Long Lost

by Sommer Marsden

  “Hellloooooo?” Roberta called jokingly.

  In my lap, I clutched the bowl of popcorn that she’d made. It was warm and the baby seemed to like the heat. Given who his father was and the heat that always baked off Ellis, I understood. My belly kept rippling against the orange plastic orb full of popcorn.

  “Um…”

  “Eight-Legged Freaks to be certain!” Peabody boomed.

  I jumped and popcorn scattered across my lap.

  “Jesus Fucking Christ, Peabody!” I yelled. Suddenly angry.

  “Such language from an almost mother,” Peabody said winking. But he stroked the top of my head as he passed the sofa, looking concerned. “Sorry, Rubes.”

  I sighed mightily. Too tense, feeling guilty. “Not your fault,” I said, honestly. “Sorry.”

  “Why that one?” Bertie asked, pulling the DVD free of its colorful case.

  “Because there is no chance of us being attacked by huge mutant spiders. So, I think it’d be good for Ruby. Some campy horror fun. And of course, the best company in the world,” he said, his brogue getting past his sniffly congestion.

  “How is Madeline?” I wanted to add the invisible but realized that was cruel considering what the poor girl had been through. Not just horny, nosey and jumpy. Pregnancy was giving me a streak of cruel to boot.

  Blech.

  Peabody looked away from me, color staining his cheeks. Oh, he had it bad.

  “She’s fine. She’s—“

  “Right here,” Madeline said from the doorway. Her hair was the color of the corn silk I worked so hard to strip from deliveries of fresh corn when I was a kid. My mother would put me in the corner with a paring knife and a pot of sugar water and it could take all damn day sometimes, to pull the pale threads from the plump kernels. Her hair was the exact same shade.

  Her eyes—I noticed—were a true hazel. All the colors mixed and swirled to make an eye that always taunted and teased, never one true color. She pulled a humongous plaid button down shirt around her like a robe and I couldn’t help but grin. My eyes shot to Peabody as if to say, already wearing your clothes are we?

  He chuckled and shook his head, refusing to meet my gaze.

  I smiled at her. “Want to watch? It promises to be loud and noisy and silly and at least once you will see me watching through my fingers, though I know the movie by heart.”

  She looked hopeful and pleased at first and then shook her head. “I’m still really tired.”

  “I understand.” My heart crimped for the girl. What a world she’d been tossed into.

  Her eyes traveled over me swiftly before she caught herself and looked away. “I’m going to make some coffee. Does anyone but me want some?”

  No one did and Peabody watched her go.

  “Make sure she eats,” I said to him, feeling somehow guilty.

  “She’s just upset. You look a lot like her sister is all,” he said to me.

  I nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

  Frank’s men—the hangers on who refused to come around to Ellis’s way of seeing wolf coexistence with humanity—had killed Madeline’s sister to make their point. They were still around. And they still wanted to revert to old school ways.

  The kicker was, there was no uprising. There was no huge central issue. Humans rarely discriminated against wolves. And when they did, they were the same humans who would see fit to discriminate against anyone for being different. The rogues—Frank’s crew as they’d become known—wanted to do it just to do it. Simply for the thrill of exerting their power.

  They wanted to do it because they could. Which was beyond dangerous.

  “I’ll go see if she’s okay,” he mumbled. “Start without me. But I’ll be back.”

  He dropped me a wink and I tried to feel reassured.

  Within moments, he was back with a box of doughnuts, a jug of tea and beef jerky. “Pass the popcorn,” he said as he settled.

  “What are we watching?” I jumped for the second time in the past twenty minutes when Tyler walked in. Iris was on her way out the door.

  “You leaving?” I asked, yet more guilt spiking through me.

  Tyler gave me a secret smile. The fact that it was secret made me feel better. If he was smirking at me that way, he hadn’t told poor Iris that I had invaded their privacy by doing my best impression of a jealous pervert while they made love for the first time.

  I chewed my lip and when the baby kicked me from the inside, I patted my belly. Then it dawned on me that that had been an honest to goodness discernable kick, just as Iris said, “I have another pick up and a delivery. That was just my…” She blushed and I realized she must be super hot to Tyler’s super cool. What an odd and yet perfect couple they seemed.

