Scott put his hand on the crown of his small defender's head and gave a slight smile. He knew what she was trying to achieve and it caused a tenderness toward her that was almost painful but he now knew his place in the Singer hierarchy. And he was being treated exactly like what he was.
He was indifferent, aloof and physically superior for a reason. It was not personality, it was the traits of a Combatant.
“I am a Combatant, Julia. Nothing more, nothing less. They're not being unkind. It's actually an honor,” Scott said, letting how he felt about her defending him show in his eyes a little. Julia was so fierce in her constitution. She'd been through so much, yet Julia persevered.
His smile broadened.
Julia's anger turned to defiance. “You know what? I don't need a... whatever the hell it is!” She pulled away from Scott and the others.
“Combatant? Defender? Warrior?” Marcus asked, blatantly stalking toward her like a lion on the prowl.
“No! I don't need all that.” Her eyes searched his. Standing her ground. “I need to be me. Defend myself. I won't,” she viciously swallowed the tears that threatened in a painful lump in her throat, “have those things happen to me again. Ever,” she finished the last word with a hoarse ringing finality. Her tone was one of command, strength and certainty.
“You might not have a choice, Julia,” Marcus began gently.
She ignored him, going on, “Stop belittling Scott. Stop telling me all these 'truths',” she said. “I don't want anyone taking chunks out of someone I care about.” Julia didn't realize she had declared how she felt for Scott to the room at large. She didn't even know it was true until she spoke it out loud.
Julia's eyes blazed like twin suns out of her face, her body was resolute, her stature not diminishing her sincerity, her intelligence.
Her will.
“Spoken like a Queen,” Marcus said with a note of irony.
Julia shook her head. “No, spoken like a human being.”
She walked out, leaving five Singers staring after a Queen that was beginning to rule and was utterly unaware of it.
CHAPTER 7
Sea-Tac
Truman lay on the cheap hotel mattress, the thing mainly built like a rock but with strategic lumps and bumps. Like dead rats had been stuffed in there to remind the guests not to get too comfortable with their stay.
His right hand held the cigarette loosely, the spiral of smoke making its lazy way up to the ceiling, coating it with its hundredth layer of yellow nicotine. The events that led up to this moment floated inside his head exactly like the smoke that hovered near the dingy ceiling.
Karl knew that he was missing a critical piece. Alfred the bus driver had laid the revelation of the last two years at his feet once again, the entire investigation coming full circle.
Julia Caldwell lived. That bus driver had made the circuit in his route twice while she'd slept the ride away. Finally he'd let her off at the woman's shelter in Kent, Freedom Affirmed.
That's where Truman was headed. He hoisted himself up to a sitting position, his squat legs dangling off the end of the lumpy mattress, taking a last long drag. He stabbed the glowing end of his cigarette out in the glass ashtray that screamed the motel logo at him from its center. He stood, scratching his slightly protruding Buddha belly through his thin cotton underwear tank and shuffled to the shower, stripping his clothes as he went. He could hear the rhythmic drip from the faucet as he stepped inside the shower stall and cranked the lever to as hot as he could stand it. Truman robotically went through the motions of cleaning, completely distracted by his thoughts.
After completing his three Ss (shower, shit and shave) he used his handy GPS gadget to find the street names for this place in Kent, jamming another cigarette in his mouth as he did and stabbing the auto window feature. The glass slid down and disappeared as he hung his beefy arm out the window, waiting for the GPS to triangulate his position. Huh, Truman thought, he was actually quite close to the place. But as he looked around him at the traffic, he realized it might take longer because of it. What a fucked up road system here, he thought. It was like the infrastructure hadn't caught up with the population.
Or, maybe he was just spoiled because he was from the Last Frontier. Yeah, it was probably that. He flicked his cig with a practiced movement of thumb and index finger and watched as it littered the wet pavement, a constant drizzle soaking the streets, laying gloom everywhere it touched.
Depressing state, Karl thought, pulling away from the dump of a hotel.
*
Cyn
Cynthia was deciding what to wear. The weather was weird here. It was September but hotter than hell. September held the promise of autumn firmly in Alaska. Here in Washington, they called it Indian Summer. Whatever that meant. What it meant to her was high 70s and summer clothes. Today though, there was the miserable Seattle drizzle to contend with. Screw doing her hair. Her spiral iron that she'd remembered to jam in her pack wouldn't hold in this slop, her flat iron would straighten her hair but it would just frizz later.
The hell with it, messy bun it was. The humidity was startling, she wasn't used to it yet, it was so damn damp.
Cynthia smiled, throwing on American Eagle low rise jeans, and with a sad little sigh, she put on light wool socks and Jules' Xtra Tuffs. They were the dumbest boots but when she was feeling down, nothing perked her up like those fugly boots Jules had loved.
Gawd, two years ago she would've died before she'd worn these.
But times had changed, hadn't they? She sucked back the horrible burning of her eyes, the need to cry pressing in on her from all sides and stuffed her foot into first one boot, then the other.
She checked her make-up in the mirror, pursing her lips then rolling them together to expertly spread the colored gloss she wore.
And some things never changed.
