Thirteen
“Your family, your real family, will always welcome you home with open arms. Anyone who says you can lose their love isn’t really family, no matter what blood says.”
–Evelyn Baker
A shitty company apartment five miles outside of Lakeland, Florida
FERN AND I CREPT through the apartment door and into the darkened living room sometime after midnight, shoes in our hands, trying to be quiet enough not to wake Megan. We were almost to the hall when a voice spoke from the couch.
“Nice to know that you’re not dead.”
We froze, me grimacing, Fern pressing closer to me, like she thought I was going to protect her. Which, let’s be honest, I would have happily done if this had been some dangerous monster or supernatural threat. Sadly, it wasn’t. It was our roommate, and she did not sound happy.
“Hi, Megan,” I said weakly, turning toward the voice. I couldn’t see her, not even an outline, but I had no doubt that she could see me. Gorgons have excellent night vision. “How was your shift?”
“Eight fatalities—fatalities—from an accident inside the Park, in the area I know you were working today.” The light next to the couch clicked on, revealing Megan. She was glaring behind the smoked lenses of her glasses, and if it had been possible for sheer anger to make her gaze more powerful, I would have been petrified before I had a chance to blink. “You want to tell me where the hell you’ve been?”
Looking at her, even as a friend and ally, it was easy to understand why the Covenant had taken one look at the gorgons and gone “we need to kill those in a hurry.” The snakes surrounding her face had picked up her anger and transformed it into something out of a horror movie, rising until they formed a sort of hood of scales and fangs and potential pain. They were all pulled into striking positions, flattening their heads slightly to make themselves look bigger. I knew Megan didn’t have conscious control of what they did, and that was a good thing, because if she had been able to tell them what to do, I would have had to assume she’d ordered them to scare the pants off me.
“Skating,” said Fern, in a meek voice. She stayed pressed close at my side. She was scared, too.
We keep frightening each other. Whether we mean to or not, we just keep frightening each other. “Neither of us was hurt when the float collapsed, but I was right there,” I said. “I was technically one of the first responders because I beat the security team and the EMTs to the wounded.” Andrea who had played Laura, her face gone. Ginger, parents missing and eyes bright with tears. “I . . . it messed me up pretty bad.”
“So I took her skating,” said Fern, picking up the essential shape of the narrative. She stepped forward, putting herself between me and Megan. Scared as she was, she knew I didn’t share her immunity to a gorgon’s gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t text. I knew you were working.”
Megan held her glare for a moment before thawing and saying, “It’s okay. I had my hands full all night. I didn’t even start really worrying about you until I got home and you weren’t here. Neither of you was hurt?”
“We’re fine,” I said. “Eight people died?”
“And about fifty were injured. What happened?”
I opened my mouth to reply. Then I hesitated.
Cylia hadn’t done this. She said she was innocent, and I believed her. Jinks don’t create luck, just move it around, and if she hadn’t been spending her luck since reaching Florida, the accident couldn’t be her fault. My proximity to it was on her—and it was exactly what I would have asked for, if she’d told me this was coming. Because I’d been close, I’d been able to help. Because I’d been able to help, maybe things had been less terrible.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. “I was in the shop when something went bang, and by the time I made it outside, the float was on the ground and people were running everywhere. I don’t think it was something somebody did on purpose.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . .” I hesitated again, this time to review my memory of the crowd. There had been a few people standing frozen in their shock and terror, but that was normal. Drop an alien monster into a tour group and it’ll have plenty to eat, because not everyone will be able to recover in time to run away. “Because there wasn’t anyone who seemed overly happy about what was happening. It could have been sabotage, I guess, if someone was looking to hurt the company, or reduce competition for another theme park, but that seems extreme. I think we’d have seen signs before this.”
“So what? Mechanical failure?” Megan frowned. “I thought they’d have safeguards against that sort of thing.”
“All the safeguards in the world won’t stop something that really wants to break.” I rubbed my forehead with one hand. The skating had cleared away the fog, making it easier for me to think. That didn’t make any of this comfortable. “It doesn’t feel like intentional sabotage. It was too big, without having any convenient gloating.”
“That’s terrifying.” Megan wrapped her arms around herself. “I’d almost rather this be something somebody had done.”
“It’s easier to fight a person than an accident,” I said. It was hard to stop replaying the scene over and over in my mind. Now that Megan had caused me to knock the mental scab off, it was like all the infection that had built up behind it was leaking out, coating the world in a thin veneer of screams, blood, and burning.
There was still no fire in my fingers. I never would have thought I’d miss it this much. It had been with me for so long that it felt like a normal response to trauma or stress, and now that it was gone I felt almost numb, like something essential had been taken away. I could feel it burning deep down, when I forced my attention inward and looked, but it refused to come, no matter how hard I called. Part of that might have been the proximity of my roommates. Fern knew about my semi-controlled magic. Megan didn’t. Neither of them had actually seen me play pyromaniac with a touch. It was only reasonable that I’d be holding back in their presence.
(And I could tell myself that as much as I wanted. The fire still wouldn’t come when I was alone, no matter how hard I begged, because it hadn’t come last night, and it hadn’t come when it could have helped me. I wasn’t an infant anymore, where magic was concerned. My body was forgetting how to scream.)
“Do you have a shift in the morning?” Fern asked.
Megan nodded. “I start at nine, and I’m on the clock until nine tomorrow night, at the absolute earliest. You should probably figure on not seeing me for a few days. That’s part of why I decided to sit up tonight. I wanted to know that you were okay.”
“I don’t have an email from scheduling yet,” said Fern.
