by M. D. Grimm
That made Josh gape and flush. Again. Xavier got out of the truck, and Josh followed. It was late afternoon, and most people were driving past, trying to get home, or eating dinner in restaurants. The two of them weren’t noticed.
Xavier strode over to the car and did a quick examination. Josh stood by, looking around, twitching. Jesus, this was so wrong.
“Give me your coat.”
“What?”
Xavier huffed impatiently. “Your coat. Are you deaf?”
Josh scowled as he took off his coat and tossed it to the infuriating shifter. Xavier wrapped it around his right elbow. He angled close to the car and took his right fist in his left hand. Then, with a quick and precise jab, he shattered the rear driver’s-side window. Josh watched, terribly fascinated.
Who the hell is this guy?
Xavier shook out Josh’s coat before tossing it back to him. Then with quick and practiced movements, Xavier unlocked the door, got into the driver’s seat, and hotwired the car. Then he got out and gestured to Josh.
“Help me get the supplies in the car.”
Josh helped. What else could he do? His conscious pricked at him as his sense of right and wrong stared at him, horrified. Guilt weighed him down like iron chains as he helped Xavier load the car up with the weapons, blankets, and food from the substation. Josh set the guns in the backseat and covered them with the tarp. Once they were finished, Xavier stood back a moment and evaluated the car again. Then he nodded.
“Get in.”
Josh got in. Leaving the Agency’s truck with the keys in the glove compartment, they left. Xavier drove, and Josh slumped in his seat, feeling awful. He was a criminal. He just helped steal someone else’s property and, now that he thought about it, he was helping a fugitive escape. A murderer.
He shivered.
“Don’t let this bother you,” Xavier said a moment later. “We’ll find a motel with other cars. We’ll leave this one and borrow another one. It’s not like the owners won’t ever see their cars again.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that Josh could only stare.
“We took something that doesn’t belong to us. It doesn’t matter that we won’t wreck it or tear it apart and sell the parts. We stole it. We don’t know anything about the person who owns this car. What if this is their only means of transportation and they’re disabled or something? What if it belongs to a mother of four who’s barely making it, feeding her kids? What if―”
“What if it belongs to a couple and the wife is pregnant and goes into labor? And they can’t get to the hospital?” Xavier said, slightly mocking. “Leave it, Josh. You can’t live your life thinking what if. You’ll drive yourself insane.”
“Is that how you deal with it?” Josh said, anger rising. “Flipping off any consideration or compassion for another person? Not caring for anyone or anything but yourself? Making it all about you?”
Xavier’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as his mouth drew into a thin line. Josh knew he should shut up, but shutting up had never been a quality he’d ever possessed. It had gotten him smacked more often than not in foster homes.
“Jesus, Xavier, is that how you want to start this new life of yours? The fresh start you claim to want? By stealing? Is that what you did before they got to you? Were you a thief? A carjacker? Damn it, Xavier, I won’t help you if you plan on becoming a criminal again.” Josh panted, unleashing his terror and anger over this entire situation. “Answer me, Xavier! What were you in your previous life? Were you a kidnapper then too? A fucking murderer? By God, I swear you enjoyed tearing those three knight bastards apart!”
Xavier snarled and jerked the wheel and drove the car off the road. The wheels bumped over the sidewalk before he wrenched the car back onto the street. He slammed on the brakes and yanked back the parking brake. Dirt and dust flew up around them, and several cars behind honked their horns. Xavier swung around to face him, and Josh shrunk away, leaning against the passenger door, away from those too-bright eyes. That pale face and quivering body.
“You’re right, Josh.” Xavier’s voice was a snarl, quiet and deadly. “I did enjoy tearing them apart. Do you know why? They smelled exactly like the ones who fucked with my head. Why shouldn’t I enjoy some revenge? Some payback?” He leaned closer, and Josh’s eyes widened. “Don’t act so high and mighty, Josh. You know you enjoyed having them slaughtered just as much as I did.”
He gaped. “No. No. I―”
Xavier lashed out and gripped Josh’s chin, squeezing. Josh clutched Xavier’s wrist and was nearly hypnotized by those eyes. Gold sparked, green shimmered.
