Chapter 161
They were basically out in the middle of nowhere, and Elliott assumed they were probably close to twenty miles away from the nearest town. He wondered how long it might take him to run there, should he bolt away as soon as the Healer was done rearranging his face, but a man was only as good as his word, even if most of the words coming out of his mouth lately had been lies.
The doc was shorter than him, so Elliott crouched a little bit so he’d have a good view of what he was doing. “Now, don’t make me too handsome,” Elliott joked. “I don’t want to have to beat the ladies off with a stick like Prince Charming in there.”
Jamie snickered. “I don’t think you’ll be calling him that once you get to know him better.” He reached up and put his hands on Elliott’s face, and instantly the pain went away. The doctor tweaked his nose back into place, and then gave a satisfying nod before staggering back a few steps like he was suddenly drunk or too tired to stand.
“You okay, Doc?” he asked, not sure if he should put his arms around the guy or just leave him the hell alone.
“I’m fine. But you got shotgun.” Jamie stepped out of the way so Elliott could move and then pulled open the car door.
“Thanks, man,” Elliott said, meaning his face, and Jamie gave him the same little wave, like it wasn’t any big deal, that he’d given Aaron and then climbed into the back seat, not quite sitting but not laying down either.
Aaron wasn’t even looking at him, and once again, Elliott contemplated taking off for the hills. Something told him even if the man behind the driver’s seat didn’t have his head turned he still knew exactly where he was and what he was doing. Reluctantly, Elliott walked around and got into the passenger seat, and Aaron hit the gas pedal.
“We’re goin’ a little fast ain’t we?” Elliott asked. It was dark outside though it was more morning than night at this point, and he imagined Aaron had the same night vision as he had, which made his ability to see the curves in the road better than any human, but it still seemed like the car was going faster than it should be.
“I’ve got it,” Aaron assured him in a calm voice. “This car can go a lot faster than anything you sell at your lot.”
“Really?” Elliott asked, surprised. He remembered being in that car with Janette and Jordan as a little boy thinking the car was going faster than he was used to, but that was a long time ago. He decided to take Aaron’s word for it. “So… what am I going to be doing once we get to KC?”
“Well, we’ll give you a tour of the training facilities and the apartment building where’d you be living, if you choose to stay. You can meet the other team members and even come on a hunt with us if you want to. Technically, you would have to complete some of your training, but since you’ve had a little bit of experience in the field, I’d let you observe so long as you didn’t get involved. We have quite a fleet of cars you might be interested in seeing, as well as other vehicles. Planes, utility vehicles….”
“Motorcycles,” Jamie chimed in, his voice groggy.
Elliott chuckled. “I think I’ve seen enough of those for a while.”
“Yeah, ours are a lot nicer than anything those guys had at the club, though,” Aaron assured him. “Our campus takes up a couple of hundred acres on the outskirts of Kansas City. We have state of the art training equipment, and we require all new Hunters and Guardians to complete training before we assign them to a team. So people are flown in all the time from around the world. Most stay for a few weeks or months, and then we send them back out. Our core team is small right now, and I usually like to keep it that way, though we are always in desperate need of good Hunters.”
“You do know I’m a Guardian, right?” Elliott teased.
“Yes, but Janette said you can lie like no other, and I caught a pretty good glimpse of that tonight, so that’s really why we are hoping you’ll at least give us a fair shot. We can really use someone who can run interference. I can do it, but not as effectively as you can, and most of the time I’m too busy doing pretty much everything else.”
“Hey, I do a few things,” Jamie reminded him, still tired.
“Right. I don’t put people back together.” Aaron looked at him again in the mirror. “You okay?”
“Yeah—no big deal. Just give me a minute.”
“So… this always happen when you use your powers?” Elliott asked Jamie.
“Yep. More I use them, the more worn out I am. Took more to heal your ugly face than I imagined it would,” he snickered.
“Man, you should be nice to me. I might decide to stick around. You’re going to want me on your side.”
Chuckling, Jamie said, “Believe me, I’m not wanting for friends.”
“Everybody loves Jamie,” Aaron agreed. “He’s the most powerful Healer we’ve ever seen.”
“So there are others?”
“In the world, but he’s the only one on our KC team,” Aaron explained. “We have a tech guy, Christian, and then there’s Hannah, who used to be a psychologist, so she’s the one who keeps us calm. Her talent is a little like yours, except she regulates emotions. I, on the other hand, can sense emotions, which helps me to predict people’s actions. We have a few Hunters, but no one stellar at the moment. We haven’t found anyone to replace Janette since she stepped down as Hunter Leader, and I’m trying to do it all myself, which isn’t a whole lot of fun.”
“Janette stepped down?” Elliott asked, a little surprised to hear that.
“Yeah, after Jordan was killed, she just didn’t want to do it anymore. She still does some consulting and actually handles a lot of scheduling for me. But… it’s not the same.”
Elliott absorbed that for a while. So this guy really was in charge. Of everything. And he’d dropped it all to come after him. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and yet it had happened just the same. He let that simmer for a while as Aaron drove on in silence.
They turned onto a major highway, which was nearly abandoned at that time of night, and Elliott swiveled to see Jamie was asleep, which he thought was just as well. Elliott hadn’t slept much since he’d Transformed and had just figured that was part of it, but as much as he found himself more productive this way, he did envy those who could sleep. “Perchance to dream,” he muttered.
He didn’t mean for Aaron to hear him, but he did. “Yep. I know. Sometimes I’m jealous of Jamie’s ability to sleep, but then, he has no choice.”
Elliott nodded, hearing the same sentiment in the other Guardian’s voice. “How old are you anyhow, man? I mean, I suppose you know everything there is to know about me, don’t you?”
“I know enough,” Aaron replied, adjusting in his seat. “I was born in Killarney, Ireland, in 1829.”
“Get out of town!” Elliott exclaimed, causing Jamie to stir in the back seat. “Seriously? You’re like—”
“One hundred and fifty-six,” Aaron answered for him.
“No, shit? I wouldn’t have guessed a day over a hundred and fifty-five, tops.”
Aaron laughed. “Well, you know, I try to get to the gym at least a few times a week.”
Elliott stifled his laughter the best he could, trying not to disturb Jamie, but he found the demeanor in which Aaron delivered the remark far more humorous than the words themselves. He liked this guy already. It had been a long time since he allowed himself to make a real friend. After Reggie, that had been difficult. At least Aaron wasn’t likely to die any time soon—or at all. “What about him? How old’s the doc?”
“Jamie is one hundred and seventeen, I believe.”
“Unbelievable. You known him a long time?”
“Yeah, you could say that. Christian is the oldest member on our team, though.”
“Right. He was in the Revolutionary War, wasn’t he?”
“You have a good memory,” Aaron replied, likely figuring Janette or Peggy had told him that when Elliott first found out about the Ternion. “Christian’s a little different. Sometimes you just have to give him some space.”
“Great,” Elliott muttered. He had remembered there was something about the guy he didn’t like the first time he heard his name. “Well, I don’t think it matters since I’m not planning on sticking around anyhow.”
Aaron chuckled again but didn’t make another comment about it, and the car continued to eat up the road as Kansas City drew nearer and Oklahoma faded into the background.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
