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DLSIJ Press
www.dlsijpress.com
Copyright ©2004 Michelle O'Leary
First Published by DLSIJ Press, October 2004
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Leave No Stone Unturned
Was today the day? Regan wondered, studying Stone out of the corner of her eye. Was now the right time? They were alone in the training room, sitting casually on the floor as they disassembled and cleaned weapons, then put them back together. It was a lesson, but like all Stone's lessons, there was very little lecture involved. He liked to teach by example, by hands-on practice. Soon she would be able to recognize the smallest part of any weapon in their arsenal, know exactly what made them work, and assemble them in her sleep.
There was a companionable silence between them while they worked, broken only by his occasional rumble of approval when she would show him her results. It was hard to tell for certain, but she was pretty sure he was in a good mood, relaxed and mellow. At least, she hoped so. If there was ever a right time, it looked like this was it.
Still, she delayed a little longer, watching his big hands as he went about his business, his movements steady and sure. Hers were less steady, nervousness showing in the faint tremor of her thin fingers. He was bound to notice soon.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to keep her voice nonchalant as she announced, “So I started my cycle a few days ago."
His eyes didn't leave the parts in front of him and his hands didn't hesitate, as he asked in his usual deep rumble, “Cycle of what?"
"My female cycle, Dad. You know, when I bleed—"
His hands fumbled, the weapon dropping to the floor with a clatter. Turning his head, he stared at her. “Christ Jesus! Did I need to know that?"
"Well, Dad, I just—"
His voice was sharp as he interrupted, “Does your mother know about this? You okay?” His brows drawing together in a frown, he felt her forehead and mumbled, “Should get Ema to look at you..."
She wanted to laugh, but held onto it by a thread and pulled his hand away from her forehead. “Dad, get a grip! I'm not sick. Mom knows all about it; we talked about this a while back."
His frown didn't ease as he studied her. “You sure you're okay? You look a little off color."
She did giggle then; she couldn't help it. “Dad, I'm fine! If I thought you'd frazz out this bad, I
wouldn't have told you."
"Well, why the hell did you tell me?” he grumbled, shooting her a dark look before going back to his work.
The reminder killed any further humor in her. Annoying him had been the last thing she'd wanted, but she couldn't stop now—opportunities like this didn't come along every day.
She'd have to keep going and hope for the best.
In a careful voice, she murmured, “Because families share things with each other, even things that might be a little hard to talk about."
His eyes came back to hers, edged with alarm. “You don't wanna talk about it ... do you?"
"No, that's okay, Dad,” she reassured him with a grin, giving him a pat on his arm. “I just wanted to let you know what was going on."
"Good,” he muttered with a gust that could have been a sigh of relief, and returned his attention to the parts in front of him. “Wouldn't be much help anyway."
Taking another deep breath, she held it for a second before taking the plunge. “But since I shared something personal with you, maybe you could share with me."
He snorted. “Like hell. I
don't have cycles. End of story on those parts."
Regan snickered. “I don't mean that. I was thinking about something else."
"So spit it, kid,” he rumbled without looking at her, his hands back to their smooth, sure routine.
She spit it. “Why'd you kill all those people?"
He went still for a moment, before he lowered the weapon with slow care and turned his head to meet her gaze, face expressionless.
Regan flinched at what she saw in his eyes, her stomach flipping over and her heart dropping a beat. She'd seen that look before, but not since the first time she'd met him. Those were killer's eyes, and their chill was fixed on her.
"I-I'm sorry...” she whispered, but he didn't seem to hear her. She fell silent, watching him watch her and feeling very much like a mouse under a cat's paw.
After a moment that felt hours long, he blinked and turned his face away. “Why do you wanna know?” he asked in a toneless voice.
"I just ... You were in prison—they put you away for murder. I just wanted to know..."
"If I'm guilty,” he finished for her in the same tone.
Miserable, Regan said nothing. She wished her mother had just told her, instead of insisting that
Regan ask Stone herself. What'd she get for asking? From the looks of it, all she'd done was make him angry with her. The thought brought swift and stinging tears to her eyes. Dropping her chin to hide her face, she stared unseeing at the weapon in her hands and waited for his rebuff.
Guilty, Stone thought with the bitterness of an old wound.
Oh, yeah, he was guilty as sin. But he'd thought that was behind him, his slate wiped clean by a woman who believed in him when he couldn't believe in himself.
She'd taught him to accept the truth of her love and forgiveness, to live instead of just survive. She'd taught him to put his past behind him.
Yet here it was again, jumping up to bite him in the ass.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Regan to forget it, but when he glanced over at her, the words melted away. She sat in a dejected huddle, chin down and shoulders hunched, reminding him so forcefully of what she'd been like when they'd first met that it felt like a blow to his chest.
Mea may have started him down the road to redemption, but she hadn't done it alone. This girl had been the first to creep into his heart, like a small creature seeking shelter, fearless in her trust and dependence. He hadn't been able to resist either of them for long, but while his wife knew and accepted him in spite of what he'd done, this girl he'd claimed as his daughter loved him in ignorance and innocence.
