Reaper

by Lena North

  “Why don’t you work together?”

  Jamie’s quiet question startled us, and we stared at him.

  “Not now, you’d need to be allowed to actually go inside,” he said with a rueful grin. “Another day, you should just go at one of the issues, both of you. Together. I could help, if you want me to?”

  It was actually not a bad idea.

  “Yes,” Jinx said slowly, and I nodded. “That might work.”

  “Crapola,” Jamie said.

  “What?”

  “I got to tell two geniuses what to do, and there’s no one here to see it.”

  “Hey,” Dante snapped and pointed at himself.

  “Yeah, forgot about you,” Jamie said, but he grinned, so I supposed he meant it as a joke.

  “We should find a day that works, and try it out,” I said to Jinx.

  She nodded and pulled out her phone, likely to start flipping through her calendar.

  “We should be on our way, and it’s getting cold,” Dante murmured.

  “You're reading my mind,” I said and got up.

  It was cold, but I also needed to get in touch with my family. The animals would have alerted them that something was going on and they'd know there wasn't any danger, but they'd still wonder.

  “Nope,” he said. “Goosebumps,” he added and caressed Jinx’ arm softly.

  “I know you weren’t in my head, Dante. I was just joking,” I told him.

  “Some feel me, and some don't,” he nodded. “Can you shut me out?”

  “Try me,” I invited.

  I hadn't expected him the first time, and it wasn't at all like what I was used to, but I recognized his touch easily this time. When I felt the gentle probe in my head, I promptly set off a bright flash in my mind, gave him a hard, mental punch and watched him wince.

  “Ouch,” he said.

  “I have three older brothers,” I smirked. “One of them bend minds, and I learned the hard way how to keep people out of my head.”

  “The hard way?” Jinx asked.

  “He made me run around the yard, oinking like a pig.”

  “Ah,” she said, but added, “What had you done?”

  I started laughing and shared how I’d eaten Doug’s secret stash of candy.

  “Can I have a word in private with Annie?” Jamie suddenly asked.

  “No,” Sven said calmly from the door.

  “Wh –”

  “I said no, boy,” he repeated. “There’s nothing you can say to her that we can’t hear.”

  Jamie swallowed, clenched his jaws and nodded.

  “I just wanted to apologize,” he said to me.

  “Don’t.”

  “You have to lis –”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” I snapped. “And neither do you. You couldn’t have done a thing to help me. I always knew that, and I never expected you to.”

  “I should have tried,” he whispered. “After, when we were released from the program, I thought I’d look you up. Make sure you were okay…”

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

  “I thought you were dead,” he said and added when he saw the look on my face, “Yeah, I know. Should have double-checked, but someone said you were and I thought…” He shrugged and looked away. “I shouldn’t have believed it.”

  “Jamie,” Jinx said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  He turned to her with so much warmth and admiration in his eyes that my brows went up. It wasn’t love he felt, at least I didn’t think so, but he’d clearly do anything to please Jinx.

  “Okidoki,” he murmured, and they smiled at each other, but then Jinx turned to Sven.

  “Can I have a word with Annie?”

  Had they all forgotten that Sven was Olly’s father and not mine? And that I wasn’t a child?

  “Of course,” he replied and disappeared inside.

  Dante murmured something about seeing me the next day and shuffled Jamie around the house. I turned to Jinx, wondering what she had to say that the others couldn’t hear.

  “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

  “Of –”

  No,” she interrupted. “Don’t brush me off. You don't want to talk about what happened, and I understand. Olly was a shithead, and we all know it, but it wouldn’t be right to discuss him with us. The others don’t see it like that, Annie, but I’m more like you than you think so I get it. It would be a kind of betrayal to share the details. I just want to know if you’re okay.”

  “I was a shithead too,” I whispered.

  She was right. I wouldn’t betray Olly by discussing private moments, even with his family, but I could talk about me.

