Chapter 53 53
Kaelen's POV:
Marcus called at six in the morning on a Tuesday while I was standing in the kitchen trying to remember if Lucian liked his eggs scrambled or fried. Stupid thing to forget. I'd been making his breakfast for five years and suddenly my brain couldn't hold onto whether my own brother wanted his eggs scrambled or fried. That's where I was at, mentally. Couldn't remember eggs.
"We have a problem," Marcus said, no hello, no preamble.
"When don't we."
"I'm serious. The Order brought in more people. At least three new operatives that I've spotted in the past forty-eight hours, two men and a woman. They're not even hiding anymore, Kaelen. I saw one of them eating lunch at that diner on Main Street like he was a fucking tourist."
I set the spatula down and leaned against the counter. The eggs were burning but I didn't move to fix them. "How many total now?"
"At least six that I know of, plus the man from the hotel. Could be more I haven't spotted." He paused. "They're setting up a perimeter around the town. Watching the roads in and out, monitoring Annabeth's house, her campus. This isn't surveillance anymore, this is preparation for an operation."
My stomach dropped. Not the slow sinking kind but the sudden kind, like missing a step on the stairs. "When?"
"I don't know. Could be days, could be weeks. But they're not here to watch anymore. They're here to act."
The smoke alarm went off and I jumped, swearing under my breath as I yanked the pan off the burner. Burned eggs, black and smoking, the smell filling the kitchen. Lucian appeared in the doorway rubbing his eyes, his hair sticking up on one side.
"You okay?" he asked, squinting at the smoke.
I waved my hand at the alarm until it stopped. "Fine. I just burned the eggs."
"You never burn the eggs."
"Well, today I burned the eggs." I turned away from him so he wouldn't see my face and went back to the phone. "What do you need me to do?"
Marcus didn't hesitate. "I need you patrolling. I can't watch Annabeth and track the Order at the same time. I'll keep training her, keep her close during the day, but at night she's vulnerable. Her aunt's house doesn't have any defenses and if they decide to move after dark, there's nobody there to stop them."
"So you want me to, what, camp outside her house?"
"I want you to patrol a route. Her house, the campus, the hotel where the Order's set up, and the roads between them. Look for anything suspicious, anyone out of place, any vehicles you see more than once. You know what to look for."
I did know what to look for. Five years of running from these people had taught me what their operations looked like from the outside. The unmarked cars, the patterns of movement, the way they positioned themselves at exits and intersections.
"And if I find something?"
"You call me. You don't engage, you don't confront, you don't play hero. You call me and I handle it."
"You can't handle six or seven operatives alone, Marcus."
"I've been handling the Order alone for longer than you've been alive." His voice went hard. "Don't test me on this, Kaelen. Your job is to watch and report. That's it."
Lucian was still standing in the doorway, listening. I could tell by how still he was, how his eyes had gone from sleepy to alert. Kid was too smart for his own good sometimes.
"Fine," I said. "I'll start tonight."
"Good. And Kaelen?"
"Yeah."
"She can't know you're there. She's making progress, real progress, and if she finds out you're lurking around her house at night it'll set her back. She needs to feel independent, not surveilled."
The irony of that wasn't lost on me. Annabeth couldn't know I was protecting her because knowing would make her feel watched and controlled, which was the exact opposite of what she needed. Meanwhile, the Order was actually watching her, actually planning to control her, and they didn't give a shit about her feelings on the matter.
"I know," I said. "She won't see me."
He hung up and I stood there staring at my phone for a minute before Lucian cleared his throat.
"So that sounded bad."
"It's fine."
"Kael. It's not fine. I heard enough."
I scraped the burned eggs into the trash and started cracking new ones into the pan. Scrambled. Lucian liked them scrambled. The memory came back just like that, as if my brain had been holding it hostage until I wasn't on the phone with Marcus anymore.
"The Order's brought in more people," I said, because lying to Lucian never worked and he'd just get more anxious if I tried. "Marcus wants me patrolling at night. Watching for movement."
"What about the university? You can't patrol all night and then go to class."
"I'll manage."
"You're already not sleeping, Kaelen. Like, I can hear you pacing your room at three AM. If you add night patrols on top of that—"
"I said I'll manage."
He went quiet. I could feel him wanting to say more, wanting to push it, but he let it drop. Picked up his backpack from the floor and slung it over one shoulder.
"Scrambled," he said, looking at the eggs in the pan. "You remembered."
"I always remember."
"You were standing here for like two minutes trying to figure it out before the phone rang."
"Shut up and eat your breakfast."
He almost smiled. Almost. Then his face got serious again. "What about Marlen? Are you gonna tell her?"
"Tell me what?" Marlen appeared behind him, already dressed and ready for school, her bag on her back and her hair in that braid she'd been doing since she was nine. She looked between us and her expression shifted from neutral to concerned in about half a second. "What happened."
It wasn't even a question. Just a statement, because Marlen always knew when something was wrong. Some kind of sixth sense, or maybe just the result of years of things constantly being wrong.
"Marcus called. Order's got more people in town." I put the eggs on plates and set them on the table. "He wants me patrolling at night."
"How many more?"
"At least three new ones. Six or seven total, maybe more."
She sat down at the table and stared at her eggs without eating. "That's a lot. That's not surveillance. That's—"
"I know what it is."
"—an extraction team."
We looked at each other across the kitchen table and I could see her mind working, see her calculating odds and exit strategies the way she always did. Marlen was thirteen but she thought like a forty-year-old intelligence analyst sometimes. It was equal parts impressive and heartbreaking.
"Go-bags are still packed," she said. "I updated mine last week, added the winter stuff since it's getting cold. Lucian?"
"Mine's good."
"Escape routes?"
"Same as before. Route 9 north, the back road through Millfield, or the logging trail east if the roads are blocked."
"And if they come here? To this house?"
"They're not coming here," I said, though I wasn't sure about that at all. "Their focus is Annabeth. She's the red dragon, she's the prize. We're secondary targets at best."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
"It wasn't supposed to. It's just the truth." I sat down and ate a forkful of eggs that tasted like nothing. "Look, Marcus is handling the big picture. I'm handling surveillance. You two handle school and normal life and not doing anything that draws attention. That's the plan."
"That's a shit plan," Marlen said.
"It's the only plan we've got."
Lucian picked at his eggs and didn't look at either of us. "Is Annabeth gonna be okay?"
Something in his voice made my chest tighten. He'd gotten attached to her, both of them had, during those weeks when she was part of our life. Family dinners, movie nights, Annabeth helping Marlen with her science homework and Lucian teaching her that card game he liked. She'd slotted into our family so naturally that losing her had left a gap none of us knew how to fill.
"Marcus is training her. She's getting strong." I forced the words out even though they tasted like ash. "She'll be okay."
"And you two? Are you ever gonna—"
"Eat your eggs, Lucian."
He ate his eggs.