I opened my eyes to gaze up at his face. “Because they’re ours? Both of them are ours?”
“Yeah.” He kissed my forehead. “I know we’re not perfect. I know I’m not perfect. I know we have our issues. But the important thing is that I love you. That you’re the one I’ve loved for years and years. And no matter what happens, we’re together.”
I nodded. “You remember asking me if the best thing that a couple could hope for was to be happy only sometimes?”
“What? When was this?”
“It was right after we got away from Bartholomew and the vampires. We got back to the mansion, and we were looking at our room, remembering our relationship. You said, ‘We were happy here,’ and I said, ‘Sometimes.’”
“Right,” he said. “I do remember.”
“Back then, I remember I thought it was a terrible thing to admit that—that maybe the best thing that existed was being happy sometimes. I guess I wanted to believe in something else. Some kind of unreasonable fairy tale. But now, I do think it’s true. And it doesn’t bother me.”
Jason gently rested his chin on my head. “There are some kinds of happiness that are so intense that they outweigh the bad times, I think. Hunter and Chance? The way they make me feel…”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
“Well, anything we had to go through to get them, it was worth it.”
I shut my eyes again, cocooned in the warmth of his arms. We wouldn’t be able to stay hidden here for too long. We always had to stay on the move. But he was right. Having what we had made the circumstances worth it.
PART TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
~hunter~
I was having one of those weird dreams again. I had them a lot, ever since I was a kid. They were nightmares about people coming to try to kill me and my family. The men had guns and knives. In my dreams, I saw my family killed over and over again.
When I was a kid, I used to wake up crying a lot.
But I was older now, and I wasn’t as bothered by the dreams. If I had one, it usually meant that we needed to get moving.
Which actually sucked. I was seventeen, almost eighteen. We’d been here for about six months, and I’d started to half-believe that maybe I could finish up the school year here, graduate, wear the cap and gown, the whole nine yards. Things had been quiet lately, and I liked it better that way.
School had often been a bone of contention between my family and me. My dad—uncle, technically—seemed to be convinced that he was smart enough to teach my brother—cousin, technically—Chance and me everything we ever needed to know. But Chance had always wanted to go to school. And I always wanted to do whatever Chance did.
They finally caved when Chance was twelve or thirteen. For Chance, anyway. They didn’t let me go to school for years after that. Not until I was maybe ten.
Anyway, unlike most kids, I liked school. It got me away from my crazy family, for one thing.
And it was nice to be someplace where everyone wasn’t constantly worried about me.
When you’ve spent your whole life being chased by guys who want to kill you, it’s impossible to feel like a regular person.
But sometimes at school, I could pretend. At least for a little while.
Anyway, I knew that I was having one of the dreams because of the Guns N’ Roses soundtrack.
Something by them always played during the dreams.
Plus, whenever I was having one of those dreams, I always knew I was dreaming.
Today, the GNR song was “Patience,” and Axl was whistling in the background. I knew all the GNR songs because my dad was a big-time fan, and he made me and my brother listen to them all the time when we were kids.
Anyway, “Patience” was a change of pace for these kinds of dreams, which usually liked to blare things like, “Welcome to the Jungle” or “Civil War” while a bunch of dudes with guns pumped lead into my mom’s head.
In the dream, I was walking across the sidewalk in front of my high school.
Above me, the sky was growing dark as angry clouds blew in. I looked up at them, and lightning leaped from one to the other. Thunder rumbled.
It was going to rain.
I sped up, trying to get to the door of the school quicker.
“Hey, wait,” said a voice.
I turned around.
A girl was standing behind me on the sidewalk. She had blond hair, and she was wearing a long, flowing white gown/robe thing. The wind blew down on us. It picked up the edges of her robe and blew them out around her.
In the song, Axl started his bridge/breakdown.
The girl held out her hands to me.
The wind picked up, fluttering her dress away from her.
She threw her head back.
The robe blew tight against her body. She was surrounded by flowing white fabric, blowing in the wind. Her hair blew out too, blond and shimmering.
She was beautiful.
I swallowed. I took a step towards her.
The heavens opened up and rain began to pour down on both of us.
She closed her eyes and held up her hands, welcoming it.
Thunder crashed.
And a huge bolt of lightning came down from the sky, engulfing both me and the girl.
Electric pain went through me.
I gasped.
And sat up in bed.
Breathing hard, I looked around the room. We were staying in a house we’d rented. It was already furnished, and the room I’d been given was set up for a little girl. The walls were painted pink, with a wallpaper runner of dancing unicorns. At least I’d convinced my mom to let me take the canopy off the bed. We weren’t allowed to do anything to the walls, though. Renting this place was temporary, and the people who lived here were eventually coming back.
That dream had been different.
Really different.
No guns. No killing. No badness.
Maybe… maybe I didn’t need to tell anyone I’d had it. I really didn’t feel like being uprooted again, even if it meant leaving the unicorn wallpaper.
