Betrayal: Book 3 of the Guardians Saga

Ch. 18.3 Return To Earth

Gabe, Rile, and Cale were watching TV in Alex's apartment when the portal opened. Their own mission had been successful and they were waiting for Alex to return from hers.

They were glad to see Alex stumble out, but it turned to cold shock when she tried to re-enter the portal. It closed and she fell to her knees.

She struck the ground, screamed 'no!' once before she fell silent, bending in on herself, forehead on her knees.

All the brothers jumped off the couch. Gabe and Rile knelt on opposite sides of her.

"Alex, what is it?" Gabe asked.

"Everything." She covered her face with her hands. "Nothing."

"Pick one. It can't be both." Rile tried to sound reasonable rather than sarcastic.

Alex's eyes blazed up at him for a split second before going flat. They watched everything inside her die.

"Nothing. I pick nothing." She stood up slowly and then held her side. She warned off help with a glare.

"Why are you wearing a hospital gown? Why is there blood your side?" Cale asked.

"That's nothing, too."

"What was your mission?" Gabe asked.

Alex looked at him with cold, dead eyes. "That's nothing y'all need to know. I'll take that knowledge to my grave. I hope it's soon. Now excuse me: I'm taking a nap. A long one. Alone. Don't wake me unless there's a portal."

The bedroom door clicked closed in their faces and locked.

***

It was evening when the door opened. The brothers were still in Alex's living room, waiting. Alex was dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans.

"The choices are Greek or Cajun. I could eat either flaming saganaki or a stuffed artichoke. Somebody pick," she said in a flat tone.

"Alex—" Gabe began.

"I'll choose. Cajun. I'm eating my own stuffed artichoke, the whole thing tonight, so claws off," she said in the same expressionless tone.

"Alex—" Gabe tried again.

"No talking, just food: I'm weak with hunger."

She swept out of the apartment but her arm was pressed to her left side. Rile was quick to follow and jumped in the front seat as soon as she opened her car door. Belatedly, Gabe and Cale caught up and they piled in.

Other than cursing New Orleans drivers, Alex didn't speak. Not finding any street parking, she drove into a parking garage.

"Maybe someone will try to mug us in here." Alex sounded hopeful.

No one did and they walked the cobbled streets to the French Quarter. Alex turned into a red brick entrance built into a historic building and the brothers followed.

The restaurant was crowded, but the wait wasn't intolerable. Alex ordered a bottle of wine and began determinedly drinking it. She gave them all glasses, but it was her own that she refilled.

Once the bottle was empty, she ordered martinis. True to her word, she ate the entire stuffed artichoke, but the brothers shared one. They loved seafood too much to fill up and it was crawfish season.

The brothers sucked the crawfish heads and it vaguely irritated Alex that they could be more authentic than her.

Walking back to the car, Alex fit in perfectly with the street crowd, all of them as lubricated as herself. That led to the interesting, if unnerving, experience of a New Orleans cab drive at Gabe's insistence. Cale gripped the seat so hard that his knuckles were white.