“Good.” I turned and almost ran into Luke. He caught my arms before I could walk into him. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
Just behind him, Charlene turned away from the desk. “They only had five rooms,” she said joining our group. “One is the honeymoon suite.” She handed a key card to Emmitt with a smile. “The others are double queens.”
She held up the remaining cards.
“Sam can room with us,” Gabby quickly offered. I didn’t miss Clay reaching up to sooth her back. She looked over her shoulder to give him a shy smile.
“I thought you and the boys could sleep with us, Nana,” Charlene suggested. Nana agreed, and Michelle looked relieved. Her brothers would be well protected.
“Jim can join us,” Grey said, looking up at Carlos. “Right, darling?” Grey teased.
Carlos stoically agreed.
Luke grabbed the remaining room card without a word. A room to ourselves. A room with two beds. Yeah, I didn’t let my hopes get too high.
“Let’s meet in the suite first,” I suggested. “If they catch up to us, I want a plan laid out.”
Five minutes later, we gathered in the suite minus Jim, the boys, and Nana. They splashed in the pool.
“I’ve been all over the board with my explanations. So let me be clear with what I’m trying to avoid. Dying. It’s not fun,” I said. “We need to stop their power trip. I don’t mean just in this life and cycle but future lives and cycles, too. We need to rob them of their chance to control us in this life. We need to make their search hard and their goal nearly impossible.” I didnotwant to live through another brutal death in my next life. Old age would be a new experience for me.
The thought sparked inspiration. “We need to change the game,” I said with a growing smile.
“What do you have in mind?” Sam asked.
Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for the argument that I knew would ensue. “As I mentioned, there are six of us. We represent different things. Prosperity, Hope, Wisdom, Strength, Peace, and Courage. According to Gabby and Michelle, the Urbat already have one of us. Courage. They can’t haveanyof us because all of us are needed to make a Judgement this cycle.” I knew in my heart I spoke the truth. The world was so unbalanced it wobbled. “We can’t get to Courage. There’s just no way with our numbers. That’s why we need to expose werewolves and Urbat to the humans.”
As expected, denial broke out.
“You can’t be serious,” Thomas said.
“We’ll be at their mercy,” Sam added. “We don’t go to hospitals for a reason.”
“I first saw you at one,” Gabby pointed out.
“I was visiting a human friend,” he waved away the reason. “We’ll end up in cages.”
“No,” I said, but no one listened. “Just calm down,” I shouted, quieting the room.
“Hear me out. They have the advantage. There are more of them. They know what’s going on, and we don’t. Not fully...not yet, anyway. They’ve been building up connections in the human world.” I looked to Michelle, and she nodded in agreement. “We need to come into the light before they do. Show the world that Werewolves exist, show we’re not bad, and then expose the Urbat, too. We need to show that we’re different from the Urbat and that they are trying to hurt us.”
“If we direct human concern toward the Urbat and not Werewolves, we will have less to worry about. The Urbat won’t be able to creep around trying to hunt us because the humans will be watching. Urbat won’t be safe.”
“Neither will we,” Sam said.
“Not in your fur, you’re right. You’ll need to let everyone know to keep it under wraps. And the ones that can’t, shouldn’t go outside. But we can’t expose everything until we have Peace. She takes the panic and anxiety down to almost catatonic. And Charlene can help keep everyone on the same page,” I added. “Werewolves are good, Urbat are bad.”
Charlene looked uncertain.
“We’ll keep the initial group small,” I assured her. “We need to find someone at a TV station to take us seriously enough to give us air time. We want this to be recorded at their studio to give it more credibility.”
“I might know someone,” Michelle offered hesitantly. “She interviewed me once.”
“Perfect!” I said, excited and feeling like I was on the right track. “When we’re there, Charlene will need to grab everyone in the room and keep them from thinking they should call the National Guard to make us into lab rats. Meanwhile, Peace will keep everyone in the studio from freaking out. The first impression werewolves will give is a calm and kind one. It wouldn’t hurt to have a spokesperson who looks sweet and unable to snap someone’s neck,” I said, knowing the Elders were communicating.
Grey laughed slightly. “Winifred is not comfortable with being the spokesperson and wants me to remind you clothes don’t change with us.”
“We’ll bring a robe,” I promised. “By exposing ourselves—no pun intended—we are robbing the Urbat of their advantage. They can’t hope to win against humans in an outright war. There are too many. Their technology is too advanced. A bullet in the head would kill any of the three races just the same. If we tell the world we’re the good guys, and warn them to watch out for the bad guys, we’re more likely to make it harder for the Urbat to win this time around.”
