by Holley Trent
He handed the megaphone back for good and mouthed, “Thanks, I’m done,” to Walter.
“All right, so, who’s gonna go?”
Lora looked around to see who’d hold up his or her hand to volunteer, but there was just jeering, shouting. They thought it was all a game. She wished they hadn’t had to invite them, but they were an injured party. They were due satisfaction.
A laughing woman in buttery yellow leather pants and a cropped black concert tea climbed halfway up the fence and put up her hands. “I’ll go!”
Walter sighed into the megaphone. “You jokin’? Come on. I get it, folks. You don’t want to make it easy for them, but don’t waste these folks’ time, all right?”
“No, really,” Kelly said, smiling. “I’ll go. I’d be glad to.”
“If you’re going there to start shit with Oliver—”
“I’d never do such a thing. I’m over it.”
Colt gave Lora a querying look. It took Lora a moment to put the pieces together in her head. “I believe she’s some relative of Oliver’s late wife.”
“I take it they didn’t get along.”
Lora grimaced. “Contessa may have decked her the last time she was here.”
“Fuck.”
“If she volunteers…”
“Jody can’t really reject her.”
“Exactly.”
“All right, then,” Walter said wearily. Even he sounded like he thought her going to Norseton was a bad idea. He couldn’t stop her from going unless many others volunteered, in which case they’d have to vote on delegates. But no one else was volunteering.
“Come on,” Walter pleaded. “We gotta have more than one. Don’t squander the chance. As I said, I’ve got no skin in the game, and I probably couldn’t take off work anyway. Is there no one?”
For the first time in the hour since they’d arrived, the group went silent.
Walter shook his head and turned to Jody. “Well, we got you one. I guess you could make do, huh?”
“I-I’ll go,” came a weak voice from the back of the crowd. The group turned collectively to see who it was.
“Did I hear something?” Walter asked.
“I said I’ll…I’ll go.”
A woman made her way slowly, clumsily through the crowd and approached the fence. Slightly taller than average. Mousy brown hair. Around fifty or so. Freckles across tanned cheeks.
Staring at the ground, she gripped the fence. “I’ll go.”
Walter put his head back and groaned. “Seriously?”
“Why not her?” Colt whispered.
Lora shrugged. She certainly didn’t recognize her.
“If everyone’s okay with sending two conflict-of-interest delegates to the council, I’m not gonna talk you out of it. We all set?”
Everyone murmured yes and started moving toward their vehicles, but not without poking a few jibes in Colt and Lora’s direction before they went.
Jody spoke a bit longer with Walter, then looked toward the woman at the fence—not at Kelly who was still perched halfway up and had thrust two middle fingers toward Jody, but the other delegate.
Jody made his way over to the fence, brow furrowed. He looked at her. She looked at him. Neither said anything.
“Jody?” Lora asked.
“This…” he said low as though he couldn’t risk anyone else hearing, “is apparently my aunt. Dahlia.”
His aunt.
“We were…roamers. Got…separated,” she stammered. “Me and Keith. Didn’t know where he went. Then I knew. But I couldn’t go there. Not even after.”
“After he was killed.”
She cringed. “Was all I had.”
“You should have come.”
She gave her head a hard shake. “Wouldn’t fit.”
“You don’t fit here, either. Norseton would have been better. You would have had family, at least.”
She gripped the fence so tight her knuckles turned white. She stared at her hands like she hadn’t before given thought to what he’d suggested and couldn’t fathom being there.
If Lora had had family somewhere, she would have done anything to get to them. She would have been so desperate.
“We got separated,” the lady repeated, and something inside Lora’s head screamed out like a siren.
Like she should act—like there was danger.
We got separated.
“Nobody here would take care of me,” the woman said. “I had to get along on my own. They don’t bother me really. I’m here, but not.”
We got separated.
Lora found herself moving—to eliminate. That was what she was supposed to do. She had to take care of this, and then she could go back to Norseton and resume her duties. She hated disorganized things and knew there had to have been a beautiful mess waiting for her.
She pulled Colt’s gun from the holster at the back of his waistband, pointed it at Jody, and started squeezing the trigger. “We got separated,” she said.
Jody didn’t even move. Didn’t put his hands up. Didn’t shout. He just stared at her, even as her index finger tightened on that useful little lever. “Are you going after my little sister?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Oh. I see. And Nan?”
“Anyone in the way.”
“All of our daughter’s family, yes?”
“What?” She scoffed.
She wouldn’t do such a ridiculous thing. Why would she take away any relations her baby would have, knowing that she herself had none?
“Who’s she been around?” Jody’s aunt asked.
Was Lora supposed to get rid of her, too? The instructions in her mind seemed incomplete as though the plan hadn’t been thought far enough out.
Bringing Norseton down was the goal. No one had given any care to the blood in Fallon. Evidently, they’d miscalculated somehow.
Her moment of confusion was enough for Colt to slowly push her hands down so the gun’s barrel was pointed to the ground.
“Were those the words?” Jody asked quietly. “We got separated?”
