by Maria Lima
“Wonder what’s up there?” I asked out loud, hoping that Adam could hear something, or that the trainer could give me a clue. Hands flew on both the Millers’ sides as he leaned into her, face turning red. Instead of backing away, she very deliberately put her hands on her hips and whispered even more furiously than before. What the hell was such a big deal? Kids got hurt in football all the time.
Adam glanced over at the couple. “She’s upset about something, but he’s facing away from me. I can’t quite make out the words. Something about ‘handling it,’ perhaps?”
“Huh, why would she care that we’re taking Gregor with us? I’d think they’d be happy that we’re not having to involve the hospital or anything.”
“You got me,” Marcus said as he came up next to us. “I’ve told Luka to go on home with Lev and Bea. I’ll ride with you in the van and send someone back for my truck tomorrow.”
“Shall we take you back to the Falls?” I asked.
“No, that’s too far. We can go back to our place in Rio Seco. Lev, Dixxi, and I are living in those apartments near the Rio Seco Lodge,” Mark said.
“All three of you? Seriously?”
“Well, five of us, actually,” Mark said. “Gregor and Luka are with us for the summer while we get the deli in shape.”
“Last time I was there, the biggest apartment was a teeny two-bedroom, barely big enough for two skinny people and a goldfish. Unless they’ve done some massive remodeling—”
“They haven’t,” Dixxi said. “We take turns on the floor.” She’d left Gregor’s side and joined us. “Let’s go, we’re holding up the game.”
A student trainer knelt at Gregor’s side, placing an ice pack and wrapping the boy’s knee. I frowned as I watched Gregor’s face. It wasn’t his knee that he was holding, his hand moving toward his side, then away quickly, as though he didn’t want anyone to notice.
“We’re happy to drive you,” I heard Adam saying to Dixxi.
“No, damn it, that’s just …” I threw up my hands. “That’s not good enough. Gregor’s really hurt and dumping you off there would be more than cruel.” Cruel, yes, but what I really wanted was to find out how a werewolf in the prime of life could be hurt in a human football game. I gave Adam a meaningful look, inclining my head to the boy and back again. Adam’s brow lowered, eyes narrowed as he caught my drift.
The student trainer and another boy helped Gregor to his feet, the cheers of the crowd accompanying the action.
“You’re welcome to come to the Wild Moon,” Adam offered. “My ranch. We have more than enough room at the inn.” He smiled at Dixxi and Mark.
“It makes sense,” I added. “Stuffing you all into a small apartment when Gregor’s hurt …” I let my words trail off.
Mark frowned and seemed to consider the offer. “I appreciate it, but—”
“But what?” I said. “You don’t like vampires?” I dropped my voice at the last word, as the two boys helping Gregor were passing. Gregor continued to do a fabulous acting job, favoring his knee as he limped slowly off the field. We all walked with him, still talking.
Mark hesitated. “It’s not that exactly,” he said. “I’d just rather …”
“Be on your own turf,” Adam said.
I goggled at his use of the slang. “Turf?”
He smiled. “I’ve been around you a while now.”
“They can come to my—your—house.” Bea’s voice came from behind me. “There’s plenty of room there, too.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Thanks, Bea.”
“No hay de que.” She smiled at me. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. I knew I’d laid way the hell too much on her tonight—learning about her pregnancy, then having to tell her about the wers. The last fucking thing she needed was a hurt kid and a crowd around, but she’d offered, and if Mark wasn’t willing to go to the Wild Moon …
“My old house it is.” I motioned to Mark and Dixxi, who took over helping Gregor. Mark thanked the boys and they both left, back to the game. The crowd was still applauding, shouts of “Go twenty-two!” mixed in with the happy applause, everyone glad to see an injured player walk off the field under his own power.
The van, thanks to Niko, waited for us just outside the gate. I slid open the side door. “Why don’t y’all get in the far back?” I asked Niko and Adam, both of whom complied. “Tucker, can you help Mark get Gregor inside? I think he’ll be more comfortable if he lies down across the bench seat in the middle. Dixxi, why don’t you and Mark help support him?”
