by Amy Star
“I don’t have leather feet like you.” She hopped along behind him.
“Race me to the rock.” He stopped. “This path will take us all the way to the base. If you win, I’ll personally take you to the best breakfast spot in New York City.”
“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms, squinting at him. “I’m pretty sure most places in the city require shoes.”
“I will wear shoes just for you.” He smiled.
Pursing her lips, she stared at him. Without warning, she bolted down the trail as fast as she could go. As she leaned into the chill of the morning air blowing past her face, the energy of the earth flowed up through her bare feet. Her breath slowed, and she became acutely aware of the trail ahead of her, every branch, every stone that might slow her down was easily avoided.
Her hands slapped against the rockface as she reached the finish line. Conner jogged up behind her.
“I didn’t realize you were a track-star.” He put his hand on the rock just above hers. “With some practice, you might even be able to give Finn a run for his money.
“I don’t even know how I did that.” She panted.
“Well, now that we’re here.” He picked up a rock-climbing harness. Or some sort of homemade version of one. He sorted out the tangle of nylon straps held together by D-rings and carabiners, holding it open for her to step into. “Left leg…” He held up one loop. “Right leg.” He indicated the other loop.
“What exactly do you think we’re about to do.” She laughed. “That looks like something from a sex dungeon the police found in the back of someone’s RV.”
“Well, you asked before about my hidden talent.” He smiled. “I happen to be good at climbing. Time’s running out if we want to see the show. So, if you trust me to take you just a little farther…” He crouched down and held up the harness.
She let out a sigh before taking off her coat so she could step into the loops, and he cinched the adjustable straps around her waist and shoulders. Her harness clipped onto one that he wore.
“Hold on tight.” He turned so that she could hop onto his back.
“You’re going to climb that rock with me on your back?” Her eyes widened as she looked up the sheer fifty-foot rock. “No, sorry. I’m out.”
“Bear strength and climbing powers, remember?” He dipped his hand into a bag that hung from his belt. His fingers emerged, covered in powder which he rubbed all over both of his hands. “You can’t get all the way here and not want to see the top.”
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.” She shook her head, jumping onto his back. “If you drop me and I die, I’m haunting you for the rest of your life.”
“You wouldn’t be haunting me for long.” He shook his head, sticking his hands into a deep crack in the rock. “Vincent would kill me.”
Jillian held her breath as they lifted off the ground, moving smoothly up the cliff face. He navigated around a corner where there were more apparent footholds, stopping only to reapply chalk to his hands as he went. The light creeping over the horizon bathed the landscape in a blue glow.
“Wow.” She clung to him as she looked out over the colorful treetops below. “You were right. This was worth getting up early.”
“Just wait,” he looked over his shoulder, “if you stick around, I’ll teach you some rock-climbing techniques, and you’d be able to do this yourself.”
“Are you trying to make me the Jane to your Tarzan?” She clung to him as he pulled them up onto the top ledge, and they crawled to safety.
“Woo!” She howled, holding both hands up in the air, looking out at the first blush of sunlight creeping over the tops of the trees. “This is unbelievable.”
“Have you ever seen a sunrise like that?” He took her hand, nodding to the pink and yellow sky. The orange sun bloomed from beyond the mountains, spilling its warmth over her face.
“Never.” She bit her lip. The only time she’d seen the sunrise was when she’d been out all night with Elaina.
“God, you’re beautiful.” His voice was barely a whisper like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
They turned to face one another, and as their eyes met, that same magnetic pull urged her forward. Bowing his head, he pressed his lips to hers, sending sparks over every inch of her skin. She moaned as he held her bottom lip between his teeth, and all she wanted was more.
Suddenly an image of Finn’s face flashed through her mind. At first, she wasn’t sure if it was just a thought that came from her subconscious or if it was another vision.
Jillian pulled away, taking a step back.
“Did I do something wrong?” Conner’s arms fell to his sides.
“No.” She touched her lips. “No, you didn’t do anything. If anyone instigated that, it was me.”
“What is it?” He put his arms around her waist.
“It’s Finn,” she blurted out.
“Oh.” He stammered. “I didn’t even realize that you were into him.”
“I mean, I’m worried about him.” She crossed her arms and looked out toward the cabin. “This was one of the best date ideas in the history of date ideas.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you.” He shook his head.
“No.” She scratched her eyebrow. “I liked kissing you. But these feelings and urges aren’t real; you know that, don’t you?”
“It feels pretty real to me.” He took a step closer.
“It’s because I’m a vessel.” She turned away. “I know it feels real, but I have had a couple of close calls with Vincent, too. It’s just the spirits using biology to fulfill their prophecy.”
“Do you remember what you said to me?” He closed his arms around her, and she leaned her head back against him. “When the fevers were setting in from the snake bite, you looked right at me and said, ‘If we had babies, their eyes would be so blue.’ I don’t think you were fully conscious at the time, so I didn’t read too much into it. But I keep thinking about it.”
“I definitely wasn’t conscious.” She giggled.
“I’m just saying, maybe some part of you isn’t so opposed to having a life here… with me.” He breathed into the back of her hair. “No one can fault you for not wanting to have kids for the wrong reasons. But who knows, maybe the right reasons will fall into place.”
