“We thought you were dead.”
Gage tugged the sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and peered over them. “Come again?”
With a sigh, Embry squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before focusing back on the road. “When the Walkers came to the dojo that night, they intended to kill you. The plan was to cut you out of our lives, our world, in the only possible permanent way.”
“Yet here I am. Why? If they wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Walkers are nothing if not good with the follow through.”
They didn’t have to follow through. That’s what I was for. Despite the fact that he sat whole and breathing in the seat beside her, she’d lived too long with the guilt of killing him to stop the immediate flash of his body, bloody, burned, and broken on the floor of the dojo. She blinked the image and the immediate prick of tears away.
“Embry?”
She took a bracing breath and decided to leave out her own role in what had happened that night. “Matthias had what you might call an attack of conscience. You know what their missions are like. Always follow the Council’s orders. Over the years he had quite a bit of innocent blood on his hands. You didn’t do anything to justify execution—not really. My father is the one who brought you into our world, raised you to be a Walker. It was he who broke the laws. You only did what you were told. Matthias had a contact—a witch he knew from way back who dealt in old magics. He got the Lethe potion from her and gave it to you. Taking away your memory was the only way he could avoid taking away your life.”
“Well bully for him,” said Gage drily. “So I take it he didn’t share that fact with you or Adan?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t until the news came about my father’s capture and the Council handed down their decree that they wouldn’t be mounting an extraction mission that he broke his silence. And I think he only did then because he knew I would go no matter what.”
“And he knew it was a suicide mission,” he finished.
Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk.
“I wish I’d never gotten you involved,” said Embry.
“Now hold on a damn minute. I know I haven’t been successful Walking yet, but I’m not exactly a liability.” The first hint of temper crackled in his voice.
“That’s not what I meant.” She took a breath. “I didn’t think of you when I made this decision. I haven’t done a helluva lot of thinking at all since my father was captured. When Matthias presented you as an option for help, I jumped at it. Apart from the gift of you being alive, I knew no one else would cover my back better. But I didn’t give a single thought to the consequences for you. I took your life away, Gage. And there’s nothing I can do to reverse that. I
dragged you back into my world for purely selfish reasons, without any regard to whether you wanted it or not. There’s a really strong possibility that you’ll get hurt or killed. I’ve been through that loss before. So yeah, I wish I’d never gotten you involved.”
Tha-dunk. Tha-dunk.
“So you’d rather I’d have stayed safe and ignorant?”
“Something like that.”
“Fuck that, Embry. Give me some damned credit. Yeah, I’ve built a life for myself. One I even happen to like a lot about. But it’s hollow. Whatever friends or connections I made, they never erased the sense that I had family somewhere out there. People who loved me, who missed me, who cared if I lived or died. You and Adan are my family. I would do anything for either of you. If you think I’d rather have stayed blank the rest of my life while both of you died, when I could’ve done something to help, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Tha-dunk.
“I’m sorry my worrying offends you, Gage, but it doesn’t change the circumstances. I don’t want to lose you both.”
“Pull into this rest stop,” he snapped.
She took the exit, following the drive to the squat sandstone building that served as the restroom. There were no other cars. Without a word, Gage shoved open the door and climbed out of the car. Embry assumed they would finish the argument when he got back from relieving himself, but he stalked beyond the building.
She got out herself. “Where are you going?”
“I’m taking a fucking walk,” he called back from the dark.
* * *
The Crystal Grotto my ass, Gage thought as he wheeled the Charger into a space beside a mud-spattered dually. No images of elegant merfolk and jewels to go with a name like that. It was just another dark and dingy roadhouse, pretty much like the others they’d stopped at the last two days. The half-assed pile of cinderblock squatted by a gravel parking lot about a half a mile from the one-street town of Rossum, Montana. Thirty miles from Fort Hurley, it was the first place that looked like it might offer up something resembling dinner. Not that he was sure Embry would eat. To say that their reconnaissance at the base hadn’t gone well was like saying pneumonia was just a sniffle.
She said nothing as they both stepped out of the car and headed inside. The smoky haze stung his eyes and made it amply clear that nobody had been by to actually enforce the state-wide smoking ban. Twangy country was punctuated by the crack of pool balls. Gage paused just inside the doorway to scan the interior, taking in the half-filled row of booths along one wall, the scattering of abused looking tables and chairs in the center, and the pair of crude signs indicating the restrooms—Poles and Holes. Classy.
Seated at a table that gave him clear view of the bar, as well as the entrance, he grabbed a menu. Embry’s eyes wandered over the crowd, scanning and assessing as he had, then turning back when she determined none of them were a threat. Her gaze flicked to the approaching waitress, then dropped to the menu she clearly wasn’t reading. Since she seemed disinclined to decide, Gage ordered beer and cheeseburgers for them both. “Oh, and ranch dressing on the side for her.”
“You remember that?” Embry asked. But he detected no warmth or pleasure in her voice at the fact.