She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Okay. Let’s end this once and for all.”
“That’s my brave mate.” I stood, helping her to her feet. “Ready to show Will Carmichael what hap-happens when he messes with our family?”
“More than ready.” There was steel in her voice now, the backbone that had kept her alive through months of running. “I’m tired of being hunted. It’s time to turn the tables.”
Tark arrived at the back of the building, and with my brothers providing cover and ensuring the location was secure, we scooted out and climbed into the false bottom of the wagon, Tressa scrunching in with us. Becken soon secured the top and Tark took us to my home, where Tark drove into the barn and closed the doors. We got out.
Allie glanced around. “Will your brothers be packing for us?”
I grinned and nudged hay across the wooden plank floor with my boot, exposing a hatch I lifted. “Let me go down first and you can follow.”
She came over to peer into the dark hole. “There’s a ladder there.”
“And a tunnel into my-my basement.” I was quite proud of it, actually. I’d thought of this myself. Orcs sometimes had to evade predators, so we always scoped out our location and mentally noted the perfect spots to hide. I’d brought that idea with me to the surface. Now my brothers were considering doing something similar themselves.
Tressa leaped down into the hole, and I followed, guiding Allie down to join me on the dirt floor.
She looked around while I grabbed the light off a hook on the side of the wooden ladder and turned it on.
“This way.” I led her through the tunnel to another hatch on the end of the long, reinforced dirt tunnel. “We’re home.”
She huffed out a nervous laugh.
I opened the hatch, and we emerged into my basement and took the stairs to the upper floor, striding to our bedroom to gather our things. Tressa flopped on her bed in the corner we’d take with us.
“This feels sad, like we’re erasing us.” Allie said as she stuffed the last of her clothing into her case.
“We’re not erasing anything. We’re taking control. There’s a difference.” I still hadn’t made time to replace her suitcase with something better, plus buy her new clothing.
“I hope you’re right. What if they follow?”
“My brothers have secured the area. They even shot down two drones.”
Her eyes widened. “Drones?”
“And tracked them back to the person operating them.” My sharp smile grew. “There are no more watchers.”
“They could have long-range devices.”
“Took care of those too.”
“You and your brothers are amazing.” Her voice choked off.
I drew her into my arms. “We’re safe.” For now. Will would send in a new team; there was no doubt about that. But we’d be ready. “This is what fam-families do. My brothers and I have-have been through worse odds and come out vic-victorious.”
“What worse odds?”
“Greel once faced down a cave trolleer with nothing but a r-r-rock.”
She gasped.
“Ostor arm-wrestled a mountain brundelier for its next meal.”
“You’re making that up,” she said, but her shoulders relaxed.
“Maybe a little. But the point st-stands. We don’t give up when things get difficult. We get creative.”
“I feel like we’re abandoning the pottery barn,” Allie said as I hefted our bags and followed her back to the basement and out to the barn. “It was destroyed, and we’re hiding.”