“Don’t lie to me,” Xavier growled, his eyes darkening. “Don’t you dare. I saw your face when they broke in. You went at one with an axe. You were more than willing to chop them to pieces. I simply got there before you. Don’t pretend you’re any better than me. Don’t pretend you didn’t find their fate justified.”
Josh trembled. There was truth in Xavier’s words. Josh, while sickened by the carnage, hadn’t felt any great loss concerning the knights’ deaths. What did that make him?
Xavier let him go. Josh rubbed his face. He suddenly realized that Xavier was leaning over his body. Not touching him, but close enough for Josh to feel his body heat. He swallowed hard, still staring into Xavier’s piercing eyes. Then the wolf shifter pulled back, letting out a shaky breath. He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment, looking incredibly tired and weary.
They sat in silence for several minutes.
“I don’t know what I was,” Xavier said. “Or who I was. That hasn’t come back to me yet. But I knew how to hotwire a car, or I know how to stay off the grid.”
Josh felt torn. He wanted to hate Xavier. It would be easier. And yet he also wanted to help the shifter. Very much. That was his job, wasn’t it? The Agency’s sole purpose was to help shifters. Though Josh knew he was very much over his head.
Xavier stared at Josh again. “Why did they take me, Josh? Why did they experiment on me?”
Josh sighed deeply. He bowed his head, feeling tired and hungry and cold. The queasiness in his stomach was gone, but the bump on his head was starting to throb slightly. He needed a shower. A nice warm bed. Clean clothes. He didn’t want to be here. But…. He was here. He was needed. He made a deal. Josh never went back on a deal.
“I don’t know,” he said. “They hate shifters. They think they’re, well, abominations. They experiment, they destroy.”
“What did they do to me?”
Josh shook his head. “The Agency doesn’t know.”
“But they have theories. You have theories.”
Josh continued to shake his head, and then Xavier covered his hand with his own, gripping tightly. Josh’s throat threatened to close.
“I need the truth,” he said gently. “I need the facts.”
Josh lifted his eyes to Xavier’s face. He didn’t know how to help the shifter. Not really. There were no instruction manuals, and no amount of training could have prepared him for such a mission. And he wasn’t even a full agent yet! How would he know what might trigger a violent fit or not? But… he’d pissed Xavier off royally, yet the shifter hadn’t torn him to shreds. That was progress, wasn’t it?
“They did something to your mind. The Agency never found an implant but on the CAT scans, there was strange coloring at the amygdala and frontal lobes.”
Xavier frowned and tilted his head in an uncanny, canine-like way. Josh felt his mouth twitch.
“Those are the parts of the brain that control aggression and judgment,” he said, seeing the obvious question in Xavier’s eyes. “The Agency never took a scan when you were in a, um, fit. But shortly after the fits, they scanned, and those areas were lit up like a Christmas tree. They remained pretty active even after you returned to normal and shifted back to human form.”
Xavier nodded slowly. “So what do you think all that means?”
Josh shrugged. “I can’t completely be sure. We’ve never see
n anything like it.” He paused. “I personally think they used magic.”
Xavier barked out a laugh. Josh jerked at the sound, once again enjoying the small smile on Xavier’s face.
“What?” Josh asked. “You’re a shifter, and you don’t believe in magic?”
“I don’t shift because of magic.”
“How do you know?”
Xavier frowned. “What do you mean, how do I know? I’m a shifter. I was born a shifter.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard about the Three Tribes in the Beginning.”
Xavier inclined his head. “It’s just a myth. Hardly proof.”
“Myths are always based on some fact,” he said stubbornly.
Xavier grinned. Josh was momentarily staggered by the brilliancy of it. “Are they?”
“Yes.” He nodded, recovering. “And I could go into details, but we need to keep on track. The point I am making is that what they did to you is unknown. And while it remains that way, we don’t know how to fix you. Or if we even can fix you.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Xavier gave a careless shrug but wasn’t adept at hiding his troubled expression. Then Xavier released the brake and swung the car back onto the street.
