Puma

by Jorrie Spencer

  “I won’t push Dev. I won’t. I won’t.” Scott swiped his face, trying to stop his crying. With his effort to contain himself, the rest of his words came out uneven and breathless. “It’s like I said before, we have to get out of here. Eleanor will send others to investigate, might even come herself if she’s pissed off enough. Minders go haywire when one of their own is taken down. Very protective in their fucked-up way.”

  Callie craned her neck to look over at Max and couldn’t help but think she’d be glad to get far away from this body and its smell of death. However, she should get a better idea of what they were running from.

  “How many are there of you?”

  “Four to seven, depending.” As she frowned, Scott added, “Some travel. Eleanor will be watching out for Max, expecting to hear from him. Eleanor.” He whispered the name with some dread and Callie was reminded of his dire warning yesterday when it came to Max. She’d thought Scott was histrionic, but histrionic or not, Max had been pretty awful. Best to assume Eleanor was too.

  “Well, we are not going to hang around here waiting for Eleanor like we did for Max.” Callie turned to Dev who was now zoning out. He just closed his eyes and hugged her again. Hugs were good, but she didn’t like his blank face.

  “What’s the matter with Dev?” she demanded of Scott.

  “He doesn’t like Eleanor any better than I do. Even her spoken name probably messes him up.”

  “I thought Max was the big bogeyman.”

  Scott looked up at her with some distaste. “They’re all bad. Max was just the most gleeful about it. Eleanor is actually more deadly. She’d have killed you and Dev by now, whereas Max liked to play.”

  “All righty. Cheerful group of people, this pod of yours.”

  Scott cleared his throat. “We don’t have much time.”

  She turned in Dev’s arms, facing Scott again. “I don’t trust you. So, you pack your car, with your stuff and Dev’s stuff.”

  He nodded, seemingly fine with being ordered about by her. “You don’t have anything to bring?”

  Inwardly she laughed, wondering how he’d take to knowing she’d arrived as a puma, carrying nothing. “No, but I’ll grab some of Ruth’s leftovers. You, Dev, come with me. I have to call a friend.” She tugged on Dev’s arm, and he obediently followed her out of the room and down the stairs. She didn’t like how unthinking he was.

  “Who is your friend?” asked Dev as she picked up the phone in the hall. He’d taken a couple of minutes to process her last sentence and respond, but at least he’d processed.

  “Trey Walters. My only friend.”

  He blinked, becoming more alert. “Hey. I am your friend.”

  Callie smiled, made slightly giddy by that simple declaration, and kissed him. Then she dialed in the number she hadn’t forgotten during her time as puma.

  Trey didn’t pick up until the fourth ring, at which point Callie sagged against the wall with relief, thinking, thank God. With a dead body upstairs and a mind-control boy packing up for them, and Dev, who needed a fucking break from the mind games before his brain went on permanent leave—well, Callie felt desperate for some guidance.

  “What’s wrong,” Trey demanded, and if it wasn’t the friendliest greeting in the world, the concern in his voice warmed her.

  “I have a big problem.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She swallowed, not quite sure how to start.

  “Callie,” he said impatiently, “are you in danger?”

  “Not at the moment.” She braced herself before asking, “Have you ever heard of people called Minders?”

  “Fuck.”

  She took that as a yes, but he didn’t elaborate. “Um, Trey?”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Barrieville. At my sister’s. Well, actually it’s not her house—”

  “A Minder’s?” Trey asked sharply.

  “No, though one came to visit, but it’s a long story and there’s a dead Minder upstairs. Not the one who came to visit.” God, could she not present this information more clearly?

  “Did you kill the dead Minder?”

  “No. My friend Dev did. After the dead guy told Dev to kill me.”

  “Fuck.” Even more intense than the first time he swore. “How’d you get mixed up with them?”

  “Ruth.”

  “Ruth is one of their zombies.” It wasn’t a question.

  Callie cringed at that description of Ruth. “Yes. Or, she was.”

