by Jody Klaire
Nan sucked in a breath which sent shivers up my spine as it made the room get that bit colder. “Still got a gripe there. Can’t say I blame you but if you want to scale our agent friend’s walls, maybe you should lower your own first.”
I grunted. “I tell her everything.”
“Uh huh,” Nan purred.
“I do,” I protested. “What don’t I tell her?”
Nan’s presence did an odd shimmer like I was about to get told a thing or two. I tensed. “How ’bout you tell her how tough boot camp was? How mean that woman boss of yours was to you or the fact that you nearly died from the shivers out in the cold.”
I fiddled with the edge of the counter top. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Sure as shoots it was,” Nan said. “She don’t know that you ain’t got a clue ’bout the cold ’cause you spent a month warming up.”
I looked down at the contours of the granite surface. My fingers splayed out, making marks of condensation. I could still see my hand trembling in my memory and the soul-sucking sleepiness that nearly took me over. I could still feel that terror. That knowledge that I was alone, that I could never be found.
“Tell her you got scared, Shortstop,” Nan said. Her presence at my side made me shiver. “And tell her that her promise kept you awake.”
“She’ll think I’m a crazy person.”
“She met you in a mental institution,” Nan pointed out. “That won’t surprise her one bit now, will it?”
What could I say to that? “Good point.”
“Darn shooting it is. Now get on over there and shake her shield. Heaven knows I would try but—”
“No, don’t,” I said, glancing up at Renee. “The last thing she needs is to get freaked out.”
Nan’s presence faded and I mumbled a “thanks Nan” under my breath before heading to the chair opposite Renee and slumping down. I thought about all that Nan had said, that I should tell her how I was alone and pretty much sobbing like a baby out in the cold. Somehow that was meant to miraculously snap her out of her shell. I waved my hands in front of me in an attempt to get her to at least flinch. Yeah, like that was going to happen.
At a loss of what to do, I threw a cushion at her. She caught it without even blinking. It was cool. “So you are in there, huh?”
Renee said nothing.
I picked up another cushion and threw it her way. She caught it again. It was kinda fun. “Orbiting planet Renee . . . searching for any signs of life . . .”
I was smiling at my own humor but she wasn’t even glaring.
So I picked up a third cushion and readied my arm but she snapped her eyes to mine. “Throw another one and I’ll smother you with it.”
The intensity of her anger hit me like fire. It burned into me and flattened any confidence I had that she cared at all. It hurt and that made my mood dip into prickly.
“Try it,” I snapped. Unsure of when, and why, I’d got to my feet.
Renee glared up at me. “Like you scare me.”
“I’m not trying to scare you. I’m trying to figure out when you turned into asshole of the year.”
She folded her arms, and her anger rumbled on. “Maybe I’ve always been that way.”
Had she? Had it all been an act? That nasty voice that had been there my entire life telling me how nobody cared, how I was just a freak, took her comments and twisted them. Maybe she lied. People lied all the time. Nan’s words about walls blocked the stinging thought.
“I got hypothermia,” I said.
Renee’s rage evaporated. “What?”
“I didn’t pass the cold weather training,” I told her. If she didn’t care then she wouldn’t care about this. It was one way to find out. “The expedition trek thing. I got separated from my group.” I rubbed the spot on my hand where the drip had been in my arm. “I was critical.”
Renee hugged herself. Anger replaced with worry. Her blonde locks flopped into her eyes. She stared into the fire. “Ursula didn’t say a word.”
“I asked her not to,” I admitted.
She met my eyes, trying to mask her irritation. Her aura gave her away. It jumped and wriggled about.
“I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of failure but I am.” I slumped back onto the seat, staring at my hand, trying to shake the memory of that stupid tube in there. “I suck at being a soldier, I nearly drowned on the assault course, got hypothermia on the cold weather exercise and she spent the whole time giving me forfeits.”
“She should have told me anyway.” Renee picked at the cushion in her hand. “I’m your commander, I need to know if you’re fit for duty.”
“Well, I’m glad that duty is all that’s important to you.” I gripped the arms of the chair, feeling like I had when Sam had hit me in the jaw.
Renee stared at her own cushion. She was determined to act this way, even though she knew it was hurting me, hurting us both.
“I ain’t ever been so cold in my life.” Thinking of Nan’s words, I carried on. She said I had to lower my barriers. I had to keep going. “I got real scared for a while. Sleepy too.”
“Where were you?” The concern shimmered around her even if her voice sounded like it didn’t give two hoots.
“I set up one of them snow hole things and shoved my skis in the top.”
Renee’s lips twitched like she wanted to smile. “Which is why you survived.” Her voice was still non-committal.
“No,” I said and leaned forward. “The reason I survived was that I promised you that we would get to visit your mom.”
I nodded as she looked up at me, a brief glimmer of something, of her. Then she veiled her eyes like she was re-building her wall.
“I want to meet your mom. I want to go on a road trip and I want you to stop shutting me out.”
Renee blinked a couple of times. The mask faltered. Her aura growing stronger.
“You were real pleased to see me. You hugged me so tight that I thought my ribs would switch sides.” Leaning forward, I clasped my hands together to stop them trembling, my voice shaking with them. “What did I do wrong?”
