by Nara Malone
Allie stepped into the semi-dark club and the guard moved to keep Jake from following.
“Wait, Allie. She doesn’t go anywhere without me,” Jake said. He straightened to full height, dwarfing Head.
Allie hoped Head would win this argument. She didn’t want Jake in past the front door. The walls were hung with erotic paintings. The room itself was arranged like a parlor, sofas and tables scattered about, and a small bar in one corner where the customers waited for the lady they’d purchased for the evening.
Odd, that when she lived here she didn’t really see any of this. Yes it was there, but she’d paid about as much attention to it as she might pay to the cracked sidewalk out front or the color of the carpet. Now she saw it, knew it was not the sort of place normal people would expose a child to. What assumptions would Jake make? What judgments? It was one of the reasons she’d chosen to come while Marcus was still sleeping off the tranquilizers. That and Eddie’s previous violent reactions to the idea of her having a love life.
Curtains parted on the other side of the room and Eddie settled the dispute. “It’s okay, Head, let him by.” Eddie didn’t acknowledge Allie’s presence before he disappeared behind the curtains again.
Jake followed Allie across the “parlor” and behind the curtains. “Black velvet and pink marble,” he muttered. “Classy.”
“Ssh, Jake.”
Heavy drapes blocked any outdoor light that might filter into Eddie’s office through tall windows, but a small lamp illuminated his desk, casting light in a circle around Eddie. Eddie was in a black robe and black pajama bottoms. Allie couldn’t remember him ever using a robe or pajamas before. He was thin, his skin hanging on a frame that seemed to have shrunk. The whites of his eyes had a yellowish cast.
“You finally decide to come home,” he said. There was a bottle of whiskey and a half-full tumbler on the desk. The scent of it burned her nostrils. Eddie rarely drank and then not enough to get a buzz. He said staying sharp was staying alive.
“I decided to find out where home really is,” she said. “Can you help me figure that out?”
He downed the last of the whiskey. “No.”
“You aren’t my father, are you?”
He rolled the empty glass between his palms, staring into the bottom as if the answer were hidden there somewhere. Eddie’s eyes finally met hers, burned with the same dominating intensity they always had.
“I told you once, when you were about five, that other little girls called their fathers Daddy or Papa. I asked how come you never did. Do you remember what you told me?”
Allie shook her head.
“You said that wasn’t my name. You knew the answer to that question then, kitten, don’t play stupid now.”
Allie flinched at the name. He called her kitten and everyone else used kitty. It came to her that the name had always caused an inward flinch, had never felt as if it belonged to her. When she ran away she changed it, a name chosen from available identities she could slip into. She wanted to tell Eddie to use her new name, but she needed his cooperation and fighting over a name would only get his back up. “I don’t remember much from back then,” she said instead.
“Yeah? I guess that’s why you forgot who took you in and protected you, made sure no one ever laid a hand on you. You didn’t remember that well enough to ever give a fucking god damn about whether I was worried about you.”
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid? You name me once, once in your entire life— And don’t think you never gave me reason. You name just once when I ever laid a hand on you.”
“You shot Jason.”
“If I meant to kill the stinkin’ little bastard he’d be dead. And don’t think if you hadn’t been there watchin’ that he wouldn’t be dead. Him, he had plenty of reason to be afraid of me. You didn’t.”
She wandered to the pool table at the far end of his office. Jake stayed near Eddie. Allie picked up the cue ball. Eddie couldn’t be pushed into telling her anything. With patience he might be coaxed. “You been doing okay?”
“I been great.”
A lie. She could smell disease, a foulness like the stench of bad cabbage. She looked over her shoulder. Jake had positioned himself so that he was between her and Eddie, ready to leap to defend her if needed. He wouldn’t be needed. Allie had learned one thing last night—she didn’t have to be afraid anymore. She didn’t have to be afraid of whatever truth Eddie might share with her either. She turned back to the table, sent the cue ball ricocheting back and forth across the woolen green.
