Centaur Rivalry (Touched Series Book 3) (6 page)

“I don’t like
it, either.  I just wanted you to know, in case I need you.”

I opened my eyes and saw a huge pile of chips in front of Brent
while Katherine wore an unhappy face.  Daniel looked at his hand and grimaced, “Hey, where’s my good-luck charm?”

I didn’t understand what he was asking
, but could tell from the way he angled his body around he was talking to me.  “Good-luck charm?”

“You two said you were going to close up the bar
or fold towels or whatever.  If it’s closed, where’s Jessica?”

“She’s getting the last couple customers out.  You guys about done?”

Katherine and Daniel nodded, Brent answered, “No.  We could do this for a while yet.  Can you call Gage and Bianca and let them know we’ll be late?”

“Already did.
  One of the stragglers seems to be a friend of Jessica’s.  His name’s Roscoe.”

Daniel pursed his eyebrows together
wondering what my comment meant.  Katherine put her cards down and looked me square in the eye.  “Did he see you?”

I shook my head that he hadn’t.
  She set her cards on the table, left her chips where they lay, and walked to a lighted Coke machine in the back corner of the room.  It must have been on wheels because it slid easily away from the wall.  Her voice was urgent, but not panicked, “In here, all of ya, now.”

(
Camille, Small Town in South Dakota
)

Brent and Daniel were confused – I didn’t know what to think, either.  The three of us didn’t move, Katherine peeked around from the side of the Coke machine, “For the love of Zeus, get over here.”

I reached down to the table and messed up
the cards so it didn’t look like there was an unfinished game.  The three of us grabbed our coats and cautiously crept over to the soda machine where Katherine stood.  When I looked at the wall behind it, a small door led to a rickety old ladder.  The ladder fed into a black hole under the building.  Brent was the first to speak, “What’re you doing?”

Katherine
didn’t mince words, “If Roscoe’s in the bar, yer all in danger.  Down, now.”

Brent asked,
“Who’s Roscoe?”

“
The lead enforcer for the Centaur Council in the area, that’s who.  He’s rounding up all the members of the Lost Herd.”

My jaw slacked as my mouth fell open. 
Katherine knew who we were.  “You knew.  But how did you. . . I mean. . . did we say. . . “

She cut me off, “In the t
unnel, before he comes in here.”

I recouped my senses, “Jessica told him you were back here taking money from tourists.”

“Shit.  I’ll go down, too.  It’d be better if he thought I’d slipped out without Jessica noticing if he comes looking for me.”

“You can’t put yourself in danger for our sake. 
We should stay put.  If he comes through the door, there are three of us.”

Katherine
shook her head in disbelief, “Cami, I’m not in any danger.  Yer jus’ as naive as everyone said you were.”  She paused for a minute as if she had to offer a better explanation for helping us.  “I don’t need the hassle of Centaurs patrolling my mountain.  A girl likes her privacy.  Now get down there before he comes back here.”

My feet planted
– something still didn’t feel right.  “So, you knew who we were the whole time?”

“
Not right away.  Every Centaur in this region is looking for Camille Chiron.  I suspected, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“But,
you’re
not a Centauride.”

Katherine
rolled her eyes, “What gave ya the first clue?”

I thought of
the Centaurs who had attacked Drake and me at Cameron’s house.  We didn’t sense their danger until they were right on top of us.  It was a well-rehearsed attack, carried out with military precision – they came through all the doors and windows at once.  Had Drake’s transformation not surprised them, we may not have made it out alive.  I wanted to warn her what she was getting herself into, “Katherine, these Centaurs are dangerous.”

Her worried look gave way to a smirk,
“Yer protected by the dangerous one.”

Brent and Daniel stood watching our exchange.  Neither made any effort to interrupt until
Katherine’s last comment.  Daniel leaned toward me, “What’s she talking about, Cami?”

I couldn’t lie to Daniel, but I didn’t feel right telling him about Drake’s transformation. 
“Drake and I were attacked a couple nights ago at my brother’s house.”  Daniel immediately turned to Brent who looked completely oblivious.  I clarified, “Not Brent.  We were hiding out at my twin brother’s house.”

Daniel shook his head, “
Cameron?  But he took off to Florida.  I saw him get on a plane myself.”