“Oh, Aeron,” Renee said, her voice cracking as tears spilled over. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then why are you closing me off?” I could hear the raspy tone in my voice, feel my throat closing up. “You got scars, I get that and I ain’t gonna force you into confessing nothing. I just don’t get why you are so mad.”
“I’m not mad,” she said. Her whole energy battled in front of my eyes, the truth fighting to burst through as she wrestled to hold it back.
“Is it ’cause we’re so close to your mom’s and you miss her?”
Renee frowned. “You aren’t meant to know that.” She hugged herself again, looking away. “I hate it when you do that.”
Why was she lying? “No you don’t,” I said, my confusion like crystal in my voice. “You get to be yourself with me, remember?”
Renee shook her head. “You can’t know everything all the time.”
I clenched my hands together and tried to stay calm. I felt like I needed to keep trying to break down the walls even though her cold tone told me not to bother. “Why can’t you trust me?”
“It’s not about trust.” She shook her head as if clearing her thoughts. Her energy rammed back down behind the shield. “I’m your commander and some things you are not permitted to know. That’s just the way it is.”
“For you maybe.”
Her eyes met mine as I got to my feet. “What is that supposed to mean?”
My frustration drove my legs to move. I paced in a circle, hoping that it would help me think but all I could hear was the negative thoughts, the failings, the nasty voice telling me she didn’t care just like everybody else. I was just another number to her.
Well, I was done being a number.
“I don’t have to answer to you,” I snapped. Renee raised her eyebrows. “I earned my freedom and I don’t have to be a part of your stupid team.”
“Aeron,” Renee warned. “You promised your mother.”
Oh, she was panicking now. Poor old Lilia would get hurt. “Like I owe her nothin’”
“Don’t do that,” she said, her worry swirled around her. The barrier leaking her building desperation. “You can’t do that.”
“Oh, can’t I?” My voice bounced back off the walls at me and I sensed Zack stirring. The last thing he needed was for me to start bellowing. I hushed my voice. “If I don’t know who you are, how can I trust you when we’re supposed to work together.”
“You’ll know because I’ll tell you.” She set her jaw. “Anything more is unnecessary.”
Another stinging shot hit my defenses. Why was she being so mean? What had I done that was so bad?
“So that is all you got to say to me?” It ripped right through me. I could barely breathe with it. “After everything we went through?” The tears blurred my vision so that her face swam in front of me. “You fill my head full of lies for fun, was that it?”
My hands shook and the room felt like it would crash on top of me at any second.
“You find it funny?” I asked, stepping closer. “Just like Sam did?”
Betrayal still haunted my dreams and probed at me every minute I’d been stuck in a hellhole with the CIG ice troopers.
Renee’s face went pale. Her eyes wide. She got to her feet, reaching for me. “Aeron, I would never—”
“No, you ain’t.” I backed away, knowing that I had to get out or I’d end up exploding or imploding. “I’m done with you all.”
She stepped toward me but I stumbled away from her. Away from this nightmare. “Aeron . . . please—”
I unbolted the door and fumbled with it, my mind as ragged as my breath. I closed the door, conscious of the sleeping Zack, and slipped down the steps. I landed heavily on my already sore leg and winced. The tears sobbed from me. I glanced back at the house, knowing Renee was going to open the door so I broke out into long strides. I had to get away from the agony of even being near someone who had fooled me so badly.
As if life hadn’t taught me nothing. As if I hadn’t been shown time and time again that nobody really cared. Folks only wanted to know me when I was useful and they needed my “skills” or they found me entertaining. Why hadn’t my dumbass heart realized that I was a freak and nobody was ever going to see past all the burdens and want to know who lay inside.
And why did it hurt so much, every damn time?
I kicked the crap out of a fallen log as I stood on the deserted lane. I was stupid, a stupid, snow-for-brains, lumbering—
“Not in front of you,” a voice muttered.
I spun around at the odd tone. I spotted Joyce standing opposite me, her eyes wide.
Something was wrong.
I forgot my troubles and headed over to her. “Is Charlie okay? What’s wrong?”
“Not in front but behind . . . some scars too deep . . .” She giggled and her energy shot around her like fireflies. “One, two shots . . . not so clear as day.”
“Joyce,” I said, reaching for her. “You must be freezing out here.”
“Reasons are unclear, but angles change perspective . . . never the same . . . only the heart can guide.”
I wrapped her up as best I could and she repeated the same things over and over to me as I took her back to the hotel acting as a field hospital. The warmth was a blessing by the time we headed inside. I hadn’t put on a coat and I was pretty sure that I’d lost the feeling in my toes. As if one encounter with the shivers hadn’t been enough.
“Joyce!” Charlie called out as he saw her. “Where were you?”
Joyce shook her head, blinked a couple of times, and then looked at me like I’d just appeared out of thin air. “Where did you—?”
Charlie guided her away from me before she could ask her question. I stood there in awkward silence until he wrapped her in a blanket and limped back over to me.
“You must be freezing,” he said, offering me another foil wrap.
