“Yeah. Zach is injured. Someone has to keep an eye on him. And this way, you won’t get into trouble.”
“Zach’s going to be fine. I checked this morning. He doesn’t need me, you do.”
“What if there’s fallout? I don’t want it landing on you.”
Gabe shrugged. “Then there’s fallout. But I’m not letting my commander go out alone. We’re team, right?”
“Yeah, we are.” Daz nodded. “Maybe this won’t take long. We’ll hike into the mountains, locate the plane, and get the hell out.”
“Yep, maybe that’s what will happen,” Gabe said.
But Daz knew it was never that easy.
Chapter Five
Daz stayed in the bed long enough to ensure Renee was sound asleep. Her arm was still tucked carefully against her chest. He was going to have to wrap that shoulder and immobilize the arm when she woke up. But, right now, the best thing she could do was rest.
Outside, he heard the storm still howling, the cracking of breaking trees, and the rustle of leaves blowing. But the sounds were muted, telling him none of the damage was near the house. He felt around the bedroom for his clothes and dressed in the dark. He needed to feed the fire. As he opened the bedroom door, the hallway lights flickered and went dead. There went the power.
Renee’s dogs slept in the same place as earlier, near the warmth of the fireplace. They were no dummies. He petted one of them and the dog let out a happy sigh. Daz added wood to the fire and settled down in front of the fireplace with a piece of paper from the printer. What to make? Not another bear. A dog, he decided. He let his mind go blank and his hands remembered what to do.
He’d picked up origami as a child, when his father was stationed in Japan. There had been a lot of downtime one summer when his mother was occupied with her latest pregnancy. He’d been too young to go out by himself, like his older sisters, but too old to need a babysitter. So he’d been left on his own to find entertainment. Maybe he could teach origami to Charlie, though he wondered if the kid had the patience for that.
What a day. He’d gone from almost losing Renee and Charlie to making love to Renee. Now he just had to make this work with her going forward. The hard part was over, right? She’d already taken him back to her bed.
He put the completed origami dog on the fireplace mantel.
“Dad?”
He turned. Charlie stretched his arms wide and yawned. Crap. Renee had been right to worry he wouldn’t sleep through the night.
“Hey, bud, what’s up?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You and the cat seemed pretty cozy,” Daz said.
“Oh, Odin? He said he was warm and comfy and he told me I could get up but he wasn’t going to move. He said my blanket was soft.”
“I’m sure it is soft.” There was the talking-to-animals thing again.
“Want to sleep in your bed now?” Daz asked. “I’ll read you a story.”
“I’m wide awake. I have energy!” Charlie bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.
“What do you usually do when you wake up at night?” Daz asked.
“I watch TV or sometimes play on my computer.” Charlie pointed to his kid-size desk in the corner.
Daz supposed he could turn on the generator. But he didn’t think a video game was a good idea this late at night. Too stimulating. “No can do. Power’s out. What else?”
“What? I need that computer!” Charlie clenched his hands into fists.
Talk about going from zero to sixty in no time flat. “Easy. Let’s sit on the couch together and play a game.”
Charlie reluctantly trudged to the couch. “What kind of game?”
“My mom used to play the ‘who can be quietest the longest’ game with us.”
Charlie shook his head. “That’s a dumb game. I want my computer.”
“What’s so important on the computer?”
Charlie launched into a long, rambling story about the pet avatar he had on the computer, including some on a website he’d designed, and the names of all the cats and kittens he’d collected and… Daz lost track of it. Charlie’s words were all jammed together, almost as if his mouth couldn’t keep up with how fast his words wanted to get out.
That was incredibly wound up for Charlie. “Whoa, slow down, okay?”
“I said, I want to search out one of the rare ones, a tortoiseshell cat. I even have a name for her. Elf.”
Daz nodded, since agreement seemed the wisest course. “So how long have you been doing this?”
“Oh, a while. Like I said, sometimes I wake up and do it while Mom’s asleep. I’m not allowed but I do it anyway.”
Renee would be appalled. She claimed Charlie was so much better when he slept through the night.
“I really need to see my cats.” Charlie’s voice rose and Daz could see the frustration rising again.
“But you have a real cat now. Why did you name him Odin?”
Charlie blinked, distracted. “I named him Odin because it goes with Thor and Loki. In the stories, Odin’s the dad of Thor and Loki and can boss them around. I told Odin and he liked that, though he said that wasn’t really his name. He called himself Great Hunter or something.”
“Great Hunter?”
“He caught a muskrat once.”
“That is pretty great.”
And they were back to Charlie’s insistence that animals talked to him. God, Daz thought, he was in over his head. He wondered if it was possible Charlie could truly talk to animals. After all, Beth Nakamora, who co-ran the Phoenix Institute, was a telepath who talked to people with her mind. Humans were a kind of animal. But according to everything the Phoenix Institute had been able to uncover, telepaths were extremely rare and there were no records of any who could talk to animals.
A lot of kids must imagine they could talk to animals. Why should Charlie be any different, especially since Renee’s dogs seemed to practically read Renee’s mind? Yeah, telepathy was real, but what were the odds that his son could do it? Not freakin’ likely.
