by Lee French
“Danger? From who?” Dan peered around at the bushes and trees, maybe thinking he’d spot ninjas lurking there.
Bobby shrugged. “I ain’t rightly sure who they are. Can I come in and explain to you and Lizzie? What I do know, I’ll tell you everything.”
Dan looked Bobby over critically, then he shrugged and stood aside to let him in. “Sure, whatever. Lizzie! C’mere,” he hollered into the house.
The girl that stepped into view through a nearby doorway had fat red curls dripping off her head to frame a face with high cheekbones and a delicate, pert nose. Her faded red tank top left her fire engine red bra straps visible, and her tight little denim miniskirt made her legs seem a mile long. “Yeah? Who’s this?”
Bobby stared as she draped an arm over Dan’s shoulders and rubbed against his side. He’d seen girls like this before. In porn. On her, the exotic eyes enhanced everything and his gaze wound up falling from her full, pouting lips down to her chest. She stood with it thrust out, on display. If he wanted to, he could look right down her shirt.
Dan said something, but he missed it. Lizzie smiled at him, then Dan shoved her away and smacked her on the ass. “Sorry, she’s just messing with you.”
“What? Oh. Right. Sorry,” Bobby coughed and looked down, “I just never seen a girl like that in real life before.”
He laughed. “She’s a wildfire in the sack, too.”
Lizzie slipped around behind Dan and stuck her hands in the front pockets of his jeans. Peeking out over his shoulder, she let her eyes travel down Bobby’s body, taking him in the same way he’d done to her. “What did you come to tell us?”
Her gaze unnerved him. Although it seemed like Dan controlled her, he got the feeling she actually ran the show between them. More than that, though, she watched him like a predator: a cat hiding in plain sight to catch a mouse. To heck with that; he wasn’t a mouse, he was a swarm of dragons. He straightened and pulled the list out of his pocket.
They listened while he told them the whole story, from getting arrested to finding out Raymond was missing. “So, here’s my proof.” He let his whole left hand dissolve into dragons that buzzed the room before re-forming into him again.
“Lizzie can start fires with her mind,” Dan said with a shrug. He made it sound as noteworthy as a talent for playing the piano. “I can’t do anything special yet. Haven’t had that waking up sweaty thing yet. Sounds like I will at some point.”
She could start fires with her mind. Bobby tried not to think too hard about that. Girl like that could probably already get most anything she wanted by posing and pouting. Now she could blow stuff up, too. “We’re all going to this place in Colorado, to meet up and make decisions and defend ourselves together.”
“I don’t wanna be part of a freak brigade,” Lizzie sneered. She slipped her hand out of Dan’s pocket and stuck it down the front of his jeans. “Dan, you promised we’d go do something fun soon.”
Dan smirked and kept his eyes on Bobby, maybe used to her grabbing him while he tried to do something else. Crazy thing to get used to. “This could be something fun. You like road trips, baby.”
Bobby looked away and coughed, hoping to cover how disturbing he found the pair of them. “If’n you stay here, uh, odds are good they’ll come for you. Maybe, um, maybe you can defend yourselves and all, but it’d be better for all of us if they don’t get a good idea what we all can do for as long as possible.” He rubbed his forehead, unable to stop himself from imagining Lizzie doing all sorts of other things, to him and Dan both, and bothered by that. “It’s possible we’re all half brothers and sisters, so, this is, well, it’s about family.”
“We can just go see what it’s like, baby, and if it sucks, we can leave.”
“Is that true?” Lizzie stared at him, her eyes piercing and sharp. “If we don’t like it, we can leave?”
Bobby nodded. “Not like we could stop you. We ain’t the government or nothing.” He pulled out the page with his copy of the directions to the place and offered it to them. “This is where everybody is. You wanna make a copy of that, you can decide for yourselves while I go on to the next person on the list. Don’t let nobody know where you’re going or lose the directions or nothing.”
Dan took the page and read it over. “You got better handwriting than me, baby, go take care of that.”
“Sure.” Lizzie snatched the paper with a mild scowl and swished her butt out of the room.
