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“When we were being held by the Assembly, one of the enforcers made a comment to me about taking me out to “The Cliff” to terrify me into talking,” Gabriel said.
“You’ve never heard anything about that either?” I asked Naomi.
She shook her head. “Nope. Beats me what that could be. But anything that’s going on out west, we’re always a little detached from on the east coast. If you didn’t know about it, living out there, they must be keeping it really under wraps.”
“Like a lot of things,” Damon muttered.
Naomi patted her pocket with her phone. “Well, I talked with my mom about the families she knows fairly well. I’ve got a list of people we’re both pretty sure we can trust to at least help once we have some proof.”
“Perfect,” I said. Now we just had to get that proof.
“Hey,” Greg said, tapping the back of the driver’s seat. “You’ve been up there for a while. Why don’t we gas up and I’ll take over the next stint?”
From the way Seth inhaled, I thought he was going to argue that he could handle more. Something in me twisted, remembering the admission he’d made to me yesterday about how he’d pushed himself too hard. But to my relief he paused and then said, “Good idea. It looks like there’s a service station in a few miles.”
“I’ll be your trusty navigator,” Naomi said, kissing her consort on the cheek. He beamed at her in return. I had to smile, watching them. She might have been nervous about how quickly they’d gotten together, but the affection between them showed in every gesture.
At the service station, Seth and Greg got out to see about the gas, and Jin immediately pulled out his paint set to create a couple more glyphs. He was working his way down the bus, the driver’s area and the walls over the benches now marked. They weren’t the beautiful works of art he’d turned the pendants into, but right now we were more worried about practicalities.
As Greg settled into the driver’s seat and Seth sat down next to me, the pang I’d felt earlier echoed through me again. I looked around at all my consorts.
“Can I talk to you guys for a minute? In the back?”
Naomi raised her eyebrows at us but didn’t comment as they followed me past the bunks to the smaller seating area at the rear of the bus. Gabriel looped his arm around my waist as we all sat in a cluster there. “What’s going on, Sprout?”
“Nothing really, I just—” I met each of their gazes, one after another. “I’ve had to draw on my spark for a lot of magic in the last week. Which means I’ve drawn a lot on you when we’ve been together, to light it again. I just wanted to make sure you know that if any intimacy with me ever starts to feel like too much, if we’re together and the energy we’re creating starts to hurt or become a strain, I want you to tell me. Right away.”
“Taking a little pain for you wouldn’t be a problem, angel,” Damon said.
I pointed a finger at him. “No. Don’t even start with that. I havefiveof you—there’s no reason lighting my spark should take too much out of anyone. You’ve been through enough pain just because of this mess with the Assembly. If I can’t trust that you’ll stop me before I’m adding to it…”
My voice broke, my throat abruptly choking up. Gabriel hugged me tighter, leaning his head against mine. “Hey. You can trust us to be honest with you. Right?” He shot a pointed look around the rest of the group.
“You know I’m going to be open with you,” Seth said.
Ky looked a little startled. “Of course.”
“It’s been nothing but good so far for me,” Jin said. “But if that changes, I won’t hide it from you.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Damon grumbled. Then his voice softened. “I won’t be keeping any secrets from you, Rose.”
I exhaled in a rush. “Okay. Good. I’ve got so much to worry about…”
“The last thing you should have to worry about is us,” Gabriel filled in. “And you don’t have to. We’re all in this together.”
* * *
“Almost there,” I said, and stifled a yawn as I looked up from the digital map. I’d taken over navigating a few hours ago, in the earliest hours of the morning. Outside the windshield, the dawn was just starting to streak over the freeway ahead of us. “We’re coming up on the Oregon border in a few miles.”
Jin gave me a thumbs-up from the driver’s seat. “So we stop at that town near the cliffs to plan our approach?”
“That’s the idea.” Apprehension coiled around my gut. But the enforcers hadn’t made any appearances yet. I hadn’t even felt their magic. Either the enchanted glyphs now dappling the entire interior of the bus had bounced any searching spells off, or our enemies weren’t even searching this area for us. They might believe we were still out east.
Naomi stirred and sat up where she’d been dozing on the opposite bench. “I’ll let my mom know we’ve made it this far safely. She pretended to be all cool about the whole thing, but I know she’s worried about us.”
Kyler came up from the bunks, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He stopped beside me and squeezed my shoulder. “I can take over navigation. You should be as rested as possible before we storm The Cliff, whatever the heck it is, right?”
“Let’s hope there’s minimal storming involved.” I got up and stretched my arms. My head did still feel a little heavy. The rumble of the bus’s engine and the periodic bumping of the wheels didn’t make for the easiest sleeping.
