Fence

by Ava Benton

  “What do you think you saw?” The one who looked most like Scruffy stood by his side, glaring at me. They had to be brothers. Scruffy stretched out his arm, holding it against his brother’s chest.

  “Whatever she saw, it doesn’t matter. We don’t know anything more about this place than she does. It shouldn’t even be this way. We’re all a little confused. Maybe we can figure it out together.” He looked at me. “What do you think? You think we could put our heads together and find out what’s going on with this place? Because it’s pretty insane.”

  “Insane’s a good word for it. Only I don’t think it’s any of our business. Do you?” I looked at the three of them. “Whoever was here, whoever did all this… it’s their business. Not ours. Definitely not mine.”

  I had never wanted anything more than to get out of that cave and never go back. It was more trouble than it was worth. I’d finish my thesis with what I’d already found.

  “You’re not even in the least bit interested? I mean, you’ve already said you were doing research. What about all the work you’ve done?”

  “I don’t care about that right now. I just sort of want to get out of here.”

  “Relax…” He raised dark, heavy eyebrows in a silent question.

  “Ciera,” I supplied.

  “Ciera.” He smiled a little. “That’s a beautiful name. Well, relax, Ciera. Nobody’s here to hurt you. I get the feeling you think that’s the case.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I muttered, looking at my feet.

  “But that’s just not the case. You were hurt, and we didn’t want to leave you here the way you were. I’m worried that you might need help. Medical help, I mean.”

  I shook my head, even though that subtle motion sent pain rattling around in my skull like a marble in a jar. “It’s all right.”

  “You’re sure?” There was a light in his eyes that I couldn’t put my finger on. He was too… eager.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I do think we should all get out of here.” The one who’d been standing behind Scruffy stepped up and murmured in his ear. “We could always come back if we have to.”

  “Have to for what?” I could’ve bitten off my tongue for asking when he looked at me from the corner of his eye.

  “You heard that?”

  “I have very good hearing,” I shrugged, apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, well, as you’ve already said—this isn’t any of your business.”

  “But it’s yours?” They wanted to get me moving, which meant they didn’t want to hurt me. Or so I told myself. I was grasping at straws, and I knew it, but I’d never exactly been in a situation like this before. “I mean, if this is something you’re going to pursue, there might be a way I can help you, after all.”

  Scruffy’s beard couldn’t hide the way one corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “Oh? How’s that?”

  “I have tons of research. If you’re looking for information, I bet I have it.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Around. Many different places.”

  This seemed to bother them worse than anything else. A ripple went through them, like a group thought they didn’t have to voice.

  I gulped.

  Scruffy nodded slowly. “Well. I don’t know about my brother or my cousin, but I would very much like to see what it is you’ve found.”

  “It’s all back at my apartment…” Where I was not about to lead them. No way.

  And he understood that. “We could meet up someplace private. Perhaps a library? It makes the most sense, since we’re discussing research.”

  “That sounds good.” I fumbled through my backpack for a small notepad which I’d carried around out of habit for years. It was full of random thoughts, ideas, scribbles. I managed to find a clean scrap and wrote my phone number on it. “I’m free whenever.”

  “No job?” Scruffy’s brother—I had guessed right—looked suspicious.

  “I’m here on a research grant. It provides for my expenses.”

  He really didn’t like me. The feeling was increasingly mutual. I shot him a dirty look which seemed to embarrass him a little. He looked away.

  Scruffy pulled my focus back when he said, “All right. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Who should I expect to hear from?”

  “Fence.” He smiled wide. “My brother, Gate.” He gestured. “And my cousin, Miles.”

  Miles nodded.

  I nodded back. “I’ll be hearing from all three of you, then?”

  “We’ll see,” Fence said. “Come on. Is your car nearby?”

  “Outside the woods.”

  He picked up my backpack and shot me a look of admiration, hefting it onto his shoulder. “Ours as well. We’ll hike down with you.”

  Because he wanted to be sure I left.

  Who the hell were these guys?

  And why had I given them my actual phone number?

  7

  Fence

  “We’re going to end up paying to replace that throw rug if you don’t stop pacing on it,” I muttered from my bed, my arm thrown over my eyes.

  “How do you know I’m pacing?” Gate asked.

  “Because I have ears, brother mine. And you’ve never been one to walk quietly when stomping would do just as well.”

  “I need to get rid of all this pent-up bullshit inside,” he growled.

  “You and me both, but you don’t see me wearing holes in the décor.” I moved my arm and looked over to where he was still walking back and forth, over and over, following the same route with each pass. “I have to say, I think you’re taking this a little too seriously.”

  “You can’t mean that.” He stopped dead in his tracks, glaring at me in surprise. “You don’t see how important this girl is? Who the hell spends their graduate studies on the ancient clans of Scotland and winds up studying ours, for Christ’s sake?”

  “She does, apparently.” I rubbed my temples, unsure if it was his incessant worry or the dragon’s raging that brought on the stirrings of a headache. It was likely a combination of the two.

