by N. R. Larry
Slowly, I looked from him to the brightly colored butterfly still perched on my shoulder. For a moment, everything I had been through was a distant memory. I looked back to Ty, my eyes widened in amazement. “This is Dorothy?” I held out my hand, and she landed in my palm. “That’s. Amazing.”
He nodded curtly. “Yeah, she’s a pan-shifter.” He leaned in closer. “Leave us for a sec, kiddo.”
She fluttered her wings and his eyes narrowed. “Just, go keep Cody company.”
At his words, she fluttered into the air, through a tiny divider that led into the cab of the truck, and vanished. I felt more alone almost right away. I glanced over at Ty, who had gone to pacing the length of the bed of the truck, stepping over whoever was bundled and moaning on the floor.
I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t find any words.
We’d ridden for what felt like five minutes or so when Ty finally cut his gaze over to me. He shook his head. “I’m so…” His voice broke. “I’m so sorry this happened to you on my watch.”
I narrowed my eyes slightly. “Where were you?” I asked, needing assurance that he had nothing to do with me being dumped in the woods.
He jerked his head to the side. “I went for a―” He punched the side of the truck, vibrating the bed, and leaving a deep dent in the metal. “Went for a run. I had no idea she would—” He broke off again, his face turning practically purple. He glanced sidelong at me, and then rushed toward the truck’s cab. He banged on it. “Hey, Cody. Pull over.”
“Cody?” I hugged myself and retreated into the corner. “Cody was there.” I closed my eyes. “He was there.”
“I know,” Ty said in a tight voice as the truck shuddered to a stop. “He’s paying for it.”
Before I could respond, the back of the truck rolled up, letting in the silver glow of a distant moon. Cody stepped into the light. I gasped at the sight of him.
“Lawrence.” He looked down at his feet. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to go along with it. I was…”
“Don’t speak to her,” Ty said in a harsh voice.
Cody nodded. He was still the same young shifter I’d treated, only his left arm had been ripped from his body, and there was a still healing claw mark over his right eye.
“I brought you something,” Ty said.
I forced my gaze back to him. He was hefting the bundle on the floor over his shoulder. Thick legs kicked in the air as Ty tossed it from the bed of the truck and to the side of the road. He turned to me and offered a hand.
I glanced up at him.
When I didn’t take his hand right away, he winced. I bit down on my lip. “I’m sorry,” I said.
He grunted. “You have nothing to apologize for.” He turned and leaped from the truck, and then waved me forward. “Come on.”
After a second’s hesitation, I lowered myself. Ty nodded at the bright butterfly, and she fluttered off, sailing toward the silver moon.
I cleared my throat. “Where is she going?” I managed to ask.
“Home,” Ty said, dragging the bundle into the dry dirt by the side of the road. I stared at them both, as Ty forced whoever it was to his feet, and gripped the back of his neck.
“What is this?” I asked, hugging myself against the slight chill.
“This.” He snatched off the cloth covering the person’s face. “Is what I brought you.”
I stared down, and all the anger and hurt I’d felt in my recent past flooded me. It made my skin buzz with hatred. My legs propelled me forward as if on their own accord. I leaned forward, and Officer Brandy sneered at me.
“You looked better tucked away in my little cage,” he said in a rough voice.
I was about to respond when Ty snatched him from the ground and held him in the air with one hand. His entire body shook as his hand tightened over the skin of Officer Brandy’s throat. He trembled like there was something dangerous in him that he was almost afraid to let out.
Taking a deep breath, I closed the distance between us, and put my hand on his arm. “Put him down,” I said.
Ty’s grip tightened. Officer Brandy kicked his legs, trying to find purchase. His flesh turned a bruised purple.
“Ty,” I said, a little more sharply this time.
Officer Brandy crashed to the ground and rolled over. Ty was on top of him almost right away, jerking him to his knees. The officer laughed. “Yeah, you listen to this black bitch like a good little pup,” he said with a snarl. “You know what you are, boy? You’re a fucking race traitor.”