“Tell me where I’m from, Eddie.”
“You don’t want to know, kitten. There’s worse things than being my daughter.”
“I want the truth, Eddie. Don’t pretend you’re protecting me.”
“Well here’s a news flash for you, baby girl.” He got up and moved around the desk. Jake stirred behind her, but Allie held up a hand to warn him back. Eddie jabbed at her chest with his finger as he said each word. “I haven’t done much right, but I have always protected you. I always watched over you. No pretense needed.”
She blinked hard against the burn in her eyes and met his stare.
“Why? I don’t get why, Eddie. What am I to you?”
He stepped back, deflated, pain shimmered in his eyes and Allie realized it wasn’t physical pain. It never occurred to her, until now, that it was possible to hurt Eddie.
“Why do you think?” he asked and turned. Moved away.
“Eddie, please?”
“Just go,” he said.
“I can’t. Not like this.”
He whirled around. “Christ, Allie, what the fuck do you want from me?”
“Some truth. Start at the beginning. How did you wind up with me? What about my mother? You never talk about her.”
“Don’t go asking questions you can’t handle the answers to.”
“I have to know, Eddie. Whether I can handle them or not, I need to know the answers if I’m ever going to figure out how I came to be this thing that I am. And then I have to figure out a way to live with myself.”
He stalked back to her, grabbed her shoulders. “Don’t you ever talk about yourself like that.” He gave her a little shake. “You are not a thing. I don’t care who made you. I don’t care what anyone tells you. You’re not a freak. You are perfect. You got that?”
Allie sniffed. She swallowed against a tightness in her throat and looked down at the pool balls. She picked up a red one.
Eddie took it away and sent it rolling across the green, offered his fist. She made a fist and bumped. Eddie didn’t stop at their limit of touching, boundaries for affection set between them long ago. He brushed his knuckles lightly over her cheek, and then ruffled her hair. “You were never the cuddly sort. Never could tolerate a lot of petting. I liked that about you, that aloof feline way you have.”
Allie didn’t pull away, afraid any reaction might stop him talking.
“You were my little green-eyed princess and you would occasionally grant me the favor of your presence on my knee.”
He moved to his desk and sank into a chair. The dim lighting didn’t conceal his grimace as he did so. She couldn’t ignore a sensation of a house of cards falling, Eddie seemed to fold in on himself as he told her what she needed to know.
“I found you in a crack house cellar out on Cedar Street. You and your sister. I caught her first, but she bit and scratched the shit out of me. When I dropped her she got away. You were too sick to run, wrapped in a dirty red blanket. It’s the only time I ever remember you being sick. You had the nerve to growl at me. Tiny little scrap of skin and bones, and you growled. Cute. You sounded like a clock ticking,” Eddie smiled, a rare event.
A sister? The idea that she might have a sibling had never occurred to her. She stayed silent, not even her desperation to know more could be allowed to interfere with the flow of Eddie’s thoughts.
“I brought you home with me.”
“Why?” Allie had to ask. “W
hy would you bring a little girl here instead of handing her over to protective services?”
“Because I didn’t find little girls. You still don’t get this? I found a pair of kittens.” He shrugged. “I happen to like cats.”
Allie’s heart was still beating triple time. “What happened to my sister?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t worry about it until after I got you home, took you up to the apartment and made you a bowl of broth, watched you turn from kitten to toddler right in front of my eyes. Do you know what that was like? Seeing you change changed everything I thought I knew about the world.”
Allie didn’t know what it was like, but she got a flash of an image from Eddie, a thin, dirty child, hair a snarled mess. She blinked. Marcus had sent her thoughts enough times that she’d recognized the little twinge of pain that preceded a telepathic message from him.
“What happened to her, Eddie?”
“I sent Head back to look for the other kitten. I went back myself thousands of times. Never found a trace of kitten or a little girl.”
“Where did I come from?”
