“What now?” I asked my boyfriend.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “Not a clue. What would you do?”
“Tonight?”
He nodded.
“Tonight, I’d check the locks fifteen times and then—” A knock at the door cut me off. “You don’t have to get that.”
“Of course I don’t. But I’m going to.” He looked resigned, but after a quick check through the peephole, his face relaxed. He opened the door wide, letting Amy and Vincent into the room.
Vincent started talking first, “Sorry to pounce on you, but we saw your mom leave and then your other guest—”
“That was his dad,” Amy told him, before she turned back to Ted. “I would’ve said hi, but I know how your mom operates. He was probably upset.”
“I’d say so,” I told her.
“Either of you guys want a beer?” Ted asked, clearly more relaxed with two werewolves than the one who had just left.
“I’ll take one,” Amy said with a smile. Vincent declined, since he’d be driving later.
“Where are you headed?”
“I need to get back to teach school. Amy’s coming along to keep me company.”
“And to avoid Sue,” she admitted. “We don’t always get along.”
“You don’t say.” I didn’t bother to hide my sarcasm.
“Nope, I never do,” she laughed. “And I don’t think it either. I’m good at that.”
Vincent smiled, the movement coming from his stomach and making his whole body move. “You’re not the only one.”
“So Mom’s clueless?” Ted asked.
“Oh not clueless, just used to looking for what she expects to see,” Vincent explained. “It’s like those pictures you liked so much as a kid. She sees the bunny not the duck.”
“Bunny? Duck?” I looked back and forth between them, then at Amy. She looked as clueless as I felt.
“It’s an optical illusion image,” Ted explained. “It’s either a bunny or a duck depending on which way you look.”
“He loved them,” Vincent told me with a smile. “Along with any other puzzle he could get his hands on, loved to figure things out before everyone else.”
“Guilty as charged.” Ted spread his hands in mock surrender.
“You know you don’t have to figure this one out, right?”
“No?” Ted asked his old teacher.
“Don’t let your mother bully you into coming up North. If you wanted to come it’d be different, but I have a feeling you don’t. In fact, I’d bet the only reason you’re thinking about it is because she’s guilted you into it.”
Amy shifted, looking uncomfortable. I reached out a little with my magic. She felt desperate, and a little afraid.
“Are you okay? She’s gone you know, it’s safe to talk about her.” I did my best to soothe with my voice, while my hand reached for my gun just in case.
“It’s not that. I mean, it is that, but not just that.” Both of the men shut up to look at her. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not like Sue, Vincent, but you’re still above me in the Pack. I shouldn’t contradict you, but I want to.”
“What?” All three of them looked at me but I spoke to her alone. “Can you explain that to me like you would explain it to one of your new wolves?”
“Sure.” Her tongue darted out between her lips, wetting them before she spoke. “Sue and Vincent are the leaders of our group. We call it a pack but we don’t have to, it’s the same as if we were in a company and they were the presidents. Co-presidents, actually, they both have equal say. Everyone else in the company still gets a say, but some people have more weight than others.”
“I’m with you so far.”
“Well, just like you wouldn’t tell your boss he was wrong in front of people from another company, I shouldn’t tell Vincent he’s wrong in front of outsiders.”
“I’m an outsider?”
She and Vincent nodded.
“What about Ted?”
She hesitated but Vincent said yes.
“Wait, now you can’t tell me why he said yes and you didn’t?”
She was about to agree when Ted spoke up.
“Not in my house. Here you say what you want.” His look told Vincent it wasn’t up for debate.
Amy took a second but finally spoke again. “Ted doesn’t want to be part of us, of our group, so I think he’s an outsider. But he knows us, he knows our ways. He didn’t have to ask why I shouldn’t correct Vincent.”
“But if he doesn’t want to be part of our family then he isn’t and he shouldn’t be pressured to come solve our problems,” Vincent put in.
I caught Amy’s concern again. “You disagree?”
