Crocus

by Amy Lane

  Eamon cuffed Furman, who was still dazed and mumbling obscenities, and then pulled him to his feet and gave him to Percy.

  “Take him to Auburn and put him in jail—file charges against him in Placer County.”

  “Placer?” Larx asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest to disguise his shivering. “Why?”

  “Because it could be a big old jurisdictional mess,” Eamon said grimly. “We’re technically in Placer County, apprehending a solid citizen who was just looking for his daughter, and you know what? This guy could slip out of a loophole, given Colton County’s resources to hold an extended trial. I’m giving him to Placer and keeping the girls so they can maybe go back to school with their friends. That way he’s far out of their lives. You like?”

  Larx couldn’t follow it all. “I think it’s a start,” he said, shaking harder with adrenaline. “Eamon, is this… is this normal?” If he hadn’t just thought the room was overheated, he could swear it was freezing.

  Eamon grunted. “Son, you’re going into shock. This has been one hell of a day for you, hasn’t it?”

  Larx nodded, still shaking. I want Aaron, he thought disconsolately. I want him so bad.

  “Okay—go fetch your coat, fetch the girl, and we’ll head back. I understand they’re holding a cot at the hospital just for you.”

  Larx’s eyes burned, tearing up and watering over. “Sounds awesome,” he muttered. “I’ll be right back.”

  Candace rode back with them in the SUV, devouring the extra burgers and fries that were still in the unit. She told them pretty much what they’d suspected between bites, including the extent of her outdoor training, which she recounted with justifiable pride.

  “I stayed warm all last night,” she said, mouth full. “I could have done it again tonight, but….” She bit her lip. “I got so hungry. Power bars may be good for you, but damn, they don’t keep you full. Not when you’re….” She looked away.

  “Candace, I’m pretty sure they won’t make you stay that way for long,” Larx said softly.

  She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “That would be…. I don’t want it. I hate it. I hate how it got there. I just… oh God. Mr. Larkin, last year, I was so worried about going to high school. I wanted to go to a dance with a boy so bad. And now? Now I just… I want to go to bed at night and not be afraid.”

  She broke down then, and Larx had Eamon pull to the side of the road so he could sit in back with her and hold her as she cried.

  She fell asleep on him, about an hour from Colton. Larx waited until he thought he could talk without sounding broken and called Yoshi.

  “Yosh? We found her. She’s… well, she’s okay, but—”

  “Not okay. I hear you. We got lots of that going around.”

  Larx closed his eyes. “Do you need me there? I….” I want to go see Aaron.

  “No. Tane and Berto came by for five minutes—long enough for Berto to hold his shit together and tell Jaime he was okay. I sent them to the hospital with a change of clothes for you so everybody else could stay in their jammies. We’ve got pizza, milk, and green vegetables. We’ll be fine.”

  Larx nodded. Good.

  “I’ll be at the hospital, then,” he said gruffly.

  “Good job, boss. Way to principal, since you can’t adult.”

  Larx chuckled—for some reason, that was way funnier than it should have been.

  “Larx?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You sound unhinged. Go sleep next to your boyfriend. It just… makes things better.”

  Larx couldn’t argue.

  He had a few more hours to go, though—it was dinnertime when Eamon finally left the police station to take Larx back to the hospital. In the interim they’d gotten Candace safely lodged with Colton County CPS, filed charges against Roy Furman for child endangerment, assault, and brandishing an unregistered firearm, and filed more charges against Marie Furman for child endangerment and abuse. The last Larx had seen of Candace and Shelley, they were holding each other tightly in the back of Carlene’s little Honda, on the way to their house so Candace could get some clothes to stay with a foster family.

  She’d hugged Larx before they’d taken her, and he’d hugged her back.

  “Tell Mr. Nakamoto I’m sorry,” she said. “I know he was trying to help me the other day, but I didn’t think he could.”

  Larx nodded. “He’s just glad to know you’re okay. He was really worried.”

