“So, um… would you mind telling me why everybody likes, you know, different names? I mean, did cripples always do that or…” She balked as his eyebrow raised. “Unless that’s just your name. Or it’s personal. I don’t mean to be rude, I just–”
She cut off as he grinned.
“You sure took to it easy enough,” he told her.
Ashley shifted uncomfortably, and he nudged her shoulder companionably. “Just teasing, kiddo. Not all of us are as lucky as you were, having a family who’d watch out for us. Most of us have to do what we can for our own protection, sometimes first and foremost from those who knew us before.”
Her brow drew down in confusion, and he sighed. “Families went weird after the war. All of a sudden, people had to make life or death decisions constantly, and so priorities got shifted, sometimes not in the best ways. Cripples can’t defend themselves. At least, not how the wizards would consider ‘traditionally’. And when you’re on the run, people who don’t seem to offer much defensively can start to look like a liability. Or, because of other things, an opportunity.
“Some people’s families abandoned them. Others turned on them. Samson’s Taliesin relatives looked the other way while his vicious bitch of a sister went after him and his twin brother for power, and only Samson got away. Spider’s Merlin group kicked her out on the streets to die when the war started, even though she was barely twelve at the time. My own family would readily let me stay wherever they’re hiding, on the sole condition that it’s only me. Everyone else I care about can go to hell, because it’s not about compassion in their eyes. Just duty.”
He scoffed. “There’s a thousand stories like ours, one for every cripple you meet. And so we break with the old. We keep ourselves safe from the ferals or the sellouts in our own backyards by losing those identities. Nobody knows Bob Smith or Julie Brown. All those folks are gone. And we protect our own – most of us, anyway. Most of the time.
“So,” he continued, “if your wizard family is attacked, they can’t give you up. If your relatives get desperate and decide to go feral, you’re nowhere to be found. Because that person doesn’t exist anymore. You’re someone new.
“The thing you’ve got to figure, kiddo,” he told her, “is you choose who you belong to. Who you want to be. It’s not blood or birth. It’s a choice. This is our way of setting ourselves apart, as much as anything. Saying we’re not like them. And we never will be.”
She paused. “But Carter didn’t change,” she said, half-asking.
“There’s a few others,” he acknowledged. “But no, he didn’t. For him, well known as he was, there just wouldn’t have been much point.”
He fell silent for a moment. “The name suits you, though,” he said finally.
Ashley hesitated. “Thanks.”
Bus nodded and then sighed, clapping his hands on his knees. “Better go get some food before it’s all gone,” he said. Pushing to his feet, he paused and then rested a hand on her shoulder. “Glad you’re with us, kiddo.”
She watched him walk away. By the pavilion, Peony and the other children ran up, begging for another story, while Magnolia hurried over to shoo them away. Bus laughed, and then glanced back to Ashley, pointing to the buffet and raising his eyebrows questioningly.
Awkwardly, she managed a nod.
Bus dished up plates of food. Escaping her mother’s grasp, Peony giggled madly as she dashed off. Turning her gaze back to the bonfire, Ashley swallowed hard and tried not to think about the fact that, even though so much had changed, she was somehow still living a lie.
*****
Magnolia sat with them through dinner, and the conversation drifted from gardening to van repair, never settling on any topic for too long or delving deeper than small talk. Content to let her contribute if she chose, the others would merely smile at her from time to time, sharing humor at something said and making space for her easily.
She stayed to help clean up, letting Magnolia take drowsy little Peony back home. With the dishes put away and the food stored, Bus walked with her to the darkened cabin, and after leaving her by the porch, he waved as he headed toward Melody’s.
Ashley pushed open the door, and then stopped.
“If they’re working together now, there’s no–”
Jericho’s angry murmur cut off, and he looked up as she came inside.
Carter turned around. On the end table, an oil lamp between the two men’s chairs provided the only light in the dark house.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s alright,” Carter told her.
Looking between them uncomfortably, she shut the door. “Goodnight,” she said, heading for the hall.
“Goodnight,” Carter replied.
She disappeared into her room and shut the door. A moment passed, and then she heard Jericho begin talking again, his words too low to make out.
A few steps brought her to the chest of drawers, and reaching up, she tweaked the curtains shut. The thin fabric diffused the moonlight, still leaving her enough to see by. Hesitating a moment, she took out the gun, laid it on top of the dresser, and then pulled off the jeans and baggy sweatshirt she’d worn for the last few days, leaving the tank top as a stand-in for her nonexistent pajamas. She lay down, but her eyes wouldn’t stay closed. Words kept spinning through her mind, filled with fragments of conversation from the past day.
Wizards. Cripples. Ferals. Blood. Merlin, Taliesin and the utter lack of gray area in between. Wars and murderers and monsters chasing her because they only needed one.
Whatever that meant.
So many lies. Her life was a lie. Being here was a lie. She’d given them Lily’s pet name because it was all she could think of at the time. And now, a few days later, Lily felt like the only thing that’d ever been real.
