by Cole McCade
Once, long ago, the people of the plains had looked up at this sky with nothing around them but the wild wolf-wind howling over miles and miles. She wondered if Gabriel Hart ever saw this sky and thought of a time when this had been their sky, before it had been taken from them by concrete walls and people like Leigh. Wondered, too, how she would leave Crow City’s clear dark night for a place where the city lights turned the sky a cloudy purple-gray, and there were no stars to be found in the reflective murk at all.
If the stars were her memories, soon she’d be hiding them all away.
She made her way back through the city, moving through a rising light that felt like swimming. Cars whisked past her, people waking with the dawn, moving on to start their ordinary lives in their ordinary worlds. Her arms hurt, by the time she passed into the outskirts of the Jackdaw district and slipped into narrow dark alleys that cut lines through the cement-block sameness of the housing projects. The cat carrier felt like a ten-ton weight pulling on her arm until it burned in its socket, and Hart’s duffel sliced deep into her shoulder. More than once, as she trudged down the street, she asked herself why she was putting herself through this. But she straggled along the last few blocks to Gary’s; the front door was still unlocked, Gary out front wiping down the bar. He glanced up tiredly as she shouldered her way in, while she pretended not to see the relief written stark in that murky witch-eye.
“What’s all that, then?” he asked, wringing his towel over the sink.
“Just some of Hart’s things.”
A raspy miao rose from the crate. He quirked a brow. “And a cat?”
“And a cat.”
Gary’s forehead wrinkled into humping furrows; he watched her, his lips parting…then closing as he just shook his head, dropped the towel, and rounded the bar. “Let me help you with that.”
He eased the weight of the bag off her shoulder, and together they carried everything upstairs, pushing aside the beaded curtain on a darkened room where Hart slept sprawled on his side in the bed, a thin sheet pulled up around his hips. In his sleep he almost looked like the boy from the Polaroid, beautiful and quiet, and Leigh caught herself watching and tore her gaze away. She and Gary moved quiet and slow in the dark, stealthy whispered movements as they set the bag aside and put out bowls for the cat. Gary eyed Hart, then eyed Leigh, gaze dipping to her throat until she pulled her hoodie closer, zipped it higher, tugged the drawstrings.
“What’s he going to think, you looking after him like this?” he murmured.
She glanced over her shoulder, at the dark shape Hart made in the bed. “Does it matter?”
“I think it kinda does.”
Leigh shook her head. “Go finish cleaning up.” She scratched behind the cat’s ears, then straightened and dragged a stack of newspapers off Gary’s desk. “Okay if I rip up some of these?”
“Sure, girl.” Gary stood, then reached over to rest one long, thin scarecrow hand to the top of her head, warm and lingering. “Sure.”
His warmth, his scent clung to her with a sort of quiet comfort after he left, clomping steps receding down the stairs until he was nothing but the sound of clinking glasses and running water from below. She finished settling the cat, shredding newspaper into a cardboard box and setting it near the bathroom, then dragged a heavy cardboard filing crate bristling with receipts and folders in front of the doorway so the cat couldn’t get downstairs. Throughout it all Hart slept, though he shifted with a low, husky sound when the scraggly tabby bounded up onto the bed and tucked herself against his side. A touch of stiffness melted from his shoulders, and without waking he draped one hand over the arch of the cat’s back, large and heavy enough to nearly dwarf her. Leigh caught herself watching again, and scowled as she once more forcibly relocated her gaze somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Anywhere but on him.
God, she didn’t know what to do with herself now. Stay. Go. She didn’t want to be here when Hart woke up.
Did she?
She didn’t know the answer to that. She didn’t know anything anymore, except that she was hungry—and with a frustrated sound, she tugged Gary’s fridge open and rummaged inside. She wasn’t used to cooking for herself, not really. There’d always been the chef at her parents’, and with Jacob. In college, she’d just eaten at the university cafeteria or ordered pizza or fast food. Since she’d run away, food had mostly been quick things nicked from pantries or bought from McDonald’s; back alleys didn’t exactly have fully stocked kitchens and range tops on hand. But she should be able to get by with eggs, bacon, and toast without butchering them, and within a few minutes she had two pans heating on the stove, butter sizzling and melting in the bottom while she scrambled together enough eggs to feed a small army.
Or at least her and two hungry men, though she had no idea why she was bothering.
By the time the bacon was starting to crisp into little fritters and the smell of melting cheese steamed off the peppered eggs, she’d run six slices of toast through the toaster and slathered them with butter. There was something oddly satisfying about this, she thought as she poured apple juice into three mismatched glasses. About doing things for herself, after a life of being catered to by others.
“Smells good,” Hart rumbled, and Leigh nearly dropped the bottle of apple juice.
“Jesus Christ.” She set the bottle down. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“I didn’t think you were so easily frightened.”
By you? More than I really want to admit…for reasons I don’t want to think about.
