by Unknown
“Who the fuck are you, you crazy bitch? Cops? DEA?”
“You wish. Look, I'll make you a deal – forget about your drugs and get the hell out of here. We’ll call it even.”
“Know what?” He took aim. “Think I’ll just kill you instead.”
“You sure about that?” I turned my left hand over and showed him the grenade. “Already pulled the pin. Shoot me, and we’re both buzzard meat.”
“You think I’m stupid? You didn’t pull the pin.”
I smiled, cold and certain. “Can you really tell from there? Then shoot me. Or leave. Your choice. But I'm not alone, and you really don't want to screw with us."
He wasn’t sure I was bluffing. He couldn’t be, without coming even closer. After a long, frozen second, he took a step back. As he retreated, I edged closer until I was holding the grenade over the door of the smuggler’s box. Even if he was tempted to shoot me, he wouldn’t dare now. He still hoped to get his drugs out of the deal, if nothing else.
"Keep moving," I called to him. "I won't drop the bomb if you leave quietly."
I stayed where I was until he was he mounted a dusty camouflage ATV – it was nearly hidden in a new sand dune, thanks to Lewis’s distraction windstorm – and began revving it toward the horizon. Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief and relax my grip around the grenade.
The pin – still in place – had branded a red ring into the skin of my palm. I pulled the pin, dropped the grenade into the smuggler’s box, and ran to join Lewis and Ethan. We all threw ourselves flat.
Nothing happened. No explosion.
The grenade was a dud.
Lewis slowly got up, holding Ethan close to his side. He stared after the retreating sniper on the ATV, and the expression on his face was somewhere between terrifying and outright insane. “Let’s go,” he said. He looked down at David, still lying silent on the ground. “He’ll be okay once we get him out of the dead space.”
I nodded and grabbed David’s wrists, and we made our way to the closest edge of the black corner.
As we stepped across that invisible boundary, it felt like I’d been suffocating, and now I was given sweet, delicious air. I hadn’t realized how much my body craved its connection to the powers, to the earth, to the wind and water and fire. I hadn’t realized how alone I’d been, until I wasn’t.
As soon as David was pulled across the terminator, he pulled in a deep, retching breath and rolled over on his side. I flopped down beside him, holding his hand, and watched as the wound in his chest knitted itself closed. Not a single drop of blood.
“You’re all right?” David’s voice was rough, not entirely steady, and his eyes faded from red back to gold-flecked bronze. He got to his knees. I met him there, and our embrace was desperate and hungry. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t even help myself.”
“I’m okay.”
“I know you are.” His arms tightened around me. “We need to mark this place, warn the Djinn. They can’t be here.”
“Yeah, it’s not so healthy for Wardens, either.”
Lewis was holding the boy in his arms, but Ethan was squirming to get free. Lewis set him down, and Ethan hurried over to me.
I was watching Lewis, who continued to track the sniper on the ATV as he buzzed toward freedom.
Boom.
ATVs have gas tanks. It didn’t make a very big explosion, but it was certainly big enough. I winced and averted my eyes, but Lewis wasn’t done yet. He turned his hand over, and I saw the dull green pineapple shape of the grenade. He pulled the pin like he’d done it for a living, and in one smooth motion, tossed.
It arced through the air, perfectly placed, and dropped neatly into the open hole of the smuggler’s box.
"Mine was a dud," I said.
"This one's not."
On the count of three, the entire thing exploded in a blast of flame, debris, and airborne cocaine. When the stunning blast died away, there was just a smoking hole in the ground,
“Pretty good throw,” I said, and met Lewis’s eyes. “The kid likes baseball. I guess that kind of thing runs in the family.”
Lewis said nothing. His gaze flicked to the boy, and I saw it again – Ethan’s fine walnut-brown hair, his dark brown eyes. The shadow of Lewis’s smile on his lips.
I let my expression ask the question. Does he know? Lewis shook his head, and I saw the secrets in him, and the torment. I knew why Francis had called him now. I knew why Lewis couldn’t walk away with Ethan still missing, and delegate.
David certainly knew; he’d probably known it from the beginning, from the history written in the walls and floors of the Falworth-Davis house. Lewis must have been a frequent visitor. I knew him well enough to know he’d want to be part of Ethan’s life.
“It’s complicated,” Lewis said, answering some question I didn’t know was in my face. “In the beginning I was on the run from the Wardens, for years. I didn’t want to put Ethan at risk. Later – it didn’t seem like the right time.”
“Time for what?” Ethan asked, and looked at us both in turn.
David studied the horizon, removing himself from the entire conversation as effectively as if he’d held up a NOT HERE sign.
“To tell you,” Lewis said, and stopped, as if the words just wouldn’t make it to his lips.
He needn’t have bothered. “That you’re my dad?” Ethan shrugged. “I know that. I always knew it.”
Lewis blinked. So did I. Even David raised his head. “You did?” Lewis asked, clearly mystified.
“Sure. I could feel it. Grandma says I’ve got the gift. Whatever.” Ethan shrugged. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it or anything.”
Lewis slowly sank down into a crouch, bringing himself to eye level with the boy. He didn’t say anything. Neither did Ethan.
After a long moment, he opened his arms, and Ethan flung himself into them. This time, when Lewis picked him up, Ethan didn’t try to struggle free. I clutched David’s hand tightly as I watched the two of them together, father and son, and I was overcome by a feeling I didn’t really understand – longing, regret, pride, anguish.
David knew. He put his arm around me. “It’s good he has someone,” he said.
“Lewis, or Ethan?”
“Both.”
I couldn’t dispute that.
It was a long hike back through the desert, but somehow, it seemed like we were all family, together.