With help from Mark and Tucker, Gregor, though wincing and hissing around whatever actual injury he had, climbed slowly inside. Dixxi had already situated herself on the seat directly behind the driver’s seat. Gregor leaned into her, practically in her lap, as he stretched out his leg. Mark quickly climbed in and slid under Gregor’s foot, holding on to the boy.
“There, that’ll do,” I said. “We’ve got a ways to go, but I think this’ll work. Gregor, how are you doing?”
“Okay, I guess,” he muttered, shifting a little as he tried to find a comfortable angle.
“Sorry, kid,” I said. “I know it’s not the greatest way to travel right now, but it beats putting you in the back of a pickup in this heat.”
Gregor chuckled. “It does.”
Bea waved at us and headed toward her own car as I shut the van door and climbed into my own seat next to Tucker.
“Allons-y,” I said and motioned with a hand. “Shall we?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HE’S STILL SEARCHING for her even after the game starts up again.
She’s something, something special. Needs to talk to her and those whitest white boys she hanging with. Never seen them before, but somehow they’re not strangers. The lady reminds him of that other one so many years back. Came up just ’bout midday. Big shiny car backing up like it meant to keep going but someone stopped it. Tiny lady got out, all spiffed up like a Junior Leaguer, suited up in style. She stared at him for several minutes, saying nothing, sharp eyes boring into his. He just stared back; being a sight for white folk never bothered him much. ’Cept this time, two minutes in, he shook just a little. Felt something like—well, like something he ain’t never felt before nor since—until now.
Joe explores both sides of the stadium back behind the bleachers, over to the snack bar and drink stand.
Ain’t no sign of any of them, like they vanished. Damnation. He needs to talk to her. Pappy Joe, rest his soul, once said if he ever ran across another one like that lady, that they good people. “They different,” the old man had mumbled. “Live over to Rio Seco way, but t’ain’t all. They not like us, but they good folk, mostly. You get into something over your head, you go on down there somehow, go talk to ’em. They helpers.”
“Angels?” the then seven-year-old asked in wonder. “They guardian angels?” Young Joe had scrunched up his face, puzzled. “Angels got wings, though, don’t they?”
Pappy Joe had laughed and laughed, his face all crinkly. “Naw, boy, t’ain’t no angels, least none I know of. They something different. But they be helping folks like us out.” Then he’d stared at the boy, direct in the eye just like that lady done. “One day, Joe, they be helping you out.”
He knows he has to find them, tell them about the bag, somehow share the burden.
Knows better now. Knows angels are only a fairy tale told by men in black robes wanting to scare little children into behaving. If there are angels, they’re likely more like that one picture he saw once. Tall and shining, sword in hand and war in mind. This world didn’t have no fluffy, cuddly angels like them stupid little statues some of the church ladies collected. They just fooling themselves. Ain’t no one ‘round here lived in the trees enough, on the land enough. There are things out there.
A cheer from the crowd distracts him from his gloomy thoughts. With a sigh, he heads into the stands, intending to go up where they’d been sitting, see if anyone knew where—
�
��You need something?” The woman’s voice stops his progress as easily as if it’d raised a rock wall.
He turns, keeping his movements slow, his attitude shifting from searching to submissive. He knows this game.
“Sheriff, ma’am,” he says in his best deferential voice, dropping into the speech rhythms she expected. “I’se going up to see if I could find someone.”
Sheriff Miller puts her hands on her hips, settled on her Sam Browne in that pose meant to be intimidating, but on her it was only pathetic. Didn’t she know she just seemed the fool? No need to do that when talking to folk. “Who you looking for? Aren’t you supposed to be collecting the trash?”
For a brief second, Joe contemplates challenging her, letting her see his true self, that part of him he knew was inside but always hid, especially in this town. Then reason wins out over insanity and he lets himself remain humble.
“I be looking for them folk from Rio Seco,” he says. “They were up there.” He motioned to the now empty seats. “Did you see them go, Sheriff?”