  She’d cried a little more, and Larx wished fiercely for his own daughters.

  He’d get there.

  Right now he was just as happy to plod through the hospital with a bag of takeout in his hand as a parting gift from Eamon, and find Aaron’s unit.

  Aaron was sleeping, blond lashes fanning against his cheeks, full mouth pursed like he was working out a problem as he slept.

  Well, they were both too old to sleep like children.

  Larx slid out of his jacket and unlaced his boots, grimacing at the smell. Long, long day in last night’s socks. He found a canvas tote by the coat hook and blessed and cursed Yoshi at the same time. He’d been expecting to find his moccasins, because that made sense if you were sleeping in a hospital, right? Instead, he found Aaron’s moccasins, two sizes larger than Larx’s, and Yoshi’s Christmas gift to Larx the year before—Garfield slippers, because Larx’s inability to function without coffee in the mornings was legendary, even to his colleagues.

  Well, hell. He’d take ’em and be grateful.

  If you couldn’t laugh at Garfield after a day like today, you might as well cash it in.

  There were two pairs of sweats as well, and Larx looked about hurriedly for any nurses before changing into one of them and then shedding one hooded sweatshirt for the one in the bag. A shower in the morning—but right now, there was one thing he wanted, and one thing only.

  The cot next to Aaron’s bed was about two feet shorter than the bed itself, and that didn’t do Larx any good at all. With a sigh he swung his legs over and laid his head on Aaron’s mattress, running his finger gently over the back of Aaron’s hand.

  Aaron moved, stroking Larx’s hair back from his forehead.

  “Long day?” he breathed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me about it?”

  “Later.”

  “What’re you doing now?”

  “Staying here. With you.” Larx closed his eyes against the weak tears threatening to slip through.

  “Good.”

  He kept his eyes closed, but they escaped anyway.

  They kept falling until Larx fell asleep, Aaron’s hand moving gently in his hair the whole time.

  FRAGILE BEAUTY

  OLIVIA BALKED at putting Elton in her dad’s bed, but there was nowhere else for him to go.

  And nowhere else for her to go either.

  “I’ll change the sheets,” Christi offered, bags of exhaustion under her eyes.

  “Why would you need to change the…?” Sometimes Olivia felt really dumb next to her younger sister. Christi just regarded her with that little twist to her eyebrow that begged Livvy to catch up so she didn’t have to say anything that would make her feel bad. “Oh. Really?”

  Christi chuckled. “They’re super quiet about it, and we all pretend we don’t hear. But yeah. Happens more than you’d think.”

  Olivia thought about it—not the act, because ew!—but about her father. Over Christmas, he and Aaron had always touched—bumping hips, hands on shoulders, heads on chests. It hadn’t freaked her out—even if Larx hadn’t been very up-front about being bisexual and what that meant, her first year of college would have opened her eyes to a whole lot. In fact, she hadn’t noticed the touching much or thought about it—until this moment.

  “Does it ick you out?” Olivia asked, curious. Her family home had become an alien ship in the last year and a half. She was literally asking her little sister how she should feel about this newly co-captained vessel, because she had no reference fo
r herself.

  Christiana’s look was all scorn. “Oh my God—Livvy! He’s a grown man! Besides.” She bit her lip and looked around. “It’s… it’s comforting. The two grown-ups love each other. It’s, like, way better than he was with Mom.”

  And just like that, Olivia was smacked in the face with her greatest fear, the thing that had haunted her into gnawing depression, the thing that had dogged her every thought of the sweet young man currently dozing in front of the television downstairs.

  All her memories of her mother and father interacting were unpleasant—Dad would come home and go for a hug, and Mom would recoil and say things like “Get off me!” or “Geez, Larx, really? Now?”

  Olivia remembered the look on his face—muffled hurt—as he’d tried to laugh it off.

  Dad would bring home dinner—and her mother would cry because she took it as a criticism. He’d wash dishes to help out, and she’d yell that he was doing it wrong.

