Rangers

by Chloe Garner

  “I feel bad taking your money,” he said.

  “Don’t.”

  “You were homeless, sleeping on park benches, when we met you,” he said. She shrugged.

  “By choice.”

  “Who does that by choice?” he asked.

  “Obviously, there’s no explanation I can offer that would make sense to you,” she said. He nodded, chewing.

  “Fair enough. What do you do for money?”

  “What do you do for money?”

  He thought for a minute.

  “We live off of Simon, mostly. It’s part of the arrangement,” he said. She frowned.

  “That’s messed up.”

  He shrugged.

  “We put our lives on the line. They work hard and manage to do what they do as Seekers, plus make a salary big enough to support our living expenses plus theirs. Mostly we both agree we wouldn’t take the other side of that deal, and that’s how it works.” He chewed some more. “I get the impression they tend to live in groups.”

  He looked at her and waited. She sighed.

  “Fine. Um.” She paused. “I really don’t know how to explain it, without telling you things I shouldn’t. Would it be enough to say that I just have money because back in the day I found myself with assets that were more valuable than most people would think, and I made a good profit selling them?”

  “Were you a hooker?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He shrugged.

  “Bored, then,” he said. He winked and she smiled.

  “You don’t seem as pushy to get me back to New York, any more,” she said. He nodded, finishing his beer.

  “You ready?” he asked, shifting to the edge of the booth. She nodded.

  “I’m still going to take you to New York, kick you out of the car, and never look back,” he said. “But if you weren’t here tonight, I’d be eating leftovers out of the fridge at Arthur and Doris’, so I guess it’s not all bad.”

  She nodded, feigning deep thought.

  “You know, I think that makes perfect sense.”

  “I know, right?”

  “I hope Sam is feeling better in the morning,” she said.

  “He’ll be fine. We’re both healthy as horses.”

  <><><>

  Only the next morning, he was worse. Jason opened the door to Samantha’s knock and frowned, motioning to Sam still in bed.

  “He woke up screaming twice,” Jason said. She sighed.

  “I heard.”

  Sam rolled over, moaning.

  “You mind if I take a look at him?” she asked.

  “You a doctor?” Jason asked, moving out of the way anyway.

  “I know stuff,” she said softly, going to sit next to Sam. He slid away from her, throwing an arm over his face. She gently pulled his arm back and put her palm on his forehead. He winced, groaning, but relaxed after a moment. She slid her hand under his neck, finding his hair sticky and tangled against his skin, but without the heat of a high fever. She sighed.

  “Is something wrong?” Jason asked, sitting down on the other bed. She shook her head.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She put her hand flat across Sam’s forehead and took a deep breath, eyes closed. After a moment, she let it out and looked down at him. His face had stilled. She brushed his cheek with her fingers.

  “Sam?” she said. He stirred. “Sam.”

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I didn’t sleep at all last night,” he said, trying to roll onto his side. She held his shoulder to keep him on his back, and looked over at Jason.

  “He was dead asleep when I got back last night.”

  Sam shook his head.

  “I remember you coming back. I watched you come in,” he said. Samantha pulled his eyelids up one after the other, and he winced away from the light.

  “Tell me how you feel,” she said, more firmly. He swallowed.

  “Headache. Cold. My stomach hurts.”

  He kicked at the tangled sheets and turned his face away.

  “Should we get help?” Jason asked. Samantha shook her head.

  “He needs good sleep,” she said.

  “Should we stay here today?” Jason asked. She brushed Sam’s hair back from his ears.

  “You okay with sleeping in the car?” she asked.

  “I don’t sleep in the car,” he said.

  “If I gave you something to help?”

  Jason made a sharp hissing noise, but Sam nodded.

  “Yeah. And more Tylenol.”

  Samantha picked up her backpack and motioned to Jason to follow her across the hall into the bathroom.

  “You aren’t going to give him anything to help him sleep,” Jason said. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded.

  “I understand. I’m still a stranger.”

  She reached deep into her backpack and pulled out a shallow wooden bowl and filled it with water, then drank out of it.

  “Bowl,” she said, handing it to him. “Is that okay?”

  He inspected it as she reached into her bag again.

  “Okay, but…” he said, handing it back to her as she produced a glass vial of green-yellow powder. He watched her, eyebrows knit, jaw set in a hard line. She poured some out onto her hand then put the vial back into the backpack.

  “Jasmine. Smell.”

  She offered him her hand and he sniffed, but shook his head. She poured the powder into the bowl and took a pinch of it and put it on her tongue. She grimaced.

  “It’s bitter, that strong,” she said.

  She ran the tap until the water came out hot, then filled the bowl, swirling the powder around the bottom.

  “That’s it,” she said.

  “Jasmine in water,” Jason said. She nodded.

  “Placebo. Mostly. You ever have fever dreams?” she asked. He shrugged. “He needs to get up, take a shower, get dressed, and then go lay down someplace new.” She offered him the bowl. “This will help.”

  “There’s nothing weird in this,” Jason said. She shook her head.

