by Lisa Ladew
She bent over him, that strange state of surreal-ness forcing her hand, making her barely able to think about everything that was so wrong about what she was doing, and pressed her lips to his.
Her body responded at once with hyperawareness, the nerve endings in her face singing at his nearness. His lips were firm, and his scent filled her nose. She wanted so much more and almost hoped he would wake up.
When he didn’t, she stood and turned to leave. She would almost certainly never see him again, and the thought made her heart hurt in ways she didn’t understand.
But.
Kaci was more important.
Chapter 7
Cerise hurried out the door of the empty house, looking for Zeus, noticing the faintest streaks of light crossing the sky. Sunrise would be coming in less than an hour. She needed to get home quickly. Zeus was twenty feet away, eating grass from a hole he’d pawed in the snow at the bottom of a ditch. He turned to her as soon as she thought his name. Good boy. She would miss him so much.
A low rumbling caught her ear as she pulled herself up onto his back. She sat very high on Zeus, swiveling her head, unable to reconcile the sound with anything she had heard before. It sounded like a monster lizard crossing a meadow would, dragging a stomach as big as a house over the ground.
She slid back to the ground for a moment and stood still, her hand on Zeus’s flank. Under her feet, the ground was shaking. Something heavy was coming from the direction of home. Cerise frowned, knowing it wasn’t an animal. She was now able to hear the rumbling of machinery. She climbed back on Zeus. “That way, Zeus. I want to know what it is.” Worry plagued the back of her mind, but she wasn’t exactly sure why.
They paralleled the forest they normally would ride through, Zeus trotting along the edge of the empty country road, towards the noise. When Cerise finally saw what it was, she was relieved for only a moment. A tractor of some sort, bigger than one she had ever seen, with three wheels on each side, and taking up the entire road. No one would be able to pass. The closer it got, the more she could feel the ground shake, even from atop the horse.
“Into the forest, Zeus, I want to get ho-”
Cerise’s eyes went wide. What if that monster machine had woken Kaci? Or worse, Myles! She leaned over Zeus, her body tight with fear, and spoke determinedly into his ear, “Zeus, faster than you’ve ever gone, you have to get me home right now. Kaci needs me.”
As if he understood, Zeus sped up, entering the forest, then following a familiar path that would get her home in record time, but still, she knew it would not be fast enough.
***
Cerise slid off Zeus as soon as they entered the back yard, the tiny trailer sitting there, surrounded by trees, looking completely harmless. “Zeus, you should go,” she said quietly, already walking.
Cerise entered slowly through the back door, ignoring the pang that always filled her chest when she did so, ignoring also the tangle of electrical wires that she had to step over. How many times had she hoped someone would come to the trailer and arrest Myles for stealing electricity?
Cerise listened/felt the trailer. Two bodies, awake, both in Myles’s room. Her heart dropped to her stomach and adrenaline spurted into her veins. Her fault! All her fault!
She walked that way swiftly, her eyes on the closed door past the kitchen, her hand retrieving a fireplace poker from its holder. She took the last few steps to the door, lifting the poker to her shoulder and choking up on it like a baseball player, a memory sliding through her mind. Kaci had loved the movie, A League of Their Own, but one day she’d left it on the floor after watching it and somehow crawled over it, cracking it in half with her knee. Kaci had cried herself to sleep, but had become fastidious about returning the DVDs to their cases after that. That movie, watched only a few times, was the sum total of Cerise’s knowledge of baseball.
A muffled noise escaped the room. A gasp? A scream stopped by a grasping hand? Cerise’s steps never wavered. No matter what she found, she would be dealing death when she got in there. Not the kind of thing she could hurry for. She needed to go in under control of herself.
Step. Step. Would Kaci recover? Had Cerise made the biggest mistake of her life all for nothing? She’d seen him. So what? So absolutely nothing. If Kaci’s innocence was gone forever, she would never forgive herself for it.
Cerise let go of the poker with her left hand to push the door open.