Leigh smoothed her hands over her skirt and turned to face him, leaning her back against the edge of the counter. Hart sat upright against the headboard, the cat in his sheet-draped lap, fingers teasing over the sweet spots under her jaw and making her arch and purr. The rusty sound nearly drowned out the pop and sputter of frying bacon. But his eyes were on Leigh, dark, questioning—like reflective screens playing back the memory of his hot weight bearing down on her, his hands around her throat, his lips brushing hers.
She cleared her throat and looked down, raking her fingers through her hair. “I’m not. I’d just zoned out.” She glanced at the cat. “She seems happy to see you.”
“Likely the only one who is,” he rumbled with wry amusement. “You brought her?”
“Yeah.”
“And Gary didn’t mind?”
“He didn’t complain. As long as she doesn’t get out, I doubt he’ll care. That’s why I put the crate in front of the door. Don’t ask me why he doesn’t have a real door there.”
“Perhaps he’s attempting to relive the days of gold hot pants and tie-dye.”
Leigh couldn’t help a laugh. Hart always caught her off-guard with those moments of dry, unexpected humor, rolled out so flatly in that grating, toneless voice that only made it somehow funnier. Shaking her head, she turned the burners on low to let the food finish without burning, then snagged Hart’s duffel and dragged it over to the bed.
“Here.” She plunked it down next to his thigh and retreated, sitting at the foot of the bed and—hopefully—well out of his reach.
He tilted his head, fixing her with an inscrutable look, then dragged the bag closer and flipped it open to look inside. His expression didn’t change, but there was something odd in his eyes as he lifted his gaze to hers once more. “You were in my house.”
“Did you think the cat crawled out the window?” She shrugged. “I picked the locks, but didn’t break them. You can yell at me when you’re better. And I didn’t steal anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No,” he said contemplatively, and settled deeper against the pillows. “That’s not what I was thinking at all.”
She only stared down at the toes of her boots. She hated this little-girl feeling she got around him, chastised and small and too damned young, her tongue twisted up in knots when she’d been using her tongue as a whiplash weapon for years. The martial art of words, self-defense in spitfire venom rolling off
her lips. She didn’t know what to do, when she needed words that didn’t taste like poison and rot and the iced sugar glaze of protective cruelty.
She’d think she didn’t know how to be kind anymore, but that would imply she’d ever known at all.
So she said nothing, while the eggs and bacon hissed and crackled, buckles jingled, and the cat let out a demanding mewl, probably over being ignored while Hart explored the bag. But the jingles stopped after a moment, followed by the whisper of pages.
“You brought me books.”
Maybe if I keep your hands busy you’ll keep them off me. She only glanced up far enough to see the spine of the book in his hand, then shrugged again with a faint smile. “Clan of the Cave Bear. And all five sequels. I’m impressed.”
“You’ve read them?”
“I stopped at book four. When they got on all fours and pretended to be mammoths in heat, I was done.”
Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t what she got: a low, deep rumble of laughter that thundered like the pounding of hooves across the plains, like the threat of a lashing summer storm, all heat and crackling electricity and dark sparking promise. Everything inside her drew taut until her muscles became ropes crushing the life from her lungs and heart. His lips spread into a lazily feral smile, and that boy—that boy she’d seen in the photo, that boy who looked as wild as an untamed heart—watched her with half-lidded eyes that glimmered with quiet warmth.
No. No. He didn’t have the right to look at her that way, to make her feel this way, when she knew underneath that smile was a cruel, controlling bastard who wanted more from her than she was ever willing to give. The urge to bolt came again, shooting through her legs in sparking shocks, but she couldn’t move.
He tucked the book back into the bag. “You didn’t miss much. Mary Sue invents the modern world, an adult man still can’t have a rational adult conversation about anything other than the size of his cock, and the story continues to bludgeon us with the implication that the heroine is the Mother goddess and anyone who doesn’t agree is jealous and destined for terrible things. In my opinion the last good book was—”
“The Mammoth Hunters,” she finished without thinking, and he stilled, that smile creeping over his lips again.
“Yes. Quite.” He looked over her shoulder. “Breakfast is burning.”
“Oh!”
Leigh tumbled off the bed. Every step of distance between them let some of the air back into the room, until she could draw breath without feeling like she was trying to force an elephant through a keyhole. What was she doing? Ignoring what he’d done to her. Talking to him like he was a person. She didn’t like seeing men as people. Not anymore. Men were an obstacle course. Over, under, around and through—every last one something to use or something to fight through on her way to a finish line she couldn’t see just yet…but she wouldn’t let another man clip her wings, and stop her from getting there.
Yet here she was, making up breakfast for him like she was his goddamned nurse.
She put together a plate for herself, and left one for Gary on the counter. Stalking over to the bed, she thrust a plate and glass at Hart. “Here,” she muttered.
“Should I thank you, or will I only get my head bitten off?”
“Fuck off.”
“That would be option two.” He settled back with the plate in his lap. “You still hate me, then?”
“Absolutely.”
Leigh flung herself into the high-backed chair with her own food, tucking herself up with her knees pulled to her chest, picking at her bacon with her fingers. For some time there was nothing but his clacking fork and the cat’s plaintive mewls. The furball sniffed at his plate and begged, while he calmly ignored her. After a few more tries, she leaped off the bed and padded to Leigh’s chair, looking up at her piteously and meowing. Leigh snapped off a crumble of bacon and leaned down to feed it to her.