She closed her eyes, imagining a little person cooing in her arms. With Conner’s arms around her, it was the first time she’d fantasized about having a baby with someone. She smiled at the thought of those big blue eyes before pulling herself back to reality.
Having a baby with someone she just met, even someone as fun and charming as Conner was absolutely out of the question. If she were going to choose someone to be the father of her child, she’d need to know them inside and out. Having kids was an even more significant commitment than marriage, after all. She’d be bound to that person by blood until death no matter what changed between them.
“It’s something to think about.” She cleared her throat. “I just can’t let myself relax until we know Finn’s okay.”
“All right.” He sighed. “If you’re that worried, let’s go back and see if Vince has an idea of where we should look. Maybe your oracle senses are tingling.”
“Hey.” She tugged the bottom of his shirt. “Maybe after we find Finn, you can take me to that café you mentioned. You did say we’d get breakfast in a place that requires shoes.”
“I did say that.” He crouched down for her to climb onto his back. “I would never go back on my word.”
Reaching the ground, Conner helped her out of the harness. With every step, she found herself unhindered by the fact that she was still shoeless. Her mind and body pulled closer toward an alignment with her spirit. The little lumps and imperfections in the ground didn’t offend the soles of her feet as they had only a short while ago. The elements around her reached out, filling her a calm grace as she moved faster and faster through the trees.
She remembered the sting of the little branches
that clawed her face and clothes not too long ago, the same types of branches that now offered a gentle touch against her skin in passing. The smile faded from her lips when they reached the edge of the clearing. She covered her mouth with both hands, stepping over the red spatters staining the dirt. Her eyes followed the trail of drips leading out from the woods. The tan duffel bag on the porch, her tan duffel bag, bore smeared crimson handprints.
“I left that in the tent at the campsite.” The color drained from Jillian’s face as rushed to the open door of the cabin.
“Fuck!” Finn screamed, writhing shirtless on the kitchen table, blood ran off the edge onto the floor as Vincent pressed a sopping red dishtowel to Finn’s abdomen.
“Where the hell have you been?” Vincent snapped. “Conner, get my med-kit!”
Conner rushed into Vincent’s bedroom.
“What happened?” Jillian put her hand on Finn’s cheek to find him in a cold sweat.
“It’s no big deal.” Finn grimaced as he grabbed Vincent’s arm. “Can you ease off, man? That fucking hurts!”
“Listen.” Vincent grabbed Finn’s jaw with his free hand and forced him to look him in the eye. “If we don’t keep firm pressure on this, you’re going to bleed out. So, I need you to stop moving and breathe through this. Tell me, you understand.”
“I understand.” Finn clenched his teeth.
“Good.” Vincent looked up as Conner came out of his room with the med-kit. “I need more clean towels, water, and cayenne tablets.”
Jillian grabbed a basin from the shelf and ran out to the hand-well, pumping the handle until the bowl was full. She walked in just in time to see Vincent toss the bloody rag aside, revealing a circular wound about the size of a nickel just below Finn’s ribs. Vincent wasted no time replacing a clean cloth over the wound.
“You went back to the campsite for my clothes, didn’t you?” A knot formed in her throat, and his brown eyes suddenly seemed more concerned with her feelings than his injury.
“I thought you might stay longer if you had your clothes.” He glanced away. “The Ted guy was gone. I got the bag, no problem. I was on my way back when… I don’t really know.”
“Some of these hunters are as old as Noah’s Ark,” Vincent grumbled. “The color of the bag moving through the trees probably looked like a deer.”
“Didn’t your grandma have healing powers?” Conner came up from the cellar. With a small bottle in his hand. “Maybe Jillian can…”
“It took my grandmother years of studying under another oracle before she was able to heal, and even then, she couldn’t heal a fucking gunshot.” Vincent’s face dripped with sweat. “Give him the tablets. Any time someone was losing a lot of blood, the first thing she’d do was give them a spoonful of cayenne powder.”
“Grandma Vince was hardcore.” Conner grimaced as he gave Finn the tablets. “Just a dry spoonful of cayenne in your mouth? Sounds worse than getting shot.”
“Agree to disagree.” Finn groaned.
“This was over a decade ago. We couldn’t order a tablet filling machine online, Conner.” Vincent huffed. “We worked with what we had. And her name was Mikiullah, but we all called her Gran-Miki.”
The anguish on Vincent’s face was as plain as day. This was the first time Jillian really saw Vincent’s stoic outer shell start to crack. For years, it was only him and Finn out here, and she reckoned he was the closest thing to a son that Vincent ever had. There was no mistaking the pain in his eyes. There was love there.
“Did you see what kind of gun it was?” Conner looked at Finn, who shook his head no.
The cayenne seemed to do the trick because, over the next several gut-wrenching minutes, the bleeding finally seemed to slow.
“Should you try to take out the bullet?” Jillian frowned.
“I can’t risk starting up that bleeding again.” Vincent shook his head. “Look at him; he’s barely hanging on.”
“So, what now?” She held Finn’s hand.
