by Peter Giglio
The dog trusts her unconditionally, and she trusts the dog.
Hannah digs in her pocket and pulls out a treat. While she has been told not to feed Trust from the table, she always carries a few Milk-Bones with her. She holds out her hand, and Trust, rising on her haunches, places a balancing paw on Hannah’s palm, snatching the offering away with clenched teeth.
“You’re not feeding her chicken, I hope,” says Dee.
“No, just a Milk-Bone. I know chicken’s bad for dogs.”
Hannah’s mom rolls her eyes, but Dee laughs. “That’s right, dear. Gives ’em diarrhea.”
Flat on the floor, Trust wags her tail as she gnaws on the treat, her gaze never leaving Hannah, who has a hard time looking away from the puppy.
“That dog’s crazy about her,” Kevin says.
“And I’m crazy about her,” Hannah says, then she gazes up at Kevin’s mother. “By the way, thank you. I just realized I should have said that earlier.”
“Don’t mention it, dear. I’m just glad to see what a perfect match you two turned out to be.”
Finished with the treat, Trust rolls on her back, her tongue lolling out of her grinning maw. Hannah reaches down and rubs the lab’s belly.
“I still don’t like you feeding the dog from the table,” Hannah’s mom says. “Dinnertime is for family.”
“Trust is part of the family,” Kevin counters.
“An important part,” Hannah adds, then lifts the puppy into her lap and holds her close.
Hannah’s mom smiles. “Doesn’t look like I’ll win this one.”
“You can have the next one, honey,” Kevin says, and everyone chuckles.
Dinner soon ends, and while Hannah’s mom and Kevin’s parents move to the living room, Hannah helps Kevin clear the table. In the kitchen, each of them putting plates in the sink, Hannah glances at Kevin. “You’re up to something, aren’t you?” she says.
He turns on the faucet and scrubs cheese from a plate. He’s trying to look nonchalant, Hannah thinks, but his smile betrays a hidden agenda. “What makes you say that?”
“I can just tell. You look anxious, but not in a bad way.”
“Can’t anything be a surprise with you, Hannah?”
“What do you mean, I’m full of surprises.”
He chuckles. “You got me there, but this is important to me, so please let me take this one on my own.”
As Hannah stands next to Kevin, each of them scrubbing plates, she thinks about how much things have changed. Her mother has gone two weeks without nicotine, and Kevin goes to the gym three nights a week. He’s already shed more than ten pounds, and her mother’s bouts of irritability from withdrawal have lessened.
Then Hannah’s thoughts shift to darker terrain.
When she returned from the hospital on the night of her father’s attack, she found her father’s remains—a twisted roach carcass, curled on the porch. She snatched a matchbox from the kitchen, emptied its contents, and placed the dead bug inside. Not much of a coffin, she figured, but more than good enough for a bug. A few minutes after midnight, she used a spade to dig a hole in the backyard, then she buried the box. No tears fell from her eyes as she scooped dirt back into the small trench. She only thought about the pain her father inflicted—the three lives he had taken, and the scars he’d left on the world; scars that would never completely heal. And yet, there he rested, reduced to a dead bug in a box. No grave marker commemorating his passing. No ceremony. No words. No mourning.
She and Kevin place their last plate in the dishwasher at the same time, then she steps back, watching him load the machine with detergent.
And that causes her eyes to well with tears.
Kevin snaps the dishwasher shut, presses a couple buttons, then turns to Hannah, concern darkening his face. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you okay?”
She smiles. “I was just thinking about the little things…how much difference they make, you know, and my eyes started leaking…but I’m not falling apart. I promise.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“No. Why would I be mad at you?”
“For not sharing my secret?”
“Absolutely not, Kevin, secrets are…secrets are important.”
“Well, I don’t plan to keep this one much longer, so grab that dog of yours and head back into the living room.”
She looks down and finds Trust curled by the refrigerator, her brown eyes turned up at Hannah. She hadn’t even noticed the dog in the room, but Trust is like that. Always there. Always watching. “Come on, girl,” she says, patting her knee. And Trust, on her feet in a flash, scampers toward Hannah as she leaves the kitchen.
When Hannah reaches the living room, she plops down on the floor. Trust runs into her lap, and Hannah rubs behind the dog’s ears. Trust grins.
“Please tell me Kevin’s almost done in there,” Hannah’s mom says.
“He said he’d be in here soon.”
“That boy’s up to something,” Mike Logan says, causing his wife to slap him on the arm.
Hannah’s mom fidgets in her wheelchair; she can also tell Kevin is planning a surprise, Hannah senses, and she looks nervous, like she needs a fix from an e-cig, but she smiles nonetheless, clearly doing her best to seem at ease.
After placing Trust on the carpet, Hannah stands and sidles next to her mom, taking her hand and holding it tight. “Looked like you needed me,” she whispers, and, although her mom doesn’t say anything, the smile on her face is answer enough.
Piano music starts playing, and everyone turns toward the kitchen, the source of the sound, as Kevin steps through the door with a microphone in one hand and a karaoke machine hanging in the other. He sings: “Just a perfect day…drink sangria in the park…” He belts out the words with passion, and Hannah can’t believe how good he sounds. The tender squeeze of her mom’s hand says that she’s also impressed.
