by R. J. Blain
Two hours later, we had electricity, the sewer and water lines were hooked up, and we sat at a campfire while Amelia cooked dinner.
It amused me how often she cooked over a fire when her RV had a nice gas stove in it.
“Tomorrow, I have to run some errands,” Amelia announced.
Considering we’d just run errands to make sure we had everything we needed while camping in the middle of nowhere, I could only assume her errand involved death or destruction in some form or another. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay here, keep your head down, and try not to wallow too much.”
I stared at her over the flames. “If I had something to do, I’d wallow less.”
Denying I wallowed wouldn’t help anything, and the instant I ran out of work to do, the emotions I bottled up surged to the surface, and since I lacked anything to be happy about, I decided her use of the word wallow beat the many other accurate alternatives. My awareness of my rogue emotions did nothing to mitigate them, nor could I find the strength needed to pretend.
She understood as much as she could understand.
“That’s a fair enough point. This week, we’ll make our first hit. We’re going to plant some evidence per the suggestion of the black market operators. As such, I need you to take some medications so when you helpfully donate some fresh blood, they can get the results we want them to have. One of the drugs will be one that you have a very poor relationship with.”
“Demerol?”
“Demerol,” she confirmed. “The damage I’m going to leave at the site afterwards will be consistent to a heavily drugged lunatic having been held while drugged. As Demerol gives you a unique reaction, it’ll be a better sell for those who know you. However, I’ll sedate you as soon as I’m able to get the appropriate blood samples, after which it’ll be business as normal. In bad news, I’ll be stealing a lot of your blood. Part of my errands is to get your type so I can do a transfusion. The idea is to make it so you can fully disappear. With the amount of blood we’ll be leaving, only a desperate idiot would hold any hope you’re actually alive. That won’t help if you fuck it up and show up somewhere the desperate idiots can find you, but it should buy us some time. I already have evidence of their other misdeeds in my possession, so we can complete that portion of the burn.”
“These ops are being awfully helpful,” I muttered.
“We’re solving problems for them, and they’re solving problems for us. Remember: we’re getting paid to do this hit, and you’re getting a damned good rate to deal with being drugged for this. For this to work, we need to appropriately frame them. The FBI bit that you were taken, either dead or critically injured, from the site. It was set up to make it clear that woman was the primary shooter and was responsible for your shooting and your pa’s death.”
I cringed.
“Your pa got a proper funeral, and so did that woman despite not deserving it. When you’re ready for closure, there’s a place for you to go. Give it time. I’d say give it time and get some therapy, but the therapy part won’t be happening for a while.”
No kidding. “I’m really too mentally unstable to be in the FBI.”
“Do you want to know what I think?”
I took a few minutes to gather my courage and brace myself for her answer, as I’d learned Amelia didn’t pull her punches once she decided to say something. “Yes. I do.”
“I think you’re a long-lived species. I think you’re the equivalent of a teenager, all hormones and feelings, and that everyone has forced you to be an adult long before you should have been forced into those shoes. You’re like one of those little kid geniuses, the kind people treat as full-grown adults without realizing they’re still dealing with a kid. I think you’re about to stop being that kid, but you’re just that: a hormonal teenager who doesn’t mature at the same rate Fenerec do. We mature early. I was ahead of most human adults by thirteen. I underwent the ritual at age eight—which is early for us, but it was a shit situation. The assholes involved with that are long dead and gone, but my point stands. You remind me of a young Fenerec who hasn’t quite hit adulthood yet. But human society aged you based on their standards, and Fenerec did the same. You’re older than anyone expects to be going through adolescence. But that’s exactly what I think is going on. And you were stable for so long because you hadn’t hit adolescence yet. And right now? You’re worse than most teenagers because you have some serious trauma to go with the hormones. Add in the fact you’re also a fox? You probably are just one ball of raging hormones, and there’s only one person who has calmed that for you, and that’s your mate.”
I flinched.
“That’s not a bad thing, Karma. We’re not fully human. The animal in you seems to be a lot like the animals in us Fenerec. You’re loyal, you’re probably a mate-for-life species just like we are, and you’re as driven by instinct as us Fenerec are. And you’re a pack animal without a pack.”
“I’m hell on wheels,” I complained.
Amelia laughed. “You really are. Frankly, if I’m right, you’re handling everything far better than anyone should expect of you. That’s the only theory I have that makes sense. You’re biologically on a slower clock than we are, and you’re not handling it well. Nobody does. I mean, adolescence isn’t precisely a walk through a nice park with flowers blooming everywhere. For Fenerec, we spend a few years wanting to screw the brains out of everybody to cross our paths until a mating bond sticks. You act mated, but I’m betting the scent isn’t strong because you’re not a full adult of your species yet, and Fenerec magic might not be sticking to you as well as expected. It sticks easily to humans. But you’re not human. I have no idea what you are, and neither do the black market ops.”
“They know about Fenerec?”
