by A. P. Moraez
“Not funny,” Logan complained as he took the box from Ash’s hands and started examining the instructions.
In no time at all, everyone had their sleeves rolled up and it was fun. In the middle of all the chaos and constant fear of not knowing when Leo would decide to attack next, such a domestic thing as making cupcakes with your friends was about as much normal as Ash’d get, and he made sure to enjoy the hell out of it. By the time they finished and put four batches to bake in the stupidly big oven in the corner, Diana was licking her batter off her undoubtedly expensive nails and Logan had the stuff all over himself, including a big dollop near the tip of his nose. Ash had never loved him more.
They filled the time talking about their day. Logan was actually excited. Diana had convinced him to give a chance to a new writer; an indie movie that had characters he really cared about, different from the super heroes slash spy blockbusters he’d done for years just for the paychecks. Aside from that, all of them were excited for tonight’s game that’d start streaming on TV in a few hours, even if they were a bit bummed out about having to miss a bit of it because of the trip to Hardcliff. They’d leave more or less at half-past four to get there before the post office closed doors for the day. Ash was gonna head to O’Farrell’s about half-an-hour later to cover for Billy’s shift.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, Logan’s phone vibrated next to his plate. Logan munched down the big bite of cupcake he’d just put into his mouth before picking it up.
“Hello?” Ash watched as Logan’s curious expression morphed into a huge smile. “Hey, man. Oh, yeah. We were gonna leave in about half-an-hour. Probably gonna be there ate fiveish. That good for you? Great. See you there, bud.” Logan clicked the call off.
“Who was it?”
“Billy’s boyfriend.”
“Oh!” Ash jumped from his seat. “What did you think? What did he say?”
Logan chuckled, clearly amused at Ash’s excitement about someone he’d never even seen before, then gave him a shrug. “Seemed nice enough on the phone. We’re meeting at the back of the post office at fiveish, then he’s helping us bring the stuff back here.”
Ash chose to ignore the itchy, somewhat painful warmth that spread like lightning across his forearms; the weird-ass cramp in his stomach. He chalked it up to anxiety, even if something at the back of his head told him it was anything but.
“Actually, guys,” Logan said as he wolfed down a second whole cupcake and gulped the remains of his cup of fresh coffee Ash had prepared for them. “We should be going already. The weather is about to turn, we never know what kinda delays we’ll get.”
Duke and Ian immediately rose from their seats at the counter. Henry was staying behind to watch over Ash and Diana.
“I’ll just grab some gear in my room,” Duke announced on his way out of the kitchen. “Meet you guys outside.”
“You should probably bring a hat or something,” Ian directed at Logan before carrying his and Duke’s empty cups to the sink. “The weather is really getting ugly outside.”
And it really was. The wind was howling even louder than last night. Ash had kept an eye on the news throughout the day, and all channels agreed that the blizzard should hit the mountains more or less at sundown, in a few hours.
“Okay, dad,” Logan half-laughed, rolling his eyes and righting his clothes. He gave Ash a quick squeeze on the thigh before he rose from his seat and disappeared around the corner, probably to go to their room grab some cold-weather clothes.
Ian followed in his tracks, probably going to grab some for himself.
“Well,” Ash said, resting his eyes on Diana, who was picking at a strawberry cupcake, keeping to herself. “Seems you’re stuck with me for a few hours.”
She blinked, then took a sip of her coffee.
“And me,” Henry announced with a teasing smile. Was there… was there something going on between those two?
Diana only lifted an eyebrow at the guy and then turned her gaze to Ash, who was, for some reason, regarding her with a smile of his own. It was just weird how he felt this urge to get some kind of reaction from her. Must be because she was so icy, like there was something stuck up her butt.
“Splendid,” was all she said, giving both of them a forced smile before turning back to her snack.
Henry winked at Ash behind her back, but otherwise didn’t comment.
Logan rounded the corner right as the sound of the front door beeping open reached Ash’s ears. He’d put on a trendy-looking beige beanie and a heavy, long coat. He looked like a weird mix of hipster with detective from the fifties, sexy as hell.
