I couldn’t even put up a tough front. Her words did exactly what she’d hoped they would. They wrecked me.
“If you just stayed put like I told you—”
“It’s fine. We’re all fine,” Toshi said, slicing his hand through the air impatiently. “We need to focus on fighting the Awakened, not each other.”
Cass let out a grunt and stalked from the room, leaving me to stand on shaking legs in the center of the kitchen.
I turned toward Toshi, whose pale face was fixed in fury.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “She shouldn’t have told you that.”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it?”
I didn’t need him to answer. I already knew it was.
Tears stung my eyes as I launched myself at him, wrapping my arms around his waist in a bear hug.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that for me, but thank you,” I murmured, breathing in his scent and soaking in the warmth of his body.
It was cheesy, sure, but this was the first time ever that someone had put my life before their own and, I had to admit, I was choked up about it. I held on tight and, soon, his arms slid around my shoulders and he rested his cheek against my hair.
We stood like that for a long time until one of the floorboards creaked and we jerked apart.
Alex stepped into the room and I felt my face flushing.
“Hey, Alex. Glad to see you’re okay,” I murmured.
He nodded and eyed me up and down. “And you’re in one piece as well. Nice.”
He turned his attention to Toshi. “We need to bounce. A faction of mutts reached out from Arizona. We’re thinking we should have a meet-up there, assess the situation, see how many there are of us left and join forces. We’re too vulnerable with just the four of us. What do you say?”
Toshi nodded. “Agreed. How, though? That’s a lot of ground to cover and obviously, anything where they need a record of our travel is out of the question.”
A slow grin spread over Alex’s face. “One step ahead of you.”
Twenty minutes later, the four of us and our bags were packed into a stolen lime green Camaro with orange flames licking the sides of it. Apparently, the Hummer had been one of the casualties of war.
“I still think you could’ve found something a little more noticeable,” Cass said dryly, flipping her long curls over one shoulder. “What, were there no hearses available? Or maybe you could’ve jacked a tank?”
“Ah, c’mon. If we get stopped, I know you can sweet-talk any officer into letting us go,” Alex said, tweaking one of her curls. To my stunned surprise, she just blushed and playfully slapped his hand away.
They continued to banter as we got into the car—Cass and Alex in the front, Toshio in the back with me—but I was deep in thought. Wisconsin was one thing, but Arizona was so far. For some reason, I didn’t want to go.
You know the reason, dummy.
My father.
Ever since Toshi had told me about my dad, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to see him, face to face. I had no idea what I would say, but damn it, I deserved the chance to say it.
“I don’t want to go to Arizona,” I piped up.
The chitchat stalled as they all looked at me.
Cass let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, that’s rich. The newbie kills a couple bad guys and now she gets to put her two cents in?”
“Why not, Marti?” Toshi asked, his eyes full of concern.
“My dad is in Chicago, isn’t he?”
I hated letting anyone see me this vulnerable, especially Cass, but my stomach was starting to cramp more with each mile we covered and I needed to at least try. Besides, with my gran now gone… I swallowed hard against the burning in my throat. If my dad was still alive, he was all I had.
“We’re not sure. He might be,” Alex said slowly.
“Well, I feel like I need to look for him. And plus, you guys said he was so great. Maybe he can help us?”
The others were silent and, for a minute there, I thought they were just going to ignore me. But then Toshi reached out and gave my hand a squeeze that warmed me straight to the core.
“He would be a huge asset. There’s a small group of mutts in Wisconsin. What do you all think if maybe we stop there first, see who we can recruit, and then head south as a convoy?”
I was a hundred percent sure Cass was going to shoot it down out of spite, but once more to my shock, she and Alex murmured their agreement.
I settled back in my seat with a sigh of relief.
It took me a full ten seconds to realize that my fingers were still laced with Toshi’s…and I didn’t let go.
Chapter Eight
The next four hours passed in a haze. As we drove, everything sort of looked the same. Farm after farm, rolling hills and long stretches between civilization. Seemed like we’d seen way more cattle than people, which was a good thing, given the car we were in.
I’d spent the whole trip worrying we’d get pulled over for driving such an outlandish stolen car, but our luck held. I guess the police either weren’t too active or maybe just not that interested in a beat-up crazy car up here in cheese country. Couldn’t say I blamed them.
By the time we pulled up to what looked like an old log cabin, we were all itching to get out and stretch our legs. No matter how stiff my muscles were, though, I couldn’t help but recall how my hand felt when Toshi had been holding it.
I curled my fingers into a fist as if I could capture the feeling there and hopped out of the car.
“Oh, good.” Alex glanced around at the landscape that was dotted with farm animals. “I was just thinking, ‘You know what I haven’t seen in a while? Cows,’” he deadpanned.
The rest of us chuckled, and began gathering what few things we had.
“This is the address, but it’s awfully quiet,” Toshi mused as he slung a backpack over one broad shoulder.
“Of course it is,” a voice from the forest-line a few yards away called. “We’re not exactly trying to broadcast our location.”
A pretty, young woman stepped out onto the thick branch of a silver birch tree about thirty feet off the ground. She calmly slid an arrow back into her quiver before looping her arm through her long bow and bestowing a smile on us.