“They do. Some of them are Fenerec. Most of the ops know. I get a lot of work because I’m a rogue bitch, and the ops like helping rogue bitches. They give me work, and I stay on the right side of the rules. The Inquisition knows I exist, but until I do something that forces their hand, they ignore me—and neglect to tell the local packs about my activities. I have a history.”
“With a bad pack?”
“Yes.”
“And if you’re right?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone quite like you before. It’s just a thought. I could be wrong. But the emotionally unstable aspects remind me of a young Fenerec transitioning from being a puppy to adulthood. For us, it happens fairly quickly. You have all of those wild emotions, and enough sex probably calms you down. And you probably like it rowdy. Fenerec do.”
My face flushed. “Amelia!”
“Yep. You like it rough and rowdy. We’re as much animals as we are humans, Karma. There’s no shame in that. Once you patch things up with your mate, make him earn the rough and rowdy. Or just rip his clothes off with your teeth. Whatever works.”
“I’m divorcing him, not tying him to the bed, Amelia.”
“Keep telling yourself that if it makes you happy.”
I sighed. “Amelia, he stank of other women.”
“Karma, did you ask him who the women were or why they were near him?”
“Well, no.”
“Would you say it’s wrong of him to accept a hug from, say, the mate of someone else in his pack?”
I scowled. “No, I guess not.”
“He’s probably been as upset as you, and packs do try to comfort each other, and packs do have women in them. That’s just one possibility. Will you believe that? Probably not. But those possibilities exist.”
“Assuming you’re right, what does it change?”
“If I’m correct, time will help stabilize you, therapy will finish the job time doesn’t complete, and you can patch things up. Hormones are a terrifying force of nature. A young Fenerec with hormones? A horny force of nature. And if you are suffering through that, you’ll probably go from mad as hell some other woman was near your man to wanting to bite your man’s clothes off with your
teeth. You’ll go between the extremes at the speed of light, too. And once the hormones start settling out, you’ll probably be a depressed mess because of the trauma you’ve been coping with. But that can be helped.”
“With therapy.” I sighed. “If you are right, what should I do?”
“Survive. That’s it. Just survive. Even if you jump to all of the wrong conclusions between now and then, survive. That’s all I want from you. Be depressed. Go ahead and wallow. Cry and rage. I don’t care. Just survive through it. Whatever you break can be fixed eventually, and what your mate broke can be fixed, too.”
“I was unaware hearts could be fixed once broken.”
“Oh, Karma. They can. It just takes time and a hell of a lot of glue.”
“Glue?”
“Come on. Don’t be so literal. Glue. You know, affection, therapy, and time. That’s the glue needed to fix broken hearts.”
“What if we’re beyond broken and into shattered territory?”
“Extra time, more affection, even more therapy, and a hot guy naked in bed.”
“You need a mate,” I informed the Fenerec.
“I really do. I haven’t gotten any in years, and it’s making me pissy.”
“If you end up taking Jake, he’s good for that.”
“Karma. I’m not going to take Jake. He’s yours. I’m afraid you’re stuck with him. You two will figure everything out in time. Will I talk with him and be friends with him? Sure, if you want me to talk with him and be friends with him, I can do that. I can help try to put his head back on straight while I’m at it. But he’s yours. It might take you two a while to figure it out, but you made that bed and you’ve slept in it. Also, feel free to use that line until your mate figures out his shit. It’s effective, and it can make it clear he fucked up. I mean, you’ve fucked up in some ways, too, but he’s taking the lion’s share. Honestly, my bet is he probably forgot you could smell other women on him. Had he remembered that, he would have kept his distance from them until his relationship with you was cemented in a fashion everyone else could accept. It’ll be all right. Time and therapy will fix a lot of the problems. What time and therapy can’t fix, affection and getting away from that stupid pack of his will.”
I doubted that, but I recognized when she wouldn’t change her mind, so I didn’t argue with her. “How do you survive without a pack? Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Daily. My wolf is lonely, and so am I. But I cope. One day, things will get better.”
“How many times a day do you have to tell yourself that?”
“Roughly once an hour,” she admitted. “Some days, it even helps.”
As warned, Amelia hopped me up on Demerol, and once she stole the ridiculous amount of blood required for her ploy, she sedated me, gave me a blood transfusion, and once the Demerol wore off, she dumped me in her SUV so we could continue our dirty work.
Our target was a little farm in the heart of the country. I’d seen hundreds of little farms just like it scattered up and down the east coast, with a red barn, rusted farm equipment decorating the dirt road, and a quaint, aging farmhouse at the end of the lane.
“Why are we here?”
“We are here because this is one of your best friend’s properties, and this is where he does his dirty work. Thanks to one of my contacts, the bastard is home with his accomplices planning a lucrative hit. I have already done my share of the work, so you’re here to press the button.”
That did a good job of catching my attention, and I sat straighter in my seat. “You’ve wired this place to blow?”
“Not only have I wired this place to blow, I have done so in such a fashion we get multiple birds with one stone.” Amelia parked, got out her phone, and opened an app, which she showed me. “We’re going to be wealthy women starting in a few minutes.”
