by Bella Jacobs
I drift off, dreaming of machine guns and flamethrowers, only to wake with a gasp what feels like minutes after I’ve fallen asleep.
A glance at the clock on the bedside table reveals I’ve been unconscious a little over an hour, but I’m still exhausted. I should be out, but instead my heart is pounding and every hair on my body is standing on end. I search the room, hands balling into fists, but there’s no one. I’m alone, and aside from the soft beep of a delivery truck somewhere outside our room and the distant pulse and hum of city sounds, it’s quiet. Still.
I had no idea what woke me or why my heart is trying to punch a hole through my chest, but I already know getting back to sleep is going to be impossible.
Swinging my legs back to the floor, I reach for my shoes, bending over seconds before something hot whines past over my head. The creepy clown picture on the wall behind me explodes, sending glass raining down onto the bed. I dive for the floor, instincts kicking in.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot at, and it won’t be the last.
Because I am going to take this fucking coward out. But first I’m going to deliver the kind of wound that will keep him alive and in pain while I pump him for information on who sent him, ensuring he suffers on his way out. Grabbing my piece from the table, I crawl on my belly across the thin carpet, staying low.
The shot came through the window, which means there’s only one place the sniper could be hiding—in the abandoned building across the alley.
Grabbing one of the plates left on the table from breakfast, I lift the edge into view above the windowsill. A beat later it shatters in my hand, proving this guy is no beginner. He’s a trained sharpshooter, probably ex-military. He’s not going to make this easy for me, but when has life ever been easy?
I don’t need easy. I just need an opening, a sliver of lost focus, a crack in his armor.
I need another position, one he might not be expecting…
Moving fast, I scuttle across the floor and into the adjoining room. Once inside, I flatten myself against the wall by the window and the fire escape outside, gun loose in my fingers but pressed tight to my chest. I’m only going to have one shot, one chance to take him by surprise before he realizes I have access to both of these rooms and expands his scope.
Of course he could know already. He could have been watching for hours, seen us walk back and forth between the two spaces. But if that were true, I would be dead, shot through the heart while I was taking my sweet ass time shuffling across the carpet an hour ago.
He doesn’t know. He’s not going to be looking this far to his right. Yes, he’ll catch me in his peripheral vision as soon as I slide into position, but he’ll need at least two seconds, maybe five, to readjust his site and aim.
That’s all I need.
Pulling in a deep breath, I let it out, slow and even, willing my shoulders to relax, my jaw to unclench. The less tension in my body, the faster I’ll be able to take aim and pull the trigger.
I close my eyes, sending out something that feels like a prayer.
As a kid, I wasn’t taught to pray—my mother hated the Catholic church and the mother who forced her to have my older half sister at fifteen as much as she hated my dad for running off while she was pregnant with my younger brother—and I’ve never had any inclination to learn as an adult.
Up until this point, life has made it pretty clear that if there is a God, he or she doesn’t like me much. And the feeling’s been entirely mutual.
But now, as I send out a wish from the core of my being, praying to still be alive when Wren gets back so I can warn her, protect her, tell her I love her at least one more time, I realize I may have been missing out. Maybe prayer isn’t about asking some heartless higher power for a little fucking mercy. Maybe prayer is about asking for the best from yourself, for a chance to rise, to evolve, to become the person the better angels of your nature would want you to be.
But thankfully, unlike my pacifist mate, my angels have zero issues with killing the fuck out of anyone who threatens me or mine.
Cells humming with adrenaline, and focus sharp, I pivot away from the wall and lift my gun in one smooth motion. By the next heartbeat, I’ve spotted the black sock cap barely visible above the scope of a rifle. The next heartbeat, he spots me, and the muzzle of the gun shifts to the right. The shots come so close together, for a second I’m not sure who fired first. But then the black cap sags out of sight and the rifle falls out of the window, tumbling end over end to land with a thud-clatter on the cracked asphalt below.
I won this shootout, but just barely.