Ty smiled, and slowly pulled a huge blade from his side holster. He pressed it right up against Officer Brandy’s Adam’s apple. A thin line of blood streamed onto the blade.
Glaring down, Ty said, “If the race I’m betraying is full of people like you. I want nothing to do with it.” Slowly, he turned his head toward me. I would never forget how he looked at that exact moment. Broken, yet strong. Ruthless, yet kind. Dangerous, yet safe. Most of all, vulnerable. His eyes were open and almost childlike.
It melted the hardness around my heart. Made me feel as light as air.
“What do you want done with him?” he asked.
I found it hard to look away from those eyes. If he had asked me, even a second sooner, what I wanted done with him, the answer would have been too easy. “Why did you bring him here?”
“Gloria. She told me what she walked in on. And the thought of him…” Ty’s grip tightened on him once again. Then he laughed. It was a dark, bitter laugh. “The thought of him, thinking he has some kind of right to…” As he spoke, the further that blade dug into Officer Brandy’s flesh. “Can you believe we live in a world like that?” He coughed up another laugh, and then closed his eyes. “Just say the words, Lawrence. And I’ll make this right.”
The air around me seemed to tighten. I took in the officer, and my hatred made me dizzy. In only a few seconds I thought up a dozen tortures, each more humiliating than the last. Those thoughts scared the hell out of me.
I took in Ty. His anger. His rage. I didn’t want to think of what he was capable of doing. No, that wasn’t it. I knew what he was capable of doing. I took him by the arm and stared down at the officer.
“I think we can use him,” I finally said in a low voice. “Let’s take him home with us. We can figure it out from there.”
He lifted an eyebrow, his posture relaxed slightly. “Home?” he asked. “I thought after this, you’d go back to the Underground.”
I shook my head. “I thought I would too. But I can’t leave all those witches locked up like that. And I still have to get Katie, Zed, and Douglass out of that camp.” I started to turn back to the truck.
“I will never, ever help you, bitch,” Officer Brandy muttered.
I swept backward and lowered myself so that our noses were almost touching. I smiled at him. “Well then, you’re going to have a very, very rough time.” With that, I reared back and drove my elbow straight into his nose.
He wobbled on his knees and collapsed to the dirt. Breathing hard, I nodded at Cody, and then Ty.
“Come on,” I muttered. “I said I want to go home.”
Chapter 12
We had to ditch the truck along the side of the road and walk the mile and a half back to camp. More than once, Ty offered to carry me, but I couldn’t bring myself to let him. I was still carrying around a case of wounded dignity, so instead, they trailed behind me, Ty refused to let me walk behind them, and shoved Officer Brandy back and forth between the two of them.
My feet screamed at me to stop, but I pressed my lips together and kept walking. “Man,” I muttered, ignoring the cramping in my calves. “You know what I miss?” I glanced back at them.
“Things making sense?” Cody asked in a low voice.
I sort of smiled and shook my head. “Well, obviously that. I also miss cold beer. It used to be so easy to get. I’d get a case almost every night when I got home from work.”
�
�Mm,” Ty grunted. “That’s probably what I miss most about us pulling out of foreign trade.” He sighed. “Imported beer.”
My mouth watered. “German beer.”
He laughed. “A girl after my own heart.”
A cramp raced up my right leg. I stumbled and had to stop myself from toppling over. Ty raced up, grabbed my arm and held me upright. “Just let me help you,” he muttered, letting go of Officer Brady and shooting Cody a look. “You let the motherfucker go, I take your other arm.”
The rough edge in his voice both scared and thrilled me. It just scared Cody, who hadn’t looked up from his feet since we started out.
I sighed. “I don’t need your help,” I said, even though I made no move to take my arm from him.
“Not suggesting that you do. I want to help.”
