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"I don't like just sitting around," I openly voiced, a far cry from how I really felt.
Fear—it was crippling. It ate at me, tissue by tissue, noise by noise, vein by—I wanted to turn off the switch. I wished there was a switch. I didn't understand why we had to have magical key problems and why some delusional harebrained woman was out to get us—Dodge. The desperation to claim the keys in which we withheld from her reach, dangling them like dog treats that she can't quite get due to ultimate loopholes.
I was sick of being afraid—I was sick of worrying about our family being stalked and watched like some Truman's television camera show. Under the scope but never quite seeing who was watching because the reality was—Dodge could be anyone she wants to be.
And that unsettling revelation did not appease any sense of comfort within me, especially when I couldn't stop worrying about my family and my friends and Tiberius whom I hadn't seen in well over a week.
Everything was just. . .on edge.
Now, upon the unveiled truth that Elle finally revealed to us about Dodge and Lucas, we were forced to wait for her to get the keys back right under Dodge's nose. I wouldn't lie and say all the worst possible reasons this could go wrong, but I tried to stay optimistic.
Even though I felt everything but optimism.
It felt to unsure to feel safe about where everything was going—like one bad move and the whole plan to stop Dodge would be trivial. Dodge was smart, calculated, a schemer that preyed on emotions to gather entail and strength—knowing Elle, I didn't quite trust her fully to be our advantage.
She loved Lucas, and Dodge knew this. Who was to say Elle wouldn't at least hope that Lucas was still there even though it wasn't Lucas, but an echo of him.
Hope, in a sense, can sometimes be deceiving. And I wasn't going to give any credit to Elle's judgment that she could see through that.
Tyler scowled, giving me a hard look, determined, if not, "She'll be back. She has to be."
"And if she gets caught? Did we even take that into consideration? Dodge isn't exactly gonna leave the keys unprotected," I evaluated our possibilities, and that one, to my alarm, gained the most prospect.
Tyler and Kins exchanged brief though short looks of possible agreement. It wasn't until Bode chimed in that it was discarded, "She'll be back. Elle's smart."
"So is Dodge," I argued pointedly, earning rather irritated expressions from my siblings. "What's our plan if this one doesn't pan out?"
"It will," Tyler affirmed, much more firmly.
"But if it doesn't, what then?"
"Max, it will," Tyler promised me, his eyes focused, alert, askew.
