“You know,” he said, still laughing, “you should get a good three or four inches of penetration with that pen. A regular plastic ballpoint would break off at around an inch and just end up pissing off your attacker.”
“Even deeper if I manage to stab someone in the throat or the eye,” I said, as serious as I could be while posing the idea that I could manage to stab anyone anywhere at all.
Beau started laughing again.
Grinning, I enjoyed his contagious mirth as I watched the slow drift of wispy white clouds in the azure morning sky. The clouds would burn off in the next hour or so. It was going to be hot. Beau and I both had the day off. I was thinking that maybe we would go swimming later.
Beau’s laughter slowly subsided, enough that I thought he might have fallen asleep. I’d woken in the early morning to find him gone, then slept fitfully myself before he’d returned at dawn. I hadn’t asked him what he’d been doing. I could tell by the magic still sparking off him as he pressed his body against mine and we made love — still half-asleep and without whispered questions or worries — that he’d been running in his tiger form.
I’d never lain in the grass just watching the sky like this before. Not alone, and not with anyone I loved as fiercely and painfully as I loved Beau.
That sky was about to fall. And even if I tried, even if I pushed Beau to seek out his sister, I wasn’t sure I could do anything about it. Maybe pushing him was what made it worse. Maybe us contacting Ettie would turn out to be what caused her death. All I could do was breathe in this moment, so that was what I did.
“When I say run …” Beau murmured sleepily.
“I run,” I answered by rote.
“When I say run,” Beau repeated.
“I run, Beau. I know I run.”
“No questions, no hesitation.”
“You say run, I run.”
Beau rolled over onto his side, facing me with his head cradled in his arm. “Are you going to sketch more?”
I mimicked his movement, only a foot of flattened, dead grass between us now. “Probably.”
“Do you have an idea of place or time?” He was asking about the vision of his dead sister. I’d been waiting for his questions, even though I didn’t think I had any concrete answers.
“Hot weather, because the pavement is soft, but no hint of the location … yet.”
Silence fell between us. Not as comfortable as before, but I still waited. Beau never pushed me to talk about anything. I wasn’t going to push him.
“You think we can stop it,” Beau said. His eyes were closed now, as if he were sleeping.
“If it hasn’t already happened. I think we should find out. I think we should try. I think I have to try. I have to … take control …” I tamped down the well of emotion that pinched my chest. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I wasn’t lost.
“You’re not helpless,” Beau murmured, picking up on my thoughts. “You’re not crazy.”
“I know.”
“Didn’t the far seer tell you to not try to change the future?”
“Pretty much. Of course, he’s the one who sent Kandy. I don’t think she’s here for grilled steaks and s’mores.”
Beau sighed. “I don’t want you anywhere near them.”
“I’m not helpless.”
He huffed out a laugh, but he wasn’t remotely joyful. “You really think I should call.”
He was so torn, so out of sorts about it all that I almost didn’t answer. I almost lied before I remembered Beau would be able to smell the falsehood on me. Before I remembered that wasn’t who we were. I just didn’t want to drive a wedge between us — or push deeper the wedge I was fairly certain the vision had already created but hadn’t cemented yet.
“It’s the right thing to do,” I whispered. “This is your family.”
“No, you’re my family,” he said, his tone unyielding but not nasty. “They’re just people who couldn’t give a shit about me.”
Annoyed at myself for still feeling vulnerable and insecure about being rejected because of the visions, I reached out to smooth my fingertips over Beau’s eyebrow. He instantly captured my hand and pressed a kiss to my palm.
“We could at least … warn them somehow.”
He growled, resigned. Rolling over on his back, he laid my hand over his heart while he dug his cellphone out of his pocket.
He paged through the phone. He hadn’t carried one before, not until Audrey insisted. I was surprised he’d bothered to program any numbers into it. I lightly scratched his chest with my nonexistent nails, hearing him grunt contentedly as he selected a number and held the phone to his ear.
