Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1)

Chapter 23

James Wright
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

My mom was on her way to the airport. We'd had a short, but very heated discussion before she'd agreed to leave. I was pretty sure that if it wasn't for me she would have chosen to stay and help out Samantha even knowing that the two of them were playing a losing hand and that it was only a matter of time before Samantha couldn't protect her anymore.

Me being in the picture changed all of that though because she knew that if she refused to go, and I stayed out of the middle of Alec's plan to save Rachel as a result, I'd still more than likely pay a terrible price in the aftermath of Alec, Rachel and the others leaving.

She didn't like it, but she'd taken all of the money that Alec had given me and one of the prepaid sim cards and she'd gone. Her part in all of this was actually the safest. Even if someone happened to be watching the trackers on the vehicle she was using they still wouldn't think anything of it. The cars from the estate motor pool went back and forth to the airport a dozen times a day most days.

As long as she could avoid being seen by Kaleb and the others at the airport then she'd be fine. I'd told her to park on the north side of the airport because from there she'd be able to safely watch until Kaleb and the rest of the convoy headed back here. We were running late, but even according to Alec's original timetable she wouldn't have had to wait for very long. As it was now, there was even a decent chance that she'd pass them on the road as they were coming back to the estate.

Jasmin was nervously tapping on the steering wheel. It hadn't been particularly hard to find someone who was scheduled to leave the estate on official pack business, but we all knew that convincing Cassie to let us make the run into town to buy six gallons of ice cream that somebody had forgotten on the last shopping trip was a very slender shield.

Alec was trying to give us enough deniability that we wouldn't be killed if he failed to get Rachel out, but Jasmin, Jess and I had talked on the way back from the cave and we'd decided that if that happened we weren't going to just go back to Sanctuary and hope that Kaleb was feeling lenient. We'd make a run for it and deal with being fugitives for the rest of our lives.

In a lot of ways it simplified the plan, or rather it would have if we'd had a good way to get ahold of Alec and tell him about our consensus. Since we didn't even know where he was right now, we couldn't do that, and Jasmin wasn't the only one who was getting antsy about the fact that Alec was running late. What we needed right now was a good head start and every second that passed by while we waited for Alec was another second we weren't on the road speeding away from this place.

Jasmin's tapping had speeded up to the point where it sounded like one long roll of miniature thunder, and then Alec walked out of the house with Rachel at his side. Alec still seemed mostly to be surrounded by the odd bubble of calm that I'd noticed earlier in the cave, but Rachel was obviously holding herself together by nothing more than sheer will.

I didn't notice the long, sheet-wrapped object that Alec was carrying in his hand until he was almost to the SUV and I didn't realize it was his dad's sword until he and Rachel were climbing inside with us.

"Thank you so much, everyone. I'll never be able to repay any of you enough for what you're doing."

Rachel's voice cracked there at the end, but Jess reached up and patted her on the shoulder.

"You deserve a lot better than this, Rachel."

"Let's go."

Alec's order came out abrupt and harsh, but I was pretty sure it wasn't intentional, it was just the first signs that maybe the wall of space he'd put up to protect himself from the knowledge of what was coming had started to crack a little.