People made more smells than every loud car and bus on the loud road in front of Daisy. And more stinks than all the rotting food wrappers in the bus stop’s waste bin.
Daisy tried to ignore the telltale signs of bad emotions drifting on the air—the skinny woman huddling with the two whining kids behind Daisy smelled desperate. Hunger wafted off the children as a high, piercing veneer of fragrance overlaying their rumbled and frayed appearance.
Their worn old clothes didn’t fit. The older kid’s shirt was too small and the stripes of the fabric bunched up around his belly when he wiggled his fingers into the mesh of the bus stop’s bench. The woman fussed over the littlest, stroking her hair and humming, while the boy fidgeted first with the bench, then the cover on his sister’s ratty old stroller.
The twenty dollars in Daisy’s pocket would get the family a meal. The same twenty dollars would get Daisy a couple of meals, but hunger rising off the three made Daisy’s gut clench. The food court in the mall behind the bus stop had a few cheap places.
She fished around in the front pocket of her jeans, her fingers inching in around her chubby new cell phone. A lot of the other kids at school carried thinner models, and even though they couldn’t afford the damned thing, her mom insisted on getting her one. So she fit in. Because not calling attention took up a lot more time, money, and energy than just being themselves.
Daisy maneuvered the twenty around her new cell phone and pulled it out of her pocket. Giving the woman the money would call attention. There’d be a connection, even a small, flitting one. And as Daisy’s mom said, it opened a chance, no matter how small, that they’d be revealed.
The home she and her mom left in Perth had smelled better than America. The people here talked funny, though her mom had been firm about losing her accent as fast as possible. Said they both needed to “fit in.” Fitting in helps you hide.
Daisy tried. She did. But she still ended up in weird situations where people she didn’t want paying attention to her singled her out.
Her mom’s genes made her look different. In America, a wavy-haired, amber-eyed, part-Japanese, part-Aborigine, part random-white-Australian got stares. Her height didn’t help, either. She towered over everyone in her school and suspected her long legs and her five-eleven frame came from the man who fathered her—whoever he was—not her tiny, petite mother.
The little boy whined. When his mom lifted him onto the bench next to her, the smell of hunger peaked. The kid’s stomach growled.
“Umm…” Daisy held out the twenty. “I found this in the mall parking lot,” she lied. She nodded over the woman’s shoulder toward the retaining wall between the stop and the mall lot.
Daisy had just spent two hours filling out job applications at a variety of restaurants and stores, doing her best to make her handwriting neat and presentable and her person tidy and hire-worthy. Most of the managers looked her up and down, more bored than anything else, and tucked her application into some folder or another they kept under their counters.
Her hand hurt from all the cramped writing. Her nose hurt from all the stinky people. And in all honesty, she felt more like catching the next bus home than crossing the big road to the strip mall on the other side where she’d spend another hour, at least, filling out another set of applications to be filed under several more counters.
The twenty would have gotten her a snack, at least. But it’ll get the family a full meal.
Daisy smiled, doing her best to look nonchalant. “For toys. Or a snack.” She nodded to the little boy first, then the baby.
The woman blinked, her eyes wide. “You found it. It’s yours.” But her hand lifted off her lap like she was about to pluck the bill from Daisy’s fingers.
A breeze rippled the money and it snapped against Daisy’s fingers. Trucks rolled by on the road behind her, filling the air with a hissing roar and the stink of diesel.
It did little to mask the hunger and gratitude rolling off the woman.
“It was in the lot.” Daisy accented her lie with a shrug. “You could have found it just as easily as me.”
Tentatively, the woman reached out. Her fingers gripped the edge of the bill, pinching like she was picking up a scorpion. Daisy let go.
The bill flopped over, driven by the breeze, and covered the woman’s fist. Quickly, she pulled her hand back. “Thank you,” she said.
Daisy smiled again. “No problem.” She’d be hungry when she got home, but at least she knew she’d find food in her refrigerator.
