“You don’t know how much you have saved me,” Remy muttered against my ear. “In more ways than you’ll ever fathom.”
We pulled onto a road, and I heard Jace curse from the front seat. “Brace yourselves.” He looked into the side view mirror, before he turned in the seat. “There are three vehicles closing in fast.”
“Not today, bitches,” Jemmy unbuckled her seatbelt. “Terry.” Terrance shot her an annoyed look at the new nickname she had given him. “Open up the sunroof.”
“What are you doing?” Sierra asked nervously.
Jemmy gave her a saucy grin before she stood in her seat. She held her hands out like she was holding a ball, and I was shocked to see little lightening bolts dancing between her fingertips. From the gasp in the vehicle, I was assuming this was the first time she had done this in front of others. She took one of the lightning balls and hurled it at the vehicle that had just tapped our bumper. I was torn between watching the speedometer climb in numbers and watching Jemmy.
“Grab her,” Jace yelled out as we were jolted forward.
It wasn’t necessary since Drake and Sierra had already lunged at Jemmy’s legs. Jemmy cursed silently before she formed her lightening ball once more. She threw it again. “That’s for killing my best friend, Mother Suckers!” she screamed out as it hit the vehicle behind us.
A bright flash of light erupted under the hood of the vehicle before it grounded to a halt. I could hear the squealing of the tires and brakes of the truck behind it. It narrowly missed the lead vehicle. The last one, however, wasn’t so lucky. He clipped the tail end of the second vehicle, sending it into a tail spin.
“Um I’m still alive,” I croaked out with a laugh.
“Now, thanks to Yaris!” She rolled her eyes as she formed another ball. She threw it at the vehicle behind the lead vehicle. “That’s for making my brothers and I cry!” she screamed out, nearly hysterical.
“I wasn’t crying,” Jaxson half heartedly mumbled from the rear of the vehicle.
Jemmy sucked her teeth. “Lying bitch.”
Terrance snorted from the front seat. “I’m going to enforce a separation between Jemmy and Marcel. She’s more hood then he is.”
Jemmy laughed. “He’s my boy. You can’t separate us,” she said flippantly before she looked down at Drake and Sierra. “Sierra, a little help on this one.” Sierra closed her eyes. I could see her focusing all of her energy.
By now, we were a considerable distance away from the three vehicles
that had been chasing us. She held out her hands and her lighting ball grew nearly the size of a beach ball as she threw it with all her might. A distant light sparked. I assumed she had hit the third vehicle.
“Score,” Jemmy cackled. She came back into the vehicle, wiping her hands with loud claps. “That should keep them busy for a while. Too bad their systems are fried. Those vehicles aren’t going anywhere.”
“There’s a lot of power in this car,” Greg said ironically from the third seat.
Now that I knew what his gift was, I could only assume he knew there wasn’t any low level gifted people in our vehicle.
“And you haven’t even seen Blake in her true element,” Jemmy said smugly as she leaned over and lovingly patted my head.
I refrained from telling her I wasn’t a dog. I knew tonight had frightened her. We had become best friends and sisters. We had a bond that blood wasn’t necessary for.
“I don’t need to see her to know she’s off the charts. She’s the only one I couldn’t get a reading on as a child,” Greg said with patient assurance. He reminded me a lot of Will in that moment. Amused but unamused by Jemmy’s brashness. “I knew it was there but it would hop. She had eight gifts warring in her all the time. I knew then that she would have to be protected. That’s why I contacted her uncle and helped him get her out of there. She didn’t need Horatio destroying her when he found out she could be the cause of his destruction one day.
“Who do you think bought their new identities? Who do you think gave him the money to make sure he could continue moving around and keeping her safe? It wasn’t a coincidence that I died right after their escape. It was time for me to move on, too. Horatio would have never let me just walk away, and William was still partially blind to his childhood friend.”
“She only has seven gifts,” Jaxson said mystified from the back seat. “My Dad mourned your loss for years. He still visits your grave every year on the anniversary of your death,” Jaxson said as anger creeped in his voice. “So, what did you do? Disappear? Go hunting for Blake’s mother? Shacked up with her? Gave her yet another child?”
He then turned angry eyes on Miranda. “What kind of woman has five children and abandons them all? What kind of woman leaves a three-year-old with an abusive father? You’ve been shacking up with him for what, four or five years? Meanwhile, one of your sons was living in a box under an overpass. Digging through the trash for his next meal. Luckily, Kade was adopted into a great family. Unfortunately, since he was your son, his parents and sister were killed by Horatio.”
I imagined these were words he would love to fling at his mother. He still wanted answers from her. He was still wounded from her abandoning them. He may not ever have the opportunity to confront his mother, but he could confront mine.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” Miranda said in a small voice as tears coursed down her cheeks.
Greg reached over and took her hand and squeezed it. “We’re not getting into this right now. Not in full details. But I will tell you this. I stumbled across Miranda four years ago. She was in a rehab facility. She will not make any excuses for her past decisions, but they have always haunted her. She is my connection, and I can’t have you continually tear her down. Last year when she came clean with me, we started to look for her children. We all know her Bridgette is a loss cause. We watched her first. There was no unpoisoning that well. I didn’t know Blake’s new name. I told her uncle to not tell me, just in case Horatio ever did find out about my deception. I had hoped that they were still living a life of obscurity, but now I can see I was wrong.
“We found Kade. There was no way we could ruin the life he had. His parents loved him. He was bright and heavily involved in athletics. Most of our life is in the shadows. When we went in search for Micah, we couldn’t find him. His dad’s in jail and his stepmother overdosed three years ago. Ever try finding a homeless child on the streets?
“Alex’s dad will tell everyone that Miranda left him, but the truth is, he kidnapped him. He found out the black market would pay heavily for a handsome little boy like him. The sale must have fell through. When Miranda went to the police about it, they couldn’t believe a woman that had the rap sheet with prostitution, possession of drugs, and possession of drugs with the intent to sell could be telling the truth. Alex’s father’s family were connected to high places. The police didn’t know he had been cut off, and he saw his son as the next meal ticket.