Serenity

Chapter 4

Julian

I crawled into bed, exhausted from the day. Phil and I weren't used to doing long-haul flights over water. The flight to Tokyo took us across the ocean. Miles of nothing but ocean with little to no landmarks to orient ourselves. We had to rely on our instruments to help keep the plane level.

Despite everything, I found it hard to sleep. For the last month, dreams of Tami had plagued my sleep. Through the Mohiri grapevine, I'd learned that the master had escaped again, leaving the nest hours before the teams entered. The thought of how she would take the news had caused my dreams to turn into nightmares. Each night, they plagued me with visions of her being trapped, or worse. The horrible thing was, they weren't just my fears manifesting themselves.

Over the years, I'd been keeping tabs on her through Phil. Everything he told me, together with what I remembered from the days when we were children, had my gut resembling a pretzel. There was no way Tami would take this well. She was not one to sit back and let others control her life. Not when she could look after herself. So the nightmares that had been plaguing me for the last month were a blend of my fears and my knowledge of Tami's personality.

My dreams that night were even more disturbed than usual. I tossed and turned, causing so much noise that vigorous shaking woke me from them. A stern, grumpy, and half awake voice finished the job and dragged me back into the world of the conscious.

"Dude! Wake up. You're dreaming about my sister again."

A hand reached out and grasped mine as it helped me to sit up in bed while I freed myself from the dream's grip on my mind. My knees bent and my arms wrapped around them, head drooping as my weary body demanded to return to its rest. "Sorry, Phil. A body from that nest yesterday reminded me of Tami. Then again, it feels like everywhere I turn, I'm reminded of her."

Phil gave me a searching look, then nodded as if he had found something that agreed with his own assessment. "She'll be twenty-six soon. It's time we went home."

I turned and smirked at him. "Perhaps. But we should visit Paris first."

He grinned at me and shook his head. "Marie's in Brisbane with Tami."

"When did that happen?"

Phil sat on the edge of my bed and found something fascinating to study on his fingernails. I could guess at the answer. When we had both graduated from flight school, and became licensed pilots, we often flew home for the weekend. While Tami had been a teenager, we returned to Eastbourne every chance we could get. After she had turned eighteen, the only times I returned to Eastbourne was when I knew she wouldn't be there. Two years ago, Phil stopped suggesting trips home. I suspected the girls had convinced Pete, leader of the Eastbourne stronghold, to arrange Marie's transfer at the same time.

He didn't look at me when he answered. "Jaynah told me last time we went home."

I didn't bother to hide the grin as he spoke. "So that's why you stopped teasing me about Tami." My grin fell as I considered the reception I was likely to get if I returned to Eastbourne. "So why are you suggesting we risk the girls slamming the door in our faces, or worse?"

He sighed and sat farther back on my bed. I relaxed my arms and straightened out my legs as I waited for his answer. His shoulders lifted in a shrug and his fingers twitched as he picked at an imaginary piece of fluff from the blanket. "How long have we spent running from the very girls we should run to? I'm sick of not knowing. Do you want to spend the rest of your life wondering if Jaynah is right? If the girls we grew up with and loved since the day we met them are our mates? I sure as hell don't."

Damn it. As much as I hated admitting it, he was right. I stared at my fingernails as I decided. We were going back to Eastbourne. "Go to sleep. It's a long flight and you have the first shift."