I can't believe it's been so long since I updated. I want to thank black dragon for basically giving me a cyber kick in the ass. It's been half-way completed for the last month. Just never got around to finishing it. Thank you!
"Hello?" Isabella answered the phone, her voice thick with sleep that had been interrupted.
'Is this Alexis Wilcox?' The man on the other end of the line asked, bringing her more into the world of the living.
Her new name for her life. "Yes it is, may I ask who's calling?"
'Ma'am, this is Sergeant Kyle Brinning with the Alaska State Patrol. A few hours ago, a man by the name of Douglas Messen was rushed to the hospital. There was a card in his wallet that named you his emergency contact.'
Seth. Her blood ran cold at the thought of him being in a hospital. Abstergo was everywhere, and with him being there, they were bound to find out about it. "Where is he?"
After giving her the information, Isabella hung up the phone, and shook Desmond. His eyes slowly opened. "Wha...?" he asked, still pretty much asleep.
"Seth was in an accident. He's in a hospital an hour from here. I need to get down there." She climbed from the bed, her body mainly on auto pilot, because her mind was running too many scenarios on what had happened. All the officer would tell her was that his car had drifted right of center, and came to rest in a ditch. He didn't know the extent of the injuries, but he was in a bad way.
Desmond sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. "You can't go alone."
Grabbing a bag from the top shelf of the closet, Isabella looked at the contents, the knot in her belly getting harder. Their blades, and a solitary gun rested in the bottom. It was time, and she knew it. "I have to, Des. I have to make sure he's alright, and find out what happened."
The covers on the bed rustled, telling her that he had left the warmth, but she wasn't about to let him stop her. Pretty much Seth was the only family, besides Desmond and Collin she had left. Her mother and father had gone into hiding the same time she had, and there had been little contact between them. It was safer that way, she knew, but it still left in a void in her.
"Isabella, if Abstergo's the one that went after Seth, you know they're going to figure where he's at now." She felt his hand rest on her shoulder, and what he was saying was true, but there was no way she was going to abandon her brother.
"I know." The words left her lips in a sigh. Turning, she looked him in the eye. "You need to take Collin and head for your father's. I'm going to see if I can get Seth out of there, and we'll meet up with you later."
"Please be careful. I don't like this." He held on to both shoulders then, like as to hold her there, but she knew he wouldn't stop her. He knew what her family meant to her, and that she was capable to handling whatever was thrown at her.
So throwing her arms around him, Isabella held on tight, and sent a prayer to whoever was listening for everything to work out. For everyone to be safe.
But once she was on the road, with her blades on her wrists, a throwing knife tucked safely into each boot, and a packed bag in the truck, she had a feeling she was going to need all the divine intervention she could get to keep her head on her shoulders, her brother's life in his body, and her family safe.
Once in the car, she dialed a number that she had longed wish to forget. Two rings and William's voice came over the speaker in the Bluetooth. "What happened to my brother?" she asked, pulling out of her spot. Light snow began to come down as she turned down the road towards the highway.
'How do you know about that?' William asked on the other end.
"Because I'm his damn emergency contact. I still have contact with my family when I can. I'm not so far out of the loop that I don't know what's going on most days. Just don't tell Desmond. He's the one that wanted out completely. Now, what the fuck happened?" Isabella wasn't about to play games with him today.
The older Miles must have figured out she wasn't going to relent, and so with a sigh, he spoke. 'Seth was on a mission to retrieve some data that we needed. It was him and three other guys. Well, they were successful, and were lying low in a safe house for a few days until they could get out of town. The house was attacked.'
A few curse words left her lips. "Not so safe huh?" the woman sneered, and turned on her signal to change lanes.
'It should have been, because it had only been used a few times. We have a leak.'
"What do you mean, you have a leak? Like another inside mole?" Isabella knew it was not uncommon for the Brotherhood to have turncoats, but if this one was exposing safe houses that were new. "Do have any idea on who it might be?"
'A few, but nothing solid yet.' A deep sigh, and William spoke once more. 'Isabella, I want you to stay out of this. I'll get someone to go up and retrieve your brother. Make sure he stays safe. Just tell me what hospital.'
If there was a leak in information, she wasn't about to trust anyone. The sad thing she wasn't about to trust her father-in-law as well. The Brotherhood wasn't safe. Not anymore. "No." She states simply, turning onto the entrance ramp to the highway. "I'll go. You need to keep an eye out for your son, and grandson. They'll be on their way down there soon." She knew Desmond could handle himself, and if anyone came for him or Collin, well, she pitied the asshole that touched her son with his father protecting him. They would never be able to identify the body on a good day. That's if they ever found the body to start with.