Trailing a long cord behind him, Kevin kneels in front of Hannah’s mom and places the compact karaoke machine on the floor. “Oh, it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you…oh, such a perfect day, you just keep me hanging on, you just keep me hanging on…”
Hannah feels the vibrations through her mom’s hand. Nervous energy, yes, but so much more. Real and true joy. Her mom grins broadly as tears stream down her cheeks, and Kevin keeps singing, hitting the notes even when he misses them.
“You’re going to reap just what you sow…”
Kevin reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small box.
“You’re going to reap just what you sow…”
He flips the box open, revealing an engagement ring. Large, diamond-cut stone. Platinum band. The gift gleams like magic in the room’s soft glow.
With the music fading, Kevin stares up with hope-filled eyes. “Will you be my wife?”
“Yes…yes yes yes yes yes!”
The couple embraces, and Hannah and her future grandparents applaud. Things stay that way for a while, then Kevin rises to face Hannah. “But there’s more.”
“There always is,” Hannah says.
He pulls another box from his pocket and opens it, this time presenting a diamond pendant in the shape of an owl. “You might be young,” he says, “but you’re the wisest person I’ve ever known. This is a symbol of the respect and love I have for you, and I would like you to be my daughter.”
“But how?” Hannah asks.
“The wheels are in motion,” Kevin says. “I just need to know what you want.”
Hannah takes the pendant, then wraps its chain around her neck while holding her hair up. “Can you help me, please?” she asks. Kevin moves around her, fastens the latch, then Hannah lets her mane drop back to her shoulders.
“So…is that a yes?” he asks.
She throws her arms around him, her face pressed against his chest. “No,” she says, “that’s a hell yes.”
CHAPTER 28
Listening to the celebration inside the house, Fred hates himself fo
r informing Chaplain about the Mitchell girl. He tugs out his earbuds, then looks up at his boss.
“Don’t go soft on me,” Chaplain says.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t even know if the girl can shift.”
“Maybe she hasn’t imprinted yet, but she’s one of them. Worse than that, she has abilities that could make her far more dangerous than her predecessors. You said it might be because she’s a half-breed. Your words, not mine.”
This seemed much easier to Fred in Wyoming, before he knew Chaplain would bring him on the mission. No problem passing judgment from one thousand miles away, but now…now things are real. Too real for Fred, and this family will soon die, unless…
“We’re after the girl, right?”
Chaplain nods.
“So we don’t have to do this tonight. We’ll get her when she’s coming home from school, or maybe we’ll—”
“No,” Chaplain barks. “Mercy is not an option, and neither are survivors. Can you hear how much that man loves his family, how much he loves that little abomination?”
Fred can, and that’s what he hates most about this situation. He thinks about how much he loves Eve, his own daughter. How far he’d go to protect her.
“That kind of love is dangerous,” Chaplain snarls. “Do you want that man digging in our business? He has friends in high places, and you know that—told me yourself how he’s using his connections to get Chet Mitchell declared dead and the adoption fast-tracked.”
A decade ago, Fred accepted the position of Information Specialist, which he’d been offered because of his squeamish regard for violence. All born into the organization—as Fred had been—carry the charge of service, and Fred knows Eve will one day be expected to do her part. Perhaps she’ll find herself in a similar situation to this, torn between morality and orders.
No, Fred tells himself. Unacceptable.
As Chaplain presses one of his earbuds deeper, his brow furrowed, Fred slides a shaky hand toward his holster.
* * *
In the bathroom, Hannah stands before the mirror, shifting her new necklace in the light and watching it sparkle. She hears her mom and Kevin singing “Love Shack” on the karaoke machine, which makes her giggle, then she runs the water and washes her hands. Turning to leave, she puts her palm on the light switch.
But a glance at the mirror freezes her.
The reflection staring back isn’t a reflection at all. It’s Agnes, and her expression is grave. The bulbs above the mirror dim, and the image of Agnes brightens.
“The shadows are outside,” Agnes says.
Hannah knows what this means. Agnes visits her when she sleeps, teaching her about her heritage and the demise of her kind. The dreams are never scary, because they are only dreams—distant visions that rarely invade Hannah’s waking thoughts—and Agnes is a considerate guide, never revealing too much too soon, always tempering tales of tragedy with words of hope.
But hope this is not.
This is a gut punch, and Hannah is flooded with anger toward Agnes for not warning her sooner. “What the hell do I do now?”
“Go to your room. I’ll guide you from there.”
“No,” Hannah shouts, “I have to stay down here to protect everyone. I can’t run up to my room and—”
“I’m not asking you to hide. I’m telling you to fight. Now take the high ground and go to your room! It’s your best chance to save everyone!”
Hannah dashes into the hallway and then up the stairs. She turns into her room and places her hand on the light switch.
No, Agnes warns. Keep the room dark. Head to the window and peer through the blinds.
Hannah does what she’s told. Outside, sodium vapor lamps flicker, and Emerson Public Park appears dark and ominous, but it doesn’t take long for her gaze to land on the proper target: a gray van in front of the vacant house with a For Sale sign in the lawn.