“She been hypnotized somehow?” Dahlia asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, I’ve seen lots like her. Most folks never shake it off. That’s why I ask who she’s been around. Man used to come out here looking for folks who hated Norseton.”
“A man named Magnus?” Colt asked.
“I think so. Hard to remember. So many folks come out here trying to start something.”
“I’m sure they do. He’s got to fill his cult somehow, hmm?”
“What’s…happening to me?” Lora whined, and Colt released the magazine on the gun and pried the weapon out of her fingers.
“Fight it,” Jody spat, reaching across the fence to grip her shoulders. “Just fight it. We’ll get you home, and we’ll get that shit out of your head. Now that we know what the words are, we can help you.”
Her hands were twitching at her sides, alternately forming fists to hit him with and hanging loose. She was thrumming with agitation and sick to her stomach.
“Oh God,” she whispered and then turned to run, to vomit, but she couldn’t get far.
Dahlia held Lora’s hair away from her face as she retched and patted her back. “It’s okay. I’ll keep you from hurtin’ him, okay?”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Lora cried. “I have to.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t have to, okay? Don’t listen to none of that crazy stuff.”
“It’s hard.”
“I know.” Dahlia patted her back some more. “But you see how he trusted you? Didn’t even flinch. You just…do the same for him. That’s all.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I know. T-that’s what that old…Magnus man is countin’ on. I could have killed him, you know.”
“When?” Jody asked, obviously eavesdropping.
“Lots of times, I bet. Nobody here cares about me. I’m mostly an outcast. They don’t watch. I watch, though. I wou
ld have killed him for you if I knew. He ain’t worth nothin’ noway.”
There must have been something incredibly wrong with Lora’s head because she was seriously finding that ridiculous statement sweet.
“I’ll go give the council information to Kelly,” Colt said, moving backward away from their little cluster. “Then we can get the hell out of here. Maybe get Shea on the line and see if she can start working her psycho-babble magic on Lora over the phone?”
Jody already had his cell in hand. “Yep.”
He put his phone to his ear and looked at his aunt. “I need to know everything you know about Magnus or anyone who you think might be him.”
“Right now?”
“As soon as possible. Where do you live? We’ll take you home and then get you out to Norseton for the council meeting.”
Dahlia gestured to the late-model station wagon parked at the far end of the field. “R-right there. Home sweet home.”
“Shit.”
Lora thought the same. The paternal aunt of the Afótama clan leader lived in a thirty-year-old car on the fringes of civilized society.
Somehow, that seemed expected.
She looked to Jody. “So, should I just—”
“If it helps you to step away for me for the time being, I understand.”
Nodding, she did just that. She walked away, but handed him the foldable knife, mace, and stun gun from her dress pockets first.
She supposed that was what love looked like, even if she did want to kill him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Some Unincorporated Place Between Fallon and Norseton
Jody
“Cut me some slack. This is the first time I’ve had to do this on my own.”
If Shea hadn’t looked so shame-faced, Jody would have yelled at her. Her hypnosis erasure techniques were the mental equivalent of cleaning a toy car with a power washer.
Lora was curled up in a ball on a dingy motel room chair, sobbing piteously. He’d only seen her cry twice in his life. The first had been when she was a child and he’d pelted her with water balloons because she’d been ignoring him. The second had been barely a week prior when she’d been overwhelmed in the library. He’d been hoping that the third would be for the birth of their child, but nothing about being Afótama was predictable. He knew better.
He wanted to go to her and pull her into his arms, but not at the risk of undoing the work Shea had done. She’d hurried all the way out there to meet them so Lora could start to recover away from home, and the trip hadn’t been the slightest bit convenient. She’d had to drive the entire way.
“How does this usually go?” Jody asked her.
“Usually, they’re so tired afterward that they fall asleep for a bit.”
Lora was already nodding off. Her eyelids were heavy and her sobs were coming out slower.
“How will we know it worked?” Colt was standing half in the motel room and half on the walkway. Dahlia was in her car rooting around for her vanished cell phone. Colt insisted on keeping an eye on her, though Jody doubted she needed him to. He had a hunch that the woman, scattered as she was, had never lost a fight. She couldn’t be a Dahl if she didn’t have that wild edge.
Shea knelt in front of Lora and gave her knee a squeeze. “Say those words, Jody.”
“What words? We got separated?”
“Yeah.”
No response from Lora. Just a sniffle.
Shea handed her the tissue box.
Jody said it again.
Lora blew her nose. “Now you’re just picking on me, Joseph.”
“Gods.” Jody’s lungs contracted with relief. More than anything, he wanted to flop onto a bed with her to connect and re-bond for as long as they needed. Things were going to be different. They were going to be public and with a child on the way, she’d have to get her grips with that soon. He wanted to go home and do whatever he had to so they could finally have some peace.
Even if that meant he’d have to take a page out of his aunt’s book of practicality.
As soon as he was certain Lora was safe and comfortable back in Norseton, he was going to find Anders. He was going to snatch back Lora’s past from him because she deserved to know who her mother was.
And maybe when he was done, he wouldn’t wrap a lightning bolt around the man just to watch him sizzle.