Eddie shrugged. “Maybe some research project someone dumped off. I’ve heard plenty on the street about them coming around gathering strays because the shelters won’t give them animals. Can’t think why they’d just toss you out though. Maybe that was an experiment too.”
Treading carefully so as not to insult him again, she tried to reframe her biggest question. “Why would you want me, Eddie? Keeping someone like me, a toddler, had to be an enormous pain in the ass.”
He looked at her, the intensity unmistakable. “You were. Kids are. Why does anyone keep them around?”
She bit her lip, turned away, picked up the eight ball. She didn’t know why she would inspire paternal instincts in Eddie. Like Eddie said, there were worse things than being his daughter, and when it came down to it, who better than a guy who lived outside the system to raise a girl who wasn’t human? Given the circumstances, Eddie had done okay.
She set the eight ball spinning and said softly, “Thank you.”
He didn’t respond. She hadn’t expected him to. This was getting heavier than either of them was comfortable with.
“Does any of this stir any memories, Allie?” Jake asked, an obvious attempt to steer things back to calmer ground.
Allie shook her head. “It may explain the whole mirror thing.”
“Mirrors?”
Eddie, probably as relieved as she was to leave sticky emotion behind, answered, “She is terrified of mirrors. The sight of one used to make her hysterical. The only one we had upstairs was in my bathroom.”
“I used to believe there was a me stuck inside the glass, trapped there. Sometimes I’d have this little flash of reaching for the glass, but my hand went through and touched a living copy of me. Or as near as I can tell she was a copy of me, same hair, clothes, same size.” She shuddered. Something about the experience still gave her chills.
“Pantherians travel through portals that look like mirrors. Is it possible someone brought you into the human world through one of our portals?”
“I don’t remember living anywhere but here.”
Eddie rose again. “I kept the blanket I found with her. It was funky so I swapped it out for a new red blanket I gave her. I kept the original sealed in plastic. I figured it might be useful if someone ever turned up to claim her. No one did.”
He went into the closet where his safe was hidden and came back with a bag. Inside she found the blanket and her missing laptop. The question of the break-in solved.
Allie’s hands reached with a will of their own. The blanket was the only thing she cared about. Through the clear plastic, she traced the designs on a small handmade quilt, and it was comprised of various red patches, two white kittens were appliquéd to the surface.
A warmth, a sense of safe welled up in her chest. She hugged the blanket to her, could feel the heat of the red color seep through the pores in the plastic, into her body. A memory surfaced, a woman’s voice singing, but the words ran together and she couldn’t recall them.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching to squeeze Eddie’s hand.
He pulled away, went back to his desk and filled the tumbler with whiskey again. Some sloshed over the side onto the desk. He stared at it silently. She had a million questions. She knew Eddie had no answers.
“So you found people like you now?” he asked at last.
“Yes.”
He nodded as if that settled something and downed the next shot in one gulp. He looked at Jake. “You an experiment too?”
Jake didn’t answer.
Eddie dropped into his chair and opened his desk drawer, pulled out his handgun and placed it on the desk. “Get her out of here, hoss.”
“His name is Jake,” Allie said, refusing to be intimidated.
Jake grabbed Allie’s hand and tugged her toward the door.
“I don’t want her back in here.” Eddie glared at Allie. “I don’t care what she tells you. You make sure of it.”
Allie balked. “Why?”
“Come on, Allie,” Jake muttered. “I will,” he said louder to Eddie.
“He said he wouldn’t hurt me. You heard him. He’s bluffing.”
“What about me?” Jake hissed in her ear.
She let Jake lead her out of Eddie’s den, out of the club into the bright sunshine of a spring afternoon. She hugged the bag to her chest, throwing glances back as they went. Something wasn’t right. Eddie was hiding something. What?