  “Tell me everything. From the beginning. As quickly as possible.”

  So she told the whole story from start to finish and Trey didn’t interrupt her once. In fact, she stopped to ask if he was still there and, his voice sounding on edge, he told her to go on.

  “Okay,” he said when she was done. “Dead body in the bedroom and a pod of Minders how close?”

  Pod? God, Trey knew their lingo. “You know about these kind of people?” she asked, flabbergasted.

  “Of course I do. I was hunting them when I first found you. Not very successfully I might add. Though Ruth had given me pause.”

  “Had given you pause? Ruth? What do you mean? Trey, that was four years ago.”

  “Some of these Minders are more subtle than others. With their abilities, they’re good at hiding in plain sight. This Max was obviously a bludgeon, which would have helped my finding them. Perhaps he wasn’t around when I was trying to sniff them out.” Trey paused. “Your sister had some of the qualities of a zombie.

  “Callie, they’ll kill you, because they can’t control you and you know about them. Get the hell out. There’s a safe house four hours east of where you are. Go there now, and I will meet up with you as soon as I can get a flight out of here. Don’t tell anyone else about it, don’t talk to anyone.”

  “I have to bring Dev and Scott.”

  After a pointed silence, Trey demanded quietly, “Why hang out with a Minder and his zombie, Callie?”

  Not the time to argue that Dev and Scott couldn’t be left behind. Callie didn’t answer, she just waited Trey out. She’d done that occasionally, though it pissed him off, her using his technique against him.

  Trey swore to himself before asking, “Any chance you’ll change your mind on this?”

  “None. I have to protect them.”

  “Cats.”

  Callie frowned. She was the only cat he knew. Before she could question him on that, he was moving on, accepting that Dev and Scott were involved. “I won’t waste time thrashing this out with you. You better know what you’re doing, bringing them along.” Trey gave her the address and directions, told her to get out of the house now. “I am warning you one more time. You cannot trust that Minder, even if he’s young, even if, especially if, he’s been abused by other Minders. Those guys mess with each other’s heads and the result is not pretty. Watch your back. You can’t, unfortunately, trust a zombie either. If they’re bonded to their Minder, they’re unpredictable. It’s a real mindfuck, Callie, I’m warning you.”

  “I’ll be careful,” she promised, looking at Dev who simply gazed back at her, expression still a little vacant, even if his eyes were warm.

  “Go.” Trey hung up.

  Dev had listened to her carefully the entire time. Really he seemed a bit more himself now, not so shocky. But Trey’s warning that zombies were unpredictable worried her. Because, yeah, Dev was obviously bonded—God, what a word—to Scott. Even if she refused to think of Dev as a true zombie. What had Scott called him? A fighter.

  “Trey agrees with Scott,” she told Dev. “We have to get the hell out now. He knows a safe place we can go.”

  Dev eyed her. “You sure you can trust this Trey and his judgment?”

  “More than anyone I know. It’s Scott I’m worried about. You need a break from him.”

  Dev’s mouth twisted into a humorless smile, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Trey’s going to meet us. He’ll know what to do.”

  “What’s so special abou
t this Trey?”

  “He fixes people’s problems.” Or kills them. But she didn’t add that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The drive east took too long. Callie supposed that four hours wasn’t an unreasonable length of time to sit in the passenger seat, but she’d never liked being cooped up in a car, and Scott’s Toyota Echo was small.

  “Okay?” asked Dev for the third time. He was driving, Callie was in the front seat and Scott was laid out in the back, faking sleep or perhaps attempting it given that his chest rose and fell too hard. An arm was slung across his face.

  “Sure.” Callie tried to smile despite feeling carsick and anxious. Dev glanced down at her hands and she unclenched her fists, again.

  “Is it the, uh, general situation that’s bothering, or do you not like cars?”

  “Both.”

  “Been in an accident?”

  “Nope.” She lowered her voice. “My cat doesn’t like it.”