With a grimace, she turns her head and spits on the ground, clear spit, not the ugly brown of chew. Even so, Joe can’t help but flinch a little. She may be sheriff, but she ain’t much of a lady.
“Why you need to talk to them for?” Sheriff Miller demands. “You bothering people now?”
He hangs his head and shakes it in the negative. “No, ma’am, just needed a word.”
She harrumphs, a sour, angry sound. Why was she always angry? She never smiled no more.
Before she could say anything else, the other one—her husband—comes over off the field, his face near as tight as hers.
Yeah, he angry all the time, too. Joe knows they don’t like black folk, never have, but so long as he keeps playing the game with them, playing up to them, they don’t mind him so much. He just a trash man. But he watches them, despite that. All of them from that high and mighty church of theirs bear watching. Pastor seemed an okay fellow, somewhat, still—but he hiding something.
Ignoring her husband’s questioning glances, Sheriff Miller addresses Joe. “Those folks left a while ago. That kid of theirs got hurt and they hustled him away.” Before Joe could ask, she continued, “Don’t know where they went off to. Said something about home.” She studies him a moment, then turns and walks away with her husband, the two of them seeming even less like a couple than before. They walk with that indefinable space between them—not close enough to be together but too close to be strangers. Each of them held their shoulders in tight, muscles too tense to relax, arms too stiff to swing naturally. No sense of togetherness there at all.
Joe watches for a while as they walk around the track. Halftime activities still going on in the middle of the field, band starts up some new tune that is vaguely familiar. He checks his big watch, a prize from the best Dumpster dive of his life. He’d scored a coupla boxes of DVDs, a handful of real nice costume jewelry, and this watch.
Maybe should just go on out to Rio Seco, check for them there. Get in the truck and drive on over there, though finding them without even knowing their names is like trying to find an honest man down in Huntsville. Maybe just drive on over, nap in the truck till morning, and then go see Miz Leo at the salon when she opens up. She knows everything and everybody around, beauticians always do. Miz Leo’d tell him where to find the lady and her menfolk.
Then maybe he could finally tell the story, release this burden.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“IT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT,” Gregor mumbled as soon as Tucker pulled out of the parking lot. Tucker preferred to drive. Even though Niko had become an excellent driver since we’d begun living with the vampires, we were on Hill Country roads and they could be deceptively treacherous. One very tame-appearing curve near Rio Seco had been christened “Dead Man’s Curve,” simply because the pitch was too steep. From either direction, it seemed innocuous, but hit it doing more than the prescribed twenty-five miles an hour, especially in a boxy van or car, and you could find yourself ass over teakettle in five seconds flat. I know. Been there, done that, got reamed out by my aunts. Lucky I hadn’t broken anything except my pride.
“What do you mean ‘not an accident’?” Mark’s voice dropped in pitch, almost an entire octave.
“Kyle, Coach Miller’s nephew. He doesn’t like me or Luka. I think because of our hair and our last name.”
“How exactly are you hurt?” I asked. “I saw you holding your side back there. I’m guessing it’s not your knee?”
“I’m not—” the boy protested, trying to sit up straighter, then slumping back onto Dixxi and clutching his side. “They ganged up on me. Planned it out. I was running my play, then before I know it, Kyle Chandler trips me and then, when I fell, he stomped on my side and one of the others cleated me in the knee. When I looked up, two of his buddies were with him, all grinning and stuff. I know Kyle and those other kids from the church planned it. They fucking—”
“Language, Greg,” Dixxi warned. “We may be animals, but damn it, we’ll be polite.”
Gregor subsided with a stubborn expression on his face. “They did,” he said and crossed his arms over his chest, his shoulder pads vibrating with the action.
Mark studied Gregor’s face with a puzzled gaze on his own. “Gregor, whether or not they ganged up on you, Keira’s right. What did they do that hurt your knee so badly? I didn’t want to ask out on the field because I honestly thought you were just a good actor.” He leaned over and quickly unwrapped the Ace bandage, letting the ice pack fall into his hand.
