The Guardians (MORE Trilogy) (18 page)

It was late that night when they crossed the border from Montana into North Dakota. Despite the chilly temperatures, Ava sipped at an iced coffee—lukewarm and watery from sitting in the Jeep—while Tiernan finished off the last of the stale doughnuts. Emma lay curled up on her side in the backseat, sleeping peacefully, as she had been for the past few hours.
 

Ava yawned and noisily slurped up the last of the coffee, ignoring Tiernan’s annoyed huff as she stuffed the empty cup into the bag they’d deemed for trash. She’d picked up a disposable cell phone at their last stop, and her thumb brushed idly at the keys. She’d texted the number to Caleb, knowing Tiernan would be furious, but she couldn’t bear the thought that he might try to get in touch with her and not be able to do so. She still, however, didn’t know what to do about her mom and dad.

“You know you can’t call them,” Tiernan said, and she wasn’t even surprised he knew what she was thinking.

“They’re my parents. They’ve got to be worried sick.”

“By now the police are monitoring their phones,” he reminded her. “You’re lucky your friend used a pay phone, or they’d probably already be on us.”

“I know that,” she said, throat catching slightly on unshed tears. “This has got to be so hard on them, though. And my dad
 . . .
” She reached up to swipe at her eyes. “He’s been sick. The doctors say stress doesn’t help.”
 

“What is it?” he asked, throwing the remnants of a doughnut out the window.
 

“They’re not really sure,” she replied. “One doctor says MS. Another, maybe lupus. They can’t get a firm diagnosis, which only makes it harder. All I know is he has good days and bad days, and something like this is sure to make it worse.”
 

Tiernan cleared his throat. “I’m . . . uh, sorry.”

Ava shrugged. It was all anybody could say. “Thanks.” She put her phone away.

“I . . . umm.” Tiernan rubbed at his neck, as if he could feel the slight color rising above his collar. “Maybe I could ask Andreas to send someone to them. Ease their minds a bit?” His eyes flicked to hers only briefly, but his flush deepened, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat under Ava’s surprised stare.

“Are you being nice to me?” she asked.

Tiernan’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.” He bared his teeth in what should have been a terrifying grimace, but instead somehow seemed to lighten the mood.

Still, he
was
being nice, and Ava couldn’t tease him too much about it. She reached out to nudge his shoulder. “Thanks.”

He grunted.

She smiled and thought about his offer. “I don’t know about sending someone to muddle around in my parents’ heads, though. I mean, on top of the obvious—I like their brains as they are, thank you very much—”

Tiernan snorted.

“—I just think if the Rogues, or whoever’s set me up for this, aren’t thinking about them yet, I’d like to keep it that way. It’s probably safer to keep my mom and dad as far away from all of this Race stuff as possible, don’t you think?”

“Probably.” They rode in silence for a while, and Tiernan glanced at Emma in the rearview mirror, a slight frown on his face.

“You don’t trust her,” Ava said.

He shrugged. “I don’t know her.”

“You heard what they did to her.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s just a kid.”

“Kids can be dangerous, too.”

Ava wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she just squirmed around in her seat, trying to stretch muscles cramped from being in the car for so long.
 

“What’s in Ontario?” Tiernan asked suddenly.
 

Ava jolted, surprised at the question. Then she panicked. Again. All afternoon she’d been trying to come up with a plan of action. A way to deal with the fact that she knew—well, she
suspected
—where Caleb was heading.

The Guardian Colony.
 

The Colony where Caleb had wanted to take her, to hide her from the Council when they’d been on the run.
 

Rogues were definitely a threat to the Colony, but so was the Council. She didn’t know who to go to for help—how to warn the Colony about what was happening. She didn’t have any of Caleb’s contact numbers—Audrey, who’d relocated to the Colony after the safe house was attacked by Rogues, Bel, or any of the others. Only Caleb knew how to reach them. And Caleb was currently under the control of the Rogues.

“You going to answer me?” Tiernan snapped in an irritated growl. “If you expect me to trust you or trust her
 . . .
” He flicked his eyes toward the rearview mirror again. “It works both ways, you know.”

Ava squeezed her eyes shut, the lights from a passing car flickering red and orange behind her lids. “It’s not Ontario. But somewhere near there.”

“What is?”

“You have to promise me this stays between us,” she said. “If I tell you this—if I
trust
you with this—you can’t tell anyone. Not even the Council.
Especially
the Council.”

Tiernan’s jaw tightened, the dashboard lights casting his face in harsh shadows accented by the jagged length of his scar. “You can’t ask me to do that.”

“Well, I am. If you want to know where Caleb’s heading—where I
think
he’s heading, it needs to stay between us. We’re going after Caleb, and that’s all.” She turned in her seat, fixing him with a piercing stare. “This is nonnegotiable. Caleb. No one else.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want your word, Tiernan.”

“How do you know my word’s worth anything?” His lip curled, the question bit off by clenched teeth.

She was quiet for a long moment. “I know,” she said at last. When he looked at her in surprise, she shrugged. “Well?”

“Why do I get the feeling I’m making a deal with the devil?” He scrubbed a hand over his shaved head and exhaled heavily. “Fine. All right. You have my word. I won’t say anything to the Council. Now, where are we going?”

Ava eyed him nervously, the Jeep suddenly seeming way too small. “To a Guardian Colony.”