Bobby watched her go, unable to tear his eyes away. When she turned a corner, he scratched the back of his neck and found Dan smirking at him with his arms crossed over his chest. “You think you’ll go? ”
“Yeah.” Dan nodded. “She’s just being obnoxious ‘cause I told her not to play with you. Once we’re on the road, she’ll get into it.”
Whatever ‘play’ meant to Lizzie, Bobby thought he ought to be grateful to Dan for putting him off limits for it. “Only name I can really give you for sure is Hannah. She seems to be good at the organization thing, so she’s the one that’s acting kinda in charge, but she ain’t really in charge, so don’t give her no crap for that.”
“Cool.” Dan nodded again and shook hands with Bobby. “Its cool you’re out doing this. Coulda just run for the hills yourself and left the rest of us to swing in the wind. Says something about a man when he risks his own butt for total strangers.”
“‘Specially when it’s a nice, tight butt,” Lizzie said, returning already. She walked into Bobby’s personal space and thumped his paper onto his chest. She got so close he could smell peppermint on her breath. “You look just like Dan, you know.” Her tongue flicked out. “I could mistake you for him easy.” She squealed and danced away backwards.
Dan’s arm pulled her back by the waistband of her skirt until she thumped into his chest. “No, baby, you couldn’t.” He kissed her neck and wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her close and tight.
“I’ll get going, then. See you there, I guess.” He backed out, pulling the door shut to the sound of Lizzie moaning. As he hurried to the road, a repressed shiver worked its way across his entire body. People didn’t normally creep him out, but those two did. Jasmine was nice, he reminded himself, and so was Hannah. With thirty-five of them, some being freakish shouldn’t come as a big shock.
Feeling dirty, he rubbed his hands on his jeans, then broke apart into the swarm. If he ever wound up in the position where a hot girl sticking her hand down his pants happened so often he ignored it to get other things done, he wanted to be put out of his misery. Dallas, he had to get to Dallas. Pulling out his list, he checked the name: Stephen Cant.
He sent up a prayer for Stephen to be less creepy.
Chapter 9
Three hours later, Bobby walked up to the front door of a grand two story house in a wealthy neighborhood. Stephen’s house, like many of the others in this Dallas development, had a wraparound porch and a manicured yard with a patch of green grass. His stomach rumbled, threatening to embarrass him in front of whatever society person happened to answer the door. He judged getting to Stephen as more important than eating. Besides, he might be able to wrangle a meal out of the guy.
An older lady answered the door. Her clothes, a light tan pantsuit with a light blue blouse and pearls, marked her as someone who probably had an important job, like a lawyer or a doctor or an executive. “Can I…” Her light green eyes zeroed in on his own and she sucked in a breath. “Stephen isn’t here.”
“Okay.” Bobby stared at her, blinking.
She put a hand on her pearls and frowned. “Are you his brother?”
He figured that for a weird question to come from the woman he presumed to be Stephen’s momma. Stifling a shrug, he ran with it anyway. “Yes, ma’am. Know where I can find him?”
“I’m sorry,” she breathed, “so sorry. I didn’t know he had one.”
Still lost, Bobby raised his brow. “You didn’t know he had a place to stay?”
She shook her head sadly. “No, a brother
. I would have adopted you both if I’d known.”
This conversation suddenly made much more sense. “Oh. It’s alright, ma’am. I just really need to find him and I don’t know where he’s gone. It’s kinda urgent-like.”
“Of course.” She gave him an address. “It’s our church, I’ve been going there for a very long time. He’s always felt at home there. Pastor Chris can help you.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Bobby turned away, took two steps.
“Are you hungry?”
Her voice made him stop and look back to see a grimace of guilt on her face. She wrung her hands together and seemed to desperate to atone for some sin. Although he really did want something to eat, he figured finding Stephen rated higher than his stomach. “Not really, no, but thanks for the offer. Is there something I can deliver to Stephen for you, though?”
