State of Independence Read online

  I get up close so I can compare it to the Ferrari. Nice interior. I pop the door handle.

  Not locked. I climb in the driver’s seat, and get a nice thrill at the leather cupping my ass.

  Push-button start. Just for giggles, I hit it.

  The rumble of the engine gives me a jolt of pleasure. The dash lights up with handy-dandy nav. Suddenly, I know what I am going to do. Joy ride!

  I hit the built in button for the garage door. Back up nice and slow, and then execute a nice three point turn.

  I take it slow down the driveway, half expecting Grayson to explode out the door and run out after me. When he doesn’t, I huff a little disappointed.

  I hit the accelerator, pushing up into fourth gear quickly with annoyance.

  I reach town a little quickly. I pull into the parking lot of the gas station, run inside and grab an energy drink and a peanut butter cup. I’d slept through breakfast.

  It is a little chilly out, so I hop back in the McLaren and fire it up to enjoy the heated seats while enjoying my joy-ride snacks.

  Some dudes ogle the car on their way into the convenience store. I piddle around a little with the radio, waiting for my phone to ring.

  I figure I can hold the McLaren hostage for the Duc. That’s more than a fair trade, since the McLaren is probably twenty times worth what the bike is. Has he even noticed the car’s missing yet?

  I zoom out on the navigation maps wondering just where the best scenic roads around might be.

  Rocky Mountain National Park. Maybe.

  I zoom out some more. Yellowstone.

  That’d be more than a day’s ride.

  My eye catches on the text identifying the town just a little north and west of Yellowstone.

  Big Sky.

  I could kill two birds with one stone.

  See my sisters and prove my point. I’m not controllable.

  Decision made.

  Chapter 29

  Six and a half hours later, I’m regretting - or rather my butt is - the decision to make such a long trek on a whim. I pull off into a small town, not wanting to traverse mountain roads in the dark.

  Why isn’t instant teleportation a thing?

  I cruise down the main strip, and spot a homey-looking cafe. It’s the dinner hour and the parking lot is full. Even better, there is a decent enough hotel next door.

  I park at the hotel, go in and grab a room, hoping the crowd at the diner will have dissipated by the time I make it over there.

  I’d been using the time in the car to think over everything. Foremost at my mind, and perhaps the thing I’m most worried about is the fact that I feel like I’m running from my problems.

  Grayson took my Ducati keys, I took his McLaren. And here I am miles away from him after explosive sex. Is this not what I did two years ago? Jumped on my bike and took off?

  I order apple pie after polishing off a burger and fries.

  I watch the waitresses, the line cook, the couples, families and the single travelers. Everyone is lost to their own world. What’s immediately in front of them. A menu, a notepad, an omelet, a phone screen, the TV in the corner. Would they even notice if a supernatural being came in?

  Obviously not, since I’m half-supernatural and I’m sitting here enjoying a slice of pie just like the rest of them.

  The apple pie is a diner classic, and does not disappoint. But the swirling, melting apples and vanilla ice cream aren’t taking my mind from the problems in front of me, or the problems behind me.

  Stomach full of worry and apple pie I head back to the hotel room.

  Once inside I fling myself across the bed.

  Weirdly enough, the full stomach and analyzing aren’t keeping me awake. I push my shoes off my feet and lay more fully on the bed, closing my eyes.

  I wake in the morning, splash water on my face and jump back in the McLaren.

  It’s a little after eight a.m. and I sit in the driver’s seat, feeling the engine vibrate underneath me.

  My hand hovers over Justice’s name in my contacts list.

  Chapter 30

  I idle at the curb. This is a top-tier installation here.

  Makes me think of a military base or college. Main building, that I’m parked at, other buildings spread out from it, but still within walking distance. A main road encircling the whole thing. The trees are old and established, providing decent camouflage for most of the place.

  Should I get out? I really don’t want to announce my presence to anyone on the council. Or any of the guardians. But they are probably well aware I’m here. I lift my phone from the cup holder with the intent to text Justice that I’m here, but the front door of the building I’m facing opens, and out she comes.

  I press on the horn, one short blast. I don’t think it’s likely she’d miss the white McLaren among all the black SUVs, but she might not realize it’s me.

  She speed walks over and opens the door, dropping into the seat with an air of haste.

  “Everything ok?” I ask as she quickly buckles her seatbelt.

  “So good to see you, Independence.” She leans over the middle console and gives me as best a hug as she can in the confined space.

  “Where’d you get this car? I’ve never seen anything like it! Well, except in movies.”

  “It’s a loaner.” I back out of the parking space.

  “Fabulous. We have so much catching up to do. Glory is going to meet us at Locke’s. I just thought it’d be better…” Her chatter dies feebly.

  “So the council and the guardians still have their hands in everyone’s business?”

  “Gawd. Yes. Don’t get me wrong. They have amazing resources. But, they still haven’t completely let go of their outdated belief systems; ‘we’re right, you’re wrong - get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.’” She finger quotes the last bit, and I laugh.

  “Well you’re living with Lockewood O’Connell. So how bad can it be?” I smile and speed past the guard house and gate. I give a haughty salute to the guard that questioned me on the way in.