The sounds of celebration continue downstairs, and it won’t take long before someone comes looking for her, wondering if she’s all right.
Her dark place envelops her, and her sight telescopes into the van, where a gray-haired man stands and a younger man sits, holding a gun. These men are killers, and they’re here for her, willing to slay anyone who gets in their way.
But something’s amiss. The sitting man now aims his gun at his partner.
Through a filter hazy, Hannah watches as…
* * *
…Chaplain yanks out his earbuds, then reaches into his holster and pulls out a Glock 17. “I’ve heard enough. This happens tonight.” He draws a silencer from his jacket and screws it onto the barrel of the gun, then he turns toward Fred and finds himself at gunpoint.
The Beretta trembles in Fred’s feeble grip, but Chaplain’s not surprised. Fred is weak, and Chaplain didn’t bring him along for his skills as a soldier. The business of killing is something Chaplain can handle on his own, and he will. Fred’s here on a loyalty test; a test he’s failing.
“This isn’t right,” Fred whines.
Chaplain aims quick and steady, the barrel of the silencer only inches from Fred’s melon-shaped skull. Fred has never killed, has rarely even fired a gun, and he’s far too stupid to realize the safety catch on the Beretta is engaged. Not that it matters. Chaplain loaded the gun himself before giving it to Fred. He left the clip empty.
“I will tell Eve you died a hero’s death, defending our world from the scourge of hell-spawn.”
Body vibrating, face red with rage, Fred rises from his seat, and Chaplain’s aim follows the traitor’s misfiring brain.
“You leave her alone,” Fred shouts, and then he tries to pull the trigger of the Beretta. Confusion sweeps his face, and he tries again. The last spark of hope leaves Fred’s eyes, and he hangs his head, clearly waiting for death.
* * *
For reasons unclear, the younger man is trying to block tonight’s assault, and he’s failing. Hannah feels a pang of sympathy for him, but she doesn’t have time to dwell on it. Without hesitation, she speeds toward the steering wheel. A keychain dangles from the ignition. She turns the key with her mind. As the engine roars alive, she cranks the gearshift down to D, then drops under the dash and pushes all of her energy against the accelerator.
* * *
The engine roars, and the van bounds forward.
Chaplain falls onto his side, his gun skittering across the metal floorboard. Fred is flung against the wall of the cargo hold, and blood runs down his face as he tumbles downward, his body bouncing from the turbulence as the fast-moving van leaps across uneven terrain.
Chaplain struggles upright, leaning toward the cab. Through the windshield, an oak tree grows closer…closer…
Time seems to slow…
And a gloomy memory flutters…
Only a boy, he enters his mother’s room… And the stranger’s garrote tightens around her throat… And blood floods her neck from a thin crimson line… And he weeps and trembles… And his mother falls forward… And the stranger grins… And the stranger becomes a shapeless, gray thing… And the thing becomes a mouse… And the mouse scurries away…
A jarring crash, glass and metal twisting in a symphony of chaos, and Chaplain feels weightless, like he’s flying—
I’m coming home, Momma!
—until his skull meets metal.
A white-hot blast of agony.
Then only darkness.
* * *
Fred Stuart opens his eyes. In the distance, the warble of police sirens sound like they’re underwater. He touches his head. Wet. Sticky. Painful. Through a cloudy gaze, he studies his hand. Blood. So much blood.
But he’s alive, and he must start moving if he hopes to see Eve again.
Fighting nerve-shattering torment that screams through his skull, he pushes himself up, then realizes what’s left of the cargo hold. Not much. Most of the van is pushed toward him. Glass and metal and blood and…the remains of Saul Chaplain. Eyes wide. Mouth hanging open. A shard of Motown stee
l lodged in his skull.
Fred turns from the grisly carnage, fighting a wave of nausea. And, hands shaking, he struggles with the latch on the back door. Finally, the doors swing wide, and Fred stumbles into the cool night. He takes a few deep breaths, the crisp air helping him find balance.
It doesn’t take long for him to grasp his location: the park across the street from the Logan/Mitchell house. He casts his attention on the house, where a man—probably Kevin Logan—stands on the porch, speaking into a cell phone. A light goes on upstairs, and the blinds of a large window rise. Standing in the window, Hannah Mitchell stares down at Fred, who feels a cold lump rising in his throat. He suddenly remembers the moments after his head struck the wall. He felt a presence; arms wrapping around him, engulfing him. For a moment, he’d thought the arms belonged to Chaplain—the final embrace of death.
The girl nods at Fred, and he knows he’s alive because of her. He spent his life listening to tales of shifter cruelty. Now his eyes are open to the truth.
An older man steps onto the porch as Kevin slips his cell phone in his pocket. They start talking, the older man pointing toward the wreckage.
Feet moving fast, Fred races into the shadows.
These people will be fine, he tells himself. He manages the flow of information, and that means he controls the message. He’ll report: the girl’s dead, and Saul Chaplain died an honorable death. Soon after, he’ll destroy every intelligence file the organization ever obtained, grab his daughter, and run.