“I’m Gina.”
She was around twenty, with long, raven hair and dazzling smile. I was just about to look and see if Toshi had noticed how pretty she was when she leapt gracefully from the bow. A gasp broke from my lips as she plummeted to the ground, but at the last second, seven feet of glorious, inky-black wings shot out from behind her. She flapped once and settled onto the ground with the grace of a ballerina. The gleaming plumage retracted in an instant, and a second later, she was just a girl again.
A really pretty girl who could also fly.
If I wasn’t filled with such childlike awe, I might have hated her for a second.
“Awesome,” Alex said with a grin. “I’ve never seen a harpy in person.”
A harpy. I filed that info away to ask about later. I might be in constant mortal peril, but life with this group was for sure never boring.
Everyone exchanged hellos and Gina was just leading us toward the entrance of the cabin when another woman stepped out into the dusk. She was more muscular than Gina, almost with the compact build of a gymnast, and several years older. She lifted a hand in greeting.
“This is Clara, everyone,” Gina said.
I liked her on the spot. She exuded a calm that made me feel instantly at ease, and I couldn’t help but smile at her. I tried to guess what type of shifter she was, and sniffed the air.
Strange. She smelled familiar, but not. I still wasn’t sure on the whole protocol thing, but what the hell. I could always plead newbie.
“What are you?” I blurted.
She chewed her lip as if considering how to answer that. “I’m a mutt’s mutt,” she said with a wink. “Part naga and part dragon.”
Even Cass stopped short at that,
and stared at Clara. “So can you fly as well?”
“I can, yes. But there’s not really enough room with all the trees in this area. My wing span is...well, let’s just say it’s wide.”
It was probably for the best. Something told me my heart had gotten all the shocks it could take and I was pretty sure it would literally explode if I saw real life friggin’ dragon.
“Come on, let’s go inside.” Clara led us as a unit into the cabin. “We’d heard there were others close, and we’d considered coming to you, but this is better, I think,” she said, waving us through the door.
“Thanks so much for allowing us in. I know it’s risky to open your home to strangers like this,” Toshi said, setting his backpack on the floor in the living room.
“Home might be a bit of a stretch,” Clara said with a grin. “We’ve been on the move and only just got here a few days ago ourselves. We’d been thinking of strengthening our forces anyway, so this is perfect.” She moved with a confidence that I envied, and settled onto a worn couch, gesturing us all to join her in the seating area, where there were two chairs and a loveseat. “Hey Gina, can you grab us some waters, please?”
Gina didn’t hesitate, bustling into the kitchen to do Clara’s bidding.
Despite the fact that the harpy had been the one to meet us at the door, so to speak, she’d clearly just been assigned security watch, because there was no question who was in charge here.
Clara leaned up in her seat, her gazing flicking over each one of us. “I can sense the other shifters, but you?” She cocked her head and regarded me curiously. “Wolf?”
I nodded, suddenly nervous to be the focus of this woman’s full attention. “Yes.”
“But new, right? You’re hard to scent.”
“I just found out a couple days ago, so it’s been an adjustment.”
“Wow...and you had no idea before that?”
The whole room swung their attention in my direction and my cheeks went molten hot.
“I didn’t,” I said with a shrug.
“I always knew,” she murmured, settling into the cushions more firmly as her bright green eyes took on a faraway look. “I always felt it inside me, from the first time I could remember. Like a second pulse. If no one had told me or taught me how to shift, I think I’d have wound up in the loony bin,” she admitted with a wry smile. “So how are you handling it so far?”
I thought about lying and saying it was a piece of cake just to keep up the guise of polite conversation, but some parts of me hadn’t changed a bit.
“Pretty shittily, to be honest.”
Toshi’s lips twitched into a dimpled smile and Clara laughed out loud.
“I’m not so hot at shifting yet,” I admitted. “It takes me too long, and I still need to work on trusting my instincts. Apparently, I’ve made some questionable judgment calls.”
Cass let out a snort of derision from where she sat on the far side of the sofa we shared (Toshio and Alex had snagged the chairs, and Clara sat on the loveseat, leaving Cass and me to sit as far apart as we could on the same couch.)
I pressed on. “That said, I want to learn and my heart is in the right place.”
Unlike some people, I silently sent to Cass, then suddenly felt an unwelcome stab of guilt. After all, she had risked her life out there, and she had agreed to let me try to find my dad even though she’d given him up for dead.
I was drawn out of my musing by Clara’s slow nod, her eyes seeming to search my face for the truth of my words before she replied.
“I can see that.” She bestowed me with an encouraging smile that felt oddly like a gift, and I returned it without reservation.
Gina came back into the room, arms laden with water bottles. She launched one at Alex with a quick “Heads up!” before turning in a semi-circle and tossing us each a drink. She sat down again next to Clara and crossed her legs. “So what’s the plan? You guys staying for a while? Or are we all going with you?”
Cass frowned and craned her neck to peer around the tiny room. “Who are ‘we all’? I don’t know where you’re from but where we come from, “all” means more than two.”
