Page 102 of Sundowners
“Now, you take the time to rest and get well. Vanessa is working on the case against Stephen with the district attorney, while we try to find the rest of the people involved with the takeover of BioBourne. Timothy Hicks is still at large. He wasn’t at the lake.” He pulled on his duty belt. “I’m back on patrol, though. I’m done with special duty. This way, I can see Tita Frances and keep an eye on you.”
“How are B and Em? Are they okay?” I felt awful that they’d been dragged into this mess.
“They don’t remember any of it,” he said. When I frowned, he shrugged. “Really. Vanessa had them talk to the department shrink, who thinks that it’s a trauma response, or perhaps it was some mind control hypnosis thing or they drugged them before you got there.”
“Anything is possible, I guess. Was Creed hurt? How did he stop it? The ritual?”
Rey frowned. “No. The person who did this to you, they recognized Creed. I don’t really know how he got through to them. I was too busy trying to keep your ass alive.”
There was something he wasn’t telling me, and I had so many questions.
“Look, I have the number for their secure line, we can call him another time, but I want you to know, he didn’t have a choice, Roman. Creed had to go. He saved us all from that…thing.”
That didn’t surprise me. He was a strong man, strong of character, heart, mind. And he was always going to sacrifice himself. I knew that.
And he loved me.
“He would be here right now if he possibly could.”
“You believe that?” I had to ask. Rey suspected everyone. It was not just his job but part of his nature.
“I do. Your auntie and your cousin are safe because of him. You’re alive because of him. I believe in him.”
Then I would too. I didn’t want to imagine a life without Creed, now that I’d found him, so I would wait and do my best to be patient.
“Alright, then. Get that doctor back in here and let’s get this recovery on the road.”
31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Creed
“This hurts.”I pulled Rhonda near me and held her until she squirmed to get away, holding her tennis ball in her mouth. She loved dashing back and forth across the massive fenced-in lawn at our secret location. She also loved all the people she had to fuss over her. Mark especially loved to play fetch with her, and she loved to lay in front of Cross while he played guitar.
Most of all, she loved her swims with the Source in the indoor pool. Whoever designed this place had thought of everything, including a wade-in pool, so she didn’t panic like she had the one time she’d jumped in a hotel pool after me and couldn’t climb back out over the edge. She swam alongside the Source and she seemed to grow stronger every day, almost puppylike.
Unlike me.
Whether it was the toll of the events on Samhain or the lack of energy to consume out here in the woods, away from people who actually needed healing…I was fading. And while Cross and Mark had taken nourishment from The Source, I’d refused.
I was angry. Angrier than I’d ever been in my life, including after the events fifty years ago that set this whole disaster in motion.
Muse, I’m sorry. This wasn’t at all the way I’d planned to avenge your death.
“I’m sorry, Creed,” Barringer said, and I believed he really was. “I wish we could chance it for you to talk longer, but with Timothy Hicks still on the run and the potential psychic fallout from the disaster at Loch Lomond, we need to lay low. My people have their feelers out, Roman is being guarded, and as soon as he’s well enough to travel, we’ll give him the option—”
“What, to be whisked away from his life to join our fucking monastery up here? No fucking way. He’s gotta finish his degree. He’s got his grandmother.Fuck!”
I kicked at a rock and paced away from him.
“You have given up so much of your life in pursuit of justice for the fallen at Gateway of the Sun. You thwarted a terrible tragedy and saved the life of your boyfriend a week ago. It’s understandable that you’d be frustrated.”
Fury threatened to boil over my surface, but I hated to explode all over Todd. He’d done everything possible to intervene in this situation and resolve it in a way that protected Roman and his family, and I should have been grateful.
Instead, I was trapped.
“I didn’t intend to become a prisoner,” I snarled at him.
