Chapter Thirty

"Where are you?" He asks as soon as I answer the phone after he called me for the third time.

I ignore his question. "You know the good thing about having an untraceable phone is you can't trace it. Isn't that great!"

"Millie this isn't a game." He tells me, firmly. "Wherever you are, stop and turn back around."

I hum. "Sorry no can do." I turn into a small bed and breakfast place. "But don't worry we're safe."

"Get your ass back to the mansion now!" He orders me, frustrated.

I roll my eyes. "After we find Abe, we'll be on our merry way."

"Millie-"

"Bye!" I hang up and turn the phone off. I don't want to hear the sound of ringing anymore.

We're two and half hour away from the mansion, getting closer to Idaho but we aren't crossing into that state. It's about six in the morning and we haven't got much rest.

"We'll stay here for a little bit then we'll continue the trip." I tell Lily as we get out the car.

"How are we gonna pay for this?"

On the way of retrieving our necklace, we didn't think about bringing money with us. It's the last thing on our minds but I wish I thought about it sooner than now.

I groan. "I'll compel him to give us a room then once we have the money, I'll mail it to him."

She nods. "I don't like it but what else can we do?"

We walk into the building and a young lady is at the front desk. She smiles when she sees us.

"Welcome to Skippy's Bed and Breakfast!" She greets us, brightly. "How can I help you?"

"We need a room." I tell her.

She nods. "Okay. For how long?"

"One day."

She enters it into her computer before looking up at us.

"How are you paying? Cash or card?"

"Uh." I exchange a glance with Lily. "Actually, you're going to give us the room for free because you feel bad for us. As soon as we get the room, you're going to forget about this conversation."

She blinks her eyes once coming out her trance. "You know what? Don't worry about paying for the room. I'll give it to you for free. It's on the house." She hands me the key.

I smile at her. "Thank you so much." I take the key from her and we go to our room.

We take the elevator up to our room and as soon as we enter the room, I head for the bed. I don't know how exhausted I am until I see the bed. I collapse face forward onto the mattress, letting my body relax.

"We're not staying long." I mumble before I drift off into a deep sleep.

I wake up five hours later and Lily is still sleeping. I shake her shoulder, waking her up. We've been here too long.

She groans as she slowly wakes up. "Five more minutes, please." She begs.

I shake my head. "No. You can sleep on the road but for now get up."

She reluctantly gets out the bed and stretch her arms above her head. She walks over to the sink and splash water on her face.

"I'm glad they have toothpaste in here." She reaches for it and the toothbrush. She brushing her teeth and I do the same.

We've probably should've brought more than our necklace and weapon. They can't help us with everything. I make a mental note to remember that next time I decide to abandoned the mansion and go off on my own.

Once we're more awake, we leave the room and go down the elevator. When go over to the front desk and the young lady named, Claire, smile when she sees us.

I give her the key and I'm about to walk away when she speaks.

"Did your friend find you? He was looking for you."

I turn my head to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"What friend?"

"He has brown hair and blue eyes. Super cute." She tells us.

There's only one person I know who fits that description and if she's telling the truth, then we have to get out here, right now.

"You didn't tell him which room we were in, did you?"

She shakes her head. "No. I can't give out information but I might've let it slip out you two were staying here."

Okay there's three floors and we were staying on the second one. Knowing our guardians, they will check every room, on every floor, looking for us. We don't have long before they spot us and drag us back to the mansion.

I look at Lily. "We have to go."

She nods. "I caught that."

We're heading to the front door when Claire speaks again.

"Oh, there's your friend!"

As soon as she says that, we spot our friend heading towards us. The front door is clearly not an option anymore. We turn back around, quickly, as Lucas gets closer to us.

"Back door?" Lily asks Claire.

She points to the eating area. "Through there."

We run to the eating area as I make the mistake of looking back when I hear the sound of the elevator and stepping out is Reid. Luckily, he doesn't turn his head just yet. Lily pushes the door open and we high tailed out the back and around the corner to get to the car. I pull the keys out my pocket, unlocking the car.

I spot him the same time he spots us. He's leaning against the building with his arms crossed but he straightens up when he sees us sprinting to the car.

I swear under my breath as Hayes starting running towards us. If he started out running earlier, then maybe he would've had a chance at beating us to the car but unfortunately for him, he doesn't.

I throw the car door open and quickly starts the engine. I throw the car into the reverse as he reaches us and peel onto the road. I put it in drive and speed away, leaving him in the dust.

This isn't good. If they're here, then Ramadi knows we're aren't at mansion anymore. He could be on his way to us right now and we wouldn't even know it.