After a breath, I heard the operator. Or, rather, a recorded message of some sort. Beau hit end and tried a second number. Same result.
“Out of order?”
“Yeah. They aren’t so great with paying bills.” Beau continued to stare up at the sky. “Cy probably has some burner phone, or could possibly be in jail. But there’s no way I’m bothering with tracking down the son of a bitch.”
“Ettie’s dad?” My information about Beau’s family was sketchy at best. He’d never even called his stepfather by name and had always referred to his sister as Claudette. “It’s been, what? At least three years since you’ve seen them? You think he’s still in the picture?”
“More like four. But yeah, Cy Harris is like a cancer. He ain’t going nowhere.” Beau tucked his phone away in his pocket. “We’re paid up for the week,” he said. “I’ve bought tools.”
“Ms. McNally isn’t going to rent to anyone else. She likes you. You take the garbage out, lift heavy things.”
Beau grunted but didn’t continue the conversation.
So I pushed. I knew I shouldn’t do it. I knew that Beau had more than just issues with his family. I knew he carried scars. I knew this would reopen those scars. But I didn’t have anyone — no one blood-related, anyway — who called me sister, daughter, family …
“We could make a trip of it.”
“You won’t like it. It’s hot and shitty.”
“I’ll be with you.”
“I like it here.”
“So do I.”
Beau rolled over to look at me again. This time, he was the one to reach out and trace my eyebrow. “If we’re going there. If you’re meeting them … I should tell you … everything.”
“We have a lifetime to share, don’t we?” I smiled even as the pool of dread that had taken up residence in my stomach roiled.
“I don’t want you to see me with them,” he whispered. “What I’m like when I’m with them.”
“I see you, Beau. I only see you.”
He nodded. “I’m who I want to be when I’m with you.”
“So am I.”
He leaned toward me, lightly brushing his lips across mine. I wanted to throw my leg over his hip, to climb on top of him and claim him … show him … love him. But I didn’t. Sex was easy between us. Words and feelings about our pasts were way, way harder. But without the words, I was worried that the sex wasn’t enough to keep away the dark veil I’d felt fall between us last night.
He pulled away as if sensing my thoughts. “I could try some more phone numbers. Maybe find an email address?”
“Do you have more people to call or email?”
“No.”
“Why do you think Kandy is here?”
Beau sighed, the sound of which hurt my heart. “Well, I was kind of hoping she was here to teach me how to achieve half-form. But now I’m guessing not. There weren’t any claw marks on Ettie, were there?”
“Not that I saw. Geez, you don’t think …”
“No.” Beau’s voice was flat. “No shifter is going to kill my sister. Her own father is responsible for her death. I’m one hundred fucking percent sure.”
“Does he … hurt Ettie?”
“No. Not when I was there to take the beatings, at least. I’d just bet that the asshole has gotten himself in some deep shit. Probably having to
do with stolen cars, drugs, or aggravated assault. Maybe all of the above.”
I waited, but Beau didn’t expand his theory about Cy. I wasn’t sure that the visions would center on anything as mundane as domestic violence or drug trafficking, but I wasn’t going to say anything hurtful like that to Beau right now. Or ever. The visions usually centered on magic — Adepts or magical confrontations. Large-scale magical events. Though maybe that was only when Jade or Blackwell were involved. And as far as I knew — based on Kandy’s say-so and my infrequent text messages with the sorcerer — both of them were currently out of the country, where I hoped they’d be staying.
“Well, I guess we’re going to Southaven, Mississippi,” Beau said. “I never wanted to say those words to you. Ever. Home sweet fucking home.”
Despite the fact that Ms. McNally was probably still spying on us from her upstairs window, I wrapped my hand around the back of Beau’s neck, then pressed my lips against his. He instantly deepened the kiss, pulling me closer until I was sheltered along the long length of his body. The trepidation that had built up during the conversation faded, though not completely. I wasn’t stupid enough to ignore that Beau was this wary about having me around his family, but I still thought it was the right thing to do.