A closer inspection reveals a dart—a big one—embedded in the window frame two inches from my head. A fucking dart…
A quick check in the other rooms reveals two more darts—one on the floor by the shattered plate, another by the broken picture frame.
He wasn’t trying to kill me, after all, but it doesn’t matter.
He’s still dead.
That was a kill shot, I know it even before I gather the essential shit from the room—we obviously won’t be coming back here—stuff it into my backpack, and hustle over to the derelict building across the alley.
As I climb to the third floor, I keep my gun out and my senses on high alert, but aside from the creaking of the ancient steps and the scuttle of rats making tracks as something bigger and meaner invades their turf, the air is quiet. And when I reach the window where my would-be tranquilizer was camped out, I find him alone.
Alone on the floor, with a single gunshot wound through the forehead, his eyes wide and blood pooling around his skull. His arms lie outstretched, but his legs are trapped at a strange angle, pinned beneath his long, heavily muscled, and seriously armored body.
For a second, I have to fight the urge to fix them, to arrange him more decently in death, but I know better than to fuck with a dead body or leave any sign that I was here.
And straightening his legs isn’t going to make this guy feel any better.
Using the washcloth I grabbed from the hotel bathroom on my way out, I search the pockets of his armored vest and pants, but as I expected, there’s no wallet or car keys or any other lead I could follow. I’m about to give up and make tracks—I’ve got to get to safety and call the others—when my gaze lands again on the man’s tangled legs and heavy black boots.
If I were going to assassinate someone and needed a safe place to put my keys or a fifty for cab fare, tucked into a shoe would be as good a place as any.
After a quick scan of the water-damaged and moldy former office—still deserted—I shrug off my backpack, tuck my gun into the back waistband of my jeans, and reach for one massive foot. Using the washcloth to avoid leaving prints makes the process take longer, but I eventually get the right boot off—nothing—and start on the left. As soon as I loosen the laces on shoe number two, I hit pay dirt.
Taped to the inside of his boot, wrapped in two crisp Canadian hundred-dollar bills, is a slim, black key a half inch longer than a house or car key, with three tiny buttons in a semi-circle around the top. But instead of the lock, unlock, and trunk symbols you’d see on your usual remote, there are symbols for what looks like a gate, a wall of bars, and some sort of antique safe.
“Or a vault,” I murmur aloud, turning it over in my hand once more before tucking it into one jean pocket and the money into another. I’ve got no idea what this guy was planning to do with this key—rob a bank or seek shelter from the apocalypse—but it’s mine now.
And so is his gun.
Hustling down a different stairwell than the one I came up, just in case I’ve been followed, I dart into the alley. Swiftly, I collect the dart gun, dissembling it into smaller, more backpack-friendly parts, and bury it at the bottom of my bag under our passports, extra burner phones, money, medicine, and the maps Dust marked up with his best guess for the location of Atlas’s lair.
I don’t need the maps—Dust has all that info locked away in the steel trap of his genius hea
d—but they’re good cover. If someone gives the inside of my pack a quick glance, all they’re going to see is a tourist planning his trip through the alpine region of Canada.
And if someone gives it a more than quick glance, I’ll knock them out and make a run for it.
But they don’t search bags on buses very often, especially not if you’re traveling with innocent, do-gooder-looking types like Wren and Dust. Even Creedence and Kite come off as fairly respectable, if Creedence has shaved and Kite isn’t flexing those big muscles of his too hard.
Pulling my cell from the front pouch of my bag, I swing the pack onto both shoulders and head out of the alley at a brisk walk, waiting until I’m on the crowded sidewalk and decently certain I’m not being watched or followed before I place the call.
But the phone Wren, Sierra, and Creedence took with them doesn’t ring. It goes straight to a generic voicemail greeting, telling me that the person I’m trying to contact hasn’t set up their message center and to try again later.
Chewing on my lip and trying not to jump to the worst-case scenario, I try Dust’s phone. It rings and my racing heart slows, only to speed back up again as it continues to buzz, with no sign of life on the other end.