Why couldn't they just trust us just this once? We told we're safe and that's all that matters. Is that too much to ask? We know what we're doing. If they stuck to the plan, they didn't know about, everything would've been fine.

I guess we should've informed them about the plan but even if we did, they still wouldn't have allowed us to leave.

"You do know they're gonna come after us, right?" Lily tells me.

I nod. "Yep, I know that's why I'm trying to put as much distance as I can before they hop into their car and follow us."

I get father into the town and I hope I can lose them in it. I drive a few more minutes, looking into my mirrors.

"Do you see them?" I ask Lily.

She turns around in her seat. "No." She shakes her head. "We lost them for now."

"Good. As soon long as we stay ahead of them, we'll be fine. Which way do I need to go now?"

She glances at the map she took from the bed and breakfast before we head to the room. We only made it to the town because of the SUV's gps. It told us to keep going straight and to be honest it's the only way we could go. So, when we ditch the car and got this one, we lost our only source of directions until now.

"Keeping going straight then make a left at the next stop." She tells me.

"Are you sure you can read a map?" I ask her.

"I never used one before." She admits. "But how hard can it be?"

Turns out it can be very hard for her. She led us in the wrong direction twice in the last thirty minutes. I pull the car over to side the of the road.

"Give me the map." I tell her.

I glance at the map and figure where we needed to go and where we're actually at right now. I give her the map back.

"Okay, we need to turn around and head back that for a couple miles before we turn right." I inform her, getting us back onto the road.

I get us back onto the right path and not soon enough, we're almost to the lake. We're less than an hour away. But the closer we get, the more I get this strange feeling in my gut instead of a relief feeling.

And the warning for earlier enters my mind.

Turn around. Go back.

I shake the thought and feeling away and focus on the road.

We're coming, Dad. We'll be there soon. I think to myself.

We drive in silence for five minutes before Lily speaks.

"Millie?"

"Yeah?" I say, keeping my eyes on the road.

But when she doesn't say anything after that, I glance over at her and I see what she's staring at. Her necklace. It's glowing a bright blue. I glance at my necklace too and it's also glowing.

The brighter it glows, the more danger you're in. Hayes's warning echoes through my mind.

I don't have much time to think about anything else before they come. They attack from both sides, crashing into the car, sending us flying towards one of the many trees.

The air bags inflates and my head crashed into it making my dizzy. My vision is in and out. I look over to Lily and she's not moving. Her head is in the air bag.

I reach out for her but I'm too weak to do anything else. I hear footsteps approaching the car and I turn my head to the sound of them. The last thing I see is him. The guy whose voice made my blood ran cold and I had nightmares about it. The guy who made my family crash last April. He says the almost exact thing as before.

"Tell Ramadi we find them."

***

I groggily wake up, gripping my head. I'm not sure how long I've been out or where the hell I am. But I do know, they're going to regret crashing into us.

"You're finally awake." A male voice says. "Ramadi will please to hear that."

There's a man sitting in the chair across from my cell. From what I can tell, he's tall and very buff. He has more muscle than anyone I know. Everyone else is like a cheetah maybe even a lion compared to him. He's like a bull on steroids.

He had light brown eyes and I think colored eyes but I'm not sure. I have to get closer to see them clearly.

His clothes are hugging every muscles and at any given second it looks like he's going to bust through the fabric like Hulk.

I drop my hand and lick my dry lips. "I assume you're working for him."

"You got that right. The name's Dante."

"Well Dante, I'm the girl who's going to kill you." I warn him.

He laughs. "I'll like to see you try."

"If I don't, then my guardian will. You messed with the girl."

He crosses his arms over his buff chest. "You mean your pathetic boyfriend. He's the reason why you're in the mess and by the expression on your face, he hasn't told you, has he?"

"Told me what?"

He cracks a smirk. "This should be good. I wanna be there when you figure it out."

I look around my small cell but I don't see the person I left with.

"Where's my sister?"

"Very far away from you at the South Pole."

I frown. "What are you talking about? Where am I?"

"The North Pole." He replies.

I can't think much on what he's telling me. Something tells me he isn't lying and we're not with Santa Claus.

"Why?"

"Because Ramadi has a task to complete and he needs you two to finish it. The two poles."

The poles can make or break him.

Then it hits me and I know exactly what Ramadi is planning on doing.

"He's trying to wake Tartarus up, isn't he? You do realize that requires a whole lot of energy."

Dante nods. "Yep. Which reminds me, you need to drink this. You need your energy at its fullest."

