The Roses of May

by Dot Hutchison

  “I have no more monsters to kill,” I murmur.

  “One and done?”

  “Thank God.”

  “What would you think . . .” She falls silent, which is so unlike her I’d turn to look at her if my ribs wouldn’t protest. Instead, I find her hand and tangle my fingers through hers, resting them on my belly. “For a long time, it’s been me and you against the world,” she continues after a while, “but we have our agents, and you have Inara, and your veterans . . . maybe it’s time we open ourselves up a bit.”

  “I’m going to try to make friends in Paris. Not just grudgingly allow it, like with Aimée, but actively try.”

  “Good. And what would you think . . .”

  Whatever the rest of that thought is, it seems to be impossible.

  “Some of your cousins are at universities on the continent, or work there. A handful are even in Paris. Maybe we can start connecting with the outliers, work our way down to the older generations.”

  “Work our way up?”

  “I said what I meant.” Brushing a kiss against my ear, she matches her breathing to mine. “You could have died today, my love, and it occurred to me: I don’t want to be all alone. I could do it, certainly, but I don’t want to. And I realized, if anything happens to me . . . I know you’d be taken care of. Vic would adopt you in a heartbeat. I just thought . . . Save me, Priya-love, you know I hate leaking emotions.”

  Laughing softly, I give Mum’s fingers a squeeze. “Cousins sound like an excellent place to start.”

  She’s silent for a long time, her fingertips rubbing little circles against my shirt. “Was he scared?” she asks finally.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Even with the adrenaline crash and the medications and the warm, comforting weight of Mum wrapped around me, I’m a little surprised at how easy it is to drift off, not quite sleeping but definitely not awake.

  Then my phone beeps.

  Mum props herself up to grab it from the nightstand. The number is Inara’s, but the text is addressed to both me and Eddison. It’s just a picture, no caption, but I can’t make it out from the thumbnail on the lock screen. She hands the phone to me and I thumb it open, pulling up the picture.

  Inara stands with another girl, about our age and significantly shorter, with Times Square screaming neon all around them. Both have half-size poster board signs and dangerous smiles. The shorter girl is on the left, her sign yelling FUCK OFF in gold glitter; Inara’s says BAD GUYS in silver.

  Across the hall, a muffled thump and curse is followed by a “Christ and goddamn, Bliss!”

  Mum and I look at the picture a while longer, then Mum snorts softly. “I’m impressed,” she admits. “Wandering around Times Square with a sign that says fuck off. Lovely.”

  “Fuck off, bad guys,” I tell her, aiming for prim but landing somewhere next to a laugh.

  “You did your best to drag ours straight to the gates of hell; we’ll see if it sticks.”

  I turn the phone to silent and set it back on the table, but as I drift off again, I can hear the buzzing vibrations against the wood that says Eddison and Inara are back-and-forthing. It’s a strangely welcoming sound.

  Jameson Carmichael—also known as Joshua Gabriel—dies Thursday, May fifth, at eight forty-seven in the morning, mountain time.

  He never woke up.

  Eddison can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. A confession, or even a chance to question him, would have helped immensely, but there’s a part of him that’s glad they never had to hear him try to further justify what he did. There’s more analysis to be done before anyone will sign off on informing the other families, but there’s a sense of completion there.

  Vic and Finney go down to Texas to talk to Mrs. Eudora Carmichael, and Vic comes back looking a kind of haunted that makes Eddison’s skin crawl. Vic’s daughters take one look at their father and practically nail him to the couch, sitting around him with snacks and a nearly endless stream of animated movies at the ready. It’s what he’s always done for their bad days; his girls are too bright not to realize that it works both ways.

  Once the girls are asleep, Vic squirms out from under them, adjusting the blankets so they’re covered, their limbs so they’re not about to fall off the couch, and motions his partners outside. They follow him, but not until Eddison snaps a picture to send to Priya.

  After all, she’s been part of that puppy pile in the past.