“If all teenagers were like you, the world would be a better place.” The woman folded the bill and tucked it into her pocket.
Daisy shrugged again. A lot of adults said stuff like that. She was pretty sure that in twenty years, she’d be saying the same bullshit.
The woman spoke to her toddler and she strapped the baby into the stroller. The little boy waited, his thumb in his mouth, until she picked him up and placed him on her hip. Slowly, and with several smiling glances toward Daisy, the woman pushed the stroller out of the bus stop and toward the walkway through the retaining wall. She walked toward the mall, hopefully to get her and her kids something to eat.
Daisy plopped down onto the bench. She could take the next bus home or she could walk down to the corner and cross the road at the light, then walk back up to the strip mall on the other side of the road and fill out more applications. Maybe the clinic at the end of the building needed custodial help.
But clinics smelled worse than any restaurant or shop. Daisy crinkled her nose, thinking about it.
She’d have to get up. Walk down to the corner, cross the street, then go into each and every one of the strip mall’s doors. When done, she’d have to walk back here to the bus stop, where she was, right now. To this exact bench. And wait another half hour for another bus.
But if she didn’t fill out the next round of apps now, she’d have to come down here again on a different day, on a different bus, and cross over to the other side. Unless her mom let her drive. Which wasn’t likely.
A new stink filled the bus stop and Daisy squinted. The traffic made all sorts of icky odors and this one was seriously nasty. It smelled like a combination of rotten eggs, a hot car battery, and…
Daisy sniffed the air again, trying to figure it out. It wasn’t an emotion, like the hunger the woman and her kids made, but it did smell faintly human. Like a person made it, and not a machine.
Or maybe a machine-like person.
Images of killer cyborgs and robotic zombies punched at each other inside Daisy’s brain. But that was bullshit. Stories made up by Hollywood to entertain. The odor smelled real.
Daisy sniffed again. Real and unwashed.
At the other end of the bus stop shelter, a man stared into the mall parking lot. His head turned slowly, like he watched someone walk away.
Or watched a mom with two kids pushing a stroller.
Daisy hadn’t heard or seen him walk up, yet there he stood, a creepy-looking, most likely homeless guy in dirty clothes that he’d probably pulled from a fire. The cuffs of his denim work shirt looked crispy and dark, as did its hem and collar. His hair might have been some light brown color, but she didn’t know for sure because of the dirt.
He tapped his finger on the plastic of the giant shampoo ad decorating one of the stop’s kiosks and Daisy swore he left imprints as if the tip of his finger either put so much pressure on the plastic case that it caved—or he was somehow melting it.
He didn’t say anything. He just stared into the parking lot, licking his lips.
She stood up. She didn’t will her body to do it, her legs just stood up on their own. Her feet planted. Her back tensed.
If she needed to run, she could run.
Daisy couldn’t name the man’s stench. Couldn’t say, “Oh, yeah, that’s burning rotten eggs,” or “A firecracker dipped in gasoline,” because she didn’t know for sure what those smells were. Her imagination said Oh, you know and It doesn’t matter. It gets the poin
t across.
But she was seventeen and she’d never actually smelled a gas-dipped firecracker. She did, though, smell this man. And she smelled danger.
Heat curled through the bus stop, driven by the passing cars and trucks. The overhead shades did their job in a few spots along the benches, but focused the heat in others. One section of the retaining wall between the stop and the mall gave off a particularly strong wave of heat-stink. Daisy moved to the side, closer to the late afternoon glare thrown by the concrete walk outside the shelter. From here, she could dash into the mall parking lot if she needed to.
An altercation could lead to cop harassment, something she’d had enough of since moving with her mom to San Diego.
A big truck grumbled by and the shelter filled with cough-inducing diesel fumes. The foul-smelling homeless guy shifted his weight. His clothes crinkled, his belt rustling, and he stepped out of the shelter. Toward the family in the parking lot. The isolated mom with her kids who was, right now, maneuvering the stroller between large cars—cars that more often than not blocked any view of her from both the mall and the road.
