“Of course and if not, we can quickly gather the energy beads,” he agreed. “Tyson is always jumping in to help everyone and it’s time to help him when he needs it.”
“Thank you,” Tyson sighed, hugging me tightly.
I nodded, looking at James. “Take a chopper down there outside of where we’re going, figure it out with Vitor. It’s the only way we’ll explain this all. Everyone armed to the teeth. I’m going, and I could pull out corrupted from San Antonio then.”
We broke up and I headed right for the armory that was also included in my castle. It was huge.
It was also the fucking apocalypse, so it better be huge.
“This is impressive,” Matilda praised as she joined me.
“Thanks. After Vitor started turning everything into energy beads to help, we got a bit better organized, and I made a lot of the right bullets instead of older guns or he even pulled casings from shooting ranges or military bases.” I nodded to the far wall where all the swords we’d picked up along the way were hanging. “Eventually, I want to come up with some sort of house crest and sword.”
“There probably is a family crest for Garner,” she told me.
I sighed as I clipped on my thigh holsters. “There is; I didn’t like it. It just doesn’t feel right. I don’t know if this was my real last name or I chose it, but it didn’t feel like me.”
“Does that question bother you often?” Nora asked gently.
“All the fucking time,” I admitted under my breath. “It seems better to start with a fresh one after my memories were wiped and it’s my tree. I wing a lot of it.”
“I was going to ask if I could see the tree,” Hanna confessed.
I nodded. “We don’t have lights out there yet.” I froze in reaching for more loaded clips. “Don’t touch the tree. I don’t know why, but I don’t want you touching it.”
“Anyone not of your court or sworn to you should never touch your tree,” Nora said firmly. “It’s a major faux paus. No one should be around it alone. It’s the coven’s life blood and sacred, not a church open to anyone. To see from a distance, yes, fine, but not be near or touch.”
“I didn’t know that. I’ll make sure we tell people, thank you.”
Vitor was nodding when I turned around, letting me know that those from his coven knew and he would tell others. I thanked him and finished getting ready.
“That’s a three-hour flight with the chopper,” Darius said as he came in to gear up. “Laredo’s closer and cleared out. Can you pull together a chopper there, we find fuel, and then you do the semi and trailer closer?”
“I think so,” I muttered, shooting him a confused glance.
“Tyson loves him. He thought Chris was gone. I couldn’t wait three hours if it were me, and he was already waiting for you to come back, plus the prep we still have. We can give them the chopper later maybe, since you said no raiding in Texas. Let’s just get him there.”
“Thanks.” I cleared my throat. “I’m glad you agree.”
He gave me a sad smile. “We agree ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s that rare one percent we don’t that spins me out and I don’t mean just what you’re thinking. I get agitated when we don’t. I didn’t realize that at first. It’s another issue for me to work on.”
I nodded, not sure what else to say. He’d never told me that.
Then again, there was probably a lot we hadn’t told each other. We were always deep in shit and not just sitting around chatting. And we hadn’t known each other too long.
I swallowed loudly. Yeah, that made me nervous with this forever thing, and here I was about to do it again with two more men. Maybe I did have a screw or five loose.
5
Cerdic got a group together to help cull bobcats and headed to Laredo with us first. Vitor and I handled the chopper, others finding the fuel at the airport, and were in the air not long after. We blurred over to somewhere closer and pulled out an electric semi and trailer, charging it as well. By that time, there were already lots of bobcats to load.
With their necks snapped. Yup, that was already more than I wanted to know and I made sure not to look.
It took less than an hour until I was landing in the chopper with James, Tyson, and a few of my security, the semi on the way right behind us and not too far out. And they must have heard the chopper coming from a ways out because we had a huge greeting party.
“Why are you back?” someone called out when they saw me and the engine was shutting down. There were several more questions about how we got a chopper and everything, but I focused on the first question.
“We have someone in our camp that knows Chris,” I answered, not sure what else to say. The guy might not want to be outed as gay. I didn’t know how it was before the apocalypse besides what people told me, but the cults were not cool with gays as some believed that was how the corrupted came about.
Sure, yeah, that made sense never.
“Make a hole,” someone barked out from behind the group. A few moments later, Chris appeared with several of his guys I’d seen earlier. “You’re back? Why? You’ve got a chopper?”
“Someone wanted to