He slips his arms through the cell holes and hands me the drink. I'm not sure what it is but I take it anyways.

"It's going to kill me if it's too much and my body can't handle it." I tell him.

He shrugs. "Not my problem."

"It is." I protest. "If I die, Hayes won't stop until all of you are died as well."

"We'll see about that."

"You killed my family." I remind him. "Don't you think you've done enough?"

"They weren't your actual family and they were in my way. Ramadi needed them out the picture and that's what I did."

"So, you listen to every word Ramadi tells you."

"Not every word."

"Sure. I bet when he says jump, you do it without any hesitation, huh?"

He looks at me with cold eyes. "Just drink your drink and shut up."

I smile. "Gladly."

I take a sip of the unknown green thick slushy drink and I want to spit it right out. It tastes awful. It takes me awhile to finish the whole cup but when I do, Dante returns to check on me.

"Finally, you finished it."

"What was that anyway. It taste disgusting."

He smirks. "It was-"

"Bring the girl out, Dante." Another voice interrupts him.

Dante unlocks the cell and he walks over to me, yanking me up by grabbing my arm. He pushes me in front of him as we walk out the cell and up the small flight of stairs. We walk outside the building and immediately the cold air hits me.

It takes a minute before I get use to it and I think it has something to do with me being the siren. There's no way a normal person can survive out here without the right clothings. Even Ramadi's men came prepared for the freezing cold weather.

He takes me over to a pole, surrounded by a few more men keeping guard of it. There's goes my plan of escaping. I won't get very far if I try.

"Where's Ramadi?" I ask. "I'm sure he doesn't want to miss the epic show."

"Don't worry about him. Where he's at, he's getting the front row seat." Dante replies, making a phone call. "Are you ready? Okay, on my count. Five.."

He pushes me forward, closer to the pole.

"Four.."

I stand there, not sure what to do. It's not like he gave me instructions of what to do.

"Three.."

I guess all I have to do it stand here, doing nothing.

"Two.."

Almost there.

"One.."

I wait for something big to happen but nothing does.

"Nothing hap-"

I speak too soon and the pain hits me. I crumble to the ground, screaming out in agony. It's like water is filling my lungs, burning my entire body, and it ten times worse because I can feel Lily's pain as well. The burning comes from her. I can't breathe and it's like I'm going though transformation all over again.

A white bright light shoots up into the sky, curving halfway, going to wherever Tartarus is at, from the pole.

I'm not sure how long it's been because all I think about is the pain. All I know is, as long as I can feel Lily's pain, then she's okay.

"Ramadi says, it's almost complete. Just a little bit longer."

"Hear that, Princess." Dante teases. "You're almost done."

I don't think I can hold out much longer, I can feel my body, running on its last source of energy and I'm getting weaker. If my body gives out, then Ramadi lost. His plan to awaken Tartarus will have failed.

I really hope my body gives up. Tartarus can't be awakened. If he is, the world is done for.

Shut down body, please.

Then it happens. The light begins to fade before it's ready to and the pain is lessened. This is it. Keep shutting down.

"What's going on?" Dante asks. "Ramadi wants to know."

"We're losing her." Another person says.

Dante relies the message. "He said, to fix it. Tartarus isn't fully awaken."

Two men comes over to me, pulling me onto my feet as they hold me up. A third person comes over to me with a needle filled with the green slushy drink Dante gave me earlier. They knew I wouldn't drink it. So, this is their other way of making sure my energy isn't gone before Tartarus is awaken. He shoots the needle into my arm before the two holding me up, drops me onto the ground.

Then the pain is back fully and the light returns.

No! I scream. We were so close!

They didn't give me enough of the energy drink to get my full strength back but enough to finish the awakening. So, once it's finally completed, I don't feel Lily's pain anymore and my lungs aren't burning.

"He's awake." Dante says. "Ramadi wants us to meet him now."

They immediately begin packing up, forgetting all about me. They leave me in the snow, dying. We have to get help before it's too late. I glance down at my necklace. The tracking device. If it can help us find one another, then maybe we can sent a message to each other as well. We're connected to each other after all. It's a long shot but it's all I can do to keep Lily alive.

"Lily if you can hear me." I say weakly, touching the necklace. "Call for Fury. Call for him now."

I drop my hand and focus on calling my own animal. Hayes won't arrive here until it's too late but maybe my animal can be here in no time. Maybe she can keep me alive until Hayes can get here.

Aqua. I call out. Come to me. Come to your master right now.

My eyes closes right when I hear the sound of hooves hitting the ice.