Vixen (The Fox and Hound Book 1)

by Catherine Labadie

  “Maybe when his majesty arises from his beauty sleep I’ll wash all of your bedding and do some laundry,” I say, deciding I might as well get a few things done before donating the rest of my day to Duncan. Harold gives me an odd look, abandoning the observation of stock stats on his SMARTpad.

  “You’re in a positive mood today, Sierra. How good was that party last night?” he remarks, and I’m glad he

  sounds more curious than suspicious. I open my mouth

  to reply, but Eisen cuts me off.

  “Good enough she got a ride home from a college friend of Issachar Reis’s,” he mutters, giving me a sideways look of mischief before taking his dirty plate and fork to our tiny but clean metal sink. Harold sputters, choking on the sugar laced sip of coffee he’d been about to swallow. I wince.

  “You took a ride home from a college boy you

  don’t even know?” he exclaims in a loud voice, benefiting me with the full front of his worried, stern expression. I glare at Eisen, hissing “troublemaker!” under my breath. His shoulders shake a little from laughter as he meekly washes his plate.

  “It’s not a big deal, Harold, it was only a carpool with a few others,” I explain, directing dagger eyes at my golden brother’s back to avoid the scowl on Harold’s face. I really wish I wasn’t lying, but I don’t appreciate Eisen’s droopy-eared mischief when he’s trying to get me in trouble.

  “That was a bad idea, Sierra,” Harold begins his lecture. “The Reis family can make very good friends, but sometimes their associates are affiliated with…less than savory characters, which—”

  “He means the whole family is mafia royalty,” Eisen cuts in with a dark laugh. “So watch out, or they might end up taking the cannoli and leaving the gun, if you get what I’m saying—” I cut him off this time before Harold can, annoyed.

  “Since when do you make jokes from old movies?” I say indignantly. “I don’t even see how this is any of your business, brother.”

  “It is when you come home smelling like—” I’m very relieved Wade decides now is the time to make an appearance. I shamelessly dodge the tail end of Eisen’s coming accusation to greet my grumpy looking brother with a smile and a hug.

  “Hi, Wade! Happy Saturday!” I say, enjoying the sleepy smell of Wade’s pajama shirt even if I am using him to avoid trouble. Eisen snorts behind me as Wade gingerly hugs me back.

  “Do not be fooled by this subterfuge, my brother,” Eisen begins, striding forward to pry me away from Wade. “This is merely a ploy meant to garner your trust—”

  “Let it be, Eisen,” Harold interjects, apparently tired of the conversation. I loosen my grip on Wade, surprised as Harold relents in lecturing me and Eisen consequently stops trying to separate me from a very confused Wade.

  Why are my brothers acting so weird? I think, bewildered. It’s not like Eisen to sell me out to Harold, it’s not like Harold to suddenly relent mid-lecture, and Wade…

  …It’s not like Wade to be so quiet. I pull back from hugging Wade, which probably allows him to breathe better now that I’ve relinquished my death grip on his torso. Something is wrong, and I sense it as well as see it in Wade’s sharp fur and limp tail. I always know this, like I always could tell he was in trouble from the way he’d have a devil-may-care smirk on his face and a bad attitude when he was hurt. I turn around to observe the rest of my family; Harold scrutinizes Wade as well.

  “Wade? What’s up?” Eisen asks, speaking first. Harold is silent, knowing an explanation will come soon.

  “Bound to happen eventually, we knew,” Wade starts, and I hear that he is more angry than sad. Must not be Emilee, then, I think with some relief. My brothers don’t really date much, but the event of Wade and Emilee has been a long time coming, and I don’t want it to end so soon.

  “What happened, Wade?” I ask quietly, attempting and failing to pull my brother over to a

  chair. He shakes me off and stands rigid, a disgusted curl hovering at the edges of his lips.

  “They fired me. They waited until I’d be home on my day off, then they sent me a SMARTnote letting me know I’d been laid off for ‘reasons we cannot disclose at this present time.’” He speaks each word distinctly, like each and every syllable personally offended him. The four of us are silent, our thoughts directed with confusion and frustration towards the SMARTfactory we thought liked Wade.

