Great and Precious Things

by Rebecca Yarros

  “Remember him?” Mr. Daniels answered instead, stopping just in front of Cam. He was only a couple of inches shorter than his son but had the kind of presence that made him larger than life. “I shot you.”

  “You did.” Other than the clenching of his right fist, Cam showed no emotion. Guess that hadn’t changed, either.

  “Art,” Captain Hall said as he clapped Mr. Daniels on the shoulder. “Not sure if you can see in all this dark, but this is—”

  “I know exactly who it is,” Mr. Daniels seethed.

  I mentally prepared myself for what this episode of dementia was going to gift us with.

  Cam cocked an eyebrow as Mr. Daniels glared.

  “This is the son of a bitch who killed my Sullivan.”

  I gasped, sucking in air as I reflexively stepped close enough to Cam to brush my arm against his. He may as well have been a statue for all the reaction he showed. “Mr. Daniels—”

  “I don’t know why the hell you’re here, but you can see yourself right back out.” He cut me off, effectively dismissing the son he hadn’t seen in six years.

  Then he turned his back on Cam and walked toward the tree line, Captain Hall at his side.

  “Cam,” Xander called softly. Whatever he saw in Cam’s eyes led him to shake his head and walk away, following his father.

  “I’m so sorry. He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” I whispered around the lump clogging my throat.

  “Sure he does. And he’s right.” He looked down at me with a vacant-eyed smirk that sent me straight back to high school. He’d always been able to put a million miles of distance between us—between anyone—with a single look. “Told you he’d remember me.”

  He walked off toward his family.

  “Cam!” I shouted in a desperate attempt to keep him here just a little longer—the Camden who had stepped out in front of his father’s gun to shield me. But his transformation into cold, zero-fucks-given Camden was already underway.

  “Go home, Willow.”

  And now complete.

  I watched him disappear into the trees and battled the bone-deep urge to follow. So much for the idyllic homecoming I’d foolishly let myself fantasize about over the years.

  But he was here. He was home.

  And I desperately wanted to know why.

  Chapter Three

  Camden

  It had been naive of me to think I might make it a day, or even two, before someone mentioned Sullivan’s death—or my role in it.

  I’d made it roughly twenty minutes in my father’s company, and he’d already shot me and accused me of fratricide. Welcome home.

  Silence kept me company as we hiked back down to the house, our flashlights and headlamps bobbing along the way. There were eleven of us, since Acosta had walked Willow home.

  Willow. I shut that shit down in my head. Nope, not going there.

  God, but the relief in her voice when she’d whispered my name and leaned closer… She didn’t hate me. I deserved her hatred, her absolute loathing, and instead she’d trusted me like the last six years had never happened.

  “I think he’s pretty close to lucid right now,” Gideon said as he fell into step next to me. “You could go talk to him.”

  “I think he was pretty close to lucid up by the ravine, and no, thank you. He’s doing just fine with Xander up there.” I jumped the three-foot ditch that currently housed a stream of spring runoff. How easily it all came back, muscle memory guiding me where the light failed. Now if only I’d remembered to exchange my Avs hat for one that covered my ears before heading out after Dad.

  “You honestly think he would have shot—” Gideon grunted, then scrambled by the sound of it. “Jesus, hold on. Still part mountain goat, aren’t you?” He huffed, jogging to catch up.

  “No, I don’t think he would have shot me if he’d recognized me in that moment,” I answered his question—and mine. “He definitely would have considered it, though. Hell, I bet he’s pictured it in his head a few times while he’s been perfectly lucid.”

  “Some homecoming,” Gideon muttered as the house came into view across the clearing.

  “Why do you think I stayed away so long?”

  “Because you knew he’d shoot you on sight?” He rammed his shoulder into me, and I tensed for a millisecond. It was a familiar enough move from Gid, but no one got that close to me anymore without a direct invitation.

  “Something like that.” My eyes drifted north, as if they could cut through the dark and forested ridge to the little grove of aspens where Sullivan lay at rest next to Mom and Uncle Cal.

  “You’ll settle in. Hey, you can always come work with me at APD!” His teeth flashed in the dim lighting.

  “Last time I checked, there are already five of you for our little town, and my name isn’t Hall, so the chances of me advancing are pretty much zero.”

  “Dick,” Gideon muttered between fake coughs.

  “Never pretended to be anything else.” Maybe I wasn’t popular. Maybe I was the unlikable son. The bad penny. The black sheep. Every fucking cliché there was when compared to Xander’s annoying perfection. I’d stopped caring about that twenty years ago and simply decided to embrace it. There was power in not giving a fuck.

  The lights of the house shone from the windows as we came to what used to be the gardens Mom spent her mornings in. The once-lush plants were all but gone—surviving only as volunteers that grew from the seeds in the leftover rot of the previous year—or had been overrun by the mountain grass.

  Dad had called it folly to garden this close to the tree line. Mom had rolled her eyes and done it anyway.

  We rounded the side of the house, and I made note of the places where the siding had peeled back. The gutters drooped, and the drainage system was in shambles, if the small canyons that began at the drain spouts were any indication.