“He did, but
I called and asked if we could lay low at his house.  It was fine until a couple nights ago when thirty Centaurs showed up and stormed the place.”

Katherine
’s expression seemed more urgent and her voice layered in frustration, “Look, I get there are some things you’ll need to fill us in on, but here, with Roscoe jus’ on the other side of that wall, isn’t the right place.  Get down inta the tunnel.”  She shoved me through the door and onto the ladder.

I’d never been
afraid of the dark, but the ladder seemed to be stretching into nothing but pitch black.  The old wooden steps didn’t seem strong enough to support my weight, let alone the weight of four of us climbing down at once.  Katherine was at the top of the ladder while Brent, Drake and I were making our way down.  She shut the little door, so the only stream of light came through a small circular hole cut in the middle of the hidden door.  She pulled a rope from inside the tunnel and what little light there had been completely disappeared.  The soda machine had to have been attached to the rope, securing it in place to hide our departure.

My foot stepped onto solid ground as a wave of relief settled over me.
  My second foot felt the uneven earth below, and my hands immediately started groping at the vast expanse, trying to feel the wall.  I couldn’t estimate how far down we were, but it felt like we’d climbed down a three story building.  The tunnel was cool, not the bone-chilling cold of the outside temperatures, but cool and damp.  It smelled of stale water and sulfur.

My hands found the wall
of jagged rock.  I’d never feared the dark, but every Scooby Doo cartoon I’d watched as a kid started flashing through my mind as my head ducked down in fear of imaginary bats.  I couldn’t imagine how we would find our way out of this place.  There was no illumination, no shadows, nothing but damp air.

I felt Daniel’s hands on my shoulder.  I couldn’t be sure how I knew
they belonged to him, but I did.  In the silence of the tunnel, his touch was a comfort, momentarily easing my fear of the bats, rats and snakes I was sure were waiting to attack us.  I turned toward Daniel in the dark and grabbed onto him for comfort.  His embrace was strong, making me believe we’d be okay.

When
Katherine reached the bottom of the ladder, her footsteps sounded off to the right.  Her hands scrambled in search of something along the walls.  An audible “click” sounded, and a string of light bulbs stretched out through the cavernous passageway, several were burned out.  We were standing in an old mine shaft.  Railroad tracks stretched out as far as my eye could see in both directions.  Huge wooden support beams lined the walls and held the ceiling in place.

Handwritten signs hung on the wall with arrows pointing to the left or right:  Hotel 2 miles, Stable 2.5 miles, Doctor 3 miles,
and Train Station 2.5 miles.  One arrow pointed up the ladder we had just climbed down with the word “Tavern,” indicating the bar was just overhead.

I turned to
Katherine, “Your hotel is only two miles from here?”

“Uh, no.  Those signs are over a hundred years old.  The old hotel was torn down before I was born and a
Wal-Mart sets on the old site.  That opening was sealed a long time ago.”

“So, how do we get back to the motel
?”

“
We go ta the old stables.  The barn’s gone, but the access door is still there.  Yer friends can pick us up there.”

We were out of other options. 
Katherine knew way more about our society and about us specifically than she had let on.  We began walking as hundreds of questions were swimming in my mind.  Who was she?  How did she know about Centaurs?  Why wasn’t she in any danger for helping us?  How did she know about this tunnel?  Had Jessica told her about us?  If Centaurs were really looking for us, what would they do to her if they found us?

Despite all the questions in my head, I
only asked one.  “I’ll get a hold of Bianca.  Where do I tell her to meet us?”

“Just
off of mile marker 78 on the highway that leads inta town, there’s a turnoff.  Under a billboard fer Bio-Diesel is the access panel.  Have ‘em meet us by the billboard.”

I called out to Bianca, “
I think we’re safe.  Can you and Gage come pick us up?”

“
You think you’re safe?  Where are you?
”

“
We’re on our way to the old horse stables outside of town.  It’ll take us about 25 minutes to get there.  We’re underground – in a mine shaft.
”  I gave Bianca the pick-up location that Katherine had described, then added, “
Tell Drake what’s going on, but tell him to stay at the motel.  I’ll contact him if it looks like there’s trouble
.”