“Come ‘ere,” Logan urged, and Ash flew from his seat and slotted into his arms.
Logan cupped Ash’s cheek with his right hand and brought their lips together. It was a rather chaste kiss, but it took Ash’s breath away all the same. He wanted to keep Logan here. Safe. Warm. Away from the blizzard. It sucked that all of this logistic nightmare had to happen right today.
“We’re going,” Logan announced as he took a step back. He encompassed Diana and Henry with a look and said, “You guys take care of each other okay? I just took a look through the window upstairs; thing is turning ugly out there.”
“Sure, man,” Henry said. “We’ll be careful.”
“Call me when you guys get to O’Farrell’s later, okay? Just so I know you’re okay.”
“Of course.”
The three of them accompanied Logan to the front door. The sky was a cement-gray, darker as it approached the horizon. Seldom had he seen such an ugly storm falling over the mountains in the distance. In all the years living in Hoofslope, it’d been less than a handful of times. The sight got him anxious. He hadn’t realized the potential danger of sending Logan and their friends out in weather like that just to collect some stupid t-shirts.
“Maybe we should cancel this,” Ash spoke in a low voice, squeezing Logan’s hand. “We could go there and get the boxes once the storm is over, uh?”
“Nah,” Logan said, squeezing his hand right back. “They said it’s gonna be a couple hours before the heavy of it really hits. We’re probably gonna be safely back by then.”
Ash nodded, even as that weird cramp assailed him again. Something about this was wrong. Something in the way those clouds rolled, dark, in the horizon. Something about the muffled cry, still heavy in the wind. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong, it whispered in his ears. Ash could swear it was what he heard in every howl.
Duke and Ian were already behind the wheel of two different Mercedes, waiting.
“Alright, time to go.” Logan hugged both Henry and Diana, gave her a peck in the cheek, then enfolded Ash into his arms again for just one more moment. “Be safe, okay? We’ll be right back.”
Ash nodded, then leaned up on his feet and pressed a gentle kiss to Logan’s lips.
“I’ll see you in a couple hours,” was the last thing Logan said, throwing him a wink and one of those trademark lopsided smiles of his.
Ash smiled back and just watched, Diana and Henry at his sides under the door frame, as Logan threw the red Lexus door closed and the engine roared to life. The two Mercedes soon followed, and Ash lifted his hand and waved as they filed out of the front lot.
Both his arms warmed and Ash winced. They hadn’t been that hot since the bathroom in Frozenbone. So hot it felt like his skin was melting; like it was being bathed in liquid nitrogen just a second later. Cramp in his stomach and the howling wind that screamed wrong, wrong, wrong as the three cars finally disappeared under the hesitantly descending fog four bridges over.
alliance
ASH, HENRY, AND Diana shivered collectively as the door to O’Farrell’s closed at their backs. It surprised him that Diana had chosen to come to work with him. O’Farrell’s wasn’t exactly the kind of place her thousand-dollar-everything outfit screamed she was used to frequenting.
As they approached the bar, Lauren darted her eyes back from the TV, where the game was just starting, and thre
w them a warm smile. Tom wasn’t there yet; probably still upstairs taking a nap or something. The cold weather had been starting to do a number on the old man through the last few years. He just wasn’t the same he used to be anymore.
“Hey, stranger,” Lauren greeted as Ash leaned against the bar. She smiled politely at Ash’s companions, then resumed wiping the bar with the piece of cloth, as she’d probably been doing before they’d arrived. “You’re covering for Billy, right?”
“Yeah,” Ash said, then he took a step aside and jutted his chin out to indicate the others. “This is Diana, by the way. Logan’s friend and agent come down from LA.” To the icy-queen, he said, “And this is Laura. She’s started here a few months ago. Runs the Hill Top with her aunt.”
Diana just smiled that practiced smile and looked utterly unimpressed. Lauren did pretty much the same. Alright, then.