'Do not send him down here. Too much shit is going on, and I don't want them in the middle of it. Did you ever stop and think that all of this might be to flush the three of you out of hiding?' It had occurred to her, but she didn't want to tell him he may be right. She'd never hear the end of it. 'Call him and send him to a friend of mine. He's near you, and a retired assassin. Scott Dower.'
Isabella's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "You had us watched?" Her voice came out cold, calm, but inside she wanted nothing more than to skewer the man like a roast pig. He had told them he would leave them alone. Let them do what they wanted. Yeah, he may he done that, but he still knew where they were at all times.
'Don't sound so surprised. I figured you would have caught on. It was your father's idea as well. Scott was in the same cell as him and myself when we were younger.'
Slamming the palm of her hand into the steering wheel, Isabella released a small scream. "Why can you two not leave well enough alone? Desmond and I are fully grown adults, and have a child. We're damn well able to take care of ourselves, and you know that." The man was infuriating on the best of days. Now, he was really taking that to another level. "I can't believe my dad would go along with this madness. Who all knew about our location, and don't fucking lie to me."
'Scott, his wife, Charlene, myself, your parents, and Seth. That's it. No one else was trusted enough with the information.' She heard papers rustling in the background. 'I know nothing I say is going to stop you from going and getting your brother, so the only I'm going to say is be careful. We can't trust anyone from here on out.'
"I've known that from the beginning, and I don't need the vision your son has to tell me that." Isabella growled.
'Don't let him rely on that too heavily. That can be tricked if the person is your friend for that time. Friends can be foe, and a foe can sometimes be your greatest ally. Instincts are the only thing an assassin should rely on.'
That was a lesson her father had tried to pound into her head for years. She followed it for the most part, until one time when she didn't listen. That's how she ended up boiled in this mess. "Follow your own advice." And in a fit of anger, Isabella reached up, and disconnected the call.
*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*
Shaun surveyed the damage to the last safe house that had been attacked. Nothing suggested foul play, except the bullet holes in the wall, and the copious amount of dried blood on the floor. Six assassins had been killed there. Their mission had been compromised before it had even began, and a hit squad was waiting for them once they returned to the safe house.
Dodging a large puddle of the burgundy stain, the Englishman walked up the steps to where his co-worker looked around the second floor. "Find anything?" he asked.
Tori raised her head from a spot she had been looking at on the floor. "Nothing right now. The only entrance point of the whole building is the front, and that wasn't tampered with. They knew the codes, and the location." A section of her dark hair fell from the small ponytail, straight into her face. The woman didn't even move it out of her way.
"But the real question is, who are they getting the information from?" Shaun sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a migraine coming on. He and Tori had been to every safe house that had been attacked in the last few months. It was all the same. No marks on the door, no forced entry except the last one. The one that had just been attacked the other night. That one had actually been stormed, as if the mole didn't know when they were going to be there. Or there was someone that they really wanted taken out.
Standing, the woman's eyes scanned the room. From the sheen of her eyes, Shaun knew she was looking for hidden clues with the Eagle Vision. Only a few were blessed with the full vision. A few others could use it to a certain extent, but would lead to headaches, eye twitches, and eyes strains if used for too long. Tori and Desmond were the only two that he knew that could stay in the sight for however long they wanted with no ill effects.
"There was a seven man hit squad here. Our men didn't even have a chance." She shook her head. "The leak has to be found if we want to keep our lives."
That was something that could both agree on, but finding the mole was proving harder than it sounded. They guarded their steps well, and much of the information they had been passing to the Templars could be found out easily enough if you were privy to some of the higher level information. That would mean they were one of the field ops, or even a tech. It could damn near be anyone. Which didn't sit well with Shaun.
"This place hasn't given away anything that we didn't already know." She walked around the room, her eyes taking everything in.
"Then we should head back and see if Rebecca has anything useful. She's been working the phone lines, seeing if there's any chatter that might prove useful. I'll check in with Jack. He's still on the inside, and might have heard something, or found something in his snooping." The man had turned into a right fine spy. Using what he had learned from John, before they found out that the man was actually a reincarnation of Juno's dead husband, Jack had managed to become a pretty decent hacker.