Magic wanted it so, didn’t it? Otherwise, why show me the vision?
Except I wasn’t too sure magic was something to be trusted implicitly.
∞
After exchanging a series of text messages with Beau, Kandy met us out front of the garage in almost the exact spot she’d parked the night before. Only for this trip, I’d be driving the Brave. Yeah, it might have been quicker to blast over to Mississippi in Kandy’s SUV, but it would be way more comfortable in the RV. Plus, I wasn’t sure I could leave it behind. It was literally my whole world.
Beau had finished the tune-up on the pickup truck he’d been working on, then had driven it back to its owner while I looked up routes to Mississippi. We’d left a note for Ms. McNally, estimating when we’d be back, and texted Tess that we’d probably miss dinner next Friday.
I rolled down the window of the Brave as I pulled even with Kandy, who was leaning against the SUV and squinting madly in the sun.
“You’ll follow?” I asked.
Kandy shrugged. “Maybe.”
“But you’re coming?”
“I said I was.”
I glanced over at Beau in the passenger seat beside me. He shrugged as well. I shook my head and looked back at Kandy.
“The far seer said we’d survive,” I said.
“All of us?” Kandy asked. “Because he told me I really, really wouldn’t like what was coming next.”
“Great,” Beau groused, though he was grinning.
Kandy returned the grin, her smile more maniacal than Beau’s. Shapeshifters loved being in the shit. Werewolves most of all. Given his magical heritage, and after a year and a half of Audrey ‘check-ins,’ I was constantly surprised Beau was so even keeled.
“I’ll follow,” Kandy said as she turned to climb into the SUV. “But we’re going to need to stop for lunch within the hour.”
I opened my mouth to mention we had food, but Kandy cut me off.
“And not that veggie shit you keep feeding him. He needs real food. Beau’s a predator, not a kitty cat.”
I snapped my mouth shut, then started to roll up my window. I wasn’t going to get bitchy. The best way to win an argument with a werewolf was to ignore her.
“My treat,” Kandy yelled through the glass.
“I know you’re not a kitty cat,” I snapped to Beau. “You eat plenty of meat.”
He snickered. “You know werewolves. The bigger you are, the stronger you can be.”
“Well, you’re plenty big.”
“Oh, yeah?” Beau wagged his eyebrows at me.
I laughed. “We have the craziest conversations.”
Beau instantly sobered. “We’re just getting started.”
He leaned across the orange-carpeted hump that divided our seats and clipped something onto my necklace. I glanced down to see a tiny red vial hanging off the gold link nearest to my diamond. No, not red. Clear glass with a stopper, with something red inside it.
I looked up at Beau.
“My blood. For tracking.”
“I … I can’t …”
“It’s not for you to use. And you won’t need to have anyone else use it unless … unless you think I’m in serious trouble. After you’ve run, like you promised.”
I just stared at him.
“Like you promised, Rochelle,” Beau repeated.
I nodded.
He reached over to take my hand, inhaling deeply as he pressed a kiss to my palm. “I’ll be able to track you anywhere,” he murmured, his magic tingling against my fingers. “I just thought you’d feel better with the same option.”
My stomach did that weird flip it did when I wanted Beau. But since having a sexual reaction to him giving me a vial of blood was pretty creepy, I refrained from climbing into his lap like I wanted to.
Beau smirked. He knew exactly what I was thinking.
I laughed, then yelped when Kandy laid on her horn behind us.
Beau snorted, dropping my hand so I could focus on the road as I carefully pulled away from the curb and drove the two blocks to the stop sign before the interstate.
“You’re not going to need it,” Beau said. “I’d never leave your side voluntarily.”
“Yeah? Me neither.” Keeping my tone light, I wrapped my hand around the vial and the diamond as about a dozen other RVs rolled by on the highway in front of us. “Except you keep demanding that I make all these promises to the contrary.”
