Page 80 of Anarchy Chained: Alpha Thomas

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - SULLIVAN

Iziah drives, I sit in front, and Uzi, Cyan, and Sadie squeeze together in the back. It’s a predictable arrangement. Uzi wants me to know Sadie is his and he wants to sit behind me.

Needless to say, I’m not worried about either of those things.

“Get off at the next exit,” I tell Iziah.

We drove through Wolf Valley about an hour ago, and it took us an hour just to get there, so it’s a good thing I didn’t just walk out of that house and try to find my own way home. We literally were in the middle of nowhere.

No one’s really been talking, and it got dark hours ago, so the beautiful scenery can’t make up for the fact that this drive is just boring.

“Thomas?” Sadie asks from the back.

“Hmmm?” I say, trying to act uninterested to keep Uzi’s possessive gene from surfacing. I need him compliant and the best way to do that is to let him think Sadie is not what I’m after right now. But she is.

“What are your friends like? Will they… hurt us?”

“Sadie,” I say, huffing down a laugh. “I wouldn’t bring you here if they were going to hurt you.”

“Sure you would,” Uzi says. “But the answer is no, Sadie. They won’t hurt us. They won’t be able to.”

I let that remark go and finish answering her question. “Case is a good guy. I don’t know if he’ll be there or not, but you’ll like him. Everyone likes Case.”

“And Lincoln?”

“Well…” I smile. “He’s a little bit… antisocial. But still, not a bad guy. And Molly will be there. And Sheila. So no, he’s not going to start anything. As long as your boyfriend there doesn’t start shit.”

“If I do,” Uzi says, “I’ll be sure to finish it.”

Sure you will, I think silently.

“How is it possible that the three of you got away so clean?” Cyan asks. She has not said a word since the cabin.

“Define… got away,” I say.

“Well, they never came back for you,” she says. “Didn’t you find that strange?”

“We thought we killed them, Cyan. So no. We didn’t expect ghosts to come looking for us.”

“It was kinda naive on your part, right?”

“What was?” I say, wishing they’d just go back to shutting up.

“Letting yourself believe you got them all.”

“As I said, Cyan, we didn’t know there were two schools.”

“There’s more than two,” she snarls.

“I’ve already gotten that impression. Take a left,” I tell Iziah.

Now he is the only one of the three who intrigues me. He’s been silent too. Only speaking when he’s asking for directions. And I can’t figure out if he’s just subordinate to Uzi—I’ve since learned through conversation that Uzi is the older of the two brothers—or if Iziah is just biding his time.

He slows down as he gets off the freeway, stops at the sign, then turns left towards Lincoln’s house. This is all Linc’s land out here. He’s got hundreds of acres. But the house is hidden down a five-mile private road, which is a little farther up this particular mountain.

“What are we going to do once I’m… reconnected?” Sadie’s asking Uzi this, not me. So I just listen.

“Go home,” Uzi replies. I can’t see him. He’s sitting directly behind me. But I can tell he’s not interested in answering that question.