  Dorothy met Dad on the front porch, and the two disappeared into the house while Captain Hall and Xander spoke at the base of the steps.

  “That doesn’t look pleasant,” Gideon noted as we approached my Jeep.

  I opened the passenger side and stripped down to my T-shirt, ignoring the bite of temperature as I threw the armored vest onto the seat. When I’d decided to keep my personal gear, it had been out of an unexplainable sense of attachment, not because I thought I’d still need to use the damn thing.

  I put on my ruined coat as we headed for Xander.

  “This can’t happen again,” Captain Hall lectured my brother, which immediately set me on edge.

  “It won’t. I never thought he’d locate the key. You have my most sincere apology.” Xander’s mouth was set in a firm line, which was pretty much as upset as he’d ever get in front of an authority figure.

  I took my place next to him as Gideon took his by his father.

  “I respect what you’ve done, Alexander. I really do.” His forehead puckered in what would have been a worried expression had the porch light not thrown half his face into shadows that painted him an old-west villain.

  Guy seriously needed to lose the cowboy hat.

  “Thank you,” Xander replied. “Now, we’re going to go check on our—”

  “But the time has come for you to put him in that assisted living facility in Buena Vista,” Captain Hall interrupted in that morally superior voice that had always led me to the opposite of what he demanded.

  “That’s why I’m here.” I folded my arms over my chest.

  “And it’s nice to see you, Camden. Really, it is. Been boring around here without you destroying everything. What do you know about caring for your father? How long are you here on leave? What’s going to happen when you go back to wherever it is you live?”

  Gideon swallowed, his gaze darting between his dad and me, but he didn’t move or respond like he once would have. Guess some things had changed.
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  “I’m not on leave. I’m here for good. Xander called, and I came.” Hence my packed-to-the-hilt Jeep, jackass.

  “Okay, you’ve been back all of five minutes and your father shot you. Does that sound like he should be living on his own?” His eyebrows rose, and he leaned forward a little.

  That intimidation shit hadn’t worked on me in a good decade and sure as hell wasn’t doing it now. But I wasn’t going to let him taunt me into a reaction, either.

  “It sounded like Xander needed me to come home, and I did. We’re going to make some changes that make it safer for Dad, and we’ll do it as a family. We appreciate the search party more than you know. Thank you for helping us bring him home. We can take it from here.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Listen here, son. You have no clue what it’s been like—”

  “I’m not your son.” My voice dropped into that deadly, calm little space I reserved for moments I needed to keep my finger off the trigger. “And you’re right. I don’t know, but Xander does. So if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to head inside. Gid, are you good to catch a ride?”

  “Yeah, no problem. Captain, let’s get out of here.”

  Making sure Xander was with me, I started up the porch steps.

  “Camden,” Captain Hall called out.

  We both turned.

  “Do me a favor and keep yourself out of trouble while you’re here? Hate to see anyone else get thrown through a window.”

  Xander stiffened beside me.

  I’d killed lesser men in my career. Better ones, too. His comment had his intended effect—rage coiled in my muscles, ready to spring.

  “You have yourself a good night, Captain,” Xander said as he rested one hand on my shoulder, the shotgun still gripped by the other.

  Of course he appeased the asshole. Of course he backed down to the place he was supposed to be, the place where everything was safe and everyone knew their roles.

  Xander’s place was to make peace. Mine had always been to bring war.

  “Will do, Mayor Daniels,” Hall responded.

  I clenched my jaw to keep it from dropping.

  The two Halls gave us nods that meant different things and climbed into their SUV.

  We stood there in silence, shoulder to shoulder, like the unwilling sentinels we’d become, guarding the man who’d never done the same for us. A few moments later, with the searchers and police dispersed, there was only one car I didn’t recognize in the driveway.

  “So, Mayor Daniels, huh?” I asked my brother as we turned to climb the rest of the steps.

  He shrugged.

  “Seriously? You’re not dishonest or power hungry enough to be a politician. Trust me—I’ve met my share.”

  “It’s possible to serve without presidential ambition, you know. I’m happy where I’m at. And it’s not like we’re a bustling metropolis.” He rolled his eyes and opened the front door.

  “Until summer.” I paused, my gaze drawn to the mat under my feet. I’d sworn never to cross it again.

  “Yeah, those extra fifty thousand people who pop up tend to complicate things, but that income keeps the town running the rest of the year, so I’d call it an even trade. Now, were you thinking of coming in, or were you going to sleep on the porch?”

  I’ll never go back to Alba.

  I’ll never get out of the service.

  I’ll never listen to Dad blame me again.

  I’ll never again lay eyes on Willow Bradley.

  Compared to breaking that last promise I’d made to myself, the act of stepping over this threshold was cake.

  I walked in before my common sense could stop me. After all, how the hell was I supposed to help Dad if I wouldn’t go in the house?

  Xander shut the door behind me as I stood in the entryway, taking in the changes around the house I’d grown up in. Home. It had been one while Mom was alive. Little by little, the feeling had drained from the house in the way water dripped from that slow leak in the upstairs bathroom. We’d all been too distracted by other things to grab a wrench. The love had bled out in a steady trickle that we’d left unchecked out of sheer apathy.

