Page 80 of Sundowners
Roman had been brought into my life for a reason, and just like the old saying that if you let love go and it comes back to you…you know, all that? I’d let Roman go countless times and he kept coming back.
That meant he was mine.
“You okay?” Rey asked me as I left the bathroom, but he looked to Roman.
“I didn’t bite him, if that’s what you’re asking, Officer Cabral.” I gave him a smirk and he threw an arm across my chest to stop me.
“Look, I don’t know what the fuck I saw back at the home, but I better not see that shit around my family, you get me?”
“What are you talking about?” Roman said, getting between us.
Rey glared at me in that “I don’t want to kick your ass but I will if you make me” way he did when he was on patrol.
“What he’s talking about is that he saw me with Mr. Fletcher, doing an Exchange, which I will explain to you and the others.” I turned to Roman. “And then I will not hold you accountable for everything you just said in there if you want to leave—”
“Creed, I swear to—”
“Okay! Let’s get to it.” I clapped my hands together and walked back into the conference room with a little more spring in my step.
This time Roman sat next to me at the conference table, with Rey watching me like a hawk.
“Now, where were we? You want to know about The Source?”
Barringer, the FBI agent, was something or someone more. The man had an aura about him, an energy signature that wasn’t typical. He kept tight control over his emotions, and therefore I knew he must have had some sort of psychic training, but not like what I’d been through.
Beside him sat the captain, Ross Sterling the detective, and Vanessa. She was trying very hard to keep her emotions in check but she was worried about Roman, and very worried about Donna Hicks, the woman who had been abducted.
“We want to know anything that can help us,” the captain said, his frustration bleeding from his pores. His large biceps and deltoids pulled at his dress shirt as he crossed his arms over his chest, and I knew if I looked under the table his knee would be bouncing up and down rapidly.
Sterling, however, appeared calm. Too calm. He knew something more than he had shared with the others, or else he would be nervous.
They all would scoff, be shocked, and then be sorry they ever took on this case. That I knew for sure.
“Whatever is shared regarding the Exchange or The Source should never leave this room,” I began. “In fact, you’d all be better off never hearing about it. Having this knowledge will put you and those you love at risk.”
I waited a beat to see if any of them would leave. Of course they wouldn’t, they were cops. They wanted the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. They didn’t know how much they would regret that once I told them everything.
“I can’t find anything concrete on this person they call the Source,” Agent Barringer said. “But I’ve heard mention of them in diaries entered as evidence through Interpol.”
Roman’s head whipped around at that.
“They gave you access?”
Barringer smiled. “Yes, Dr. San Angelo—”
“I’m ABD, Agent Barringer.”
He shook his head. “Not after this, you won’t be. Maybe it’s premature, I’m sorry, but I’m very familiar with your work, and you and I will have a lot to discuss after this case.” He nodded at Roman, and then looked at me expectantly.
“For the past fifty years, I thought I was the only one left. When I fled the commune on the night of my initiation, I believed everyone else had been killed. I wasn’t aware there were any other beings like them…or me, I suppose. Not until I ran into an old associate who assured me that there are others—and before you ask, my associate was not involved with any of this and prefers to remain anonymous. I will do them that courtesy. But they did inform me that the night of the mutiny, some survived and escaped, not just me. Now I can gather that Stephen escaped with The Source and Leader Caleb.”
My pulse sped up just thinking about that night. Images of violence and blood sickened me, and if it hadn’t been for Roman’s energy, a lifeline in this painful scenario, I wouldn’t have been able to continue.
“From what I know,” Barringer said, pulling me from my fog, “The Source was first mentioned in records dating back to the Romans and the conquest of Gaul and Britannica. It was a term used by the Druids, who believed that souls were immortal and were passed from one being to another.”
I smirked. “Well, then. You know more than I do, Agent Barringer. All we were taught was that the Source was an ancient being who had defied death or degeneration through the practice of manipulating negative energy and spiritual healing. It was only at my initiation that I learned the truth.”
“I want to know how it works, the Exchange,” Barringer asked.
