“I want to do it,” Rachel stated immediately. “There has to be a reason my family was murdered. Someone knows something. If Horatio has been conducting his own research for years, he’s already ahead of us. We have the cards. We should stack our own deck.”
I looked at all the guys. “It’s not up to me anymore,” I stated quietly. “Any decision I make effects my connections as well. It’s something we should decide together.”
“I say yes,” Noah stated immediately.
Drake, Jaxson, and Troy nodded their assent.
“Is it just one vial of blood you will need?” Remy asked hesitantly. “I don’t want them to become human pin cushions.”
“I think the children should be able to make a decision as well,” Jace added. “They’re young, but they are wise beyond their years. They’ve been through a lot.”
“Then we will ask them tomorrow and give you a decision by Monday,” I stated.
“Perfect.” Cora nodded in understanding. “That will give me time to get back into the lab and make sure I have everything I need. Can I bring other people onto my project?”
“They will have to be people we trust,” Will assented. “However, I only want you drawing their blood, and I don’t want any of their names on the labels. We can assign them numbers, letters, anything but their names.”
“It’s too bad we don’t know what he’s been working on.” Beth frowned as she took a sip of her coffee.
I don’t think too many people caught the look that passed between Steven and Will.
Chapter 16
I woke up early despite getting to bed so late. I felt somewhat anxious. The kids would have to be approached today about getting their blood drawn. They were also meeting the team that would be assigned to them. A special allowance was being made to allow them to come home every night. Their team would take them to school, stay with them during the school day, and then return them to us every night. Will was spending most of the day finding a tutor for Micah, so he could hopefully be ready to start real school by next fall.
I laid there for a while before I finally gave up any hopes of returning to sleep. I got up and put on some running gear. I was exiting my room and heading down the stairs when I ran into Collin.
“Hey,” he said as he awkwardly shifted from one foot to the other, grasping the back of his neck. “Can we talk?”
I scrutinized him for a moment, before I nodded. “I was going to go for a run, but I wanted to grab a banana.”
“Umm, how are you feeling?” he hedged.
“Can you just cut to the chase? What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked as I opened a banana and poured myself a glass of orange juice.
“I just wanted to tell you how very sorry I am that I was involved in separating you from your connections. After being here for less than 24 hours and the acceptance I’m receiving, and despite the circumstances I came here in, I could understand why you chose Will’s side,” he said.
I started to make coffee, knowing some of the others would be up soon. “I wasn’t picking a side,” I told him tartly. “Even if I hadn’t met Will first, I would have known Horatio wasn’t a man I would ever want to work with.”
He sighed. “I guess I was blinded by the money, I chose to turn a blind eye. I’m sorry, and I wish there was a way I could prove it to you.”
“Will isn’t paying you, so what’s your motivating factor now?” I said bluntly.
“I need to right my wrongs,” he said decisively. “I know it’s… too late for some of the situations I had a hand in, but if Will would allow me, I want to help in whatever way possible.”
“How can we trust you?” I asked him, even though I felt the sincerity in his words.
“I want to earn that trust,” Collin said passionately. “I know I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve any of this, but I want to try.”
I scrutinized him for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s not just me you will have to win over. You hurt a lot of us with this deception, not to mention what you’ve been doing behind Drake’s back,” I said quietly.
Collins eyes grew wide, before he looked down at his feet. “We were at a party together one day, and we both got toasted. She came on to me, upset that Drake was talking about his connection again.” When I went to speak he held up his hand. “I’m not excusing our behavior. It wasn’t right. I should have told her if she wanted to continue to be with me, she needed to break up with him. I haven’t talked to her since all of this went down, but I know I need to call it quits.”
“You need to tell him,” Remy said resolutely as he came around the corner dressed in a pair of running shorts (despite the chilly weather outside) and a hooded sweatshirt.
“Did you?” Collin didn’t look like he was being confrontational, but he was calling Remy out.
Remy scrutinized him. “We tell him today,” he stated resolutely.
Collin looked down at his feet but nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“She’s pregnant,” I pushed my thoughts onto Remy. “At least that’s what Ella told me once.”
His eyes widened for a moment as he turned to me. “Going for a run? Want to join me?”
I nodded, “That sounds great.”
We left the house, and I fell into step with him. “Whose baby is it?” he asked as we got away from the house.
“Collin’s,” I stated. “At least that’s what Ella told me. Although, not all her predictions came true.”
He grunted. “Don’t they have those fetal DNA test? If she says she is, we can tell Drake we think she should get one taken.”
I sighed. “He might. I don’t know if the results would matter all that much. He has barely talked to me since I returned. I’m not sure if he’ll stop loving her. This time.”
“He will,” Remy said with conviction. “Maybe not right away, but you are our connected. He won’t be able to deny it for long, especially now all the connections have been made.”
“Does it feel…different?” I asked mystified.
He nodded. “I can definitely feel it now, and I’m sure all the other guys do too. I almost feel…invincible.”
When we got back, most of the house was up. Jaxson, Noah, Rachel, and Jemmy were known to sleep in on the weekends. The children were already up watching cartoons. Micah was in the middle of the ‘puppy’ pile up, and I knew he was happy to have found his family.
Drake was setting out the ingredients for breakfast, and I jumped in to help him, although I was in desperate need of a shower. “I think I need to go grocery shopping today,” he smiled wryly as he opened the refrigerator.
“Well, we kind of doubled in size,” I giggled. “Sorry about that.”
He looked at me with an inscrutable look. “There’s nothing that you need to be sorry about. I’m sorry if I’ve seemed…distant. I knew you would come one day. I had hoped, but now that reality is here, I’m trying to adjust.”
“Because of Rose,” I stated.
He nodded.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just continued to fry up the sausage and bacon while Drake began making eggs. He had already asked the children how they like their eggs, so he was beginning with theirs.