Page 44 of Shield and Savior

I wake Drew up, gently but obviously not as snuggly. A shake to the shoulder, and he flutters his eyes open. “Wake up, Bud, time to go.” I open his closet door, move a dirty hoodie to the side, and grab his bag. He’s asleep again.

Double damn. I head back into Izzy’s room. And she’s asleep too.

Do not lose your shit. Don’t do it.

I raise my voice to a loud and annoyed whisper. “Izzy, you need to get up and get dressed.”

She groans and rolls over.

“I know you’re tired, but think about reasons why I might be here.”

Izzy jolts out of bed. “DREW GET UP!” She throws the blankets off. “Shit, what happened? You’re not here for snuggles and breakfast.”

“Another time, because that sounds amazing, but no. We need to leave. Get dressed.” I point to her closet in case she needs extra reminding where everything is.

Panic glazes over her eyes. “What happened?”

“The cameras picked him up last night. Mastodon thinks it’s best to move you to a safe house for now.” It’s a half truth. She doesn’t need to know about the dead cat in the bag.

She runs around the room grabbing any clothes she can easily access and shoving them into a duffle. “How much time do we have?”

“Well, I would’ve liked to be out of here already.”

She slams her bathroom door while I grab her stuff.

Drew steps out of his room, rubbing his eyes. “Lance, what’s going on?”

“Go get changed and grab your video games. If you can get ready in under a minute, we’ll have ice cream for breakfast. Okay?” Drew tilts his head to the side and sighs, trying to gauge my words.

“One minute?”

“Yep.”

“Time me.” He smiles and rushes off.

I pace around the hallway, grabbing a few things to keep us all busy—a board game they’ve been trying to get me to play, a book Izzy is in the middle of reading, and extra charging cables—while they crash and bang into everything. Neither of them should be assassins. They are terrible and noisy, and they have no idea what they are doing.

“Done!” Drew comes out with one arm in a hoodie and the other sort of limply hanging there. His socks don’t match, and his hair is everywhere.

“Go grab a hat. I’m not going to be seen in public with all that.” I order as I wave my hand up and down in front of him. My joke falls flat, and Drew stares at me, either confused or furious, it’s hard to tell.

Seconds later, Izzy stands in her bedroom doorway looking disheveled. Drew points to his mom. “Does she need a hat too?”

I glance at her. The sweatshirt that says ‘I’d rather be reading’ is caught under her breasts, and her hair is frizzed out in a million directions. I temporarily place all my protective energy on hold, replacing it with a stupid, gooey feeling. My throat dries. “Yeah she needs a hat.”

ChapterTwenty-Two

Lance

I pack up my car and make sure my two packages are safe.Keep them safe.I check my watch. We’re five minutes behind schedule. The SUV roars to life .

“When are we getting ice cream?” Drew seems completely unfazed by all of this. His priorities are in a different universe than mine.

Izzy gives me a small smile and whispers, “Don’t promise anything you can’t deliver on.”

“Don’t worry, Champ. We have to do some switching around for our adventure, but we’ll get ice cream. Go back to sleep.” As soon as I say it, I know it’s an unfair request. There’s no way he’ll be able to sleep with us switching cars every twenty minutes.

My car is probably the safest, since it’s almost never used, but still. We pull into a parking garage and park next to a black SUV, again bulletproof. I hate this because it’s such a waste. The company has ten bulletproof cars at this office, and right now most of them are being used in the shell game shuffle. We switch cars and drive off.

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