“I’m hungry,” Charlie announced.
“Sure, we’ll get you something to eat.” Great. That he could do.
“I want ice cream!”
Charlie bolted into the kitchen. No wonder Renee had lost him outside in the yard. The kid was fast.
“Are you supposed to have ice cream for dinner?” Would sugar in the middle of the night add to Charlie being hyper or would it fill him up and allow him to sleep?
“Well, I’m supposed to have power so I can have my computer. Obviously, I can’t always do what I’m supposed to do.”
“All right, fine, ice cream.” Fine. Charlie had almost died today. He deserved a treat.
“Let’s see what we have but choose quick because we can’t keep the fridge open with the power out.”
The freezer contained two snack cups of two different kinds of ice cream. “So butter pecan or coffee?”
Charlie stuck his whole face into the freezer.
“I hate those! I told Mom I hate ’em but she bought them anyway.”
He stomped away.
“Have you ever tried them?” Daz asked.
“I don’t want to try them! I want black raspberry or chocolate.”
“Hey, c’mon,” Daz cajoled. “I understand coffee, that’s a grown-up taste but butter pecan is awesome.” Daz offered the cup to Charlie.
Charlie smacked the cup away, screamed and threw himself on the floor. “I need chocolate ice cream! I need my computer! I need my pets!” He started banging his head against one of the cabinets while kicking the floor.
Holy shit.
Daz grabbed his son and pulled the boy back against his chest to keep him from hurting himself. He took a deep breath so he sounded calm. “Chill, Charlie. We’ll get more ice cream tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to calm down. I don’t want tomorrow. You’re mean, just like Mom.”
His son squirmed and thrashed. Little feet smacked against Daz’s shins and ankles. Charlie’s head bashed into his chest and his elbows dug into Daz’s gut.
“You’re mean. I want ice cream. I want my computer.”
He screamed again and shut his eyes tight, still thrashing.
Renee had described Charlie’s fits. But her description had been far too mild for the reality. His son’s face was utterly blank, his eyes were shut tight, and he was moaning and groaning as if in terrible pain.
Daz had held grown men captive with less effort than he held his thrashing son. Charlie bucked, screamed, arched his body and kicked out at everything. And Daz didn’t want to hold him tighter because it might hurt his son.
He’d thought nothing could terrify him more than being Rasputin’s prisoner. But this did. He was utterly helpless against this onslaught. How did he help? How did he stop it?
Daz whispered into Charlie’s ear, promising to get the right ice cream tomorrow, promising the power would be back on soon, but there was no response. Charlie punched out in another attempt to get away and Daz had to tighten the hold on his wrists. At this rate, the kid was going to really hurt himself. Shit.
Sure, Charlie got upset temporarily now and then but he always calmed down once he got what he wanted. And Daz made sure to get him that fast, because Renee claimed Charlie had a bad temper. But he’d never expected anything like this. One of the dogs padded into the kitchen and licked Charlie’s face. The thrashing subsided.
“That tickles, Thor,” Charlie said in a normal voice.
Thor lay on the floor next to them and put his head on Charlie’s knee. Charlie’s breathing started to return to normal. Daz loosened his hold on his son’s wrists. Please, let there not be bruises on them. His hands were slick with sweat. He took a deep breath, more sweat pouring down his back. He felt like a wrung-out dishrag.
How often, he wondered, did these fits happen?
“Good dog.” Charlie scratched Thor’s ears. “Thanks.”
“What did he do?” What did the dog know that Daz didn’t?
“He spoke inside my head and reminded me I was being silly,” Charlie said.
“And that worked better than me talking to you?”
“Well, yeah.” Charlie scooted away from him. “You talk to me outside my head. Thor talks to me inside my head.”
“I see.” Daz stood, wary. Charlie seemed calm now but he’d seemed calm before his fit too.
“I still want ice cream or my computer, though.”
“I got that part loud and clear.”
Charlie went back to hugging Thor. Daz was afraid to make any move, worried he might set off another fit.
He’d thought he’d taken Charlie’s quirks seriously, as Renee insisted, and kept him on a schedule, never sprang surprises on him, ever. Plus, whatever Charlie asked for, Daz got it for him. He didn’t see his son enough; he wasn’t going to deprive him when he did.
He’d no idea how over-the-top Charlie’s fits could be.
Renee had insisted they were like toddler fits only exponentially worse but Daz hadn’t believed they could be this bad. It was normal for kids to get pissed off. He’d thought Charlie was just quick-tempered and could yell and scream too much. He knew about the autism diagnosis but he’d wondered if the doctor could be wrong, if Charlie was going through a phase, and he’d thought Charlie would grow out of it.
He’d thought wrong. Not until just now had he understood the full scope of the problem. He was six-foot-four. His son was a skinny, four-foot-tall kid. And yet, it had taken nearly all he had to hold him during that fit.
No wonder Renee wanted the school to test Charlie and classify him as special ed. Daz had thought she was being overprotective, overreacting and, dammit, he knew Charlie. His son couldn’t be a special-ed kid.
Daz sat down next to Charlie and put his elbows on his knees. Fuck. He was shaking. He scratched the dog’s ears. That seemed to help.