  “What are we supposed to do about her?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about it.”

  “I know what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Shut up.” I sat up, glaring. “Just shut up with that. You and I both know it’s not going to happen. Not just because it’s ridiculous, but because we’re not murderers. You’re talking about murder here.”

  “Who’s talking about murder?” Miles entered the room with his arms full of paper sacks. I could just imagine what the people at the pub thought when he came in to pick up a dozen double burgers. All rare.

  I dug into the food with relish, still talking. “My brother. He’s the one talking about it.”

  “Tell me I’m wrong,” he challenged Miles.

  “You’re wrong,” Miles said, his voice flat. “That would be the worst move.”

  My dragon approved of this and let up with the frenzy, which allowed the pressure in my head to lessen. Now, I could actually taste the food and enjoy it.

  “How’s that?” Gate demanded.

  “The girl is a student, correct? She even has a research grant, which allows her to do her work without having to take focus from her studies. She can’t simply disappear without a trace. There will be questions, police involvement.” He lowered what was left of his first burger. “And if anyone has so much as a clue of where she was headed, that’ll be the first place the police start looking.”

  “Damn it all.” Gate crumpled up one of the empty sacks and threw it at the wall.

  I bit back the impulse to tell him to destroy his own room and leave mine alone, because I understood his frustration.

  On the other hand, I appreciated the excuse to protect Ciera instead of seeking her destruction. I couldn’t deny the strong pull she had on me—even back in the cave, I’d needed to fight the urge to ask her everything about herself. Where did she liv
e? What did she like? What made her happy? What was she planning on doing for the rest of her life?

  Not that hearts and flowers had anything to do with it. I hadn’t changed my base nature simply because a beautiful, clumsy, intelligent girl tripped and fell into my life. I found her fascinating, was all. Romance was about as far from my thoughts as the cave in West Virginia was from the one we’d just explored earlier in the day.

  “How are we supposed to deal with her, then?” Gate posed the question to the two of us. From the bright sparkling of his eyes and the color in his cheeks, it was clear he was on edge. I knew better than to push him, but babying him would be just as tragic for me. I could still remember the sting from when he’d punched me straight in the jaw one time, decades earlier, after trying to be kind to him when he was in a foul mood.

  Miles shot me a look. “Well? What do you think?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  He scoffed. “Please. Why bother wasting time with such silly questions? It’s obvious you like the girl, and she likes you.”

  “Maybe she likes me best because I was the only one of the three of us who didn’t overtly look or sound like I wanted to murder her,” I growled. “The two of you were just about as sympathetic as a lynch mob.”

  “Sorry we don’t have your soft touch with the ladies,” Gate sneered with a roll of his eyes.

  “Soft touch, hell. I wanted to be sure the girl didn’t run screaming to everybody who’d listen about the three big, bad men in the cave which—by the way—shouldn’t be nearly as tricked out as it is. My actions were an example of self-preservation.”

  “Bullshit.” But Miles let it lie there, rather than pressing the subject. He could be a real pain in the ass, but he could also show remarkable judgment. “At any rate, there’s still the question of how to handle her. And you’re the one who developed rapport. You never stopped chatting the entire way back to the car.”

  He was right on that point, and I would’ve gladly spent hours more finding out about her. The amount of interest she sparked in me was downright disturbing. We hadn’t touched on anything important, however. I was careful not to. She’d taken an apartment in town, though she hadn’t said where, and planned to be another month in completing her thesis. It was the last piece of her requirements. After that, she’d explained with a wry smile, it was a matter of finding a job where her unique knowledge would be appreciated.

  “Maybe I should’ve thought out my major a little better,” she’d admitted before stumbling over a half-hidden tree root and falling into me.

  I’d borne her weight easily, throwing an arm around her waist to keep her upright this time. Blood had rushed to her cheeks. “I told you. I’m clumsy.”

  “It’s all right, so long as you have someone here to catch you.” I was more concerned with how she’d hiked all that way while wearing a backpack which surely weighed a ton. She was stronger than her frame let on.

  “I’m always doing things like that. I can’t tell you how many pairs of glasses I destroyed when I was growing up.”

  “You don’t wear them now.”

  “Lasik surgery was cheaper in the long run,” she’d laughed.

  I’d always enjoyed a person who could laugh at themselves, and she’d put me at ease in spite of all the questions surrounding her presence.

  “Glasses would make you look like the academic you are,” I’d teased, and immediately had regretted it. I had no business teasing and flirting with her.

  “I could wear glasses without prescription lenses if it would make me seem more legitimate,” she’d teased back, but had then grown serious. “If it makes me seem more legitimate, I’ll do just about anything.”

  I’d caught the sour note in her voice. “You’re not taken seriously?”

  “Not by a bunch of dried-up old jerks who look at what I do as a glorified fairytale hunt,” she’d informed me, and the sting of the anger in her voice had impressed me quite a lot.

  There was more to her than surprising physical strength. She had a depth of strength in her core as well.