  “Not really,” she protested

  “Totally.”

  “A little?”

  “A lot?”

  “As much as Olly?”

  I suddenly giggled because it felt as if we were negotiating the level of shitheadedness Olly and I had engaged in.

  “Okay, maybe,” I conceded, and couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Have you seen him?”

  “He spent a couple of days in Marshes.”

  Oh.

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t see much of him. He was busy beating the crap out of Dante and the others, spent some time with Snow and Nicky, and then he left. I heard from Wilder that he’d been to Double H, pissed off hugely about not finding you.”

  “I miss him,” I told her. “I just want to tell him I’m sorry,” I added lamely, trying to cover up my emotions.

  “He’ll get his head out of his butt eventually,” she said confidently. “And don’t apologize when you see him. You did the wrong thing for the right reasons. He was just plain wrong, so he needs to grovel.” She chuckled and started to move toward the cars. “I’m looking forward to watching him do just that.”

  “Jinx,” I squealed.

  “I do,” she confirmed. “He’s right so annoyingly often, but he was spectacularly wrong this time and to see him like this is actually funny.” I made a small sound, and she grinned over her shoulder. “Believe me, the others think so too.”

  “But, Jinx,” I started to protest, only to get a good view of the palm of her hand.

  “You’ll be fine, Annie, but don’t fawn all over him when he gets here. Play a little hard to get. Make the dumbass work for it.”

  “I’m not sure he’ll come to see me,” I told her.

  She watched me a while and frowned.

  “You are so full of shit, Annie,” she said. “You don’t have to be, not with us.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but since my mind was completely blank, I closed it again. I didn't know how to deal with a group of people who acted like we’d been close friends, or even family, for years. It wasn’t that I didn’t already have friends. I did. There were people on the net, girls I’d gone to school with, my grandfather’s employees, people around the circus that was my parents’ life. Compared to the group of people I’d stumbled into when I came to Double H, everyone else I knew seemed more like distant acquaintances, though. I’d always been careful, because of grandfather’s money, my father’s fame, and Cameron Strachlan. Perhaps I’d taken it too far, and held back a little too much.

  “I’ll try,” I said quietly. “I like to think about things on my own.”

  “Good luck with that here in Norton,” she snorted. “Although, Olly and Sven will give you space and put a gate up outside if the rest of the crew don’t do the same.”

  She was assuming things I wasn't convinced would happen, but before I could get a word out, she was by the car and changed the topic.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. It’ll be interesting to see what Bozo has planned for us.”

  I watched them drive off and was on my way back inside when another car came down the road at a little too high speed for my liking. It was a very familiar dark red SUV with windows tinted in black, and I wondere
d what my brother was doing in Norton.

  “Who’s coming?” Sven murmured behind me.

  “Looks like my brother,” I said.

  They parked in front of us, and the passenger door opened immediately. I heard rowdy laughter from inside the car, and then Olly suddenly appeared. He tilted to the side in a move that seemed oddly boneless and ended up hanging out through the door, held up by the safety belt.

  “Well, this is weird,” he muttered after a stunned moment. “I’m upside down.”

  “Belt!” I heard my brother Keigh call out gleefully and before I could stop him, he unbuckled the hanging man.

  Olly promptly slid out of the car, landed on his shoulder and kind of rolled down on the ground with a loud thud. Keigh leaned out and started laughing. Olly smiled sweetly up at him.

  “You the man, Keigh,” he said. “Turned everything around. I’m mightily obliged.”

  You the man? I stared at Olly who was still flat on his back and wondered what the hell was going on. Then I looked at my brother and knew without a doubt what they'd done. I still had to ask.

  “You didn’t?”

  “Annie!” Keigh shouted. “The very best of all my schisters!”

  Since I was his only sister and not too happy with him, I looked down on Olly again to see how he reacted to my presence in his father’s home.

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  “So many Annies,” he said, still smiling happily. “Three. Four. I don’t know.”