Andrew, Brent, and six men I didn’t know sat around a card table in a room with wood-paneled walls. They played poker, and Amelia’s app recorded them. It also had sound, but it was muted. “Oh. I know that guy, too. Brent. He’s in CARD.”
“Yes. He was one of the asswipes on your team. He is also an accomplice in the Gianni case, although to a lesser degree. On that one, he just cooperated with that Linsc bastard. However, as he was an accomplice to the deaths of at least four kids he was supposed to be saving, the black market has decided he’s going down as well. At current, there has been no evidence the other member of your team was involved. Their supervisor was also not involved.”
“The supervisor’s just a dick. The FBI is loaded with dicks like him.”
“Yes, that’s the general consensus among the black market ops. This is a live feed, and we’re ready to go. After the place blows, I’ll dump your blood in a location I’ve already picked and we leave.”
“What about the tire tracks and footprints?”
“You’ll see,” she promised. Amelia opened a new app, tapped the screen a few times, and showed me the screen. “It’s not exactly a button, but I think you’ll cope. This is fairly easy to detonate. First, you tap arm and hold for five seconds. The icon will turn red when the explosives are armed and ready to be detonated. Then you tap the detonate button five times to light it up. That’s it, that’s all. There is a two second delay. I recommend you wear these mufflers kindly provided by our black market accomplices.” Amelia reached into the back and handed me a set before shoving hers over her ears. She then gestured to the screen.
I put the mufflers on, nodded, and pressed the arm button, waited until it changed to red, and then tapped the detonate button five times as instructed.
Two seconds felt like a damned long time, but the farmhouse exploded with a heart-stopping bang that shook the SUV and sent chunks of wood and debris raining down. Even with the mufflers, my ears rang.
Amelia took off her headset, tossed them in the back, and got out of the vehicle, grabbing the blood she’d stolen from me and skipping to the flaming ruins of the building. When I took off my headset, I listened to her sing a demented version of Happy Birthday. The blood went into a corner of the house and onto the ground just outside, and she sprayed it around as though I’d been blasted to bits.
Then she skipped back to the SUV, stole my shoes, added more blood to them, returned to the building, melted the poor things, and tossed them in the snow along with scraps of my clothing. She made several trips, dancing around and making sure to leave as many footprints as possible before returning to the vehicle, grabbing the small can of gasoline she’d stuffed in the back, setting down a piece of plywood, setting the shoes on them, dousing them, and torching them. She jumped between the flaming shoes and the SUV without touching the ground, started the engine, and drove away.
I scratched my head. “I guess that’s one way to do it. You trashed my shoes.”
“I bought you new ones. I trashed your clothes from that trailer, too. Investigators will be able to get a match on your blood unless they’re particularly stupid, and the quantity will convince most you’re very dead right now. Now, it may not convince Fenerec. You’re noted as being rather durable although not quite as tough as a Fenerec in your file. The information the cops need for a conviction is locked inside in a fireproof safe, and the black market ops took care to get the bastard’s fingerprints on some of the papers inside.”
“That leaves the problem of the tires.”
“I put the wrong sized tires on my SUV while you were napping this morning. They were modified by the black market to fit my vehicle. This specific one has a very similar carriage size to a common-as-dirt car, so we put those tires on. Once we’re to civilization, I’ll ditch these tires and put my proper ones back on. They’re in the carry-case on the top.”
Damn. “I should say please don’t become a criminal, but it’s a little too late for that.”
Amelia chuckled. “That it is. So, how did you like pressing the button?”
“Ask me again next week. Right now, I don’t feel much of anything at all. The fuckers deserved it for
killing kids. I guess I’m glad they won’t be able to do that again.”
“If it helps, think about it this way. You might not be doing the FBI thing now, but you just did them a huge favor.”
“That won’t bring the kids back from the dead, though.”
“No, but you did something better. Those men were there because they were given a job to kill more kids.”
My fury burned hot, and I glared at Amelia’s phone. “I want to press the button again.”
“There you go. Get angry. Anger’s good right now. Our work isn’t over yet, so let’s get to it.”
Five
I would never blame him for that.
With the black market feeding us information, we learned that our next step was to eliminate a no-name mercenary company responsible for handling a lot of the work for those behind the bounty for my life. That same group had ties to the Greenwich case and the murders of several other children.
The parents of the victims had ties to the weapon security software the mastermind wanted to infiltrate.
For a rare change, something had gone right in the government, as the software remained safe from their activities thus far. It amused me that even with moles in the FBI, the bastards had failed in their goals. From my understanding of the situation, a lot of the blame for that fell on my shoulders.
If the Greenwich case had gone as they had wanted, they might have gotten what they’d wanted.
Annabelle’s father had been primed to crack, and given another day or two, important secrets would have been exposed to save his little girl’s life.
I would never blame him for that.
It made me wonder, however. The Johnson case had been closed and the baby’s body found, but I wondered. I’d never believed my ma or pa to be capable of killing anyone, but reality told a far different tale. Beneath my ma’s perfect exterior, she’d harbored enough hatred to kill.
I’d done nothing other than be born differently from her.