  Sullivan had cared.

  Sullivan had died and taken the last sluggish heartbeats of this corpse of a house with him.

  “I’m going to put this back in the safe.” Xander motioned to the shotgun.

  “Does he still have the key?”

  “He handed it over after we left the clearing. You know, he’s only lucid about fifty percent of the time anymore. You should go talk to him while he’s really…him.”

  “Right.” Because the real him was a peach.

  Xander bounded up the stairs, disappearing at the landing.

  I kicked off my shoes out of habit and put them against the wall.

  How can I keep these floors clean when you boys insist on tracking in half the mountain?

  I smiled at the memory before my eyes caught on the rug just down the hall that hid the bloodstain we’d never been able to scrub out of the hardwood. The place Dad sat, holding Mom as she’d bled out after the cougar had gotten the best of her. She’d begged him to stay with her, to let her die where they’d made a life.

  He’d respected her wishes and said it was a miracle she’d lasted while he’d carried her home, that she’d never make it down the mountain to the hospital.

  He’d been right.

  “Oh my. Camden? Is that really you?”

  I stood and faced the hallway to see Hope Bradley, Willow’s mom, gawking at me.

  Yet another person with a permit to loathe me. Fucking awesome.

  Her lip trembled, her eyes watered, and then it took everything I had in me not to put the front door between us as she quickly walked my way.

  “You…” She shook her head and gave me a watery smile. “You look exactly how I remember you. I didn’t know you were in town!”

  “Just got in today,” I told her, stuffing my hands in my pockets.

  “Oh wow! Does Willow know? I bet she’d love to see you.”

  That kindness in her hazel eyes—so like Willow’s—was almost my undoing. There was a reason she’d been Mom’s best friend.

  “Yeah, I actually saw her about an hour ago.” What the hell was taking Xander so long upstairs?

  “Oh good! She’s always the first to jump and help when Art takes one of his walks.” The skin between her eyebrows furrowed as she examined my coat. White feathers poked out of the holes the buckshot left. “What on earth have you gotten into, Cam?”

  “Hope, I’ll be ready to go in just a second,” Dorothy called as she crossed the hallway, headed for the kitchen.

  “I drive her home,” Mrs. Bradley explained. “Plus, it lets me check in and make sure Art has everything he needs or give Xander a little break. I’m so glad you’re here! How long are you in for?”

  “I’m back for good.” The words tasted like bitter lemon on my tongue.

  She clasped her hands. “Really? Well, that’s the best thing I’ve heard all week!” Her eyes dropped to my coat again, and she shook her head. “You might need to get a new coat, though.”

  “I’m ready,” Dorothy said, coming out of the kitchen. “Now, Cam, I’ve given your father his evening meds. Maybe you could take a shift sleeping in Art’s room so Xander can sleep at his own place tonight? That boy is worn to the bone. Oh, and how are you feeling after all that…?” She acted like it hadn’t been years since I’d been in this house, like I’d left mid-conversation and she was simply picking it back up.

  “All that what?” Hope asked.

  “Boy got himself shot saving your daughter; at least that’s what Art just told me.” Dorothy passed us both to retrieve her coat from the rack by the door.

  “You were shot?” She focused on a hole in my jacket. “And Willow?”
Her panicked gaze darted back to mine.

  “She’s fine,” I assured her. That had been the only acceptable outcome.

  “Because you were there,” Xander commented as he came down the stairs.

  Great, now he chose to show up. I shot him a look, but it didn’t stop my brother from running his mouth.

  “Cam stepped right between them, even with that gun pointed straight at his chest.” Xander beamed like a proud parent.

  Hell. I was in Hell. And knowing Hope, she’d see straight through me.

  “You stepped… He had a…” Hope blinked quickly and then spun back toward the living room as Dad stepped into the hallway. “You aimed a gun at my daughter?”

  “Claws are out,” Xander murmured.

  “Because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut,” I retorted.

  “Like the whole town won’t know by morning,” he scoffed.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Dad shouted, jabbing his finger in my direction.

  “You aimed a gun at my Willow?” Hope repeated, getting right up in Dad’s face.

  “I didn’t know it was Willow, and you have my most sincere apology,” he told her quietly, then focused his venom right back on me, as usual. “Explain yourself.”

  “Dad, it’s Camden. Remember? He was up at the ravine with us earlier. He’s home now,” Xander said slowly, as if he were talking to a child…or a man who couldn’t remember who he was 50 percent of the time.

  “I know who the hell he is, Alexander. Why are you in my home, Camden?”

  Hope gasped and stepped back.

  “I’m here to help you,” I told him in the calmest voice possible, gathering every emotion in my body and shoving them in a box, just like I did on missions.

  “You? The boy who vowed never to darken my doorstep again? The boy who burned down the bunkhouse in a fit of boredom? The boy who’s been here once in the last ten years, and only to bury his brother? You’re here to help?”

  The boy I’d been would have cried.

  The teenager I’d grown out of would have cursed at him and walked away.