“It’s not my knee, Mark. And it really hurts.” Gregor winced as he tried to pull up his shirt. “See?”
Mark pushed the ice pack and unwrapped bandage under the seat, leaned over, and peered at the boy’s side. “Turn on the light,” he said. I reached up and switched on the center overhead. “Damn it, boy. How the hell—?”
“Tell him, Gregor.” Dixxi’s voice brooked no argument.
“Dixx …” Gregor’s voice was just short of a whine, that annoying teenage “but I don’t wanna” tone that every single kid between eleven and eighteen perfects.
“Spill the beans, kid, or I will.”
“Beans, what beans?” Mark was obviously puzzled.
“He was already hurt, Mark,” she said. “Before the game.”
“Hurt how? Why didn’t I know of this?” Mark demanded. “I’m his Fenrir, his uncle, I—”
“Because you’d just go off, like now,” Gregor said. “It’s nothing, Mark, really. I was out in the new acreage yesterday …” He let his voice trail off and then gave a pleading look to Mark. “You know what I was doing out there and why. Use your head. You’ll know what kind of hurt.”
“You were doing what where?” Mark’s tone became a roar. “What the hell did I tell you about that!”
Gregor bit his lip. “To not go there without permission or supervision—”
“Exactly,” Mark cut him off. “Damn it, Gregor, you could have—” He stopped suddenly and glanced around the van. Every single one of us, except Tucker, who was still watching the road while driving, had our eyes glued on Mark and Gregor. “You know what,” Mark finished in a rather lame way.
“Oh no,” I said. “You are not starting this topic of conversation, then not completing it. What the hell is going on, Mark Ashkarian?”
“It’s private,” he said. “Pack business.”
“My ass.” I scowled at him. “If it’s pack business, then it is our business,” I stated. “Mine and Adam’s. I don’t want to pull the ‘I am your leader’ card, but damn it, what on earth could hurt a wer as young and as strong as Gregor? Hurt him so badly that a football injury brings him down?”
Adam, who’d started to clear his throat in some sort of warning to me, gave up as I finished speaking. Something was definitely not adding up here, pack business or not.
“Damn it, Keira,” Mark said. “It’s private, and I’m not sure I can say.”
“Mark,” I said. “I kn
ow what it’s like to keep things inside the tribe. We do that all the time. But you’re the one who asked us to come to the game tonight. Was it just to meet us ahead of the reception, or did you have another motive? I’m beginning to think door number two is the answer here. What’s going on?”
Dixxi leaned over in front of Gregor and smacked Mark upside the head. “You may be Fenrir,” she said, “but you’re still my brother. Keira’s right. You asked them here to scope them out. Scoping done and now they need to know the real reason. I trust her … and Adam.” She watched Tucker, who was studiously concentrating on driving but very much listening to every word. “I trust all of them.”
Adam gave Dixxi a regal nod and a smile.
“We’ve got wolves missing,” Mark said bluntly. “At least two, perhaps three.”
“Missing how?” I asked, needing clarification. “Did they vanish from your homestead or what?”
“We added some new land to our holdings,” he said. “Mostly for us to hunt, but also to allow new pack members to have more room to build out—houses and such. In the last few years, the pack’s been expanding. We’re trying to incorporate the lone wolves in the area into our pack. We offer them protection and safety in exchange for them tithing to the pack. The place used to lease out for dove and javelina hunting but went into receivership.”
“So you bought this land. I thought you had to close your camping and boating business in the Falls due to the drought,” I said.
“I did, but the land was a steal. The rent from the wer living there will more than cover the land and property taxes. But things have been pretty tough for us these past few months, so I’m waiving payments for pack members who just don’t have it. There’s plenty of feral hogs and javelina on the Falls property as well as the new plot. As long as we get plenty of fresh meat, we’re fine. Still have to pay taxes, though, and they don’t take meat for that. Frankly, cash is damned tight.”