The sun sank below the horizon a couple of hours later, and the dark swallowed up the land. Josh’s stomach growled rather persistently. They’d exchanged cars again, for another truck this time, and made it to Colorado.
“Um, could we stop soon?” he asked.
“There’s a motel coming up. We’ll stop.”
Josh nodded. He had a question he wanted to ask, but he didn’t know if it would be welcomed. Most likely not. But….
“Where do you think the voice comes from?” he asked quietly.
Xavier’s dead silence confirmed Josh’s suspicion that his question was certainly not welcomed.
“Xavier,” he said a moment later. “That’s a nice name. One I don’t hear often. Did you know it means bright in Arabic? That’s encouraging, right? Lots of interpretation for that, actually. My name means God is my salvation, you know, since it’s taken from the Bible. But then, everyone knows that story—”
Josh shut his mouth. Why was he talking about this? Xavier couldn’t care in the least. And besides, hadn’t he talked the poor shifter’s ears off when he thought Xavier nothing but a vegetable? He’d talked about everything under the sun, and Xavier simply stared at him, his eyes blank. Had Xavier actually been listening? Josh’s face heated. Jesus, what if Xavier had been listening? He’d said some personal stuff… stuff about how it sucked being an orphan. About the foster homes, the good and the bad ones. His joy when Captain Odin visited him, recruited him, introducing him to the Agency.
“What story?” Xavier asked, interrupting Josh’s thoughts.
“What?”
Xavier glanced over. “The story about Joshua. I don’t know it.”
“You don’t know the story of Joshua?”
Xavier shook his head. “Tell me.”
He blinked several times. “Seriously?”
Xavier raised an eyebrow. Then he tapped his head. It took Josh a short moment to understand. The voice. Xavier had said that his voice quiets the voice. The violent one. He swallowed. “Well, for one thing, he led the Israelites into the Promised Land—”
“I thought that was Moses.”
“No, Moses died before they reached the land. Joshua led them afterward….” And so it went. For several miles Josh regaled Xavier with the Biblical story of Joshua and his vital part at Jericho and wrestling with the angel. Xavier never interrupted, not once. But Josh knew Xavier was listening, allowing his voice to drown out the other. Amazing.
Chapter Four
How could one head contain so much knowledge? Xavier let Josh’s voice wash over him. The other voice had grown louder after Josh angered him. He’d nearly begged Josh to talk, about anything, when the kid spoke. Sweet relief was all Xavier felt as he listened. He focused on what he needed to do; he formed his plan for their journey. They were going to take the long way to Nevada. While it wouldn’t take long, nearly a day, to get to Nevada the normal way, he didn’t want to take a straight shot, just in case they were followed. He didn’t want the Agency or the Knights to find them. He would go through Colorado and Utah instead of Arizona. He’d approach the Mojave from the north, instead of the south. He’d steal cars intermittently and try to keep the selections random. He didn’t want anyone to see a pattern in the theft. It was as good a plan as he could make. He didn’t want to take too much time. The more time he spent in public, the more chances he might run into a shifter. The very thought made him shudder in fear.
Josh’s voice broke through his thoughts, and Xavier remembered the kid’s anger, his guilt, over one stupid car. Xavier felt it as well. While he realized the necessity of it, he did feel guilt. And it felt foreign. Did he not feel guilt in his previous life? Xavier was convinced his life involved theft. But he couldn’t remember yet. And he felt shame for the life he couldn’t remember.
It shocked him to realize he was ashamed because Josh would disapprove.
Why the hell would he desire the kid’s approval?
Xavier gripped the steering wheel and glanced at the large motel sign to his left. He slowed down and turned into the small parking lot. He paid for the room as Josh waited in the car. They both entered the room, and Xavier sniffed carefully. The scents of other bodies, previous customers, was strong but not overpowering. The sheets were recently cleaned, the detergent scent strong. The last couple had had sex, but it only lingered as an echo, a faint ghostly trace Xavier could easily ignore. Satisfied, he gestured to the bathroom.