* * *
~azazel~
“Hunter.” I shook my son. “You slept through your alarm again. Wake up.”
He squinted at me in the scant light of morning. “Mom?”
“Get up,” I said. “It’s morning.” Truthfully, I wasn’t sure he slept through his alarm so much as he turned it off.
He sat up. “Can we change the wallpaper in here, Mom?”
“You know we’re renting this place,” I said.
He glared at me. “I think it’s bad for my developing psyche, looking at all this little girl shit. It’s going to turn me into some kind of creep.”
I rolled my eyes. “Get over it. And don’t say ‘shit.’”
“Whatever,” he said.
I started out of the room. “Get your butt out here if you want breakfast.” The swearing thing always bothered me a little bit. Neither Jason or I felt the need to monitor our speech around the boys, but that meant that they’d picked up a lot of choice words as little kids. It seemed hypocritical to tell them they couldn’t say them when Jason and I did. So, we sort of let it slide. But I had to admit that I wasn’t crazy about hearing my sons swear at me all the time, even if they were both practically grown men.
I went into the kitchen to load up the toaster and scramble some eggs. I tried to make actual breakfasts, considering that Jason and I didn’t necessarily have to work actual jobs most of the time. We still had access to the money that my grandmother had left me, although we did have to jump through hoops to get at it, so that Imri couldn’t track the money and find us.
It was kind of funny, because in some ways, I was sort of a housewife.
Well, except for the fact that I wasn’t actually married and that I spent most of my time seeking out potential threats against my son and either avoiding them or eradicating them.
Speaking of which…
“Hunter!” I yelled. “Wha
t have I told you about leaving guns out on the counter?”
“It’s not loaded,” came his voice from the depths of the house.
“That’s not the point, and you know it,” I called back.
The back door opened.
I picked up the gun and the clip that was lying next to it. Slamming the bullets into the gun, I leveled the barrel at the door.
But it was only Chance.
He glared at me. “Good morning to you too.”
Chance was twenty-four years old. He wore his red hair long and gathered into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Which was huge.
His neck, I mean.
The kid had an obsession with lifting weights, and he was this deep-voiced, hulking man-thing, covered in tattoos. It still shocked me, because, for the life of me, I kept expecting him to be a little boy.
And he wasn’t.
Hell, he was an adult. If it weren’t for the fact that the four of us were constantly in danger, he wouldn’t have to live with us anymore. If we were a regular family, he could have left home and gone to college and be working someplace.
But we weren’t regular, and Chance had to make do with taking various online classes, which meant he still didn’t have a degree.
He brushed past me and headed into the house.
I set the gun down on the counter again, and I could smell stale liquor wafting off of him. Again. “You’ve been out all night?”
He shrugged at me. “Is this your business?”
“Chance, if you’re drunk, and Imri’s men show up—”
“It’s like you think I didn’t hear you the first twenty times you told me this,” he said. “You gonna yell at me all during breakfast or should I eat in my room?”
I sighed. “I worry is all. You know that.” I headed over to the refrigerator and got out a carton of eggs and some milk.
He sat down at the table. “You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
I started cracking eggs into a bowl. “Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. If you’re wasted, you’re not going to be able to aim. Your reaction time will be screwed. And it only takes a second—”
“Seriously, stop it,” he said.
I cracked more eggs. The boys would probably eat three each. It was funny, because I’d grown up in a house full of boys, and now I’d spent most of my adult life in one too. There was one constant. Growing boys were always hungry. Especially post-pubescent ones.
“Besides,” said Chance. “It’s been months since we’ve had any problems.”
I poured milk in with the eggs and began to stir the whole mess together. “We’ve had lulls before. Imri’s not giving up.”
“Maybe he is,” said Chance. “I saw something about him on one of the newsfeeds. Something about Phorm Industries. Seems like he’s got his hands full with that merger.”
I turned to him sharply. “Merger?”
“Yeah, it’s a big story. Imri Black is buying the corporation.”
Phorm Industries? They made all kinds of food. The cheese I was planning on using on the eggs was made by Phorm, even though it was in generic packaging. “Why would Imri want to buy out a food manufacturer?”
Chance shrugged. He got up and went to the refrigerator. He pulled out some orange juice and opened the container.
“Get a glass,” I told him.
He rolled his eyes. “That’s just more shit you have to wash.”
“Don’t say ‘shit.’”
He snickered. “Oh, get over it, Zaza. You’re not my mother.”
I went back to the eggs. I guessed he was right about that. But I hated it when he said it. When he was a little boy, he didn’t have any problem including me in his triumvirate of mothers. Now, apparently biology ruled. I sprinkled salt and pepper into the bowl and gave it another stir.
“Hey,” said a voice.
Jason. He was awake, then.
I turned, my voice bright. “Good morning, Jason. You think you could grab me a skillet out of the cabinet down there?”
Jason opened the cabinet and got out a skillet. But he didn’t look at me. He looked at Chance. “You shouldn’t talk to her like that.”
I grabbed the skillet from Jason. “It’s fine. Let it go.”