“Does Thor calm you down often?” Daz asked.
“Yeah.” Charlie said. “He’s nice.”
“Not Loki?”
“Loki says he hates the yelling.” Charlie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He’s not very nice to me sometimes.” Charlie patted Thor again. “But I don’t scare Thor. He’s always nice.”
“And what about Odin?” Daz asked.
“Oh, he’s a cat. He probably wouldn’t care. Cats are like that.”
Despite the situation, Daz almost laughed. “Good to know.”
“Up again, Charlie?” Renee asked, coming into the kitchen.
Somehow, she’d managed to put on her sweats, even with the injured shoulder. When he left her sleeping, Renee’s face had been peaceful and relaxed. Now, it was back to that tense, closed look she’d worn for most of the past year. Daz had thought she had been angry with him.
But now he guessed her distraction was a result of dealing with Charlie on a daily basis.
“Sorry to wake you,” Daz said.
“It’s okay.” She knelt next to Charlie. “How you doing?”
Charlie looked away from her.
“That bad, huh?” She ruffled his hair. “Let’s get some melatonin so you rest, okay?”
Charlie stiffened again. “I want ice cream.”
Daz tensed. No, not again.
“If you get up off the floor and sit quiet, you can have some saltine crackers and peanut butter,” Renee said. “If you take the melatonin with it.”
“Okay. Fine.” And just like that, Charlie trudged over and sat at the kitchen table.
Peanut butter and crackers. Huh. Daz would have to remember that. He stood up and told Renee he’d get the food. She sat at the table across from Charlie, asking him questions about Odin.
While they talked, Daz fixed the snack, using his flashlight for light. He kept one eye on Charlie, ready to grab him in case another fit started. But, so far, so good.
He gave Charlie the plate of crackers. His son dove right in.
“Thanks,” Renee said. “And for getting up with him.”
“No problem, I was already awake.”
He went to add a log to the fire, using the time to gather his thoughts. The work also steadied his hands. Damn. What was really going on inside his son’s head when this happened?
He supposed Charlie could be just being a brat, but that didn’t fit because he was well-behaved ninety-five percent of the time. Daz had been around bratty kids. They acted horribly all of the time. It wasn’t something you could turn on and off. Plus, deep in the middle of the fit, Charlie had seemed completely unaware of what he was doing, where he was and who he was. His screams for ice cream or his computer had morphed into just plain screams and inarticulate yelping.
How long would the fit have lasted if Thor hadn’t come over? And if this scared him, how scared was Renee all the time? She was shorter and far lighter than he was. How did she manage to hold on to Charlie and keep him from hurting himself when he was like this?
No wonder she worried so much when Charlie was out of her sight. No wonder she’d not wanted to wake their son tonight. He turned to look over at the kitchen table, which was visible at the far end of the living room.
Charlie and Renee had their heads together, whispering. Charlie was smiling. Smiling? After all that? What kind of magic did Renee have to shift his mood so fast?
Renee must have noticed the scrutiny because she raised her head and met his gaze. “Daz, could you turn on our generator so the food in the fridge doesn’t spoil?”
“Sure. Tell me where your switch is.”
“Does that mean I can use the computer?” Charlie asked.
“No,” Renee said. “Because we can’t afford to waste the gas in t
he generator on anything nonessential. Do you want to keep the food from spoiling or play your game?”
“Play the game!”
“Hah. You say that now but when the milk for your cereal is spoiled, you won’t like that,” she said.
“Oh.” Charlie frowned. “Maybe.”
“If you can stay calm now, we’ll talk about using the computer in the morning,” she said.
Charlie sighed. “Okay.”
Reassured that Charlie was going to stay calm, Daz went to the garage, followed Renee’s instructions, and soon the chugging of a generator echoed from the side yard.
When he returned to the living room, Renee was settling Charlie on the couch.
“Can Thor sleep with me?” Charlie asked.
“Sure, if you think he’ll stay,” she said.
“He says it’s fine, that I’m nice and warm.”
“There you go, then.”
Thor jumped up to curl beside him while Renee brought a blanket from the bedroom and tucked them in.
“Is Odin still sleeping?” Charlie asked.
“He hissed at me and ran under the bed when I went to your room,” she said.
“He knows you don’t like cats, Mom.”
“Cats usually pick up on that, yeah.” She kissed his cheek. “Go to sleep, Charlie. Love you.”
After a stressful day, Renee had slept only an hour. Her shoulder had to be still killing her. Yet not for an instant had she panicked or lost her temper with Charlie. She’d even managed to say the right things to keep their son from throwing another fit.
“Okay.” Charlie closed his eyes. “Love you too.”
Renee tiptoed back into the kitchen, sat down and put her head in her hands. Daz stood behind her, his hand on her good shoulder, trying to soothe her. He wondered if he was doing any good at all.
“This wasn’t the first time you’ve done this, is it?” Daz asked. “Calmed Charlie down?”
“I wish,” she said, her voice muffled.
“Mom?”
Renee clenched her fist, her real sign of frustration. “Yes?”
“Can I have water?”
“Sure.”
Phoenix Inheritance Page 10
