Ready to go, I turned in the direction of my small cabin door, which was right next to where she was standing.
“I assumed so,” I replied.
She stared at me, blue eyes flashing with an emotion I didn’t understand.
“You know I never used to worry like this? I was a lot more carefree, headstrong, reckless,” she intoned with a laugh. “But then I had you three, Arlen had Nyx and Sam. Blue had the twins and Bella.” She pushed off the wall and came to stand in front of me. Since we were the same height, that put us eye to eye.
“I did come in here because I was worried, but it wasn’t just for Bella. You may be our princess, but first and foremost you’re my baby girl. Somewhere along the way, I missed how grown you’ve gotten.”
She reached out and placed my ash blonde hair over my shoulder. “I can only hope life doesn’t hit you as hard as it did me,” she wistfully stated.
I didn’t have the perfect words to soothe whatever it was she was feeling or what brought all this on.
Admittedly I’d never left the compound without a flock of acolytes surrounding me. But I could do this. I’d be back in less than eight hours if, Belladonna and her group had gone where I thought they had. Maybe quicker if I intercepted them on their way back.
My baby sister did not need to be off the compound. She could handle herself fine, but that was in training. I didn’t want her finding out how drastically different that was firsthand, not yet.
That thought had me understanding exactly what Mom was feeling, or at least a good chunk of it. I hadn’t experienced any of the hardships she or Dad had, but I’d heard all the stories, though—about, Aunt Arlen and, Blue too.
I wished I could tell her she did not need to worry, bu
t I wouldn’t make a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.
She knew that too. Still, I felt the need to do something, so I wrapped my arms around her and simply said, “I’ll be back, with Bella.”
This I could promise.
Unless I died, nothing would stop me from finding my baby sister and bringing her home.
Chapter Three
Tres
Just like Dad had said, the shiny black XL sat idling in front of the main house. The Savage insignia—the same Sigil above my bed—painted on the side, stood out like a beacon.
He had failed to mention Luce would be following behind me in his heavily armored Jeep, accompanied by both Butcher and Cameron.
I ignored all three of them and their victorious grins. Whatever, this wasn’t a big deal to me. Luce and I were like Ying and Yang for the most part, when he wasn’t intentionally goading me.
“I got two cans of Diesel loaded in the rear,” he said as I tossed my bag into the backseat of the XL.
“Hopefully we won’t need either one,” Nyx replied from the other side of the large SUV. Charon, her crow, sat perched on the roof as if he knew what was going on.
“Yeah, that would be bad,” I agreed.
We could idle for hours off one gallon. If we burned through a full tank before we got home, then something would have to of gone very wrong.
“You ready?” I asked Annie through the driver side window.
“Yes,” was her monotone response a second before the glass began to rise.
Her behavior was as it always had been. Annie was Annie, and beneath her acolyte robe was a sawed-off shotgun she’d built herself, and I’d yet to see her miss a shot.
The front door of the house swung open and, Dad, Uncle Grimm, and Uncle Cobra all stepped out together.
Mom, who’d come up shortly before I did, followed with Arlen and Blue.
They stared at our group, and we stared back at them.