Page 22 of Faithless
Gunner laughed. “You say that like she won’t take a hammer to the walls to escape. Remember that?”
Like I could forget. He brought up my epic tantrum from eight years old at every opportunity. “That was anaccident!” I reminded him. “I just really didn’t want to be in time-out; I didn’t know it would gothroughthe wall.”
“A lesson in repairing drywall that I never want to repeat,” Shadow sighed, but he smiled at me. “We know you’ll kick ass out there, Ror. Your dads are just always gonna worry about you.”
“I know.” I leaned against him and let him wrap me in a tight hug. My chest ached already, knowing how much I would miss them all.
* * *
Torrance arrived earlythe next morning, just as the sun rose. Everyone in my house was up and about except for Nolan and Lucia. My parents talked in hushed whispers so as to not wake them. I guzzled down coffee and forced eggs down my throat despite not feeling hungry. I would need the energy for the ride.
Torr immediately got roped into breakfast too—no one escaped being fed when the Steel Demons served up a meal.
“Did you say anything to Daren?” he asked, sitting across the table from me.
I nodded. “On the phone last night. He was…weirdly calm about it. When we hung up, he was just like, ‘See you when you get back, sis. Love you.’”
My forkful of eggs paused on its way to my mouth. I wondered then if he had similar prophetic gifts to his namesake, our uncle Daren who passed and visited me in dreams. It never occurred to me until then, but it made sense. My twin had always been the wise, quiet one, while I’d always been a doofus.
“He expects us to be back in time for the wedding, I bet.” Torr looked up and smiled as my mom placed a cup of coffee next to his plate. “Thank you, Mari.”
“I mean, the wedding’s six months away. How long do you think this will take?” I asked.
We both looked toward the kitchen window, where Astarte peered at us from atop the chicken coop again.As long as it needs to take, she answered cryptically.
“And where exactly are we going?” Torr asked.
Somewhere far and not on any map.
“Fantastic,” I grumbled. “Somewhere in the Great Wasteland, I take it?”
On the northern side of it, yes.
“Even better.”
Torr and I ate until we couldn’t anymore and my parents couldn’t pretend to be occupied with other things.
“Rori?” Mom cleared her throat while two of my dads squeezed her shoulders. “Did you want to say goodbye to the littles?”
I nodded, swallowing the dry lump in my throat as I got up from the table. Even though they were teens now, Lucia and Nolan were respectively six and eight years behind Daren and I. We knew they looked up to us, and we felt our own share of responsibility in raising them.
I went to Lucia’s room first, finding her fast asleep on her stomach. Like a typical seventeen-year-old, clothes were tossed in piles all over her room and pictures of hot male celebrities were haphazardly taped to her walls. She was sprawled out on her bed, all arms, legs, and long, dark hair.
Pushing back a lock of her hair, I bent to kiss Lucia’s cheek and whispered, “I love you, baby sister. I won’t be gone for long.”
Her brows pinched together, and she stirred with a soft groan but didn’t wake up. I stood from her bedside and left the room quickly, knowing that if I stayed, I’d be tempted to slide under the covers and sleep next to her like we used to. Sister sleepovers, we had called them.
Nolan’s room, on the other hand, was meticulously clean and organized. He was very particular about how and where things were placed. My baby brother was barely older than a toddler when he started making his own bed in the morning because he didn’t like how our mom did it.
Unlike Lucia, he was also a light sleeper and roused the moment I stepped into his room.
“What time is it?” he groaned, rubbing his eyes.
“Early,” I said. “You don’t have to get up, I just came to see you.”
He blinked, confusion etched into his features. Like my other siblings, it was unclear which dad he came from. I saw a lot of Reaper in him but also some Jandro. “See me for what?”
I pointed to his bedside. “Can I sit?”
