by C. R. Asay
“Try?”
“They don’t know if it will work because of the whole gold hair and eyes thing. It’s chemically engineered for Rethan physiology, so they’re not sure,” his voice trailed off.
I ran my hand lightly across the thick scar above his ear and then rubbed my thumb on his bottom lip. He leaned his face into my hand, his eyes closed. The shadow of a beard scraped lightly across my palm and my fingers tingled. I retracted my hand quickly in sudden fear of volting him again.
“Oh, knock it off.” He grabbed my hand.
Our lips met. I lost myself in the moment, far beyond the hurt of dimensions, commanders, and bullets. The exhilarating taste of his mouth, his breath against my tongue, the soft, tender movement of his lips. All too soon he pulled away. One side of his mouth lifted in a grin. I touched my fingers to my lips and smiled back. Thurmond cleared his throat.
“Been wanting to do that for months.” Thurmond tapped my lips with another brief kiss and then sat back.
“There are a lot of people who need to talk to you. You up for visitors?”
“Like who?”
“Well, Xavier for starters.”
I made a face. The warmth from the kiss fizzled, leaving me cold and irritated. My head ached. The last thing I wanted was Xavier coming in and reminding me again how I’d murdered two hundred and thirty-six Rethans, including my husband, and abandoned my only son.
My son. Rannen.
“Rannen’s here, too,” Thurmond said, reading my mind. He looked to the door and scratched his nose before turning back to me. “Justet also mentioned he wanted to apologize. I took the opportunity to tell him to go to hell for you.”
“Well, he did sort of try to help back at the penthouse,” I admitted grudgingly.
“I don’t care. I said I’d pass on his apology. That should be enough for him.”
I didn’t say anything. On one hand, if I saw his face again, I might be inclined to get some more practice with my right hook. On the other, as much as I would love to savor my grudge against Justet, I thought it would be rather hypocritical of me.
“We should give him a chance. I got a second chance.”
Thurmond rubbed his hands across his scalp.
“I didn’t mean it that way, Rose,” he finally said. “I just . . . it’s just . . . you know what? Never mind. I’ll send him in a little later if you want me to.” He rolled his eyes. “I still think he has a thing for you, though, so don’t be surprised if I have to deck him.”
“Get in line.” I grinned.
Thurmond barked a laugh. “Wichman needs to talk to you too.”
That was quite an appointment calendar. I felt exhausted thinking about it. All I really wanted to do was hang out with Thurmond and talk about light and irrelevant topics to make me forget all about Retha, the commander, and even what to do about Rannen. I massaged the scar on my leg, wondering if it would hold up if I jumped out the window. Thurmond got to his feet.
I fumbled for the button that would raise the bed higher. “Aren’t you going to stay?”
“No, sorry. I’ve got to talk to Wichman before he comes in.” Thurmond shook his head, stepping away from the bed. “You should probably speak to Xavier and Rannen alone, anyway.”
“Fine, leave me to the vultures.” I dropped my head on against my pillow, dreading Xavier’s stupid, tanned face and bleached teeth.
Thurmond paused, one foot out the door. He was about to say something but then he shook his head and disappeared without another word.
Before the door could latch it was yanked open again. Rannen filled the doorway. He was still wearing his dirty Rethan uniform, but at least the cuts on his face and chest had been tended to. He ducked to enter the king-sized hospital door, and his smile lit up the room.
“You’re looking better, Kris.” He was across the room in two steps and dropped into the chair Thurmond had vacated. The chair groaned, making me fear for its life. Rannen folded my hand into his enormous paw.
“Thanks, Manny . . . Rannen. Or Marshal Rannen?”
“Rannen’s fine. Your new hair color though,” he paused, brows furrowed. “Frightening, yes?”
I shrugged. Frightening? Not really. Weird for sure, but frightening?
