Yeah, I can see that you don’t know me at all.
I let her feel my disgust.
I am unhappy, Sam. I do not care for the way you treat me.
Then, bye. See you. Go ahead and leave, if you want.
That was very cruel and quite human of you.
I felt her retreat to wherever it was she escaped to when I was in charge. I padded over to Ben and tried to get what she said out of my mind.
He smiled at me as I loped up to him. “After I do a quick perimeter check do you want to race?”
“Sounds like fun.” I meant it.
My jaguar remained quiet and I wasn’t sure if I was grateful for that or uncomfortable. I’d done this for her to spend time with Ben’s jaguar and, so far, it wasn’t going very well.
I knew Alex would be less than thrilled by all of this, and yet somehow, all I wanted in that moment was to run with Ben. I would pay for it later, but right now I needed to get Jix back out and running so that she would continue to stay quiet and I could do my job in peace.
Sure, she was being quiet now, but denying her this would come at a cost later. I had no doubt about that. Cats are cats, regardless of tangibility. This whole arrangement was insanity.
It helped me to understand a fraction of what schizophrenics face. I only had one other voice in my head, they sometimes have dozens. I couldn’t begin to imagine the exhaustion that comes from there being a constant disjointed conversation in your head. At least Jix made sense and was a separate voice from my own. It made it easier to pick apart from my own inner monologue.
As I ran with Ben, I felt guilty about exiling her and I called Jix to come back out to play. She enjoyed her time and didn’t cross that line I’d laid out for her. There was a creek on the property and we had fun splashing around in it.
She even caught a bream.
I am not a fish person, but she really enjoyed scarfing it, and since there was no fur stuck in my mouth when she was done, it wasn’t too bad.
Ben also gave his jaguar control and we allowed our cats some time together. I could feel her happiness and felt a twinge of guilt that I was forcing her down so much. It’s probably why she was fighting me for dominance. He rubbed his head against mine and Jix felt happier than I’d ever known could exist.
I have to admit it made me wonder what it would be like to give into these feelings I have for Ben. Our jaguars cuddled and I could feel Ben in there. It was weird and reminded me of the way we both could picture our jaguars together.
The sound of Three Little Pigs by Green Jello filled the air and I apologized to everyone as I padded over to the pile of clothes that held my phone. I looked at the name on the screen and grimaced.
“Sorry, guys, that’s work.”
“I understand. I’ll drive you back. I think I left my sunglasses on your desk, anyway.”
Our cats grumbled and fussed. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to move. I wanted to go back to lying on the grass all snuggled in with Ben. I felt a peace settle into me that I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. That was enough to get me up and moving.
Ben changed and dressed, then I did the same and we hauled ass back to the city. We didn’t talk much during the ride, but we did catch each other stealing glances at each other the whole way back.
He parked and walked me to my floor. “I like the way I feel when I’m with you.”
“I know, but you have to realize that it’s not real. I love Alex.” I leaned in to him, still drawn, regardless of whether I wanted to be or not.
And that’s how Alex found us.
Chapter 17
“HEY, SAM, ARE you ready to….” Alex trailed off when he saw me leaning in to Ben.
I had been fixing his tie without realizing it, but then I stepped away from my sire. “Yeah, let’s go. Um, you can grab your glasses off my desk, if you want. See you later, Ben.”
“It looks like you and I need to talk,” Alex said as he opened the door to the stairwell for me.
“Communication is key in a relationship.” So, I think we all know I’m lame when I get flummoxed; could be worse, right?
The door to the stairwell thunked closed and I jumped.
“You know; I don’t like this sire bond thing. We can’t find anything more about it. If it were a sire bond, wouldn’t we have found something more than myths and legends? Especially you, Miss Hacker?”
“What are you suggesting?” My stomach knotted up as we walked down the stairs together.
“Maybe it’s not a sire bond at all. What if there really is something between you two that’s not a result of the virus?” He took my hand in his. “Hey, I love you, Sam. Have for a long time, and it’s not going to stop just because of a bump in the road.” He broke off and looked away for a moment. “That said, if you want to be with me, you are going to need to break off contact with Ben. We tried it your way and he didn’t back off. Seeing you with him is tearing me up. If you want to be with me, you have to be with me. I won’t share you. Do you understand?”
“I’m extremely insulted. I’m not something to be shared.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Don’t you think I’ve wondered if these feelings aren’t real?”
“What if they are?” He looked me dead in the eye. “What if the feelings you attribute to a sire bond are actually genuine feelings of attraction and longing? What if there is no sire bond and those feelings are painfully and completely real?”
I blinked. “No, there is no such thing as love at first sight; the concept of soulmates is just some crap idea people came up with to psychologically deepen their attachment to another human being so their relationship can grow past the chemical attraction stage.”
“Wow, that’s awful cold and clinical.” He recoiled a bit, as if I’d slapped him. I’m afraid to ask how you see us.”
