by T. G. Ayer
“Hey. Don’t make the mistake of dissing my baby.”
“Baby, huh?” she giggled as their feet took them closer to Ms. Custer’s. Bryn smiled. “How long have you had her?” she asked, and Joshua could tell she was really interested, not faking it the way most girls did.
“Six months. But that’s the official story.” He grinned. “Dad and I bought it off eBay eight months ago, but to keep World War Three from breaking out we had to placate Mom first. It took a while to break her down, but in the end, she agreed.”
“So she thinks she gave her permission, but in reality you guys conned her?” Bryn asked raising her eyebrow. She was somewhere between amused and angry on his Mom’s behalf. Joshua thought that was so adorable.
They talked about cars and one of her foster dads—Steve something—who’d owned a Cobra. It was so refreshing to listen to Bryn talk about Steve and his passion for speed and his opposing passion for keeping Bryn safe. Joshua understood her frustration having been kept on the sidelines, cleaning and fixing but not racing.
They had continued to squabble about Camaros vs. Cobras until Joshua ended up offering her a ride.
He’d never seen Bryn so excited.
Chapter 3
Joshua drove slowly down Elm Wood to Ms. Custer’s to pick Bryn up, listening to the low growl of the car, his stomach tight with excitement. He so wanted to impress her.
In fact, he’d spent the whole morning cleaning, polishing and buffing the Camaro until it gleamed. It looked show-room ready. So damned good.
As Joshua parked in the drive, the door opened, and Bryn came out, followed by Ms. Custer. The porch light lit the old woman’s dark face, and she pierced him with a glare that said ‘Take care of her or else.’
The old woman had a kind, huggable facade that hid a stern matron who accepted no excuses and who Joshua was pretty sure would tan his hide if he so much as put a foot wrong.
She remained on the porch and watched as Bryn jumped in, as if warning Joshua that she’d be watching his every move. He didn’t doubt it for an instant.
Bryn grinned up at Joshua as she sank deep into the bucket seat and fastened her seatbelt. The damned thing always gave him trouble, and there was a certain twist you had to give it to ensure it clicked home, but oddly enough it slid straight in and locked with a loud click. He hoped Ms. Custer had heard it on the thin night air.
Bryn and Joshua both sighed in unison and shared a relieved glance.
She sat back, giving him a brief glance before looking away quickly. She was doing that thing again where she didn’t look at him for too long. And Joshua did the thing where he pretended he hadn’t seen it and that it didn’t make his heart twist a little.
She looked a little uncomfortable and Joshua pretended not to notice. He knew how she felt. Cars like this were badass, and you tended to feel like a wannabe each time you sat in one.
Suddenly, the interior of the vehicle seemed suffocatingly small.
Joshua gritted his teeth then revved the engine, hoping to get a reaction, even if it was just to ease the strange discomfort that had come over their company.
When he heard the faint rumble of Ms. Custer’s hefty laughter drifting toward them from the veranda, Joshua couldn’t help the grin that spread on his face. He glanced at Bryn, and his grin was demoted to a lukewarm smile. She seemed amused too, a little less uncomfortable but still wound tight.
Joshua wished he knew what the problem was, wished he could fix what was upsetting her.
Part of him hoped that this ride would mean something, would change something between them. Maybe later they could talk, and he could convince her to tell him what was wrong. Before the night was out, things would change.
Joshua headed slowly out of the drive and slipped onto the street carefully. Darkness had fallen and would provide them some privacy, for which he was glad.
A moonless night and a patch of oil were never meant to be friends. Not anywhere, and certainly not within the dark embrace of Craven.
Joshua glanced over at Bryn and at that very moment she looked up and met his gaze. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, and something else. Probably thought he was insane but he couldn’t help it. He’d never been able to let himself go, to relax the way he did with Bryn. It didn’t matter that he probably looked near demonic, grinning at her in the darkness, he just knew she’d understand and accept him for who he was.
And as Joshua met her eyes, he sensed the acceptance in her, as if something had shifted the balance between them, and moved it somewhere that made hope fill his heart. Until she winced and glanced away. Then she settled back and closed her eyes, and he chided himself for getting ahead of himself.
He’d seen the pain in her eyes, something he’d become so familiar with. Joshua ached to help ease her pain in whatever way she needed it, but right now he had to wait until she was ready to talk to him. A part of him prayed it would be soon because the sight of Bryn in pain every time she looked at him, stabbed him deeper and deeper every time.
Joshua wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to handle it.
Bryn shifted in the seat beside him as he turned onto Main and headed up the hill. The streets were silent and dark at this hour; only the pizza place on the corner of Chester and Main, the movie theater and the Seven-Eleven next to it were still open.
The ride was peaceful, and Joshua almost hummed as another car turned onto Main up ahead. A couple heading to the movies or parents taking their kids out for pizza. Craven’s small-town charm worked for a lot of people. And sometimes even for Joshua.
The simple life. It’s what he’d always told himself that he wanted. Until Joshua met Bryn. There was just something about her that made him want to forge a path into the world, to make way for her, to help her get what she wanted, to ease the pain he saw in her eyes.
