Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I pointed at the gress. “Why?”
Jovo pointed at the gress and made a grabbing motion, snatching something forcefully from the air.
“He took something from you?”
Jovo squeezed his marble. A night sky flared above us, strange constellations glowing. One of the stars shone brighter. Jovo reached for it, his face full of longing.
“Home?” I guessed.
He looked at me. I pointed at my stick drawing. “Home?”
“Home,” Jovo said.
He pointed to the gress and crossed his hands forming an X.
Whatever the gress took from him, Jovo needed it to get back home. He was stuck here, alone.
I too wanted to go home, more than anything in the world.
Jovo sagged on the floor, dejected.
“Where is the gress? Where can we find him?” I made a show of looking around.
Jovo raised his hand and pointed over my shoulder. I didn’t even need to look. I knew exactly in which direction he was aiming.
Jovo was pointing at the anchor.
Everything we both wanted was at the anchor.
The gress was stalking me. I was sure of it. Four of its kind chased the woman in blue, trying to murder her. Either they wanted to kill her or to take something from her. Before she died, she passed something precious to her onto me, which made me their new target. That wasn’t a logical leap. It wasn’t even a hop.
This gress would hunt me down. He had followed me but hadn’t closed the distance so far. Perhaps he knew that my predecessor killed four of his kind. Perhaps he didn’t want to strike until he was sure that I had no escape route. If I lost him in this warren of passageways and caverns, tracking me down would be difficult.
He must’ve realized by now I was going to the anchor. He would ambush me there. Bear and I could face him alone or with Jovo.
And there was another part to it. I wanted Jovo to go home. I knew exactly how he felt, and I wanted him to get back to his clan.
“Okay.” I spread my arms in a gesture of resignation and surrender.
Jovo perked up, his eyes shining.
“We’ll try,” I told him.
The lees jumped forward, clearing the distance between us in a single leap, raised his hands and hugged me. For a second, I didn’t know what to do and then I carefully hugged him back.
Elias sat alone in his makeshift office inside Elmwood Library. Outside the windows, the street was pitch black except for the floodlights bathing the area around the gate in bright electric lights. His phone told him it was just past ten. He hadn’t slept well last night, woke up at five, and then spent the entire day catching up on all the admin crap that had piled up in the past two weeks. There was a chance that the Elmwood gate would be his last. Some people would’ve shied away from that thought. He was a realist who liked to be prepared. If he didn’t come out of the breach, the Guild would pass to Stephanie Nguyen. As Chief Operations Manager, she was third in line after him and Leo. The transition would be as smooth as he could humanly make it.
He was tired. He should’ve gone to bed as soon as he finished, but he couldn’t sleep.
Jackson was due to land after two am, if everything went well. It would take him awhile to clear customs and get his baggage, so he would be on site by four. Leo hadn’t come to bother him with any updates. It probably meant that things were going as expected. Elias thought of finding him to check in but decided against it. The kid was running himself ragged as it was. If another calamity fell on their head, Leo would appear and report to him about it.
Elias sipped the last of his cold coffee. The picture on the tablet in front of him was twenty years old. It was taken at the Chicago Botanical Garden on Thanksgiving holiday. Brenda wore her favorite blue coat. She crouched on the stone steps, a wall of picturesque pines behind her, her arms wrapped around six-year-old Ryan. Ryan’s face was scrunched up like he’d bitten a lemon. His son had waged a private war against having his picture taken since birth, and the kid had won most of his battles. Brenda was smiling, her soft brown hair spilling from under her white hat.
He didn’t know why he fixated on this particular photo. There were other pictures, some at the beach, some during other holidays, a few pictures from the army balls, he and Brenda dressed up and posing. But he always defaulted to this one.
Back then he had just come back to the States, with his second deployment under his belt, and he was done with the Middle East for a while. He’d also made captain on his first try, and a company command assignment had been in the works. He had no idea where exactly it would be, but he knew it would be stateside. They would ship him off again eventually – he had no doubt of it – but for now he’d earned a couple of years of being home in the evenings, if not every night, then most nights. It was that feeling of knowing that wherever they sent him, Brenda and the boy would be there too. That they’d be a family again.