Cynthia left her cramped room that cost her two hundred fifty dollars month to month, closing the cheap door behind herself and not bothering to lock it. There was nothing to steal anyway. And the horrible wolf things were in Alaska. Cynthia ignored the creeping little voice in the back of her head that whispered that where there were some, there may be more.
Cynthia shoved it deep down inside herself and went to the bus depot across the street.
She was going to get some answers and begin the long journey of finding Jules. Cynthia was sure she was alive.
She'd seen that thing kill Kev.
She'd seen it swipe half of Jason's neck away. Cynthia swallowed hard, trying not to let the awful memory swell and take hold like it so often would.
But Jules had been untouched. Did that mean they'd spared her? Hell, they'd spared Cynthia. She wasn't sure why and it suddenly struck her as odd. Why didn't they just kill her too? They could have taken her off somewhere and done her in. Why warn her? She felt like the answer to those questions were just out of reach, tantalizing her without closure.
The stinky bus rolled up and she recognized the driver right away.
What was his name? Cynthia wondered, biting her lip. Oh yeah! Alfred, she remembered with a smile, thinking that he'd been the first kind person she'd met here. Well... then there was Alan.
She got on the bus and knew something was wrong when he gave her a curious glance, then she could see the light bulb snap on in his face. He gave a slow blink and said almost absently, “I said the wrong girl.”
“What?” Cynthia asked, confused. People shifted behind her impatiently and she moved to the side, their coins clattering in the change holder beside Alfred.
“The cop from Haller, Honner....” he scratched his head, making his pewter hair stand up straight.
Cynthia stared at the errant strand, her stomach dropping in an uncomfortable lurch. “Homer,” she whispered.
He snapped his fingers in joy. “That's it!” he said, pleased.
“Can ya get a move on?” one of the passengers asked, clearly irritated.
Alfred flicked his eyes in his wide mirr
or that showed the bus' passengers and said, “Keep your pants on, we're going,” he said popping the clutch and Cynthia grabbed the bar that ran along the ceiling to steady herself. The bus swung away from the curb with a stagger, the cloud of fumes pouring out of the back.
“What did he want?” she asked loudly, over the noise of the bus.
“Showed me a photo of your graduation....”
Cynthia's heart leapt in her chest. “What photo?”
Had to be Truman, Cynthia thought. Gawd, he was like a damn bloodhound.
Alfred shifted gears and the bus made the smooth transition to third gear. He flicked his eyes to hers and said, “You and that other girl. The one with the eyes.”
Julia, Cynthia knew, excitement thudding inside her chest with a staccato beat.
He gave her a second or two of steady eyes then answered the hope that sung in her heart like a melody. His next comment made it a song.
“Yeah, I identified your friend, not you,” he said sheepishly, feeling foolish he'd forgotten her face. His expression lit up and he added, “But he seemed real excited that I'd seen your friend.”
Well hell yeah, Cynthia agreed mentally. She was beyond excited herself; she was ecstatic.
She sunk down in the seat right behind him and thought.
When Alfred pulled up at the depot in the valley, Cynthia saw the women's shelter just two blocks away. It looked so different during the day, not so terrible, ominous. Of course, it made a difference that terror wasn't riding on her back like an ill-behaved monkey.
She stepped out of the bus and turned to look up at Alfred.
“You in trouble again, missy?”
She shook her head, giving him the second genuine smile she'd had since she moved here. “Nah, not anymore. In fact,” her smile widened, becoming a grin, “I think everything's going to be okay now.”
Then a cloud passed over her consciousness. “What did he want, do you think?”
Alfred shrugged. “Don't know,” he said, staring through his grimy windshield, his face in profile. “Couldn't be good, though, eh?”
She nodded slowly. “No, it couldn't be.”
“Let's go, driver!” a passenger squealed like a pig in a pen behind him and Cynthia scowled in their direction, wanting badly to give them a manicured middle finger. She restrained herself with an effort.
“Better go,” Alfred said, jerking his chin in the general direction of the dissenter.
Cynthia nodded then said as she walked away, “Thanks, Alfred.”
He grinned, his crooked teeth making his homely face endearing to her. “You betcha, for what?” he asked, his hand on the knob for the door closure.
“Hope,” she said simply and walked away before he could respond.
*
Freedom Affirmed
“Listen, I'm not the bad guy here, Ms. Collins,” Karl Truman said, peeved. The old bat. Didn't she realize they were after the same objective? He wanted to find the Caldwell girl. Hell, he wanted to find the Adams girl. His nose told him he was on the right trail but he was getting stonewalled by this old broad.
She wrinkled her nose, completely unintimidated. Not that Truman was going for that. But at six foot three and an even three hundred pounds, he was a big guy and accustomed to leaning on folks and they caved. This scrawny bird wasn't one of those.
Atypical. Stubborn. A Pain In His Fat Ass.
He huffed, she scowled. “Okay, let's start over,” Truman said, rasping a hand over his stubble. He put the photo under her nose again and she studied it. Finally she looked up and said, “Even if I did recognize these girls, I wouldn't confirm or deny anything. You need a subpoena. Even with your police credentials, it would have to be a federal mandate. And my understanding is you hail from Alaska, correct?” she asked her rhetorical question like firing a gun.