  “Lunch break,” Tyler finished. “Mine too.”

  He winked at her and I felt horrible and wonderful in the same moment.

  “Sure you can’t stay? Movie, popcorn, good company,” I said, my voice almost normal.

  Tyler gave me a thankful smile and Peabody shook the jerky at her. “There’s meat. I might even share one whole piece with you.”

  Iris laughed, but shook her head. “The show must go on. Or in this case, the book company. But I will come back up after if that’s okay.” She said it to all of us but her eyes were on Ty.

  “I’d be angry if you didn’t,” he said. His cheeks were almost rosy. He’d fed from her. A lot. My guess was that wolves like Iris could handle losing a lot of blood much better than us lowly humans.

  The baby kicked me again and I gasped.

  Bertie fluttered into action. “You okay? Is it the baby?” There was true panic in her voice.

  I couldn’t help but smile. “It was a kick is all. Still getting used to them.”

  Iris was gone, Tyler hopped the back of the sofa and settled in and Bertie dropped into an overstuffed armchair. All the furniture was clustered in one large corner of the apartment around a TV, forming a sort of wall-less living room. I still felt exposed but put my feet on the coffee table.

  “Now? Can we start now?” Bertie teased.

  “I don’t know what took you so long,” I snorted, trying to keep a straight face.

  She rolled her eyes and hit play. We all got comfy for an attack of big mutant spiders. Awesome.

  Chapter 18

  In the movie, we had hit the point of our hero being chased through the town mine by mutant spiders. That’s when Tyler sat up straight.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Fear ran like cold water through my gut.

  “I thought I heard something.” He tossed his head back and seemed to draw a deep breath—something he technically did not need to do to exist, but it helped to sniff.

  Peabody did the same but shook his head. “Damn cold. What the hell? I can barely taste my food.”

  Roberta’s eyes had narrowed. “You wouldn’t smell much would you?” she said to Tyler. She meant because he was covered in the scent of sex and blood and wolf from Iris. He grinned at her, showing his canines and she shook her head at him like an annoyed mother.

  I was shocked, much off the current topic, that the majority of wolves in town had not had issue with Tyler. And it seemed Ellis in his few short weeks in charge had done well to instill a good amount of acceptance, because the ones who did seem bothered, simply gave Tyler a wide berth whenever we were out of the apartment. Which wasn’t much.

  I heard it then. A whack-whack-whack. Like a door on loose hinges. Tyler had grown serious again and Roberta was on red alert.

  “Come on,” I whispered as people shrieked on screen. “Iris is downstairs. There are people. No one can get in here. You guys would—”

  “Hello, bitch wife of the fake Alpha. You’re a bit disappointing in person—oh great Long Lost of the Big Bad.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

  He was tall. Taller than Tyler, taller than Ellis, pretty much as tall as Peabody who was the tallest person I knew. But he was gaunt and his scalp was shorn clean. His h
ead a glowing ball of malevolent flesh that seemed to crouch around his pitch colored eyes. Though he was gaunt, he was leanly muscled—ropey. He glared at me and in my peripheral vision I saw two more men—minions, my mind babbled crazily—flank him.

  Tyler sat up straight, ready to move and one of the other men, thickly muscled like a classic enforcer, leveled a gun at me. Specifically my midsection.

  The gaunt man said, “You might get to me before I can get to her, but can you get to all of us before he shoots her and that abomination in her belly?”

  News sure traveled fast around here, didn’t it?

  I refused to cry. I swallowed repeatedly to keep myself from doing just that and clutched the plastic bowl of popcorn to my abdomen as if that would do any good at all.

  Tyler did not relax, but he did lower himself a bit in the chair. Peabody looked ready to gnaw his own tongue off and I could see him desperately trying to figure it all out. How he could get up, act and save us before anyone got hurt. Bertie’s eyes burned with rage and I thought, if I were these men, I’d be most afraid of her. She looked the angriest.

  “What do you want?”

  “You,” he said to me. “We take you and they just stay put.”

  “And what will you do with me?”

