by J. C. Nelson
BRYNNER
Hospitals were like a second home to me. By eighteen, I’d spent so much time in them it just seemed natural to visit now and then. The doctors had sewn my wounds back together and wrapped my chest in tape, but the pain stayed with me.
I didn’t take pain meds.
I couldn’t.
My dad’s words came back to me every time I looked at pills.
“Drugs will make you vulnerable. Vulnerable will make you dead.” Better to embrace the pain and live than let a meat-skin slaughter me while I languished in a drug-induced stupor.
And they had tried to get Dad. Tried every which way they could. Crawling out of the tanks at gas stations. Jumping off overpasses when Dad drove by. Anything to get at the man who hounded and haunted them throughout the world.
They didn’t hate me the same way. I’d sent more meat-skins back to the grave than I could count. Only had one call me by name. No. My Dad’s name. What I needed was a vacation. To find a sunny spot in the Middle East where I could float out on a raft, a few feet from shore, and rest.
Sleep. Forget.
Instead, Director Bismuth treated me like some errand boy. “Go fetch your father’s notes, Brynn. And take Grace Roberts with you. Don’t go doing the only thing you’ve ever done, because she won’t stay in the car.”
Speaking of Grace, that’s who met me at the hospital door. She wore the same tired clothes from yesterday, splattered with meat-skin blood, and even with bags under her eyes, she looked beautiful. Though she favored her right foot, she offered me a hand. “I thought this time I’d drive. Even with my injury, I can get us to the airport without any side trips.”
I trudged around the car and opened the door.
“I said, I’m driving.” She flashed me an angry glare.
I bowed my head. “A gentleman opens the car door for a lady.”
She sure didn’t open the car door for me. I got in, strapped on my seat belt, and wondered what we’d talk about for twenty-five minutes. Or three hours, on the plane. “Is my gear bag in the trunk?”
Grace hit the open freeway and changed over four lanes in one smooth sweep. “Director Bismuth said you wouldn’t be needing your armor.”
A wave of panic like an ocean undertow hit me. “We have to go back.”
She didn’t look away from the road. “We have to make our flight this time. You might not care, but I need my job.”
I fought down the nerves. “Please. Please. Ms. Roberts— Grace. We have to go to BSI headquarters. I left something personal there.” I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice.
She slowed down so we weren’t passing state troopers and glanced over her shoulder. “She sent a box for you. In the backseat.”
I almost threw myself over the seat, wincing as my stiches pulled, but my hands brushed cold steel. I slid the box back into my lap and ran my thumb over the lock. With a hiss, the bars retracted.
Inside, black velvet cradled my blades. The only part of my arsenal I couldn’t rebuild or replace. Relief made me weak and accented the pain coursing through me.
I waited for her to ask. Ask about the blades. Or why my hands shook when I didn’t know where they were.
She waited until we almost reached the airport. “You want to tell me about this place we’re going? Some sort of survivalist compound? Do they eat dogs? Train with rattlesnakes and run on broken glass?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “No. Emelia and Bran take after Mom.” I’d said the word “Mom.” I bit my lip. “Emelia’s a doctor. Bran sells insurance. Life, car, whatever.”
We pulled up at the airport, where the BSI courier took our car. At the security center, I dropped the bag with my blade box on the conveyor and took out my BSI badge.
The guard waved me on through, but stopped Grace.
“Grace Roberts? I need to see your badge, ma’am.”
Grace fumbled around her neck and brought out the placard. “Why?”
He handed her the second metal box in my bag. “Signing your weapon through.”
Grace managed to keep her shock hidden until after we’d exited to the concourse. There, she found a seat and snapped the box open. Inside sat a Deliverator and three magazines. She read the scrawled note attached and clamped the lid closed like her gun might try to escape.
While she fussed, looking out the window, I snatched a glimpse at the note. In handwriting like smashed spiders, it read, “Another relic from my days collecting samples. Welcome to the field. Don’t get dead.”