The man licked his lips again.
A new hunger rolled off him. Not the stomach-growling hunger Daisy had smelled from the woman and her kids, but a soul-deep, I-am-my-hunger, crazy-person need. The kind of obsessive hunger that wasn’t necessarily for food, or for learning, or for anything normal. The guy had the hot, burning air of compulsion hanging around him like a cloud of puke-yellow mist.
Daisy had never been this close to someone obviously, certifiably insane. She’d seen true crazies before, both here in America and also at home in Australia. One woman had danced up and down the sidewalk outside the grocery store, a six-inch-long steak knife in her hand as she yelled at invisible demons. The store manager had called the cops.
Now Daisy wondered if this guy also had a knife.
But cops would notice her, as well. Probably ask questions about her life.
For Daisy, new fears drifted on the new American air, and not all from her mother or herself. Mostly from people like the hungry woman and the weird, scary homeless guy. Metallic fears. Anxieties that smelled like vinegar and eggs. Sour smells. Fears that didn’t stay background at all.
Fears and rage and hunger.
The homeless guy walked toward the break in the retaining wall and the path leading into the mall parking lot. The rubber of his ratty old shoes made little sucking noises with each step on the hot concrete. He hooked his thumbs around his belt and his head bobbed in rhythm with his steps.
He was going to do something to the mom and her kids. His intent wafted off him with his stink and vibrated from the set of his muscles. Violence was coming.
If she yelled at him, he’d be distracted. He might forget about the mom. Maybe they’d make it to the mall. Maybe they’d be safe. But all that violence would likely turn toward Daisy.
Daisy’s stomach flip-flopped. The sun heated up everything, her mind included, and she didn’t know what to do.
“Hey!” she yelled. Her mind hadn’t made its decision, but some part of her had. A part that wasn’t letting two little kids get hurt.
The homeless guy’s head swiveled. His nose twitched. He glanced at Daisy, then at the family as they walked away. When his gaze returned to Daisy, his head lowered. He stared.
He looked doughy and puffy, like he drank too much. He wasn’t taller than Daisy, but he was broad shouldered. The sun’s glare made his eyes look flat and she couldn’t tell their color. Though if she squinted, she saw what might have been a flash of red.
Because that makes sense.
Again, the thought of killer cyborgs flitted through her mind.
Then he smiled.
His teeth glowed. They glowed. All sparkly and nasty like they had a million little sparklers and firecrackers in their enamel.
Fast, he shuffled across the concrete. Before she drew a new breath, he stopped directly in front of her.
Up close, he smelled even worse. The battery-acid notes to his stench made Daisy’s eyes burn. She coughed.
The hunger wafting off the man changed to flat-out menace. Daisy inhaled but her lungs wouldn’t let out the air. Her lungs wouldn’t do anything.
The machine-harsh ringtone of Daisy’s cell phone burst through the bus shelter. She’d forgotten that she’d set it loud, so she’d hear it in the mall if her mom called. Now it blared through all the weirdness wafting off the man.
Her need to run flicked out into the front spaces of her brain like someone had pulled a filthy shroud off her mind.
The phone vibrated against her hipbone, where she carried it in her front pocket. A shiver worked through her body, breaking more of the crazy man’s spell.
The man stepped back. Daisy dug her phone out of her pocket and pressed answer, never taking her gaze off the creepy guy. “Hello?”
A voice Daisy had never heard before flowed across the connection. The woman speaking to her sounded authoritative, as opposed to the crazy she felt from the homeless guy.
But what struck Daisy most—and pulled at those deep parts of her brain controlling how her body moved—was that the woman sounded as if she understood what was happening right now, in the bus shelter.
As if, somehow, the woman speaking through Daisy’s phone saw what was about to happen.
And she knew what Daisy needed to do.
“Run,” the woman ordered. “Now!”