Anders would deserve it, though, if Jody did.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Executive Mansion, Norseton, Three Days Later
Keith
“We have many squabbles to resolve, but we will hear all of them,” Nan shouted over the din in the packed gathering hall. Everyone went silent, as they should have. Powerful magic notwithstanding, Nan held a chilly edge of authority in her voice that made even Asher, standing behind Keith, shudder.
As a child, Keith had never seen her cutting such a commanding figure. She’d always come across as something of an eccentric hippie to him. Casual and enigmatic. Always so concerned about people’s feelings. Apparently, in the past few days, Nan had stopped giving a damn about anyone’s feelings. He couldn’t blame her. Lora had been awash with pregnancy hormones and threatening the demise of pretty much everyone in the mansion, Ótama was quietly throwing fits about her unwanted guard, one of the Fallon delegates had shown up full of piss and vinegar and demanding rock star treatment, and then there was the weird aunt no one had ever talked about and who wouldn’t let them find her a comfortable room.
“Not yet,” Aunt Dahlia kept saying.
After five tries, Nan had stopped pressing. She must have figured she’d sort it all out after the meetings, and after her detailed testimony about Magnus Anders. They could only deal with one threat to the clan at a time.
Nan leaned against the lectern positioned in front of the arc of ten chairs on the dais. A representative of a group descended from Ótama’s voyage filled each chair. Dahlia was nervously fidgeting, but Keith couldn’t really blame her for that. He was happy she’d decided to participate.
“I think you folks in the audience are going to get bored really fast,” Nan said into the mic, “but if you want to stick around and see how the sausage gets made, feel free.”
Looping his arms around Keith’s neck, Asher leaned down and put his lips against Keith’s ear. “I like your nan when she’s no-nonsense.”
“I think Nan needs a nap,” Keith muttered back. “Probably hasn’t had one in twenty years.” He gripped Asher’s wrists to keep them in place atop his heart and watched the crowd shift and writhe. Some of the people in attendance obviously doubted their stamina and were opting out for the time being.
He liked that they were leaving. No one had predicted a retinue from Fallon would show up just to observe the ordeal, given their particular distaste for anything having to do with Norseton. The cavernous space was practically standing-room-only. Having so many Afótama and Fallonites in close physical proximity was fucking with his psychic regulation. There were too many stray thoughts and feelings swirling around and unlike with sounds, he couldn’t just plug his ears and make them go away.
And then as the crowd ebbed and thinned, there was a pinprick of familiar energy on the edge of the room. Tentative. Wary. Frightened.
Keith craned his neck and tried to see through the filtering crowd.
There she was. Mallory.
She stood across the room in dark, Norseton red like so many other of the clanspeople who’d recently returned to the fold. They were showing they belonged, in spite of what anyone told them.
She was uncomfortable, though, wringing her hands against her belly. Not looking their way.
Keith gave Asher’s forearm a nudge and tilted his head toward the bank of windows on the other side. “Do you see her?” he murmured.
“Ah. Yes.”
“Go get her.”
“Is she asking to be retrieved?”
“No.”
Asher chuckled. “I see.”
As the crowd resettled, Nan made
her way back to the microphone. “There, that’s better. Now I can hear myself think. We may seem disordered, but as the host group, we are obligated to respect the structure and procedures established before us. If your clan has not presented your delegates with complaints to present to the council, please confer with them now. We will reconvene in fifteen minutes. I expect there to be silence when I bang the gavel.”
The room shifted again. People searched in their bags, likely for pens and paper to write down the insults they wished to have resolved. It wouldn’t only be Norseton’s problems they’d be sorting out, but those of other groups, too. All-group councils so rarely convened that when they did, they had to make the most of the time.
Asher delved his way back through the choking throng and pulled Mallory out after him.
She looked hesitant. But before she could say anything, Keith pointed to one of the balcony boxes on the second level of the two-story room that looked down over the proceedings. They couldn’t hide up there, exactly. Everyone on the lower level would be able to see them, but it had a locked door, and no one would be able to overhear them.
“I have keys. Have to take the elevator up there.”
He moved toward the service elevator without waiting for a response. He didn’t look back and accepted that Asher would keep her moving if she lagged. Keith didn’t want to make a scene. The opposite, in fact.
Twirling the key ring around his finger, he watched the elevator door slide shut and braced himself for the box’s lurch.
Mallory stared, wide-eyed at the door, still wringing her hands.
Asher rubbed her back.
Keith didn’t want to say anything yet—not until he was a little farther from the crowd and out of range of psychic eavesdropping.
As the door opened on the second floor, Asher said brightly, “You look lovely in that red.”
Mallory’s brow creased, and she looked down at herself. “Oh. I…think I was dressing on autopilot. Nadia might have bought it over. Not knowing what’s going to shake out with my father, I didn’t want to come, but…”
She didn’t need to finish. They understood. She didn’t want to be there, but she didn’t want anyone to think she was a coward.
She didn’t want to be there, but she didn’t want anyone to think she was guilty of anything except being born to a lawless father.
