Page 43 of Deadly Reckoning (Broken Ashes #7)

Neith

“I suppose it depends on how closely we’re being watched,” I reply, with a frown.

“That’s a good point,” Coen agrees.

“Shit, what about the wolves?” River curses. “We’ve got to sort that case out. We need to be here to do that.”

“Good point,” Van agrees. He glances back at Doc, “Doc, can you do your thing and take us home? I’ve pulled into a deserted clearing and there’s no one else around.”

Doc nods, and it only takes a few moments before I feel his magic build before he smiles and says, “Done.”

We all climb out of the van and head inside, heading straight for the kitchen and carrying on the conversation, while Reed and Raiden start to make drinks for everyone.

“I don’t want to send another team to deal with the wolf sales. I feel like we owe Rana more than that,” I say, replying to River.

“Plus, there’s the feeling that you had that we should be the ones to investigate it in the first place,” Griff adds.

“Do you still have that feeling?” Doc asks me.

I nod, “Yes. I can’t explain it, and it’s more than just wanting to do right by Rana.”

“Magical instincts tend to work that way. We would be silly not to listen to them,” Evander shrugs. “Which means that we still need to work the wolves case.”

“But Murray is a big threat, and we need to bring her in for questioning sooner rather than later,” Raiden points out with a frown.

“It would help if we had more information about the sales from Rana,” Reed suggests. “At least that way we could maybe make a plan or figure out how long we have to stay here before we can then go and find Murray.”

Griff shakes his head and opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, his eyes turn completely black and he freezes.

“This can’t be good,” Doc mutters as he leans forward in his chair and watches Griff with worry.

Fortunately, this vision doesn’t seem to last as long as the last one did. However, I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not.

“We have to go to Ireland as soon as we can,” Griff says immediately. “It’s not just Pete and Murray, there’s more.” He looks at me, “Message Rana and ask her to send whatever information she can send to you now.”

I don’t ask questions, I know that there’s only so much that he can tell us anyway, and to be honest, I’m surprised that he’s been able to tell us that much.

Pulling out my phone, I send a message to Calia asking her to send me Rana’s number, since Rana herself hasn’t messaged me yet, and Calia is the one who would have provided her with a phone and most likely has been calling to check in on her regularly.

“As soon as Calia messages me back, I’ll message her,” I tell him.

He nods, “There’s not really much else that I can say.

Not because I can’t tell you because it’s a vision and changing fate and all that shit, but because I didn’t see much.

I know that we need to be there for more than just Pete and Murray, that it’s really important that we find Pete.

I think they might be together, but I can’t say for certain, and I can’t say where.

Ireland's not exactly small. I also know with absolute certainty that we need to leave by tomorrow evening.”

“That soon?” Coen asks with surprise.

Griff nods, “Yes, there’s no wriggle room.”

“Alright, I’ll send Sully a message back and have him get the portal ready for tomorrow afternoon, before anyone arrives, and so that we have plenty of time before the evening deadline,” I say as I quickly type out another message.

“That’s a good idea,” Reed agrees, making me smile.

I get a text back from Sully almost immediately, “He said he’s already preparing it, and that everything will be ready for when we get there.”

“That’s great, at least that’s one thing that we don’t have to worry about,” Evander says.

My phone buzzes, “That’s Calia, she’s sent me Rana’s number. I’ll send her a message now, hopefully she will reply fairly quickly.”

“If we’re supposed to be in Ireland by tomorrow evening at the latest, and Neith is still certain that we’re supposed to be working the wolves case, then there must be a way that we can work it from Ireland,” Doc suggests.

“Well, to begin with, it’s mainly going to be information gathering, and possibly looking over files if any of the names that Rana gives us are already known to us,” River starts.

“We can do that from Ireland and around looking for Pete and Murray. It’s not like we’re going to find them straight away. ”

“That’s a good point,” Raiden agrees. “We have the list that Neith got from Dimitri with the places that Casimir goes to that we need to check out as well.”

“We can get Ty to get some teams to stake the places out, there’s a very slim chance that he’s going to be at any of them,” Griff replies.

Evander pulls out his phone, “I’ll give him the heads up now and send the list over to him so everything can be put in place quickly.”

“What else do we need to sort out before we have to go?” I ask with a frown.

“The blood samples,” Reed frowns as he looks at Doc and Ransom.

