Free Sullivan Saga 2: Sullivan's Wrath by Michael K. Rose Page B

“I’ll go, but you have to stay here.”
    “What if he really just wants to say goodbye?”
    “It’s not right, Kate. This address he sent me is a warehouse in the industrial part of the city. Why not meet somewhere like a hotel, a restaurant?”
    “A warehouse? Do you think he’s found the ship, then?”
    “I’m almost certain of it. But I can’t understand why he wants me there.”
    “I’m telling you, it’s to say goodbye. He’s leaving on the ship, and we may never see him again.”
    Sullivan turned to look at her. “Kate, it’s not right. He knows that once I know where he is, I’ll try to stop him. I won’t let him leave in that ship. Besides, it’s not safe for you to be out on the streets after dark.”
    Kate got up and moved to stand behind him. She put her arms around his shoulders. “Then why did he call?”
    Sullivan stopped tapping the table. He brought his hand up and rubbed his eyes. “I think he wants to take me with him.”
    Kate moved away. She rounded the table and sat across from Sullivan. “These entities… they’re up to something big, aren’t they?”
    “If I only knew what it was, I could….” He paused then lowered his eyes. “What could I do? Against beings like this, beings I can’t see, can’t touch, can’t kill….”
    “Then don’t go, Rick.”
    Sullivan stood, folded up his tablet and shoved it into his pocket. “I have to. If I don’t, they’ll find a way to get me eventually. Whatever they want, they have the power to ruin my life, maybe even harm you if they don’t get it.”
    “Rick, no.”
    Sullivan pulled Kate into an embrace. He kissed her lightly on the lips then turned away. “I can’t let them harm you. Trust me.”
    Kate began crying. Sullivan quickly crossed to the door, opened it and stepped through before she could change his mind. She threw herself onto the bed and began sobbing uncontrollably. After fifteen minutes, the tears had given way to stinging eyes and a headache. Kate got up and went to the bathroom. She washed her face and splashed cool water on the back of her neck.
    She knew Rick was right. If the entities wanted something from him, they were definitely capable of forcing his hand.
    Returning to the bedroom, Kate caught sight of her open suitcase. The gilt lettering on one of her father’s books caught her eye. It was the Discourses and Enchiridion of Epictetus. She took it from her case and opened it as she lay back on the bed.
    Riffling the pages, she skipped past the dense text of the Discourses and found the much more accessible chapters of the Enchiridion . It was this work, along with the Meditations , she recalled, that her father had prized above all others. As with the Meditations , Benjamin Alexander had bookmarked pages in this book. She stopped at one of the bookmarks: “Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish, but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.”
    Kate wiped her eyes again. It was so easy to say such things when the things that happened were not so trying. In the past two years, Kate had been kidnapped twice, her father had been killed and she’d watched the man she loved go off to war. Rick was no longer fighting a war, but he was still in danger. He was in danger on Stellar Assembly planets, with a warrant out for his arrest, and he was in danger on most other planets due to the reputation that had been spread about him. How could Epictetus assert that just letting things happen as they are would lead to tranquility?
    Kate caught herself feeling embarrassed, even though no one else had been witness to her negative thoughts. Epictetus, she recalled, had been born into slavery in Ancient Rome and had been, for most of his life, a cripple. She, on the other hand, had been the daughter of one of the wealthiest men on all the inhabited planets, and until recently her life had been one of ease and luxury.
    She opened the book to