  He smiled at me and he seemed to have a million teeth. Even in human form. There was no denying this man was a wolf. His stance, his aura, his presence. All three of them were wolves, but not good ones. These were Frank’s wolves. Frank’s crew.

  Peabody had started a low growl and Tyler’s eyes had turned black.

  Which seemed to please the gaunt man.

  “We will wait for that monstrosity to grow to fullness. We’ll cut it out of your belly, gut you like a fish. And end your miserable life. Again.”

  Tyler’s fingers flexed and the goon who had a peroxide buzz cut and a nose stud made a noise that was half laugh, half tut. “Don’t move bloodsucker. I’d love an excuse to rip your fucking head off.”

  I could see Tyler’s fangs. “Where’s Iris?” he asked. It was for distraction but I could read his face and his fear and a flash of unease squeezed in my gut.

  “She’s fine. We have no beef with Iris beyond fucking a dead guy and the smell that is currently all over her fine self,” the fireplug said.

  “Rocco has a thing for Iris,” the gaunt man said, taking a step toward me.

  Peabody’s growl had become louder and though his body was still human there was more animal in his eyes than I had ever seen. His shoulders were tense and hunched and Tyler’s posture said he was ready to spring.

  “He wants to do Iris,” said buzz cut. “Hard. Even if she doesn’t like it that way.”

  Tyler’s face showed his true feelings. He was falling for her. I knew because he looked like he wanted to peel buzz cut’s face off and feed it to him.

  “I’d shut up if I were you,” Bertie said, her eyes holding some secret.

  From my point of view, I could see the men the best, but not beyond them into the hallway that branched back into the bedrooms. I could see the buzz cut edge a bit closer to guard Tyler, like they were in the basketball game from hell. The gaunt man came toward me and Peabody was damn near snarling.

  I had no powers yet. I could sense things but apparently not the men. I had gotten no red flag from that, and I know Samuel would have said it was because I wasn’t meant to have one.

  I had no strength. I wasn’t a wolf…yet. I had no speed or anything beyond the average human other than an accelerated pregnancy and I didn’t think that would help me here. Unfortunately, I didn't see any shovels with which to decapitate these scary motherfuckers.

  “Oh, am I going to upset the vampire?” buzz cut asked, cackling.

  There is a reason you see typecast men in bad guy roles in the movies. Because bad guys are douches. This one was no different and would have slid right into any action movie as an arch nemesis, no problem.

  “Mr. Bach, our esteemed fake Alpha, is gone. He took the fat psychic with him,” the gaunt man said.

  “He’s not fat. He’s beefy,” Roberta growled.

  The nervous crazy part of me simply started laughing hysterically. A big burbling river of nervous laughter. They all looked at me, which only served to make me laugh harder.

  Gaunt man smiled. “Aren’t you a weird one?”

  “Look who’s talking,” I said, and started laughing in earnest. A deep belly laugh that made my whole body move.

  Everyone else was tense and had a blood lust and I was laughing. Special.

  He growled low in his chest—pretty much fed up with me, it seemed—and moved toward me aggressively. But the squat, fireplug dude was the one really coming at me at a good clip.

  I heard a loud ratcheting sound and then “Heads up!” and had the presence of mind to duck.

  Two things happened almost simultaneously. Fireplug’s head exploded off his shoulders in a rain of red and gray and bits of bone and the gaunt man shifted into a muddy-brown wolf with yellowish eyes. I started to scream when an ear landed in the popcorn bowl. She shot him again and his leg seemed to explode. Bertie was up off the sofa and shifting, Peabody was half bear, Tyler snagged buzz cut as he shifted and moved, in wolf form, to dart toward me. Tyler literally grabbed him by the throat and twisted his head. But not far enough. The wolf bit him and he released him for a moment while Peabody fended off the gaunt wolf who tried to move toward me as well.

  Me? I sat there clutching my bowl of ear-covered popcorn like a dumb ass, watching like I was in the most nightmarish 3-D movie ever.

  “Move!” Madeline, the shotgun wielder, called and Tyler was smart enough to do it. She took out the whitish-yellow wolf that had been buzz cut with another well placed head shot. More bits of brain flew but they missed me.