Nodding, Tori began to walk down the stairs. "I will see about that other place in Baltimore. It was the only one, besides the one that was attacked the other night that had signs of siege. Maybe we missed something that could show us who this person is."
Following her down the steps, he knew which one she was talking about. It was the first sloppy kill that the Templars had done. The men they took out were killed fighting back. They didn't get the drop on the assassins like the rest of them, but they got better. The Templars were now being careful and had adopted a watch and wait policy that made Shaun's skin crawl. They were adapting old school assassin training, and that didn't sit well with him.
*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*
Desmond looked back at his son in the back seat. They had just begun their journey back to the lower forty-eight, and Collin's laughter echoed through the small sedan he drove. The movie that the two year old was watching was something he had seen a million and one times, causing the ex-assassin to roll his eyes with a smile. Never in a million years did he think he would be the one that would enjoy a cartoon movie, but now, he chuckled to himself, he could watch them all day. All because of a small brown eyed boy in the back seat.
"Daddy." Collin spoke up, and Desmond looked at him through the rearview mirror. "Gotta pee."
"Now I thought you did that before we left?" The boy had the bladder of a mouse, but potty training was going pretty good.
"Gotta go." He whined, and so with a sigh, he angled the car towards the next exit ramp that had a gas station.
Sometimes taking Collin on car trips was, for a lack of a better term, difficult. The boy had energy, and being in a car for longer than an hour provided a headache for both parents, and sometimes a tantrum on the child's end. Their only blessing was when Collin fell asleep, or when they gave him the tablet with his favorite movies on it.
As they came down the exit ramp, Desmond applied the brakes, and felt the car begin to slide slightly, but the tires caught finally, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Why, oh why, did they pick Alaska of all places to hide? He would have picked somewhere with less snow, and more sun, but looking at it from a different angle, he knew why they were there. It was the only state with little Templar influence, or hell, even Assassin for that matter.
Hitting the blinker to turn left, he watched another car come down the ramp behind him. Traffic was light, and so he was able to make the turn easily enough. Cruising down the road, he began to feel eyes on him. As if he was being watched. So, diverting his own eyes back to the rearview once more, he saw the cream colored sedan that had come down the exit ramp behind him.
Maybe it was his paranoia coming back, or it was actually something, he wasn't sure, but he wasn't taking any chances. Reaching over to the passenger seat, Desmond grabbed the hidden blade that he swore a year before that he would never wear again. There was no way to put it on while driving, because it required using his right hand to tighten the leather straps, so he slid it beside his leg, next to the hunting knife tucked between the seats. He may have escaped the war once more, but that didn't mean he was without protection at any given time. Call it knowing too much, and seeing too much.
The gas station came up on his right, so turning on the appropriate blinker, he turned the car into the four pump station, and brought it to a stop at the nearest pump to the building. Quickly, the ex-assassin slid the sleeve of his winter coat up his arm, revealing the impulsive tattoo he had gotten what seemed like so many years ago, but it really had only been four at best.
Once the blade was in place, and the sleeve pulled back down, he walked around the car, and took Collin from his car seat. His son's small arms wrapped around his neck, not knowing that his father was a bundle of nerves at that moment in time. Holding his child to him, Desmond walked into the station, and asked the young girl behind the counter for the restroom. She pointed to the lone door at the back with a smile.
The feeling hadn't left him in the slightest as he made his way to the back of the store. Using his peripheral vision, he spied the sedan across the street in the parking lot of the local McDonald's, the nose pointing his way. Now he knew they were watching him, but had adopted a wait and see. If they knew who he was, they also knew what he was capable of. The problem was, he was afraid. Not for himself, but because of Collin. He didn't want his son hurt, and Desmond was going to do everything in his power to keep that from happening.
After a quick trip to the restroom, and paying for a pop, a bag of chips, and twenty in gas, he quickly pumped the gas, and was back on the road. The cream car followed behind, trying to stay away from him, but Desmond could see them when he would take off.
Taking the ramp back to the highway, he drove, Collin's movie playing once more, creating a background noise. The sedan was back behind him a few cars away, and knowing he had to shake them, Desmond began to formulate a plan.
*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*
Isabella made it to the hospital with little problem, but something was seriously wrong when she made it to the floor she was told to go. It was eerily quiet, even for a hospital, save for a few nurses passing from room to room. After asking one of them for the room number, and was pointed in the right direction, she felt her uneasiness grow. The Templars had to know that Seth was there, and knew she would come for him. It was all a setup that she knew about.