  Okay then. Olly was apparently a very happy drunk. And he was drunk out of his mind, that much was clear.

  “What did you do, Keigh?” I asked the grinning idiot inside the car.

  “Perschistant dude. Kept coming back. Beat him up, all of us, he didn’t lift a finger. Bee swarms. Wolves. One of the bunnies bit him in the buttocks. Nothing stopped him.”

  I blinked and didn't know if I should laugh or cry. Olly had apparently made quite an effort to get to me. Keigh suddenly seemed to try to climb out of the car, but since his safety belt was buckled too, he didn’t get very far.

  “He was climbing the fence so often we might as well add an Olly door,” he said. I blinked again, and my drunken brother clarified happily, “You get it? Doggy door. Olly door. Funny.”

  “Not so much,” I said because it wasn’t.

  “Aww, Annsie-pannsie, don’t be such a girl,” Keigh whined.

  “She is a girl,” Olly chimed in from his position on the ground. “I totally know because I’ve –”

  “Whoa!” Keigh shouted, lost his balance and promptly slapped his cheek into the backrest. It didn't stop him from pointing at Olly. “I thought we were clear with'ya, man. Talk about how funny and cute she is, yes. Talk about her ass, no. Talk about other things, and we kill you.”

  “Okay,” Olly said affably, moved his index and middle finger toward his eyes and then toward my brother. “Gotcha.”

  “You’ve been drinking,” I said, which was kind of unnecessary.

  “We made the bestest deal,” Olly explained. “They’d let me see you if I could outdrink them.” He chuckled, put his thumb and index finger close together, squinted a little as he adjusted the distance, and added, “Tiny, tiny men. No problemos.”

  My brothers were slightly shorter and not as heavily muscled as Olly, but they were in no way small. Olly seemed incapable of getting up from the ground so he might have won, but he still had some “problemos.”

  “Is Grandfather away?” I asked Keigh.

  I hoped the old coot was on a trip somewhere because he would in no way approve of what they’d done. I didn’t get any reply, so I looked up.

  My brother was leaning his cheek on the chair in front of him, his mouth had fallen open, and he was sleeping. How the hell much had they been drinking?

  “I’m right here,” Gideon Morgan said and jumped down from the driver’s seat.

  Crap.

  “Duude,” Olly cheered and raised two wobbly arms, making devils horns with the fingers on both his hands. “Best judge ever.”

  I closed my eyes, hoping Gramps wouldn’t kill my brothers for the excessive drinking, or Olly for calling him dude, an epithet I was sure he’d never been given before.

  “You’re just saying that because I declared you the winner, Olof,” I heard Gramps say and my eyes flew open.

  He sounded amused and had called Olly by his given name. I was suddenly afraid Olly would kill him instead.

  “Nuh-huh,” Olly protested and moved in a way that seemed aimed at getting him off the ground, although his hand slid in under him, so he landed on his side with a thud. “Slippery,” he muttered and tried again. “Best grandfather, ever,” he said when he was finally leaning on the side of the car in a kind of sitting position. “Wily old geezer, but you took care of Annie,” he added and smiled sunnily at my gramps.

  “Olly…” I said.

  “Hey, Annie!”

  He grinned, and the whole situation was beyond weird, but he looked so happy I couldn't stop the giggle bubbling up my throat.

  “Are you here?” he asked with raised brows and looked around in confusion. “My da lives here,” he informed me.

  “Do you need a bit of help there, son?” Sven asked as he leaned down, put a strong arm under Olly’s and pulled him off the ground.

  They swayed a little, but Olly was finally vertical. I wondered how long that would last.

  “Are you taking care of Annie for me?” Olly asked his father curiously.

  “Yeah, I am,” Sven grunted as he steered them toward the house.

  “That’s really, really, really good, Da, because I am a ginormous dick,” Olly shared cheerfully.