  He’d sit down to play with the girls, and she’d looked relieved and angry, like he should have been taking that burden from her shoulders all along.

  She never hugged them after day care or school, didn’t play with them or talk to them while she was getting dinner ready, and seemed to resent him for not being there, all the time, to do the thing she hated worst to do.

  He’d so loved giving hugs.

  She and Christiana would hang on him at night, sit on either side of him to watch television, sit in his lap and play on his phone. Sometimes he would fall asleep next to them after reading at night, holding them close.

  Her father had taught her how to feel safe—how to make touch safe. Her mother could have made her afraid, but her father, larger than life, charmed by her and Christi’s every burp, fart, and giggle, made hugs and held hands and ruffled hair a healthy part of her day. She hugged her girlfriends without a thought, kissed them on the cheek and didn’t worry about what it looked like. Held hands with boyfriends and platonic friends and new friends.

  Her first lover—the high school boy before Elton—had told her when they’d broken up that he’d miss the way she cupped his neck when they were talking. He said she made him feel important, and he would hold out for that, whatever his next relationship would be.

  Larx deserved someone who would touch him.

  The thought haunted her for the rest of the day.

  She let Christi change the sheets and went downstairs and tried to be responsible about making sure everybody had eaten and there was food in the fridge.

  Kellan and Kirby she knew—had grown to know better over Christmas vacation, when everybody mooched around the house and played Monopoly and held Destiny events on the game system.

  They were both very different—Kellan bouncy and restless in his body and guarded in his heart, and Kirby self-contained in his body but witty and cheerful in person. Together they seemed like brothers who should have been. They left each other alone when they needed it but could very easily play a game, watch a movie, or even tussle with the ginormous dog pretty much at the drop of a hat.

  They were spending some time outside with the dog—and with Jaime, her father’s personal stray—when she went downstairs.

  She grabbed a spare coat hanging on the pegboard by the sliding glass door and put her slippered feet into her father’s galoshes, which were sitting on the porch. The cold smacked her face a little, digging underneath what was probably Yoshi’s parka, but for the first time since the previous spring, she felt what it was like to be warm in the cold.

  “C’mon, Dozer—gonna get it! Gonna get it!” Kellan yelled, his short, powerful body literally springing up and down in the knee-deep snow. He waved a ball on a rope in front of the big blond dog, who barked in ecstasy whenever it swung near his face.

  “Dozer!” Kirby called. “Dozer—c’mon, buddy! You know you want it!” Kirby was standing about eight feet away, a big fake ham-flavored piece of rubber in his hand. The dog turned around and ran toward Kirby, tongue lolling, to see what new wonder this boy held for him.

  Jaime, who had been throwing a ball for the dog before Olivia came out, came tramping back toward the porch, shivering in a snow parka a little large for him and boots that looked just as large.

  “Warm up,” Olivia told him, smiling gently. The boy—all limpid eyes and frightened glances—looked cold and tired and out of place. Her father had taught her to project kindness—because that’s what he did as often as he could. “I think Christiana started some hot chocolate. We can go inside in a minute and have some.”

  “You’re not gonna torment the dog?” the kid asked, a brief crinkle to his eyes to show that he approved.

  Olivia shook her head. “I’m more of a cat person.” She thought sadly of Delilah. Every night over Christmas, she’d looked around for her furry Siamese goddess and every night she’d remembered that Delilah had passed away over Thanksgiving, and everything changed.

  “I like them both,” Jaime said, shrugging. “But dogs—we lived in an apartment in the city. All the dogs are little and yappy. Not real dogs, you know?”

  “Now that you’re here, you should get a big one,” she suggested. She never would have thought a big blond dog—but then, she never would have thought a big blond sheriff’s deputy for her father either. Maybe these were things that some people needed.

  Jaime nodded, still watching the dog. “My brother—I think… I think a dog would make him happy,” he said softly. “He needs a thing—a thing he can just love that doesn’t need him to do anything but love it.”

