Chapter 59 – Fragments (Samson Conrad POV) Pt. 3

"Does it bother you even a little?" Rafael asks Luca as we fill the carts with food. When Luca stares at him pointedly, Rafael flicks his eyes around the area before leaning in. "I mean you were so careful in your decisions in Bend-"

Luca nods, before quickly interrupting Rafael, "Yeah because I did not want my father to find out. You know what he was like, any hint of who Imogen and I were and he'd find some way to use us both to his advantage. He called the Elders Rafael, he took the bait," I nod in agreement.

Luca said it right. "They're on the television telling everyone not to fear shifters and supernaturals, but also telling supernaturals to seek aid from them... I feel like... even before Fatima arrived," I explain whispering. "Dad always said that the Elders have plenty of werewolves under their thumb, but as for other shifters and supernaturals, they stay clear of the Elders."

He nods; putting a bag of bread loafs in the cart.

"Plus, while Faith might own the property in North Dakota, I'm pleased that she did not want to go in there to explore," Luca adds as I put peanut butter in the cart, reaching for grape and strawberry jelly. I nod. "You're naturally curious, but Rafael you're also human, and kind of..."

"Useless," I finish for Luca, shrugging when he rolls his eyes. "I'm not being unkind, I'm being honest," I say to Luca before facing Rafael completely, "You cannot help us should we need to fight, and Fatima has a broken wrist, I mean you blow on her too hard and she can break," I blurt out fear and worry building inside me as I say the words.

"Luca and I are the only ones that can shift," I whisper the last word, "Fatima cannot fight or defend herself, Imogen is not much better. You are human; you cannot win against someone like us. We don't know who was there... and from what we did see they did not seem to have security cameras. How powerful do you think they could be if they did not even need to keep guard?"

I swallow a bit of the building dread.

"We were a den, a few people lived on distant areas of our property back in Bend, and we still had surveillance. It did not appear to be like that in North Dakota."

As we proceed, Rafael remains silent, adding to the cart.

"I accepted everything you told me once before," Rafael says.

He knew everything by way of Luca.

"I just think that you guys were meant to do something with all your gifts, hell you and Imogen left a world to do just that but you haven't. You have not look for the others sent with you, you two just... you've done nothing but cheat on your wife Luca," my mouth drops open but I turn facing away from them quickly. Damn and I thought Fatima was blunt.

"Low blow," Luca says easily. "But still we couldn't do much more than we have. Not really. Seraphima's host is only now of age, we couldn't just run off," Rhys is speaking. We finish shopping, picking up everything we need, clothes, food and a few packets of paper. Luca remains silent, his eyes nearly glazed over but moving through the motions, while Rafael was much the same.

I couldn't understand Rafael's need for action, but I also couldn't fault him for wanting us to help others. Just as I think it, glancing his way I see him looking at a woman with three children checking out their items. One in the booster seat of the cart, the other in the cart and one maybe five to seven at her side was looking at the candy beside the conveyer belt.

There were many lives at risk and that is what Rafael saw.

On the other hand I wonder if he realized what type of panic would ensue if we just let it slip the air is going to be poisonous. First there were problems with how to get that out there. It's not like we could just say it and make everyone believe, let rumor and gossip handle getting it out there. No, we would have to put Fatima front and center, placing a giant bullseye on her back. Even then, who are billions of people going to believe? The Elders who were promising that the supernaturals of the world aimed to live in peace with humans? Or the human government that would call Fatima a quack for even putting out such a statement: what proof do you have? They'd ask.

Our hands were tied.

Two carts full of items we push them to the car, and once we've gotten everything packed away.

"Oh we need to make a stop at the pharmacy," I comment absentmindedly.

Luca lowers the front window sighing. "It's like an oven in here," he says his body going on full alert as mine as we coast down Geneva Street and the cool air wafts around us. His head whipping from side to side, I do the same, lifting my nose in the air, "Pull over! Pull over!" I scramble and choke out, jumping from the car when Luca pulls into a parking lot. The slippery blacktop makes my landing unsure, but I gather my footing easily.

"What's going on?" Rafael asks as Luca joins me, inhaling deeply, exhaling and sending a puff of air into the coldness.

"Six blocks and it reeks here-" I hunch closer to Luca. "Okay so this is much more than two," I inhale tasting the air in my special way. Rafael not completely dense remains silent as I lift my glasses from my face.

"There shouldn't be..." I whisper, not even sure what I was looking for. Just trying to pull from my memory locations of dens and Fae covens.

I sigh heavily. This is what all this runaround has gotten me. I'm second – hell a million second-guessing at this point – information I knew to be true. The book my mother created was updated.

Following the scent on feet, the snow crunches beneath our feet. The area is filled; we walk shoulder to shoulder, weaving through the crowds.

"This is Bend on a much smaller scale," Rafael comments when we get to the end of the block, the buildings all just a few stories tall. Shades of red brick –some darker than others – were well managed giving the old buildings. Stopping abruptly in front of a animal shelter I inhale when the scent that we caught in passing is stronger, nearly almost permanent – despite the snow around. Luca sniffs, but goes ten steps to another store front, stilling at the door as well.