  Outside, they walk down the driveway to a little playground. The benches there have seen any number of impromptu conferences or post-case wind-downs. Vic sits heavily, looking older than he is, while Ramirez perches atop the back and stretches her legs along the length of the bench. They don’t bother leaving room for Eddison; he almost never sits during serious conversation if pacing is an option.

  Vic reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Not a word to my wife or ma,” he warns them, and holds it out.

  Eddison takes one immediately. Ramirez shakes her head.

  “Your gal in Counterterrorism not like the taste?” Eddison asks her.

  “She has a name, you know.”

  “Now where would the fun be in that?”

  She takes a cigarette before Vic can put the pack away.

  “Mrs. Carmichael was devastated,” Vic tells them, releasing a long, thin plume of smoke. “The last time she heard from her son was when he drove away a few months after his sister’s death. At first she was in hysterics, but once she calmed down . . .”

  “She started to reframe how she saw him,” Ramirez finishes for him.

  Vic nods. “He’d always been very protective of Darla Jean, she said. A very attentive older brother. He didn’t like boys paying attention to her, or her paying attention to boys. Didn’t like it when she dressed certain ways, or said certain things. Looking back, Mrs. Carmichael thought he was more physically affectionate than most brothers, but she was so glad they weren’t fighting she didn’t think too much of it.”

  “So Darla Jean kissed a boy in a church,” says Ramirez, “a flower on her dress, and her brother saw. Felt betrayed?”

  “Rapes her, kills her, runs back home before anyone can find her. Rural Texas, I bet most of the men know how to hunt. Any number of them have knives like his,” Eddison continues.

  “He doesn’t run right away, not until the investigation’s stalled. Not until his leaving won’t be suspicious. And it’s a small town, he’s a smart young man, grieving his sister, is it really a surprise that he doesn’t come back?”

  “And everyone pities Mrs. Carmichael, to lose both her children so close to each other.” Eddison flicks the ash onto a bare patch of soil, stepping on it just to be sure. “No one thinks twice about Jameson, so he becomes Joshua.”

  “He goes somewhere else, can’t settle without Darla Jean, moves on again. He sees Zoraida. Everything a sister should be.”

  “He remembers Darla Jean was a ‘good’ sister, a good girl, until that boy, and he resolves to protect Zoraida from the same fate. Kills her to keep her innocent, but treats her gently.”

  “But every spring, he remembers Darla Jean, and when he sees the combination of pretty girl, church, and flowers, it triggers him. He stalks them to see if they’re his definition of good or not.”

  “I hope you both realize that neither of you is ever getting promoted as long as you finish each other’s thoughts,” Vic points out. He stubs out the remains of his cigarette against the bottom of his shoe, then peels the paper away from the filter and drops both pieces back into the pack.

  Ramirez hands him her cigarette to finish. “He learns Priya is in San Diego because of a photo contest; we found the magazine at his apartment. Priya, fifteen, San Diego. He takes it on faith, goes after her.”

  “But he finds her just before she leaves, and he has to look for her all over again. It takes him a while, but then Deshani’s profile runs in the Economist, and she mentions that she and Priya are mo
ving to Huntington. He decides to get there first.”

  “And the rest is history.”

  There’s a question—a thought, maybe, or a possibility—that hangs heavy between them. Eddison remembers that feeling coming back from Denver the first time, that itching sense of something being out of place about the Sravastis’ reactions. He snorts softly. “We’re not saying it, are we?”

  “No,” Vic answers immediately. Firmly.

  “Should we be?” Ramirez asks.

  There isn’t an easy answer to that, and they all know it. There’s the law, their oaths to the FBI. There’s the much murkier territory of right and wrong.

  But there’s also Priya, the laughing girl she used to be, and Deshani, too strong to stumble even if it kills her. There are all those other girls.

  Eddison’s never been sure what he thinks of the afterlife, if there are lost souls waiting for answers before they can move forward to the light or heaven or whatever. There are too many lost souls still living. But however much he wants to deny it, there’s a part of him that will always tell the dead to rest in peace when they solve a murder. As if the knowing can give them that misty satisfaction and let them move on.

