Secrets of the Guardian (Waldgrave Book 3) by A.L. Tyler Page B

for you, living the way he does to protect his loved ones from a Council investigation and whatever else…He’s given up his life for you, Cheryl, because it doesn’t matter who you are. He still loves you without even knowing you, enough that he was even blackmailed for it, and all he’s ever wanted to give you was what was best. He’s waited so many years just to meet you in person, and you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but I think it would mean a lot to him.”
    Lena let herself fall quiet. Cheryl was looking up at the ceiling, thinking.
    It wasn’t looking promising; she was going to feel terrible for Warren if Cheryl didn’t want to see him. All those years, waiting and hoping, only to have his own daughter turn him down. Lena decided to try one more time. “Really, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can do this another time, when you’re ready. So just don’t worry about it now, and we’ll see how you’re feeling when the time comes, all right?”
    Cheryl gave a slight nod, wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, and then turned over to go to bed. Devin came back out of the bathroom and Lena went in to brush her teeth and change into her nightclothes. She turned out the lights on her way back to the bed, but none of the three fell asleep easily that night.
     
     
    *****
     
     

     
    It must have been early the next morning that Lena woke to find Cheryl missing and the sheets next to her cold. There was a chill on the air in the motel room, and it wasn’t until Lena got up to check the bathroom that she realized the motel door was wide open; cold, humid, gray morning air was ebbing through it. Lena stepped out into the not-quite-lit morning and crossed her arms against the chill, the concrete cool and gravelly with tiny pebbles beneath her feet. She turned her head right and left, and saw Cheryl, still in her nightclothes, leaning against the wrought iron railing at the far end of the walkway, staring off to the east with her back to Lena.
    Lena walked toward her. The sun was just peeking over the far side of the Earth, sending multihued iridescent rays shooting off into the sky. As Lena neared her, a breeze picked up and threw Cheryl’s hair into a wide delta behind her, a few dissident beams catching in her light brown waves and making them glow.
    “Cheryl?”
    The girl didn’t move. “Kelsey. My name is Kelsey.”
    Lena tilted her head. She looked around again, for a moment feeling that she might have stepped into another plane of existence—it felt like she was tracking Ben again; things just didn’t make sense. Cheryl wasn’t acting like herself. She looked behind her, at the motel walls and the floor beneath her feet, and finally back out at the sunrise. She stepped up next to Cheryl, and Cheryl turned her face to look Lena in the eye. Her skin was glowing with light from the rising sun.
    “He’s out here, Lena.” She said with a small, hesitant smile. “He knows we’re out here, too.”
    “Who?” Lena asked.
    Cheryl turned back to the rising sun and took a slow, deep breath. “Rollin, and someone else. It’s better if we split up, because he’ll have more trouble finding all of us. I’m going with my father, and you’re going to South Carolina, and Devin, well…I’m not sure what’s going to happen to Devin. I think it depends what you do with the baby.”
    Lena could only stare, dumbfounded, at Cheryl. She most definitely wasn’t herself; she was having an episode of some sort.
    “It was a very bad idea for the three of us to come out here.” Cheryl continued. “A very, very bad idea.”
    “What baby?” Lena asked.
    Cheryl only smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know—the one you had in the dream. You’re a Collins as much as a Daray. You said that in the dream.”
    Lena’s eyes stayed fixed on Cheryl for a moment. The knot in her stomach had eased, but only slightly; it was just a dream. Lena would have liked to believe there