Seven
BRYNNER
The first hour in a metal can with Grace left me no doubt how she felt. She’d probably heard stories about me. Most of them were true. Maybe all of them. It wasn’t her animosity that bothered me. An angry woman is one step from a passionate woman. It was the way she distanced herself, even crammed into airline seats, flying cargo class. The luggage had more room than we did, but Grace didn’t even brush elbows with me.
And I worried about what she’d think when she met Emelia and Bran. They knew secrets I didn’t share with anyone.
Then the in-flight service came. The flight attendant checked back with me over and over, each time showing enough ivory in her smile to make a poacher jealous. Certainly enough to make Grace jealous. Of my drink.
“Excuse me,” she said as the flight attendant brushed my arm. “Could I get another glass of wine?”
The flight attendant shook her head. “I’m sorry, miss. We’re all out.” Then she leaned over and whispered in my ear, her lips tickling. “Can I bring you anything from first class?”
“Wine.” I winked at her. “Red, please.”
“Of course, Mr. Carson. It’s an honor to have you on board.” She came back a few minutes later with a miniature bottle and a note saying she’d love to put the lay in my layover if I had time. I waited until after the flight attendant retreated to offer Grace the bottle. “Can I buy you a drink?”
She looked out the window, but her gaze kept creeping back to the bottle. “Buy? Just offer that bimbo a smile, and I’m sure she’ll give you anything.”
“Grace. Can I call you Grace?” She didn’t answer, and I took that for a yes. “I can’t help but notice you forgot to say, ‘Thank you for saving me from the meat-skin.’ That your first time in close quarters with one?” I pushed the wine toward her.
Grace grudgingly took the bottle. Then she sighed, and pratically whispered, “Thank you for saving me. But I did call an ambulance for you.”
“We’ll call it even, then. I saw your face while the meat-skin tried to kill you. What were you thinking of?”
Grace stared out the window at the clouds. “People I wouldn’t see again.”
“Your daughter. You spend a lot of time with her?”
“Not as much as I’d like.”
I refilled her glass, and held it up for her. “Please?”
As she took it from me, her fingertips touched my hand, smooth and warm against my palm, sending a spark of static electricity up my arm.
Grace took a long drink. “What do you want from me?”
That was a question I wasn’t ready to answer. “Just talk to me. Would it kill you to sit in that chair, relax, and talk to me?”
“I’m not the latest puzzle for you to figure out. How about you pay some attention to someone else? Like your biggest fan in the airline uniform?” Grace looked over the rows to where the flight attendant stood.
I kept my eyes on Grace. “I like puzzles.”
Her eyes lit up. “All right. I’ll make you a deal. You solve a puzzle of mine, I’ll talk with you the rest of the way. I’m sure with another hour, even I couldn’t resist your charms.”
Now that was my sort of agreement. “Lay it on me. Two trains in opposite directions? How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?”
Grace giggled. “Oh, please. There’s a secret about the relationship between the numbers one, three, seven, and eighteen. You tell me what it is, you solved my puzzle.” She flipped
open a magazine and began browsing, making an impressive effort to ignore me.
And I spent the rest of the flight doodling. Doing sums, division. Putting them in every conceivable order and algorithm. When the plane touched down, I crumpled up the napkin and grabbed my carry-on. “Fine. You won. What’s the secret?”
Grace kept her mouth shut until we hit the concourse. “The secret is I didn’t want to have to talk to you. There’s no relationship between those numbers. Or us.”
I stalked off to rent a car and pretended I couldn’t hear her laughing to herself. While I waited for them to pull the car up, my anger cooled, replaced by a cold worry, like a headache and storm cloud over me at the same time.
From the moment we left the airport, I sunk into a funk that I couldn’t shake. With each turn and mile, my worry mounted. Finally, we pulled into the long gravel driveway of a sprawling one-story house. A porch swing hung from the wraparound deck, looking out across the cacti.
Without touching it, I remembered the feel of the wood and creak of the chains during hot afternoons. Everything, from the buzz of hummingbirds to the sawing song of grasshoppers reminded me of the last summer I spent here. Of why I left.