“Things too crazy yet?”
“Not really,” Lauren responded as she signaled to a middle-aged man that she’d heard his request for a beer and would be right on it. “But things are bound to get crazier now that the game’s about to start.”
“Right. I better get things started at the kitchen.”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Laura said. Then her eyes widened a little as she seemed to remember something. “Almost forgot,” she said, then crouched behind the bar and popped up just a second later with a cellphone in hand. “Billy forgot this here last night after his shift. Could you hand it over to him next time you see him? Tomorrow is my day off.”
Ash reached out and took the phone from her. “Sure. No problem.”
Lauren beamed at him. “Thanks! I told that boy to take better care of his things, but you know how he is.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s the second time he’s left it here this month.”
Ash laughed. “I know.
“Well,” he exhaled as he turned to Henry and Diana, “Guys, just take your seats. Anything you want to drink is on me. I’ll bring something hot for you to eat as soon as I got things running back there.”
“No need to hush,” Diana said, “I think I ate too many cupcakes to be hungry this soon.”
“Yeah,” Henry agreed. “I’m still stuffed.”
“Alright, then. If you change your minds, just place an order and Lauren will let me know. See you guys later.”
He whirled around and marched on his way to the double doors that’d lead him to the Greasy Mile. A pretty brunette stopped him when he was just leaving the bar area. She asked for an autograph and a selfie, and that incited two more fans, a man just a little older than him and another one a little younger, to ask the same. He signed their napkins and took the selfies, then proceeded on his way.
The distinct scent of grease and spices hit his nose as soon as the double doors closed behind him. He missed this place, and a smile pulled at his lips when he crossed the door to the basement bedroom that’d been his home years ago.
When he got to the kitchen, he stopped in front of the locked door to retrieve his key-chain. Tom had never demanded his keys back, so the slightly bent copper key was still there, hanging from the Supernatural key-chain as it’d always been.
When he was about to shift Billy’s cellphone from his right hand to the left, so that he could unlock the door, it slipped and plummeted to the floor, landing with a crash.
“Dammit,” Ash cursed under his breath and quickly crouched to retrieve it. For his luck, the screen seemed intact enough.
The device’s screen was on and, apparently, Billy wasn’t as much of a neurotic mess as him and wasn’t in the habit of locking it.
So when Ash rose to his feet, turning the thing around to check for cracks, he must’ve pressed his fingers unintentionally against the screen.
Call it a play of destiny, a sparkle from the fabric of the Universe itself, that in that moment chose to give him a chance.
Call it luck, or bad luck.
The fact was that when Ash flipped the phone back around the gallery app was open, and right there as a cover for the first album was Billy… Billy staring lovingly at a man in bed, eyes sweet and warm as the man slept at his side.
He’d dyed his hair a darker shade; removed the piercing from his full lips, but Ash’d recognize those strong angles and straight nose anywhere. Would recognize that corded neck and the tattoos that adorned it anywhere.
As the synapses finally formed in his mind, a shiver ran through Ash’s whole body and a chocked sob escaped through his lips.
He was running even before his brain had fully processed the situation.
Because that man asleep in Billy’s arms was Leonardo Lazarus.
LAUREN JUST TOOK one look at him and the smile fell from her lips and her cheeks lost their color.
“What’s up?” she asked as soon as Ash stopped in front of her at the bar.
“Can you ask Martha to come down and deal with the kitchen today? I have to go.”
Lauren frowned. “Yeah, sure. Is everything okay?”
Ash nodded, trying for a smile even as he buried his nails onto his palms and bit the inside of his right cheek so he wouldn’t break down. This ended today. And it ended on his terms and without hurting nobody else.
“Yeah. It’s just Wicked Wish just called and asked for a last-minute Skype meeting. I’m really sorry.”
He was lying through his teeth, but there was no time to waste with such things as guilt right now. Not when Logan was… when he was probably—
Ash squeezed his eyes shut as he turned away from the bar and headed for Henry and Diana’s table in a corner.