  “Morons,” Eisen growls, glaring up at the ceiling. Harold still doesn’t speak, but he wordlessly walks to our fridge and grabs one of our very few beers from the back of the refrigerator. He pops the top and hands it to Wade, who allows his stiff posture to break long enough to give Harold a tight nod of thanks.

  “Beer at ten in the morning?” I question, trying to break the tension a little. Wade shrugs, also shrugging off the knowledge that the drinking age for half-breeds is twenty-five instead of nineteen.

  Once again, my thoughts don’t know what to do with themselves. It was supposed to be a good day, they whine plaintively before zeroing in on the problem of Wade being fired. Of course, it’s obvious why they fired him…look at his face! Perhaps especially when he’s angry, Wade looks more fox-like than human, and in a sick way I understand why the humans would care about that more than Wade’s talent with manipulating technology.

  “That can’t be legal, can it?” Eisen breaks our silence as we ponder what we’re going to do about this situation. “Not saying why they fired him, I mean.

  With all the half-breed regulations in place, something about that can’t be legal. We should complain.”

  “I think we all know why they fired me,” Wade says bitterly, taking another long swig from the dark brown bottle in his fist. I want to hug him again, but I don’t.

  “Oh, we’re going to go in to complain, I promise you that,” Harold says in a tone so cold I’m exceedingly glad I’m not on the receiving end of his censure. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about it, but I know your boss does like you, even if he fired you from peer pressure, or because someone went over his head. Either way…” He frowns, trailing off as he drums his fingers on the hard surface of our cheap wooden table. Abruptly, he gets up and walks into the living room towards the stairs; I assume he’s going to get dressed in lawyer attire.

  “I’m sorry, Wade,” I say at last, now that a plan of action is on the table. “Like Harold said, I don’t know how much can be done…but I hope if you talk with your boss, he’ll re-hire you.”

  Wade snorts. “Like I’d actually want to work there again...still, not like I have a choice, right?”

  His bitterness is contagious, and I look around at my brothers, thinking of the injustice that surrounds our lives because of what we are. Harold, overworked and underpaid half-breed lawyer…Eisen, overworked and socially abused at Omnium Beanery, too poor to go to college because of taxes…Wade, still in debt from a year of trade school, fired because of his appearance…and me, harassed at a human school I don’t even want to be in with no future plans to speak of. I tally up the grievances in my head, my own

  bitterness seeping out from where I store it in the corners of my mind. When will it end? Will it ever end?

  “What will you do if they don’t take you back?” Eisen asks bluntly, getting up and walking to the tiny laundry closet behind our kitchen. He comes out after a moment, pulling a wrinkled blue t-shirt over his head and mussing the fur on his gold ears. Wade shakes his head, still stiff.

  “I just got the note this morning, so I don’t have any new plans yet,” he confesses. “Honestly…I had my life planned out for the next few years, and now the entire thing got overturned by one act of bigotry.” A rumbling sound fills the kitchen, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s all of us, growling softly and deep in our throats.

  “I can imagine: factory work for life, marriage with Emilee, the whole apple pie life?” Eisen sounds so bitter that Wade offers him a swig of his beer, and Eisen tips back the bottle with a sour look on his face.

  I�
��m not surprised by Eisen’s deduction; half-breeds marry fairly early if they can, and it’s not uncommon for strong bonds to form within very short periods of time. As I think this, my heart skips forward and then back a few beats; Duncan brought this subject up yesterday,

  and just thinking back to his hand on mine is distracting. Not the time! I mentally hiss at the sappy feeling tugging the heart strings of my memory.

  “Yeah, right,” Wade says, startling me back into the present. He reclaims his beer from Eisen and grabs a sausage link off the chipped yellow platter before departing to get dressed in his work uniform. “Here’s to hoping Harold can wheedle my boss into taking me

  back.”