Joshua imagined that someday they’d ride off together, all their troubles laid to rest, just the future ahead of them, bright and full of promise.
Something up ahead caught Joshua’s eye. Guess you could say it was a premonition of sorts. Perhaps you know deep down when a thing like this is about to happen.
It all happened so fast, and yet it felt like time slowed down. The moonlight glinted on something up ahead, a shimmering rainbow of colors, the blush of color signaling something so much more than an oil slick on the road.
More like a pretty harbinger of doom.
Joshua stiffened, letting out a shocked gasp even before he realized he’d have scared Bryn. But it was too late to worry about fear when the wheels hit the patch and the car began to slide, and he was focused desperately on twisting the steering wheel to compensate for the spin.
Bryn cried out from beside him as their car sped toward the oncoming one. But even as Joshua reached out—not sure what he’d intended to do. Hold onto her, provide some sort of support or hope?
But the impact was inevitable.
And yet for some reason, it felt surreal. As if he was watching the whole thing happen from afar, removed, an impartial observer.
The car was spinning, and from the corner of his eye, Joshua saw the light pole. Metal crunched, and they were both thrown forward. Joshua’s seatbelt held, keeping him in place even as he felt the snap in the base of his neck.
But another sound penetrated his barely conscious brain. A faint click that—despite the sounds around him that all screamed, danger, disaster—was one far more terrifying to hear.
Bryn’s seatbelt snapped loose, and she surged from the seat toward the windscreen.
Joshua never saw what happened next. His vision clouded as pain screamed at the top of his spine, from his chest as the steering wheel crumpled into him.
Though Joshua desperately needed to know what had happened to Bryn, needed to know that she would survive, something told him that wasn’t about to happen.
The last thing he recalled was the windscreen shattering as Bryn was thrown through it.
And then everything went black, and Josh
ua sank into an endless nothing.
Chapter 4
A thick blackness filled Joshua’s mind.
He blinked it away, or rather he tried to blink it away, but it didn’t seem to work. He inhaled slowly, listening to the sound of the room around him.
A hospital maybe? The acerbic scent of disinfectant drifted toward him, mixed with the sounds of distant conversation, and he relaxed. He must be in a hospital.
But then he tensed for a moment. His assumption that being in a hospital was acceptable took him by surprise. What exactly had happened to him that he’d think a hospital was the best place for him?
He winced, frowning hard as he tried to parse the thoughts that were filling his head.
Glimpses of images hit him like shards of glass, peppering his brain with sparks of pain. The screech of tires filled his ear. A soft gasp echoed around him.
Mixed with the sounds around him, the memories turned into a cacophony of noise. Joshua tried to lift his arms to protect his ears, or perhaps it was more to force the sound out of his brain. But it didn’t help.
Other than his head, he couldn’t move. Fear filled him as he tried to feel his body, make a fist, wiggle a toe.
Nothing.
He blinked again, shoving the memories from his mind instinctively. But even as he did that he knew he had to figure out what had happened. He grasped for those memories again, for the sound of fear, that soft gasp of horror that someone had emitted from his side.
Joshua groaned and shook his head. Why was it so hard to remember?
“Don’t rush it. The memories will come back, but you have to let them return on their own,” someone spoke from beside him. The feminine voice was soft and vaguely familiar. “Just take it easy. It’s sometimes harder for painful memories.”
The girl sighed again and then she left him. Joshua wasn’t sure how he knew that she’d left his side, just a sense of feeling bereft again.
He resigned himself to lying there, more a mental action than a physical one considering he was unable to feel anything. He swam in a pool of blackness, groping for a memory to tell him where he was and why he was there.
Wherever there was.
The sound of deep laugher drifted to Joshua’s ears.
A group of people walked past, loud laughter and low groans following them as they walked on. The moment he’d registered that he was conscious again, Joshua blinked furiously, trying to clear his vision.
And disappointment filled him when all he saw was blackness.
He let out a soft cry of frustration. But even as he voiced his silent frustration, something felt different. Despite the blackness that seemed to have permanently swallowed him, Joshua now felt pain.
Not blinding agony, nor even anything sharp enough to wince at, but rather a hollow throbbing that seemed to have settled in his bones and filled his body. A few places throbbed more strongly than others—his head, his torso, and his left ankle. Such an odd combination of ailments.
The screech of tires filled his ears and was again combined with the horrified gasp of his mysterious companion. Then the crunching of metal seemed to envelop him.
Joshua shook his head, frustration making him angry now.
His mind seemed sliced, memories teasing him, things he knew mingled with everything else that he wanted to know. Something was there, just out of his reach, and he desperately needed to know what had happened.
His heart thundered at the sound of her voice, and he knew, some part of him insisting to him that she was an important piece of this strange puzzle. He forced himself to listen to the sounds in his mind, to listen to her voice—even though all it had been was a sudden intake of breath mingled with a soft cry of horror.
Something terrible had happened, and Joshua wasn’t stupid. He’d made his logical deductions. He’d been in an accident, and someone had been in the car with him. But why could he not remember who it was?