The large, calico housecat that had been skulking around the room suddenly shot up onto the sofa between Cass and me, and, right before our eyes, morphed into a guy.
“What am I, invisible?”
“Holy shit!” I flinched back as he grabbed one of the couch cushions to cover his naked lap. “You guys are going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”
“Everyone, meet Weston,” Clara said with a chuckle. “Hence, the ‘all of us’ statement.”
Weston waved both his hands in our general direction and for once, Cass and I seemed in perfect agreement as we looked from his gorgeous face to one another, grinning.
Weston was seriously hot. Not to mention wearing only a strategically placed throw pillow.
I glanced over at Alex and Toshio to see them wearing twin looks of disapproval and swallowed a smile.
Weston turned his attention to Clara. “I think I’ve found it,” he said, tucking a stray lock of longish, copper-colored hair behind one ear. “Can we go outside and talk for a sec?”
Clara considered the request for a second and then shook her head slowly. “I don’t think we need privacy. Say it with all of us here. My instincts are telling me this is all exactly as it should be. Do you feel it?” she asked, eyeing him questioningly.
His brow wrinkled and he shrugged. “You know me, I’m all about what I can see and smell. But if your gut is telling you we’re good, then I’m with you, always.”
She gestured for him to continue but he held up a finger.
“One sec, let me get my maps so you can see what I mean.”
He snagged the crocheted afghan from the back of the sofa, wrapped it around him in a swift move that revealed nothing, then tossing back the throw pillow, jogged lightly from the room.
While he was gone, the rest began making small talk about our trip, and our fight the other night with the Awakened’s henchmen.
I, on the other hand, mostly stared at Toshio. He was finally starting to lose his pallor after saving me, but he would never get the piece of his tail back. It was sort of bittersweet. He’d lost something, but I wonder if he knew he’d also gained something too.
A true friend and my undying gratitude. I couldn’t deny it. He might have stolen me from home, but he’d done something else for me no one else had ever done and the thought of it still choked me up.
Not to mention, he was a balls-to-the-wall, bona fide hottie.
Weston came back in, fully dressed, arms laden with maps and a Sharpie poking out of his mouth. “An u lear aw a able?” he muttered around the marker.
We all stared at him silently and he rolled his eyes. “A able? Lear ich aw?”
“He wants us to clear off the table!” I shouted, throwing up my arms in triumph.
Out of nowhere, a crushing sadness rolled over me like a train and I lowered my arms, wrapping them around my waist. Gran and I used to do that whenever one of us solved the puzzle on Wheel of Fortune. Throw our arms up in celebration and shout it out. One of my better memories of her. Since the show came on early in the evening, the drinking had only just begun for the day, and she was at her most attentive and sweet. I liked to think of that version of her as ‘Real Gran’. The grandmother she would’ve been if she hadn’t lost her daughter and become an addict.
For the first time, I imagined her suffering at that and a bit of heavy sadness cut through the anger in my heart that I’d held for years.
I sensed someone looking at me and turned to find Clara watching me through hooded eyes. She tipped her head in some sort of grim acknowledgement that I didn’t quite understand as the others rushed to clear the clutter of half-used candles and paper plates off the table.
Weston laid a few of the maps on the floor and then plucked up one, which he spread over the coffee table. He unplugged the marker from his lips and shook his h
ead in disgust. “Let’s just hope you guys are better at orienteering than you are at playing ‘Sound it Out’.”
Cass let out a giggle and I wheeled around to look at her in surprise. I hadn’t heard a sound like that come out of her, ever. It had been so youthful and sweet and...normal.
She caught me staring and raised her lip in a half-snarl, eyes narrowing, which gave me an odd sense of comfort. With so many things changing around me by the minute, it was nice to have that one constant.
I actually felt one side of my mouth lift in a smile before turning my attention back to the group.
“Okay,” Weston was saying as he bent over the table. “So we’re looking at a map of Milwaukee proper, right now. There have been rumors of ancients in the area and I’ve been online monitoring for any strange power surges there, especially at night. I think I’ve managed to pin down the location of a faction of the Awakened to this one-mile square area. It’s a bit of a Hail Mary, because it’s still a lot of ground to cover, but with all of us, and a couple dogs in the mix with excellent sniffers,” he jerked his head toward me and Cassandra, “I think we can pin them down.”
Toshi leaned forward and stared long and hard at the map. “We’re going to take the battle to them, then? Is that wise?”
“It’s necessary right now,” Clara said, a note of finality in her tone. Gina murmured her agreement as Cass and Alex shot one another a look.
“Shouldn’t we wait until there are more of us? Go to Arizona first, build our forces?” he asked.
“If we had the time, we would. But we don’t.” Clara stood quickly and offered a clipped nod to Weston. “Good job on the recon, Wes. Let’s make it happen. Tomorrow night, midnight.”
She stalked out of the room and, a second later, the front door slammed shut.
The silence that followed was short-lived as everyone began talking at once and planning. Still new and unsure of myself, I had nothing to offer, and couldn’t help peering out the window wondering why Clara had left so abruptly.
Mutts Like Me Page 6