"Like us – three or four – think, here," he says under his breath. "Maybe six or seven Fae's," I add.

"There must be more than that for the scents to be so potent here," Luca says looking around, if we caught the scent of those around us, then one of them here in this town surely caught ours. I look at Luca taking a step away from the store front when the owner seems to leave the back and come out front peering from behind the counter. Averted gazes, I start walking back to the car, Luca and Rafael flanking me.

Slipping into the truck the obvious punches me right in the face.

We did not catch a scent in North Dakota.

""Well," Rafael draws it out, "are you guys not going to inform them or is it only humans that you feel as disposable?"

I shake my head in disbelief, "seriously, Fatima should have asked us to leave you on the side of the road," I tsk.

Rafael shakes his head, "nope, there is a bias and if you don't see it, it's because you want to ignore it."

I sigh heavily.

The car comes to life and neither Luca or I engage with Rafael as we pull away from the curb.

Distracted and unsure what was going on with Fatima I went to the feminine hygiene aisle – once we parked out front of the local store – overwhelmed with options, going for what I've seen my family use before, throwing it in the little red basket.

Ten minutes later we head back to the girls and Luca once again, tries to tell Rafael to rein himself in. "Don't make waves Rafael. You might not agree with her, but she doesn't know you like I do and I'm not sure she gets that you're teasing her half the time, Faith is very literal," I nod in the backseat.

"You tease about 'Simon Says,' but Faith's answer was not a joke Rafael. I mean she saw Imogen and I kissing at the school, when she learned I was married, Imogen told me that with a straight face, no meanness there, Faith told her that I'd never leave my wife because I had them both. Giselle to take out and have on my arm, and Imogen to hide and kiss." I press my lips together, fighting the chuckle from getting out.

I nod, "Yeah Luca's on point. Fatima made my family dinner the first night they all met. Introduced to Thaddeus," Rafael turns in his seat to face me, interested. Please don't let me sharing come back to bite us in the ass, I think silently. "The next day, he greets her at school and when she says his name, he jokes. Say's to her, 'oh you remembered my name,' playful you know?" the moment is fresh in my mind and still makes it impossible not to smile. "She tells him, that she only just met him yesterday, that it hasn't been long enough to forget his name. Then she asks him if people often forget his name."

"So when you joke and tease her, it's like Luca said. Fatima is not teasing you back; she's probably contemplating really saying Simon Says leave Rafael on the side of the road."

"For now, think of Fatima like... like a ship in a glass bottle... or that game Operation. She has information locked in her mind and this trip, we have no idea why we're going to that location but for the love of god, stop goading her," I tack on frustrated.

In a just as annoyed tone, after he's nodded Rafael responds. "If someone doesn't stand up to a bully they're just as bad, you know I think that," he shifts his gaze to Luca. "You've told me how bad the Elders are, what they're capable of and how they operate to get those things done. Those that know the truth, I'm sure they're just waiting for someone to say something, I just have always thought you could be that person Luca."

"I'm a human, weaker and not on their level but that doesn't mean that I want to let their actions go. And now with Faith and her vision of the poisonous air, who's to say that the Elders aren't behind that too? Maybe to stop her vision or ideas from happening, maybe someone needs to stand up, speak out."

Thankfully we're on a dead road. Luca swerves the truck to the side of the road and for a second or two we slide over a bit more over the black-ice. "Nine months ago someone revealed our kind Rafael, and now, humans want to have us tracked and chipped. No one has been brave enough to do that, to speak out and show us to humans, not unless they killed them right there and then. Or in situations like ours you know?" Luca waves between the two of them. "My dad thought that the Elders are the ones who released the videos, by any chance, no one knows who sent it."

"And whether it's because they're good at hiding or the Elders killed them for doing so if they weren't behind it, coming out was not good for us. We have no information, nothing credible and if you were thinking long term you'd understand, but you aren't and... and you aren't one of us." Luca whispers at the end pained.

"His family has video of mine being drugged and carried from the house, as well as the dead bodies they placed there. You don't think that it has crossed my mind that it should be released? It has. But when they do that... what do you think happens?"

Luca swallows thickly, shaking his head.

"I'll tell you. The Elders really kill them if they haven't already and try to swap their bodies. The Elders do nothing to my family, but instead massacre innocents just to prove a point. Hell they might not touch a single person in Bend, but instead find a town, massacre those shifters and put out word just so it gets to everyone who wants to place them in bad light, looking as heinous as they truly are."

"They've been Elders for hundreds of years, we all were only just born, all of us under thirty years. He," I point to Luca, "Cannot work his Rhys' side and powers, only shifts. Imogen is at that same level; only she cannot shift at all. I can..." I pause. "I can shift and Fatima... she cannot remember anything before age seven. She cannot fight and you're also forgetting, she's spent the last ten or more years inside."

"I – I just want to feel as though I've done something," he whispers as he rests his head back against the rest.

"Don't we all," Luca mutters shaking his and before righting us back onto the vacant road.

Luca had a point, there was so much we wanted to do but we were at this standstill but a part of me felt as though the direction Rafael wanted to go was altogether wrong.