I'm afraid, he admitted to himself with a pang of surprised mortification. He couldn't stand to watch the clear devotion in her eyes turn into horror, disgust, wariness ... disappointment. But for giving him the life he had now, for bringing him out of darkness, he owed her the truth at the very least.
Reaching out, he gently cupped the back of her neck, thinking as he always did how fragile and breakable she felt. The now familiar protective surge brought a faint smile to his lips. “Hey,” he rumbled.
She turned her head, looking up at him through lashes wet with unshed tears, the troubled haze in her wide, dark eyes giving him another pang of dismay.
"It ain't a pretty story,"
he cautioned, then thought with a sneer of disgust, coward.
She sat still under his hand, but her expression lightened just a bit, the corners of her mouth curving.
"I figured,” she said in a faintly husky voice. “But I'm gonna be a hunter. We don't see much pretty stuff, do we?"
Lifting his hand away, he rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace. “Got a point there."
"Besides,” she murmured, dropping her eyes to her lap and turning the half-assembled weapon over in her hands, “I killed, too."
> Another punch to his chest.
He took a deep breath through his teeth, tossing a small power cell away from him with an aggressive flick of his wrist. Listening to it skitter across the floor, he clenched his jaw in grim resignation. He owed her the truth.
Not looking at her, eyes focused on a point in his past, he began.
* * * *
"Hit me,” the scrawny woman rasped, as he knelt on the stone beside her. Her eyes glittered up at him, dark as his own, but feverish with need. Her thin body twisted with restless anguish in the small hollow he'd found for her in the maze of tunnels.
"Can't,” he said. “Don't got any.” It was a familiar ritual—his mother's demand for the drugs her body craved and his refusal—so much so that he was barely aware of speaking. Her groan and angry swipe were also expected and avoided with distracted ease.
"Listen,” he said as she clawed at him, hissing a string of tired obscenities at his head. Catching her thin, grimy wrists, he gave her a hard shake, his young body just as scrawny as hers, but not weakened by addiction. “Ma, listen."
She stilled, more because of what he'd called her than the shake. It wasn't something he said much anymore, since she'd told him when he was seven that he was on his own, that she was done protecting him. By that time, the needle ride she was on had made protecting him impossible anyway, but the words hurt all the same.
"I got a choice,” he started, then faltered as he looked into eyes so like his own. Dropping her wrists, he shifted so he didn't have to look at her. “I got a choice to make."
She knew what choice; she wasn't stupid. “Dumb-ass kid,” she snarled in a voice that cracked with lack of moisture. “Shoulda made it a long fuckin’ time ago."
He clenched his hands into fists and forced himself to say it out loud. “I think I got a chance with Mag's pack. They been pushin’ for new ground, and nobody knows these holes like I do.
Can't stay on the edge forever,” he finished in a mumble, unable to voice the brutality behind his words. I can't take you with me.
But she knew. With a clawed grip that made him wince, she dragged him closer, eyes fierce as she hissed,
"Stupid shit! Don't know why you ain't dead yet. How many times I gotta say it?” Her breath smelled like death.
He hung his head, staring at the fists pressed to his thighs, and said nothing. There wasn't anything he could say.
She released his arm, and they stayed that way for a long moment, silent in the dimness. Then her hand settled on the back of his neck, cool and gentle. “Choose you, Seth,” she whispered. “Always choose you."
Fighting for breath, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the hand on his neck, memorizing the feel of it. When it became unbearable, he lurched to his feet and walked away from her. He never saw her again.
* * * *
Mag was a brutal looking man, his body hard as stone and bulging with muscle, his face a wasteland of scars and sharp angles. When he grinned, as he was doing now, it looked more like a snarl of rabid hunger than humor.
"You tellin’ me there ain't no way to get at im?” he asked, his grin aimed like a threat at the man in front of him.
"Claw's got every hole covered, Mag. We can do a full on, but his pack's as strong as ours. Ain't no way we come out of a brawl like that and hold both territories."
Seth's heart beat harder in his chest. Hiding in the shadows, he listened to Mag and his pack leaders with rising hope. Joining the pack at his age was laughable. If they didn't beat him to death, they might decide he'd do for a message runner—when he wasn't somebody's bed sport. But what he was hearing gave him an idea for a chance at a much better rank in the pack.
"I need him dead, Nass,” Mag growled, his grin fading into menace.
Nass sidled back a step, his head and voice lowering in submission. “I know, boss. But we ain't got the manpower."
"What about the weasels?"
Seth's heart skipped a beat.
"All dead. Ain't no cut man in the world can get by his pack."
That was his cue if he'd ever heard one. Stepping out of the shadows, Seth took a deep breath and said,
"I can."
They all spun towards his voice, towering over him and bristling with violence, weapons ready. He did his best not to let them see his legs shake.
The one closest to him snorted and said, “Just a fuckin’ kid. Who let you in here?"