Choose who you belong to. Bus’ words rose from the morass. Who you want to be. It’s our way of saying we’re not like them. Never will be.
She closed her eyes.
To those around her, she was the deceived girl. Lied to and misled, naïvely accepting of the untruths that’d filled her life. And she was the broken one. Shell-shocked and hurting, and nothing more than a child needing protection.
But then, that was all they’d ever seen.
Choose who you want to be.
Her gaze found the gun atop the dresser, its dark metal outlined by the moonlight.
She’d wandered since the fire, since the moment Lily died. In all the chaos, she’d been swept along and tossed about like a dandelion in a hurricane, and never had really come back down. She’d been shattered, left in pieces by the loss of the life she thought she’d been living.
We hunt them. We take them out. Spider’s words joined the noise.
Everything she’d known had been a lie, except for one little girl with bright blue eyes whom the wizards had killed as though she didn’t matter at all.
We’re not like them. Never will be.
Her hand reached up, wrapping around the gun, and she sat up in bed, holding it gently.
She’d always been Ashe to Lily.
And she wasn’t helpless. Or broken. She refused to be.
She couldn’t wield magic, or change what’d happened before. But in all this great mess, she could make a life out of what remained true. She was Lily’s sister. Even if everything else was gone, through a simple name, something of Lily would always be with her.
Her fingers ran over the gun.
And she had one tiny power she could control.
She’d seen his face. And since the Hunters tracked his kind, maybe that was enough.
Because a gun would kill a wizard if they didn’t know the shot was coming.
Down the hall, she could hear Carter and Jericho still talking. Setting the gun aside, Ashe rose and grabbed her jeans from the rug. Pulling them on swiftly, she headed for the door.
The men looked up as she came into the room.
“Carter,” she said. “If I asked you, would you help me fin
d the man who did this? The Blood wizard who killed my family?”
Jericho’s brow rose, but Carter just glanced to him and then met her gaze seriously.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Would you help me kill him?”
Jericho grimaced. Carter simply watched her. And then he nodded.
“Yes.”
She trembled, realizing she hadn’t been breathing. “Thank you.”
Carter nodded again.
She turned and headed back down the hallway, only to stop with her hand on the doorknob.
Arms crossed and leaning on the bathroom doorframe, Spider watched her. With a shrug of her shoulder, the girl pushed away from her support, and a small smile curved across her face.
Without a word, she disappeared back into the bedroom at the end of the hall.
For a moment, Ashe’s brow drew down at the look in the girl’s eyes, and then she continued into her room and shut the door.
The bed squeaked faintly as she sat down. Her gaze rested on the gun nearby.
She had only one power she could use. One single thing she could do.
And she refused to be broken anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
If he played one more video game, Cole thought he would lose his mind.
A week had passed since he and Lily found themselves hiding with Travis, and the time had not gone well. When he’d been stuck with Robert and Melissa, he’d often fantasized about having the freedom to do nothing but relax all day.
But in reality, the lack of activity was starting to drive him insane.
Lily wasn’t doing much better. Most of her days were spent pacing the room or making origami crafts from whatever paper she could find. A small mountain of flowers, pinwheels, and cranes now littered the tower room upstairs, but even the girl looked like one more folded creation was likely to leave her screaming.
They both wanted answers. Direction. And one week into this, lightning still hadn’t struck to provide him with either.
People with superpowers were after them. He couldn’t seem to come up with a solution for that.
On the wall, the obnoxious alien clock struck three, and for the hundredth time, he resisted the urge to throw something at it. Nearby, Lily scowled and flung her head back on the floor cushion, glaring upside-down daggers at the trilling, tentacle-laden abomination.
The door swung open as Travis came into the room. Tossing his bag down and sending textbooks spilling across the floor, he flung himself onto the bed. “Dude, this is just getting creepy,” he announced.
Cole waited for more, but nothing came. “What is?”
“That cop was back.”
Lily’s exasperation with the clock melted. She looked between him and Travis in alarm.
“What cop?” Cole asked warily.
“I told you about him.”
“Uh, no. Pretty sure you didn’t.”
“There’s a cop poking around the school, asking about you and the kid. He showed up a few days ago, and then he was back today.”
“You didn’t tell me this, Travis,” Cole said, trying to keep a rein on his temper.
“Oh. Sorry. But yeah, it’s creepy, right?”
“What was he asking?”
“Who knew you, that sort of thing.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“Eh, I told him I hadn’t seen you since your parents went on vacation.”
At his expression, Travis scoffed. “Relax. If I’d said I didn’t know you, it would’ve taken him five seconds to figure out I was lying. Everyone at school knows we’re friends.” He leaned back, balancing one foot on the other and folding his arms behind his head. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
Cole saw Lily grimace as she went back to the moronic penguin video game, but thankfully the boy didn’t notice. Running a hand over his face, Cole exhaled and then shoved to his feet. Crossing to the window, he tweaked back the curtain and scanned the street. Nothing moved and, in a neighborhood like Travis’, there weren’t even cars parked by the curb.