“We are true love. Love that has been built over time and through experiences. Real, tangible, photographs-in-hand-to-prove-it love.” To make my point I opened my purse and pulled out my wallet. I flipped forward to a picture of us with our arms around each other.
The smile it elicited was not the happy smile I had hoped for.
“If we are, then you are going to have to stay away from Ben. How would you feel if it was me and the tigress that turned me?”
“Tigress?” I tried to make an uncomfortable jape. He was having none of it.
“Really, Sam? I bare my heart and soul to you and you’re going to make it a joke?”
“Hey, you know humor is my stress release. It used to be chocolate, but I worry about my cholesterol. Sorry, I’m sorry, it’s in my nature to try and lighten the mood a little. I can’t help it”
“Try. For me. I need you to be serious just for a little bit. Just for this conversation.”
“I’ll do my best. Is this really all because of Ben?” I was getting tired of explaining that the sire bond wasn’t my feelings. It’s not something I could help. It wasn’t something I asked for.
Do you know what it’s like to really yearn for someone, but to know those feelings aren’t real? The pain attached to denying the feelings is real enough. It’s insanity personified, really.
“I can’t help but be uncomfortable when my girlfriend is supernaturally attracted to another man. Worse, a jaguar like herself. Do you see what I’m saying, Sam?”
“Al, come on, you know it’s not real. I know it’s not real, and Ben….” I trailed off. I had never lied to Alex outright and I wasn’t going to start now.
“Ben thinks you two are fated to be. How long until he manages to convince you of that? That’s simple psychology, Sam. With feelings like you have –even if you do currently believe they’re false—and time, anyone could be convinced what they were experiencing was real.”
“Give me some credit, Alex. I already have cut contact down to phone calls and a once a week meeting.”
I knew he was right, I needed to cut ties with Ben, but a part of me—that wasn’t my jaguar—wo
ndered what could be.
Ben understood my jaguar side better than Alex could. Tigers, though solitary, do look for other interaction from time to time. Al occasionally sees my need for alone time as a rejection. Also, it was so easy with Ben. All I would have to do is let go and allow the feelings to envelop me. That was how I knew what I had with Ben wasn’t real. It was too easy.
Relationships are hard, they’re messy. People bicker and they fight, and sometimes, they even break up. While Ben might understand Jix better, Alex knew me, had helped shape the person I was before Ben bit me and changed my life. Even then, the person Alex had helped me become was still at the core of the new me, and always would be.
Al had seen me through the pains of breakups and had nursed me back to health when I was sick. He made me laugh when I was sad and he brought me so much joy just sitting around and talking. These were all things I didn’t have with Ben, and they were the things that were most important to me.
So I told him all that because, dammit, I was going to adult the hell out of this shit.
“Sam, I love you. I will always love you, but I don’t want him in our relationship. It’s not fair to any of us.”
Al was right. “I still have questions for him, but I will do my best to keep it to the phone only.” It was all I could promise him, and I felt a little guilty about that.
“I can live with that.” He still looked a little uncomfortable, but he held out his arms in a request for a hug. I slipped right in and smiled up at him.
“Al, I hope you know the sire bond can’t trump what we have. We, my dear tiger, are real. We have always been real and we will always be real.” Then I kissed him as we arrived at the landing that led to the hallway where the conference room with the big mama computer was.
I gave Al another quick kiss and ducked into the hallway. It was nice getting everything sorted, but there was still so much work that had to be done.
AWFA was making messes all over the place and nobody was cleaning them up. I took a few deep breaths and opened up the first case file that came in contact with my mouse. I opened it and reviewed a case I could probably recite in my sleep, I’d been over it so much.
Then it jumped off the page and slapped me. I had been an idiot not to have seen it before.
“Al, I think I’ve got something. Can you look at this?” I handed the paperwork to him, hoping my gut was right and the routing number I’d just found was the same as it was for the offshore corporation that I had tracked AWFA to.
“What am I lookin— Hey, is that the same account in the Caymans we found attached to the other suspected AWFA member?”
“So, it’s not just me?”
“No, nice going, Sam. I think you found where they’re hiding their money.”
“We don’t have enough for a warrant to freeze the account. What should we do, Al? You have more experience in the gray end of things.”
“I prefer the gray, there’s more fun to be had there.” He winked and asked me, “Can you add some sort of trace to the account, so that if they try to move the money we get notification of it?”
“I can indeed. The thing is, it’s not exactly legal without the warrant.”
“Well, we need some way to track that money. Is there a way to make it legal?”
“Not without a warrant, unless the bank agrees. Which this bank never would. They’d hide a terrorist who would gladly blow up their own bank so long as he were a customer.”
“Great customer service there.” Al smirked.
“Tell me about it. I’ll be right back. I’m running to my office to use my computer and crack this account. You’ve got my word that I will find out who owns it, no matter how many shells I have to crack through. It’s up to you to find a way to make what I find legal.”
“Whatever you do, anonymous tipster, just be sure to be careful and quick about it, okay?”
“Fair enough.” I left the bullpen.
