Firebug

by Lish McBride

  We remained silent, stuck in the moment. It was still my turn to say something, and I couldn’t seem to make words happen. This conversation wasn’t going the way I had planned at all.

  “Wow,” Lock said. “Speechless. That’s not good.” He drew away. “Forget it. All of it. Everything I’ve said since you entered this hallway.”

  There was a clatter from the bathroom. “Damn it!”

  “I’ve got to go,” Lock said, pushing away from the wall. “You’re going to have to help Ezra.”

  I grabbed Lock’s arm. “No, wait. Lock, I’m sorry. It’s just … I can’t—”

  He cut me off before I could find coherency. “Please don’t. You’re making it worse.” He gently pried my hand off his arm. “It’s my turn to skip to the end on this one, Ava.”

  No Aves. Ava. Shit.

  He let go of my hand and walked away. My heart didn’t just break, it imploded into dust. Ezra tumbled through the door, his crutches tangled. I helped him sort things out. When everything was straightened, Ezra tucked his crutches under his arms and put his hands on my shoulders. “I want you to listen very carefully. I love you, my little dumpling, but you are as dumb as a sack of hammers sometimes.”

  “I learned it from watching you,” I said.

  “Shut up—I’m serious.” He let go of my shoulder to point at his face. “This is my serious face.”

  “Ezra, I’m not in the mood.…”

  “I don’t care what mood you’re in. You just crushed our best friend. Pulverized. Mashed Eviscerated.”

  “Hey!”

  “Ava, you let Ryan take you on a date. Ryan, who is surely in the running for the Biggest Scumbag on the Planet award, but you shut down the one person who for whatever reason loves us and puts up with our preposterous shit. That man dug glass out of my back. He makes us hot cocoa when we’re all tired as hell, and he almost never complains about it. He risked his life for us, and you sat there like a lump.”

  “I really handled that badly, didn’t I?”

  “‘Badly’ doesn’t even cover it, darling.” He let go of me and got a better grip on his crutches. “You are officially the Hindenburg of the dating world.” He reached out and brushed a tear off my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

  “I can’t lose him, Ez. I can’t.”

  “And you think that will happen if you go out on a date?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

  “You realize that this course of action might have worse results? One bad date you could have moved past, but this?” Ezra shook his head. “And you know what the worst part is? You’re absolutely nuts for him.” He gripped his crutches and started to move down the hallway. “Don’t bother arguing. I know it’s true even if you don’t. C’mon, then. Let’s see if the kitchen has pie.”

  I followed him down the hallway and wondered if there was any way I was ever going to be able to fix this. For a fleeting second, I almost wished things could go back to the way they were a week ago. Ryan wouldn’t be a traitor, and Lock would still be my best friend.

  I’d thought Venus’s death would be the end to my problems. How come my life was still such a mess, then?

  20

  SPIRIT FINGERS

  CADE WAS POPPING popcorn while I stood on the porch talking to Duncan. He’d ostensibly stopped by to drop off some things, but Cade decided we needed to chat and left us on the porch together. I didn’t want to talk to Duncan. My feelings about him were mixed. On one hand, he’d helped me save Cade’s life. On the other, he’d endangered it in the first place, even if he didn’t do it on purpose.

  So far we hadn’t managed to say much to each other. I caught a whiff of skunk on the breeze.

  “Must be spring,” Duncan joked. “The skunks are out.”

  “I just need to know,” I said, thinking back to our planning session in Duncan’s kitchen. How sure and commanding he’d been. “Who’s head of the Coterie now? Alistair or you?”

  Duncan took out his pipe and tapped it on the porch railing. “I never lied to you, Ava. I might have kept some of my personal life to myself, but that is my prerogative. I meant it when I said I was tired.” He stuffed his pipe with tobacco, the scent rich and earthy. “I don’t want to lead.” He dug a matchbook out of his pocket. “I just didn’t want Venus to lead either.” Duncan lit his pipe and stared intently in the window at Cade, who was pouring the popped corn from the pot into a bowl. “I don’t have any children of my own, Ava. Cade is it. And I couldn’t be prouder of him if he was my own flesh and blood. Sooner or later, either to spur you or punish you, she would have killed him.” He blew a smoke ring out into the night. “I think you can understand why I made my choices.”

  I did, because it sounded eerily like what I’d said to Lock’s mom. Duncan had to protect his family. When I didn’t say anything, he nodded. Then he tipped his weather-beaten hat at me and left.

  I wanted to be furious with him for being one of the small cogs that set the machine of fate into motion, but I couldn’t. In his place, I would have made the same, choices.