He let the curtain fall back into place.
Cops at Brighton Modisett. Too close was an understatement. If he knew where else to go, they’d already be leaving.
Days upon days of thinking had left him with nothing but a headache and no options he could see. Neither of them had relatives to help them and, try as he might, he couldn’t let himself rest easy in thinking he was the only one who could see Lily glow. Wherever they went, they ran the risk of someone recognizing her, either from the light on her or the pictures still occasionally playing on TV. And with all signs pointing to the cops being in league with the people chasing them, recognition would equal a fast track to falling into their custody.
As much as he hated it, without a direction, logic said they might as well stay here. Except that nothing was happening here, beyond the exponential growth of Travis’ belief that this was a game. And since he and Lily didn’t exactly fancy spending the rest of their lives in this room, he was starting to think they were going to have to just leave if they wanted to get anywhere in solving this psychotic mystery.
Except he didn’t know where to go. And thus he ended up back at the beginning, cycling through the same thought processes that had yet to accomplish anything.
A buzzing sound pulled him out of his frustration and he turned around, looking for the source of the noise.
“What’s that?”
Rolling off the bed, Travis sighed and headed for his cluttered desk. “Nothing,” he said, yanking open a drawer and shoving papers aside. “Just the old phone you had.”
Cole stared at him, speechless.
“Here we go,” Travis said, pulling the cell from the bottom of the drawer.
“You told me you were going to get rid of that,” Cole said, flabbergasted.
“I am. Justin’s going to pay me for it tomorrow.”
“That’s not the same thing!”
“But this way, if anyone comes looking they’ll just–”
“You were supposed to throw it out,” Cole snapped, crossing the room and snatching the phone out of Travis’ hands. Glancing down, he hesitated, the numbers on the display looking vaguely familiar.
“Who is it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, don’t answer–”
Cole thumbed on the phone. “Hello?” he said warily.
Travis threw up his arms in incredulous exasperation.
“You’re a moron for keeping this phone, you know that?” Robert snapped.
Cole paused. “Nice to hear from you too.”
The man was silent, and Cole could almost hear him grinding his teeth. “I take it they haven’t found you yet.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Wait! I… I’m sorry.”
Cole hesitated, still itching to end the call. His eyes flicked to the alien clock. “You’ve got ten seconds,” he told the man, watching the tentacles tick around.
“The bastards paid us to keep you, okay? Said they’d spare us if we watched you. But I knew they’d turn on us. Why’d you think I kept so damn many guns around? And they did. I barely made it out after you left, thanks to Melissa. That stupid bitch couldn’t even come up with a convincing cover story for our friendly neighborhood spy. But they’re still going to be looking for you. Me too, since I know who they are. So I figure we can help each other.”
“Bullshit.” The word popped out before he could stop it, and he glanced to Lily uncomfortably.
“Look, they screwed me over too, okay? You think it was easy watching you for all those years, worrying you’d get shot or run off and leave us with nothing? But I’m no fool, alright? Not like that harpy they set me up with. She never was a great thinker, and she sure as hell didn’t think fast enough to get herself out of there.”
“Is she dead?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Now that you know it’s all a sham, there’s no point in keeping us around. We’ve seen too much, plai
n and simple.”
Cole glanced to Travis. The boy was watching him in disbelief from across the room, and tapping his wrist as though to indicate the time.
“Who are they?”
“Not on the phone. Dammit, we’ve already been too long. They’re probably tracing us already, since you kept this line.”
“You called me.”
“I figured you’d do something stupid, left on your own.”
“Goodbye, Robert.”
“Dammit, wait! Look, Sunrise Campground near highway eighty-nine. Can you get there?”
Cole hesitated. “Yeah,” he said, suddenly understanding the familiarity of the phone number. Robert loved the campground and used to call home from the nearby ski resort before he’d acquired a cell.
“Good. Lot twenty-three. I’ll find you.”
The call ended.
Cole set the cell down on the desk, staring at it.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Travis burst out.
Cole ignored him. Ninety-nine percent of what he’d just heard was gibberish, and the last time he’d seen the man, Robert had tried to smash him over the head with a bookend.
He glanced at the glowing girl watching him from across the room.
“Are you listening to me?” Travis snapped. Striding to the desk, the boy snatched the phone as though to stop Cole from making another call. “I was going to get rid of this for you! And now they’ve probably traced the call and everything. I can’t believe you answered the phone! Are you insane? Haven’t you seen–”
Travis kept ranting. Cole barely heard him.
They needed answers. And a week of waiting had gotten them precisely nothing.
“Is their house still empty?” he asked.
“And you just picked up the line like– what?” Travis’ ears caught up to his tirade. He sputtered and then regrouped. “Yeah, I checked this morning.”
Cole nodded. Every day for the past week, Travis had stopped by the hill overlooking Cole’s old neighborhood and used his ludicrously expensive binoculars to see if anyone came by the Smith’s home.
But the driveway stayed empty and the darkened house never changed.
The Children and the Blood Page 22