  Eisen and I look at each other, mirror expressions of worry and frustration coloring our eyes.

  z

  Eisen departs as well, called into work very shortly after Harold and Wade march off to do battle with the bigots at Wade’s SMARTfactory. I confess I’m a little relieved: I don’t want to hear what Eisen thought I was doing last night, at least not yet. My happy Saturday still has a chance to recover somewhat, but the whole day has been tainted by my concern for Wade and my disappointment that he was fired in the first place. I know Harold said it was going to get bad for us again, but I suppose I was living in denial that it would happen so soon.

  True to my word, I get a few things done as I wait for news from my brothers or contact with Duncan about today. I clean the kitchen and prepare a cold pasta salad with cheese, summer sausage, and minced vegetables for tonight’s dinner, munching on a snack of ham and cheese croissants while I clean and cook. My worry for my brother and my anxiety that Duncan wasn’t serious about today after all—silly as that is, since I’m fairly certain that Duncan won’t ditch our plans after what he said last night—teeters back

  and forth at the forefront of my mind as I strip the sheets off all our beds and start a load or two of laundry.

  By the time everything is cooked and the last load of laundry whizzes around in the washer, it’s almost one in the afternoon, and I haven’t heard from anyone about anything. My SMARTcall hasn’t buzzed this whole time, although I know I’ve put off answering the texts from last night long enough. With a sigh, I tug the elastic hair tie out of my hair and shake it out before slumping into Wade’s kitchen chair with my SMARTcall.

  HAYLEY MANCHESTER: Hey! Call me soon. I want to hear all that transpired after your debut party as the Queen of all half-breeds. *chortle*

  SHELBY JEAN: I’m going to the mountains with Ivar and his family Saturday, so we can’t chat then, but Sunday we should talk! I want to hear if your family is okay!

  I’m more than happy to hear from Hayley, and I kind of want to call her now to talk about everything that I found out last night. However, I don’t want to tie

  up my phone just in case one of my brothers tries to call, and I also doubt Duncan wants me sharing his story with anyone right now. As far as Shelby goes, I’ll have to grit my teeth and call her tomorrow…but that’s tomorrow, and I have enough problems now. I don’t have any more texts from Morgan, and I wonder if she’s mad at me. Lyle, however, is a different story.

  LYLE ZEMAN: Sorry about your family emergency! I enjoyed being your date for while you were at the party.

  I literally don’t know what to say, except that the difference in my mindset now is that I no longer want to force myself to try things out with Lyle. I remember dancing with him too, and the feeling of his closeness was not unpleasant at the time. But now I know there’s not a chance for anything there.

  Morgan needs to win him over, I think determinedly, deciding to have a chat with her at the next opportunity. I move to the next message instead of replying to Lyle, and the sender surprises me.

  EMILEE CHIRZA: Hello, Sierra? I’m Emilee, your neighbor. We’ve not SMARTtexted before, but I’m sure your ID will pick up my name. Wade gave me your number for emergencies, and I haven’t heard from him for a couple days. Could you ask him to check his SMARTcall for me? Sorry to bother you.

  Wade, sometimes you’re a drama queen, I think with a little sour amusement. Emilee sounds sweet to

  me, and I don’t appreciate Wade not letting her know what was going on, since he cares about her enough to give her my number as an emergency contact. I send a quick TEXT EMILEE! message to Wade, and reply to Emilee.

  SIERRA MAURELL: I let him know you wanted to talk

  to him, don’t worry. You’re totally fine, I don’t mind you texting me!

  Right as I hit send, my phone buzzes with a call flashing on the screen, and my heart spasms with an audible THUMP.

  “Hello?” I say, my voice a little high as I answer Duncan’s call. Instead of the casual greeting I expected in return, Duncan is terse and a little concerned.

  “I just saw what’s going on, and I can’t believe it…how are you handling it?” he says, and I hear in the background noise that he’s driving. I’m confused, wondering if perhaps Wade being fired was publicized knowledge.

  “It was a surprise that he got fired…but Harold and Wade are trying to fix that now,” I say, walking to click on our SMARTvision screen built into the wall of our living room. Maybe there was a news story after all, I think, or maybe Wade beat up his boss and now he’s getting arrested. I can see it now: M-DNA AGGRESSION STRIKES SMARTINDUSTRY EMPLOYER.

