by Ava Benton
Tommy was at the table, working in a coloring book.
“Remember, our history lesson is at ten o’clock this morning,” I smiled down at him, and he rewarded me with a gap-toothed smile of his own.
It hadn’t taken long for me to pick up on the fact that everybody pitched in where they could with his education. A lot of it came from the internet, but whenever there was a specialty—like my history, or Alina’s healing skills, or Cari’s science—we gave lessons. I was happy to do it. It was something to do, a way to feel like I was contributing.
I had never lived in a family. Seanmhair and I were a two-woman unit, she used to say, and I’d always taken up whichever chores I could manage. It wasn’t easy for me to watch other people do what I felt like I should be doing. But that was what it was like when there were so many people to lend a hand. I wasn’t used to that.
I also very much got the impression that the girls deliberately tried to keep me out of the kitchen, to avoid any nasty accidents. Fence must’ve warned them about me.
That didn’t stop me from whipping up three dozen eggs before handing the bowl off to Cari, who manned the oversized frying pan.
I toasted a loaf of bread, one slice at a time, as we chatted. I had always wanted sisters, or at least close girlfriends. I’d never had either.
Jasmine was a firecracker. Alina was the level-headed sister, wise and compassionate. Cari was the mother figure—she’d had to develop her maternal instincts when Tommy entered her life—and also had a sharp, scientific mind. We got along the best, I guess, because we were both academics.
“Let me help,” I offered when I saw her slicing fruit.
She handed me a knife. “How’s your library project coming along?”
I rolled my eyes, but chuckled. “I swear, how Smoke ever found anything in that room is beyond me. There are entire walls of books, like literal stacks which I first mistook for walls. It’s actually a much bigger room than I originally thought.”
“So, it’s going to take more time,” she summed up with a wry grin.
“Yes. A lot more time. But it’s worth it. Imagine, I spent so much of my academic career researching exactly the sort of information that’s right at my fingertips now. I used to scour libraries, museum collections, anything I could think of just to find a small fraction of what exists right here, under this mountain.”
“Fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
What was funny to me was her choice of words. Fate. Something I never once thought of before I met Fence—and, I had the feeling, something a scientist like her wouldn’t have given much thought to, either.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Well, I always wanted to work on something really big. Something important. A project that would have a real benefit to somebody. The closest I ever got before meeting Cash, was as a cog in the wheel. I researched, I tested, but I never felt like I was getting anywhere. I certainly never felt as though anything I did was of lasting value. I figured that would come in time. Now?” She nudged me. “It if wasn’t for my antidote, Fence would never have been comfortable with traveling to Scotland, and he never would’ve met you.”
She had a point.
Things had a tendency to work out just the way they were supposed to.
I was in the library later in the day, after Tommy’s history lesson was finished. We were talking about the Medieval period, and his imagination astounded me along with his ability to grasp concepts such as the seven knightly virtues. He wanted to be a knight one day. I didn’t have the heart to tell him those days were long since passed, even if the male figures in his life practiced a lot of the same virtues. Honor, generosity, justice. They were of that time, after all.
Which was a concept nobody had yet broached with him, and with good reason. He was still getting over the whole dragon thing.
The sound of voices raised in excitement caught my attention as I dusted a shelf of books, and I hurried out to the control center.
Mary was on a Skype call with the guys.
“It’s still in the trial stages, but I think it could work.” She sounded excited, too. They all did.
“I wonder what made them think about it,” Cash said, looking around.
“Maybe they wanted to find us,” Smoke mused, rubbing his palm over his cheek before running his hands over his eyes. He’d just gotten off guard duty, so he was fuzzy.
I stepped into the room just far enough to see the device Mary was holding in one hand. It looked like a remote control.
“Whoever came up with the idea is a genius,” she said. “I haven’t picked up anything but the general signal yet, but we haven’t taken it outside our compound yet.” It was then that I noticed the black box the remote was attached to, sitting on Mary’s desk. There was a pulsing pinpoint of light coming from it. It pulsed slowly, weakly, but it never stopped.
“What is that?” I whispered, pointing to the screen. It occurred to me that I wasn’t technically part of the conversation, but I couldn’t help myself.
Mary smiled. “Hello, Ciera. This is a device which we discovered plans for on the hard drives from the Scotland cave. It was designed to pick up the location of the clan’s heartbeat. The idea behind it is, the closer the device is to the clan, the stronger the signal becomes.”
“A tracking device.” I looked around at the guys. “This is huge! You could find the rest of the clan!”
“That was sort of the idea.” Fence stepped up behind me and slid his arms around my waist.
“We’ll do the preliminary work,” Mary promised. “Once I narrow down the area the heartbeat grows stronger in, I’ll get back to you. We’ll make plans at that point.”
I stepped out into the tunnel, amazed. “Wow. It’s amazing. See? There’s another reason why your trip to Scotland wasn’t a waste!”
Fence rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you, it already wasn’t a waste.”
“You know what I mean. You found the computers, you found the plans. It’s so exciting.”
“It is, it is.”
“So… why don’t you seem very excited?”
He followed me back to the library. His attitude worried me. The others were downright jubilant compared to him.
“I worry about taking another trip. More danger to the clan. We got lucky last time—there was no one there to harm us—at least, not that we’re aware of. Whoever cleaned up your blood from the wall notwithstanding, of course. Now? What if the clan’s being held captive someplace? What if they’re bait, a trap for the rest of us?”
I went to him. “Hey. They need you.”
“Of course, they do. But so do you.”
Ah. That was it. “I don’t want you worrying about me that way. Don’t let my presence in your life get in the way of what you need to do. I’ll be okay here.”
His dark eyes were troubled. “I love you. I couldn’t leave you now.”
“Maybe you won’t have to,” I suggested. “You don’t always have to be at the forefront of the activity, you know. You can hang behind, hold down the fort.”
“No matter who goes, though… it won’t be easy for them.”
“No. It won’t. But whoever is meant to go will be the ones to go. Right?” I smiled, hoping to turn around his mood a little. “Fate. Whoever is fated to go will go. Whoever is supposed to stay will stay.”
He smiled back as he held my face in his hands, stroking my cheeks with his thumbs. “When did you become such an expert in fate?”
“Since I met you, of course,” I replied before standing on tiptoe to kiss him, the way I wanted to for the rest of my life.
Afterword
I hope you enjoyed Fence!
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Copyright © 2017 by Ava Benton
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