Reaper

by Lena North

  “They’re with your brother-in-law?”

  “Nah,” she said. “Mill went to get them last night. They wanted to keep them for the night, so it took him a while to convince them it wasn’t child abuse to put the girls in the car that late. Bo threatened to call social services, apparently.” She seemed to realize what she’d said and added quickly, “He was just joking, Annie. They’re –”

  “I know who Carson and Bozo are,” I interrupted.

  “It’s weird how you know everything about us,” Jinx murmured.

  “I don’t,” I protested. “I know parts, but not everything. I know that Bo's full name is Bozinsky, but I didn't know how sweet he is, or that you have a dimple just by your left eye, Wilder. I didn’t understand just how much you depend on each other, or how godawful Mac’s feet smell when he takes his shoes off after a long day in the barn. And –”

  They started laughing, and I realized what I said.

  “Um,” I said, wondering how I would be able to back-track that comment.

  “They do, don’t they?” Wilder snorted.

  “God, yes,” Jinx said and laughed out loud. “I wish someone would tell him.”

  “We could perhaps pour some anti-odor stuff in his shoes?” Mary asked with a giggle, and Wilder started laughing.

  “Is Bozo’s name actually Bozinsky?” Jinx asked.

  “Yes. His mother was called Bozana and his grandmother Bozinetta, so I guess you can say it’s a family name?”

  “I guess you could,” Jinx said with a grin.

  “Okay, let’s see what we have,” Mary said and spread out bottles and tubes on my bed.

  Together we started repairing my face, and while we did, I told them about my dinner at Carson’s place, and how Bo had promised to make me look gorgeous.

  “Take him up on that offer, Annie,” Jinx said. “He'd love it.”

  “Maybe,” I murmured and dabbed some powder on my cheeks.

  “We could have a girls’ night,” Wilder said. “Go to a bar somewhere, have a few drinks.” She turned to me, suddenly serious. “We’ll keep you safe, Annie. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said and smiled at her.

  I knew they’d try, and that I’d add my own protection to theirs.

  “Well, hell,” Wilder muttered suddenly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I have to ask, surely you understand that?”

  “Ask what?”

  “Did you really color…” she trailed off and waved her hand over her groin.

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It just seemed, I don’t know, logical?”

  “Huh,” she said. “How do you even do it?

  “Like you do it on your head,” I said, and grinned. “It was kind of messy, though,” I shared.

  “At least you didn’t decide to do highlights,” Wilder snorted, and we burst out laughing.

  When I looked presentable, we walked into the kitchen to find Mac by the stove. Olly was leaning on the counter, and I took a small step back. He didn't look happy, and his eyes darkened when he saw me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  He jerked as if I had slapped him, and coffee sloshed out of the cup he was holding. He mumbled something unintelligible, put the cup down and walked away without saying a word. I swallowed and wondered how long it would take for him to calm down, and if he ever would.

  “The fuck?” Hawker grunted from the door.

  “Olly is still acting like an idiot,” Wilder said calmly.

  “Of course,” Hawker said. “Is there any coffee ready, or should I get some going?”

  “But –” I started.

  “Let me just get the coffee off the floor first,” Mary said. “The pot is almost empty, so if you could make a new one, it’d be great.”

  “I’m making breakfast,” Mac shared. “Scrambled eggs.”

  “’Kay,” Wilder said and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.

  “Bacon?” Hawker muttered.

  “If you fry some then, yeah,” Mac retorted.

  “I’m making coffee.”

  They were so clearly a family, and I suddenly missed my own.

  “Annie, you’re on bacon-duty,” Mac ordered. “Jinx, set the table.”

  “Why me?” Jinx whined. “Wilder can do it.”

  “Wilder needs to go and order a new punching bag,” Mac said calmly.

  “I replaced the one we have, less than two weeks ago,” Wilder snapped. “I think I'll –”

  A loud roar echoed, and we all turned to look out the window facing their training facility. Then a punching bag came flying through the open door, and a spray of sand erupted from it as it landed.

  “I think I’ll just go and order a new punching bag,” Wilder said.

  “Good call, honey,” Mac said, and they both chuckled.

  I stared at the bag and wondered why Olly was so angry. I’d said I was sorry, and it wasn’t as if I’d lied. Exactly.

  “Morning,” Miller muttered and walked into the kitchen with their baby girls in his arms. “Anyone wants to hold a baby? I need caffeine.”

  “Here,” Hawker said, stretched out an arm and snapped his fingers. “I’ll take one.”

  “I can hold one,” I heard myself say.

  “You're frying bacon,” Mac said and pointed toward the pan waiting for me on the stove. “Give her to Wilder,” he said to Miller. “Might make it easier for me to convince her we need one of those.”

  “You can wait,” Hawker grunted, staring at the coffee maker as if he could will it to brew faster.

  “We can, but I don’t want to,” Mac said. “Grandpa Hawk,” he added with a grin. “It has a nice ring to it, yes?”

  “Nuh-uh,” Hawk grunted, but there was a smile on his face so I was pretty sure he'd be happy either way.