“Options,” Beau corrected. “I’m just making sure you have options.”
I looked over at him, but he was looking away out the window at the oncoming traffic. “I don’t need options, Beau.”
“You might.”
I was suddenly terrified that we were having a completely different conversation than the one we’d started. One that somehow involved me leaving him.
I gripped the steering wheel. “Not going to happen,” I said, as fiercely as I could. Then I hit the gas and turned north onto the interstate. I’d drive us to Waldport, then connect to US-34E to head east.
Beau leaned forward and turned the radio on quietly, brushing his fingers against my knee as he withdrew his hand.
I glanced at him and he flashed me a sad smile.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “Our version of okay, at least.”
“I know,” he answered, though I could sense that he didn’t believe himself any more than he believed me.
More than anything else he’d said or done so far, that alone told me that Beau’s family might not be worth the trip. I seriously hoped I hadn’t made a huge mistake pushing him to act on the vision.
But, as always, all I could control was myself and my reactions. And I knew — absolutely unequivocally — that I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything come between Beau and me.
∞
The trip to Southaven took us east through Oregon and into Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, then just across the border into Mississippi. And that was the short route, according to Google Maps. The drive was supposed to take thirty-six hours, but even shapeshifters needed some sleep.
We dry-docked at a rest stop in Utah the first night, where Kandy slept in the SUV. For the second and third nights, the werewolf insisted on a campsite and occupying the bed that the Brave’s dinette converted into.
The vision hit me again after a late dinner somewhere in the middle of the sweltering heat of Kansas. Near Wichita, according to the interstate signage that had become a blur for me after driving for too long. Kandy and Beau had gone off to train in the nearby wooded area, which I thought might be a national park but didn’t bother looking up. I was updating my Etsy shop while we had free — though frustratingly slow — Wi-Fi with our RV pad rental. The camp
site had only one spot left when we pulled in, near the showers and the dumpsters, though that didn’t bother us. We were only there to sleep — and to run, in Beau’s and Kandy’s case.
Even before the vision swamped my mind, my head was already pounding. Beau had been right about me not liking the heat. I was padding around the curtained RV in black panties and a black cotton tank top while wishing desperately we’d thought to bring the standing fan from the garage. I’d even gathered my hair into silly pigtails, because it was too short and thin to twist back into a bun without it continually falling down. Beau thought the combination of panties and pigtails was adorable. And I seriously hoped my headache would ease before he got back and wanted a cool shower.
The vision floored me. Literally. It flooded through my mind so quickly that I lost all sense of where I was in the Brave, and had to simply hunker down where I’d been standing.
In my mind, I was standing in a mist-shrouded alley … or maybe a passageway between two buildings. The mist was slowly dissolving, leaving behind a blisteringly hot day, a blazingly blue sky, and barely a hint of shadow anywhere. It must have been midday, then? With the sun directly overhead.
I was learning to gather and interpret clues in the visions as quickly as I spotted them. Yet I still felt like a newbie, constantly behind and struggling to catch up to the point of it all.
Glass shattered somewhere above my head. I threw my arms up across my face and pressed back against one building even as I reminded myself that I was watching a vision from the safe zone of the Brave. Nothing bad could happen to me.
Something thumped sickeningly to the ground before me. I forced myself to lower my arms. I forced myself to see.
Though nothing bad could happen to my physical self within a vision, my mind wasn’t always so lucky.
Beau’s sister Ettie was lying on the ground before me. Her head was canted to one side, her murky brown eyes staring sightlessly. She was wearing a white sundress with blue printed flowers on it. Forget-me-nots, I decided, even as the irony made me sick. She was tanned, though her skin was rapidly paling as blood seeped from the back of her head. For the first time, the expanded parameters of the vision let me see that she was bigger than me. Taller and heavier. Which made sense, because even though she and Beau were only half-siblings, he was tall enough that he might well have inherited that trait from both his mother and father.
I See You (Oracle 2) Page 6