And why I hadn’t returned.
“Are we going in at some point?” Grace interrupted my reverie, a bead of sweat marring her perfect porcelain skin.
No. Not if I had my way. I’d just stay in the car for the next three weeks.
The front door flew open, and out burst my aunt Emelia. She had Mom’s dark black hair down to her shoulders and wore a tan cotton tank top and crucifix necklace. So much for staying in the car. I unlocked my door and swung it open, only to find Aunt Emelia blocking my way.
“Brynner Carson, I’m so glad you’re home.” She carefully hugged me, avoiding the stiches and my ribs. Then she let me go and walked around the car to grab Grace by the hand. “Maggie gave me a call. Told me you two were coming. Grace, isn’t it?”
The momentary look of terror on Grace’s face told me she had no more idea what to say than I. “That’s right. Grace Roberts. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“No need to be so formal,” said Aunt Emelia. “I’ll take a look at your foot once you’re settled in. I’m looking forward to a family dinner. I’ve been waiting to embarrass him with some of these pictures for years.” She looked over to me, a smug smile on her face.
I hadn’t panicked like that since the time six meat-skins ambushed me on the way home from the dentist.
To my absolute relief, Aunt Emelia took Grace’s bag and turned back toward the house. “Come on in, young lady. I want to check Brynn’s stitching and what kind of mess he’s made of himself this time.”
“Ma’am,” Grace called, “if you don’t mind, I’m excited about translating this. I really can’t wait to get working.”
Emelia stopped short. She turned and crossed her arms until Grace looked away. “I haven’t been ‘ma’am’ in nearly thirty years, and if you call me anything but ‘Aunt Emelia’ you and I will have cross words. There will be enough time for work later, now get inside and get you some tea.”
And more than anything, I wished Grace had been right. That we were going to a survival camp where the worst things were broken glass, rabid dogs, and rattlesnakes. Inside that house, I wasn’t Brynner Carson, celebrated BSI hero. Or even Brynner Carson, son of Heinrich Carson. I was just Brynner, or boy.
I’d rather have taken on snakes, dogs, and glass.
We passed through the front door, into Emelia’s formal living room. As a child, I never dared set foot in it. The cushions on the couch were always placed just so, the curtains drawn and tied. Even as an adult, I shuddered when Grace stepped onto the carpet in her shoes.
“Shoes by the door,” I whispered. I kicked off my boots and set them together, then tiptoed through the living room into the kitchen.
Emelia emerged from it, shoving a tall glass of sun tea at me. “Sit.”
Grace stepped on the heels of her shoes to take them off, but otherwise didn’t move.
“Sit,” said my aunt.
Grace looked at her clothes, covered in bloodstains, and back to the immaculate couches. “I’m sorry, I was called up from Portland and all my—”
Emelia cut her off. “You didn’t get time to pack? You poor thing.” She waved Grace along after her, and turned down the hall. “Shower is this way. I’ll wash your clothes and find you something to wear. Those BSI folks would work you to death. Let’s see that foot of yours as well.”
I couldn’t relax until I left the living room.
In the kitchen, chilled air from the vents made goose bumps ripple across my skin. I opened the fridge and took out a bowl of grapes. Ten years on, and Emelia still kept them in the same place.
“I didn’t know if you’d actually come. Maggie said you were on your way.” Aunt Emelia’s voice startled me, making my adrenaline race.
“I didn’t get much choice.”
She nodded. “I hoped you’d come home to see us.”
“I always meant to. I’ve just been busy. Meat-skins everywhere. Too many of them, not enough of me.”
Aunt Emelia leaned over, looking at my chest. “Grace’s foot is bruised, not broken. Now, I hear you got yourself busted up bad in Greece. You want to tell me about it or just show me the wounds?”
I’d seen this routine more times than I could count, growing up. I knew better than to argue.
She pulled out a kitchen chair and turned on the lights. “Come on, boy. Off.” Aunt Emelia disappeared, replaced by Dr. Emelia Homer.