“What?” Tiernan shouted. Emma stirred in the backseat, and he lowered his voice to a near-hiss. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t keep that from the Council!”

“We have to.” Ava leaned toward him, panic twisting in her gut. “You know what will happen to all of those people if the Council finds them.”
 

“They’re criminals.”

“Come on, Tiernan,” Ava said with an exasperated snort. “Even you know that’s not true.” She reached out to touch his arm.
 

He flinched, but didn’t shake her off as he glared out at the road ahead, the headlights making his mismatched eyes glitter.
 

“They’re people trying to do what they think is right. Trying to survive,” she said. “And you promised.”

“You tricked me,” he said a little petulantly.
 

Ava laughed. “Nice try.” But somehow she felt she could trust him, that Tiernan would keep his word.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked, desperate for something to lighten the mood.

He shot her an irritated look. “Haven’t you done enough of that already?”

“Not a favor, a question,” she clarified. “You and Katherine. Who’s older?”

He huffed out a surprised laugh. “That’s what you want to know?”

“I’m curious.”
 

He eyed her as though he thought she might be a bit unstable. “We’re twins,” he said finally. “But she’s older. By one and a half minutes.”

“Does she lord it over you?”
 

He smirked, his eyes softening slightly. “Constantly.”

“How long have you known Caleb?” she asked, encouraged by his unusual openness.

“Oh, let’s see.” He rounded a bend in the road, lost in thought for a moment. “Katherine met him first. He was only a kid then. I was in South America at the time.”

Ava blinked in surprise. Caleb had finally confessed, after much prodding on Ava’s part, that Race had a lifespan about five times that of a normal human. It had been a lot to take in, finding out that—at nineteen—she was dating an eighty-five-year-old, but she thought she’d gotten used to the idea.

Apparently not.

“I didn’t realize you were older than him,” she said.

Tiernan raised an eyebrow. “Considerably.”

“Really?” She turned in her seat, tucking a leg underneath her. “How old are you?” She flushed immediately. “Wow. Is that rude? Sorry
 . . .
”

“It’s fine,” he said with a short laugh. “I’m a hundred and sixty-two.” He smirked, sliding her a sideways glance. “Katherine’s a hundred and sixty-two, plus a minute and a half.”

Ava burst out laughing. “Oh, she’s going to be mad you told me that.”

He grinned. “I’m counting on it.”

“So, tell me again why we can’t use one of the regular border crossings?” Ava slapped away a branch, her feet sinking into the wet mud of the riverbank.
 

The moon cast a bluish glow on the landscape when it emerged periodically from behind the cloud cover as they slogged through a wildlife refuge in north-central North Dakota, heading for the Canadian border. Emma trudged silently behind them, apparently lost in her own thoughts.

Tiernan held up a hand as they neared a narrow gravel road. He searched in both directions before waving them across.

“And why did we have to ditch the Jeep, if there’s a road right here?” She groaned, kicking up gravel as she darted across the road.
 

“Jeep’s probably been reported stolen by now,” Tiernan said after a heavy sigh Ava found completely uncalled for. “We couldn’t risk trying to cross the border with it. And I’d prefer not to have my bag searched by the border patrol.”

“Couldn’t you just”—she waved her hand toward his head—“push them? You know, the compulsion thingie?”

He glanced at her sideways. “I’m not very good at that.” After a moment, he asked, “Could you?”

Ava shook her head. “I’m not very good at it either. Most I can do is get someone to scratch their nose or something like that. Caleb is much better at it.” She fought off a wave of sadness at the thought of Caleb and darted a look over her shoulder. “I bet she could have done it.”

“I totally could,” Emma said, kicking off a glop of mud on her shoe. “I’m excellent at compulsion.”

Ava cocked a brow at Tiernan, but he only ground his teeth in response. She knew what he wasn’t saying. That he still didn’t trust Emma. That he didn’t really like people in general. That he actually preferred to stomp through brush and mud rather than rely on someone else for his safety.

They hiked in silence for a few minutes until they neared a clearing, and Tiernan held up his hand again.
 

“The border’s right there,” he said, tilting his head to scent the air. “When we get across, we’ll need to find transportation as soon as possible.”
 

Ava kind of appreciated the fact that he didn’t point out she was the only reason they
needed
to get a vehicle. Actually, she wasn’t sure about that. Maybe Emma was slow, too.

“Go.” Tiernan waved her forward, the planes of his face sharp in the moonlight. “Go now!”
 

Ava ran across the clearing, only to find Tiernan and Emma both waiting for her in the overgrowth on the other side.
 

Okay, so wrong about Emma.
 

They walked quickly along the riverbank as it wound north, passing fields and finally spotting a farmhouse with a beat-up pickup truck parked next to a weathered barn. A low growl drew their attention to the front porch, where a German shepherd watched them, his snout curled in a snarl.
 

“I got this,” Ava whispered. “You get the truck.”

Her gaze swept the yard in front of the house, finally landing on a stuffed bear discarded in a pile of toys under a newly budded apple tree.
 

The dog, still growling in a low rumble, took a slow and tentative step down the porch stairs, hackles raised and ears pinned down.
 

Tiernan and Emma stepped back quietly, and the dog’s attention centered on Ava as she smiled. “That’s right. Don’t pay attention to them,” she said under her breath. She felt for her gift, and it responded quickly, reaching out toward the stuffed bear as if it had been just waiting for a chance to help out.