“I’m glad you stayed with us. I’m glad you’re a part of my life. And I’m glad you’re here right now.” He looked over. “I mean it. I know you’re worried about blame, but you’re not responsible for any of this. Unless you count the part where we’re alive.”
With a duck of his head that didn’t hide the small smile forming, Taylor shrugged. “Well, you kept that garage like a damn bunker.”
From over by the tree came an “Oof,” as Mandy pulled a large present down into the snow and began sifting through the others. Her hair caught in the tree’s needles, shaking ornaments in her wake.
“Yeah,” breathed Greg.
Then he reached over and wrapped an arm about Taylor’s shoulders to tug him close. They remained like that, enjoying the quiet, the gentle sun beating down on them a contrast to the bitter cold of the night before. This was pleasant, just feeling one another, alive, well, still breathing despite everything conspiring to keep them from being so.
“Taylor!” screamed Mandy, breaking them apart. “Taylor, your present is safe! It’s safe!”
She waved a thin package through the air, the thick wrapping and tape-heavy gift dry and floppy. Blue sparkles danced across the room as she ran to them, kicking up snow across the carpet. She shoved the present into Taylor’s hands, causing it to crinkle and fold slightly, but she didn’t seem to care, her face ablaze with a giant grin.
“You get to open the first present this year because you were the first one up. That’s Daddy’s rule. So open it! Open it!”
She bounced on the balls of her feet, her face moving closer as Taylor began peeling away tape and wrapping. When she reached to help Taylor unwrap the gift faster, Greg chuckled and pulled her away so that she leaned against him instead.
Slowly, Taylor peeled off all those layers of paper Mandy had spun round and round, picked off all that tape she’d had Greg hold out for her, more than half of the pieces completely missing the edges of the paper folds.
It was a picture. Just a picture, done on cheap ivory construction paper with colored pencils. A picture of the three of them—Taylor with a set of guns; Mandy pointing and laughing; Greg holding a baby reindeer of all things—all gathered around a large, red-coated and capped man with a white beard and large belly that spurted blood—or at least what Greg thought was blood—in a sort of fountain. Little elves lay all around, Xs for their eyes. The trees boasted spearmint curves. The ground had been left ivory for snow.
“Do you like it?” asked Mandy eagerly.
Taylor took a long, slow breath and let it out the same way, before he looked over at her. “Yeah, Mands. I like it. I like it a whole lot. Better than unicorn farts, which is what I thought you were going to get me.”
“Eww.” Then she pulled out of Greg’s arms. “My turn! I get to pick one now!”
Greg hesitated before going after her, catching Taylor staring at the picture, his jaw gone hard and his eyes calculating.
With a low voice, steeped in deep-rooted conviction that sent a spark through Greg’s insides, Taylor murmured, “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill all of them.”
About the Author
Emmi Lawrence is a fantasy romance author who loves reading, writing and video games and tends to avoid cooking whenever possible. She also suffers from an unhealthy obsession for a specific reality show where the contestants eat a lot of rice. She lives in Maryland with her family.
To sign up for New Release Alerts or to help Emmi by joining her ARC Team, please subscribe to her newsletter here.
Other Titles by Emmi Lawrence
Standalone
Bridle the Unicorn
Siren Song
Dark Phoenix
Deadly Holidays
Those Bloody Christmas Elves
Rise of the Snowmen
The Wilds Duology
Haunt of the Wilds
Song for the Wilds
Pup Games: A Houndmaster Novel
DaSunder Chronicles
Shatter by Glass
Murder in Color
The Ocean’s Aviary
Lost Isle
Curtain Chasers
Alley
Grave
Dream
Table of Contents
Rise of the Snowmen
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
About the Author
Other Titles by Emmi Lawrence
Secret Scene
Secret Scene
No one had questioned the reindeer in the stable. Not the owner of the property, who Taylor had first booked with. Not the lad who’d patted the two beasts down with knowing hands. Not the girl mucking out her horse’s stall opposite the two Taylor had been assigned.
Not even later, after freshly grown antlers began leaving gashes along the stall walls.
Chalkboards had been hung at each of the stalls, boasting names like Shooter and Magnus and Lluvia, with small pictorials in the corners. Taylor had made up a lie on the spot, saying the horses were presents, that he wanted his partner’s daughter to help name them. He’d gotten a shrug and then the lad had scrawled T. Yeristan 1 and T. Yeristan 2 before helping to get the giant creatures settled.
And that had been that.
Except it really hadn’t been.
Taylor had stood there, hands in the pockets of his new leather jacket, hair falling into his face, and stared at those arctic creatures sitting placidly in their stalls. The reindeer snuffed past the hair on their noses; they stomped those furry hooves; they yawned and grunted and nosed through the hay like they might find something fresher underneath.
They reminded him of moments long gone. Of moments he’d thought he’d tamped down. Not far enough though. Not deep enough in the dusty crevices of his mind.
He had left that day, crunching through a light dusting of snow to his rental, this one a truck large enough to pull an enclosed trailer he’d also had to shell out money to rent in order to drag the reindeer across town. He’d sat in that rental and breathed deep of that new car scent, yet couldn’t quite remove the permeating stench of the stables. Nor the memories they sparked.
He brought Mandy and Greg a few weeks later. Mandy ran up to each stall and babbled at every horse she passed, sounding out their names and begging Greg to lift her up when she found her chin could barely make it to each opening even if she stretched.
