Forever for Rose

Chapter Forty.

Inside is a small conference room with a little round table and six fold up chairs around it. I plop down in the cold seat, the metal against the back of my thighs helping to center my nerves. My teeth clatter but I'm ready.

The others follow me in and Nathaniel takes the seat beside me. "Are you sure? I can do this alone."

I nod once, my eyes already closed. "I can't just sit and wait while they're out there." I've been going over the timing in my head. They took the bus out as far as possible, getting by some of the traps set up around the Netherlands settlement. It would be impossible for a vampire to come this way on foot. Then they would have run as fast as possible, which I'm told it quite fast, to set up along the twisting dark road to set up and wait for the caravan to move through. If we don't hurry we'll miss it.

"Ok." Nathaniel mutters and I settle into my seat, taking Nathaniel's hand in mine.

I can still feel his hand in mine when I open my eyes again. I look over but I don't see him. We are only watching through our astral eyes, so others can't see us at all.

His hand leads me to the side of the dirt road, pulling back into the trees where I can see some of our men hidden in the shadows. I hear whispers and look up into the trees and see even more.

The road is lined on both sides by thick trees with branches that hang out over, some branches reaching over to touch the ones on the opposite side of the road. It's in a spot like that that I see Dalton standing with his legs bent and ready to pounce on one of the branches, my dad a little further down in a crouch the same focused look in his eyes as Dalton's.

I hold my breath without meaning to, but watching this unfold and not being able to actually be a part of it makes me even more nervous.

Lance is across the road from me, his eyes trained up the dirt path. He jumps up from the ground and gets to his feet, holding his fist up over his head in a signal to the others up in the branches.

Dalton salutes, acknowledging the movement and he bends his knees a little more, getting into a more comfortable position.

I still feel Nathaniel's hand in mine and he whispers aloud. "They're coming."

This is it.

Either success or failure is coming up that dirt road now and one of those options is going to forever change my life.

Unlike the others, I see the first big truck before I hear it. It rumbles into view, no headlights on and it is flanked on both sides by men who walk along with the slow moving caravan, eyes strained on the road ahead and head turning from side to side, trying to see into the trees that they don't know yet holds danger.

The first truck moves on by, followed closely by the next. The branches over the road hang so low that some of the leaves brush the tops of the trucks.

Dalton and Dad are well hidden, so good I can hardly see them myself except that they move just a little as the third truck moves into view. It's the one that strategically speaking should hold the hostage. It's in the center of the pack and because it's flanked by two men on both sides, I feel like our guess is correct.

If you weren't expecting it, you'd never notice the way that Dad and Dalton silently step off of the branch and onto the roof of the large trailer being pulled by the truck. They lower themselves flat on top and wait.

Out of the trees, four of our own men appear, just as the truck is passing and before the next one is in view, our guys make quick about sneaking behind the guards posted on either side of the truck and kill them from behind, another group moving out of the trees to take the bodies into the cover of the woods while four of our men stand in for the guys they killed.