Rannen’s expression was bemused, but then he sat back with a pleasant sigh. His happy contentment seemed so genuine that I felt my tension and fear regarding him slide away. I even considered talking about the more pressing topics but chickened out, grasping at the opening he’d given me.
“Yeah, about my ‘frightening’ hair. You don’t happen to know why it’s not Rethan silver anymore, do you?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the clearing of a throat redirected our attention to Xavier, who was leaning against the doorframe. Sometime over the last few hours he’d found time to dye his hair black, shave, shower, and change his clothes. His new clothes were immaculate as always, but more ordinary than I was used to. Jeans and a button-down plaid shirt made him look like an immigrant worker rather than one of the most prominent celebrities in the country.
“You look like an inhabitant of the Thirteenth Dimension.” His expression was conflicted. I figured he still wanted to hate me but perhaps he didn’t feel as justified as before. He frowned. “You’re going to scare the hell out of a lot of Rethans, looking like that.”
“The Thirteenth Dimension? How?”
Xavier only narrowed his eyes. I mimicked his expression, and he looked away. Whatever he knew, he wasn’t telling. And I certainly wasn’t about to beg it out of him. He made no motion to move farther into the room or to say anything more, so I bit back the hundreds of insults and accusations and turned expectantly to Rannen.
“Rannen?”
Rannen shook his head, his eyes on the floor. I backed off. I was alive and relatively well. So my hair had changed color. Who cared? I could shrug off the whys for now.
“Listen, Rannen.” I paused and waited until he looked at me. “About what I did back in Retha, you know, before—”
Rannen heaved out a sigh and held up a hand. He smiled briefly, glancing at Xavier and then back to me. “Don’t bother with an apology, Kris. I’m happy to know that the person I was always led to believe you were doesn’t exist anymore.”
If only that were true, Caz whispered.
I gulped, and tears came to my eyes. I blinked them back, feeling silly.
“You’re going to forgive her?” Xavier broke in. “Just like that?”
I thought I had grown on him as Kris Rose, but apparently grudges die hard. Especially now that I knew the personal nature of the offense.
“She’s different now,” Rannen rumbled.
“That doesn’t change what she did before! What she was!” His face flushed, and he looked from Rannen to me. He seemed to catch Rannen’s frame of mind, and his eyes widened. “You’re really going to forgive her?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Rannen lumbered to his feet. The chair screeched like it was dying. “Kris has proven herself to be one of the most self-sacrificing people I’ve ever met.”
“That’s not Kris! That’s Caz! The mother who abandoned you over twenty years ago!” Xavier gestured at me. His words struck me through my heart. “Not to mention that she . . . she murdered your father, Manny!”
My stomach clenched in sickening pain. That’s right. Vin. Rannen’s father.
Slashed his throat.
I rubbed my left temple. Rannen frowned at the floor. He didn’t seem surprised or even angry, rather sad that Xavier had pulled such a stunning trump card. When he looked up it wasn’t at Xavier but at me, his expression resolute.
“I never really knew that other person, and just because I was raised to hate my mother doesn’t give you the right to try to make me hate her now.”
“One moment of selflessness doesn’t erase everything she did in the past!”
“Uncle Xander,” Rannen said softly. He stepped close to my bed and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. He then
turned on Xavier. “I will always appreciate the love and care you’ve given me over the years. However, it’s time for me to make my own decisions regarding my mother, and for now, it seems, we are going to disagree.”
Xavier stood perfectly still, his mouth moving as he tried to throw out a brilliant retort. Finally, he shook his head and opened the door before turning back to me.
“Remember our deal, Miss Rose.” He shoved his thousand dollar sunglasses on his face and disappeared. The door closed with a hiss and a clack.
I was a little disconcerted by Rannen’s implausible affection, not to mention a little worried as to how to be his mom. How do you mother a child who has outgrown you in every way?
“What deal did you make with him?” Rannen asked, sitting again.
It took me a moment to remember what Xavier was talking about. “Something about him helping me find you and Thurmond, as long as once we did I’d stay away from him.”