“I try not to spoil her by letting her eat off my plate,” Hart pointed out.
“Then I’ll just have to spoil her for you.” Leigh fed the cat a larger bite, smiling slightly at the hungry little snorting sounds she made as she wolfed the crunchy bacon, then licked her mouth and demanding more with another mewl. “What’s her name?”
“Tybalt.”
“Isn’t that a boy’s name?”
“From Shakespeare,” he agreed. “Tybalt, Good King of Cats.” His hand stilled, the fork poised over the plate. He looked pensively down at the half-eaten heap of eggs and runny cheese. “My sister named her. We’ve had her since we were children. She went through a phase where she was obsessed with Romeo and Juliet and wouldn’t have any other name, gender notwithstanding.” His lips twitched at the corners. “She was Alani’s cat for the longest time, after she went off to college and I joined the service. Then…” The taut, corded lines of his shoulders rippled with quiet tension. “Then, there was no one left to take care of her but me.”
Alani. So that was what the A had stood for. Leigh bit her lip, fidgeting with the strings of her hoodie, knotting them between her fingers and ignoring Tybalt’s demanding mewls. “I…” Fuck, why was it so hard to get this out? She stared at her knees as if the knobby little things had all the answers. “I’m…sorry about your sister.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring people back,” he said harshly, then closed his eyes and set the fork down with a heavy sigh. “…thank you.”
Leigh shifted uncomfortably. “Older or younger?”
“She was older, by seven point two seconds—and she never let me forget it.” He dragged a hand through his slick black hair, spiking it into a mess. “We were twins. She took far too much pleasure in calling me ‘little brother’ because I came out second.”
“Is…it true what they say about twins?”
“That losing your twin is like losing half your soul?”
He lifted his gaze to her. Haunted, so haunted, and suddenly she saw that emptiness for what it really was: a hole that had been carved out of him, the place where everything he loved had once lived.
“Yes,” he said. “It is.”
She felt like she held the raw insides of him in her hands, in this moment. With those simple words he’d put the soft vulnerable meat of his feelings in her palms and left her trembling there, painfully aware of how easily she could break these fragile things. The screaming ugly thing inside her howled at her to close her fingers and crush them—to feel every broken piece of him pulping to bits in her grip and dripping through her clutches to fall, discarded and unimportant, on the floor. Her mother had once told her that the heart was a woman’s weapon, stronger than any man, and Leigh feared the power of that weapon in her hands. Feared the vengeful need that made her want to use that weapon to destroy anyone who dared to put their heart in her grasp, and expected an insane, callous monster like her to treat it gently.
She balled her hands up fiercely and tucked them against her stomach, as if she could somehow stop herself from hurting him with her cruel fingers and barbed tongue. She struggled for something to say, but her mind was a roaring tunnel full of white noise that made no sense, disconnected from lips that were already moving to blurt out:
“I’m leaving.”
That stillness settled over him again—that dark-forest stillness of stalking nights and small things hiding, frightened into the trees, waiting for the silhouette of the beast to pass. “When?” he asked tightly.
“A few days. Three, maybe four.”
“Why?”
“Because…” She pressed her lips together. Why was she justifying herself to him? “Because I need to.”
“How can you leave Crow City?” His fingers curled against his thighs, clenching in the sheet. Pale eyes ripped at her, promising…something. She didn’t know what, but in that promise was all the wild secrets she’d reached for for so many years, until she’d learned they weren’t real. “There’s magic in the corners of this city, little mouse. If you know where to look.”
“What makes you think I ne
ed magic?”
“Why else do you read the books you do?” he asked. “Why else do you dream of flying?”
She stared at him, her tongue mere ash in her mouth, burying her voice under its powdery silence. No—no, the heart wasn’t only a woman’s weapon…and he was ruthless in using hers against her.
Gary’s footsteps thudded on the stairs, cutting into the silence. Leigh tore her gaze from Hart and looked up to watch Gary brush the beaded curtain aside—and promptly trip on the file crate, swearing as he windmilled his arms until he caught the doorframe, beads rattling around him and parting around his head to hang down like scraggly plastic dreadlocks.
“The fuck?” he demanded. “The fuck is with the box? You trying to kill me?”
Leigh shrugged. “So the cat won’t get downstairs.”
“Isn’t this fucking cozy. You done practically gone and fucking moved in, eh?” Gary snorted and stepped over the box, then flung himself down on the couch. “You’re both just lucky this is a comfy couch.”
“I made food,” Leigh offered, and Gary’s ears practically went up.
“Apology accepted.”
He made a beeline for the kitchen counter. Leigh watched him, wondering at the ache of fond familiarity. At the quiet calm comfort of this, even after Hart had cut her down to the quick with those questions she couldn’t stand to answer. The three of them, together in this room, sharing breakfast as the sun rose through curtains that turned the light a misty rose and blanketed the room in kaleidoscope colors.