“Here they are,” said Taylor, nodding toward the reindeer, hands in his jacket pockets once again to hide the fists.
Greg lifted Mandy to see the first one more clearly.
“It’s so furry!”
“Shhh, Mands.” Taylor leaned close. “Not everyone can tell they’re reindeer.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because. Not everyone believes in Santa Claus.”
Mandy wrinkled her nose. “My friends at school still think Santa brings presents.”
Greg sighed, though the pained expression on his face went entirely unnoticed by his daughter. “That’s because they’ve never met his elves.”
“I’ve met them,” she said. “They don’t believe me.”
“Yeah, Mands. You have. We know, even if they don’t,” said Taylor. Then he nodded again at the reindeer in the stall as it shook its wide shoulders, layers of brown fur revealing glimpses of a lighter undercoat beneath. “What do you think? Have a good name for this one?”
“Flying Elf Killer.”
Greg laughed. “What?”
“Or Flying Elf Killer Stomper Hoof Rudolph.”
“How about Ohdeer,” said Greg, still laughing.
Crossing his arms and leaning against the stall, Tay
lor shook his head at them both. “They’re supposed to be undercover, guys.”
“Horse?” asked Greg, eyes still twinkling.
“That’s too obvious.”
“Licker?” asked Mandy. “See, it’s licking the hay and it licked the wall and why did it lick the wall. That’s gross.”
Maybe he should have just named them himself.
“Snowflake!” shouted Mandy. “We could use snowflake!”
“I was partial to Merry Deathmas,” said Taylor, but I guess Snowflake will have to do.”
But Mandy’s eyes widened considerably and she wrinkled her nose and scrunched up her face and made that evil giggle Taylor loved so much. “Merry Deathmas,” she said in that youthful, diabolical voice. “Merry Deathmas is going to stomple all the elves. Stomple them to pieces and pieces.”
Greg raised both eyebrows and shifted Mandy’s weight as she threw herself forward to grasp the edge of the stall door. “Merry Deathmas, you must murder all the elves and leave no frarensicks to file!”
Merry Deathmas stared back with dark eyes. Then it scratched its growing antlers against the wall again in complete disregard of anything they’d said.
“You’ve been letting her watch forensic shows again?” asked Greg quietly.
“What about the other one?” asked Taylor, completely ignoring Greg’s question. He twisted around and settled back against the stall facing the other direction so he could look in at the second reindeer, this one a tad shorter, with lighter fur about its hooves and nose and a burn on its back foreleg where a particular elf had attempted to catch it moments before she fell off a roof. “This one needs a name, too, Mands.”
Greg released a long-suffering sigh, but there was no malice behind it. Nothing but a father tired of fighting to keep his daughter protected and away from all the evils in the world. He propped his leg against the other stall door and balanced Mandy on it so she could peek through the bars at the second reindeer.
“This one’s smaller,” she said.
“But feistier.”
“What’s feistier mean?”
“It’s what your dad is after you go to sleep.”
“Taylor,” berated Greg, though the strength of it was diminished by his choked laughter.
“Should this one be a Snowflake?” asked Taylor.
Mandy wrinkled up her nose again. “Snowy Snowflake.”
“Well, if we’re going for holiday spirit strangeness…” started Greg. “How about Holinights?”
Taylor snorted. “As opposed to holidays?”
“We could call her Holly,” said Mandy.
“Sure, though she’s technically a he.”
“What’s a he?”
“Never mind.”
She gasped suddenly and threw herself back so quickly, Greg almost dropped her as she lurched halfway off his knee.
“Taylor!” she shouted, then she looked around dramatically and loudly whispered, “Will the elves come and find them to steal them back?”
“Nah,” he said. Gave her a wink. “They have whole herds of them. Don’t even give them names.”
“Not even the ones from the song?” asked Greg. “Comet? Cupid? Dasher?”
Taylor smiled thinly. “Not even.”
“Good,” said Mandy. “I don’t want them to go away. Not ever. I love them.”
The lad who had originally led Taylor to the stalls weeks ago walked past just then and gave them a vague smile. “Burgeoning horse girl. She’s in her element around here.”
“Horse?” asked Mandy, but both Greg and Taylor shushed her until the lad was much further down the stable and Mandy’s spluttering could no longer be contained. “They’re not horses. They’re reindeer.”
“Yes, Mands,” said Taylor. “They’re reindeer, but other people can’t tell that.”
She looked from the reindeer, to Taylor, then to the lad down the stable, then finally to Greg as if seeking some sort of validation from the person she trusted most. Greg shrugged.
“Christmas magic is real, sweetheart. Some of it’s horrible, like the elves and those snowmen. But some of it, like these reindeer and the sort we make ourselves, is wonderful beyond compare.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and then turned back to the reindeer. “I’m glad I can see that they’re reindeer and not horses. I want to be a reindeer girl, not a horse girl, because reindeer can fly.”
They left the chalkboards with new names scrawled in place of Taylor’s name: Merry Deathmas (with a small Christmas tree in the corner) and Holinights (with Mandy’s awkward snowflakes dotted around the edges). The reindeer chewed placidly, scratched their velvet against the wooden slats of their stalls, their harnesses occasionally jangling when they shook themselves.
But nobody heard the chiming bells.
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