The sounds of distress weren't out of place. In fact, they seemed perfectly appropriate. This was the worst place on earth.
Sixteen
The scene before me was not one I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. And I’d had some pretty screwed up nighttime visions. Fifty children stood in the center of what had been Icahn’s lair. They ranged in age from two to five. They were little, screaming, and terrified. I couldn't move. My body froze.
The children, however, were in a different state of mind. Although some of them continued to cry where they stood, the majority of them rushed us. They were a mob of small kids, and I didn't have the slightest idea what to do with them.
I looked at Rachel. “Go get help. Now.”
She nodded, leaving Chad to stand next to me. Lydia reacted first, followed by Glen. Neither surprised me. Lydia had lots of experience with her brother, and Glen was a father. Micah, Chad and I were stunned. In a million years, I hadn't expected this.
“Where have they all come from?” Micah found his voice first.
I side-eyed him. “Are you asking me?”
Lydia whirled around. “Little help. Now. Please.”
“Ah, okay.” I wasn't exactly sure what to do. But as they ran at me, I scooped up then set them down while I tried to say nice things to them. Where in the hell that was our world did these children come from?
Were there fifty sets of parents somewhere missing this mass, or were they somehow all alone in the world?
I shouted over the noise. “I want to see who flashed the lights. I don't think these children could have managed it on their own. Not the strobes and the bright fluorescents that are now off.”
He nodded at me. “All right.” Three children were clawing at his legs. He scooped one up, making nice noises and rocking back and forth.
This was such a bizarre moment.
I wasn't going to be able get around the kids, so the three I had were just going to have to go with me. “Lydia,” I said over my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Under the circumstances? Yes, I am fine.” She rocked a particularly small one. “Go. Do whatever has to be done.”
Chad had sat down, crisscrossed his legs, and let the kids embrace him or sit on his lap. After I checked out the light situation, I would follow suit. His calmness was making them also calm down.
With a small one on my back, I tried to figure out what to do next. I really needed to think of him as a boy and not an it. He was a small guy, I would guess about the same age as Levi, and he had red hair and a dirty face. That was all I had.
“Do you have a name?”
He sniffled in my ear. That might be all I was getting. Okay, he was going to come with me, and we were going to check out the lights. Having lived here briefly, I knew where I was going and how the basic systems worked, which is why I was fairly certain the kids couldn't have gotten into the box that held it all.
I'd reached the room with the box and...
“Deacon.” A voice called out to me in the darkness.
I stopped moving, hoisting the little guy up onto my back. “Who's there?”
I wasn't getting any monster vibes from the female speaking. That didn't mean she wasn't dangerous. As Icahn taught me, most monsters were human. Or so they claimed.
I couldn't get my machete off my back with the kid hanging on my neck. I was going to have to put him down...
A noise sounded then a loud boom as the lights came on. My eyes blurred from the abrupt change, and the child cried. I patted his hand. When my vision cleared, I was somehow not surprised. It was the woman from the Vampire habitat. She looked about my age. I hadn’t noted that the last time I saw her. “Brynna.”
She nodded. “I suspected they'd tell you my name. I'm sorry they harmed you. I'm not surprised you chose to help me. You were always tremendously brave. Is Margot okay?”
I held up a hand. “One thing at a time. What are you doing here?”
“I sent the child out. He found you. I'm so glad it was you. The fact you and Lydia found him gives me hope that things are perhaps moving as they should be for a change.”
If I wasn't holding the little one I might very well have yelled and screamed. “How do you know who we are?”
She gave me a small smile. “I heard Lydia's name when you said it earlier. And”—she took a deep breath—“I knew you for a long time. I don't expect you to remember me. I looked quite different then. But I remember you. I remember everyone.”
That didn't make a lick of sense. “Lady, you'd better start saying something I can understand or I'm going to lose my temper.”
“I'm afraid I can't.” She rocked back on her feet. “Save the children. I brought them here so you can save them.”
Now we were getting somewhere, maybe. “Where did they come from? Where are their parents?”
“Dead. Don't you remember? Don't you remember, Deacon? What happens to all the children in the Vampire habitats? When lots of them vanish at once?”
“I...” My head pounded, hitting me in the side of my temples with a force I couldn't believe. I almost doubled over, and if I hadn't been holding the unnamed little one, I might have.
She sucked in a breath. “I'm sorry. The memories that come from being around me are painful. It'll pass, fast.”
But it wasn't quick, not at all. There were truths from my life that I never thought about, never gave a second to. How could I when they did nothing but make life hell?
I had been taken once. When there were too many children in the Vampire holding, they were removed. After a certain amount of time, a percentage of the parents died from what could only be called broken hearts.
I'd been taken. I never thought about it, never let myself travel backward in my own mind to even touch a second of what happened back then. They'd rounded us up, stuck us in cages—my first time in one—and taken us to the fields. I'd only been outside with my parents, when they walked us around. At five years old, I'd been so happy to get some fresh air, and I couldn't understand why my parents were screaming.