  “Less than the average mix of tea, assuming the tap water is clean,” she said. “Are we good?”

  Jason eyed the bowl in his hands.

  “Okay, but if he’s bad tonight, we get help,” he said. She nodded.

  “If you want.”

  Jason followed Samantha back into the room, where Sam was curled up on his side. Samantha sat down next to him and glanced at Jason.

  “I know he’s tall, but you don’t really notice how big he is, normally.”

  Jason nodded.

  “Arthur calls us a pair of tall trees,” he said. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just let him sleep?”

  Sam groaned and rolled his head into the mattress, and she nodded.

  “Sam,” she said, running her fingers through his hair. He made an open-mouthed noise and woke. He moaned again.

  “Pills,” he said. Jason rummaged through a bag and handed him a pair.

  “You’re going to need to sit up,” Samantha said, helping. He managed, then Jason handed him the bowl of water. Sam smelled it and smiled. Samantha had one hand behind his back and put her hand on his chest as he downed the water. She took a deep breath and held it, then breathed out and took the bowl. She brushed hair off his brow and nodded at him as he swallowed the pills.

  “Go take a shower. Hot,” she said. “We’ll get on the road when you’re ready.”

  He untangled from the sheets and stood. He leaned on Samantha for a second, then straightened.

  “I’m okay,” he said. He glanced at Jason. “I’m fine.”

  Jason watched Sam head into the bathroom, then disappeared and came back with a steaming plate of chicken wings. Samantha grunted.

  “It’s what I do,” he said, sitting down on the end of the bed and turning on the television.

  “I’ll meet you guys downstairs,” she said. “It smells like sick in here.”
>
  <><><>

  Samantha found a man with rumpled blond hair sitting at the kitchen table when she got downstairs.

  “Hello,” he said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

  “Hi,” she said. She frowned. “This is normal for you, isn’t it?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “The sandwich?”

  “Strangers in your kitchen, but I’ll give you the sandwich is weird, too.”

  “You with Jason?” he asked. She sat.

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s having leftover chicken wings for breakfast,” he said. She snorted.

  “Yeah. I don’t expect anything else from him though.” She thought for a second. “I’m not with Jason with Jason. I’m just…”

  “Sure,” he said. She closed her eyes.

  “Try again. Hi. I’m Sam.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “That’s not a joke. Is it.”

  “Nope.”

  “Huh. I’m Carson.”

  “Hi, Carson.”

  “Sam okay?” he asked, jerking his head and taking another bite. He put his hand in front of his mouth. “The one upstairs?”

  “You heard him?”

  “I think the neighbors heard him.”

  “He isn’t feeling well,” she said. He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth.

  “You guys need me to call anyone?”

  “Not yet,” Samantha said. He nodded.

  “You on your way somewhere else?” he asked. She nodded.

  “Oklahoma, I think.”

  He grinned.

  “You think?”

  “They don’t really let me play yet,” she said. He laughed.

  “I’m surprised Jason lets you even ride with them. He and girls…”

  “Love ‘em and leave ‘em,” Jason said. Samantha looked over her shoulder at him. He put his plate on the counter. “Sam just got out of the shower. You ready to hit the road?”

  She looked at Carson.

  “Well… It was nice to meet you.”

  He crammed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and put his hand up again.

  “I’ll help you with your stuff.”

  <><><>

  Samantha had spread a blanket in the back seat and covered Sam with it, and he had fallen asleep immediately. She had sat with her laptop in her lap for the first several hours, but never opened it. When Jason stopped for gas, she put it away. She leaned against the car door as he filled the tank, looking up at the sky.

  “I can drive, if you want,” she said.

  “I’ll trust you with Sam long before I trust you with Gwen,” Jason told her. She resettled her sunglasses and grinned.

  “You named your car,” she said.

  “She’s mine,” he said by way of an explanation. He returned the gas nozzle to its cradle and leaned his hip against the Cruiser. “She and Sam are my whole world, and Sam can take care of himself.”

  She took a step back and put her hands on her hips, then patted the windshield.

  “She looks like she can, too,” she said. He grinned.

  “Yeah.”

  They got back in and she settled down low in her seat.

  “Would it bother you if I slept for a while?” she asked. He glanced at Sam, though he couldn’t have explained why.

  “That’s fine,” he said.

  Her breathing changed within a few minutes, and he drove for several hours in the quiet. Sam stirred once and Samantha woke, dropping her seat back until she could reach him. When she touched him, he settled again, and she rolled onto her shoulder and apparently went back to sleep. Jason glanced at her a few times, not sure what to think, but let it go. He stopped for lunch and woke Samantha.

  “Greasy burger-type food?” he asked. She looked over the dashboard, then laid back down, stretching her feet out over the floorboard.

  “Take your time,” she said. “Bring me an order of fries and a Coke. I’m going to stay with Sam.”

  “You think he needs it?” Jason asked. She looked over her shoulder.

  “Makes me feel better.”