I tell myself they didn’t hear the call, or that service is bad, but as I let myself be sucked away from the scene of my crime in a stream of mid-morning commuters, my insides start to ache.
My gut says shit has gone seriously fucking awry, and unfortunately my gut is almost never wrong.
Chapter 5
Wren
In the dream I’m falling off the edge of a cliff, plummeting toward the ocean and the jagged rocks below, certain it’s all over. That I’m over.
I’m never going to see the people I love again, never do all the things I was supposed to do, never finish the story that only I could tell.
Inches from impact with the churning surface of the sea, I wake with a full-body jerk and a ragged gasp that spasms through my aching lungs. I cough hard, groaning softly as I roll onto my side.
God, that was a bad one. The worst fever dream yet.
I’ve been sick for a while. I’m not sure how long, but long enough that waking up tangled in sweaty sheets with an achy feeling in my bones isn’t surprising. Neither is the thirst making my tongue cramp in my throat.
I push up in bed, shoving my sweat-damp hair out of my face as I reach for the blue mason jar I keep by my side of our big bed and drink deeply. There was a time, not long after we all moved into the farmhouse, when Creedence made a play for the right half of the mattress, but I shut him down quick.
There are only a few things I won’t do for my boys, and sleep on the wrong side of the bed is one of them.
Though lately, I’ve been sleeping alone, afraid I’ll infect one of my mates with whatever virus has wormed its way into my body and set up camp. As irritating and unpleasant as it is to be sick, however, it hasn’t dampened my spirits too much. It’s just a flu bug, one I’ll kick in a few days. And then I’ll be back to weeding the garden and feeding the goats and sitting around the fire pit sharing a beer and a sunset with the people I love.
There’s a knock on the door, and then Creedence calls out in a soft voice, “You awake in there, beautiful? We thought we heard a mama moving around and wanted to come say hi.”
Chest filling with a rush of joy, I say, “Mama would love that, as long as you don’t get too close. I think my fever is back, so I might still be contagious.”
“I’m contagious, too,” a sweet voice lisps as Creedence steps through the door, our daughter Chance in his arms, her blond curls pulled into crooked pigtails on either side of her cherub’s face.
“You are not contagious.” I smile, wishing I could hold her, but knowing another day of quarantine is probably best. The only thing worse than being sick is having a sick kiddo. “But you are cute. Did you do your own hair today?”
Chance nods, her lips curving. “Yes. Daddy Luke helped, but I did it mostly all by myself.”
“It looks lovely.” I soak her in, still unable to believe this beautiful, sweet, clever little person is mine.
She won’t be four until May, but she’s already got the vocabulary of a kid twice her age. Dust, of course, likes to take credit for her brains, even though Creedence is her biological father. But biology is only part of the equation. Nurture is as big an influence as nature, and Dust’s been reading to our girl every night since she was a tiny baby, freshly come into the world.
“I told her to have Daddy Kite help,” Creedence says, drifting closer to the bed, “since he has experience with long hair, but Miss Lazybones couldn’t be bothered to walk all the way out to the barn.”
“I’m not lazy, I’m busy, Daddy Cree.” Chance hugs Creedence around the neck, pressing a kiss to his cheek that melts him on contact, I can tell. “You be good.”
He and I both laugh.
“Yeah,” I agree, “be good, Daddy Cree. Quit telling tales on our girl.”
“My apologies.” Creedence beams at his baby, the love in his eyes making my chest ache in the best way. “You want to tell Mama about our plan, or should I?”
“Me!” Chance’s sneakered feet kick on either side of Creedence’s legs. “We’re going to have a movie night outside tonight. Daddy Kite is making a movie screen, and Daddy Dust is getting a machine to play it, and Daddy Luke is going to make spicy popcorn with extra butter. And you can sit in the soft chair next to mine, and I promise not to catch any of your germs.”