I didn’t say anything for the rest of the walk. When the camp came into view in the distance, I almost cried my relief. People were gathered around, standing outside next to fires and their makeshift homes. Most of them I recognized. I noticed Adrian wasn’t anywhere in sight.
I didn’t want to know what Ty had done to her after seeing Cody, at least, I didn’t want to know yet.
Ty led me straight to Mrs. Sophie’s, who fussed over me like I was one of her grandkids. I sat on the couch and tried to get everyone to leave me alone. Ty had Cody carry bucket after bucket of steaming water into Mrs. Sophie’s bathroom. When everything started to settle, he gazed down at me and said, “We’ll leave you alone to wash up and get yourself sorted. Do you want anything to eat? Water?”
I shook my head. All I wanted ever since I saw the steam rising off that water was to sink down into it.
“Okay, I’ll have everyone leave you alone. Give you some privacy.”
Before he could move an inch, I reached out and grabbed his hand. He squeezed it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and then turned to peer down at me. “What?”
“I don’t want to be alone,” I said without looking right at him. “Please, don’t go.”
He stared at me with the same intensity I was coming to associate him with, and finally nodded. He snapped his fingers and Cody ran to his side. Ty lowered his head, muttered something to him I couldn’t make out, and Cody backed away, nodded, and then left.
Ty turned back to me. “You wanna…” He cleared his throat. “Get in the tub?”
Standing up, I nodded. He pointed down the dimly lit hall. “Okay, it’s right down—”
“I know where it is,” I said in a hushed voice.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Okay, I’ll wait for you to finish. I won’t leave. I’ll be right out here.”
I shook my head. “No, come with me. In there.”
His face flushed. “Isn’t that a little improper?”
I almost smiled as I sauntered down the hallway. Turning my head slightly. “You don’t have to watch me undress. I just really don’t want to be alone.” Without waiting for his response, I ducked into Mrs. Sophie’s bathroom. There were already lanterns lit in every corner. Seconds later, the door closed behind me.
I turned to Ty, who was facing the door, and this time, I did smile. “Thanks for this,” I said, stripping the blood and sweat soaked clothing off my body.
“Mm-hm,” he grunted.
I laughed. “It’s like you’ve never seen a naked woman before.” I crept toward the metal tub and tested it with one toe. It was steaming hot, the way I, and every other woman on the planet, liked it.
“Sorry for being raised right by my mother.”
I stared at his back as I gripped the sides of the tub and lowered myself slowly into the water. “I was only teasing.” I rested against the bottom of the tub and sighed. Every tension in my muscles seemed to spill into the water. “Besides, I would never sniff around Adrian’s territory. I’ve seen how she’s handled it.”
He snorted at that. “There’s no way I could…” He balled his hands into fists. “No way I could ever be with someone that would do something like that.” He turned his head slightly. “You have to know how sorry I am.”
I was too relaxed and happy to be out of that cramped cage to feel the anger I might have otherwise felt. “I know you are,” I said in a soft voice. “Come. Come sit by me.”
He hesitated for a moment, but I had the feeling he wouldn’t deny me anything that night. Finally, he turned around, his eyes still directed at the floor. It was fun to see him like this. Shuffling closer and closer, he grabbed a bench in the corner and slid it to the side of the tub. He glanced at it, and then looked to me. I nodded my encouragement and he sat down.
Clearing his throat, he asked, “Feeling better?”
I nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
He scoffed. “It’s the least I could do.”
I leaned my head against the side of the tub, and we locked gazed. “Why does she hate me so much?”
His eyes flashed with anger, and once again I was both scared and thrilled. “Her reasoning is obviously faulty. But that’s a question for you to put to her.”
My eyes widened slightly. “She’s still here?”
He nodded. “It’s up to you to decide what to do with her.”
I frowned. “Does she still have all her parts?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re feeling bad for Cody?”
“Aren’t you?”
