”.
Grai got a bad feeling and moved to the control center with Amun to look at the screen, hoping that Scaden was inputting something incorrectly that was causing the system not to find the comm signal.
He watched Scaden input the information over and over again and the screen still came up “Inactive”. As much as Grai hated to do it, he knew Risk was sleeping after a long shift, and ended up calling the one other person he knew could hack into the system and possibly track Gracus’s comm.
Several minutes later, Traze came bursting into the room with a huge grin on his face. “So the nature lover is missing again?” he asked as he headed over to the control center and nudged Scaden away from it.
Lt. David Jacobs came in and stood behind him, watching over his shoulder as Traze looked at Grai and grinned. “The guy is good. He disabled his own comm to prevent tracking. It’ll take a few minutes, but we should be able to find him.”
Scaden looked at Traze in puzzlement. “Why the hell would he disable his own comm?” he asked to no one in particular.
Everyone looked at Amun when he sighed heavily. “He’s going through a phase of paranoia as the drug is leaving his system. It’s one of the side effects and happens in a handful of people when they use the drug. It seems like Gracus is going through every damn one of the possible side effects,” Amun said as he pulled out his comm and began tapping at the screen.
Scaden ran a hand through his hair and huffed. “You’re telling me he’s paranoid about us?” he asked in disbelief.
Amun looked up from his comm and nodded his head. “He’s paranoid about everything right now. It’ll pass when the drug leaves his system.”
Traze laughed heartily until David slapped him in the back of the head and said, “Knock it off, we need to find him.”
Traze glared at David for a second before grinning and turning back to the keypad. After several long minutes, Traze looked at Grai and said, “We have a problem.”
Chapter Six
By the time Gracus pulled into town, he realized he was starving and had no idea where Rebecca would go to get groceries. Remembering the greasy spoon he had eaten at the day before, he turned into the parking lot and pointed the vehicle towards one of the parking spaces.
Convinced that he had lined it up perfectly between the designated yellow lines, Gracus pulled slowly forward and tried to gage when to stop before he hit the yellow barrier in the parking space. He slammed on the brakes just as the front wheels rolled over it.
Grateful that he didn’t hit the building, Gracus said “screw it”, put it in park and pulled out the keys. He checked his pocket for his wallet and left the SUV and headed into the diner.
He recognized the older woman who had served him before, but not the other three men that were staring at him with wide eyes. Gracus immediately felt wary and was getting ready to leave when Blanche came up to him, grabbed his arm and led him past the other patrons to a table in the back.
He sat in the chair she had guided him to and looked up at her curiously as she said, “Ignore them. I tried the stuff too when it first became legal and I didn’t react real well either,” Blanche said with a grin as she leaned down and whispered, “I can’t tell you how glad I was that I was at home with only my Frank around.”
Blanche cleared her throat and stood back up and winked at him. Gracus couldn’t help but smile at the woman’s fun energy and her admission. He knew he’d reacted badly to the drug and was embarrassed enough over it without it being thrown in his face.
“Thank you,” Gracus said with an embarrassed grin. “I didn’t even know it was in the candy I bought and feel like a fool.”
Blanche clucked her tongue and patted his arm. “Honey, don’t feel bad, we’ve had it happen a couple of times to the tourists. It’s certainly not as bad as the damn lying media make it out to be though. Now what can I get you to eat, honey?” Blanche asked, feeling bad for the poor man.
Gracus hadn’t even looked at the menu, but since Blanche had been right about breakfast the day before, he figured he couldn’t go wrong letting her pick for him again.
“What do you recommend?” he asked, grinning at the smile that came over the older woman’s face.
She patted his arm again, like a kind mother and said, “Don’t you wo
rry none, we’ll get you taken care of, honey.”
Gracus shook his head as she turned quickly and strode to the kitchen calling out, “Frank, get me a Classic Confluence with all the extras!”
He watched Blanche getting a few glasses and a thought occurred to him. He waited impatiently for her to return to his table and when she set a glass of water and a glass of soda in front of him, he cleared his throat.
“I was hoping to thank the river guide who found me. I probably wouldn’t be alive if not for them,” Gracus said, hoping that the woman would give him some information about Rebecca.
He was surprised when she sucked in a breath, put a hand to her chest and sat down across from him with a strange gleam in her eye.
“You want to know about our Becca?” Blanche said on an almost breathless whisper as she looked him up and down.
Gracus squirmed a little under the woman’s scrutiny. “I… uh… is that her name? Becca?” He asked wondering if she preferred the shortened version of her name better. He liked the way her full name, Rebecca, sounded to his ears.
Blanche nodded as she studied him intently. “Yes, that’s who found you. But you won’t be able to see her for a while yet. She’s out there on that river checking her route and won’t be back for another nine or ten days,” Blanche said before she stood, turning towards the kitchen where Frank had called her name.
“I’ll be right back,” she said as she headed to the kitchen, leaving Gracus upset and angry.
There was no way in hell that he was going to be able to avoid Scaden and Amun that long and he had to find Rebecca before they found him. Gracus shook his head in frustration. It was a big damn forest. Trying to find her would be like trying to find a Sutak bug in the Busarianna Sea, back on Valendra. Which meant impossible.
Putting his arms on the table and his head in his hands, Gracus struggled to think of what to do when the first of several plates were put in front of him. He sat back and stared at the mountains of food, almost drooling at the smells coming from the steaming plates.