Native Tongue

by Shannon Greenland

  “Yes, sir,” we responded.

  “I want both of you to know how very proud I am of the job you’ve done. You’ve each far exceeded my expectations.” TL turned to Parrot, his expression softening a bit. “I have news on your mother.”

  Parrot straightened in his chair.

  “The address information Talon gave you was inaccurate. No surprise there. But her slave name, Sparrow, was correct. We confiscated the personal files of Talon’s partner, the Southern Mexican chief. Using the information we found there, we were able to locate your mother. She will be here in the States in a few days.”

  Parrot let out a breath, like he couldn’t quite believe what TL had just said. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s extremely malnourished. So when you see her, you need to be prepared. It’s been ten years. A lot changes in a person in that time.”

  Nodding, Parrot dropped his gaze, trying to hide the tears welling in his eyes. Under the table I squeezed his hand again, so pleased for him.

  TL turned to me. “How’s your side?”

  I put my hand over the gash that had been stitched and bandaged. “Fine.” I wanted to ask him when David was due back, but figured this wasn’t the appropriate time.

  “Get some rest.” TL gave us both a small smile. “You both need it.” He glanced over his shoulder at Jonathan, who still stood at the door. “If you don’t mind staying for a few minutes . . .”

  Jonathan nodded.

  Parrot and I made our way back up to the ranch level and split apart when we got to our rooms. Quietly, I opened the door to the girl’s dormitory room and tiptoed in. Cat, Beaker, and Bruiser were fast asleep. I dropped my stuff on the floor next to my bed, changed clothes, did my thing in the bathroom, and dropped onto my mattress. I lay there for a few minutes with my eyes closed, listening . . . to the quiet. No bug noises. No frogs. No night crawlers. It was amazing how loud the jungle really was . . . and how quiet the nonjungle really was . . . and how, believe it or not, I’d gotten so used to the jungle noises. I sort of missed them.

  Maybe I’d download a few of those nature songs to listen to at night. With a content smile and sigh, I felt my whole body relax and fell right to sleep. . . .

  “GiGi.”

  Somewhere far away in the jungle my name echoed. A big bug fluttered past my arm, and I brushed it away.

  “GiGi.”

  I grumbled. “I don’t want to bathe.”

  “GiGi.”

  “Whaaat?”

  Something closed over my mouth, and my eyes shot open at the same time I executed a wonka-jonk, Bruiser’s term for her version of the karate chop.

  The person above me blocked my wonka-jonk and quietly pinned me to the hammock—er, um, bed. That’s right, I was in a bed. In my home. Back at the ranch.

  Through the dark I blinked my eyes real hard and focused in on the face above me . . . David!

  His eyes crinkled when he realized I realized who he was.

  “Oo ot pose to bee een ere,” I mumbled into his hand.

  David uncovered my mouth.

  “You’re not supposed to be in here,” I whispered. He could get in major trouble if TL found him in here after curfew. But . . . who cared. David was here!

  Putting his finger over his lips, he threw my covers back, took my hand, and led me from the room. Together we tiptoed down the dimly lit hall, past TL’s door, through the cafeteria, and into the kitchen. With each step we took my heart banged harder and harder. Where were we going?

  We crossed the kitchen, and David pulled open the door to the pantry. He led me inside and shut the door, plummeting us into darkness. This was the first place we’d ever kissed. And with that thought, I felt him move close.

  “I heard a leech ate your butt.” I could hear the humor in his voice, and I laughed.

  He flicked a switch, and dim light illuminated the area. Like TL had done, David’s gaze touched each of my bruises and cuts. I followed his eyes as they roamed over my cheeks, forehead, and chin. He reached out and carefully touched the spot on my side where’d I’d been knifed. And leaning forward, he gently pressed his lips to each mark on my face.

  I closed my eyes and melted into his warmth, his strength, his familiarity.

  He took a small step away, and from behind his back he brought out a lollipop. “Will this make things better?” he asked softly.

  I smiled. “Always.”

  “Turn around,” he said.

  “What?”

  He twirled his finger. “You heard me. Turn around.”

  With a quizzical look, I turned my back to him. I heard a slight rustling, and then David brought a necklace down in front of me and fastened it around my neck.

  “What did you do?” I held out the silver emblem etched with odd writing.

  He turned me back around. “It’s a cartouche from Egypt. It’s your name.”

  “David!” I hugged him. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

  He smiled. “You’re very welcome. It’s your graduation gift.”

  “My what?”

  “TL told me you graduated college. Congratulations.”

  “Oh. Thanks. Truthfully, I didn’t graduate. I tested out of the last semester.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Don’t know.” I shrugged. “No big deal, really. Just another test.”

  “No big deal?” David raised his brows. “You’re sixteen, and you graduated college.”

  “Almost seventeen.”

  “And you graduated college.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  He stared at me with a perplexed look while I stared back.

  Shaking his head, he chuckled and closed the minuscule space between us. “My God, I missed you.” He backed me up against the door and covered my body with his. He started kissing me, and kissing me, and kissing me . . .

  . . . I’m so glad I’m wearing my cute pajamas . . .

  . . . and kissing me . . .

  . . . Thank God I brushed my teeth . . .

  . . . and kissing me . . .

  . . . and I’m not even thinking about Quirk/Randy . . .

  “You’re thinking,” he grumbled, leaving my mouth to nibble my neck.

  He pressed soft kisses all over my face and neck and then picked up my hands and did them and my arms.

  “How many kisses was that?” he asked.

  “Hmmm . . . ?”

  “You’re supposed to be counting kisses, remember?”

  How in the world did he expect me to remember that when I highly doubted I could conjure up the SAQ code right now? Oh, wait. I focused. No, I probably could.