“Sounds like a win for everyone then.” Rannen grinned.
I grinned back, enjoying the smell of ozone like a warm summer rain within the room. Thurmond poked his head in.
“Hey, Rose.” He looked apologetic, but went on. “Wichman says he needs to speak with you right now. He has to leave on another assignment but wanted to say goodbye.”
“That’s fine, Devon,” Rannen said. “We’re done here for now anyway. I’ve got to go help Uncle Xander find something nice for Angie. Apparently she didn’t know about his relationship with Zell before last night.” Rannen smiled and touched my head. “We’ll talk again soon.”
“Okay. Looking forward to it.” I snickered to myself over Xavier’s dilemma.
Rannen shook Thurmond’s hand before ducking out.
“You patch things up with Xavier?” Thurmond asked, holding the door open.
“Nope.” I leaned my head against my pillow. “If he wants to continue being a big fat jerk, that’s his choice.”
Thurmond had a strange look on his face, and I noticed him tapping a cell phone against his leg. I was about to ask him what was wrong when Wichman entered. He was wearing a dark business suit with a blue tie, looking every inch the secret government agent that he was. His mustache twitched. I raised my eyebrows.
“You wouldn’t really have pulled that trigger in the diner, would you?” I said. I was having a hard time erasing the betrayal I’d felt at the time, despite what I knew now.
“Don’t be stupid, Rose.” He smiled, and I felt the grudge slide. Everything had worked out, after all. He tapped his knuckles against the rail of my bed, one hand in his pocket. “I’m sorry how everything went down. Anyway, I wanted to stop in really quick and say thank you for what you did last night. There’s not really words to describe the incredible sacrifice you were willing to make. On behalf of the United States—actually, the entire Third Dimension—thank you. You’re a real hero.”
My cheeks grew hot.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” It was actually a huge problem. But whatever.
Sergeant Wichman chuckled. Then his face grew serious.
“I also wanted to say I’m sorry about your father.” My stomach gave a painful jerk, and a thousand questions flooded my mind. Thurmond looked at me in surprise. I dropped my eyes to my blankets. Wichman continued. “He was a great man. Great agent.”
“Yeah.” My heart fluttered.
“I worked with him for twenty years in the DLA.” He smoothed down his mustache and cleared his throat. “You didn’t know that before, did you?”
“No. Well, not until we talked in the café.”
“He was tired of the RAGE inmates coming through the portal and being thrown right into whatever-the-hell foster family was willing to take in a psychotic child. He firmly believed that with the proper amount of love and the teachings of a value system, even the most horrifically inclined person could become an asset to society.”
I jerked my head up to look at him. “He knew who I was?”
Wichman nodded. “At first it was a social experiment of sorts. Take—forgive me—the worst, most crazed criminal of the bunch, and try to make you into a normal person.” He grinned. “It didn’t take him long, though, before he fell in love with being your dad. Within a few of years, he retired from the DLA and took a job as a part-time police officer in your hometown in order to spend more time with you.”
I tried to picture my dad as someone other than I had always known him and failed. To me he was just my dad: the guy who went to every soccer game and dance recital. He was the one who baked terrible birthday cakes and interviewed my dates before we could walk out the door.
Realizing now that he’d known who I was, the atrocious person I was on Retha, didn’t dampen my love for him. He’d looked into my eyes and believed the best of me.
“Anyway, Rose, I thought you might like to know. There’s been a development in your father’s case and I have to leave to follow up on a lead. It’s not a great one, but something. I’ll let you know what we find out. Call me anytime.” Wichman lifted a hand in farewell. He shook Thurmond’s hand and stepped out the door.
I rubbed my fingers in my hair. The bed sank on one side, and I looked over at Thurmond.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” He frowned. “I’ve been trying to get your dad on the phone for hours.”
I shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Before I’d even gone to basic training. He called for backup on a stop over a stolen vehicle. Dispatch received the call a little past midnight. Backup arrived six minutes later only to be blown to hell, and Dad was just gone.”
“Gone as in . . . ?”
“Gone as in missing. The other officers were dead and could be identified, but there was nothing left of Dad—just gone, with one of those RETHA coin-catapult things in his place.”
“So he’s in Retha, then?”
I shrugged and traced a pattern on my blanket. I didn’t want to remember. I wanted to block out the memory of the night I’d gotten the call as I’d done for the past five years. I had his voice in my head, and his arms wrapped around my heart.
Thurmond took my hand. I blew out a breath.
“The thing is, we’d been in the middle of an argument. I wanted to join the army. He wanted me to look at other options, said he was worried about me being around too much violence. Go figure.” I coughed a laugh. “I remember him telling me, a few days before he disappeared, how much he believed in me. How he knew I’d make the right choice about this. In typical Dad fashion he told me he believed that whatever I chose would allow me to save the world in my own way.”
“And look how you saved the world . . . by saving the world.” Thurmond squeezed my hand. “I’m actually glad I could be here to see it.”
“Seriously?”
“You bet.”
“Oh, well in that case I’ll forgive myself for dragging you into my messes, over and over—”
“You do that. Hey, I got you something.” Thurmond pulled out a silver chain from his pocket. Dangling in sparkling innocence from the end of it was a small, silver, half-circle pendant about the size of my thumb. “I found it in your hand and thought you might like it. It was from your dad, and without the other part it’s not exactly a key anymore . . .” he trailed off in uncertainty.
I hesitated and then reached out to rub my thumb across the pendant.
The last time I’d seen it, it was being held between thin, white fingers and inserted into a glowing sphere. I recoiled.
Thurmond slowly lowered the chain onto my blanket.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Thurmond stared into my face with an intensity I’d never seen from him.
“Like what? A lot happened.” I rested my head against the pillow, dropping my eyes to the silver loop of chain. I wished we could glaze over the whole shooting the commander bit.
“Like how you saved the world with that damn stunt of yours?”
“No. Actually, I don’t want to talk about that.”
Thurmond made a so
und in his throat, not yet ready to give up. I looked out the window. A cold weight pressed against my mind.
I could feel the round between my fingers and the smell of gunpowder as the bullet left the casing, speeding toward her heart. I saw again the arc of light and heard the echoing repeat. I closed my eyes with a shudder and rubbed my hands across my face, only to watch her blood spill again and again.
“Okay, okay. You know what? You’re right.” Thurmond’s voice held a hint of panic. “Let’s not talk about that right now. Okay?”
“Come on, T.” I pushed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to press away the tension as though ironing out a stubborn wrinkle. The pressure only deepened into a blistering ache above my left ear. “Why the hell would I want to talk about that? Another notch on my already imposing belt impresses you? A little rehash of the all-around blackening of my soul seems like a good post trauma debriefing? Hoo-freakin’-rah!”
“I didn’t mean—”
I jabbed a finger into his shoulder and then slammed my fist into his chest. He grabbed my wrists, his face set. I struggled to free myself.
“You can’t tell me that watching me kill that horrible Rethan isn’t seared into your mind forever!” Anger oozed from me like hot tar. I thrust my hands down to break his grip.
“Rose—”
“If you don’t want to hang out with a murderer, go ahead and leave!” I shoved him away. He stepped back, his hands up, on the defensive now. I rubbed a knuckle above my ear. “I don’t need your damn help, Corporal! Never did—”
“Kris!”
You didn’t think I would just go away, did you? Caz laughed.
I tapped my forehead with my fist, allowing the ache in my head to fade completely before I was able to look up at Thurmond.
“I know you didn’t mean it,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you. I should have—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He ran a finger down my cheek. “I can only imagine what’s going through that head of yours. But dammit, Kris, I’d like to think you understand me well enough by now to know I’m not going to take off just because you cussed at me.”