Chance was pouring orange juice into a glass. He took a long drink, set the glass down, and surveyed his father. “She doesn’t need to tell me to watch my mouth anymore.”
Jason sized Chance up. “Where you been?”
Chance picked up his orange juice and went back to the table. “Out.”
“I’m trying to have a conversation with you,” said Jason. “Turning your back on me is rude.”
I poured eggs into the skillet. “Jason.”
He eyed me. “What?”
“Let’s try to have a nice breakfast for once,” I said. “Can you get the toast out of the toaster?”
He did, putting it on a plate. “We’d have a nice breakfast if we didn’t have to sit down with someone who smells like the bar at seven in the morning.”
Chance downed the rest of his orange juice. “Forget it. I’m going to bed.”
Jason set down the plate of toast and moved into Chance’s way. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you the past few months. You know how dangerous it is—”
“Yeah, it’s always dangerous,” said Chance. “I get it. But recently, it hasn’t been. It’s been quiet. And when do I get a chance to live my life, huh? When does Hunter get the chance to live his life?”
Hunter had just appeared in the kitchen. He was dressed for school, but his hair was mussed and standing straight up in the back. He scratched his stomach. “Leave me out of this.”
Chance turned to him. “Seriously, dude, when was the last time you had one of those dreams?”
Hunter went over to the kitchen table and flopped down. “Come on, Chance, you’re still drunk. Sleep it off.”
I rubbed my face. “Hunter, you need to wet down your hair. Or would it kill you to take a shower?”
“I don’t have time for a shower,” he said.
“When was it?” said Chance. “It was like a year ago, wasn’t it? Back in Arizona.”
Hunter looked down at the table. “There any orange juice, Mom?”
“Fine,” said Chance. “Keep quiet now, when they’re around. But don’t act like you’re not as sick of living like this as I am.”
“Chance,” said Jason, “no one wants to live this way.”
“You do,” said Chance. “You get antsy when there’s nothing to shoot, Dad. But I wish like hell you’d stop taking it out on me.” He swept out of the room.
Jason’s shoulders slumped. He massaged the bridge of his nose.
Hunter got up and went for the orange juice that Chance had left on the counter. He started to take a drink.
“Glass,” I said to him.
“Right,” said Hunter, opening the cabinet. He turned to Jason. “Look, he’s kind of an ass when he drinks too much, that’s all.”
Jason ruffled Hunter’s hair. “Don’t worry about it.”
Hunter peered around me onto the stove. “Eggs, huh?”
I glared at him. “You don’t want eggs?”
“We always have eggs.”
“You know what, Hunter, if you want something else, then—”
“I can make it myself. I know,” he said. He took a drink of orange juice, this time out of a glass. “I’m not complaining, Mom. Sorry.” He kissed me on the cheek. “But can we maybe make like a sandwich with the eggs and the toast that I can take with me? Because I’m kind of running late.”
* * *
~hunter~
Even though I’d been at Ripley High School for six months, I hadn’t really made any friends. I wasn’t the kind of guy who could do that. I’d learned that lesson pretty quickly, back when I was twelve years old. I’d made a couple friends at the first school I’d gone to.
And we’d played hooky one day, not actually going to class, but instead runn
ing off into the woods that surrounded the school.
What I didn’t know at the time was that there were some people who’d been hunting me down. Not Imri and his men. They were the biggest threat, but they weren’t the only one. These guys were something else—they wanted to kidnap me and use me as a weapon against some other powerful magic people. I don’t know the details of who and what they were. Just by existing I suck away magic. Some people think that could be useful, and they want to capture me and use me.
Anyway, I didn’t have a dream warning me about these guys.
The dreams were not one hundred percent. They sometimes came and sometimes didn’t. Sometimes, I had one, and it was about events that were going to happen years and years in the future.
So, there me and my friends were, out in the woods, making a game out skipping stones on the creek and talking about which of us had actually managed to ever get our hands on boobs. (Jordan said that he’d totally felt up Maggie Stone, who was the most developed girl in our seventh grade class, but the rest of us guys were calling bullshit on the whole thing, because Maggie Stone never even looked at Jordan.) And then a group of guys showed up with guns.
They shot my friends.
They took me away.
I managed to get a text off to my mom—our typical SOS message.
She and Dad showed up and got me away from the guys. They killed all of them.
And then we moved.
It was a lesson in several things. One was that skipping school was a very bad idea. The other was that if I had friends, they’d only get hurt.
And it took about four months of my begging to convince my mother to ever let me go to school ever again.
But here I was, sitting in the back of the room in history class. I’d finished my test about halfway through class, so I was messing with my tablet—the ones that the school gave us to do all our homework on. It wasn’t supposed to be able to allow you to add any cool apps to it, since it was supposed to be used for educational purposes only. But it wasn’t too hard to figure out how to get by that and modify it to do whatever I wanted.
Still, I had to be quiet and stealthy, because if you got caught playing games in class, you got in trouble.
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