“What are you afraid of, Meg?” Cole came sprinting up behind her. Since becoming a metahuman, he had taken up running more than any other physical activity and excelled at it. His long legs kept up easily with Meg’s powerful strides.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she breathed, avoiding eye contact. She’d seen his crisp, light-green eyes and knew the effect they had on her. She was in no mood to be affected by anything or anyone.
“Go away, Cole,” she snapped and turned sharply down a side trail that led around the finally visible Lake Tucumcari.
“We don’t have to talk at all, Meg. I’ll just run with you. No worries, okay?”
“You know I could force you to leave. Heck, I could force you to cluck like a chicken,” Meg raised her brow—more danger, less playfulness in her eyes. “Do yourself a favor, turn around and run back to the room.”
“Or you could just let me run with you and ignore me if you want.” Cole tried to sound more playful than terrified at her partially veiled threat.
“I’m only warning you out of courtesy. Go back to the room. Now,” she ordered.
Cole stopped running and watched Meg turn away from him, increasing her speed.
“Okay, so thanks for not doing that whole mind control thing on me. I’ll just wait for you back at the room,” he called after her with a wave of his hand she never bothered to see.
Cole watched her long tresses fly behind her, a wild chestnut horse’s mane billowing as she ran. She was breathtaking.
If it were only her looks that were noteworthy, Cole could have resisted, but her fighter’s spirit was so damn sexy to him. Having watched her level a squadron of soldiers with her words just made goose bumps shiver to existence all over him.
“Stop staring at me and GO!” she yelled over her shoulder.
“Was I? Sorry,” he called back. He turned and sprinted to the motel to wait for her.
Meg’s long strides ate the path, hungry for more. She felt like a wild cat, prowling the night with her sixth-sense. She could wield her gift with precision, tossing it like a harpoon into any house she passed, but she was learning to be selective these days. She appreciated the nuggets of space everyone else’s emotions took up in her psyche and was learning to be careful about filling her mind too quickly, with too many traumas felt vicariously.
Though she could still wrap her warm, white blanket around the depression and sadness others felt, she had matured enough to know she couldn’t rescue every lost soul, not even if she spent her lifetime doing just that. Her primary concern was her family’s survival.
She pulled her shoulders back, sensing a powerful kaleidoscope of an emotional signature. She was attacked by an assailant who leaped from a line of bushes. She had time to take one last deep breath before he stepped from the shadows and yanked her to him, crushing a cloying cloth against her face.
Meg instinctively struggled but it was short lived. The effects of the neurotropic paralyzing agent were too powerful. The last empath reading she could decode was of her attacker. The kaleidoscope of colors was layered in static. This was one of Williams’ rabid dogs and he’d come for her.
Too bad she couldn’t fight him. Her arms hung useless at her sides, her breathing slowed as she stared at the man about to take her away from her family and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“You may not know me, but I know all about you, Naya Arkdone.”
Chapter 31 Home is Where the Children Are
Instead of feeling relief as the taxi turned down the gravel road leading to their sprawling Texas ranch, Margo felt restless. The new sensations she could feel from the waist down were now more like pins and needle-like aches after the physically demanding day she’d been through. But it wasn’t just her body aching. The worst thing was her mind. All the racing thoughts—her adrenaline-based, fear-laced thoughts had worn her nerves raw.
She didn’t feel as if she was coming home. She watched as the familiar clay-colored brick rolled into view through the windshield and stifled a groan of misery. As happy as she was to be back, this wasn’t home. It couldn’t be home. Her family was what made this place home. Without them, it was just an empty dwelling with the haunting echoes of times gone by. Home is an amalgamation of the souls who lived there.
The older Hispanic cab driver insisted on helping her to the front door and waited until she’d opened it before he dropped her bag just inside, shuffled away, waved and drove off.
She stayed for a moment at the entryway of the home she’d shared with her Theo and their children (and any wayward metahuman who’d come their way) and reminded herself to be thankful for their blessings.