“I’ve got samples from both the supernatural yesterday and obviously Dimitri,” Doc says. “But there is absolutely no way that Ransom is going to be able to do his thing before tomorrow afternoon. It’s dinner time now.”

Ransom shakes his head, “There’s absolutely no chance that I could do it. I’ve got to sort the wards out still as well, and I need my lab for that.”

“Can we take it with us?” I ask. “Obviously not the whole room, but the bits that you need?”

Ransom frowns slightly, “It’s not going to be easy, but I’m going to have to figure out a way to do it. The wards and the bloods need to be done as soon as possible, they aren’t going to wait until we get back from Ireland. Especially since we don’t know how long we’re going to be there for.”

“I’m going to have to do the same with the books,” Raiden says suddenly.

“Don’t forget, I can bring people back here to grab things if we need them. This isn’t a permanent thing. It’s not like we go to Ireland, and we can’t come back to the house again,” Doc reminds us all.

I don’t know why we were all behaving like we couldn’t come back here if we needed to, but I’m going to put it down to the fact that the last time that we were talking about leaving, it was to go to the Choosing, and we couldn’t come back here.

My phone buzzes, and I pull it out, “Rana’s gotten back to me already. She’s sent over the information in a file.”

“That’s handy,” Coen mutters.

I nod in agreement and text her back.

Me: Thank you so much, I’m sorry that we need it quicker than we said we would. How are you doing?

Rana: No worries, honestly. I know how crazy shit can get. I’m actually happy that it’s going to get looked at sooner. It needs to be shut down as quickly as possible. I’m okay. Adjusting, I suppose. Everyone is being lovely.

I frown slightly. That doesn’t sound extremely positive.

But then again, it’s understandable that she’s going to find it difficult to adjust. From what I understood from the very brief time that I spent with her, and of course, what she told us about the sales, she’s been in captivity for the majority of her life, if not all of it.

Suddenly, she is her own person, and she doesn’t have to answer to anyone else, she’s also alone, and that’s going to take some major adjustment. Even though when she wasn’t alone, it wasn't necessarily a good thing since she was either in the sales or with Derek.

Me: That’s completely understandable. Just remember to be kind to yourself and give yourself some grace. Let me know if you need anything, and I’m always here to talk.

Rana: Thanks, Neith. Keep me updated on the case?

Me: Of course. Speak soon.

I feel bad. I want to talk to her more, but we kind of need to figure out this latest development pretty quickly, and I don’t have the time.

I make a mental note to call her when we get to Ireland, if I get the chance, and if not, at the very least send her a message.

I have her number now, so I can check in on her more regularly rather than waiting for her to reach out, which, in retrospect, I should have known that she wouldn’t do.

I wouldn’t have, and she seems to have a similar mindset to me.

“Is she okay?” River asks with concern when I look up from the phone.

I nod, “She’s struggling, but I think that she’s okay.”

“That’s understandable, she’s been through a lot,” Doc replies.

“I’ll keep checking in on her,” I tell them. “Do you want me to send the file to all of you?”

Evander nods, “Yeah, we all need to familiarize ourselves with it.”

I nod, and then frown, “Erm, okay. Give me about three to five business days to figure out how the fuck I’m supposed to do that.”

Chuckles rumble around the table.

Griff smirks, “Would you like some help?”

I shrug, “I mean, if you want it before next year, then yes please.”

“How can you be that bad with tech?” Raiden asks.

“Okay, rude, I’m not bad with tech,” I reply and then mutter, “it just doesn’t like me.”

My reply has them all laughing again, and I pass my phone over the table to Griff.

The guys are still smiling as Griff starts pressing buttons on my phone.

“How?” I exclaim when he hands it back within a few moments.

He smiles, “I can teach you if you want me to?”

I nod, “Yeah, actually, that would be great. I don’t need to know how to do anything fancy, but I really should know how to send people files and the basic things.”

“Yeah, probably,” Griff replies. “I’ll teach you whenever we get a chance.”

“So never?” River asks sarcastically.

“Most likely,” I reply. “At least it’s not a super important thing to know right now.”

“That’s true,” River concedes.

“Alright,” Evander starts in his ‘getting us back on track’ voice. “No one needs to worry about reading the file at the moment. That can wait until we’re in Ireland. We’ll sort it out and make a plan while we’re over there.”

“Sounds good to me,” Reed replies. “Is there anything else that we need to sort out before we go?”