Myles was sprawled atop his filthy mattress, Kaci pulled on top of him, one of his hands covering her mouth and the entire lower half of her delicate face. They were both fully clothed, and Cerise’s heart unclenched slightly at the sight. But Myles’s zipper was down, and he was shoving Kaci’s hand inside that disgusting opening.
“Let go of her.” Cerise’s voice sounded deadly, even to her own ears. She would swing no matter what, but she wanted Kaci clear first. Myles tightened his hold on Kaci, raising red, runny eyes to Cerise. He sneered at her and she saw murder in his gaze. That made two of them.
Kaci cried out as Myles’s hand tightened on her wrist for a moment, then he sneered and pushed her away from him. Her feet tangled together and she fell into the wall. Myles stood, his head lowered like a bull about to charge, eyeing Cerise like she was the red cape.
Cerise’s eyes never left Myles’s face. “Get out of here, Kaci,” she said, not bothering to tell her to leave the trailer, to run, to get away. It didn’t matter if Kaci did or not. If Myles won the battle that was about to be fought, he would catch her no matter where she went. Catch her and continue what he had started. If Cerise won, they could still escape. Together.
Cerise gripped the cold steel tighter in both hands and watched for Myles’s next move.
He took another step and raised his chin. “Come on, then,” he said, spreading his hands wide.
For the first time, indecision filled Cerise. Should she make the first move, or should she wait for him to come to her?
No, if he decided to charge her, she might not get the poker down fast enough. So she moved in, feinted left, then went right with all her power and strength. Only a little surprised, he got a hand up between them. The poker sliced the back of his arm and a flap of skin opened, blood spraying across her face. She didn’t acknowledge it, already pulling back for another swing.
He lunged, grabbed the poker and twisted it out of her hand, throwing it against the wall. Cerise shrieked, then attacked him with her nails and her teeth, letting the image of little Kaci trapped in his arms with her hand being forced onto his disgusting body fuel her rage. She had no chance of winning and she knew that, unless she tore out his throat, and the way she felt, she might be able to do just that.
Instead, he got a hand on her throat and slammed her against the wall, then swung her body in a wide arc against another wall, where she hit the side of her head. Blackness threatened.
She’d lost. Kaci was doomed.
I’m so sorry, Lemon. My fault, my fault.
“Let her go,” Kaci’s soft voice said from the doorway. Cerise rolled her eyes to Kaci, screaming inside her head. No! Run!
Myles gaped at Kaci, his mouth open, his hold on Cerise’s neck slackening. He’d never heard Kaci speak before. He didn’t think she was able to.
Kaci had them all fooled.
Cerise tried to hold on, but blackness danced around the edges of her vision. Her eyes rolled, trying to see Kaci clearly.
Kaci held the gun with the blue-swirled grip. She stood in the shooting stance they’d seen on TV thousands of times, her eyes narrowed, the gun looking too big for her small hands.
“I said. Let. Her. Go. Or die.”
Myles snorted. “So, the little freak could talk all along, hey? That’s some secret. Hold on there, missy. You’ll be singing the rest of your secrets in just a second.” He turned back to Cerise and his grip tightened as he slammed her against the wall again. Blackness took her and she felt pressure on her jaw as her legs gave out. Oxygen, she needed oxygen, now!
B
oom. The insistent sound of the gun going off pulled her back to reality, as Myles’s hands on her throat loosened once more and blood and flesh bathed her face and chest.
Myles, minus half of his head, fell to the ground, pulling her down with him. She yanked backwards, barely maneuvering her neck out of his slackening hands to avoid falling on the mess that used to be him.
Dead.
But Kaci had been the one who killed him.
Innocence lost, but not in the way she had first thought. And it was all Cerise’s fault.
***
Cerise’s hands hung loosely in her lap, her fingers twitching as she fought with herself not to push Zeus to his limit, not to lean over his neck, tell him to just go, to just take them anywhere, and she closed her eyes and waited for whatever fate was bringing them next.
