Betrayal: Book 3 of the Guardians Saga

Ch. 6.1 A Natural

A/N - This song is eerily appropriate for a chapter I wrote years ago. Please listen and tell me what you think.

*****

Alex and the brothers sat at her battered kitchen table with mismatched chairs. For breakfast, Alex had popped refrigerated croissant dough into her oven and the boudin snapped and hissed in the frying pan.

"It's good to be home," Gabe said. He had had a good night with Alex, alone, and was enjoying the after-effects.

Rile saw Alex's delight at that statement, so he replied, "This is home now?"

"You know what I mean." Gabe turned away from him in clear dismissal, obviously trying to not let Rile ruin his good mood.

Rile intended exactly that.

"No, I don't know what you mean. But if we're making this home now, I want to know. I want to buy some things for apartment, some big items since we won't be leaving them behind," Rile said.

"Rile—" Gabe flushed an dark, angry gold.

"As Guardians, wherever we are on mission is our home," Cale said.

"Cale's right." Gabe relaxed in apparent victory.

Rile thought that Gabe was an idiot for thinking the matter was settled in his favor. Didn't he see the change in Alex from elated to crushed?

Maybe Razz was right and the plan could still work. Maybe he could convince her to stop settling for scraps of attention from Gabe and accept whole-hearted love from himself.

"I'm off to work." Alex served the boudin, slid the croissants off the baking sheet onto a plate on the table, and walked into the bedroom.

She was working the late shift, but now was leaving early.

Rile knew which shift she was working, but Gabe didn't, which gave him another chance to needle his older brother when it was time to patrol that night.

***

The night went badly, Rile hadn't had a chance to implement Razz's plan, and the brothers were trapped in an alley by a group of Josef Hermann's men.

A black car squealed to stop at the end of the alley and a man jumped out. He stood behind the car and aimed a large semi-automatic handgun over its roof at Hermann's men.

"Stop boys, this is no tranquilizer gun," the man with the handgun said.

Everyone turned.

"Now you might be thinking: there are six of us and one of him: can he stop us all? But that would be the wrong question to ask. I can't stop all of you, but I can kill two, maybe three. Now, the right question is: who wants to die for your cause? Who wants to sacrifice his life for his friends and your cause? If so, keep holding those guns. If not, drop 'em."

Their tranquilizer guns clattered to the ground.

"Good choice. Now the humans need to run for it."

Rile, Gabe, and Cale watched but didn't move as Josef Hermann's men scrambled out of the alley.

"Hurry up and get in my car." The man indicated it with his gun. "We need to get you out of here."

When they still didn't move, he added in exasperation, "I'm here to help. Now hurry up before they return with help or real guns."

When they didn't move, he tossed his gun in the car. "Now will you come?"

A white van revved toward them. Gabe nodded and they climbed into the car.