Her lip quivered and her eyes crinkled, giving him the impression she might burst into tears at any moment. She nodded and disappeared, then stepped back into sight with a brown leather purse. He walked back to the door while she rooted through it. The wad of cash she pressed into his hand felt thicker than he’d ever had before. “Take it, use it for both of you.”
Only a few days ago he had nothing at all, not even clothes. Looking down at the twenty folded over more bills, he had an urge to give it back. He’d lied to her, at least a tiny bit, and inadvertently given her guilt. This money felt like it came from a dishonest place. When he stole, he preferred to do it because he had no other choice. She owed him nothing, no matter what she thought.
On the other hand, Stephen didn’t deserve to be deprived of money his momma wanted him to have for lack of being here to take it. He tucked it into his pocket. “I swear on my Daddy’s grave he’ll get this.”
She covered her mouth and he noticed her eyes watering. “Tell him I love him, very much, all of us do, and we miss him. We all hope he finds what he’s looking for. A phone call every so often to let us know he’s okay would be— We’d all really like that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he ducked his head. “I’ll see about getting him to call. I’m sure he’s fine.” He really ought to see about calling Momma himself once in a while. It had to be hard on her, not knowing. On the other hand, some form of cops had to be tapping her phone, maybe even those suits.
She nodded and kept watching him with that unhappy, pitying smile. Not wanting to see that anymore, or to take anything else from her, he turned and walked away. From the sidewalk, he tossed a wave over his shoulder, then hurried up the street. Her behavior puzzled him, in part. What happened to Stephen that she adopted him and felt that much guilt for missing his brother?
Around the corner, he ducked behind a tree and broke apart into dragons. He re-formed half an hour later, down the street from the Second Baptist Church of Dallas. The neighborhood contrasted sharply with the one where Stephen’s momma lived. It had tiny little houses with tiny little yards, many in need of paint and sweeping and minor repairs. None of them had grass. He wondered how the Cants went from this church to that neighborhood, and why they never switched churches to a closer one.
The church, a plain brick building with no ornate decoration, fit in with its neighbors. The landscaping had weeds and needed mowing, the lone fir tree had dead branches in need of pruning. Black plastic covered one window. Without the sign and a couple of crosses here and there, he might have mistaken it for a struggling business of some kind, or a small, underfunded school.
Finding the front door unlocked, he walked into a single large room with stacks of folded chairs leaning against one wall with a microphone stand, folding tables leaning against the other wall, and an empty, footed bathtub at one end. It had three other doors, two marked as restrooms and the third with a piece of paper taped to it that read ‘Kitchen’. At the end opposite the bathtub, an area had been blocked off with half-height bookshelves. He saw small bean bag chairs, battered books, a worn shag throw rug over the industrial pseudo-marble floor, and bins in cubbyholes with toys poking out.
On his hands and knees with yellow rubber gloves, a sponge, a spray bottle, and a roll of paper towels, a man in jeans and a white button-down shirt worked hard to clean something off that piece of carpet. He looked up at the soft chime made by the door opening. Friendly green eyes under shaggy brown hair smiled at Bobby in welcome. Sitting up on his feet and swiping the back of his arm across his forehead, he said, “Hi there, I’m Pastor Chris, can I help you?”
“I surely hope so, Pastor.” Bobby stuck his hands in his trenchcoat pockets and echoed the Pastor’s smile. “I’m looking for Stephen Cant. His momma said he might be here, or you might know where to find him.”
“Ah.” His smile faded. “Why are you looking for him?” It was a wary, guarded question, like he half expected Bobby to say it was to kill him or something along those lines.
Bobby shrugged, wondering if that tension in his voice meant the Pastor had him hidden in the basement for some reason. “It’s complicated. I gotta talk to him about stuff.”
Pastor Chris scanned Bobby from head to toe and nodded. “Life is full of complicated stuff.”
“I s’pose that’s true.”
“If you’d like to talk about it, I can listen.”
“Not really.” Bobby reached up and scratched his beard. “I dunno. I just—” Unwilling to keep looking at Chris while he tried to ignore the things tumbling around in his head, he swept his eyes around the room, hoping to find a distraction. The makeshift altar grabbed his attention. “How come you don’t got no crucifix inside here?”