“
I’ll tell him, but don’t count on him letting you out of his sight after this
.”

I kept one foot in front of the other and walked in the direction
Katherine led us.  I couldn’t think of any good reason that she would stick her neck out for us, but I didn’t want to question her gesture in front of Brent and Daniel until we were safely out of the tunnel.

The mine shaft showed no evidence of recent use.  The lights gave off just enough illumination to keep from tripping over the old railroad ties.  It was cool and damp
, but not cold.  With every step I became more desensitized to the sulfur smell I’d first noticed.  Every few steps my fingers brushed against the wall.  Jagged rock and hard packed clay lined the shaft.

Brent must have been wondering some of the same things because while I stayed silent
, he quietly asked Katherine, “So, you said you weren’t in any danger from Centaurs.  How are you so sure?”

Even without seeing her face, I knew she’d rolled her eyes at him.  “Any Centaur who so m
uch as looked at me cross-eyed would be punished severely.  Yer lucky I le’ you win tonight.”

Punished severely?  Was she some sort of deity? 
I had a clear view of Brent:  he looked confused.  “Let me win?  Oh, no, you were the big talker.  I beat you.”

Katherine
’s playful tone shot back, “Ya did no such thing.  I was lulling ya inta a false sense a security.  The next hand was mine and so were all the winnings.”

Brent shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly,
“I guess we’ll never know.”

“You’re right, Centaur.”
  The way Katherine said it, “Centaur” was not some mystical race she revered.  It was as if we were beneath her or something.  Jessica’s words, “
Hide before he sees you.  Katherine can’t protect us both,
” echoed in my mind.

What had Jessica meant by
“Katherine can’t protect us”?  All my senses told me she was human. How could a human protect a Centauride?  Especially from a Centaur who was following orders from Zeus?  I hated trying to put puzzles together while I was missing pieces.

Daniel, whose mouth was always moving at
full-speed, remained suspiciously quiet.  I didn’t want to listen to Katherine and Brent argue over who was the poker master.  I hadn’t had a chance to catch up with him, and we had some time on our hands.  “So, why didn’t you go back to California?  Why stay here?”

Daniel wrapped his arm around me as we walked.  His familiar touch
felt like home.  Given everything that had happened so quickly, I should have been a nervous wreck – I wasn’t.  It felt good to be with Daniel again – like a huge piece of me had been missing and I’d just found it again.

“Pops was pretty pissed when
Beau and I took his plane.  He’s never been your biggest fan,” Daniel wrinkled his nose and gave me a smirk, “and he didn’t want me mixed up in any of it.”

His relationship with his dad had always been stiff, but I hated that I was the reason he didn’t go home. 
“I’m sorry, Daniel.”

“Don’t be.  I like it here.  More solitude, things are slower.  The only traffic jams are caused by tractors on the highway, not ten thousand cars all going to the same place.”

“So that’s it?  You’ve defected?”

Daniel laughed one of his hearty laughs that I hadn’t heard in months.
  He stopped walking and wrapped both his arms around me.  I hugged him back, ignoring the angry stare from Brent.  When I let go, we were walking quite a ways behind Katherine and Brent.  Daniel asked in a low voice, “I’m not staying for long.  So, I take it you found lover boy?”

I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice,
“Drake, his name is Drake.  Yes, I found him a couple weeks ago.”

Daniel’s arm
was still draped over my shoulder.  He squeezed my shoulder and asked, “So why is Brent your escort tonight?”

What could I say?  Could I tell him the truth?  If there w
ere anyone on the planet who knew me, really knew me, it was Daniel.  I’d never kept any secrets from him my whole life.  “Drake. . . wasn’t feeling up to it.”

Daniel’s arm still stretched across my back, h
is hand glided to my waist, “You know he’s not good enough for you, right?”

“He’s good enough.  There’s a lot you don’t know about Drake.”

“And I’ll probably never know.  That crap he tried to pull after you’d been kidnapped – I’m still pissed.”

“There were circumstances he didn’t share with you.”

“Really?  Circumstances, like what?”  Daniel’s gaze was accusatory, but it wasn’t my place to tell him about Drake’s transformation.  He’d chosen to become half a horse to protect me.  After the attack at Cameron’s house, his choice was the only reason we were still together and alive.