I shook my head, I was too wired to sit and huddle.
“She was outside the cabin,” I told him. “She seemed pretty worried.”
He sighed. “Joyce is unwell. The winter always makes her worse.”
“Unwell?”
He nodded. “The doctors prescribe her things but it never really works.” He looked at Joyce who had curled herself up on his bed. “She’s been that way since . . .” He shook his head as if he wanted to shake his memory right out from his brain.
There was nothing like the kind of things I saw afflicting the folk back in the institution. There was no weird fluctuations or nasty hanging leaches above her head. She seemed drained and sad.
“Is there anything I should do if I see her out again?”
He was expecting an inquisition on the state of Joyce’s mind I could tell because he stopped and looked at me much in the way she had, as if I had just appeared. “Just bring her back here or maybe the sheriff’s office.”
“Will do,” I said. “Guess I should be getting back. Just glad that you managed to be on that road this afternoon considering.”
He frowned at me.
“Zack,” I clarified. “The little boy you rescued.”
“You rescued,” he corrected. “I wouldn’t have been on the road if the sheriff hadn’t sent me for the emergency briefing.”
“Sounds bad,” I said. “I’m guessing the weather is really working out the emergency responses, huh?”
“Course. But that isn’t why I was there.” He yawned, rubbing a bandaged hand over his face. “Some breakout somewhere,” he mumbled. “Like anyone would come here.”
“Why didn’t they just radio you?”
He laughed. “In this weather?” He waved a hand around at the hotel lobby. “Up here, unless you got a great big satellite stuck to your property, you’re on your own.”
I didn’t get phones or computers or anything that had circuits and so I quite liked the thought that St. Jude’s carried on life without so-called modern conveniences littering up their day.
“Talking of being on my own,” I said. “I guess I’d better head back before Re—Serena blows a valve.”
He chuckled. “She looks feisty.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to go back to the cabin and face her but I did want to keep my promise to Zack, and if I was going to quit the CIG, like I was certain I was doing, I needed to talk to her like an adult about it.
It was a freeing thought that I’d made my choice and I would talk to Martha in the morning and ask if she’d maybe take me on. I could fix up the cabins in return for staying in one. That way I could stick around for Zack and make sure he wasn’t trapped in his head like Nan had been.
CIG didn’t really need me and my mother could do her job without me there. The only person who I would miss would be Renee but—I stopped myself with that thought.
Renee was just another face, another name to add to the layers of identities that she possessed. Renee didn’t exist, not really, not anymore.
I sighed. I’d start again, like I had so many times. I’d be alone but when had that ever been different. Illusions didn’t count. Here was as good a place as any. Besides, Lilia had taken my home from underneath me. Lilia was the reason why I was hurting now. Maybe she just liked making my life miserable. Why else would she send in someone who would make me think they actually cared?
I could have followed Renee anywhere. I’d trusted her. Look where it had gotten me? I’d have followed her into any deep dark secret that she had. Problem was with that, it was clear she didn’t want me there.
YOU SEE THE snow beneath your feet, it crunches under your heavy boots. Damn the stupid slop. A whole day wasted when you could have been rejoicing in the chaos.
Whistling cuts through the night air and the wet soaks through your knees as you kneel beside a tree. It’s too soon now, you must wait, wait until you know how to herd them, how to meld them to your will.
Patience, you remind yourself. If nothing else, you have patience. You linger, hidden from the road as a woman approaches. Your lowered stance making her appear like a giant. Perhaps she is. You laugh to yourself, such an ogre of a woman. Look at her. What man would want her, certainly not you.
The muscles, the unrefined brute ugliness of her overly masculine form. She’s enough to make you sick. Women like her are good for nothing but isolation. Disgusting creature.
The people of this town will agree when you can sway them. It’s easy to fill small minds with your views. It’s easy to play with their insecurities until there is nothing but hate and fear.
It feels so good, so right that these cretins learn their place. You will start with the ogre, no doubt she will lead you to the beauty of Tess. Tess has always been drawn to the grotesque. Tess, that blonde sweeping hair falling into her delicious stone eyes, that skin so soft and warm, she smelled so much like a delicate flower. Yes, that sweet fruit was continually lured by the uneducated, by barbaric dirt-leaden ogres.
It’s time that she learns her lesson.
You watch the cumbersome, graceless troll disappear up a narrow road and turn your eyes from the offensive sight. She will have to go, you cannot even bear the memory of her. You get to your feet and walk to her tracks in the snow. Her feet dwarf your own. It is an insult to you, to your status as a man.
You turn from the bear print and look to the distant twinkle of the town. It is not long before you reach its painted wooden welcome sign. The name provokes a roar of laughter from you as you stare at it.
It’s just too perfect. St. Jude’s.
You know that Tess, your glorious, delightful Tess, will understand the irony of the name. Hopeless causes, yes, so hopeless, her existence is hopeless, meaningless without you.
You will change that. You will win her back. She will submit. After all, you own her.
Chapter 11
AS I GOT to the door of the cabin, it burst open and Renee’s wide-eyed look of panic had me jumping and yelping all at once. She hauled me inside without a word and her angst flipped to anger before my eyes.