Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
But that aside, he showered while I slept, and there’s an anxious energy about him. “What’s happening?”
“We’re leaving,” he says, the tiniest innuendo of amusement lingering in his tone. “He motions to his bedroom. “You have twenty minutes to get ready. There are clothes on the bed. Pack light, if you pack at all.”
As if I have more than a few small things. As if I haven’t left my life behind. We haven’t talked about the longevity of my plight, either, and the current press for time hardly seems the best moment for questions. At this point, I’d just like to know where we’re headed and why Micah, as Overseer, believes a middle-of-the-night escape is necessary. But having learned he’s more coded messages than answers, I don’t bother to ask.
I head toward the bedroom—his bedroom—and once inside, I find a stack of clothes lying on the bed. Apparently, he’s not only dictating my comings and goings, he’s dressing me, too.
Twenty minutes later to the minute, I step into the living room, twinning with him in black jeans, a black tee, and combat boots. I haven’t bothered with a bag. My toothbrush is in my pocket. I left the extra clothing. Nothing else is mine. Micah is waiting on me in the living room, the black zip-up jacket he’s sporting indicating his impatience to depart. He motions to the couch, where another jacket awaits me. “You’re going to need that,” he states. “It’s snowing, and we’re on a motorcycle.”
Wonderful, I think. A motorcycle. Snow. This Texan is about to freeze her ass off, but if leaving this place keeps me alive, I can deal with the cold. I don’t think Micah is worried about me, though. I think he’s worried about his people, and if he’s right, if I’m a danger to his garrison, I will happily endure bad weather to get the heck out of here.
I bundle up, and without a word, he’s striding toward the door, expecting that I will follow in his actions. By the time he’s in the hallway, I’m on his heels, biting back questions. Even in a courtroom, silence is golden, and I can’t imagine that’s not true in a garrison with armed Nephilim who think I’m a Jeremy protégé.
With zipped lips, I follow Micah’s lead, in step with him as we weave through the hallways and eventually end at an elevator, no doubt leading to the surface. We step inside, facing forward, and neither of us speaks, but the tiny box is an inferno in the thick jacket I’m certain I’ll be thankful for soon. The car sways with the path upward, and it’s quite clear in my mind that logically, he could be delivering me to some kind of prison or my demise.
But how can I want to free myself when I’ve seen and felt the serpent inside me?
The elevator doors open, and he glances over at me. “Stay close.”
As if I’m going to run off in the middle of a bunch of Nephilim who might or might not want me dead, I think.
His lips quirk as if he’s read my mind, but if he’s doing so, it’s in a sneaky, undetectable way. As if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, be it because he really does or he thinks he does, he counters with, “You should work on your facial expressions and hiding your emotions and opinions. You don’t. At all.”
I draw my spine straight. “That’s not true. My courtroom persona is well-practiced.”
“We’re not in a courtroom. We’re in a war between angels and demons. You’d be smart to remember that.”
A war between angels and demons.
Bile gathers in my throat, burning a path down and settling in my belly. This is my new life, and I’m not sure if the war is happening around me or inside me. Or perhaps both.
“You coming?”
I blink away my thoughts to find Micah standing outside the car and holding the door for me.
I double-step and join him, stepping out into what turns out to be the same open warehouse where we’d first entered the garrison. At this late hour, the silence is thick, and the heavy overhead lighting has been replaced with floor-level soft beams of light illuminating our shadowy path forward. We weave through a path of motorcycles and trucks until we reach a steel door.
Micah keys a code into a panel and opens it as a biting gust of icy wind greets us, a drastic contrast to the cloak of warmth that had enveloped me moments before. While I shiver and dig deeper into my coat, Micah doesn’t react, seemingly oblivious to the shift in temperature. He eases outside, surveys a bit, or so it seems, and then motions me forward.
I steel myself for the bitter cold and inch through the small passage of his body and the wall that he’s allowed me. In my mind, I’m aware that he never shies away from our nearness, and in that moment, I believe this to be a strategic way to shelter his people and keep me out of the hands of his enemy. I comfort myself with the thought that if he believed I was one with the serpent, he’d find a way to achieve the same while creating distance between us.