Fall From Grace(86)

I wondered where her strong faith had come from.  “Why do you think that?”

She stepped back and gave me a curious look.  “Every time you come close to kicking the bucket, someone is always there.  Me, Shane.  I wonder if Shane had a dream about the fire.  We were all asleep; he was on the couch, so how could he have known?”

I stepped away from her and opened the bathroom door.  Turning back, I looked at her from the doorway.  “What you don’t seem to understand is that I will go on, and I don’t want you guys to get hurt.  This is your life, Lea. Mine was over centuries ago, but you have the future, things to hope for and look forward to. I’m just here for one thing.  I don’t want anything to happen to you or Conner, even Shane or Tucker, because you’re all trying to save me.”  I walked into the hallway.

“But you did promise me, so you’re coming with us,” she called from the bathroom.

The living room had a mountain of duffel bags piled on the middle of the floor.  Hushed voices were coming out of the kitchen, along with the sounds of plates hitting against each other; everyone was eating.

I lingered a bit in the hallway before entering the kitchen.  I hated that everyone thought they needed to save me when it wasn’t their problem, or their fight.  The truth was that I needed to find Azazel; I needed to figure out why he wanted me gone.  I needed to find Gabriel and see if he could tell me anything, and I could do neither with everyone around me trying to watch out for mad men.

“Hey, there she is!  Good afternoon, Beautiful! It’s about time you got up!” Tucker sang.  He was sitting at our small kitchen table shoving a bagel in his mouth.  Ethan and Conner sat around the table doing the same thing. Shane sat quietly on the countertop and didn’t even lift his head when I walked in.  Another guy leaned against the counter closest to me, holding a bagel and coffee in his hands, I didn’t even look up at him, I guessed it was Tucker’s cousin Blake.  Lea walked in behind me.

I nodded in Tucker’s direction and walked straight to the Box of Joe that Ethan had bought and poured myself some coffee.

Tucker cleared his throat and started barking out commands, “So, Grace, we are going to be taking your Jeep and Blake’s truck.  As soon as you are ready, we can leave.  I’ll drive your Jeep and you can just sit and enjoy the ride.”

I looked up from stirring the sweetener into my coffee.  “I’m driving my Jeep, Tucker.  And I have no clothes, since my bedroom somehow caught fire last night, so before I go on your little trip, I’d like to stop at a store and buy some clothes, so I don’t have to stay in Shane’s tee-shirt and boxers the whole time I’m there.  When you guys are ready, you can leave, and I’ll be about an hour behind you.  Just give me the address. I have a GPS, so I’ll be fine.”

Lea started to argue, but a voice I’d not heard before interrupted her, “Well, that sounds like a plan then. If you’d like, I can stay behind and keep you company, and make sure nothing else happens.”

I snapped my head to the direction of the new voice.  It was soft velvet and sweet; reminding me of melted caramel.

Blake stood there casually leaning his back against the cabinets.  His skin was so pale it was almost white, until my eyes met his and a splash of crimson shot across his cheeks.  He was very handsome, with a lean muscular build.  Light brown hair hung messy and sexy over his head, but I barely saw any of it.  I fixated on his eyes, his ancient pale blue eyes, which were looking profoundly back into mine.