  “You have a cat?” came Scott’s voice from the back.

  “Sometimes.” Callie didn’t intend to elaborate.

  “Where is it now?” he persisted. “Did you just abandon it?”

  “None of your business, and no.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m not supposed to talk.”

  “That’s right,” Callie agreed. “So, quiet now.” She searched through some CDs and shoved one in. They listened to guitar and a strained voice singing about some girl, but it was better than having Scott talk.

  Eventually, it felt like years later to Callie, they drove off the highway and made their way into a suburb, found a dead-end street with a park beside the safe house and pulled into the driveway. As soon as they stopped, Scott pushed himself up to sitting and jumped out of the car. As did Callie.

  He stared at the rather nondescript two-storey. “Hey, how are we supposed to get into the house?”

  “I have the secret password,” Callie drawled. At Scott’s frown, she added, “Watch and learn.” She strode up to the garage-door number pad and punched in the code Trey had given her over the phone. The door lurched into movement, folding up into the ceiling of a very neat garage. Dev drove the Echo in and they followed him.

  With that, they carried what little they’d brought from the car and filed into the house to explore its small, blandly furnished rooms.

  “Where’s your friend?” asked Scott, who’d been told they were going to stay with someone Callie knew.

  “Enough questions,” Callie snapped.

  Scott’s expression turned sullen.

  “Look, Scott.” Callie walked right up to him. He was about three inches taller than her but easy to intimidate. She could see him shrink back from her. “You don’t want to strike out on your own, you want to be with us, so you do so on my terms.”

  Scott’s chin jutted out. “Dev doesn’t have a say? It’s all your terms?”

  “You are so not the one to question me on that,” she said softly, and Scott had the grace to flush. “Now grab something from the kitchen. Trey said it would be stocked with food. Then go upstairs and choose a room. Dev and I have some talking to do, and no, you won’t be a part of that conversation, because I can’t be on guard against you all the time. It wears me out.”

  Scott’s expression switched from resentful to earnest. “I promised you I wouldn’t push Dev.” He spoke as if he was hurt by her suspicions, which just made her groan.

  “Thing is, Scott”—Dev’s voice was flat—“you’ve promised me that before. Quite frankly, I need a break from you.” It was one of the few times this trip Dev had addressed Scott directly. He wouldn’t abandon the boy, but there was a kind of distaste in his tone.

  Scott stomped off into the kitchen.

  Dev hefted his bag and Callie’s. “I’ll go choose us a room.” His eyes darkened a little as he held her gaze a beat. “And a bed.”

  “Sounds good.” She intended they go to bed early tonight, and not just to sleep. There was a need to connect to Dev burning inside her and she could see it reflected in his dark, tormented eyes.

  ***

  They ate dinner, without Scott. Callie didn’t care that he was lonely and wanted to be with Dev. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sorry for him. Scott looked quite frankly traumatized. She just didn’t have the energy to guard against his words when he was around. Not only was that tiring, it was simply too dangerous for Dev, and he didn’t argue the point.

  After eating, they each showered and went to bed, Callie firmly closing the door to the room she and Dev were sharing while Scott went off to his newly claimed bedroom. It was early but they were all exhausted by the events of the day, and the long drive that had followed.

  “He’s lonely. Badly lonely, in fact.” Dev lifted his chin towards the door, indicating Scott.

  “I know, but…” She threw out her hands in a what-can-I-do gesture. “We can’t trust him.”

  “Perhaps not,” Dev murmured, and it worried her that he could doubt that. It also worried her that he’d told her Scott was lonely at least four times today. It made her wonder if Scott had planted the idea there. Minder plants, as she’d begun to think of them, tended to get repeated by their zombies.

  Zombie. God, she hated that word. It was dehumanizing. Dev was everything human at the moment. In fact, as he prowled around the room in his restless way, he made her think panther, which was odd given that she was the big cat. When they were alone, in the bedroom, and his eyes went dark, something changed between them.