She didn’t look at Vincent when she nodded. “I…after what happened to me that night…” She glanced at Ted and I felt the connection the two of them had. They were bound together by their survival. “I can’t have children.” Her voice cracked a little, and tears started in her eyes. “Everything else healed after the first shift but that… Maybe I was never going to be able to. Maybe that’s just how I am.”
Ted handed her a box of tissues from beside the couch, while Vincent only looked pained.
“The Pack is screwed up. I won’t lie about it. When Sue’s not here, I don’t have to. But they’re family. There are kids, kids like I can’t have. Babies I can cuddle without anyone screaming that I’m going to infect them.” Tears ran openly down her cheeks now but her eyes stayed fixed on my boyfriend. “It’s the only family I can ever have. I want you to save them the way you saved me.”
Ted opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she cut him off before he could respond. “I know what I’m asking. But they’re all I have. And I could be next. You saved me once. I mean, you were just a little boy but you were so strong, and now you’re stronger.” She sniffled, wiped her eyes. “I know I’m asking for a lot. I know I shouldn’t but I am.”
“Amy, I—”
“You don’t have to answer right away,” she cut Ted off again. “I mean, Sue is going to stay for a while so she can give you all the details.”
“And you can say no, and never talk to her again, too,” Vincent offered his option. “You don’t have to save the world.”
I laughed thinking it was a joke, and then Ted made it one when he said, “Good to know.”
“We should hit the road.” Vincent’s voice was gravely, deep with concern. I could feel his worry. For him being in charge meant taking care of people, and that made me feel better. I hugged Amy goodbye, wishing I could promise her it would be all right. But we both knew better. Ted and I waved to them from the doorway; after the car’s lights disappeared, I ushered him inside.
“So something to distract you? Musicals? Porn?” I named the two types of movies we watched most.
“Darkness, quiet.” He shook his head. “A world where my mother had the good sense to stay the hell away from me.”
“Probably not going to happen, lover.”
“I know, but it would be nice. Come to bed?”
He shook his head, but got up from the couch anyway. He stopped us in the TV room, and I took his hand for a second, reading him. He worked hard to protect his peace and calm but tonight it’d been ruined. I felt the torrent of emotions inside him. Ted’s bedroom was a sanctuary, a place of balance; he didn’t want to risk contaminating that place, the same way he didn’t want to risk the life he’d made for himself. His head swirled with guilt and obligation; he wanted to protect Amy but he wanted to protect his life, too.
“It’s pretty complicated,” I started. “You don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
“No?”
“No.” I kissed him softly but while his soft lips brushed against mine his mind was miles away. I held him close for a minute but then relaxed back letting him stand alone.
“What would you do?” he asked.
“If it was my mother, I’d go. But she’s not my mother, she’s not anything like my mother
. I wouldn’t go for her. That’s for damn sure.”
He seemed to mull this over as he walked in front of the TV. I grabbed a seat on the couch and watched him.
“But for the rest of them? For Amy?”
“Depends; how big was your crush on her?”
He blushed and I grinned.
“Uh-huh. I thought so.” I smiled at him, letting him know it didn’t bother me. “Look, if you care about them, about Amy and Vincent, then I’d say go. Not for your mother, more like, despite her.”
“But it gets her what she wants.”
“So what? You’re going for your own reasons, not hers.”
“It’s more than that though. It’s not just about her. It’s about me. Doing this, it might change me. I deliberately stepped away from that life, from those people. Should I risk going back?”
I told him the one thing I knew for sure, “Go or stay, it won’t change who you are.”
“You don’t know what it’ll be like. How I’ll have to act. The way they are.” He was walking back and forth, wearing a hole in the carpet like the floor boards would give him his answers. He stopped and came over to sit on the couch next to me, taking my hands in his. “It’s just…I know I’m different with different people. I know I’m Edward sometimes and Ted the rest of it, but I wasn’t always.” He paused, and I hoped I wasn’t looking at him like he was crazy. “My fourth-grade report card says ‘Edward is a sensitive and caring boy, it shows in how he treats others. He’ll do wonderfully in middle school!’ Except, I never got there. I went to the mall to buy school clothes and spent the next three years burying that sensitive caring side.”
