Page 29 of Coerced

“Only to the airport,” Clem snarked back.

After Kerry had called, I’d flown around my room like a whirlwind, hopping with excitement. The first thing I had packed was the night light he’d drawn for me, sliding it into the front pocket of my backpack. I remember how I had originally thought it was just a lovely sketch of a candle. When I’d mentioned something about it weeks after he’d given it to me, he had sighed in exasperation.

“Touch it with your power, dummy. The flame will light up.”

Now, standing with the others outside the library, I was glad I hadn’t been so distracted by the memory that I forgot to bring along plenty of sweaters and thick socks. It was slightly above freezing in the weak morning sun, and the weather report for our destination was snow, snow, and more snow, even though it was technically spring now.

“Did you pack Sir Martin?” Kerry asked me.

“No. Why?”

“Gigi,” he turned to her, “can you go get—”

“Shh!” I hissed as my face flamed. “ No!”

“What?”

“I don’t want to look like a baby!” I squeezed his hand hard.

He frowned, but John broke in before he could say anything.

“Tara brought The Lump.” He pointed to her backpack, which had a misshapen stuffed animal strapped to the side of it.

“It’s Miss Kitty, as you well know.” Tara arched an eyebrow at John before turning to me with a grin. “She’s as old as me and full of patches, but I can’t sleep without her.”

So Gigi fetched Sir Martin and, when she handed him over, I had to admit I was happier.

“Kerry, you said we’re headed for the mountains.” Tara leaned against John’s arm. “If we’re hiking, we’ll need gear. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t have anything like that.”

“My scout will kit us out when we get there.” Clem stomped his heavy boots. “It’s too much weight to lug around before then.”

“Whatisthe mission?” Maddy asked.

She stood next to Travis, but her arms were crossed and her body turned away from him. Travis’ eyes were narrowed and his mouth tight as if they’d just had cross words, but I hadn’t heard him say anything other than hello to anyone since he’d joined us.

Hmm. Something’s wrong between them.

I’d thought the same thing a few times in the past week or so, but I hadn’t asked either of them if things were okay. I wasn’t as close to Maddy as Tara was, and surely she would have spoken to Tara before me. As for Travis, I knew he still felt guilty for the role he’d played in Reilly’s scheme last fall, even though I’d told him not to be. It made things awkward between us.

Well, I’ll catch up with them while we’re traveling,I promised myself.I’ll get them each on their own and check in with them.

“Locals have reported seeing a beast rampaging up and down the Appalachians,” Clem answered Maddy. “At first, rangers marked them up as bear sightings. Then, they started finding too much damage to write off as bears. Now, the Bigfoot believers are saying it’s him.”

“Poor old Squatch.” Jax laughed. “He gets blamed for a lot of nephilim activity.”

“I sent a scout out a few weeks ago, and he finally reported in last night.” Clem sounded cross about the delay. “He said it’s something Diabolical for sure, and it’s holed up in the Longfellows of Maine. He thinks there may be more than one because there’s been too much activity in different places at the same time.”

“It took him a fewweeksto report?” Kerry asked.

“Lots of backcountry in those huge forests,” Maddy explained. “Takes days to even reach it, let alone explore it, and communications are iffy.”

I watched him, waiting to see if he was going to— Yep. He was leaning down, his lips centimeters from my ear.

“What’s backcountry?” he whispered.

After I explained, he stood straight with his shoulders back and head up - and my heart ached for him.

I wanted to reassure him that none of our friends would judge him, that he could ask any of us when he wanted to know something, but I also knew he would be too humiliated to do so. He saw it as a weakness, and that was something he’dneverexpose to anyone.

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