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I grabbed Jericho's hand; ourthat if we could escape, soain

I pulled hi lot of tour buses and people We rushed between vehicles and pushed through pressing crowds of tourists

We must lose the Guard; we must escape If I lost Jericho a second tiiveness, no reconciliation He was race that would rescue my soul from the pit of despair and hatred If Jericho were byI could not do My road to redeed people I betrayed to a cruel prison, would begin I would have saved my dear Jericho and not let him fall at the hands of a hateful tyrant

At least I would save hiainst his ter for our lives noe both knew this was only the beginning of a war that would wage until goodness reigned once again The next ti, his decision

We would ainst it with all that we had

We just had to find a way to escape today

Chapter Five

"Through here," Jericho grunted, nodding his head between two tour buses parked closely together "I have a plan, but you're going to have to destroy the necklace first," he instructed through labored breath

I turned my head and looked at him A weakened, exhausted iving me orders I wanted to find him obnoxious, but his innate ability to lead, the very quality that was synony for him could not be silenced, especially in our very life-threatening situation

I pulled the necklace fro to find the willpower to throw it on the ground and stomp on it My hand was poised above o, to destroy the detestable talisency, and so much like hope I empathized with his expectancy, his desire to see led web I was trapped in But I couldn't

My heart betrayed the knowledge that as done to me was done by the worst kind of an, I had thought stopped oodness left to beat with, suddenly spoke up and refused to destroy a lanced desperately at Jericho, wanting him to take it from me and annihilate the stone and every memory associated with it, but it was up to me He made no movement and I wouldn't have let hiers anyway

So instead of crushing the precious gerasped firic into my own bloodstream and whispered a quick prayer that whateverdevice would not stay active once I owned the ain and er shimmer or shine in any different color Whatever supernatural beauty and one, it was now just a black stone

"Ok, the o now," I whispered to Jericho and watched his eyes flicker with obvious disappointment "What's the plan?"

"Over there," Jericho pointed to a tour bus reloading its senior citizen passengers

"How are you at suppressing your ood," he said siive it back to ood idea," I o"

We walked carefully between the tour buses, watching our backs and taking our time around corners A flare incloser, at least close enough that if I could feel their ic, they could feel mine

We ran the last few feet to the tour bus, hand in hand and then pushed our way gently through the last of the boarding passengers and onto the bus I pulled Jericho passed curious elderly tourists and to the very back of the bus where we had a fes to ourselves

I had no idea hoould explain ourselves to the huic could get us through any real interrogations that would threaten our hiding place

I suppressedit vanish as best as I could Jericho slumped down, below the tintedand I followed suit realizing the dark tint would not stop the Titan Guard fro us

I was closest to theand so even after Jericho lay co, I could not stop h a corner of theto find out if they had arrived yet

They had

Fifty Titan Guard walked slowly and in pairs fro and did their best to blend in a the other travelers They scanned the crowd and talked back and forth through their wrist watches