“I’ll give him some antibiotics to keep him from going septic. There’s a feed store in Iowa I go to every year to restock my supply. I keep having to drive farther and farther to find places that will sell it without a vet’s prescription.”
“You guys use antibiotics made for pets?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Livestock, actually. It’s not any different than what the doctors would give him at a hospital. You calculate the dosage by weight.”
“Will that save him?” She picked up the cloth on his forehead and dipped it into the basin, wringing it out.
“I have no idea how extensive the tissue damage is. I know that shifters sometimes have accelerated healing abilities. Conner bounced back from his snake bite pretty well, but this is different. Without a CT scan, there’s no way to assess if the bullet perforated any organs.”
“What’s the best-case scenario?” She placed the cloth on his head.
“Best-case scenario, the wound heals without complications, and he lives his life with a little chunk of metal in him.”
“And the worst-case scenario?” She lowered her voice.
“The fact that there’s no exit wound makes me wonder what kind of bullet is in there. If it’s a normal hollow point, it just expanded, spreading out like a hand.” He held his open palm out to illustrate. “Another possibility is that it was a frangible AET round.” Vincent walked over to the counter and pulled out a can of coffee grounds, shaking some into the percolator. “People are using them because they’re safer.”
“Safer is good, right?” Jillian stood up to stretch her legs. “It doesn’t do as much damage?”
“Frangible bullets are considered safer because there’s less chance of them going through your target and hitting someone on the other side by accident.” Vincent retrieved his blood-pressure cuff from his medkit and secured it around Finn’s arm, puffing it up with the little balloon pump. “They explode on impact, fragmenting through the flesh of whatever they hit. In which case, I don’t care how supernatural we are. No one comes back from that.”
“What about getting to the ranger station, they could get a helicopter to take him to the closest hospital.”
“Shifters and anesthesia don’t mix.” Vince ran his hands through his hair. “It’s why we don’t keep pain killers in the cabin. It’s why when we drink; we only do one shot.”
“I don’t understand.” Jillian shook her head. “The pain alone could be putting his body under unnecessary stress.”
“Unnecessary?” Vincent raised his voice but then closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and continued. “His bear could come out and maul a bunch of nurses. Not only would that expose us, but it could mean a lot of innocent people getting hurt. I know Finn wouldn’t want to risk it.”
“I hate feeling like there’s nothing more we can do.” She looked back at Finn. “I knew something was wrong last night. I sensed it.”
“I should have listened.” Vincent hung his head.
“You couldn’t have known.” She sighed. “It’s hard to tell how much of what’s bouncing around my head is important. Every time I get a weird thought, I have to ask myself if it’s my imagination or if it’s a message coming from somewhere outside of myself.”
“It’ll take time to master your gifts.” He kissed her on the top of the head. “We all have our journeys to take. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we don’t have to take them alone.”
Vincent gave Finn an injection of antibiotics, checking his pulse and blood pressure every so often throughout the day and night. But as the hours slipped by, his condition only declined.
Jillian got up to find Vincent sleeping in the armchair with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Hey.” Setting the coffee aside, she rubbed his thigh. “Vincent.”
“Yeah.” His bloodshot eyes popped open, and he sat up, blinking aggressively. “I was just closing my eyes for a second. I’m awake.”
“I know.” She put her hand in his. “Do you think I could sit in here with
him for a while? I’ll come to get you if there’s any change.”
The poor guy was beyond exhausted, and she knew the only way he would leave Finn’s side as if she asked to be alone with him.
“Yeah, I guess that would be okay.” He cleared his throat and got to his feet before heading back to his room.
Jillian scooted the armchair closer to the couch and kissed Finn on the cheek. His eyes fluttered open, focusing on her.
“Oh my God, you’re awake.” She breathed, kneeling beside the sofa. “That’s got to be a good sign.”
“Goldie…” He smiled. “I had a crazy dream about you.” His voice was barely audible.
“Why do you call me that?” She cocked her head to the side. “Just because of my hair?”
“It’s going to sound stupid.” His voice sounded scratchy, and every word sounded forced. “When I was a kid, one of my foster families took care of this old man. His room smelled like piss and stale cigarette smoke. He was bedridden and didn’t say much. His TV was one of those big boxy ones, and he had a collection of VHS tapes.”
“That sounds like something out of a horror movie.” Jillian leaned in, taking his hand and rubbing her cheek against the back of it.
“Nah, he was cool. Those VHS tapes were recorded episodes of this 1940s private eye named Goldie West. You look like her to me. Every episode, she’d solve a new case, shoot some bad guys, and save the day. Sitting in there with that old guy was one of my better childhood memories.”
“Why didn’t you stay there?” She frowned.
“The old guy died. Didn’t stop them from collecting his social security checks.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “He couldn’t talk much, but I felt like he was my only friend. I figured if I ran away, they’d keep collecting on whatever they were getting paid to take care of me. No one ever came looking for me, so I guess I was right.”
“What was your dream?” She changed the subject.
“My what?” He started to close his eyes again.
“You said you had a dream about me.” She rubbed his cold, clammy hand, trying to think of anything that she could say or do that would keep him awake.