I sent the link via email to Gerry, shut down the mega computer, and hustled upstairs to the cubical I shared with Al and Quinn. Once there, I pulled up the bank’s database. This was going to take some work on my part. I wasn’t a hacker, really. I only had some tricks up my sleeve because of my days working computer crime. Even then, I didn’t do any of the major software wrangling.
I called an old buddy I used to work with who was a hacker and he walked me through the steps I needed to put our trace on the money and keep it hidden. I had just gotten off the Skype call with him when Alex walked in and leaned against the partition near where I was sitting.
“Okay, we are set. If anyone tries to move any money, we will find them.” As Al was staring at me with a weird expression, I asked him, “Something wrong?”
“What? No. I just was thinking about stuff. Don’t worry, it’s nothing major, really.” Finally, taking his eyes off me, he picked up my ceramic skull from my desk and smiled at it.
“You were staring at me funny.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“What are you thinking about?” Please say the case, please say the case, please say the case.
“You and Ben.”
So, not the case then….
“What about me and Ben?” Fuck, I thought this was handled already.
“I just feel like I’m in the way.”
“Al, you’re not. It’s you I want to be with, not Ben. How many times am I going to have to tell you this before you start to believe it?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m interrupting something every single time I come across you two together.”
“We just went over this, Al. I won’t lie and say I’m not deeply attracted to Ben, but it’s not real. It’s not like what we have, it’s too easy.” The second I said it, I regretted it.
“So, we’re what, difficult?”
“We are work, but every good relationship is. Why are you questioning things so much? What happened to trusting me?”
“Sam, I saw you with your hands on him and you looked more natural touching him than you ever have touching me.” His face had paled and he hardened his jaw, angry at himself for being jealous, I suspect.
“I fixed his tie. Like a sister would.”
There was a tic in his jaw. “Yeah, but you don’t feel about him the way a sister would, do you?”
He had me there, I’d already admitted as much.
“When does what I want come into play? Because, like I’ve said countless fucking times now, I don’t want Ben, I want you, you fucking idiot.” I threw my hands in the air in frustration.
Worse, I couldn’t tell him he was wrong, that I didn’t have any feelings for Ben. I couldn’t reassure him that I wasn’t attracted to Ben, because I was. I couldn’t tell him it wouldn’t always be like this, either. I couldn’t give him any guarantee at all except that I’d always love him, which really ought to be enough, right? I felt tired.
“I can’t do this anymore, Alex. I can’t.”
“Neither can I, Sam. Seeing you with him, I can’t deny you guys have something that you and I don’t. I’m jealous of whatever it is that you do have. You call it a sire bond, but I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
“Stop acting like a fucking martyr, Al. I have told you time and time again I want to be with you.”
“Hey, guys.” I was grateful Quinn interrupted us. Alex looked from Quinn to me.
“I have to go. Tell your sister what we talked about, please. Goodbye, Sam.” Alex bent down and kissed my cheek before leaving.
“What the fuck is that about, Q?” I asked Quinn.
“Alex thinks that you and Ben are meant to be.”
“I know. I also know that Alex is an idiot who believes in his horoscope.” I shouted the words, to make sure he could hear me.
“Sam, the sort of feelings you describe having for Ben are exactly the way I would describe my love for Kelly.”
“Quinn, this isn’t the same. I’ve seen you and Kelly. That
is true love. Of that I have no doubt. What Ben and I have isn’t real. I know because it feels wrong. Alex is a moron who isn’t listening to me because he is sure he knows the truth.” I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
Anger wouldn’t do anyone any good right now.
“Sam, there’s something there, something more than a mythical sire bond. You two gravitate to each other. When you talk you look as if there is no one else in the world.”
“I’m not denying there are feelings. I’m denying that they’re human. They’re only there because of our cats. He and I are not meant to be and I’m getting pretty damn tired of people misinterpreting things.”
“Do you truly believe they are?”
“I don’t know.” I had to be honest with myself. “What I do know is that I’ve never felt anything like what I have with Ben, but I also know it eclipses what I want for myself in a way love shouldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like if Ben told me I should stand on his right, I’d feel like I’d have to stand on his right. That isn’t love, it’s servitude.”
“Yikes. Yeah, that’s no bueno.”
“Almost as no bueno as listening to you attempt Spanish.” I grinned.
“Have you told Alex this?”
“Yes. I have withheld nothing from Al. I never have and never will.”
“Good. What about Ben?”
“He knows how I feel about him … and Alex as well.”
“How do you feel?”
“I’m in love with Alex. Always have been, always will be. I can’t deny that I have an attraction to Ben. Being with him is like being high, our relationship the best drug. But the happiest, safest, and most loved I have ever felt in my life was within Alex’s arms. He represents all things love.
“Back when we were kids we’d always been on and off, but the pull kept us in each other’s orbit, sometimes unknowingly. That was love. That was real. What Ben and I have is purely chemical and metaphysical furry bullshit that could probably have me strapped into a shrink’s chair for months, if not years.”
Risk Page 12