Shit, let's major in the minors, Truman thought.
Her expression softened and she added, “Let's say, in theory,” she paused and he nodded like go on.
Hell, he'd take any bread crumb she'd fling his way if it would get him closer to finding the girls, or young women, his mind corrected. They were twenty now. Her eyes pierced him through her grandma glasses which perched on the end of her pointy beak of a nose. “Let's say that there was a girl like that one,” her eyes flicked to Julia Caldwell's image, “who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Ones which could not be explained. Ones which required extensive remodeling.”
Truman's heart stuttered in his chest. What the hell? His whole being came on point. She had been here.
Julia Caldwell had been here.
“Show me this... room.”
“It's off the record,” she said as a statement. “As theory.”
He nodded, following her.
She led the way up the winding staircase, the steps creaking under his weight and when she reached the door he saw that the building had been an old turn-of-the-century dorm of some kind. Many doors were five panel solid fir with crystal knobs and old-fashioned housings leaning precariously from their attachments.
She went to the room whose knob appeared like it'd been replaced.
There was a modern knob retrofitted to the old fashioned box lock. “This has never worked since our phantom guest left.”
She swung the door inward and Truman stepped into the room. He paused, giving his senses time to catch up. He always worked like this. Truman thought of it like getting the flavor of the room. The crime scene. Because that was what this was. Something had happened here. Something violent. His eyes strayed to the window where three whole panes lay intact inside their sashes, the fourth broken, a cut piece of plywood installed where the glass had been.
He heard Shirley Collins sigh behind him as she waved a hand toward the window. “It's the final repair. Not many folks cut glass to fit this age of window anymore.”
Yeah, Truman thought. There weren't many buildings of this age where he came from.
After another moment, Truman walked over to the windowsill and looked at the wood there. It was punky with age, soft. He squinted at it. There, just on the interior edge, were scratches.
Like something had used it as a perch for a moment. Something with... claws.
His eyes snapped to hers. Then they instinctively fell on the glass, and the unkempt yard beyond, the whole of it rolling like an endless green sea toward the forest's edge.
And there, just at the border, a lone figure slipped into the woods.
Truman would have dismissed the person immediately.
But the boots gave her away.
Nobody wore those in these parts.
She was Alaskan. He'd stake his life on it.
As fast as somebody his size could get down the steps and out of the building, he ran. His body was now an ungainly bundle of raw size. But Truman had been an athlete in his youth. His body remembered those demands.
They came to the forefront now, his body graceful in its pursuit of the ghostlike figure he chased after at a jog, his gun belt smacking and rubbing his side uncomfortably.
It didn't matter, Shirley Collins' yell as he jogged to the edge of the forest went unheeded.
She'd been protecting the girl all along; distracting him with the room while his quarry got away.
Well, she wasn't going to get away this time.
He ran harder, the embrace of the branches as he sailed into the gloom of trees rough against his clothing, tearing at him like ghostly fingers.
Sharp and insistent.
*
an hour earlier
“Why hello, Cynthia,” Shirley Collins greeted the tall slim girl in the funny boots with the haunted eyes.
“Hey,” Cynthia said sweeping her glance to the old woman's gaze in a nervous dance before it flitted away, moving on to the rest of the interior.
“What can I do for you?”
“Yeah, I uh...” she looked at Miss Collins and shuffled her feet, the boots uncomfortably hot for the climate, “I wanted to know if this
girl has been here?”
Cynthia pulled out an old photo of Julia. She was only sixteen in the shot but it looked pretty close to the way she did when Cynthia had last seen her. A pang shot through her. At least, that's what she had looked like. Who knew what she looked like now? She'd be twenty. Older... like Cynthia was now.
Shirley looked at Cynthia and a moment of awkward silence settled over the two. Cynthia could hear a clock ticking, some distant faucet was turned on and then off. Miss Collins opened her mouth, then shut it. “You know that each resident has a right to their privacy.”
Cynthia nodded. “I know, Miss Collins. For their safety. But I'm not a threat to Julia. Actually, the same problem was threatening us both. I'd like to find her, somehow. I need your help.” Cynthia gave her earnest green eyes, ones that had dark circles underneath them where none had been before.
Shirley deliberated then finally nodded her head. “We're not sure what happened but that room that you just occupied?” Cynthia nodded. “It is where it happened.” Cynthia watched her shiver and didn't think she was aware she had.
Shirley Collins' eyes looked off in the distance and then she looked back at Cynthia. “I'm a practical woman, Cynthia.”
No shit? Cynthia thought, like she'd would've never got that.
“But what I saw that night. What I thought I saw?” she paused. “Defies explanation.”
Cynthia figured she'd hit paydirt. After the weirdness that was her new reality, she was ready to believe anything. “When I heard the ruckus from her room I raced up there, thinking it was a Domestic.”
Her eyes glazed and she spoke, remembering:
Shirley clutched the phone in a bony hand, her finger lightly covering the speed dial for 911. They had the pipeline to Freedom Affirmed and the nearest squad car would detach on her summons, she knew.
The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) Page 33