Chapter 51 - Unexpected (Ansel Conrad POV) Pt.1

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Chapter 51 – Unexpected (Ansel Conrad POV) Pt.1

"Have you thought of what we're going to tell the family? What you'd approve of me saying?" My father asks while everyone is in the back of the bus watching a movie, exhausted but deciding to sleep once we've made our first stop in Ogden, Utah.

Like Kalenah and I, my parents, Jonah and Mary, had big families. Dad with five siblings, and mom with seven, making her the eighth and while my siblings and I had remained relatively close in Oregon, that was not the same for my mothers siblings.

I know that my mother had a sister that up to now, she really had no idea if she was alive. Nearly sixty years had gone by since she last saw her. She had joined a nomad Werejaguar clan, when they were younger, claiming she was 'in love with the leader of their little cult.'

Mom's words exactly. Apparently, he thought he was the next savior and has found women willing to produce him heirs.

'His seventh concubine,' mom would say.

As for my fathers' siblings, they had remained with us as I grew up; it was only maybe twenty years ago when my three uncles and aunt took their own way, settling down in Utah. There weren't exactly a Den; instead each living separate lives amongst humans.

"This is your show," Dad says eyes on the road while I sit with my computer looking at my plans for North Carolina. "But?" I prompt when he doesn't finish his thought out loud and a few minutes have gone by. "I – my siblings, hell, your mothers, Antone and Bess, aren't safe Ansel."

I stop working, taking a moment to pause and look outside of just the people in my Den.

"All I'm saying is, it just hit me that Nick was all too calm, at the meeting. My siblings and your mothers' they decided not to join your Den, or anyone else, but Nick has met them, and I feel as though for taking his daughter," he doesn't finish the sentence, instead just letting it hang in the air, letting me build up scenario after scenario.

As I sit picking apart what dad has said, pushing plans to the side mentally, I rest my head back and I replay the night, watching it in my mind's eye.

"Don't you see Lennon, his whole plan depends on you," I blink straightening up in my seat immediately. Liam's sons' words finally resonate with me.

Nick's plan is to offer up female werecats. Or not offer them up, but show that he has them in his Den. In my mind, like watching an old black and white movie on a projector, horror fills me at each turn when moments are played. Instances where Nick has met my aunts and uncles, Kelanah's as well. I might be Den leader, but that did not stop other werejaguars from striking up conversations with Nick.

Gatherings where he asked where they lived or what their situation was. They seem like such innocent questions at the time, but what if he was slowly gathering data.

His plan – though I wasn't privy to it – ultimately depends on how many females he had in his Den, or under his thumb. Mike had five daughters and two sons.

Between my aunts and uncles, I had eleven female cousins, and like me, they had daughters of their own. Nick did not need everyone in my Den to walk away with him, not if he knew where the Elders could find more female werecats.

As I think the worst thought possibly, I drop my hands in my head. Slowly massaging my own temples, a throbbing sensation builds as all the stress weighs me down.

I was mentally exhausted.

Turning my chair to face the back of the bus, I shut my laptop, and sigh. "I'll have Angela send out a message informing everyone," but it might be to late, I finish in my head.

"Dad," I exhale, "I think – before we came outside, Nova, Faith's therapist pointed out something to me that I had over looked," I choose my words carefully. As the driver the last thing I wanted to distract him, but it couldn't be avoided now. I'd be a fool not to take precautions.

It'd be a hardship and adjust for everyone, but in the end, I'd rather be prepared.

"What was that?" he asks though he doesn't spare me a glance.

"Faith believes in the Loyalist and Independents," he nods, "yes, I know."

"But she also believed without a single doubt dad, that the air was poisonous," he nods slowly, resting one hand on his thigh as the other controlled the wheel.

"But it's not... we know that..."

"Faith is from Zedwood. Zedwood has Seers." I keep my tone even, trying to keep the alarm that was growing inside of me out of my voice.

He shifts his gaze to me slowly, before returning it to the road.

"Why did you pick North Carolina Ansel?"

"I thought of all the different places I had ready to go and it's out of the way, and closest to where Dmitri had kept Faith. Her therapist said that Faith could be a Seer dad, and that the world she saw, could be one that's coming."

Observing dad, I watch his hands grip the steering wheel tighter, turning his knuckles bone white, blood pooling around them.

"The houses aren't completed but, I'm going to set up the place and probably another as well; the way Dmitri had created the house for Faith. I'd spoken with Walsh, after I learned the truth, and he told me that a small group of maybe twenty could have lived in the house he found her. That there was a decontamination area, and electrical fences, and that everything was solar powered."

My father nods slow. "And you want to create that?"

"I feel that I owe it to the people following me, to make that happen. I know it won't be easy because I want to keep this as low key as possible. I'm also thinking that if the air is poisonous, then that means that produce, and animals, all of the things kept outside... I can understand so much more of the world Faith thought was real."

"So you want to what? Create a farm?"

That was the part where I was aware that many people following me would not be quite happy about. Why on earth would be want to build a farm, greenhouses to grow our own foods, barns that could house our animals, when we did not need too?

Why would we go through all that extra work? Farming wasn't easy. Yet, I felt as though I had to think further than 'we can get this at the grocery store.'

Should this happen, should the world Faith thought was real, does become reality we would be safe.

"Not just a farm, I want to set up a few greenhouses," my father begins chuckling.

"You make a damn good leader son," he continues, "you had that same mentality when you were a kid." His chuckles only grow in volume.

"You'd want a piece of candy for now, and another for later. Always planning ahead."

I snort, "Dad, really. I just think that should this happen, do you know the kind of chaos that would ensue? I mean any and all outdoor crops might be destroyed, which means less-"

"Ansel, I understand, you don't want people in your Den having to fight tooth and nail to get food. And this isn't one of those things were you say, when it happens, that's when I'll make the change, you have to be proactive." I nod, my father understood.

"For now, I've already thought of a few bonuses. Right now, Liam does those long hauls for the business, but I could offer him something closer to home. It's tiring, and I'd never ask them to do what I'm not willing either."

Sighing heavily, I went down a layer. "Now, I want to protect my family, but you know how fast word travels dad and I cannot put what I'm going to do for the family and Den members at risk," by telling every shifter, not when I couldn't trust just anyone.

"Are you seeking permission Ansel?" dad asks after a few minutes of silence. "Because, as long as you have a plan and this isn't just some chaotic disaster, the people that followed you, they'll understand-" Dad is cut off by the ring of the Stat phone. Jumping up from my seat, I toss the laptop where I was; eagerly answering when I see it's an unknown number.

"Samson?" I question, waiting, my heart hammering.

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