  “Why do it, then? Why spent all the time and resources on things which might not even be true?”

  She’d frowned. “It’s all true, of course. There’s proof. It’s just a matter of finding it. I mean, did people once laugh at those who claimed the world is round? Of course. But now, we laugh at those people.”

  “And you’ll have the last laugh.”

  “I will.” She’d jerked her chin up just a little then. Just far enough to work her way into my admiration, even if her curiosity and stubbornness would likely wind up getting us all in trouble.

  “What makes you so interested in researching the old clans?” I had asked, hoping I wasn’t overplaying my hand. There was nothing wrong with interest—or so I’d told myself.

  She’d shrugged, waving her hands. “They’ve always been part of my life. The old stories my Seanmhair told me, I mean.”

  The way the old word for “grandmother” tripped off her tongue, pronounced “shenivar,” I could tell she’d been saying it all her life. Just another layer to the girl. She was American, or so she’d told us, which meant the old woman must’ve been Scottish if she’d taught the girl the words, the stories.

  “She told you of the clans?”

  “What she’d learned of them, which was what her parents had learned and their parents, and on and on. I mean, don’t you feel the power of that connection?” She’d cast her gaze on me, eyes wide with wonder. “It’s our history—I mean, the history of so much of the Scottish people. She always claimed she was of one of the ancient bloodlines, but I doubt there’s any way to prove that now.”

  “She sounds like an interesting woman.”

  “In so many ways,” she’d sighed.

  The longing in her voice told me the woman was dead. The final piece of the puzzle. She felt a strong pull to the clans and their legends thanks to the stories the old woman had told. They had become part of her life—part of her, even. And the work she did would bring a beloved grandparent back, at least in some small way.

  I couldn’t help but sympathize, even though she’d already proven to be a hassle.

  I tuned back into the conversation between Gate and Miles, both of them well ahead of me in terms of eating. I’d let my thoughts wander to the point that what was left of my second burger had gone cold. I finished it anyway before moving on to the next.

  “She wants to meet at the library, someplace public, but safe for all parties,” I reported. “I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t go to see what she has. There’s a chance none of this has panned out to anything.”

  Miles fixed his irritatingly all-seeing, all-knowing eye on me. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  I stayed silent.

  8

  Ciera

  What in the heck was I doing?

  I caught my eye in the rearview mirror, and what I saw angered me.

  I was excited.

  “Chill out,” I warned myself, though I knew there was no point. I was already too far gone. But who could blame me? How long had I been working in a vacuum, with only a very few people who gave a damn about what was so near and dear to my heart. I would finally get the chance to share my work with somebody who seemed to be interested.

  “He’s not really interested, Ciera.” I had reminded myself of that so many times in just one short day. He didn’t care about my research—not for the same reason I did, anyway. It was personal for him. I couldn’t have described how I knew it. I just did.

  Which meant he didn’t find me interesting, either.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  Muttering to myself was a habit I thought I’d broken myself of years earlier. One which had gotten me made fun of endlessly when I was growing up. Seanmhair once told me I had too many thoughts for my brain to contain, so some needed to come out every once in a while. It had been a little bit of a comfort, anyway. I had needed all the comfort I could get in
those days—Mom and Dad gone, no friends. And a penchant for talking to myself.

  It didn’t matter whether or not Fence found me interesting on a personal level. Which he didn’t. He absolutely did not. I was the girl who’d knocked herself out cold in the cave he was exploring. I was also the girl he’d treated with suspicion. It was that suspicion which likely made him want to meet up with me. Nothing more than that. The thought made my chest twinge in a funny way. I hated the feeling that he was only using me. Who wouldn’t?

  But for what? That was what I couldn’t understand. What interest could he have in anything to do with the clans? He was my age, maybe a little older. Thirty, tops. He was obviously American. And he didn’t strike me as a villain. It was a stupid thought, and I knew it. But that didn’t make it any less true. He seemed like a normal person.

  And my instincts were always sharp.

  I parked before hauling the wheeled suitcase from the trunk of my rental car. God, it had taken forever to get the hang of driving out here. I wondered how long it would take me to get used to driving in America again once I got home.

  I nodded to a few people who were coming out of the library as I was walking in—one of them was a tall, redheaded man with a brilliant smile and thoughtful eyes. He offered a wink as he held the door for me, and I couldn’t help but giggle softly to myself. Some women didn’t like little come-ons like that, but they didn’t bother me. Except when the jerk got grabby or asked me to smile more.

  “Who’s that guy?” I gasped in surprise when I almost walked straight into a firm, wide chest.

  I bounced right off and would’ve fallen on my butt if a pair of strong hands hadn’t caught my arms.

  I looked up and realized I could’ve guessed who it was. Fence’s dark eyes looked stormy.

  “Caught you again,” he nearly growled as he straightened me up. I ran a hand over my carefully arranged curls to be sure they weren’t sticking up at all angles. I hadn’t spent a half hour taming them just to look like I’d stuck my finger in an electrical socket.