But it was a warm day. There sun came down on us, which meant the Vampires couldn't bring us to our destination. They handed us over to a Werewolf. I hadn't even been afraid when the other Wolves showed up. I was too young to understand how frightened I was supposed to be. Or maybe being scared was just part of my life so I'd already been used to it by the time I was five.
I had understood, suddenly, what was about to happen. The Werewolves were going to kill us. They were going to tear us to shreds, for sport. As they were still setting us up, I ran. I grabbed my sister, pulling her with me. I shoved past one of the Werewolves and hoofed it toward the entrance to the Vampire habitat. In retrospect, I should have made for the woods. But what did I know? I was five, and my life was inside that habitat.
As an unshifted Werewolf, the man had little to no chance of catching me once I got away from him. There were too many other children to contend with. I remembered the heat of the sun, the way the clouds moved, and the breeze in my face. I'd pulled my three-year-old sister behind me. She screamed the whole time.
We'd burst past several Vampires and back to our parents. No one had ever mentioned it. That had been the strangest part of it, how my parents had simply taken us back and never asked what happened.
They hadn't held me or complimented me or… recognized that I'd done something rather exceptional at all.
To this day, I didn't know why the Vampires let us through.
I was thrown back to the present. Brynna took a step toward me. “Are you okay?”
No, I wasn't, but I had no intention of bringing it up to her. “Fine.”
“I'm sorry that happened. I didn't realize you'd forgotten. I have the effect of bringing on memories without meaning to. It's just… a side effect of being near me.”
I shook my head. For the love of everything in the universe that gave a shit about me, I needed her to stop. I swung the kid around until I could balance him on my hip.
“How did you know about that? And I don't want a bullshit answer. Be very clear. How. Did. You. Know?”
“I was there.”
That wasn't possible. Unless someone else got away. I made my heart slow. Sometimes when I got impulsive, I saved my sister. Sometimes Keith died. Even if that wasn't my fault. I had to spend time reconciling that somehow, and I didn't need to be thinking about it right then.
“Were you one of the kids? Someone else made it out?”
She shook her head. “I wish. Take care of these kids. Any parents they have are long gone, moved. When you got the townspeople of Geronimo out, it made them have to kill most of their other human supply. The Vampires didn't want to, but that's how these things go.” She didn't feel blasé about it. Each word she spoke made her voice shake a little. This deeply affected her. The question was why. “Get those children warm. And tell Margot I'm sorry. I'd never, ever, ever want anything to happen to her.”
“Hey.” Lydia rushed in the room. “You've been gone for a little while. Are you okay?” Her eyes fell on Brynna. “Who is this?”
“Her name is Brynna, and other than that, I'm not sure.”
The mystery woman nodded. “It's better that way.”
I believed her.
The rest of the night was spent trying to figure out what to do with fifty orphaned children with no homes. In fact, it took most of the next morning, too. They had to be fostered. I didn't volunteer, although I would have supported Lydia if she wanted to. She made no move to take on any of the kids either. It wasn't that I didn't care—I'd actually grown attached to the small one who wouldn't get off my back until we ended up at Genesis and he saw food. But she and I had too much on our plates, with our new marriage and figuring out our lives, to be anyone's parent.
In addition to the two of us, Rachel, Chad, Micah and Glen all ended up in front of Patrick and the council that afternoon. That wasn't a surprise. When you broke rules like we did, there were consequences. I was really, really tired. Maybe there would be sleep today or maybe there wouldn't. I'd probably be cleaning up after the rest of the Warriors for months.
“Why is it always your family, Patrick?” one of the council members I thought was named Fred, called out. He was a short man with white hair, and he spent his days working in the recycle/reuse department. If we could give something a second life, we did.
Patrick steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him. A muscle ticked in his jaw. I'd seen Micah and Chad both have that happen when they were mad. Oh hell, we were really about to get it.
“Because they're smarter than the average bear.” When he spoke, his words made no sense to me.
Apparently, they didn't to Fred either. “What?”
“Didn't spend much time watching cartoons when you were a kid?” Micah once told me his father had been something called an FBI agent in the before time. I didn't know what that meant exactly, except it was some kind of law enforcement. He'd apparently been very good at getting people to talk when they didn't want to.
Fred scratched his head. “I don't have all my memories back.”
“Well, that sucks. Insult my family again, Fred, and I'll take them and any other Warrior who wants to go with me and leave you here without us. They're impulsive; I grant you that. They're also brilliant and kind. Deacon, too, and presumably his wife, or he wouldn't have married her. So shove it. The Warriors police ourselves, or we don't do this. Got it?”
The other councilman visibly swallowed, his throat muscles contracting before he turned red. “Got it.”
“Good.” Patrick still looked down at the table. “In fact, now that the kids have been dealt with, I think we don't need the rest of you here. This is Warrior stuff now. Out.”
No one argued. The other four council members got up and scurried from the room. Lydia raised her hand. “Someone is going to have to look after the kids during the day, right? Run a school for the very young. People have jobs. They need to leave their kids.”
Patrick nodded. “Yes, traditionally we watch each other's children. Fifty more? It might make things rough. Plus the ones who came with you from Geronimo.”
