“Damned idiots,” Evan grumbled. He looked at Lisa. “On both sides.” He pulled Lisa up beside him with his hand tight on her waist. “They can all go to hell. We love each other and no one’s going to stop us from being together.”
“How much?” I couldn’t hold back a frustrated snarl. “How far are you willing to go? I’m willing to go to the wall for you two to have a fair chance at making it work but you’re going to have to convince me you’re in this for the long haul, not just having a lark playing at being adults or trying to piss off your parents by dating the enemy.”
Evan’s lips curled away from his teeth. “I love her. If we have to run, then we run.”
“I got that. Hell, that’s why we’re up a tree together.” I pointed down at the ground. “But you go with her on the run you’re leaving your family. There’s no going back home, there’s no happy family dinners in the near future. There’s no help from anyone, you’ll be out on your own.” I studied his face. “You ready to say goodbye to your mother forever? You ready to blow off your friends, everyone you ever knew?”
“You left,” Evan shot back. “You survived.”
“I was pushed out,” I snapped. “And you have no idea how hard it was for me to make it.” I sliced the air with my hand, talking past the sudden lump in my throat. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you, the two of you. Are you both ready to write off your families, your friends forever? Everyone you ever knew, everyone you worked and played with? Everyone?”
A panicked look came over Lisa’s face. She looked at Evan and I saw the crack in her mental wall.
“Look I get it. You’re in love,” I said. “Believe me it’s a wonderful feeling. I know that. But we all need family.” I said it again, pushing as much emotion as I could into the sentence. “We all need family. Even if we don’t like or love them at that moment we need them in our lives.”
I wasn’t just being preachy in order to keep the two of them around.
Felis relied on each other and our family ties to keep us strong, supported and secret. Every Felis tithed to their Pride to keep their Board running—they counted on having that support system around for family emergencies and for help if needed. If you lost your job the Pride would help you find one. If you got sick and couldn’t pay your bills the Pride would help out. If you needed someone found because of an emergency or crisis you called the Board and they’d declare a hunt.
I hadn’t needed the support, hadn’t been able to call on it for years. It was only recently that I’d been able to access it and only because I needed the family’s help to save a life.
Young Liam Callendar.
They’d come through, my Felis family. They’d helped find him and those responsible for his mother’s death and his kidnapping.
It was a debt I’d be a long time paying off, if I ever could.
I knew what I’d lost by being declared outcast. I wasn’t sure these kids knew what they were willing to throw away.
“We can go off the grid,” Evan said. “No one’ll find us. We’ll change our names, get fake I.D.”
I sighed. “Kit, that only works in the movies. You get a job, you rent a hotel room, you go into the doctor’s office for a cut finger you’ll be found. You have no idea how deep the family’s connections run.”
His lips curled away from his teeth. “I’m not a kit.” He stood up, balancing on the thick tree limb. “I’m a man.”
“Not for a few more days,” I shot back. “And being a man means thinking things through, not jumping at the first thing you see like you’re on your first hunt. Right now you’re up a tree without a way down except through a pair of angry thugs.”
“So what do we do?” Lisa asked. She looked at Evan. “I don’t want to go home. Not this way.”
“First,” I held up a finger, “first we get you out of this tree and out of the line of fire. Get you someplace safe where we can sit and think without me getting splinters up my ass. Give me some breathing space and let me see what I can arrange to make everyone happy.”
“Why should we trust you?” Evan said.
I spread my hands. “I’m the best one you’ve got.” I locked eyes with the young man. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m open to hearing it.”
That shut him up for a few minutes as he glared at me.
Evan broke eye contact and turned back to Lisa, who was busy packing up the tarp, folding the dark blue plastic into a fat square and putting it back in her pack along with the bungee cords. It was pretty obvious who the organized one in this couple was.
She let out an annoyed huff. “I can’t believe my dad sent someone after me,” she said. “Who is it?”
“Eddie Longstrand.” I nodded at Evan. “And your peeps sent Nathan McCallister, a fucking thug.” I touched the side of my head. “Slammed me into a wall when we were in the parking lot.”
“That was you in the parking lot?” His expression turned from surly to sadness. “I’m sorry about that. I scented him and ran, didn’t even think about the commotion behind me.” He looked at Lisa. “Remember I told you there was some sort of fight in the lot? That must have been her.”
“Oh.” She turned her attention to me. “Are you okay? Evan said there was an ambulance.”
“I’m okay. Head’s too thick to know when to crack.” I mimicked Hank’s earlier joke of knocking on my skull and immediately regretted it when my knuckles hit an egg-sized lump. “Damned hard bodycheck, though.”
“Yeah.” Evan shook his head. “He’s a punk all right. Little weasel’s been slithering around my family for years. Married my cousin, widowed a few years later.” A puzzled look crossed his face. “At least I think it was my cousin.”
I resisted the urge to laugh. Instead I pulled out my cell phone and tapped a text message to Bran, giving him an update on the situation.
The response flew back a few seconds later.
DON’T SEE ANYONE BUT NOT SURPRISED. YOU GONNA ALL RUN?
I hesitated before answering, running through scenarios in my mind. Even on my best day I couldn’t hold off two enforcers and I couldn’t ask Bran to take them on. The kids were willing and eager to fight but these were two battle-hardened men who wouldn’t mind drawing blood if it accomplished their mission to retrieve the kids. Dragging Evan and Lisa back bloody and beaten was a perfectly acceptable option to them.
I’M OPEN TO IDEAS.
Bran’s response came back a minute later.
STAY THERE. I HAVE ONE.
I looked down between the leaves and spotted him over near the fountain, strolling casually as if he had nothing better to do than play on his cell phone. I hoped he had a better idea than sitting here until dawn. I wasn’t sure how long the enforcers’ patience would keep them in the bushes and hidden.
I already had proof McCallister had all the self-control of a whiny brat.
The pair were waiting for everyone around to go to sleep or at least be too tired to take notice of strange things happening in the couples tree. A little noise, a little growling and anyone still awake would think someone was getting it on with their partner instead of a double kidnapping.
The comforting thing was no one would be killed. Felis didn’t kill Felis.
It didn’t mean there wasn’t a chance of injuries, however. And if it took a broken arm to get Evan back to his family and a twisted ankle to get Lisa back to the Middlestons, I had no doubt they’d do it.
We waited in silence. I stretched out my legs, working out a possible cramp. It’d been a long time since I’d climbed a tree and I didn’t miss it a bit.