He took another breath and forced himself to relax, immersing himself into the memory of sound again. And as he listened to the screeching of tires, he saw the patch of oil glistening on the blacktop. He caught the flash of horrified expressions—a man and a woman he didn’t know.
Joshua could feel the curve of soft leather beneath his fingers—he was gripping the steering wheel of his Camaro; he’d know the feel of that leather anywhere considering he’d restored it to its original condition with his own bare hands.
The strength of his grip spoke of fear and desperation, and something turned inside Joshua’s gut. He looked around for the sound—the soft gasp—and stared at his side, and then she did gasp, his memory complying at last. Joshua blinked, and for the briefest instant, he saw her face.
But her features were hazy and he couldn’t put a name to her face no matter how hard he tried. Frowning, he tried again, something telling him that he should know who she is, that she was important in his life, not some girl he’d picked up on a ride through town.
Craven.
The name flashed into his mind for a brief moment, and he knew the name referred to the place he was from. The memory of the town wasn’t exactly filled with good feeling. Something about the place hadn’t been all that perfect for Joshua.
And his frustration merely continued to build. The girl with the soft voice had told him to be patient, but how could he possibly not think about it, how could he not want to know when what he could recall pointed at him being the cause of an accident? Had he killed the people in the other car? Had he killed the unknown girl?
A sudden shout of laughter sliced into Joshua’s thoughts, followed by a feminine chuckle in the distance.
“Keep your voice down, Lars,” called a woman from near Joshua’s side. This time the voice was different, higher and cheerier as if she was smiling. “We have patients still in recovery here.”
The man—Lars—let out a loud snort. “Not patients, Fila. They will be warriors. Fighters.”
“Off with you now, before you get in trouble. You know the rules, and I am not afraid to report you.” The woman’s voice rang out, her tone a strange combination of firm, scolding, and cheeriness.
Warriors?
What was this Lars guy going on about? Where was Joshua that a patient was meant to be a warrior? And what did that have to do with Joshua at all?
Lars’ laughter faded and the woman—Fila—shuffled around nearby. The sound of fabric skimming the floor, the soft patter of footsteps and the low rumble of distant conversation settled around him.
Interspersed with those sounds were a multitude of soft metallic clinks, the crackle, and spit of more than one roaring fire, and the sound of boots walking, constantly walking, such a wide range of sounds that it was difficult to identify the sources.
Joshua let out a soft breath and tried to blink away the darkness again.
And he was surprised to see that the blackness had faded somewhat, as though daybreak had arrived and was forcing its way through the skin of his eyelids.
Blackness had turned to a dense gray, and he caught the sight of bright forms of light moving around him. The brightness felt strong enough to hurt, but he didn’t care. He was so eager to see where he was and what was going on around him that he blinked again, ignoring the stabs of pain in his eyeballs, and the accompanying wave of lightning strikes in his brain.
Another blink and the grayness faded a little more.
Joshua found himself staring up, unsure of what it was he was looking at. Bare cross beams, carved with a patter he was unable to discern. Darkness in the distance above him implied a very, very high ceiling. And the height—and a roof made of thatch or straw, a roof which seemed to extend forever on either side of him—implied that he was in a very large hall, something longer than a few football fields if he had to hazard a guess.
Which would explain how he could have heard the group of men talking and keep talking until their voices had faded in the distance.
Joshua breathed and calmed himself, and continued to blink and star
e above him. Minutes later, though he was still not able to move his arms and legs, Joshua opened his eyes and enjoyed the first clear sight of the room around him.
He lay on a cot, not a mattress—this he could feel from the sagging sway of his body. A thick fur covered him until his chest, and as he squinted at it, he found he was certain it was real fur, perhaps bear or wolf. His chest was covered in a rough white cotton shirt that tied with narrow strips of leather at the neck.
Someone walked past Joshua, and he turned to stare at the strangely dressed woman who was striding along the aisle between his bed and that of his neighbor across the way. He couldn’t see the person as they lay facing the opposite direction. There were a lot of beds in this hospital, and from what Joshua could see, there were at least ten rows divided into quadrants by thick hand-woven rugs supported by wooden poles.
Within Joshua’s makeshift recovery room were eight patients, most sleeping, although one was up and about. She got to her feet and went to the woman to help relieve her of her burden.
The wooden tray was filled with deep wooden bowls and what looked like beer mugs.
The woman bearing the tray began to set up a short trestle table, her full floor-length skirts swaying and emphasizing the amount of fabric it would have taken to create the garment. She wore a short-sleeved blouse which had similar leather ties that sat above a generous cleavage. She spoke in low tones with the patient, her voice confirmed she was Fila, the woman who’d warned off Lars. The patient smiled and then waved Fila off once the table was ready.
Then Fila turned to walk off. Which was when Joshua saw something that made him one hundred percent certain that this was probably a dream.
A tail.
Chapter 5
A tail? A freaking tail?
Joshua blinked and cleared his vision in case he’d been seeing things. Maybe he had something in his eye?