  “What? I didn’t know your brother got fired…but I suppose it makes sense,” Duncan exclaims, and I hear the sound of his car accelerating. “You should turn on the news. I’m on my way over, assuming of course that my presence is acceptable.”

  “Of course,” I say, perhaps reassuring him a little too quickly; I can almost hear his smile on the other end of the line.

  “That’s good…honestly, Sierra, I can’t wait to see you,” he says, making my heart tap dance against my

  ribs.

  “T-That’s nice,” I say; my voice squeaks. “Make sure you smell like dog and not human boy…my brothers aren’t here, but they’ll recognize a human scent.”

  “Gotcha,” he says. “I’ll let you go so you can watch what’s going down on the news before I get there. They keep replaying the same broadcast over and over, so you should still get to see it.”

  “Okay, bye,” I say before hanging up. I quickly press the gel button right above the screen on our wall for our SMARTvision and take a seat on the couch; I forgot that I could’ve turned on the SMARTvision with a voice command.

  It looks like an official speech is going on: the typical slightly over-weight human senator stuffed into a shiny suit poses on a stage in front of a silver curtain, speaking loudly and emphatically to the camera as he gazes into the lens with cunning grey eyes. I recognize this man: it’s Abel Denmann, the senator Harold has been complaining about for almost a year. According to Denmann, half-breeds should be rounded up and tagged like cattle—he says this in more politically

  correct wording, of course—and according to Harold,

  Denmann should be assassinated someone from the Reis family as quickly as possible. Harold never had much patience for people with antiquated beliefs, like those before the war who were intolerant of our kind.

  The sight of the senator on screen makes me sick, but I turn up the volume with a voice command and listen to the message.

  “As you all know, a major change is on the way. Some senators don’t want me to tell you this, but you

  people with uncontaminated DNA are the true citizens of this country, and I believe you have a right to the truth, and a right to vote,” Denmann begins with an inveigling but serious expression on his stone-hard face. “Your government and your country both suffer, and there isn’t any point pretending that they aren’t. We went through a war several years ago, a war that was both global and civil, and it nearly tore our society apart irrevocably. As you know, we reached a truce with the growing population of M-DNA subjects, and our scientists found a way to limit the pollution of the gene pool so only M-DNA people could produce more of their own kind, a
nd humans would continue to reproduce pure human DNA.”

  Fat lot of good that did, I snort, picturing Duncan’s new attributes in my mind’s eye. You failed in fixing the government just like you failed to stop the “pollution of the DNA pool,” apparently.

  “I believe this was wrong, good people, and please allow me to explain why,” Denmann begins again, and the unease stirring in my heart travels down like poison into my gut. “Ever since we made peace

  with those who were sadly contaminated from birth with the DNA of certain animals, our government has suffered. We have had to provide and sacrifice too much for these subjects; just think of what we have spent and given up in food, shelter, energy, fuel for the M-DNA members of society! The war alone cost Europe and Asia trillions of dollars, not just in defense costs, but in the unsuccessful attempt to develop a cure. We sacrificed the most, and while we didn’t find a cure, we did develop the solution I mentioned a moment ago.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have dragged us all into the war then, dumbass,” I growl, too angry to keep my thoughts to myself. I expect to hear shouts of derision and protest from the crowd Denmann addresses, but the surroundings of the senator are ominously silent; they probably had this filmed at a hidden location to avoid rioting and similar violence from both sides.

  My father died in that war, and the rogue factions you refused to punish killed my mother in a bio attack at her workplace, I think, knowing I’m shaking with anger and furious tears are in my eyes. It dawns on me that this broadcast was part of the reason Wade must have been fired, and why I might not have heard from Harold or Eisen yet. Apprehension sets my teeth on edge and I can hardly sit still.

  Abel Denmann is still speaking, and I want to take a sledgehammer right to his smug face. “We have not recovered from these expenses, and if no changes are made, we will not recover for at least a century. As I said, certain senators—the same type who wished to make peace with the M-DNA subjects near the close of the war—would not wish me to share these things with