  He halted a few feet away and fixed his gaze on her, and she stopped worrying about him. Instead she went hot and cold all over because of the way he looked at her, like he wanted her and nothing else in the world.

  She stood perfectly still, waiting. The intent there, that sat in his eyes, amazed her. She’d been with men before, when the craving for intimacy was too great, but she’d never felt like she had been the focus, only that the act had been.

  Dev stalked up to her to hold himself a mere inch away, not quite touching, though she could feel his heat and he could feel hers. Bringing his hands to rest on her shoulders, he caressed the bare skin, then skimmed palms down her arms. She couldn’t help herself, she shivered.

  “In such a short time, you have become very special to me, Callie.” He seemed almost puzzled by his statement. “How did you do that?”

  She leaned forward into him, resting her face against his shoulder, breathing in his scent. “I think I was made to find you.”

  “Made to find me?” There was question in his low voice, but no censure, no amusement. He brushed lips over her forehead and tipped her chin up so he could gaze at her.

  She had a hard time putting in words what she meant. “It’s just that I’ve failed at so many things. You can’t know.” That last failure, the young, dead werecougar, still burned, still hurt. She’d wanted to save him.

  On the other hand, she didn’t want to save Dev so much as love him. Though she would save him too. From these god-awful Minders.

  The amazing thing was, Dev appeared to want to save her as well, in his misguided attempts to get her to leave him. She rubbed her face against him and he stroked her head.

  When she pulled back to look at him, he was still frowning, a kind of protest in his expression.

  “I doubt that’s true, about you failing.” He brushed hair off her face. “People who are very hard on themselves say that.”

  “Perhaps.” She offered him a wry smile. “So do people who fail.”

  “Not always. I still don’t understand how you were made to find me. Even if I’m glad you are here.”

  How to explain how lost she became when she was on her own as Puma? How it seemed a miracle that he’d been with Ruth and they’d connected? Well, she couldn’t. So instead she said, “I am one of the few people who can separate Scott from you, and it needed to be done. Even if you feel responsible for him.”

  His face went blank, reminding her of those awful looks when his brain went spinning, but this blankness was
different. A kind of stiffness, as if she’d offended him.

  “Dev, I’m sorry.” She grabbed the material of his shirt, fisting it in her hands. “I hate him being a part of you, being in your brain. I—”

  He kissed her, taking her with his mouth and ravishing her. His warm, large hands cradled her face as he tasted and explored her. She’d never before been kissed into thoughtlessness, but his tongue had her clinging to him as his hands roamed her body, molding it so she pressed fully against him.

  She emerged breathless and he backed her up to the wall, leaned into her, his erection hard against her belly, his mouth sucking on her neck.

  “Where?” she asked, feeling bewildered by the sensory overload.

  “Where?” he repeated, also a question, but before she could think of what she’d been meaning to ask, his mouth latched onto her cotton-covered nipple and pulled the nub into his mouth.

  She moaned, arching into him, wishing there was no material between her breast and the moist heat, yet not wanting to be released either. Lust coiled deep in her belly and her pussy throbbed as blood pooled there, demanding she be released, demanding she be held tighter. Something inside her was climbing.

  As if he knew exactly how she felt, he slid palms around her buttocks and raised her up, all the while sucking on her breast, the cotton now wet and slightly abrasive against her nipple. She wrapped her legs around his waist so he could move her away from the wall and carry her to the double bed.

  He set her down on the mattress, lifted her tank top over her head, pushed her backwards and pulled off her shorts. She was naked; he was clothed. When she opened her mouth to point that out, he shushed her, tracing a finger over her lips. He knelt beside her. “I want you to know how beautiful you are.”

  Her brow creased and he said, “Yes,” then trailed a finger down her clavicle so it rested momentarily in the dip at the base of her throat where her collarbones met. He sketched a line along her sternum to her bellybutton and then pubis.

  “I want you inside me.” She felt desperate for them to be together now.

  His eyes glinted as he traced her slick folds. “I guess you do.”