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I put every bit of belief I could into that statement. I didn't have any idea how Set had known how much I'd wanted to talk to my friends, to Jess, but the best way to convince him of what I was saying now was to really feel it. I couldn't fully convince myself that some new jeans and a shirt or two would make all of the difference between Celeste and me, but I came close.

  Once I finished talking, Set went still again. I could tell that he was considering my words, but I'd obviously made him uneasy. After several minutes he sighed and turned back towards me.

  "I never thought I would find myself bargaining over the requirements of honor like a common zsst, Isaac Nazir. Still, I cannot deny that I am worried about the circumstances that we now find ourselves in. I will accept part of your bargain. If you will leave your phone off other than when you are using it, then I will alert you when someone from your enclave is trying to communicate with you."

  "How will you know when I've got an incoming call, Set?"

  He shrugged. "It is the way of things. I will know."

  The things he was implying were on the edge of blowing my mind. I kept telling myself that it wasn't that much more incredible than Kristin's dreams, but he seemed to be saying that he controlled his knowledge rather than just having it come at unpredictable times.

  Even if he was wrong, presumably if someone called and my phone was off it would still go to voicemail. If I'd known that it was the ongoing carrier signal that was the most concerning to him then we probably could have avoided a lot of worry on both sides.

  "I accept, Set. That seems a good bargain to me."

  He shook his head. "Not so easily will you trick me, Isaac Nazir. I will do these things and amend your boon, but I will only do so if we are allowed to provide your party with clothes. I will be said to be a poor bargainer, the other consorts will say that I gave away too much to you, but I will accept that rather than risk the enclave. They will say it is a different kind of dishonor, but it is better this way. Sometimes the right course is the most difficult one."

  Chapter 21

  Isaac Nazir

  The Lamia Enclave

  After Set had departed I sat there on the rock for half an hour before I finally turned my phone back on and started making my calls. I tried Alec's phone first. I didn't really want to talk to him, but I felt like I needed to talk to him.

  It was hard to explain—I didn't really understand it all myself—but I was starting to see his actions in a different light. We'd been…well, not exactly friends, but on the same team for a long time. I didn't want to die here in some challenge match without at least telling him that I didn't hate his guts.

  Some alphas wouldn't have cared if I hated them as long as I did what I was told to do, but that was part of what made Alec special. He'd still do whatever he felt he had to do, even if it meant that everyone was going to hate him, but he'd feel bad about it. It would eat at him and make it harder for him to continue to make the hard decisions.

  I didn't want that. Not for Alec's sake and not for the sake of everyone who was depending on him to pull us through the war he'd started with the Coun'hij.

  I dialed Alec's number and listened to the phone ring, counting the attempts until it went through to voicemail. After the beep I cleared my throat and left the most difficult message I'd ever left.

  "Alec, it's me, Isaac. I'm not surprised that you let it go through to voicemail. I've been kind of a jerk lately and I just wanted to call and tell you that I was sorry. I…well, I've had a lot of time on my hands to just sit and think lately and I'm starting to think that I should have given you the benefit of the doubt over the last little while instead of just making things harder for you."

  Before I'd started talking I'd hoped that he'd let the call go through to voicemail because it had seemed like it would be easier to apologize that way, but now I wasn't so sure. Saying some of these things was a lot harder than I'd realized it was going to be and it would have been nice to be able to have some kind of feedback from him as I went along.

  "I guess I'm starting to realize things about myself that have shed a new light on the last few months and I could use someone to talk to. I know you're busy, what with trying to keep the rebellion from being crushed and all, but you've already had to think through some of this stuff and while I haven't always agreed with everything you've done I can see now that there might have been aspects to the situations that I couldn't see at the time."

  I cleared my throat again and took a deep breath. "I'm worried about making mistakes. It's like there is this pressure building around me and I'm worried about where I'm headed. I'm not sure if some of the things I'm doing are justified by the end I'm pursuing. That's all. If you can find a few minutes to talk, then I'd appreciate it, but even if you can't I still want you to know that I'm sorry.

  "The apology wasn't just because I wanted something out of you. I mean it independent of all of that other stuff. Good luck and be careful."

  I hung the phone up and almost turned it off, but if I did that I might not ever turn it back on. It was a temptation, but that wouldn't be fair. I had two more calls that I needed to make still, one for someone else and one for me.

  I dialed the second number on my list and a wave of relief washed over me as Andrew answered the phone.

  "Isaac, is that you? Are you okay?"

  "Hi, Andrew. Yeah, it's me. I'm fine, how are you?"

  "Better now that I know you're still alive. I've tried calling you half a dozen times, but it just keeps going through to voicemail."

  "Yeah, I'm sorry. Ash and Alec agreed that we were going to keep our phones off for a little while for operational security reasons. I'll be available a little more now, at least for a while."

  "Are Ash and Kristin okay?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Have the three of you become separated?" The worry edging back into Andrew's voice was unmistakable. It was the worry of a parent who knew that they couldn't shield one of their children from what life was throwing at them. There was a special kind of agony there that I'd never had to experience, but I knew it was very real.