  From Darla Jean Carmichael to Julie McCarthy, are those girls able to rest now?

  And he thinks of Faith. Always, forever, of Faith. If he ever finds the bastard who took her . . .

  “Priya’s more her mother’s daughter than ever,” he says finally.

  “Once we get the new round of lab reports, Finney and I are both recommending the case be officially closed,” Vic tells them. “Priya Sravasti is a victim of Bureau ineptitude. An overeager agent charged with her protection used her as bait because the section chief was more concerned with politics than with the facts of the case. Section Chief Ward will face a full internal investigation regarding her actions.”

  “And that’s an end to it?” Ramirez asks.

  “Are you okay with that?”

  She looks off into the stretch of trees that backs the playground, running along in a thick strip between this row of houses and the ones behind them. She hates the woods, and it took almost two years and a night of far too much tequila for her to tell them why. Vic might have already known, actually, if he had access to her background, but he’d never made mention of it if he had. Most of her nightmares were born in the woods, something that may never leave her.

  It’s never stopped her from running straight into the trees if there’s a chance in hell the kid they’re looking for is alive in there.

  “Yes,” she says eventually, drawing out the word. “I suppose I am.”

  Because there’s the law, and there’s justice, and they’re not always the same thing.

  The night before Mum and I leave the country, the Hanoverian living room is full of laughter and arguments and noise. So much noise, and it’s amazing, the vitality of it. Vic is thoroughly outnumbered by his mother, wife, and three daughters, and because Inara and Bliss are in the room, Eddison stays on the opposite side of it and doesn’t even try to help his senior partner. Mercedes just teases both men.

  It’s home, and family, and all kinds of wonderful things.

  Eventually, though, everyone heads to bed, Marlene and Jenny kissing everyone on foreheads or cheeks. They get Eddison’s cheeks at the same time from either side, and doesn’t that just make him squirm?

  The picture is wonderful. Inara and Bliss both promptly ask me to text it to them. So do Vic and Mercedes, when Eddison can’t see them.

  I have a feeling Mercedes will be putting it on her desk at work at some point, just to fuck with him.

  Mum shoos me upstairs, where we’re sharing Brittany’s room, but she stays in the living room with the adults and I know it’ll be a while before she’s up. So I head into Holly’s room with Inara and Bliss.

  They came down a few days ago from New York, with a detour to Sharpsburg to check on the youngest Garden survivor. The best part of meeting them may have been watching Eddison try not to crawl out of his skin. He kept hovering in the doorway of whatever room we were in, clearly torn between wanting to run the hell away and wanting to make sure we don’t accidentally take over the world.

  I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t be an accident if we did.

  Bliss is as prickly as Mum and me, if a bit more aggressive with it. I generally keep my snarls as an answer; she uses them as a challenge. I can’t say I blame her. What happened to her was a lot more public than what was done to me, even when the news took up Chavi and her place in the string of unsolved murders.

  Inara is quieter than Bliss, not shy or withdrawn, just . . . more patient, I suppose. Bliss explores a situation by lighting a match and letting it explode. Inara watches first, observes. She waits to speak until she knows what she wants to say and has a healthy guess as to how others will react to it. It’s easy to see why the Hanoverians have taken them in.

  “I hear your parents and siblings are in Paris,” I say to Bliss, my fingers buried in Inara’s hair to help her braid it for bed.

  Bliss growls, but Inara glances back at me over her shoulder. “Most people would just say family.”

  “Your family’s here, and in New York. I may not know you two that well, but that’s clear enough.”

  Inara laughs at the fierce blush that lights up Bliss’s pale skin.

  “Yes,” Bliss manages after clearing her throat. “They’re in Paris. My father’s teaching.”

  “They’ve been bugging you to come visit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if you do . . . we’re going to have a couple of guest rooms. If you want to get together, or if you need to escape for a night. Or if things go south and you need to say fuck it. Safety net’s there. And you wouldn’t have to listen to your parents pout if you bring Inara.”