"You have to crawl before you walk," my parents would say. Those words fit perfectly for this moment. Of course, we all wanted to do something but we just weren't equipped to do anything. How do you save someone else when you cannot save yourself?

~ 0 ~

"Come on guys please?" Imogen pouts. "Let's go in town and do something fun for an hour or two." After arriving home the night before, we hadn't told the girls about our discovery, planning on keeping a low profile, before hurriedly leaving after two days.

"It's a small town, I mean I think it'll be safe for us," Fatima adds, actually wanting to head outside. "If it gets to be too much we can just always come back here."

Having said all he had too, or maybe he was trying to do as we asked when it came to Fatima, Rafael leaned back against the kitchen island, smirking.

"We looked online and they have live music at this gallery, it sounds like fun," Imogen explained.

"Maybe another town?" I ask weakly.

Fatima and Imogen share a side-glance, before returning them to Luca and I. Fatima shifts her gaze for a moment to Rafael.

"What's up?" she demands.

I shake my head, sending a quick glare at Rafael, even with his mouth shut he was still grating my nerves.

"Did something happen when you guys went into town?" Imogen asks.

My shoulders deflate and I hang my head back.

"Not just this town, a few things actually. This is the second town were nearby the property Dmitri left you, Luca and I have caught the scent of supernaturals. However this one is more catching. I mean he rolled the windows down and we must have driven right by a group of supernat-"

"Why didn't you tell us this last night?"

Luca and I say nothing, the silence feeling as though it's been going on for hours instead of just seconds.

"If it helps, I told them to tell you guys," Rafael says, gaining a glare from Luca and I both.

"Did they approach you? Maybe they're visiting as well." Fatima attempts to explain the presence of shifters and Fae here.

"What if we pack all our things up, go see the live music and if we need to run we do," Imogen bargains, pouting to Luca, while Fatima just looks at me with big green eyes, searching.

Knowing that Fatima wanted to explore, all the information I had gathered about her when we were in Bend, I knew how much the outing would mean to her. She wanted to try things, live, go places, sightsee and learn of other cultures. Fatima wanted to experience everything and I would give anything for her to get it.

That need to make Fatima happy is how Luca, Rafael, Fatima, Imogen and I end up at the gallery. On edge, I go from distracted to admiring the black and pink rose-colored fitting dress Fatima was wearing. The wide neck dipping just under her collarbones, my Christmas present to her, the butterfly locket, the only piece of jewelry she's wearing.

I had no words. She glowed, entirely beautiful and mine.

Not the only night event, the town streets are filled with more people than last night. Fatima's good hand holding mine tightly is the only thing that gives away the fear I know she has inside her but she ventured out. It made no sense really. She ran from Dakota, but wanted to go out and be normal here. Immediately after I have the thought I knock it down.

She had been thrown off. Recalling memories long forgotten.

Just like the night before, we pick up the scent of supernaturals.

Stiffly my eyes slips over the maybe eighty or ninety people inside for the same live show. Taking in her surroundings as well, Fatima has a small smile on her face and soon enough I have a big old grin on my face. If she were this excited for a small concert, how would she react to something on a much larger scale?

Not wanting to garner much attention, the five of us slip towards the back, Fatima and Imogen sitting on stools while Luca, Rafael and I hugged the walls, on the look out. Warm, the excitement grows when a local singer gets on the stage, greeting out at the audience, tinkering a few strings on the guitar.

A folk tune is what starts off the event, and while everyone is looking forward, I look at Fatima. Watch her eyes light up and her body sway with the light airy beat.

That's just the way I love you.

In a crowded room you're the only thats thereee...

"She's here," I pick up and force my eyes away from Fatima. I meet Luca's gaze and frown, and we turn to the location of the words unmoving.

The voice could be speaking about anyone. There were still a few people entering the gallery. Each seconds my heart beats are painful, the worry building quickly. Tense and beyond on alert, the next time the door chimes, I tighten my hold on Fatima.

The singer on stage sings half his set of songs and when we aren't approached by then, Luca sighs. The relief is short lived. Those that want to take a smoke while the performer takes a break leaves, and the conversations between other patrons grow.

Entering the bar, the wind from outside blows in sending a chill our way as well as a strong aroma of shifter.

A man in his twenties maybe, a woman even younger approaches us, their eyes focused solely on Fatima, before they too scan the room looking for something or someone but come up short I realize when they frown.

"Fatima," the woman says, her voice small, sure. Besides me Fatima stiffens and her eyes grow wide. Does she know them?

"Is Dmitri here?" the man asks, searching again.

"You – you know Dmitri?" Fatima questions.

They both smile and nod, "we know you too," they says and I watch as Luca comes to stand near Fatima, angling his body between her and the two that came up to us.

"Dmitri has been keeping you safe, you Divineness," the woman practically coos, eyes sparkling.

"Divineness?" Imogen parrots.

"Yes," the woman frowns now, looking at us all, puzzled. "She – her Divineness is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end." What. The. Hell? I watch Luca from the corner of my eye, his agreeing with me.

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