do, if he was going to remain in her life. He’d leave her with another protector rather than let this compromise everything he stood for. He had a job to do, a job that was more important to him, and to the Society, than any personal needs. He couldn’t have a normal life, so he wouldn’t prevent her from having one, too. Grief swelled her throat and rose up, making her eyes sting.
She pulled out her cell phone and hit the button for Sam’s. He answered immediately, and hearing his voice was like reconnecting with the mother ship. The urge to cry receded.
“Quinn.”
“Yeah, Sam. I’m safe.”
“Thank god. Where are you?”
“The camp you told Nick about. No one’s found us. We’ll wait another half hour or so, then head back to get you.”
“No, go straight on to your place, if you’re sure you’ve lost them. You’d be backtracking too much to come get me, so I called for a rental car. I’ll meet you at the cabin. Are you okay?” he added. “You sound okay, but—”
“I’m fine. They didn’t hurt me.”
“Good.” He cleared his throat.
“We’ll meet you soon.”
“Wait, Quinn.” She waited, hearing the rustle of papers. “I did some more digging on your birth family while I was waiting. It shouldn’t have taken so long, but Nick had the fucking last name wrong.”
She didn’t want to hear about Nick’s shortcomings right now. “You found something?” Her heart pounded in escalating rhythm.
“I sure as hell did.” He paused. “Quinn, you have a sister.”
Chapter Eight
Goddess lineage is maternal and almost never dormant. The Society keeps careful track of its members, registering a new goddess upon her birth and offering educational support when she turns twenty-one and discovers both the source and manifestation of her power.
—The Society for Goddess Education and Defense, New Member Brochure
…
Quinn’s phone beeped. Low battery.
“I have a what?”
“A sister. She’s—”
Another beep. Shit. “Sam, I’m going to lose you. I’ll call you back.” The call dropped and the screen went dark. She whirled on Nick, her ankle protesting. “Let me use your phone.”
He shook his head. “It’s almost out of juice. I was on with Sam for a lot of the last six hours.”
“You have a charger, don’t you?”
“Car charger broke. Haven’t had time to get a new one.”
“What about a regular charger?”
Nick waved a hand. “No electricity.”
She turned, studying the room she hadn’t noticed when they first came in. The tiny, warp-planked cabin was bare bones, with an empty steel bed frame in one corner and a bent Formica table in another. No outlets, no lamps, only the glow of the headlights outside. “What is this place?”
“Private campground. Sam figured it would be deserted this time of year. The sign out by the highway is damaged, too. They won’t find us.”
“Shit.” She shoved a hand through her hair, realizing how wild it must look between the hood, her run through the woods, and Nick’s hands in it. “Okay, let’s get going as soon as possible.”
“Give it a few more minutes.” He picked up his coat from the floor and shrugged it on. “You warm enough?”
“Fine.” She limped to the bed and lowered herself to the edge of the frame. “Should you turn off the headlights?”
“It’ll be okay for a minute.” He didn’t come closer, but she could feel his frown in the darkness. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Sam just told me I have a sister.”
The distance Nick had been trying to maintain disappeared. He snapped back to his usual self and sat beside her.
“I meant you were limping, but we’ll come back to that. He didn’t have time to tell you anything else, did he?”
“No.”
He took her hand. “Only a few more hours.”
“You really need to get a car charger for your phone.”
His teeth flashed white in the darkness as he smiled. “Or maybe one of those battery-powered instant chargers?”
“Yeah.” She wished she could shut off her brain until they got to Michigan and she could get answers from Sam, but it persisted in spinning questions and theories. At least, if she concentrated on those, she could ignore the indecipherable swirl of emotions inside her.
After a moment of silence, Nick joined the what-if game. “You think the family ties Alana mentioned mean your sister?”
A foreign sensation zipped over Quinn’s skin at the word. “It’s the likely assumption. But how do they know? She might not even be a goddess.”
“She’s gotta be. Dormancy’s rare, you know that.”
Quinn wanted to feel joy and excitement about the prospect of a sister, but the