I knew, from years of trying, better than to fight with Dr. Homer. I peeled off my shirt, struggling to slide the sleeves down.
With practiced ease, she ripped off the tape, taking half my chest hair with it. “Boy, what did you tangle with?”
“Re-Animus.”
She looked at me like I’d tried and failed to lie. “I know that. What was it riding in at the time?”
“An investment banker, I think. At least, as best we could tell. As soon as it knew I was there, it tried to butcher me like a chicken. It was collecting victims, using a brothel as a front.”
“And the bullets didn’t work?”
Her tone said it was a trap. One I’d heard her try to spring on Dad throughout my youth. “You know me. Bullets aren’t really my style.”
“Oh, yes. That and ‘Emelia, I couldn’t get a clean shot.’” She imitated Dad’s accent, with long e sounds and thick consonants. “Where have I heard that before? Those stitches would look bad on a corpse. We’re going to do them right.”
She disappeared down the hall and returned with a suture kit and a needle.
“No drugs.”
“Brynner Carson—”
I held up my hand the way Dad did. “No drugs. Drugs leaveyou—”
The sting of a needle on my shoulder bit me like a fly. As fast as it came, she pulled the needle out and shoved it into a sharps container. “Stubborn Carson men.”
I rubbed my shoulder. “I don’t need stitches on my arm. Or vitamin D. And I had a tetanus shot at both hospitals.”
“Fine. Be that way, but get out of my kitchen chair. Lie in the recliner, and I’ll stitch you up.” She practically yanked the chair out from under me.
The hours of flying, the stress of so many days on the edge wore on me, and I stumbled my way to the recliner. Once I’d relaxed, she snapped on nitrile gloves and opened a new set of syringes.
“I said no drugs—” Somewhere along the way, she’d replaced my hands with iron anvils. Even my eyelids took supreme force to keep open.
“I heard you.” She injected me along both sides of the wound, counting off in steady time.
The numb feeling that spread along the wounds should have caused my heart to rattle in my chest, but the adrenaline wouldn’t come.
“Is the Valium taking effect?” She looked into my eyes, gauging my pupils. “You look nice and comfy. Let’s get that wound sewn up right.”
And that right there, was why I hated going home.
GRACE
Showering in a strange person’s house was exotic by my standards. I lived a quiet life, doing my best to make sure nothing of importance happened around, to, or by me. Still, the rules my mother taught me growing up stayed with me.
Be clean.
Be quiet.
Her third rule, “be careful,” I didn’t need. Mom’s bad choices in men weren’t my bad choices. No, I’d made all new ones of my own. And lived with the consequences every day.
When I cut off the water and toweled dry, I found my clothes missing. Replaced, in fact, by a mishmash of clothes that might have fit when I was thirteen, or might be wearable when I’m fifty. Still, it beat wearing co-org blood and smelling like hospital. Once I was dressed, I found my way back to the living room.
There, the woman Brynner called Aunt Emelia leaned over him, working a needle and thread through his skin in a way that made my stomach churn. She glanced up at me. “We’re almost done here. Brynner got the bad end of a meat-skin. Maybe next time he’ll shoot it instead of shaking hands with it.”
Brynner stared off into space, his eyes glassy.
“Is there something wrong with him?” I waved a hand in front of his face.
She nodded. “He’s got Heinrich Carson’s genes and my sister’s stubbornness. I gave him something to help him relax. Boy’s still with us. Just moving slow.”
It registered to me he wasn’t wearing a shirt. His muscles, even at rest, showed clearly, from wide pectorals to an abdomen that said if he ate the fries, he ran the stairs.
Scars covered his tanned skin. From the new one, a slash that started at his abdomen and worked its way up to his collar bone, to dozens of white bars, burns and scratches.
I didn’t mean to stare. Or to admire his body. What sort of strength did he have? Where on earth had he gotten those scars?
“He’s always had a fine build.” Aunt Emelia nodded to me. “Well, not always. In the fourth grade he had a chest like a pencil and ran around with a squeaky voice like a parrot.”