“That sounds like so much fun,” I say, spirits lifting. “I can’t wait! And I’m getting better every day, so hopefully we won’t have to worry about germs much longer.”
“Yay!” Chance pumps a fist in the air. “That means I don’t need to take my nap.”
I frown-smile, and Creedence rolls his eyes. “No, that’s not what it means.” He gives one of her blond pigtails a gentle tug. “You’re taking your nap, no more arguments or bargains. You said you needed to see Mama before you went to sleep. Now we’ve seen Mama, and we’ve told her about the fun we’re going to have tonight, and now you go to sleep. That’s the deal.”
“That’s not a very nice deal,” Chance says, lips pushing into a stubborn pout.
“Well, them’s the breaks, kid,” Cree says, fighting a smile. “But I’ll tell you what, you go down without a fight, and I’ll wake you up baby-goat style. Does that sound good?”
Chance’s eyes light up as she presses a fist to her lips and nods, the prospect apparently so thrilling our chatterbox is at a loss for words.
“Then it shall be done,” Creedence says. “I’ll fetch the cutest baby in the paddock, and we’ll wake you up at three with goat kisses. Tell Mama goodbye.”
“Bye, Mama. See you soon,” she says, hugging Cree’s neck again. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweet pea. Sleep well.” I watch my husband and baby leave the room, and my grin lingers long after they’re gone. I feel like the luckiest sick woman on the planet.
Propping myself up with pillows, I drink the rest of my water while staring lazily out the window overlooking the cherry orchard, where the trees are on the verge of bursting into bloom. One or two more warm spring days and we’re going to have a blossom storm on our hands.
It makes me think of that first spring, when we took a picnic into the orchard and celebrated the return of life to the farm with some kinky business on Kite’s mother’s wedding present, a quilt big enough for five. It was the first time we’d all been intimate at the same time. At first, I’d been nervous, but anxiety quickly evaporated in the warm spring sun, banished by kisses and caresses and whispered words of love that made it clear we were all confident, well-adjusted adults who could handle being naked together without it damaging our bond.
It was another lesson in how unshakable our love truly is.
And probably the day Chance was conceived, though Creedence swears it was a few days later, when I flew us up to the ridge above our farm so we coul
d make out in the waterfall. But the waterfall was freezing, and no matter how much fun I had—or the fact that babies had been on my mind for a while—I can’t believe my body would allow me to conceive with goose bumps the size of quarters breaking out all over my body.
Speaking of goose bumps…
The hairs on my arms lift and tiny bumps ripple to the surface beneath, alerting me to the man lurking outside in the hall.
Or the men…
“Come in. I’m awake.” I keep my voice soft. Chance’s room is on the other side of the house, but my daughter has seriously super-powered hearing, especially when she’s trying to go to sleep. We’re not sure what kind of shifter she’ll be—she hasn’t had her first transformation yet—but it’s definitely a creature with insanely sensitive ears.
Creedence ambles through the door again, this time followed by Dust, Luke, and Kite, whose hair is tied up in a high ponytail much tidier-looking than our daughter’s, though his does have straw sticking out of one side. He’s been taking point on goat duty while I’ve been out of commission. He’s so good with them, as gentle and patient as he is with Chance.
I can’t wait to see what my baby with Kite is going to look like. Creedence and I have seen visions of all the kids, of course, but their faces are blurry.
I do know, however, that Kite and I will be the next to conceive and that our first two babies will be five years apart. After that, they’ll come quickly. Three more in six years, ensuring I’ll be pregnant, breastfeeding, or both for a good chunk of our next decade together.
It’s going to be exhausting and exhilarating and as magical as every day with my big, crazy family. Our magic isn’t often the flashy stuff anymore—our enemies know better than to start a fight they can’t win—but that’s fine with me. I’ll take everyday magic. Take it and be breathlessly grateful for it.
The thought makes my chest ache as Kite settles onto the edge of the bed, brushing my hair from my forehead. “How are you feeling?”
