Ryan looked dejected that we weren’t the cavalry. “I’m sorry kid,” I told him. “You do
I involuntarily staggered back a step as if he had given me a physical blow. “How… how could you know?” “She keeps showing up in my dreams,”
“Yeah. Ryan’s kind of psychic,” Dizz said half-jokingly and half with awe.
“Psychic?” I asked Ryan. “Anything else you could tell me?”
“Yeah,” he said solemnly. “You shouldn’t follow her.”
CHAPTER FIVE – BT and Meredith
“I’m going with you,” Meredith, Ron’s second oldest told BT as he placed some ammo cans in the back of the SUV.
BT stood up, towering over the girl. “I’m more the solo type,” he told her sternly.
“Oh, you’re all lone wolf and shit?” she said sarcastically.
“I am a giant man. I know this, so why are all you Talbots not afraid of me?”
“What time are we leaving?” she asked, not in the least nonplussed.
“Your father isn’t going to let you go.”
“I’m 23, I’m pretty sure I can make my own decisions,” she said, poking a finger at his sternum.
“Wonderful, looking forward to the company,” BT said without much conviction.
BT would have left hours earlier if not for the fight that raged in the Talbot household. Meredith had made her decision known and Ron had snapped.
“I am 23 years old, Dad. I am by all conventional methods of societal acknowledgement an adult.” “Don’t go pulling that psycho-babble mumbo jumbo you learned in college, that I paid for by the way, on me. This isn’t telling me that you’re going to Paris for the summer. It’s war out there, Meredith, people are dying!” Ron yelled.
“Yeah and Uncle Mike is going to try and do something about it!” she yelled back. “And I want to be part of it!” “I understand wanting to be a part of something bigger than yourself, I really do,” he said, taking it down a few notches, going with the reasoning approach. “But getting yourself killed is not a solution to the problem.” “Is that what you think is going to happen with Uncle Mike?” Meredith asked. Ron’s ensuing silence answered her. “Then he definitely needs my help.” Ron could only shake his head. BT stood at the doorway to the living room as Meredith passed by.
Ron turned to BT, eyes red rimmed with worry.
“I will not let anything happen to her,” BT said. “I promise you.”
Ron nodded once, emotions choking his thoughts. Words would have pooled with tears if he had tried to speak.
Ten minutes later the SUV was packed and ready to go. Meredith climbed into the driver’s seat before BT could protest.
“You remember to call me every night. Do you understand?” Ron asked leaning into the driver’s side window.
“We will, Dad,” Meredith answered impatiently.
“BT?”
“Yes Dad,” BT answered.
“Two smart asses, fantastic,” Ron said as he stood back up.
“You’re letting her go?” Nancy, Ron’s wife asked incredulously.
“I tried to stop her, I did. You know how strong-willed she is.”
Nancy could only nod. Even from an early age Meredith had been an independent soul. Nancy had never won an argument with her daughter, but they had from time to time come to a mutual agreement that they would stop fighting. Nancy placed her head on Ron’s shoulder as she watched her daughter prepare to leave.
Meredith waved to her assembled family and placed the truck in gear. She looked over to BT and kept staring.
“What?” BT asked.
“Seatbelt.”
“What about it?”
“I’m not going anywhere until you put yours on,” she said stubbornly.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
BT stared at her long and hard. When he realized intimidation wasn’t going to work, he reached behind him and grabbed the buckle. He pulled it across his chest and down towards the locking mechanism; it came up 4” short of its goal. “Can’t,” he said triumphantly.
“Suck your gut in,” Meredith told him.
“I’m not forcing this thing, it’ll cut off my circulation!”
“Then you might as well get out now.”
“Something wrong honey?” Nancy asked.
“Yeah, apparently someone liked home cooking a little bit more than they should have, Mom!” Meredith yelled back.
“Fine!” BT said, driving the buckle into the lock.
“You look like you’re wearing dental floss,” Meredith chuckled. “Don’t you feel safer now?” “Just drive,” BT said through gritted teeth.
“You’re no fun,” Meredith said as she took her foot off the brake. She could not help but feel that they were the cavalry and they would get there in the nick of time. She hoped h istory would prove she was right.
Eliza and Tomas - Interlude
Tommy sat alone in the dark. The room was preternaturally cold; the radiator he was chained to gave forth no heat. Blood and snot intermingled on his top lip, pooling before running into his mouth. The thick liquid did little to quench his insatiable thirst. Fear pressed in from every angle, insidiously worming its way into every exposed crevice in his unnaturally strong mental armor.
“Hello Tomas,” a dark voice issued forth from a darker recess in the room.
He knew he was slipping, he had not even noticed when his sister had entered the room. Tomas had stopped pleading with her days ago when he realized the entity that looked like his sister carried none of her legacy traits.
“It is time,” Eliza told him.
“God is mad, Lizzie,” Tommy sputtered.
When Eliza laughed, a cruel thin metallic sound issued forth. Tommy did not fight when she gripped the top of his head and forced it to the side. As she leaned down, Tommy’s screams filled the night.
CHAPTER SIX – Alex, Paul and Company
“Marta, are you alright?” Alex asked his wife with concern. She had been tossing and turning for hours and now moans of despair where coming from deep within her chest.
“NO I WILL NOT!” She said forcibly, sitting straight up.
“Honey it’s me. Mi amor.”
Eyes wide open, lips pulled back, teeth clenched; terror strained her features. Marta took a half-hearted swipe at Alex before realizing who he was. She stiffened when he hugged her.
“Are you alright?” Alex asked, breaking the embrace to look into her eyes.
Marta’s head sagged down. “My head hurts Alex,” she said, rubbing her temples.
“Do you want me to get some aspirin Marta?”
“It’s a deeper pain than that Alex, I don’t know how to explain it. I used to have migraines when I was a
