Separian - Book 1

Chapter 49

"What do you say to someone who thought you were dead for six months?" I asked, not hoping for a response but in an attempt to find an answer in the question itself.

"Well, for starters," Mike's familiar voice said from behind me. "I wouldn't open up with I'm not dead like you did with that poor girl." His sly smile widened as I realized he was now walking up the street with me. I thought he was going to give me a few minutes of privacy. "Sorry, I couldn't resist seeing you off."

"Where's the car?" I asked, looking behind him to see if I'd missed the sound of him stopping and getting out closer to the house than where he'd let me out.

"It's safe," he said, matching my pace and walking with me.

I shook my head, "I was only poking fun at her," I went on. "Besides, she loosened up after a while."

"Yeah," another voice, a female, just waiting for her chance to jump out of hiding. "And I'm sure playing goo-goo-eyes with tall, dark, and handsome had nothing to do with that."

"Honestly?" I asked, spinning around to meet Quinn. She couldn't hide her smile. "How many of you are there?"

"Just us," Mike said, moving to my side and putting his arm over my shoulder. There was a rustle in the brush to my left as Marissa left cover and took to Quinn's side. "And her," he continued with the same smile. I could hear more noise coming from her hiding spot and cocked an eyebrow at him. "... And a few others who didn't think letting you go off on your own was the best idea."

"How many is a few?" I asked, no intention of trusting his previous words.

"Just a handful," he said quickly.

"And how big is the hand?"

"Big enough to hold a few," he finished, completing the circuit. I ignored him.

"Where are you all planning on staying?" I asked. "Or do you really plan to run back and forth between here and Wisconsin every morning and night?"

"Would you relax?" Quinn said. "I know you don't want us here but as things stand, it's not really up to you. As you are unique and currently incapable of protecting yourself from an attack, our presence here should not surprise you, nor should it bother you. You want your family to be safe, and we can ensure that safety." She started up the hill we were all stopped on now. "But to answer your previous question, there is a house out in Boyds, not terribly far from here. It's big, it's out of the open, and it's a perfect size for what we need."

"Did you buy it?" I suddenly wondered how much money Quinn actually had to her name.

"Of course not." Her smile was as big as her face. "We built it."

"When!" I screamed.

"In the day it took you and Mike to get here."

Mike. I turned to him, "You knew about this?"

He picked up the pace and joined Quinn now halfway up the hill. "It's for your own good," he said, no intention of slowing down. "Besides, we laid the foundation for it weeks ago."

"Weeks?" I asked. How long had they been planning to live around the corner from me?

Marissa's hand was on my other shoulder a second later. "It's not as bad as it sounds, Noah. We won't interfere in your life if you don't want us to. We just want what's best. And what's best, at least as far as we understand it, is keeping you safe." She smiled, "Wisconsin is well looked after."

We were less than five minutes away. After a few minutes of being too flustered to speak, the lack of distance between me and my house became the prime issue. What did I do when I got there? That's where all of my attention was now. So I didn't mind walking. I was thankful for every extra second I was allotted. But the longer it took, the more nervous I grew. It was like preparing for an exam. The more you studied, the better prepared you were when the time came. However, the longer it took for the exam to pass, the less confident you became.

"You're really not going to go out of your way to see Sarah?" Quinn asked. I was surprised to hear the question coming from her and not Mike.

"Like I said already, after I'm done with my family, I'll gladly give her house a call."

"Even though we could get you there before the call connected..." Quinn added, "but why waste the energy, right? Besides, calling is so much more personal than a face to face conversation."

I calmed myself before I responded further. "If I weren't currently incapable, I'd level you into the ground."

"Don't forget the tissues for when you break your nose again," she threw back. The cartilage and shape still felt funny, even after Leviathan's miracle drugs.

I was never going to live that down. Not with the other Separian and certainly not with Quinn. Don't get me wrong, they were all great people, but there were times I wished I didn't have to be so decent with them. Some of them shared my sentiment with that and were a little more open about it than I was, but none of us had any real dispute with one another. Sure, Quinn couldn't wait to knock me senseless again, and I couldn't wait to send my own barrage on her, and it was mostly all in good fun.

It was clear that none of them trusted Samuel, though. Since arriving at my side, not one of them had brought it up and even Mike was unusually avoidant after he brought it up in the car. Perhaps one of the other Separian had warned him off of it. But that was one thing even I could agree on. The mystery surrounding Samuel was even greater than the one surrounding me. But it didn't matter what any of them felt. At least not about this. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of him or his blatant disregard for what was supposedly a Separian's "job", yet he'd held up his role to protect me and even though his methods were unquestionably excessive, he was still a part of me. I couldn't very well ignore it any more than they could. That didn't mean anyone else had to share my views or weigh in on it. Their fear wasn't so much for me as it was for the Alpha and the inevitable relationship Samuel would have with it. Should he try to harm whatever it was in any way, the entire Separian force wouldn't hesitate to end him, nor would I. But so long as he kept his personality spikes to himself and didn't interfere with what we were trying to accomplish as a collective, his existence wasn't in jeopardy.

Before I realized it, I was at the front door of my former home.

"Good luck, mate." I felt Mike's hand pat me once and he was gone. The rest of the Separian followed, giving me a moment to myself.

"We won't be far away if you need us." Marissa.

I kept my back to her "All the same, if I don't make it through this, tell Quinn her cooking sucks."

"You can cook your own meals whenever you come back." I felt her smile as she finished. "Good luck."

I reached for the handle and gripped the cold metal in my shaking hand. An unknown number of Deseparian were still scattered around the world, all capable of reshaping the terrain of the very planet I lived on. Yet, when it came right down to it, my own family terrified me more than any one of them. There was definitely something wrong with that picture...