1I could see the lights had been turned back on when I got to the front of the cavern. I paused in the shadows for a brief second to see where everyone was, I didn't want to jump someone and have it be one of my brothers. I could see Emmet slugging it out with two guys in the corner and Jasper had just tossed one guy to the side. I was looking for Lucien, to no avail. So I grabbed a goon and spun him around letting my fist meet with his kidney as he turned. He winced and buckled at his knees, I landed a right uppercut to his chin and he was sound asleep. I realized that in these human bodies, they had human weaknesses. I turned around and there were two guys waylaying on Jasper, I leaped and was on top of one which left Jas to tend to the other. He looked up and realized it was me.
About time you joined in on the fun Bro!
Yeah thanks, I thought I would let you two have a decent workout first.
Where are the girls?
They are in the tunnel, they are safe. Have you seen Lucien? I have a bone to pick with him. I believe he owes me a few explanations.
I saw him a few minutes ago, he was throwing orders around like a general. I think he is enjoying his new body. Can't say it helps his looks any.
Okay, I'm going to look for him. You got this?
Heck yeah! Playtime bro, playtime!
I ran outside to search for him, I didn't want to let him get away. I saw him and several of his goons piling into one of the SUV's and take off. Just then Emmet yelled at me to look out, I turned just in time to get a baseball bat shoved end first in my stomach. I went down on my knee but decided I wasn't having fun just then so I cheated and came up with a fist in his nether regions. I guess he didn't feel like playing any more cause when I stepped over him, he was rolling on the ground holding himself carefully between his legs.
Emmet slapped me on the back as I walked past him, he was laughing about my rebuttal to Mr. Baseball. I just grinned at him and went after a guy who decided to try to sneak away. I grabbed him and connected with a hook. Geez, this was too easy with these new recruits, they honestly didn't know how to fight in these bodies and had no idea how to protect themselves either. His eyes rolled back and he slithered down to the ground.
I looked around and all there were left was a few stragglers like Mr. Baseball who was incapacitated and not out cold. I called to my brothers that I was going to get the girls. I went back into the cavern and called out to them that it was me and they were safe and to come out. At first they were suspicious of whether it was a trick or not, but they peeked around the corner and saw it was really me and came running to us.
I caught Bella in full leap into my arms. She buried her head in my shoulder and burst loose crying. I knew the tension and fear they had felt had to be released so I just held her and spoke softly to her and let her cry. When I looked over at Emmet and Jas, they were both holding their girls and all the girls were crying at the same time. We just rolled our eyes and held them tight, so glad to be able to hold them at all. We knew how females, and humans in general had faired after being kidnaped by the shape shifters.
We walked the girls up the cliff to the picnic area and sat them at a table there. I asked Jas if he minded staying there to watch the girls while Emmet and I went and had a quick talk with a few of the "boys". He was sitting with Alice cuddled on his lap and Bella and Rose leaning with their heads on each of his shoulders. I don't think you could have pried him up with a crowbar.
We grabbed the first guy that was still moaning and shoved him up against the rocks as we threw questions at him. Where had Lucien gone? Where was he staying? How long had Lucien been recruiting in this area? How many troops did he have at his disposal? We were pretty much getting the same answer for each question, "I don't know." We tried to read this guy and he truly believed that he was telling us the truth, whether his memory was erased or blocked or whether he really didn't know, it still didn't help us much.
Guy after guy, as we tried to get answers, we got the same ones. "I don't know" It was completely frustrating. We could have tried to follow the tracks of the SUV but if we did, we either had to take the girls with us, or leave them alone, and as much as we loved having the girls with us, we did not want to expose them to Lucien any more. So we checked a few of the trucks Lucien's crew had left at the top of the cliffs and found one with keys. We loaded up the girls and headed back to town.
Emmet, Jas, we need to discuss what to do about the girls. We can't very well go tell the chief that his daughter was abducted by a shape shifter. And I don't think Alice's grandmother or Rose's parents are going to let you see them after bringing them home in the morning and very noticeably upset.
We could try a block on them Edward, if we could block enough of their memory out it may make it safe to just take them home and let them sleep it off, that way their parents will think they were coming down with the flu or something and needed their rest. We could plant that idea in their heads so they actually felt a little bad. Jas always was the fast thinker of the two of them.
Damn that's not fair, if we block their memory them Rose won't remember how I came in and saved the day. We always knew Emmet was the comic relief, the big goon, we had to smile at him. Before we could decide what to do, Rosalie spoke up and got our attention.