  I'd seen Andrew deal with being confined to a wheelchair for as long as I could remember. He'd been in a constant state of low-level pain, but that hadn't ever seemed to bother him as much as when Jess or I had been struggling for some reason or another.

  Andrew wasn't my biological father, but he was my parent in every way that mattered.

  "No, we haven't been separated. They're still here with me, but they're hurt. We tangled with the Coun'hij a couple of times and Kristin got hurt. Then Ash got hurt at the hospital when we were trying to get Kristin patched up. I think they'll both be okay, but they've been asleep for a long time—I guess it's some kind of coma."

  I was actually less sure than I was letting on to Andrew, but I didn't want him to worry.

  "It's not safe to be wandering around by yourself, Isaac. I'll give Alec a call and ask him to send someone down to watch your back."

  "No, there's no need, Andrew. We're holed up somewhere safe and we seem to have fallen off of the Coun'hij's radar. If Alec sends someone down they'll be in danger the entire trip down here, and even if they make it to us, they might just end up leading the bad guys to us. I'll be fine. Besides, I actually do have someone to watch my back. I'd rather have you down here with me, but she's not so bad."

  There was a catch in Andrew's voice. "I'm afraid that I wouldn't do you any good, Isaac. I'm still confined to this blasted chair. As long as whoever you've got down there is trustworthy, you're much better off with them than you would be with me. I'd just be a burden."

  My beast woke from the quiet corner of my mind where he'd been sleeping. Andrew was ours and he didn't like anyone insulting something that was ours, not even when it was Andrew insulting himself.

  "You should be out of that chair by now. Dom healed Donovan's limp, she shouldn't have any problem healing you too. Is it James? Is he forcing her to extort stuff from people before she heals them? If so I'
ll go up there and rip him in half."

  "Calm down, Isaac. James isn't the problem. If anything, he's gone above and beyond when it comes to protecting our little group. He and Dominic are running themselves ragged taking care of Addison, Samantha and me. We're constantly in motion to make sure that we aren't in any one place long enough for the Coun'hij to track us down."

  There was a pause as Andrew tried to mask the pain and longing he was feeling, but it still leaked through his voice if you knew what to listen for.

  "It seems as though Dominic's healing of Donovan and all of the wounded was something in the way of a fluke. I don't think her ability has truly vanished, but for now she's unable to access it. It's not really surprising. There aren't any other records of one of her people manifesting this kind of power, it's only reasonable to expect some false starts along the way, but I have every confidence that I'll walk again someday soon."

  Not very many people could get away with telling me what to do like that. Alec usually could, and occasionally Jess depending on the situation and how unreasonable I was being, but Andrew always got away with it when he was in parenting mode. Some people would have said that it was some kind of survival instinct designed to let the young of our species survive long enough to learn the things we needed to from our parents, but I'd always felt like it was something else.

  My beast let Andrew the parent order me around because he'd realized that while we were dominant to Andrew physically, and had been since before I'd shifted forms my very first time, he was our superior in age, experience and wisdom. My beast listened to Andrew because he respected the man Andrew had always been.

  It was hard to talk around the lump in my throat, but I forced the words out. "I'm sure that you're right. You'll be walking around again before you know it and then we'll go running across the estate together."

  "Maybe not the estate, I'm afraid that's not going to be possible for a long time, but yes, I look forward to running at your side someday soon."

  "Alec is going to win this war sooner than you realize, Andrew, and once it's over he'll go back and rebuild. You'll see."

  "I hope so, Isaac, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have my share of worries there. I don't know if you've managed to get through to Alec lately, but the number of updates from his group have slowed to the tiniest of trickles recently. It's not the kind of thing you would expect to see if the war was going well. Alec has a lot of things going for him, not the least of which is that he is on the side of justice, but the Coun'hij has had centuries to lay contingency plans for this exact eventuality."

  I closed my eyes and tried to fight off the crushing despair that Andrew's words conjured. Alec needed all of the help he could get, and I was stuck here with the lamias, fighting to the death in a series of useless challenges. I wanted to be out actively fighting the Coun'hij, wanted to be hunting down that piece of garbage Oblivion who had stolen Jess' memories.

  The only thing that kept me from screaming in frustration was the fact that the potential payoff for what I was doing was huge. If I could find out where the Coun'hij was based, then Alec could assemble his forces and wipe the bad guys out in a single afternoon of fighting.

  "I guess that means that we'll all have to work a little harder. This isn't the kind of fight you back down from."

  I chuckled at the absurdity of me giving Andrew a pep talk. I guess it was a sign I was starting to cross over into adulthood. When I was younger it always seemed like Andrew had all of the answers.

  "What's so funny, Isaac? I could use a good laugh right about now."

  I couldn't tell him the truth so I offered up the next funniest thing I could think of.

  "I called Alec a few minutes ago to apologize for being such a jerk lately and ask for help, but it turns out he's in over his head too. It's kind of funny that we can't ever get on the same page."

  Andrew let the silence between the two of us grow nearly to the point of being uncomfortable before he spoke again.