  “They have been bitching about it,” she agrees. Without warning, she pulls off everything but her underwear and rummages through her bag for sleepwear.

  “Our apartment is one giant room,” Inara explains. “Even after the Garden, modesty isn’t so much a thing there.”

  “Eh. I had a sister.” I tie off Inara’s braid, hand her the brush, and turn around so she can return the favor. Her strokes are smooth and sure, never tugging too hard but letting the bristles scrape gently along my scalp.

  “Does it ever stop, do you think?” Bliss asks suddenly.

  “Does what?”

  “That sense of being a victim.”

  It’s a little strange, the way they both focus on me at that. They’re both older than me, if not by very much, but then, my world exploded five years ago. In a sick sort of way, I guess I have seniority. “It changes,” I say finally. “I don’t know that it ends. Sometimes it flares, for no reason at all. The more choices we make, though, the more we live our lives . . . I think that helps.”

  “We heard Eddison say you killed the bastard. The one that was after you.”

  “I did.” My hands are in my lap, free of heavy-duty bandages but still more Band-Aid than skin. Inara has pale, rippling scars on her hands from burns and gashes. “He came after me, we struggled over his knife, I stabbed him. A lot. Adrenaline, you know?”

  “I shot Avery. The Gardener’s older son, the one who liked to maim. I don’t know how many times.”

  “Four,” Inara says, her voice soft.

  “Sometimes I shoot him and there are no bullets in the gun. Sometimes I shoot and shoot and shoot and never run out of bullets, but he doesn’t stop. He just keeps coming forward.”

  “Sometimes I wake up and have to strip down so I can lie naked in the tub, because clothes and bedding feel too much like flower petals,” I reply. “Because in my nightmare, I’m alive but bleeding out, can’t move, and he’s surrounding me with white roses, like the Lady of Shalott’s bier down the river.”

  They both laugh, even as Bliss groans. “You like classics?” Inara asks.

  “Some of them.”

  “Don’t ever get this one started on Poe,” Bliss
tells me. “She can quote all of it. And by quote, I mean recite. All of it. Every goddamn word of it.”

  The braid thumps against my back as Inara ties it off. “It kept my brain busy.”

  “That’s the trick, I think.” I stretch out across the bed. Inara and Bliss aren’t anything like Chavi and Josephine, but the feeling is there. I’m comfortable with both of them in a way I didn’t expect to be right off. “Things don’t just magically get better, but we can make them better.”

  “Slowly,” adds Inara.

  “So fucking slowly,” sighs Bliss.

  “I take pictures of Special Agent Ken and send them to Eddison. When we get to Paris, I’m dressing the doll in mime gear at a café, and I can almost guarantee Eddison’s response will be That’s horrifying or something very similar.” They laugh again, Bliss easing down gently across my back, careful with my battered and wrapped ribs. Her hair is all wild curls, not something you can braid dry, and it spills around her. I can see their wings, or parts of them where the tank tops don’t hide them.

  They’re beautiful, and awful, and I get the feeling they see them largely the same way. At least Inara, anyway, but then, I think she’s had more practice than Bliss at reframing perspective.

  Inara stretches out beside me, her legs thrown over mine and her cheek against the back of Bliss’s shoulder. “How many times did you stab him, Priya?” she asks softly.

  “Seventeen. Once for each girl he killed, and once for me.”

  Her slow, satisfied smile is both terrifying and wonderful.

  I don’t remember falling asleep that way, but Mum shows me the picture in the morning. Over Marlene’s amazing cinnamon rolls, Eddison teases Bliss about being cuddly. He takes a little too much delight in setting her wrong-footed, at least until Inara hands me a little blue dragon made of clay and tells me to mail it back once Special Agent Ken is done with him.

  Seeing Eddison try not to blush is always a good thing.

  We say goodbye to the female Hanoverians at the house, laden down with plastic bags of treats from Marlene. She swears there won’t be a problem getting through security with them, and standing safely behind her where she can’t see him, Vic rolls his eyes.