“You first. I’ll get us new clothes. What’s your size?”
Josh shook his head. “No way you’re going anywhere without me.”
Xavier raised an eyebrow. Josh’s face was set, his eyes hard. He looked… adorable, actually. His freckles stood out on his pale face, and his light blue eyes contrasted with his flaming red hair. The bruise was still livid on his forehead. The thin cut on his neck had scabbed over. While Xavier didn’t remember the men he’d been with in his previous life, he was certain they hadn’t looked like Josh. And yet… why the attraction?
Was it just because Josh drowned out the voice, or was it something more?
“Can’t go anywhere without you, huh?”
Josh stood his ground. “No.”
“So, you gonna watch me as I hit the head?”
Josh flushed. Xavier couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face.
“N-no, that’s not what I….” Josh glared. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Xavier chuckled. “I know. Fine, I won’t leave. Go take a shower anyway. Then we’ll go find a store and find me some proper clothing.” Xavier gave Josh a once-over. “You could use with some fresh clothes as well.”
“All the stores will be closed right now.”
Xavier rolled his eyes. “Seriously, kid? You going to stay that naïve during our entire month of forced cohabitation?”
Josh’s flush deepened. It nearly turned the same shade as his hair. “I am not a kid,” he said through gritted teeth. “Stop treating me like one. I’m an honest person. There’s a difference.”
Xavier considered the indignity in Josh’s face and felt repentant. He got the feeling he’d never dealt with someone like Josh in his previous life. If only he could remember!
“We’ll leave money,” Xavier said. “I’ll try not to cause too much damage breaking in.”
“Can’t we wait until the morning?”
Josh glanced at the beds and Xavier sympathized, but he had plans. “I want to keep going a little bit more until we’re farther from the border.”
Josh sighed. “Fine. Fine. I’ll go shower, then. Stay here.”
Xavier raised both eyebrows at the authority in Josh’s voice and the almost master-to-dog order. “You know, Josh, I get all tingly when you order me around like that.”
Josh’
s eyes widened slightly before he spun around and stalked into the bathroom. The door slammed shut. He probably shouldn’t tease the kid―Josh―like that, but hell. How could he not? It was so easy.
Then his easy manner sputtered out like a blown candle. Xavier sat heavily down on the bed and let his head fall into his hands. He was tired. He was hungry. He wanted answers. He wanted that voice to go away. And he desperately did not want to harm Josh.
The shower started. Xavier stared at the bathroom door. That was the risk both of them were taking. The dark thing inside him could lash out, and what if it lashed out at Josh? It hadn’t before, but Xavier wondered if that was a fluke. The voice was still there, niggling at the corners of his mind, waiting for him to let his guard down.
He was afraid to sleep. What if the voice made him shift and tear Josh apart?
Xavier shuddered and pressed his fingers to his temples. He shouldn’t have made that deal with Josh, but what other choice did he have? He couldn’t have another shifter’s blood on his hands. Xavier stared down at his hands then and flushed cold. His skin erupted in goosebumps, and inside his innards twisted, his gut tightened. He’d managed not to think about that too much, not after his escape. But now, now that he had nothing to do, he could do nothing but think. He didn’t remember much, but what he did remember was too much.
He fisted his hands and ran his tongue over his teeth. He wanted revenge. He deserved revenge.
The bathroom door opened, and Josh emerged, toweling his hair off. “Your turn.”
The stop at the store was quick. They each found clean clothes, and Xavier finally felt comfortable. Jeans, a simple T-shirt, and a thick denim jacket made him feel almost normal again. The weather was mild, and while he also bought a thick coat, he doubted he would need it unless they camped outdoors. That wasn’t in the plan until they reached the desert. Sturdy boots were a comfort to his feet, and he pulled his hair back in a ponytail. Josh wore a similar ensemble, but he wore sneakers and a simple hoodie. He also bought a heavier jacket. They bought several sets of clothes and sturdy duffel bags to go with them. Xavier wanted the guns out of sight, and the tarp wasn’t a permanent fix. He left the money on the counter.