"We know you boys are discussing something, Bella told us you could talk to each other psychically. We want to let you know that whatever you are thinking is NOT going to work on us. We will not sit still and let you boys try to take blame for us being gone all night, or try to figure a way out without us in on it. You saved us. We heard what that psychopath was saying in there and what he had planned for us. If you think we are going to just go on home without some answers you are sadly mistaken bucko."You couldn't have knocked the smile off Emmet's face with a sledgehammer. "That's my girl".
We looked at each other and sighed. It looked like we needed to have a long talk with three very exhausted ladies. We were really dreading this. We drove to my house and the girls and Jas got out, I grabbed my car and followed Emmet so he could drop the SUV off. We went down the highway and turned off down a dirt road. When we got to a clearing completely clean of any wood or grass, we parked the truck and tossed gas all on and around it and set it on fire. We had to make sure no fingerprints or any kind of evidence of the girls would be found on this truck. I drove out of there before the police or fire dept could be called.
When we got home, the girls had all called their respective parents or grandparents and told them they had slept over at one of the others house. It was all smoothed over for now with them. The rough part was left to us. We made them some cocoa so they would have something warm on their stomachs. Then we led them to the den and sat them all on the sofa so we could look at them and watch their reactions as we told them. If it didn't work and they panicked too bad or just plain freaked out we could always throw a block and knock them out. Somehow after the night they just had, I didn't think we were up against that.
So I began. "As you girls probably saw tonight, we are not just basic security specialists. We are part of an elite team of trained Guardians. We originally came from the Carpathian Mountains. That's a mountain range in Romania. That's where our family is from. Our mother is kind of like the princess of the Carpathians and our Dad was hired as her Guardian and they fell in love and we are the results." I was trying to judge just how much to tell them and when to stop by their expressions. "You already know we can communicate between ourselves psychically. Somehow, I have been able to connect and communicate with Bella as well. We could talk back and forth while we were all being held tonight. That's how I told her to get ready to run." At this bit of information my brothers both turned and stared at me.
"The guy that was in charge of having you kidnaped was not named Chris Jetters, he is one of the leaders of a clan of very dangerous people and his name is Lucien. We are not sure why he chose you three unless it was because he saw that we were interested in you, but he intended on doing medical type experiments on you. Bella heard part of what his plans were. His kind want to inseminate a female with one of their own." I paused a minute to let this sink in and see what their acceptance capacity was right now.
Alice spoke up first, "When you say *his kind*, just what exactly are we speaking of?"
I looked at my brothers to see what they thought. They both shrugged as if saying we are in this far we might as well tell them.
I took a breath and said, "He is called a shape shifter. He can take on another creatures shape, but when he does he can't just shift back out again, it is for a certain amount of time. We aren't exactly sure of what the minimum time is, but we have heard of them shifting and liking the new shape so well that they chose to stay like that forever. It takes more than just their seeing a shape or liking it in order for them to change. They have to have a *sample* so to speak. A lock of hair, a piece of skin, a body part. Something that they can use to begin to form themselves. Sometimes they do it by kidnaping and taking parts of a body and passing them out to as many as they can, sometimes they will grab a species and through experimentation they will build a complete new hybrid out of it, like they were talking about tonight by inseminating a female. Apparently they have made enough hybrids that we were unable to sense their presence. Even as close as we were to him in the cafeteria. We had no idea he was a shape shifter."
"He of course recognized us from other run ins we had with him and his clan. He has sort of a bad taste in his mouth thanks to the Guardians. Not just us, mind you, there are thousands of our specialists worldwide. Our job, our reason in life is to protect the humans." I looked at Jas and Emmet again to see if I should go further. Bella reached her hand over and laid it on my leg and said, "We know this must be difficult for you to trust us enough with your secret, but there is no way on earth anyone is going to find out anything from the three of us." The other girls nodded in agreement.
Here I was concerned if they could handle it and they thought I was worried about whether or not they would tattle. They were too adorable. I looked her in the eyes and just stated out loud. "Bella, I am a Carpathian male, we drink animal blood for our sustenance and we have skills and talents far beyond a humans. Our life cycle is so slow that to you I look like I'm in my late teens, and I feel like it as well, but I have been alive for 108 years. Emmet is my older brother, he is 115 years old. Jasper is our younger brother, he is 100 years old." We didn't move. The girls faces never changed. They looked like they were in shock. I sat there and waited for some type of response.
Rose broke the silence, she reached over and socked Emmet hard on the arm and said, "Ewwww you old perv! You tried to make out with me!"