“I’m not hungry anymore,” I said quietly, pushing my plate back.
“Bethi, you need to eat,” Luke insisted.
“I just want to go to my room.” I stood, and he followed.
He didn’t put up too much of a fight about sharing a bed when we got to the room. He even pulled back the covers and took off his shirt.
I ducked into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. By then, I was ready to sleep. He watched me cross the room and held out an arm to welcome me.
“How are the stitches?” he asked.
“Fine,” I murmured closing my eyes.
I woke with a stretch followed by a wince when the stitches reminded me I couldn’t stretch too far. Luke’s warm hand covered my stomach through my shirt; and I sighed, not opening my eyes. I’d experienced one of the best nights. I’d slept through without interruption for—I lifted my head from his chest to look at the alarm clock—fourteen hours.
“You must be starving,” I said, lying back down.
“Your arm was looking good about six hours ago.”
“I bet.” I wasn’t ready to get up yet. I sighed and closed my eyes again.
His stomach growled. I laughed and managed to sit up. “You win. We’ll go feed you.”
“You, too,” he said, sitting up with too much energy. “All you ate yesterday was a sandwich.”
“Not true. I had a plate of pie, too.”
I picked out clothes while he used the bathroom. He came out showered, fresh, and ready to eat. I shook my head and indulged in a quick shower, careful not to let the scabs around the stitches get too wet. It felt good to be so clean. When I wiped the steam from the mirror, I cringed. I hadn’t been paying attention to myself. The circles under my eyes were dark again. I used the hotel hair dryer and brushed my hair until it was dry and then dressed.
Luke sat on a made bed waiting for me when I opened the door.
“Feed me,” I begged.
He couldn’t hide the worry that passed over his face. Standing, he threaded his fingers through mine and led me out of the room. My bag was slung over his shoulder.
We met everyone in the breakfast area. Michelle and Emmitt couldn’t stop looking at or touching each other. Long looks followed by a quick kiss, a hug, or just a shoulder brush. I shook my head. I wasn’t the only one. I caught Gabby’s look, too. She grinned at me as Luke led me to the counter laid out with food.
He insisted I eat a bagel, eggs, sausage, and a waffle. Then he looked at me and added a bowl of cereal.
“Seriously? I’ll be sick if I eat all that,” I whispered as he carried the plate to the table Grey and Carlos shared.
“He’ll eat what you don’t,” Grey said with a laugh.
I sat and started eating, asking questions between bites.
“Any news?”
“One of their sentinels must have discovered the Compound empty because they stopped grouping and have fanned out. Gabby said they are creating a net across the states, but there are holes big enough to wind our way through. It just might take a little longer,” Grey answered.
Nana came up and asked about the stitches. She insisted on checking them before we left. I reluctantly agreed.
Luke used his fork to stab a piece of sausage from my plate and fed it to me with a soft command to eat.
In no time I was down to just the waffle. I had to push the plate away.
“Too much,” I groaned.
Luke had the same meal I did, but twice the serving size. Still, his plate sat empty. He grabbed my waffle and finished that, too.
We shuffled the seating arrangements so Nana, Gabby, and Clay rode with us. Clay sighed when Gabby moved to sit in the backseat with Luke and me. He caught the back of her shirt before she could completely escape him and planted a kiss on her mouth before getting into the front seat.
“How you feeling?” she asked when Nana pulled out of the lot. Since we rode with Gabby, we were the lead car.
“Fine,” I acknowledged. Luke’s leg pressed against mine, warming me. I would probably be napping before long.
“If it’s okay, I have some questions for you…” She glanced at Luke and Nana.
“It’s fine with me.” I’d relayed everything I thought I knew. If there was some memory lurking, some piece of information I’d failed to mention… well, it wasn’t on purpose.
“You’ve said a lot about our abilities. I thought… I thought I was meant to find pairs.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I touch people, if I’m feeling the right things, like empathy, I can transfer my power to them. Then, I get this kind of echo back from it, like ripples. When the ripple hits the right spark, it glows brighter. Does that make sense?”
Though I understood what she was saying, I’d never experienced it. “I haven’t lived anything like that yet. I didn’t know you could transfer your power. I wonder if the rest of us can,” I said, looking out the window for a moment. Who would I want to give these dreams to? It would just be cruel. Well, maybe Luke. Maybe he would finally understand.
“When I transferred my power to Clay, my spark lit brightly. When I transferred it to Luke, your spark lit brightly. That’s why I sent him. Well, part of the reason.”
“You knew?” he said in a shocked tone.