Chapter Three
Daisy flung herself backward and flopped over the bench. Her leg smacked against metal supports and pain flared through her knee. “Shit!” she groaned.
But her boots hit the concrete and her legs worked the way they were supposed to. Daisy bolted around the bus shelter’s flat wall of shampoo advertising and sprinted down the street toward the stoplight on the corner.
The phone jostled in her hand, but she kept it—and the woman’s voice—next to her ear. “Who are you?” She didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. As far as Daisy knew, she’d just been called by an angel.
The woman answered with a new question. “Who is chasing you?”
“Some guy who smells like acid.” How did some random woman get her cell phone number?
What sounded like a sharp inhale burst across the connection. “He’s a Burner. Do not let him touch you, Daisy. If he gets his hands on you, he’ll do much worse than make your eyes tear up from his smell.”
Daisy had already figured out that much. “What the hell is a Burner?”
“A chaos ghoul.”
Daisy stopped running. Stopped still right there on the sidewalk outside the bus stop even though a crazy, death-smelling homeless guy chased her. “Wait, what?” The woman said ghoul, like ghoul was a real thing.
“Damn it, run!” the woman shouted.
Daisy took off again, her legs pumping, and didn’t look over her shoulder. Because if the homeless guy really and truly was a ghoul, she didn’t want to see it in his eyes.
But she had already. Which was why she’d yelled at him. To keep him away from those kids.
But ghouls were bullshit, like cyborgs and zombies.
The woman who called her—who must be watching—must be just as crazy as the guy. Because this was bullshit.
Daisy glanced around as she ran. No one obvious. No one nearby. No places to watch from roofs, either. What the hell was going on?
“A Burner will smell your heritage even though you are not yet active.” The woman grunted. “You had to yell at him, didn’t you? He would have left you alone but no, Daisy, you’re not one to let someone else suffer, are you?”
“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.” Daisy still wasn’t going to look over her shoulder, though she smelled him again.
He must be getting close.
“He’s not going to stop until he sinks his teeth into your flesh! They never do. You will be very important in the future and my fate is to make sure you survive long enough to do your damned job!” The woman yelled her
last few words.
This time, Daisy glanced over her shoulder. The guy wasn’t running, but he obviously focused on her and only her, not dodging other pedestrians or paying any attention at all to bikes or benches or opening doors.
“Listen to me, Daisy. I cannot read his kind. All I see is that you are in danger and that you must run!”
Daisy dodged a waste bin and ran toward an older woman walking her midsized beige dog. “Who the fuck are you?” she yelled into the phone.
The old lady made a face when she overheard the not-so-nice words flowing out of Daisy’s mouth.
The dog had floppy ears and an easy wag to his tail, and Daisy automatically smiled and internally wished him the subconscious good dog she always did when meeting a new animal.
She wasn’t expecting what happened next.
The dog twirled around, facing away from her, and lunged out into the center of the sidewalk. A loud, vicious growl rolled between bared teeth and the fur on his neck stood up. But he wasn’t growling at Daisy. He growled at the crazy guy chasing her up the street.
“Cross the road. Now.” The woman on the phone sounded young, but in an old kind of way. As if she probably looked seventeen, like Daisy, but most definitely wasn’t. Why did the woman sound not-American? A faint accent highlighted her words, but Daisy couldn’t place it. It sounded mashed-up, sort of like her mom’s not-American-but-no-longer-Australian accent. Except the mystery woman sounded snotty.
And commanding.
A concrete divider separated the traffic; Daisy needed to run across six lanes, three in each direction. Too many cars whizzed by to make it across safely. She’d get hit. “I need to go to the corner.”
Behind her, the homeless guy pulled up short with his hands out. “Dog!” The pitch of his voice edged up like he thought the dog was some sort of evil supernatural being. Like it was his role to make sure everyone understood that “dog” meant “demon.”
Bonds Broken & Silent (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 4) Page 2