  I’D PICKED Summer Stock as the night’s movie, because I wanted dance numbers and romance. I wanted humor and Judy Garland and Gene Kelly dancing into the sunset. After that, I was going to watch Little Shop of Horrors, because I needed to see people eaten by plants. I made Cade rent the funny version, though. The one where Rick Moranis gets the girl. In the original everyone dies, and I just wasn’t up for that. Cade had explained that the original was more Faustian and much more powerful, but I didn’t want Faustian. I wanted the good guy to win. And I wanted dance numbers. So help me, I wanted jazz hands. I needed spirit fingers.

  I was still calling Cade by his first name. No need to get the townsfolk talkin’. Not that I cared about that. The real reason was that it was weird to look at Cade and use the words father or dad. Maybe I could call him Big Papa? No matter what, it all sounded funny in my head. I’d been calling him Cade my whole life. It wasn’t easy to make a quick transition like that. He hadn’t brought up those words either, so I think he was having similar issues.

  I shoved a handful of popcorn into my mouth.

  “Chew, Rat. You’re going to choke like that.” Cade joined me on the couch, setting his own bowl on the coffee table.

  I said, “I’m chewing!” but what came out was “Mm-chum-ging” and a few stray popcorn bits. I sighed and grabbed a napkin.

  “No Lock tonight?” Cade asked, looking into his bowl.

  “He’s busy” is what I said. He’s on a date with Bianca, the sullen brat is what I meant.

  “I see.” Cade glanced at me, and I got the feeling that he’d heard both versions. He grabbed the popcorn bowl and tipped some of his into mine, because I’d already eaten half in some sort of popcorn-induced fugue state. “And this bothers you because you don’t want to share your best friend, or because you’re not on the date?”

  I threw a piece of popcorn at him. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I answered. “It’s weird.”

  “We’ve always talked about everything,” he said.

  I poked my popcorn, pushing it around the bowl, hoping it might form a pattern, like tea leaves, and tell me the answers. All I got was salt under my nails. “I don’t know what I want to say yet. Besides, what with … stuff … and things … isn’t it kind of strange now?”

  “Because I’m your dad?” Now Cade was examining his popcorn for all it was worth. “Does it really upset you that much?”

  I could hear the brittle edge in his voice, the pain, and I knew I’d caused it.

  Damn.

  Ezra and Lock are right. I suck at this.

  “It’s not—I just.” I sighed. “I used to hope, you know? That you and mom … The happy ending and all that.” But that hope had died along with most childhood dreams. “It’s not bad, it’s just surreal. I’ve thought of you one way for so long that it’s hard to make the shift.”

  “I still can’t believe she lied to me,” Cade
said, his voice thick. “Lilia never lied to me. Not once. She might have hidden things, but she never out-and-out lied. We don’t know your birthday.… You might even be eighteen now. An adult. I just can’t believe it.”

  “People do all kinds of strange things to protect the ones they love,” I said.

  He reached an arm around me and squeezed me close, kissing the top of my head as he did. I tried to imagine for a moment a life without him in it, and I couldn’t.

  “Sometimes transition happens and it’s hard, and it can hurt, but it can also be good, reevaluating someone.” He rubbed my arm. “You might want to consider it with Lock.”

  I mock punched him. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m your dad,” he says. “We’ll talk about these things until you get really uncomfortable and never want to look at a boy again. It’s a great tactic, actually. Works wonders.”

  I burst into laughter then, and it seemed to cause pressure to lift. While not totally back to normal, it felt like things might be closer to okay again. I could get used to this.

  Sometime later, after both movies and a lengthy discussion of why Gene Kelly was so damn amazing, I was walking up the stairs to my loft when I heard Cade pause.

  “Rat?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I used to hope too.” And then, much softer and almost to himself, he said, “All the time.”

  “I know you did, Dad,” I said, my voice barely audible, my throat was so tight.

  He stared up at me for a moment before he smiled, and it was so open, so happy, that I knew this was the smile my mom fell in love with.

  “Good night, Rat,” he said. Then he clicked off the light and went to his room.

  I was in my loft before I realized that I’d said “Dad” instead of “Cade.” And I was all the way under my covers when I figured out that was what had caused the smile. I reached one hand up, pointed my index finger, and called a blue flame to the tip of it. I traced three words in the air, over and over until they were burned into my retinas. Then I closed my eyes and could clearly see Cade + Lilia = Ava.

  Best. Equation. Ever.

  I grinned, then wondered whose smile I had. Maybe in the morning I’d ask my dad.