Pastor Chris smirked. “Because, fool that I am, I spend the church money on other things, like bills and an aide for the day care I run here.”
“You don’t got no church ladies to run a bake sale for it, huh?”
“I do,” Chris chuckled, “but there are always more important things than decorations that need the money. I haven’t even been able to replace the window yet.” He gestured to the black plastic as he pulled his rubber gloves off and stood up. “If you’re willing to finish cleaning this up for me, I’d be happy to share my dinner table with you.”
Bobby had no interest in taking anything away from this tiny, cash-strapped church. He could graze elsewhere. “How about if I do that, you tell me where to find Stephen?”
Chris nodded, disappointment showing. “Alright, I’ll tell you what I can. Would you like anything at all, though?”
“Nah, save it for yourself. ‘Sides, I ain’t as raggedy as I look.”
“That’s comforting.” Chris grinned and passed Bobby the rubber gloves. As he did, his eyes flicked to Bobby’s. “What’s your name?”
“Bobby. I’m Stephen’s half-brother.” It seemed safest to stick to the same maybe- kinda-lie he told Stephen’s momma. He pulled the gloves on and knelt down to see what he’d gotten himself into.
“It’s grape juice. I’m mostly worried about ants.” Chris stood there and watched Bobby get to work. “I didn’t know he had a half-brother.”
“Yeah, he don’t, neither. I didn’t ‘til a few days ago.”
“So you came to meet him?”
“Yeah, that’s part of it.”
“Hm.” Chris paced away, leaving him to the work. It took no skill, only elbow grease. Several minutes later, he decided he’d done as much as a body could do. Chris came back out of the kitchen with a tray that he set on the floor while pulling out a table and two chairs. “Looks like my timing is good.”
“If you get ants, it ain’t gonna be because of this.” He pulled off the gloves and picked up all the cleaning supplies. Eyeing the second chair and the plate set in front of it, he sighed. “You don’t gotta feed me.”
“At least have a glass of water. You can take something with you if you want. Set that stuff by the kitchen door and come sit with me. Eating alone gets tiresome after a while.”
“This is why you can’t afford nothing,” Bobby shook his head and gave him half a smirk. He could smell the lasagna an
d it made his stomach growl. Once that gave him away, he sat down and picked up a fork. Along with a large slab of lasagna, he’d been given a biscuit and a small salad with two fat cherry tomatoes. No sense letting this go to waste.
“Charity is something we can all afford to give, no matter how much we have.” For a few minutes, neither spoke, both busy with the food. Chris watched him eat with a pleased smile. “There’s a bathroom here if you want to wash up when you’re done. It has a shower.”
Bobby had to cough to keep himself from choking at how that struck him. “Do I really look that rough around the edges?”
Chris smiled kindly. “A little, yes. You mostly look like you’ve had a rough break recently.”
“I ain’t really that bad off, not really. I mean, it ain’t no picnic, but I ain’t starving or nothing.”
“What happened?”
He wanted to help. Bobby had somehow managed to stumble across another of what he’d always thought to be a rare breed: people who see others in need and try to do something about it. This Pastor had nothing in common with the one he’d grown up listening to. Pastor Adam talked about how God punished fags with diseases. When a girl he knew got knocked up, Pastor Adam spent a sermon pointing at her and calling her a slut in league with the Devil. He said she got pregnant as a punishment from The Lord.
That man presided over holiday charity events, but the few times Bobby volunteered to help, the Pastor never showed up and the church ladies took care of everything. Thinking back on everything Pastor Adam did and said, he couldn’t recall any personal acts of charity the man did. Everyone sinned and needed to repent by giving him money. His church had stained glass windows and mahogany pews.
Bobby sighed and stared at his water glass. He’d already gotten tired of explaining about the superpowers, and still had to do it several times. Still, other things weighed on his mind, and a priest could maybe help with that. This particular pastor seemed suited to it, anyway. “Do you think stuff happens the way it’s gonna happen, and nothing we can do about it, or are we really running our own lives for ourselves?”