They’d been talking animatedly about something, a weird sight for him, since Diana wasn’t in the habit of smiling like that all the time.
Their expressions morphed to confusion when he approached them.
“We need to talk. Outside.” Ash didn’t wait for them to reply before he turned and headed for the doors. They didn’t even have time to close behind him before Henry was shoving it open, Diana on his tail.
The ground outside was thick with snow — and the blizzard hadn’t even hit yet — so there was no sound, only footprints, when Ash signaled for them to follow him a few steps to the side.
“What’s going on?” Diana asked. “You look like you’ve literally seen death.”
Ash wiped a traitorous tear that had escaped his left eye, sniffed and shoved the phone under her and Henry’s noses.
Henry’s eyes immediately bugged out. Leo’s face was probably printed on his mind right now, given the hours and hours of research Duke, him, and all the other teams had been doing on the guy. Diana remained clearly confused, though.
“Fuck,” Henry sneered, already pulling his phone from the depths of his leather jacket. “I’m gonna alert the guys. You should call Logan. See if it’s not too late already?”
“Too late?” Diana asked, alarmed. “Too late for what?”
“No.” Ash stopped Henry with a hand in his solid arm. “We can’t just send everyone there. If he sniffs he’s about to be caught, no one knows what he’d do to them. Plus, if he got them already, we don’t even know where he’s taken them. It could be anywhere.”
“We can track their phones.”
Ash snorted out a laugh. “Trust me, the first thing Leo would’ve done would be to destroy their phones or at least to throw them away.”
“What, then? We have to do something!” Henry’s voice had risen, clearly exasperated.
“What the fuck is going on?” He’d never seen Diana’s voice shake before.
Ash shifted his gaze to the woman. She’d chosen a red trench-coat, black jeans and a pair of high-heeled dark brown snow boots. Her platinum hair was flying in every direction under the angry wind announcing the ever-approaching blizzard. She was quite a vision against the mostly gray and white background.
“That black young guy in the picture? That’s Billy,” Ash explained as fresh pain cut through him just as he said that name. How could Billy have betrayed them like this? He’d been in
a difficult situation and they’d taken him into the fold without batting an eyelash. And how had he repaid them? By spying on them for that psychopath. Ash wanted to kill them; kill them all with his own hands. “Billy’s that guy whose boyfriend is probably meeting Logan and the guys as we speak, out there in Hardcliff.”
“So?”
“So,” Ash tried, voice weakening the more he talked, “that guy in the picture with him is the boyfriend he’s been talking about for months now. The boyfriend he always found excuses not to introduce to us.”
Diana gave Henry a fleeting gaze, dark-wine lips partially opened in her confusion. “And?” she finally asked, “Isn’t the boy allowed a hot boyfriend?”
“And,” Ash finally said, exhaling the word in a shivery whisper, “that guy right there is Leo.”
Diana’s slightly confused expression morphed into pure, abject horror.
“No,” she mumbled, shaking her head and taking a step back, fishing for something in her pocket.
Henry and Ash watched as the perplexed woman fished out her phone and put it to her ear, and for a fleeting moment Ash was foolish enough to give himself permission to hope. To hope that they’d answer and say some road or another had been blocked by the incoming storm and they hadn’t been able to reach their destination. That they were coming home. That Logan was safe, coming back to him.
Diana’s expression was grave, a sneer decorating her noble, thin nose as she pocketed her phone. “He’s not fucking answering.”
Ash closed his eyes and Logan’s face started playing before his closed eyelids. The boy that had saved him from tree leaves and pinecones. The young man who’d given him his first kiss. The stupidly adorable fool covered by cupcake mix just a few hours ago. He’d never see him again. He just knew it. This was it. Leo had won and he’d never fucking see him again.
“Hey!” Strong, warm hands closed around his arms. Ash opened his eyes to see Henry staring down at him with determination in his eyes. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
“I don’t know,” Henry puffed out, raking a hand through his short, dark hair. “You have any idea where Billy lives? Where he might take them if he really has them?”