  Cruising down the highway, I take a few seconds to pull my eyes from the road in front of me and look over at Justice.

  “It has its moments.” She sighs.

  God. I hope I never get that love-struck, soft face when I think about Grayson.

  That thought pulses fresh guilt through me. I’d have to be in relationship with him to be love-struck. And that was just a one-night-stand type of thing, right?

  “It’s so good to see you, Indy. I hope you can stay a while. There’s so much we need to discuss.”

  “Yeah. Let’s save it till we are all together...I don’t want to have to repeat the same story twice.” Or ask the same questions more than once.

  Justice agrees, guiding me through town and back country roads to get to Locke’s house.

  ‘’Two hundred and twenty two acres!” She tells me excitedly as we drive down the mile long road to get to the house. “It’s the best land to run!”

  She’s not lying. Past a small forested area, the house is nestled on top a hill like a crown jewel. Big timber woods and windows.

  “The back deck faces the meadow, and his land runs all the way up to the mountain.”

  “Wow.” I park in the circular driveway.

  Inside the place has a nice, clean homey feel. Big, but I’m beginning to understand wolves like their space.

  “Go on out, check out the view. Or do you need to freshen up? Glory should be here any minute.” I roll my eyes at her polite lady-speak.

  “Which way to the bathroom?”

  She points me in the direction, and I ‘freshen up.’

  Coming out of the bathroom, I barely make it three steps before I am engulfed by a dark-haired amazon. Glory.

  She holds onto me, talking, rocking, but I barely understand her.

  “What?”

  She pulls back, smiles with tears glittering in her eyes. “I’m just so happy to see you!”

  “You too. I...um...sor
ry I didn’t reach out sooner.”

  “All that matters is you are here now.” She gives me another all-encompassing hug. It does something to my chest.

  “Go out. See the deck - Justice wants you to see it. I think she’s been dreaming of the day we can all get out there and run as a pack.”

  I smile and rub my chest a little guiltily. There’s so much I owe them, my sisters, and so much I wish I could go back and change. And how to broach the subject that I slept with her ex?

  I take the immediate out, and join Justice who is leaning against the deck rail looking out to meadow and mountains.

  Facing out to the view, are four Adirondack chairs in a semicircle, an empty fire bowl in front of them.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s great. Justice, listen.” I’m too preoccupied with my apology now to give the vista the pondering it deserves. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “For running. For not reaching out to you when I was settled.”

  Lucian’s face floats in my memory, the hotel, riding the streets of the French quarter on my Ducati.

  Justice sucks in a breath, and touches my elbow.

  “It’s ok. We all have things…” She trails off and turns to the door opening behind us.

  Glory has a champagne bottle in one hand, three upside down champagne flutes in the other.

  “What’s all this?”

  “A celebration! It’s been two years since we’ve been together. I want some good ‘ole Skollen sister’s time.”

  “Yeah?” I take an empty champagne flute from her.

  Justice takes another. “Why not?”

  Glory places the last flute on top of a little side table. “Besides. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  She pops the top off the champagne with a practiced ease. This Glory I’m not used to. I consider her while she pours wine in Justice’s glass, then turns to pour some in mine. There’s an ease and a smile in her demeanor. She’s happy.

  “So do we cheers or what?” I ask picking up the full glass.

  “Oh. We definitely cheers...To us!” She lifts her glass in the air, and clinks it first against Justice’s glass, then against mine.

  “To us!” Justice and I murmur in unison.

  I take a seat in one of the Adirondack chairs facing the empty fire pit. It’d been used recently, the charred remains of logs and ash swirl in the wind.

  Justice and Glory take seats beside me.

  “This is beautiful.” I finally take in the vista of mountain range before us. The golden grasses of fall are offset by the evergreens and gray-blue sky and mountains.

  “Did you drive that monster-car all the way from Colorado?” Glory’s worried-tone continues, “Where did you even get a car like that?”

  I knock back half my glass of bubbly.

  “Geez, Mom. It’s a McLaren. Not a monster car. And it just so happens that I stole it from your ex-husband.”

  There’s a fire of jealousy, a splash of shame in my words. I know they are exes, but the idea that I made love with a man my sister has - it didn’t hit me till the drive up - skeeves me out a little.

  “Grayson?”

  “Yes.” I drain the rest of the glass and get up to pour more in my cup.

  “Look. There’s a lot to talk about. But first I have to…” Confess my sins.

  Both Glory and Justice are looking at me with expressions of patient curiosity.

  “I slept with him.”

  There. It’s out now. No secrets.

  ‘What!?” Glory exclaims softly. I can’t figure out her tone. Surprise. Sure. Disgust? Censure?

  “I’m going to get more wine - we are gonna need it.” Justice jumps up and goes through the back door to the kitchen.

  “But…” Glory shakes her head at me. “...You’re just...so...so young.”

  I feel my forehead wrinkle in question. Her objection is that I am too young?

  I laugh a little, out of awkwardness.

  She shakes her head some more and sips down the last of her champagne. I cross to her, and pour the last of the bottle into her glass.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna marry him or anything.”