A few people looked her way as she walked the hall, mainly orderlies, and a patient walking the hall. Her instincts told her to run, but she was tired of it. The hiding, the name changes. It wasn't her. She had never hidden from anything until she and Desmond had decided to leave the Brotherhood. Now, it was all about constantly watching their backs. Making sure nothing could be traced back to them. It was even more exhausting than living in the open.
Pushing open the right door, Isabella saw another person standing at the side of Seth's bed, and it wasn't a nurse. Pulling the gun slowly out of the hidden holster at the small of her back, she aimed it at the person's head. "You have five seconds to tell me what the hell you're doing here." She snarled, closing the door quietly.
"Why he came up here instead of calling someone is beyond me." Tori turned, lowering the dark hood. Her icy blue eyes dead-like. "William sent me to get the information Seth had retrieved."
Raising a brow, Isabella lowered the gun, but still kept it at ready. William never told her about sending Tori for any information, and she had just talked to him not even an hour ago. "What information? What mission was he on that landed him in the hospital?"
The woman shrugged. "I don't know. I was in the area with Shaun when the call came in that Seth had gone dark after his safe house had been attacked. Then William told me where he was." She turned her eyes back to Seth's prone from, and that's when Isabella brought the gun back up, and placed the barrel to the back of Tori's head.
"William doesn't know where Seth was, because I was the only one that knew." She pushed the gun against the dark haired woman's head more. "Start talking, unless you want your brains to grace the pristine white sheets of his bed."
There was a small chuckle that came from Tori's lips, causing Isabella's skin to crawl. "You and Desmond are as gullible as they come. It was a safe bet that if your family was in danger, then you would come running to protect. Your brother provided the means to bring you out, and now here you are. I only wish to talk."
Her finger itched to pull the trigger. To watch Tori's head erupt in brain, blood, and bone. She wanted this woman dead, and she wanted her dead now. But information was to be had, and she knew it would save lives if she had it. "So what do you want?"
"He has something I want, and you have something as well. You hand over Desmond, or your son, and the information your brother took a few nights ago, and I will not kill you. Choose which one you are willing to save. Your pathetic little family, or your brother. I will not wait all day." Tori didn't move. Her cool demeanor began to grate on her nerves.
"I'm not going to give you either. I have a gun on your head, so I hold the cards right now. I want answers, and your bitch ass is going to give them to me." Then she was dead. For everyone she had sold out in the last few months. For all the lives she had taken, directly and indirectly. The woman was going to die for the grief she had caused. "Start talking Tori."
"But that's the thing. I am not Tori." And she let out a cackle that left the hairs on Isabella's neck stand on end. "Tori has been gone for a year now. You robbed me of the one thing that would have released my time on this world, and I will have him returned."
"Juno." The name fell from her lips in a whisper.
"I will allow you one week, Isabella. One week to return to the Temple. You will not betray me, or I will hunt you down, and take you captive. Then I will begin to kill. Desmond, his father, your parents, Seth here, and you will learn what true pain is. I will kill everyone in your family, save for your son, and then, when you can take no more, you will die as well." Juno, in Tori's body, stood there, not moving.
Isabella growled and shoved the gun harder to her head, watching Tori/Juno's head move forward a bit. "I could end it all right now. You're in a mortal body now. I could just pull the trigger, and kill you now."
Juno shook her head. "No you won't. Because if you do, I will just return to the Temple and begin again. There is no real way to kill me. Shoot every mortal I possess, it matters little. I am immortal, child, and I will stay that way."
And there they were, standing at a crossroads. Isabella could stop her for a time, but not long enough. If Juno was able to possess one of the strongest willed people she knew, there was no stopping her from moving on to the next victim. It was a catch 22 if she had ever saw on. "You have to know that I'm not going to give you what you want."
Laughing, Juno walked towards the center of the room. "You are predictable, Isabella. I have seen what you did back in the past. You would protect those you perceived as family and friends. You are loyal to a fault, and that will get you killed. You will do what you believe is right, and there will be no telling you any different." And with that being said, Juno looked over at her. "One week, and I will come for you. If I have to destroy every assassin there is to find you, I will do just that."
And Isabella knew the woman would do it. It was only a matter of time.
Nasty turn of event, huh? Tori is not Tori anymore, but Juno. Stayed tuned for the next chapter (which hopefully won't be as long a wait) to find out what happens.