  “My bad. I made you think.” He went straight for that part of my neck again, and my whole world spun.

  “There.” David chuckled. “Objective met.”

  two days later, I was in the garden pulling weeds, my chore for the day.

  David stepped from the barn, caught sight of me, and came over. Kneeling beside me, he began helping.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I told him.

  He shrugged. “I know.”

  Together, we worked in silence and my thoughts drifted to Randy. They’d been doing that a lot since I’d gotten back.

  “David?”

  “Hm?”

  “Would you tell me if another girl kissed you?”

  David stopped working and looked up at me. “Why?”

  I kept working, focusing so hard on the weeds, my eyes nearly crossed. “Because . . . because someone else kissed me.” There. It was out. Finally.

  My heart boinged around in my chest while I waited for his response.

  “Who? Who kissed you?”

  I kept working. “The glyph professor.”

  “Did he ask or did he just kiss you?” he asked, not sounding too happy.

  “He just kissed me. But . . .” I didn’t want him to think Randy had mistreated me or anything.

  “But what?”

  I kept working. “But nothing. It’s just I d
idn’t want you to think he’d forced me to kiss him or anything.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “Would you stop working, please?” he snapped.

  I looked over at him. He did not look happy.

  “What are you trying to say to me?” he repeated himself.

  I took in his irritated face, thought of his wonderful heart, and felt like a complete idiot for bringing it up. “David,” I sighed. “It didn’t mean anything. You trust me, right?”

  He jerked a nod.

  And I decided to be completely honest with him. He deserved that. “The professor was cute and just a few years older and we . . . clicked, on an intellectual level. But I told him about you and how wonderful you are, and he completely respected that. And then when we said good-bye to each other, he gave me a quick kiss. I think the kiss surprised him as much as it did me, but that’s all there was to it. He went his way, and I went my way, and that’s that. And it’s been bugging the heck out of me because I don’t like keeping things from you. That’s one of the good things about us. At the base of it all, we’re friends.”

  I reached out and touched his arm. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

  “You don’t think we click on an intellectual level?” His voice sounded so hurt, it made me feel horrible.

  “Not like Chapling and I do.”

  “This professor guy was like Chapling?”

  “Well, no, not exactly.” God, I didn’t know what to say to make things better.

  David got up. “Let me just have some time to think.”

  “David,” I said to his back as he walked away, but he didn’t turn.

  I tried to imagine how I would respond if the situation was reversed, and, truthfully, I’d probably be walking away right now, too.

  A limo pulled through our security gate, drawing my attention away from David. It circled our driveway and came to a stop in front of the house. The driver got out and walked around to open the door for the passenger.

  A tall, extremely skinny, dark-haired woman stepped out, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blouse.

  “Oh, my God,” I realized out loud, “that’s Parrot’s mom.”

  The door to the house opened, and out came Parrot. He and his mom stood very still, staring at each other with only ten feet or so of space separating them.

  My heart ached as I watched them.

  They moved at once, running toward each other and colliding together. Even though I stood in the side yard, I could hear them crying.

  Gripping each other tightly, they rocked each other and cried out the ten years they’d been apart.

  The overwhelming emotion seem to ripple through the air as all my teammates slowly, quietly trickled out from wherever they were to witness the reunion.

  I wondered how they all felt, having to watch this, feeling happy for Parrot, but wishing it for themselves, too.

  I knew I wished it for myself.

  And I wondered what this meant, if anything, for Parrot and his future with the Specialists.

  TL approached them a few minutes later and said something. The two of them nodded, climbed in the limo, and pulled away.

  Everyone slowly began trickling back to where they’d come from, and TL turned in my direction. With two fingers he waved me over.

  I jogged from the side yard across the driveway to the front. “Yes, sir?”

  “Conference room. Now.”

  With a nod, I followed him into the house and down to Subfloor Four. We walked into the conference room, and I’d hoped David would be there.

  “Hihihi!” Chapling greeted me instead.

  I grinned. “Hi! I missed you.” He’d been gone since I returned.

  He giggled and leaned in. “Guess what,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “My mom got married again.”

  “Again?”

  “Her eighth one.” Chapling shrugged. “It shouldn’t take long for her to move on to the ninth.”

  “Eighth marriage?” Holy sheesh. I realized then that I knew very little about Chapling’s personal life. Mother, father, brothers, sisters, where he grew up . . . did he have a girlfriend?

  Nah, somehow I couldn’t see Chapling with a girlfriend.

  “Chapling, do you realize I don’t know anything about you?”

  He fluttered his pudgy hand. “We’ll purge our souls later.”

  TL shook his head. “You two get sidetracked so easily.”

  We both laughed at that.

  TL looked at Chapling. “Why don’t you tell her why we’re really in here.”

  “Oh rightright.” Chapling held up the sketch of the woman I’d stolen in South America. “I know who this is!”

  I waited, but he didn’t expound on the information. “Who?” I prompted.

  “This is your sister.”

  “My WHAT?”

  “Before your father joined the IPNC, he was married to another woman, and they had a daughter,” TL responded. “Truthfully, I never even knew your father had had another wife. The daughter is fifteen years older than you.”

  I shook my head. “My father was married before my mother?” I hadn’t known. Obviously. Or I wouldn’t be so dumbfounded right now. “I have a-a-a sister?”

  TL nodded. “Yes, you do.”

  “Wh-where?” I stammered.

  TL shook his head. “We’re not sure. But we’re going to find her.”

  Don’t forget to check out the next book in The specialists series.

  When someone close to TL disappears, The Specialists pull out all the stops. GiGi is brought into another mission along with Bruiser and Mystic. This time, it’s a fight to the end, and someone doesn’t make it out alive.