  "I'm proud of you, Isaac. I know that had to have been hard. You've had to deal with a lot of difficult problems lately, but I want you to know how impressed I've been with how you've handled them. I don't know that anyone could have done better."

  It would have been nice to just bask in his approval, but a stubborn core of honesty inside of me wouldn't let that comment stand.

  "Maybe I'm starting to handle some of them better, but the truth is that I've been doing a pretty lousy job up until now, and things with Alec aren't even the worst part of it."

  "That's not true, Isaac. The things that have happened recently aren't the kinds of things that you can just expect a person to shake off immediately."

  "Maybe, maybe not, but you can't deny that I created most of my own problems with Jess since Agony's visit."

  Andrew was silent for a minute. "I tried to tell you that dozens of times, but you weren't ready to hear it."

  "I'm still not ready to hear it, but I think I finally understand where I went wrong. I kept thinking that Jess was still inside of Jessica, that if I kept trying I'd be able to get her to come out and everything would go back to how it was before. That's not going to happen though, is it?"

  "I don't think so. Sometimes I felt the same way. There were days where the way that Jessica would smile or laugh would make me ache for my little girl, but I honestly believe that she's gone now. Jessica is a different person. She doesn't have all of the hurts that Jess carried around inside her. I loved that Jess was such a fighter, but now she doesn't remember any of that. She doesn't have to battle all of the time to deal with what Vincent tried to do to her, and I think that's probably for the best."

  "I wish I'd been the one to rip his throat out. I came so close a couple of times, but he always managed to squirm out of my reach at the last second."

  "I can understand your desire for vengeance, but I'm actually glad that it was Agony who disposed of him. I wanted to kill Vincent myself back when it first happened, but even if I'd been young and healthy I still wouldn't have been any kind of match for him. No, this way is for the best. It's best for all of us."

  "Have you talked to her since she left with…since she left?"

  "Yes, she's called a couple of times."

  "Is she okay?"

  I could tell that Andrew was picking out his words very carefully. He didn't want to lie, but he also didn't want to hurt me any more than I'd already been hurt.

  "I believe so. I think that she's feeling a little homesick or she wouldn't have called me at all. She's being even more evasive about what's going on and where she's at than you are, but I think she's doing okay, especially for being out on her own for the first time."

  "Is that all she said?"

  "No, she did tell me that almost everything that we've believed for all of these years is wrong. She made it sound like there was some grand conspiracy, but I think she's still very young and she's had even less experience out in the world on her own than she realizes."

  I almost said something about Wyatt. I didn't trust him, didn't think that anything he was involved in could be anything other than sinister, but I managed to stop myself.

  "Is she happy? More than just okay, is she really happy?"

  "I'm not sure how to answer that question, Isaac."

  "Just tell me the truth—I think I'm ready to hear it now."

  He didn't want to say it, but I needed to hear it from him if I was ever going to get to the point where I could move on, where I could stop chasing Jess and making things harder for her.

  "Yes, she's happy. Things are different than they were before. What she and Wyatt have isn't like what the two of you had. It's not mature, it hasn't stood the test of time. It's like the first bloom of springtime rather than being an ancient oak with roots that sink deep into the earth."

  "But she's happy even so?"

  "Yes. Jess was so strong that sometimes I think that both you and I forgot how hard she had to fight some days. That's all gone now and it's made a
ll of the difference for her. She was happy with you, she really was, but this is something else. It goes all the way through her. It's like she's free again."

  I sighed. "I think I knew that, but I just couldn't stop hoping that she'd come back."

  "She can't come back, Isaac. Jess is gone, and as much as we both miss her, the best we can do is just make the best accommodation possible with Jessica. It's time to let go."

  "I know, it's just so hard. I loved her so much."

  "I know you did. We both did, but at least we can take solace in the fact that she's not dead. She's different and she doesn't remember us, but at least there is some small part of her inside of Jessica. If we play our cards right then we still have a chance to see her grow into someone amazing, but things won't ever be like they were before."

  "Thank you, Andrew. I needed to hear that. I know it wasn't easy for you to tell me that, but it will make things better in the long run."

  "Are you going to be okay? I know you said that you're worried about someone leading the Coun'hij to you, but if you need me to be there for you right now then I'll chance the trip. I'll buy a car that is set up so that I can drive it with just my hands, and I'll be there within the next forty-eight hours if that is what you want."

  "No, I'll be fine. You need to stay there with Dom and James. She's going to get her healing ability figured out sooner or later and when she does you're going to get the use of your legs back so that you can help me hunt Oblivion down."

  "Vengeance isn't the answer, Isaac."

  "I know. It's not about vengeance. The Coun'hij all need to be put down though, and I'd just as soon it be us who make sure he's stopped."

  "Okay, I can respect that. If you change your mind about having me out there just let me know."

  "I will. I'll call you if I can't handle things myself."

  After the call with Andrew I wanted to just curl up in a dark corner and lick my wounds, but I couldn't do that yet. I still had one more thing to do and I knew that I had to do it then, before I lost my nerve.