“He still has three limbs when in animal form. That’s more than most people get out of life.”
I glanced down in the water. “You went too far.”
He made a sound that crossed between laughter and grunting. “He went too far. For a man to dishonor a woman in such a cowardly way…”
I glanced up in time for him to make a fist in his lap. “He’s lucky his ass still has a home. Adrian too.”
I started tracing patterns in the water. “Why do they still have a home?”
“Say the word and they won’t.”
I lifted an eyebrow at the sureness in his voice. “You’d do that to family for a stranger?”
He stared at me. “Not exactly.”
The air charged between us, and I had to look away to get the pounding of my heart under control. Finally, in a breathless voice, I asked, “Can I ask you something, Ty?”
“Sure as shiftin’.”
I smiled over at him. “Where do we know each other from’?”
His face fell, and then he answered with a smile so bright I gasped almost against my will. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, that smile. “Miss Kincaid. That’s hardly fair.”
I shrugged, and batted my eyelashes at him, hardly able to believe I was actually flirting. I could hardly remember what flirting was. “I know, but you can’t blame me for trying.”
Without blinking, he leaned forward, still smiling that disarming smile. “Try to remember back to before all the shit hit the fan. When the Party was still struggling to take power.”
I nodded. It was a hard time to remember because it always dealt a hard blow to my heart, but I did. “When you could still get beer whenever you wanted.”
He pointed and nodded. “Damn right. Well, I didn’t grow up in Birmingham, you know.”
I shook my head. “Didn’t know.”
“So, when I got here, all I heard about at school was the downtown shifter scene.”
Right away, I knew what he was talking about.
“One night I went to check it out and headed to Linn Park.”
I laughed and clapped my hands. “Oh, I remember hanging out there almost every weekend. It would drive my mother nuts.”
He gave me a lopsided grin. “Anyway, I got pulled into fighting this real asshole of a shifter. Dude could turn into a bear, thought he was hot shit.”
All at once, the memory came flooding back. “Oh, my God. You were the guy that kicked Brick’s ass!” I laughed. “Ugh, everyone hated that guy.”
“And yet, everyone bet on him. It ma
de me feel like shit, but I figured it was a new guy thing.” He winked at me. “Only, there was one person. One outspoken witch, that put up a week’s allowance on me.”
I closed my eyes. I could still smell the beer and hear the plastic cups crunching under everyone’s feet. “And I took you for ice cream after.” I opened my eyes. “I remember bitching to my girlfriend’s for a week because I forgot to get your number.”
He laughed. “Well, I didn’t have a phone anyway.”
I lifted my eyebrows, having fun getting lost in memory. “Who the hell didn’t have a phone in those days?”
He waved me off. “Long story, and part of why I never really fit in.” He leaned an elbow on his knee, and then propped his head on his fist. “So, you would have called me?”
I nodded. “Oh yeah.” I laughed. “It was weird because I’d never been attracted to…uh…” My eyes widened and I covered my mouth.
He chuckled. The sound was deep and warm enough to want to jump into. “What?” He wagged his eyebrows. “A white boy?”
My cheeks burned. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” he said in an obviously teasing voice. He grabbed his chest. “Love has no color.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Right. And how many black women have you been with.”
He held up his fingers and began to count. As he lowered them, he nodded and said, “All of them. Yeah, all of my girlfriends have been black.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
He shrugged. “The heart wants what it wants.”
I laughed. “Ah, so you’re one of those white guys.”
He laughed. “One of what white guys?”
I shrugged. “You know… thinks they’re black. That kinda thing.”
He belted out laughter. “Wow. You really are an ass.”
“Hey.” I splashed him with water, and he froze, pressed his lips together, and wiped water droplets from his face.
Opening them, he said, “You don’t fight fair.”
I winked at him. “I sure don’t.” Hugging my knees harder to my chest. “I’m sorry. I know what that’s like. My whole life I got called an Oreo.”
