Chapter 94 94
Kaelen's POV:
"I won't let it."
The words came out steady but inside I was anything but. Marcus's explanation kept echoing in my head. If one of you is captured. If one of you is tortured. The other feels everything.
I looked at Annabeth standing next to me in the kitchen, her hair still damp from the shower, that hickey on her collarbone that she thought her shirt covered but didn't. Just some hours ago I'd been inside her, feeling her pleasure as clearly as my own, the bond completing in this overwhelming rush of connection.
And now I was thinking about what it would feel like if someone put a knife to her skin.
No. Fuck no. That wasn't happening. I would burn down the entire Order before I let anyone touch her. I would—
"Kaelen." Annabeth's voice cut through the spiral. Her hand found mine, squeezing. "I can feel you freaking out. Tone it down."
Right. The bond. She could feel everything I felt now, including the murderous protective rage currently eating me alive.
I took a breath. Tried to calm down. Sent her something that was supposed to be reassurance but probably came out more like barely contained violence.
"We need to discuss our options," Marcus said. He was watching me with that look he got when he was assessing a tactical situation. Probably reading every emotion on my face. "We can run. Try to find another location, stay ahead of their search grid. It's worked before."
"For how long?" I asked. "Another few months? Another year? And then what?"
"Or," Marcus continued like I hadn't spoken, "we stay. Prepare. Use the terrain to our advantage."
"You mean fight them," Annabeth said.
"I mean stop running and start choosing when and where we engage."
The idea sat there between us. Fight instead of flee. Stand our ground instead of packing up and disappearing again. It went against everything we'd done for five years, every survival instinct I'd developed.
But god, I was goddamned tired.
Five years of this. Of motels and different houses and telling Marlen and Lucian to pack their bags again. Of watching them get their hopes up about a new place only to crush those hopes when we had to leave. Lucian had been ten when our parents disappeared. He'd spent a third of his life running.
"What about them?" I nodded toward the living room where the TV was still playing. "Marlen and Lucian. I'm not putting them in the middle of a fight."
"Escape routes," Marcus said. "Multiple exit strategies. The basement connects to an old root cellar that comes out about a quarter mile into the woods. If things go wrong, they run. We drill it until it's automatic."
"And if things go really wrong? If we lose?"
"Then they're no worse off than they would be if we were caught running." Marcus's voice was flat, practical. "The Order finds us eventually either way. At least this way we choose the battlefield."
I hated that he was right. I hated that there was no good option, just bad and worse.
Through the bond I felt Annabeth's emotions churning. Fear, exhaustion, determination all mixed together. And underneath it, something that surprised me: agreement. She was thinking the same thing I was.
"I'm sick of running," she said quietly. "I've only been doing this for a few months and I'm already sick of it. You've been doing it for years. Marlen and Lucian have been doing it since they were children. They don’t know another life." She looked at me, her red-ringed eyes steady. "I don't want my kids growing up like this. I don't want to live like this. Always looking over our shoulders, always waiting for the next time we have to leave everything behind."
My kids. She said it casually, like it was obvious, like of course we were going to have children someday. Like there was a future beyond tomorrow.
Something cracked open in my chest.
"I want that Denny's," she continued. "The boring Saturday morning with the sticky menus and the bad coffee. And I'm never going to get it if we keep running forever."
I heard footsteps behind us. Marlen was standing in the doorway with her empty juice glass. I didn't know how long she'd been there, how much she'd heard.
"She's right," Marlen said. Her voice was quiet, controlled, but I could see something burning behind her eyes. "I'm tired of this too. I've been tired of it since I was nine years old."
"Marlen—"
"No. You don't get to protect me from this conversation." She walked into the kitchen, set her glass in the sink. "I'm thirteen. I've been running for five years. I can't remember what it feels like to have a home, an actual home that I don't have to leave." She looked at me, and for a second I saw the scared little girl she used to be underneath all that armor. "I want to stop running, Kael. Even if it means fighting."
"Same," came Lucian's voice from the doorway. He was holding his cereal bowl, cartoon forgotten behind him. "I mean, I don't really understand what's happening, but if we're voting on whether to stop running away all the time, I vote yes. Running sucks."
"This isn't a democracy," I said.
"Then why does everyone keep talking about what they want?" Lucian shrugged. "Just saying. If you're asking, my answer is let's stop running. If you're not asking, then whatever, I'll go back to my show."
I looked around the kitchen. Marcus with his calculating expression, probably already planning defensive positions and attack vectors. Annabeth with her hand still in mine, her emotions steady and determined through the bond. Marlen with her jaw set and her eyes too old. Lucian with his cereal, not really understanding the gravity but wanting to be part of it anyway.
My family. Broken and weird and held together by running, but my family. And they were all saying the same thing.
Stop. Stay. Fight.
"Okay...," I heard myself say. "We stay."