  “And food,” Olivia said, thinking about the giant bag of kibble that Dozer seemed intent on plowing through in giant increments.

  “That dog can eat,” Jaime agreed. “But see? He’s so happy with kibble and some water, some scratches on the head. Berto—he tries so hard.”

  Olivia heard the hushed pain in Jaime’s voice.

  She was used to being the one in pain, the one with the list of prescriptions, of daily mantras. It took her a moment—a long moment, like lungs full of water—to remember how to react to someone else’s pain.

  “Why’s it so hard for him?” she asked.

  And it was like Jaime grew, he was so relieved to talk about it. His shoulders straightened, and he bit his lip. “He got hurt, really bad. He was in a gang—we lived in a shitty part of town, and, you know. Him being in a gang, it kept me safe. But then one day, his… I dunno, captain, asked me if I wanted to stand watch while two guys went and knocked over a store. I…. Berto always told me to tell him if that happened.”

  Olivia stared at him, terrified. All the things her father had worked with when she’d been a kid—they’d sounded scary then, but they were worse now.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I told him. And he stood up to Cameron, and they said he had to let me join or he had to get out. So he said he was through with them and they jumped him. Just… beat the hell out of him, left him for dead.”

  Olivia held her hand to her mouth. “Oh God.”

  Jaime nodded, swallowing quickly. “I found him, you know? He told me to run, but I hid instead. I called an ambulance, put pressure on his worst bleeding. But… but when he got better, it was like, every minute, he was still in that knot of people, beating him up. And it’s hard—sometimes I’m still hiding, watching him get hurt, but I remember we don’t even live there anymore and I’m okay. He never remembers. He spends his every day trying to remember how to breathe like he’s free.”

  “That’s terrible,” she whispered, her heart racing with anxiety. This wasn’t even her stress! This wasn’t even her life—but it was his. This boy who had just played with a big dumb dog until his hands were chafed with cold and his cheeks looked slapped.

  “Yeah.” Jaime took a big breath. “He smokes his own, you know? Doctors said it’s okay. But that guy, he just ran into our house with a gun, and your dad told me to stay put and I did. That’s what I do, right?” He sounded bitter, and she didn’t blame him.


  “It’s not your fault,” Olivia said, her voice thin in her own ears. “You didn’t… you might have been killed. Aaron was in there, and he had a gun and a vest, and he was almost killed.” Her heart clenched at that. Aaron had been there. He might have been new to the stepfather gig, but he was like Larx—Dad to his bones. And he’d been so decent about finding Elton, about not interfering in her business, about protecting Elton from her if she was too flaky to make her shit her own.

  She swallowed, her world widening a little. It wasn’t just her and her pain, or her and the growing life inside her—and her pain. It wasn’t Elton, chasing after her like Don Quixote after a windmill and then turning into a true knight in shining armor when the giant bad thing was a tiny baby that would derail both their lives.

  Aaron had been hurt—and she hadn’t really seen it. Her father had been lonely for so very long, and she hadn’t seen his pain.

  And this boy, fragile and young—younger than Christi, or the two other boys in the yard—was afraid for his brother and trying so hard not to be alone.

  With a sigh, she put her arm over his shoulders, waiting to see if he’d recoil. He didn’t, relaxing against her with a sort of boneless grace.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said again.

  “My brother’s in a bad place,” he whispered. “He wasn’t doing great before, but he’s… he’s so scared now. He texted me about an hour ago, and it was, like, ‘’sup,’ and that’s all. He… he loves me. I know it. But all he’s got around him right now are big scary monsters, and he can’t see me at all….”

  And this boy—this stranger—cried in her arms. She stood for a moment, stunned, and then pulled him into a hug, remembering all the times her father had done that.

  Including not four days ago, when she’d crashed through the front door with all her things and said she couldn’t go to school anymore and she was moving home and hadn’t given a single word of explanation.

  Her father deserved some explanation.

  But not now. Now he was out… what? Saving another kid like this one? Lost and alone and betrayed by the world at large?