“I wasn’t sure. But I wasn’t wrong, was I?” Gabby watched Luke closely.
Luke scowled at her.
“I could pass my power to you,” she said.
She’d barely spoken the words when Clay and Luke simultaneously shouted, “No.” Clay turned in his seat to give Gabby a look. It wasn’t angry, but I could still see a stubborn warning there.
She and I shared a look. “It drains me,” Gabby admitted. “At least, it did before I Claimed Clay.” She reached forward and ran her fingers in Clay’s hair. “Clay, it probably won’t affect me anymore.”
He shook his head. “Hands to yourself.”
I could see he wouldn’t be facing forward again anytime soon. She sighed and sat back.
“What’s your reason for not wanting me to try?” she asked Luke.
“She’s perfect the way she is,” he answered vaguely and looked out the window.
Clay laughed. Gabby looked as confused as I felt, but then understanding lit her eyes.
“Have you felt the other part of my ability? The attraction I have on men?” I nodded recalling the dreams from this life. “I transfer that, too. When I transferred it to Clay,” she smiled and her eyes drifted to him. He gave a tiny shake of his head as his teeth made a brilliant appearance. “Well, I Claimed him on the spot,” she said.
Ah. So Luke wouldn’t be able to resist me? Sign me up!
Gabby and I shared a look, but Clay kept too close of an eye on Gabby.
“I’d guessed about there being another race,” Gabby said quietly. She looked at Clay sadly. “We came up here a day early because they tried challenging Clay. The men had a different color spark. While one had Clay distracted, another came in from the back. Clay heard and got there in time. But not before I saw the man.” She turned and looked at me, clearly upset. “I felt it. The pull. But it felt so wrong,” she whispered.
“Because for you, it was,” I said. Then I looked at Clay. “To the death?”
He gave the barest shake of his head. That was a problem. But I didn’t say anything more.
****
A week later we reached Georgia. We’d driven through a wicked storm and ended up a little further south than where we wanted to be. With Gabby’s watchful eye, we’d avoided detection, though we’d experienced a few close calls. We’d woken one morning to a knock on our door and a quick “pack up.” We’d left that hotel minutes before the Urbat reached town. They were only scouting Gabby assured us, but no one wanted to take the chance. She said their net was still spread wide. They were still trying to find us.
They had managed to catch a lone werewolf the fourth day after our departure from the Compound. The Elders immediately reached out to the man and remained mute for several hours. I shivered watching their faces and imagined the poor werewolf begging for information to give his captors as they tortured him.
Luke wrapped his arm around my shoulders and whispered words I couldn’t remember afterward. He understood that I relived my own tortured pasts while the man remained in the Urbat’s hands. When the Elders started speaking again, I knew his torture was over. I struggled to pull myself out of my dark memories. Luke was my anchor. He held my hand through it all, worry etched on his face.
He continued to fuss over what I ate, too. Under his care, I put on a few needed pounds and finally got more than two consecutive nights of good sleep. He started sleeping with a bag of chips next to the bed until I woke with crumbs in my hair and put a stop to his snacking.
We trudged into the lobby of yet another hotel, dripping and tired of being on the road. I was beginning to wonder if anywhere would ever feel like home again. Nana came up to me and pulled me away from Luke.
“I’d like to take out the stitches today. It was a shallow enough cut that it should be fine, but you’ll need to take it easy.”
I eagerly agreed. They were itching like crazy and uncomfortable. Once we had our rooms, she knocked on our door. Luke held my hand as she cut the first loop. It didn’t hurt. Then, she tugged. I suffered a sharp sting on the surface as the stitch broke free from the healing skin. My stomach turned over at the queer feeling of something sliding under my skin.
“That was the easy one,” Nana said. “A small one I did as a test to make sure you’d sleep through it. The next few are longer running stitches.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. More tugging, a little bleeding, and a lot of that under the skin crawling occurred over the next few minutes, but then she was done. I looked down at my stomach unimpressed with the new decoration on my skin. I sighed and moved to tug my shirt down.
“Not yet,” she said, reaching down for a bottle. “It needs to be cleaned again.” She passed the small bottle of rubbing alcohol to Luke. “I think you can take it from here.”
I did not want the alcohol on all the new holes in my skin. Most of them bled like little pinpricks. Luke watched me with a smile when I slowly tugged my shirt down.
“You heard her,” he said. “Let’s do this quick, and then we can grab dinner.”
“I’m too sick for dinner. Let’s skip it,” I said, referring to the cleaning.
“Bethi, you’re tougher than this,” Luke said.