  Then I fried bacon.

  When everything was ready, I caught sight of the punching bag again. It looked lonely. I turned to Hawker who was drinking coffee and waiting for everyone else to grab what they wanted.

  “Hawk?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Will you please take a cup of coffee and some eggs out to Olly?” I whispered. He turned his head slowly and smiled a little. “Two slices of bread, no bacon, and black coffee,” I specified.

  “Yeah, Annie. I’ll get it to him.”

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling like an idiot for caring about another idiot who didn’t care about me. Or, perhaps an idiot who didn’t care enough.

  They were a cheerful crowd, and they included me in their group, so it hadn't felt weird to have breakfast with them. It was, though. They were Olly's family, and he was sulking in the barn. Snow and Nick had joined us, and they'd both tried to corner me when we were cleaning up, but I hadn't felt like discussing neither her cousin nor the research program, so I avoided them and took a cup of coffee with me out on the porch.

  “Hey,” Hawker said and sat down next to me.

  He held what seemed like his tenth cup of coffee, and he didn’t look at me.

  “Hawk,” I murmured.

  “I’m not good with apologies,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Owe you one.”

  “Yes.”

  “I should have let you explain to Olly.”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn't know who you were. They're both struggling, and I wasn't sure –”

  He was silent for a while, and I didn't want to make this easier for him, so I was too.

  “Talked to Sven last night.”

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “Pissed.”

  “What?”

  “At me. At Olly. At Wilder. Snow. The universe. Took me half an hour to talk him out of coming here.”

  I felt a grin spread on my face.

  “I like Sven,” I shared.

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  The grin tu
rned into a full smile then.

  “Olly will calm down,” Hawk said quietly, and my smile disappeared.

  “He's a jerk,” I said.

  “Give him some space, he’ll snap out of it.”

  I thought about it and guessed he was right. What Olly would decide to do once he'd snapped out his jerkiness was unclear to me, though.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Hawk said so quietly I barely heard it.

  “You were watching out for your family, Hawk. You were a jerk too, but you snapped out of it, so – apology accepted,” I said and got up. “I'll go and work on some stuff with Jinx now.”

  “Yeah,” he sighed and turned to look out over the mountains. “Annie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Give him some time?”

  He put it as a question, and I thought about it. Eventually, Olly would calm down enough for us to talk about things. I’d not told him a number of things about me, but during the night I’d remembered that he hadn’t told me about his bird, or any of the work he did with Hawker, so I’d not been the only one hiding things.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  That was such a lie, and I knew it immediately, but I didn't want to talk to Hawker about it, so I walked inside without saying anything else.

  Jinx pulled me into a big study and told me we were supposed to summarize what we knew. It would be good to get it done but it would also distract me, and I really needed a distraction, so I threw myself straight into the task. We put big sheets of paper on one of the walls and started to list what they knew, and what I had in my binder. It took Jinx almost half an hour to decipher my shorthand, and I stared at her. No one had ever managed before, but she did it almost effortlessly, grinning as if she enjoyed the challenge.

  The others walked in and out of the room but didn't interrupt us, and we worked through every minute detail; weighing its importance, the source and its credibility, and how it tied into everything else. I found myself opening up my brain more and more to keep up with her, and recognized the feeling. Byron and I had created a programming language together, working in a similar way, using sheets like the ones we had on the wall. We'd been so happy, working side by side silently, comfortable with each other in our little bubble of syntax definitions.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until Jinx stopped and stared at me.

  “Annie, what’s wrong?” she gasped.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying desperately to calm down. “I –” I pulled in air through a throat that had clenched up, and explained. “Byron and I used to work like this. I miss him so much. We created a programming language. Called is Buple.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Best utilizable programming language ever.”

  Just saying that stupid name out loud made me cry even harder, and I tried to wipe off the tears with the back of my hands, angry at myself for falling apart over some flipcharts.

  “Hey,” Dante murmured and pushed a stack of tissues in my hand.

  I felt him in my head, poking around in my memories, and I let him. The warmth in my mind was strange, but not unpleasant, and I wondered if he had healing powers as well. His presence made me feel better, so maybe he did.

  “You were pretty nerdy,” he said gently when I finally stopped crying.

  I tilted my head back to look at him.

  “Better to be pretty nerdy than just being pretty,” I said calmly, and Jinx started laughing.

  There was a sound from the door suddenly, and I turned to find Olly standing there. His eyes were guarded, and I couldn't interpret the look on his face.

  “Can we talk?” I asked quietly.

  “You lied to me about everything,” he said. “You even lied about your name.”

  “I didn't lie,” I protested. “My name is Heather Brianna Walker Morgan, and I've always been called Annie.”

  “You lied.”

  “Omission isn't a lie.”

  “Not if you’re six, Annie,” he said.

  “I told you I had things to share.”

  “I thought it was something normal, like the fact that Gideon Morgan is your grandfather.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “I’m not a genius,” he spat out. “But I’m not stupid.”

  Then he turned and walked away. I stared at his retreating back and wondered if he'd said no to talking to me, or if he'd just pushed it into the future.