  The gaunt man, in wolf form, took off like a flash. Another shot went wildly astray, so Madeline didn’t hit him. He was fast. No one could catch him.

  I tried to stand up, but my knees rebelled and dumped me back on my ass. Right back on my seat on the sofa where I’d started.

  “Ruby?” Bertie was bloody, naked and staring at me.

  I nodded.

  Tyler rushed past us all after a quick glance at me, no doubt to check on Iris.

  Peabody, fully man again, gathered Madeline to him, uttering “Lass, crazy, crazy lass,” under his breath over and over.

  I started at the ear and the baby kicked me again.

  I started to laugh.

  Madeline looked at me with concern from within the cage of Peabody’s huge arms. Her eyes were clear and bold and unafraid. It was the most alert she’d looked since she’d arrived. She had taken back her power.

  “Peabody told me that despite lore, a head shot is a head shot is a…”

  “Head shot,” I said, softly. I remembered the feel of that shovel pushing past the barrier of Frank’s spinal column. The feel of meat and muscle and bone resisting me. The baby kicked and I patted my belly to soothe us both.

  Seems even though I’d killed him, we weren’t done with Frank yet.

  Chapter 19

  If I were naked and bloody I’d be embarrassed. Bertie simply stood and walked to her room to get clothes that had not been bloodied and torn. Peabody cradled a now-smiling Madeline in his arms.

  I turned to see Tyler helping Iris upstairs.

  “How are you?” I asked, still stupidly clutching the bowl with the ear.

  “Fine, I’m fine. They conked me hard enough that I was down for a few minutes. It was the duct tape that really did me in.”

  “I had to cut her free,” Tyler said his mouth a tight line.

  I shivered. Bertie walked in wearing a pair of jeans and one of Samuel’s shirts, which basically on her, resembled a red striped robe. I remembered her defending his girth and had to suppress another rogue burble of laughter. She plucked the bowl of gore from me and immediately walked it to the trash can and dumped it in. The whole kit and caboodle.

  “You are a bad
ass,” I said, staring at Madeline.

  Peabody couldn’t decide if he wanted to smile or frown so he shook his head again and said, “Crazy ass lass.”

  “Your brogue is so thick I need a knife to cut it,” I teased.

  He frowned.

  Madeline gave a tinkling little laugh I’d never heard before. “He hates that, yeah?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I finally stood, my knees a bit wobbly, my stomach threatening to reject everything I’d eaten. I could feel the fine tremor of adrenaline in my fingers and even my lips felt like they were trembling. Tyler, Peabody and Roberta all started toward me and I waved them off. “I’m fine. Fine. It’s all good.”

  “Are you sure, Ruby?” Iris asked, “Should we call Ellis?”

  “I’m fine. No need to worry about that.” I scooped up a bit of hair and numbly walked it to the trash.

  Bertie was tracking me with wary eyes and I pretended not to notice. “Let’s clean this all up,” she said softly.

  “One of them got away. Ran right past me,” Iris said, voicing what none of us wanted to consider.

  “I know.” My voice was high and tight and I hated the sound of it. I picked up a piece of denim that had been fireplug’s jeans.

  I shivered but refused to cry or to drop the chunk of bad guy and be all girly. The baby was flickering in my gut like a secret little tadpole. Only much bigger, I knew. It was like once he started to move, that was it. It was a reassuring feeling. The feeling of not being alone. Ellis wasn’t here, but I had my son.

  We all started to gather what we could, Madeline using plastic store sacks as pseudo gloves. I followed suit, shoving my hand in the bag and using my plastic-sheathed hands to gather gore. I pulled the bag inside out so the mess was on the inside, and then tied it off, dropping the sack in the trash can. I moved on to the next bag, the next pile of icky-ness, like I was in a trance.

  “Ruby?” Bertie said again. “Are you sure—”

  “I’m fine,” I whispered. My tongue felt a bit too big and my brain a bit too slow. My nose and fingers were numb, my heart rate moving between a bit too fast and a bit sluggish, I thought. I felt like I was moving under water.