  Justice comes out then, a bottle of wine in each hand. She sets them on the small table beside her chair.

  “Marry him?” Glory’s words continue to parrot me in subdued confusion.

  Justice raises an eyebrow at me, and whips a corkscrew out of her pocket. Ok. Not sure why that reassurance popped out of my mouth. Glory turns to Justice, then back to me.

  I sit back in the chair next to her. “I am sorry, Glory. I…” Have no excuses. Grayson’s fucking hot, and I’ve been attracted to him from the very beginning. But you’ll be happy to know it’ll never happen again.

  “I just thought you and Marc would always…” She waves a hand in the air.

  “Yeah, well, I guess that’s what the council wanted. But you know...It was never like that between us. I’ll never accept someone else telling me who to marry.”

  She smiles then. “No. You wouldn’t.” She pauses. “It’s o.k., Indy. He may not be who I imagined you with, but…”

  A tightening of my shoulders at her ‘but.’ I don’t interject waiting for her to find her words.

  “It’s fine.” Glory finishes. It seems we all collectively relax then.

  Justice waggles the newly uncorked bottle at us. “Who wants Zinfandel?”

  I raise my hand, even though she’s already on her way over to me. She pours it into my empty champagne flute - nearly to the top.

  “We’re high class here.” I quip as she moves back to her seat and pours herself her own glass, sitting the bottle on the deck by her feet.

  The afternoon wind has picked up some, and it feels good against my flushed face. Locke has just as good a set up as Gray here. Maybe better with this expansive view.

  “We have a lot to talk about. I don’t really remember Mom. Was she as crazy as her journals make her out to be?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  Glory and Justice’s replies come at the same time.

  “You just misunderstood her.” Justice explains. “Most of her first journal is in cuneiform.”

  Glory and I exchange looks of ‘so-what?’

  “It’s the very first form of writing, invented by the ancient civilization of Sumeria.” She explains.

  “Do you think - nah.” Glory and I say the words at the same time. I shake my head. No way could she have been that old.

  “Maybe.” Justice admits heavily.

  We are all quiet then. Thinking of the implications.

  “How long do we have before Nick or Locke show up?” I ask them.

  Justice shrugs her shoulders.

  “Maybe till dinner time? I left word with Merrick on where I was.” Glory answers.

  Ok. I have no idea who Merrick is, but that leaves us just a couple hours to get everything out on the table.

  “I need a pee break. Short intermission?” I ask.

  They both give nods and I stand and stretch. In the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face. I’d eased my conscious by apologizing to both of them. Neither seemed particularly stuck on holding my foibles against me.

  There’s a warmth in my heart from being in the presence of my sisters doing something so simple as hanging out and sharing a bottle of wine. A balm to the state of perpetual mix of pissed-off-ness and foreboding doom I’d been in for the past month.

  When I make my way back to the deck again, Glory has a large plate of crackers and cheese set out on the table, and has replaced our champagne flutes for real wine glasses.

  Guess she’s a wine snob like Lucian.

  Justice is stacking wood inside the fire bowl from the pile across the deck.

  I make a load of cheese and crackers and hold them in my palm while picking up a newly poured glass of wine.

  Justice opens her palm over the wood in the bowl, and cl
oses her eyes. I stuff a cracker in my mouth and wonder what she’s doing.

  Orange flames slowly lick up the edges of the wood. It hisses and sparks, growing larger, igniting the entire pile of wood. She opens her eyes.

  “Neat trick.”

  “Cat taught me.”

  Huh. “She one of the witches at the council?”

  “Yes. There’s been an increase in...magical abilities and phenomena recently, just like there was before the portal in Edinburgh opened up.”

  Glory comes and sits down in front of the fire then. “We believe it’s building to something. Or that the lines separating our world and the Otherside is eroding. Thinning.”

  “You’ve been to Edinburgh?” I ask them.

  “I have.” Justice answers somberly, “It’s not something I want to see repeated here.”

  Her gaze unfocuses as she remembers.

  I wait for her to open up, tell us both what she witnessed. The wind kicks up and she shakes her head in denial - like she won’t speak of it.

  Glory’s face is reflective. My sisters have been through some shit. I turn my gaze out to the mountain that they are looking at.

  Heck. I’ve been through some shit. Guess there’s no time like the present.

  “So this prophecy stuff. You guys believe it?” Out of my peripheral vision I see them exchange glances.

  Chapter 31

  I learn all about a fairy queen that believes she’s the next bringer of peace. From her perspective. I learn how Nevaeh Henries believes she will unite the four main species of supernatural - weres, vamps, fairies, and demi-gods (angels and demons included) to rule both Earth and the Otherside.

  I learn how she manipulated Glory - throwing her and a once random biker together during a late-spring snowstorm - believing they would die. And then when that didn’t happen, how she turned Nick to a lone-wolf, and used him. And how her pawn threw Glory in as silo for fourteen months.

  I learn of her atrocities in Edinburgh, the capture of so many innocents. Sent to the Otherside to be slaves to her friends there. Humans are food and fodder in her eyes. Corpses upon which she will build her kingdom.