“You were nine, honey, no one expected you to—”
He silenced me with a look. “This isn’t about how I was, it’s about how I’m going to be the minute I get there. I can’t be decent around these…people.” He spat the last word out as if they didn’t deserve it and I wasn’t sure they did. I thought about the kid he had been and the things he must have seen.
“Be Edward if it helps,” I said, not sure how I could say it better.
A smile spread over his face, bitter and angry. “You could have said they might have changed.”
“I don’t think people like that do,” I replied. I’d met people who liked to kill in the war, nasty bullies as children, who grew into nasty bullies as adults. I avoided them and hoped someone would put them down like a mad dog when they got the chance.
“I don’t want you coming with me.”
“I don’t want you going alone. Life’s a bitch that way.” His face was set, stubborn, and I did my best to make mine look the same.
“Fine.”
“Yup, fine.” I took a deep breath. “So we leave tomorrow morning?”
He shook his head. “Friday. And we’re back by Monday. I’m not willing to give her more than three days. I don’t care how much she says they’ve reformed.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed, already trying to remember someplace that would sell me silver bullets without an advance order.
I didn’t want to sleep alone, or spend time with only my pillow for company. The problem was I didn’t know who to call. Jo and LaRue were talking out their kid issues. Calvin, Douglas, or William, they’d all see this with a vampire’s view of black and white. My best Army friends, Van Deck and Summers, were a world away, stationed on opposite sides of the globe. They could cheer me up, make me smile, but they wouldn’t help with what I wanted to figure out. Somehow, my car went from Ted’s to the house I grew up in without me really thinking about it.
Ted had asked me for some space, told me he didn’t want to kick me out but he needed some time to think. I respected that. What else did I respect? What else mattered to me? I didn’t know, but walking into my parents’ house with all my relatives under the same roof made me feel instantly better. The quiet darkness of the house hugged me, and I went to the kitchen out of habit.
Stepping into my childhood home was like stepping into my memories. Just inside was the vestibule where I’d tossed my ice skates after lessons when I was nine. Walking past the living room where I posed for prom pictures, I went into the kitchen coated with Coca-Cola ads. Shiny metal ones and slick posters glowed in the blue light from the clock on the stove the way they had for years. I opened the refrigerator to look at my mother’s food. Caloric comfort stacked in Pyrex, the way the house was material comfort. I didn’t eat, just looked, then shut the door, hearing a noise I couldn’t place coming from the TV room.
I pushed the door open, careful not to let the rug bunch up underneath it. Stepping into the room, my magic brought a single clear emotion: deep sadness. In the darkness, a shape too small to be either of my parents shook with soft sobs.
“Gina?” I tried to sound comforting. “What’s wrong?”
She put her hand up, making a motion that meant I was supposed to go away. “Leave me alone,” she sniffled.
The Hicks way, suffer in silence, deal with your own problems. I had plenty. My head was a jumble of issues. But I wasn’t going to walk away from her. I’d just come from a golden example of what a bad idea that was.
“No.” I pushed onto the couch beside her, wrapping my arms around my sister.
“You’re reading me, aren’t you?” her voice mixed with sobs and tears.
“Kind of hard not to, you’re pretty upset.”
“But you see why. I can’t hide it from you, can I?” She looked at me with tears streaming down her face.
I shook my head and reached out to her with my magic. She blinked under it, making me wonder what it felt like to her. The thought left me in a second as the images came: wedding books, white dresses, fancy crystal in a bridal salon down in LA.
“The wedding,” I sighed. Any second now I’d have to hear about how there weren’t enough opal shoes in the world for the thirteen bridesmaids.