  Jason ate by himself, sitting at a plastic booth. A girl across the restaurant smiled at him and he jerked his chin at her, but his mind was on Sam. They’d worked through broken bones and concussions before. It wasn’t like him to let a headache put him down. His training said that he should suspect Sam-the-girl, but his head couldn’t make that fit, and his gut said she was actually on their side. Sam had spent a week alone with her fine. Jason got the impression something weird had happened, but nothing important enough for Sam to tell him about it at the motel that night. He glanced out at the car. Sam and Gwen were his whole world, and he had left both of them alone with Sam-the-girl without a second thought. That wasn’t like him.

  He walked back up to the counter after he finished his sandwich and ordered Samantha’s food, resolving to not let his guard drop, as a nod to his training, but glad she was around, all the same. He knew Sam didn’t like Jason wandering off all the time, but they enjoyed different things. Out doing their thing, tracking and killing stuff, there was no one better matched, but Sam was the furthest thing Jason could imagine from a useful wingman in a bar, and spending an entire evening talking to strange women would drive his brother nuts. Having Sam-the-girl around seemed to make Sam happy, and Jason was glad for it. Now if he could just keep her away from the things that would like as not kill her, he might be able to relax.

  He turned and smiled at the girl in the corner, who shrugged, like your loss, and he headed back out to the car.

  <><><>

  Simon had booked a decent hotel for them in Oklahoma, and Jason went to check in, feeling guilty that they hadn’t mentioned Samantha to their Seeker yet. Samantha followed him after a minute.

  “Jason,” she said. He turned from the pretty girl at the counter. Samantha didn’t speak, so he motioned to the clerk that he would be a second and he walked over to her at the doorway. She pressed her lips together and looked away, then back at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Can I stay with you, here?” she asked. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t figure out what the right answer was.

  “I slept all day today so I could stay up all night,” she said in a rush. “I want to stay up with him.” She paused and looked away. “Watch over him while he sleeps.”

  “Is my brother okay?” Jason asked, moving over to where her eyes had gone. He ducked his head to get her attention.

  “He’s not in danger, right now,” she said. He raised his eyebrows.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I should tell him first.”

  “What’s wrong with my brother?” Jason demanded. Her eyes came up, her expression hard. They stared at each other for a full minute, then he shook his head.

  “I’ll tell him in the morning. You guys will do what you do. If you want me to go after that, I’ll go.”

  She paused.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I stay with you guys?”

  He looked at her, exasperated. She shook her head aggressively, looking to the side.

  “I know, Abby. I’m not going to think about that, yet.”

  He laughed.

  “You make trusting you awfully hard,” he said. She glared at empty space for a second, then looked at him.

  “So either I’m a psychopath or I’m exactly what I seem,” she said.

  “Or both,” he interjected. She glowered.

  “But I’m not manipulating you,” she said. “If I were manipulating you, I promise, I would act a lot less weird.”

  “All right,” he said, finally making the decision to go with gut over training. “All right. But tomorrow morning, I want a full explanation of what’s going on with Sam. No half-answers.”

  “Yeah,” she said, then held up a hand in a sort of helpless gesture. “I’m sorry. It’s just complicated.”

  “What isn’t?”

>   <><><>

  Sam made it exactly from the car into the elevator and up to the room, laying down on the bed in his clothes and falling back asleep. Jason wanted to wake him, but Samantha stopped him.

  “You want room service?” Jason asked. She sat down on the couch and turned on the television, setting the volume low.

  “I’m okay. You can go ahead.”

  He called down to the kitchen as she got out her laptop and spread a blanket across her lap.

  “What do you do on there all day?” he asked.

  “Research. Read. Write. I like words,” she said. He grimaced and she smiled.

  “No big surprise there.”

  He sat next to her and surfed channels until his food came, then he ate.

  “What are we looking for tomorrow?” she asked.

  He chewed his burger for a minute, then nodded his head to one side.

  “Well, let me see if there’s anything new from Simon,” he said. He went and grabbed Sam’s light backpack from the corner where he had dumped all of their bags and brought it back, setting it on the floor at his feet and pulling out the laptop. He glanced over at Samantha’s bag.

  “One day, you’re going to have to show me everything you’ve got in there,” he said.

  “No, I won’t,” she said. He grunted, taking another bite of his burger and powering up the laptop.

  “Nothing new today, looks like.” He closed the computer and sat back, admiring the bulk of the hamburger the hotel had seen fit to send him. “Good burger,” he commented. She sighed. He looked over at her.

  “Oh, right, sorry. Hunts cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs indiscriminately, leaves them where they’re killed, and only eats the gory bits. There are a few things that will do that, but most of them, if you put a knife through them, they die. I’d put money on goblins, though. Strong enough to attack and kill a man one-one, but they’re chicken. They’ll eat cows all day long, instead. Sadistic. We tracked a clutch of them through Texas once, following a cow trail where the cow had walked a mile with its intestines hanging out. We found gnawed-on pieces the whole way. The drunk guy was probably just bad time, bad place. The probably found him passed out and decided to go for it.”

  Samantha turned back to her computer.

  “A clutch of goblins,” she said. He nodded and took another bite of his burger.

  “You take all this pretty well,” he said. She laughed.