  Chapter Ten

  Monster

  “Let’s go outside for a while,” Dante said. “You’ve been locked up in here the whole day. Some fresh air will be good.”

  Wilder joined us, and to my surprise, she brought tea and cookies. It seemed like such a domestic thing to do, but then Mac sat down with us and spiked our tea with small splashes of whiskey.

  “If Gideon Morgan is your grandfather then you’re Rhys Morgan’s daughter,” Dante murmured after a while.

  “Yes,” I confirmed.

  My father was well known, although more so abroad than in our little country. He toured the world with his shows at least eight months of the year and had made some pretty well-known television shows as well.

  “Rhys Morgan?” Wilder said.

  “The magician,” Mac started to explain, but she interrupted immediately.

  “I know who the hell Rhys Morgan is, Mac. Had a poster with him on it over my bed when I was sixteen.”

  “You –”

  “Okay, Wilder,” I snorted. “It makes sense because he’s really beautiful, but can I just say; Euw?”

  “That’s not what I thought,” she said and wiggled her brows a little.

  “You don’t look like him,” Mac said, not upset at all that his girlfriend was giggling about another man.

  “I know,” I replied. “Have his hair-color, but that’s about it. I look like my grandmother.”

  “I know your brother,” Dante said. “We were in the army together.”

  “I know that too,” I said with a smile. “He said you might figure out who I am, and if you did, I was to say hi and remind you that he brought more kittens to the barracks than you.”

  He suddenly coughed, and I raised my brows.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I thought it was strange, but he said it was because of the mice, and –

  “Annie, really?” Wilder snorted.

  “What?”

  “Do you know any other word for a kitten?”

  “Sure. Pus –”

  Oh.

  “Dante,” I sighed, “Really?”

  “Yes, Dante,” Jinx echoed, but she didn’t look angry. “Really?” she drawled, and then she laughed.

  “Is Keigh the one with the bunnies?” Dante asked, clearly trying to steer us away from his conquests in his army days, which since he’d been there with my brother were more than six years earlier.

  “Nope,” I said. “That’s Mal, which is why I didn’t think Keigh bringing cats to help with a mice issue was strange. It’s his animal.”

  “He talks to kittens?” Wilder asked.

  “He probably could, but he mostly talks to cougars and lynxes. Saw him chat with a tiger at a zoo once.”

  “Yikes,” Wilder said. “Let’s make sure I never piss him off,” she instructed Mac.

  “Yeah,” he chuckled. “Let’s.”

  “Can we get some more work done, Jinx?” I asked. “I’m good,” I added when they looked at me.

  I tried to make it seem like nothing had happened because they were nice, but I wanted to think things through on my own, at my own pace and without actually talking about it. I suddenly missed Olly's calm presence but pushed that back immediately.

  “Okay,” Jinx said. “Let’s finish off the part we were going through, and then we have a rough outline of almost everything.”

  “What are you working on?” Mary asked.

  “We were looking at the code sheets you found behind Willy Callaghan’s paint
ing. I’ll write something that might crack the key.”

  “Write something?”

  “Program something.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “It’ll take some time, though. Pity Snow and Nick lost the ones from the Islands.”

  “But we know what the message said,” Wilder said.

  I blinked and looked at Jinx, expecting her to understand the stupidity of that comment. To my surprise, she didn’t.

  “But –” I said. “Never mind.”

  “Never mind what?” Snow asked from the door. “We're leaving tomorrow morning if you don't need us here. Nicky is shooting something or other in some godforsaken place, and I'll tag along.”

  “Bummer that you lost the code sheets, Snow,” Wilder said. “Annie would have wanted to look at them.”

  “But we know what the message said,” she said.

  I sighed.

  “Well if it helps, I can ask him,” she said and called out toward the front door, “Nick! Can you write down the code sheets we lost?”

  I understood immediately.

  “He looked at them?” I breathed.

  “Yeah,” she said and shrugged. “We didn’t think it was important.”

  “It was,” I said.

  Five minutes later I held two sheets full of numbers, and a paper with the exact wording of the message.

  “This is excellent,” I said.

  “Crap,” Jinx muttered. “I should have –” she stopped, and reiterated, “Crap.”

  “Why is it important?” Nick asked.

  “I can write code crosschecking these, and get the key to how the encryption is done. Then I can interpret the other code sheets. Or, theoretically, I could. If they used the same key, and...”

  I stopped talking and sat there staring at the sheets for a while.

  “I really want to get started on this,” I mumbled.

  “So, get to it,” Jinx said. “I’ll wrap up the part about the crystal, and then we’ll see?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said and walked off, only partially listening to what she was saying because I’d started writing code in my head.

  “One hour to dinner, Annie!”

  I waved the papers to indicate I’d registered their words, although I hoped they’d come and get me because I didn’t actually own a watch.

  After dinner, we all sat in the living room. I wanted to get back to my code and away from Olly who was watching me with eyes that were guarded. I’d asked him if we could talk, and I wasn’t sure what his reply had been exactly, but I figured it was up to him to take the next step.