"Let myself in,” he answered with cool bravado, shifting to one side so he could meet Mag's lethal gaze.
"Can let myself in Claw's hole, too."
There was a short silence, the air thick with tension, and Seth wondered if that was his own death he felt pressing on his skin. Then Mag laughed. It sounded like a dog choking on his own spit, but the others joined in. Seth waited them out, his face burning a little, but more with relief than humiliation. At least they hadn't killed him on the spot.
"You wanna be a weasel, kid?” Mag snorted through a gust of humor.
"Yeah,” he answered with as much conviction as he could.
There was another round of laughter, but Mag didn't join this time, studying Seth with a grin. “Cut man's gotta know how to kill. How you s'posed to kill a man, boy?"
"Catch and kill rats all the time in the tunnels. Claw's just a big, fat rat, ain't he? Won't be a problem."
Mag damn near strangled himself with laughter, his face turning a deep red and his eyes sparkling with tears. Sitting in his iron chair, he rocked with gales of humor, big hands braced on his knees. The rest of the pack leaders were just as amused, one hard-bitten woman shrieking with it, her face transformed to something like beauty.
When Mag could speak again, he gestured Seth forward with an abrupt, “Come here, kid."
Seth walked forward with as much confidence as he could, keeping his eyes on Mag and trying not to twitch when the leaders moved around him.
When he stopped in front of the head of the pack, the man looked him over with that rabid grin and said,
"You're a cocky little shit; I'll give ya that. How'd you plan to get at Claw?"
"I know these caves inside n’ out. I can go where you can't. Every hole has vents."
Mag's eyes widened, and he studied Seth with a sharper gleam. “That's how you got in here?"
Seth nodded, not daring to look away from that piercing gaze. He'd scrounged through every tunnel and vent in the cave systems, even the ones close to the deadly surface, looking for something edible or for simple safety. The air vents were a wild maze of crisscrossing tubes cut into the stone, but they led to every cave in the system. And he knew them by heart.
"You're skinny enough to snake through,” Mag mused. “You might get at im. But you ain't got it in you to kill."
Seth shrugged, trying to look unconcerned. “So I go and die. What d'you care? But if I do im and come back, you train me to be your cut man."
Mag's guffaw echoed off the walls, as did the sound of his hand landing on his thigh with a meaty whack.
"You got balls, kid. Bargains now, no shit.” He chuckled, shaking his head as he watched Seth. “You're a funny little bastard. Be a shame to see you bite it."
The big man leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. This brought his face uncomfortably close to
Seth's, that hungry grin making sweat pop out on his face despite his dehydration.
"Got a name, kid?"
"Seth."
"No last name?"
"No,” Seth answered without emotion. He didn't know who his father was, nor did he care, and if his mother had a last name, she'd never spoken of it.
"You'll take mine, then,"
Mag ordered, reaching out a beefy hand to cuff Seth on the shoulder, staggering him. “Let's see if you can keep it."
That seemed to be another point of humor for the pack leaders, laughter bouncing off the walls as Mag relaxed back in his chair, eyes glittering. He said nothing until the room fell quiet, his gaze pinning Seth in place. The thick tension pressed in aga
in, making it difficult to breathe.
Then the head of the pack said, “Seth Terrik, you got yourself a deal."
* * * *
Seth lay on his stomach just inside the air vent to Claw's private chamber, waiting for his prey and trying to ignore the bite of the borrowed knife in his waistband. The hilt ground against his ribcage with each breath, and the keen edge burned against his skin like a reminder of death. He'd used blades before—the ones he'd managed to steal over the years had been great for catching and killing small game, not to mention protection from attackers. But this one ... ah, this one stung.
Just a big rat, he told himself as he heard the pack leader's approach in the tunnel, but his heart began to thunder in his chest, and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. At his first glimpse of Claw, his vision went a little gray around the edges and he bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. The man didn't look much like a rat—more like a mountain. Easily as big as Mag, he bulged with strength and menace, the rolling gut around his middle a testament to the success of his pack. Not many people got fat scratching out a living in the tunnels.
Claw stumped by the air vent, the angle making it impossible for Seth to see higher than the man's chest. He saw the girl the leader dragged behind him, though. He saw her in clear detail, every naked, terrified bit of her. She wasn't much older than he was, and covered in bruises.
Seth knew what was about to happen to her and felt a certain helpless empathy, but no shock. He'd seen too much to be surprised or horrified, and had even been in her place a couple of times. But never again, he swore to himself as he watched the big man drag her to his bed, throwing her down and landing on top of her like an avalanche.
With a grim clench of his jaw, he turned his face away as Claw raped his victim, listening with a slow roll of his stomach as the man grunted and groaned, and the girl cried softly.
Then he listened as Claw hit her until she stopped crying.
The knife didn't burn as much against his skin.
Seth waited as the man turned down the lights and settled into bed, waited and listened as sleep stole through the room. Claw began snoring and still Seth waited, listening for that moment when it was safe to move, when his instincts said the danger was lowest.
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