Lydia spoke up. “I can do that. Start up a location for people to drop off their kids before they're school aged. Several others from Geronimo will want to help, too.”
He shot his eyebrows up. “That's fantastic. Big help right off the bat.”
“Thanks.” She looked at me. “People just figure out what they're good at, right? And they do it here. That's how it works.”
I grinned at her. “That's how it works.”
I loved that woman. Every day a little more. Maybe we'd rushed, but it didn't make it wrong. We were right. I wouldn't change a thing about our timeline.
“That means you're not fighting,” Patrick added, leaning back in his chair. “You can't do both. We never ask that of anyone.”
She put her hands in her lap. “I think that I'm not cut out for the fighting. I don't want to find kids dirty and starved in a secret lair. I don't want to take off heads anymore. My interest was as much to be able to defend myself, others, and to be with Deacon. He sleeps mornings. If that's when I'm working, then that's okay. We'll be together in the afternoon until he leaves to fight. That's about as much time as people get together. My lack of wanting to fight, that'll eventually be a liability.”
Patrick nodded. “I was right. You're smart.”
Yes, she was. I rubbed her back. It wasn't easy to talk to Patrick. Some people couldn't meet his eyes at all. My wife looked him straight on and told him what she thought, again and again.
He wasn't done. “Ask my daughter Tia to help, would you?”
Glen perked up. “She's having another baby.”
“Yes, I'm aware, thanks Glen. But I think she'd like somewhere to go every day. She can bring Nero with her. And the new baby. Don't you think she'd be happier if she left your tent sometimes?”
Glen shook his head. “Maybe you could ask her rather than assume you know what's better, always.”
“Wow,” Chad called out. “We bring out our family issues everywhere, don't we?”
The muscle ticked in Patrick's jaw again. “Okay, fine. Later. Someone tell me what you know.”
Micah spoke up. “We went to check out the flashing lights Deacon was seeing.”
Patrick nodded. “I gathered that from Rachel's frantic retelling. Why didn't you come to me?”
That was on me. “I told them not to. Seemed pretty important. I didn't want to wait to have it decided by committee.”
“The only committee doing anything with the Warriors anymore since Icahn murdered Keith is me. Stating that is saying that you didn't want to bring it to me.”
Micah shrugged. “Maybe he didn't. Maybe he's had enough considering everything and wanted to actually do something for a change.”
“Deacon did or you did?”
Chad cleared his throat. “Again with the family business in the Warrior room.”
I ignored their little spat. Whatever else the Lyons were, they defined the word close. I'd learned from watching them that you didn't always have to agree or get along to always be on each other's side. They'd kill for each other. “I obviously didn't anticipate this happening. My initial thought was to go all alone. Lydia asked me to bring her and some help.”
“Thanks to her then. How could you possibly have managed that on your own? We'll deal with the why you were insubordinate and left me out of this loop later. I have to think on this. For a while. Get to the girl—Brynna.”
I told him what I knew, the two experiences I'd had where she made me remember things I'd either forgotten or deliberately put out of my mind. “She seemed to know Margot, which would go in line with what Margot said during my captivity. They're involved.”
“Both of them, so far, have been beneficial to have around. Margot is in a holding tent right now while we decide what to do with her. Trust doesn't come easily around here. With the exception of you, Lydia, we don't let new peo
ple into the small circle who run things. They're not in these meetings. You get a pass because we trust Evans and he trusts you.”
They did? That was news to me. I had not done anything for them to feel that way about me. Except maybe risk my life over and over...
“I appreciate that. I think most people want to do the right thing most of the time. Sometimes they have to be shown how. Deacon did that for us. My town always had this prophecy—Warriors would come and save us. I'm not much of a believer, but Micah and Deacon did that.” Lydia squeezed my hand.
Patrick shook his head. “I can't do prophecy.”
“Me neither,” I had to agree.
Micah laughed. “I'll get behind that. I like it. I was destined to be there. Sure, why not.”
“Back to the point.” Patrick patted the table. “I think we're going to need to speak to Margot for some answers. Then we'll see what the next steps are. And you six—it all goes through me. That's for everyone's safety. Hear me?”
I nodded, and so did the rest. I knew it would be easier said than done.
The memories in Icahn's old lair had thrown me more than I cared to admit. I'd almost been killed when I was five years old, and all those kids were headed for that fate as well. I'd almost died millions of times. Why was this bugging me? The answer was because I'd forgotten it. How many other pieces of my life had I shoved away, never to deal with again and how much of that was playing on the way I behaved now?
I ran my hands through my hair. I was taking Lydia to meet my parents. I couldn't put it off any longer, and who knew if there was about to be another crisis that would keep me from being able to do so? It wasn't like my family was in any hurry to come meet me. Surely, by now, the gossip had reached them that I was back and had brought a wife. Did they not want to meet her?
They were right where I expected to find them. In the bar Rachel’s father used to own. They were always there.
I really couldn't make sense of my relatives.
Lydia didn't try to fill my silence. I appreciated her simply getting that I had to shut up and shut down a bit to see them. Otherwise I was angry all the time around them and that wasn't good for anyone.