When my dad went to rehab just before he got into the drunk driving accident, Ballistic and King arranged for our old house to be completely remodelled. The hope had been my dad would come home, sober and wanting to have a relationship with me, and then we’d live here, happily ever after.
I almost laughed at the thought of it. I knew that wouldn’t happen, dad hated himself too much to be a father to me, but I thought we could build some kind of relationship. Then he got out of rehab, killed that woman and got a thirty-three-year prison sentence. He’s never appealed, never tried to contact me, but he’s under the Devil’s Chaos protection in there, no harm will ever come to him.
He was living his own personal hell in there, being unable to drink his demons away.
The old house had a new roof, porch and stairs, all brand-new windows and siding. The interior was like a show home, which came in handy when I put it on the rental market. A family had been living here for the past three years but moved out of state for work and I hadn’t got around to re-letting the place. No one would think to look for us here.
War followed me up to the house and I let us inside, disarming the security system. War whistled low as he looked around.
“Don’t remember it looking like this when we were kids.”
“Cos it didn’t.”
He gave the artwork on the wall a side eyed look. “It’s weird.”
I tossed my keys on the table in the hall. It was the same place I’d always left my keys, just a different table. I headed to the kitchen and put the beers in the fridge, pulling two out of the box. Opening them both, I handed one to War.
He leaned against the kitchen counter and looked out of the back window. The yard had been remodeled and paved over in the last year or so. It was easier to maintain so I’d been happy to do it for the tenants.
He was right, it was weird. Like, it was familiar but completely wrong at the same time. We headed into the living room and got comfortable on the grey sofas in front of the TV.
“You never thought about living here, instead of the house on the compound?”
I gave him a look that was all too easy for him to read. He knew better than most the nightmare situation I lived through in this house, given the amount of times I ran to his house when my dad lost it. He mock slapped his forehead and gave me a crooked grin, letting me know he was being an idiot.
“Besides, it’s a nice neighborhood now, lots of families, I’d just muck up the place.”
“Damn straight,” he raised his beer then lowered it so it was between his knees and stared at it for a while. “What are we going to do?”
I shook my head, I didn’t know. We needed to do something, as soon as possible, before I lost my mind. “Taking the Omen matter into our own hands seemed to get results.”
“So you’re suggesting we carry on like that? We do it our way?”
“Oralongsidetheirs,” I suggested.
He rubbed a hand over his lips. “We let them track down the information off Omen, question the Kingsmen we have, follow those leads and we run something parallel, something King wouldn’t particularly agree with? That’s a bad idea.”
“The worst.”
War’s lip twitched, already knowing we were going to do it. Despite not wanting to go against our President, we were talking about Waverley. We needed to find her and bring her home safe.
“So where do we start?” he asked, his resolve hardening.
It may backfire, we may get into a lot of shit with King and the other members of the council. We might not even be able to come up with anything, but we had to try. And neither of us cared what could happen to us for doing it.
She was half of both of our hearts, whether I wanted to admit that or not. She was priority number one. We could answer for any so-called transgressions once they were done. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission in situations such as this.
I thought about his question, thinking about all the intel we got over the last couple of days. Ballistic made me see the bigger picture, to learn how to use what we know. Omen was a good start, but he didn’t have what we needed. After meeting with Ranger, there was something wedidhave.
Raising my head and turning to my best friend, I said, “Mace.”
War contemplated a minute, then he took out his phone and dialed. I drank my beer waiting him out. He hung up and glanced at me. “No answer.”
“Did you seriously justcall him?”
He tapped out a text message and shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
He’d barely set the phone down beside him when it rang. I lifted my brows as he raised his head with a shocked expression but when heturned the phone over he was disappointed. “Kansas,” he said, as he answered the call. “Hey, what have you got?” War got up and indicated for me to move. “Where?” he headed for the door, and I followed grabbing my keys as I passed the table. I re-set the alarm and locked up as we headed to our bikes.