“It’s horrible. It’s all horrible,” Gina wailed, turning around to bury her head in the couch.
“What?” I reached again, trying to get a better read. The bridal shop in LA stood out clear in her mind, fashionable gold gilt furniture, glasses of bubbly. Gina was there, too, feeling smaller than a speck of dust. The feeling came from three incredibly thin women, all of them perfectly dressed and circling Jeremy in complete adoration.
“No matter what I do, none of it is right. It’s all crap. It’s not good enough. I’m not good enough. Jeremy deserves, he deserves…” She hiccupped and burst into fresh sobs. I patted her back awkwardly while she cried in my arms. “And nothing I pick will ever be right.”
“If I slap you, will you run to Mom like you did when we were little?”
“What?” The turn of the conversation lost her.
“If I just haul off and give you a good slap, am I gonna get grounded for it?”
“Huh?” She sat up, scrubbing her face with the back of her hand. “Are you crazy?”
“I should be. You’ve been driving me, Mom, and Jeremy nuts with all this wedding crap. But I get it now, so no, not crazy.” I brushed her hair back from her face. In the dim light of the room, she looked even younger than she was. My kid sister, not even old enough to buy a beer and already married, worried about living up to the world’s expectations. “You don’t have to push yourself like this. We all love you. There’s nothing you could do with this wedding that would make any of us stop.”
“But Jeremy…” Her eyes wore tears and hope at the same time. “I don’t know what water to serve his friends. I didn’t even think of it, I mean it’s water. But it’s not. It’s sparkling or still, from Iceland or France… And Mom, Mom wants this big church wedding.”
“Jeremy doesn’t care about the water. He wants you to be happy, just like Mom does, like we all do. I swear Gina, nobody else cares if your colors are blush and bashful.”
“Opal and silver,” she corrected.
“Uh-huh.”
“I want it to be right, but there’s so much to do. Jeremy’s friends are movie stars and
I have to worry about who sits where and what they eat. I can’t serve steak near the table for vegans, and I want to have it in the afternoon but pictures look better at night, and—”
“And nothing. It’s not their wedding, it’s yours. Stop trying to please everyone or live up to their bullshit. Just do what makes you happy.”
“She’s right, honey.” Dad’s voice came from a dark doorway, making both of us jump about two feet off the couch.
“Yeah, I am,” I told her again. “Jeremy has a ton of money; get him to hire a wedding coordinator. Let her deal with it.”
“You think I could?” She looked from Dad to me expectantly.
Dad nodded. I did the same.
“Why don’t you go call your husband? Ask him?” Dad asked her.
“That’s a great idea. I’ll just say I thought it might be easier or that she could get us a better deal or…”
“Don’t lie, Gina, please. Tell him the truth, okay? For me? For your stupid big sister?”
She hesitated, teeth tugging on her lower lip until finally she gave me a quiet, “Okay.”
When she left, Dad and I looked at each other.
“I should have heard her, I’m slipping,” he told me.
“It’s okay, I was here.”
“I’m glad.” He looked over at me. “Took something serious to wake me.” He eyed me, and I thought about all the things my family didn’t say to each other.
“That was me,” I admitted.
“I figured.” He paused, looked back at the stairs. “You should tell your mother.”
I nodded. “Dad, why don’t we talk about things?”
He shrugged. “We just don’t.”
“I think we should.”
“Maybe you’re right. Want to tell me why you’re not going after the guy who sold the lion cub?”
“I haven’t decided that yet.”
He raised his eyebrow at me, a single penetrating look.
“Okay, first there are these werewolves…”
11
My father’s quiet nature always seemed like a disadvantage, a sort of handicap in the world of parenting. But as I woke up in the attic room that hadn’t been mine for nearly a year, I realized it was just his way. He talked when there was something important to say. Last night, he’d said less than a paragraph but cleared up my head. You can’t save the whole wide world, just your part of it.
Missing, Suspected Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective Page 16