  My grandfather started laughing hysterically, and Olly turned back toward us, almost toppling both himself and his da over in the process.

  “I have the best father in the world!” he declared with another happy smile.

  I stared at them as they moved inside, and then I turned to the still laughing man.

  “What in the hell have you done?”

  “Me? Nothing,” he said. “Your brothers? Quite a bit, but they’ll be paying for it. Malachi and Doughal are puking their guts out at home, so they're already doing it. Keigh will hold it in until we’re halfway home, I suspect. You should probably keep an eye on Olof through the night. He’s not gonna feel too good either.”

  “How in heavens name did some kind of juvenile drinking contest come about?”

  “He knows he had shit to prove.”

  “By drinking himself half to death?”

  “That too.”

  “What else have you done?”

  “Ask him.”

  “We’re not… You’ve got it all wrong, Gramps. I don’t think it’s…”

  I didn't know what to say, and his face split up in a grin again, but it was suddenly softer and sweeter.

  “Looks like you’re in for a surprise, my girl,” he murmured.

  “I’m not so sure I want him,” I said, which was a lie of epic proportions but seemed like an appropriate thing to say.

  “Don’t even try, Annie. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  Well crap. I recognized that tone and knew it was not one you argued with.

  “Let him sweat for a while. He’s a cocky bastard, it’ll do him good,” he added.

  What? Olly was confident, but he wasn't arrogant or conceited so cocky didn't fit him at all. Then I realized my old as dirt grandfather and Jinx had given me the same advice. To let him sweat a while was the same thing as playing hard to get, wasn’t it?

  “Thanks, Gideon,” Sven rumbled. “Sorry about my boy.”

  “No need to apologize. My boys are in worse shape, and Olof is a hilarious drunk. A chatty cathy like you wouldn’t believe it. Don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in a single afternoon.”

  “Shit,” Sven muttered.

  “Totally,” Gramps said, and added calmly, “Don’t worry. I won�
�t tell anyone about the whipped cream incident.”

  “F –” Sven swallowed the rest of the word and finished it, “…antastic.”

  A strange sound suddenly came from the car and Gramps moved quickly. He had a plastic bag out in no time, pushed it in Keigh's hands and walked toward the driver's side.

  “I’d better get this one home. We’ll stay in touch, yeah?”

  I opened my mouth to answer but Sven beat me to it, and I realized Gramps hadn’t meant me anyway.

  “Yeah. I’ll give you a call in a day or two,” Sven said.

  “Great. We’ll see about that hunting trip then.”

  “Sure. Drive safely.”

  “Totally.”

  I blinked and waved feebly as the car sped up the road. What the hell was going on?

  “I put Olly on the couch. We should find a bucket,” Sven said calmly.

  “Okay,” I sighed.

  Judging by the state of my brothers, Olly had a rough night ahead of him, but Sven wouldn’t let me stay in the living room. He made me go to the village to pick up pizza, which we ate in the kitchen, and then he sent me upstairs.

  “He’ll be throwing up some,” Sven said when I protested. “Won’t want you to see.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said, although it did actually sound gross so if Sven wanted to tend to his boy, I’d totally let him.

  “Upstairs,” he ordered.

  I walked up to my office, but I couldn't concentrate, so I went to bed instead, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the happy, sweet feeling in my belly. Olly was downstairs, and I would be able to talk to him the next day.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Girly-girl

  I tried three different t-shirts before I went downstairs, feeling silly and a little bit nervous. Play hard to get, Jinx had said. I didn’t know how to do that but had planned exactly what I would say, and figured I’d come up with something explanatory but still a little bit aloof.

  Olly sat at the kitchen table looking like he hadn’t slept at all.

  “Hey,” I murmured.

  He raised his head slowly and stared at me, surprise written all over his face. Then he turned slowly toward his father.

  “She’s been here the whole time?”

  “Son –” Sven started, but Olly got up and marched into the living room.