She knew if they galloped along this country road, they would be remembered. Two girls, in clothes that were too big for them, neither wearing coats, one holding a faded green canvas bag, the other with wet hair in this cold, both riding bareback on a horse at a gallop? It would definitely raise eyebrows.
She looked around in the morning sunshine at the empty road beside them, wondering if the horror of Myles’s death was stamped on their faces.
Could people see that she’d pitched a gun into a creek not even half an hour ago? A gun that had just killed a man?
What about her promise to herself to come back and take the blame for his death once she had Kaci safely ensconced with her real parents? Could anyone read that vow in the set of her body and face?
A car noise rumbled in the distance, coming toward them from behind a hill, and Cerise stiffened. It was a black Jeep, an older man with silver hair staring at them as they passed, his eyes taking in everything. Cerise looked away, hoping Kaci did too. She held her breath until the sound of the Jeep faded from the way they had come.
Moments later-or maybe hours-Cerise had no concept of time in her numb brain, Kaci spoke from behind her. “Look.” Cerise raised her head, unable to think, unable to feel.
A pasture to their right, with six horses, all staring at them. Up ahead, Cerise spied a gate. It was perfect, and aside from killing Myles instead of leaving him sleeping off a bender, their plan was going perfectly.
“Stop,” Cerise said to Zeus. She slid off, took the canvas bag full of their clothes and money from Kaci and motioned for her to get down. She nodded at Kaci. “Say goodbye.”
Cerise turned away, not wanting to see Kaci’s tears spill. She could still hear her, though. Kaci’s voice thick, she said, “You’ll have a family now, Zeus. Thank you for everything.” Kissing sounds, then a strangled sigh. Cerise’s heart clenched painfully. Kaci had loved the horse more than she’d loved Myles. So far, she’d barely responded to the fact that she’d killed a man.
Cerise clamped her tongue between her teeth. Too much. She couldn’t take any more pain that day, any more surprises. It was still morning, though, and many hours of pain could await them.
The gate opened easily and Cerise led Zeus through it with apples. The other horses ran away, causing Kaci to frown.
“He’ll be fine,” Cerise said having no idea if he would be or not. “They will come back.” Another presumption on her part. As long as someone fed and watered Zeus, and treated him well, Cerise was happy.
She closed the gate and began to walk towards town.
After a long while, she said, “We’re doing it, Lemon. We have to be strong, because we are on our own.” Her words were more to herself than to her sister.
Kaci ran to catch up with her. “We always have been.”
Chapter 8
Beckett woke up slowly, smacking his lips together, like he’d just put on Chapstick. He cracked his eyes open and looked around the room, grabbing his cap and putting it on his head first thing, like he always did, effectively hiding his scar. He sat up and groaned, holding his head in his hands. “Hair of the dog that bit me on the ass,” he joked to himself but the words fell flat in the empty room.
He ignored his pounding head and stood up, looking at the alarm clock. He’d slept through it, if he’d set it at all. After leaving Crew and Dahlia’s place, running like a coward from his friends, he’d gone straight to the liquor store and bought enough liquor to drink himself into a stupor. Alone. On his couch, staring at the empty spot on his wall and trying not to think about that night when he’d lost what had been left of his family. He was surprised he’d even ended up in his bed, rather than sprawled out on his living room floor.
Beckett headed out to the hallway. Fuck if he was going to work. He didn’t care what was going on. They’d have to save the world without him today. He would do something else. Anything else. By himself. Crew would be busy with his new mate. A pang of guilt hit him. Saving the world meant keeping his best friend’s new mate safe. Shaking his head, Beckett remembered that poor forest floor, ripped apart and burned, that tree flung a half mile away by some invisible force. She could take care of herself.
A scent that didn’t belong in his home reached him, the realization freezing his muscles. Beckett stopped midstride on his way to the bathroom and flared his nostrils.
A light and airy scent, sweet like red licorice coated with sugar, so candied his mouth began to water.
She’d been there!