She was climbing in the van when realization dawned. She dropped the bag and turned, headed back for the club at a flat-out run. Jakes legs were longer. He was faster. A distant crack sounded just as Jake’s arm went around her waist. Made it all clear. Allie lunged, but Jake blocked her, hauling her to the floor and yelling, “Atka, get us the fuck out of here, now.”
Atka didn’t ask questions, throwing the van in gear while Allie screamed, “No, no, no,” over and over, clutching her head. The tearing pain of Eddie’s brain shattering under the force of a bullet replayed like an echo in her brain. She couldn’t turn it off.
Chapter Fifteen
Marcus was poring over a folder of material Ben left when Jake interrupted.
“Sorry, Magus, I thought you might want to know Allie’s friends are here. They’re putting her things upstairs. I imagine that will take them about five minutes. They have someone with them you’ve been anxious to see.”
Marcus put the folder aside. He was drawing a blank.
“Hella,” Jake supplied.
“Hella. In all the chaos I forgot Hella. Where? How?”
“Apparently Allie did take her. Lila’s aunt agreed to keep her because Allie has a no-pets lease. After the pig incident, Lila figured out that the cat must be one of your rescues and thought it would be best if you looked after your own contraband cats.”
“We’ve looked everywhere.”
“Yeah, I even had Seth searching.”
Marcus pushed back from his desk and got up. At mention of Seth he thought of how much more Seth knew about all of them than he would have liked.
“Do you trust him, Jake?”
“He has been nothing but helpful.”
“Not the answer I was hoping for.”
“I have my issues with Seth. You know that. That’s between Seth and me. That has nothing to do with the rest of you.” He tugged at his beard. Then jammed his hands in his pockets.
“I’d be more comfortable if you kept close to him for a while.”
“We can’t change what he knows, Magus. Have Ben and company keep an eye on him for a while, until we’re more certain of his loyalties.”
Marcus leaned against the counter, folded his arms across his chest, studied Jake. Jake looked away.
“Why Ben and company instead of you, Jake?”
“I think it’s best if I stay away from here for a while.”
“She doesn’t blame you.”
“I believe
she does, Magus. She won’t even look at me.”
“She’s not looking at anyone. She’s grieving.”
Jake had his keys out now. Was turning them over in his hand. He wouldn’t look at Marcus. Marcus knew the reasons for leaving were related to more than Eddie’s suicide.
“I’m going. You two need space and I need to find out what happened to her sister. It’s not permanent, just for a couple of months.”
“I know why you’re really going, Jake.” Marcus would have to be more than blind not to see the way Jake looked at Allie, the way he lit up in her presence. “We can work this out.”
“I don’t want to work anything out. I want to find Allie’s sister for her.”
Maybe Jake was right. Pantherians formed triads and while Allie was a long way from being ready for all that entailed, Jake would be thinking he couldn’t stand by and watch Marcus choose the other male from a pool of eligible tigers. What Jake didn’t know was that Marcus and possibly Allie could shift across species. Marcus decided not to go into that until he was sure of Allie’s abilities. Jake leaving would give the three of them more time to let the future find the right path for all of them. Why did it leave his gut churning if it was the best thing to do?
“You know the little girl probably didn’t survive, Jake.”
“Did you ask Allie what she thought about that?”
Marcus crossed to Adam’s desk and picked up a report Ben had left him. He flipped through the pages without seeing the writing.
“Magus?”
“I need you here, Jake.”
“Allie thinks her sister is still alive. Littermates share a bond, Magus. Allie would know if she were dead.” It was at the back of his mind that he should remind Jake to call him Marcus. He didn’t. Suddenly he wanted to hear that familiar voice, using his familiar title in this land where he was nobody. He wanted the solid backup of Jake’s presence in his life every day.
“How do you follow a trail left twenty-six or so years ago, Jake? There’s no point encouraging Allie in the belief we can find her sister.”
“I know. I haven’t told anyone but you where I’m going.”
Oliver scampered in. Jake stooped to rub his ears. “Maybe Ben will look after Oliver until I’m back.”