Beckett frowned. Not sure why he associated the scent with a she, but still, he knew exactly who he was thinking of, the girl from his dreams. The one he’d begun dreaming about just over a month ago, right around the time he was supposed to have met his one true mate, according to Crew. Could he somehow be traveling in his sleep, like Crew used to, and his waking self didn’t remember that his dreaming self had met his one true mate? No, that didn’t make a lick of sense.
He stayed where he was, letting the scent come to him, trying to call to his mind the image of her. He got only an impression though: long hair, light-colored, wide-set eyes, sweet expression. Innocent. Mine.
Beckett frowned again. If that was really her scent, had she been in his house? He prowled through each upstairs room, then headed downstairs, checking to see if any of his windows were open. They were all unlocked, even his front door was, but none stood open, so the smell was coming from inside the house.
Beckett turned in a circle in his living room, knowing if she had been there, she was gone now. He returned to his room and pulled on a dark, long-sleeved shirt and dark pants, then shoved his feet into his work boots. Work clothes, even though he had no intention of going in. He was sick of being a good soldier, even though he hadn’t decided what else to do. He had no options, really, being a good soldier was in his blood, was his fate.
He made his way downstairs, ignoring the pain in his chest that still lingered from the night before. Something he’d had years of practice doing.
At the bottom step, on a whim, he dropped his nose to the railing and scented deeply. She had been here. Hours ago. His nostrils quivered as he tried to pick more information from the scent. Human or shiften or one true mate? He couldn’t tell. Only that her scent was luscious, like nothing he’d ever smelled before. His body stiffened with all the best kinds of tension. He wanted her, and he’d never seen her face or heard her voice. It was like voodoo, or a love spell he couldn’t fight; didn’t want to fight.
Beckett shook his head, indecision filling him. Was this where it began? Would he meet his one true mate today? When he found her, would they go live out at Trevor’s property with the rest of them? He laughed lightly. A freak commune if he’d ever heard of one. No way was he ever doing that.
He rubbed a hand over his mouth and stared around his living room. What to do first? His eye fell on the blank space on the wall that he’d taken Crew’s present from. He reached it in two steps, then touched it lightly, then pressed his face almost against it. She’d touched the wall here. But why? He leaned close to catch more of her scent. Sweet. Divine.
Desperate to know more, he got down on his hands and knees and put his nose to the g
round, aching to determine exactly what else she had done in his house.
He rose, walked through the room into the kitchen, turned in a circle, then dropped to the floor and smelled the linoleum. Yes, even the outline of her shoes called to him, old canvas, overlaid with her sweet scent. He stood, knowing exactly where he was going.
A few minutes later, in his basement, he looked around at nothing but old shit that he’d never gotten rid of. Years of accumulation since he’d come from Kentucky to Illinois. Why would she come down here?
He noticed another scent. One that was older and hard to distinguish from the smell of the basement, but he knew it was there, just the same. His eyes locked on a spilled container of old DVDs he no longer needed in the digital age, Beckett kicked off his boots and stripped bare, then stood back in his mind to let his wolf come forward.
His eyes rolled in his head and his back bowed as his body fell forward and began the change. Pain ripped through him with the shift, but so did pleasure, the unique pleasure of allowing his stronger physical nature to best his stronger intellectual nature. His wolf growled as soon as it could, not liking to be inside and hating the liquor he’d drank the night before, blunting both their senses. Sorry, big guy. I needed it.
Fully shifted, primally different but also the same, Beckett ran his tongue out over his lips for a moment, then prowled straight to the box of DVDs, taking air in through his nose in short little puffs, letting the scents roll around in the chambers there, teasing more information out of them. A girl and a woman, no relation. The girl prepubescent, human, hurting, weak physically but not mentally, emotional torture stunting her physical and psychological growth. She had been there more than one moon-cycle ago.
The woman, strong. Warrior strong, but indecisive. Her emotions had roiled both times she’d been inside his house, instinct driving her but her conscious mind fighting it tooth and nail. He could smell both the blackish-green, viscous texture of the thoughts, and the smoother, cooler, redder scent of her instinct, but not what either had contained, only that both had been strong enough to leave an imprint behind.