I glanced at her, startled. I hadn’t even thought to check. Then again, I was the one with the cheap phone that was only a phone and couldn’t receive anything more complex than a text message. I was used to getting my shift information at the start of the week, and not having any updates until the end. The float disaster changed things. The whole Park, or at least the Fairyland section, could very well be closed.
“I’m going to go check my email,” I said, and took a step toward the hall.
The doorbell rang.
All three of us froze—more than three, if I counted the sudden stillness of the snakes on Megan’s head. With the living room light on, it was impossible to pretend nobody was home. Indeed, the thought had barely managed to form when the doorbell rang again. This time, the person outside leaned into the act, sending the tone belling loud and clear through the apartment. They were going to wake our neighbors if they didn’t stop.
Megan bolted to her feet and ran for her bedroom, where she kept the wigs. Fern didn’t move.
Right. I didn’t have a weapon and I didn’t have fire in my fingers and I didn’t have a clue, but I didn’t want our neighbors reporting us to corporate, either. Taking a deep breath, I straightened my spine until it creak
ed. That helped. I always feel better about walking toward my certain death when I do it with good posture. I shot a reassuring glance at Fern and started for the door, intending to answer it before our unexpected guest could ring the bell a third time.
I opened the door. Sam’s hand was raised, finger poised to press the bell again. He froze. I froze. We stood together yet apart, two statues staring at each other across a gulf of less than two feet.
I knew what he was seeing: sweat-caked hair plastered to my neck and shoulders, tattered secondhand tank top and yoga pants, skin that bore a sheen of sunscreen and the omnipresent glitter that coats everything in Lowryland. The urge to slam the door, run to the shower, and come back when I was presentable was almost overwhelming, and yet he looked at me like I was candy, cake, and Christmas all rolled into one. A girl could get used to being looked at that way.
As for me, I was looking at a tall, brown-skinned man of mixed Chinese and European descent, broad-shouldered in that way that comes with spending too much time on the flying trapeze, floppy-haired in front and close-cropped in the back. His ears stuck out a bit too far and his hands were a bit too big for the rest of his frame, but I liked those things about him. They proved he was real. Actually, I liked everything about him, and had since he’d stopped glowering at me and started smiling instead.
He wasn’t smiling now. He looked stunned, like he couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I understood the sentiment.
When we finally started moving again, he was faster. He’s always been faster than I am, a blessing of biology enhanced and improved by training. He closed the distance between us in a single step, his hands coming up to cup the sides of my face, and his lips tasted like bad coffee, diner pie, and terrible decisions, and none of that mattered one damn bit. Sam was here. Sam was kissing me. Everything else, good, bad, or yet to be determined, could wait.
The heat coming off of his skin was intense. As a fūri, Sam runs hotter than a human man, even when he’s in his seemingly-human form. It was a comforting piece of proof that this was really him, enough so that I leaned even closer, his hands holding my face like an anchor, my body seeking his in the open, liminal space of the doorway.
The doorway. We were standing in the doorway. The doorway to the apartment, which meant the door was open, which meant anyone who looked would see me standing there, kissing a strange man who most definitely did not work for Lowry Entertainment, Inc.
I broke the kiss. Sam looked at me, wide-eyed and betrayed. And adorable. God, he was adorable. Had he always been this adorable?
Fucking hormones, I thought, before grabbing his shirt, growling, “Inside,” and yanking him into the apartment. He had the presence of mind to catch and slam the door behind himself. He even used one of his hands to do it. The boy was staying human until he had the full lay of the land. That pleased me, although I couldn’t say I’d expected anything else. I’d been maybe-dating him for less than a month. He’d been a therianthrope for his entire life.
Fern, still standing next to the couch, was gaping at us, open-mouthed and shocked-looking. “Are you going to do a murder in our living room?” she squeaked.
“What?” asked Sam.
“No,” I said firmly. “No one is getting murdered.” I hesitated before amending, “Right now. Murder is always on the table for later.”
Fern looked reassured. Sam did not. That was fine: Sam was about to become a lot less reassured about everything. I whirled on him, finger pointed at his chest.
“You,” I said, voice low. “What are you doing here?”
Sam blinked. “Uh,” he said. “Hello to you, too. Gosh, I missed you. No, don’t worry about it, I’d love to come into your apartment and have this conversation in front of a total stranger. That sounds like a bucket of fun. Everybody loves a bucket of fun.”
“I live here,” said Fern, sounding squeakily affronted. She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes, which for Fern was the equivalent of a full-on glare. It was adorable. Telling her that probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. “Who are you? Why were you kissing—” Then she stopped, glare transforming into a look of stricken confusion as she realized she didn’t know what to call me in front of him.
I laughed. I couldn’t stop myself. Fern looked hurt, and I laughed even harder, which was rude of me, but after the day I’d had, I thought I was owed a brief moment of healing hysteria. Sometimes the rational, reasonable thing isn’t the thing to do after all.
Sam sighed heavily. “You broke her,” he accused, looking at Fern. “I left her alone for six months, and you broke her. This probably voids the warranty.”
“Lowry Security will have you out of here so fast that you’ll leave behind those gross flip-flops like you’re in a cartoon,” said Fern.
I glanced at Sam’s feet. He was, in fact, wearing flip-flops, which seemed like the best possible compromise between his natural disdain for footwear and the human world’s tendency to insist that people without shoes on are not to be trusted. They looked like they’d been stolen from a resort pool. The urge to start laughing again rose in my throat. I swallowed it down. Healing hysteria might be nice, but if I spent too much time indulging myself, I wasn’t going to get anything done.
“No calling Security,” I said. “Fern, this is Sam Taylor, my . . .” I trailed off. We’d never formalized anything. I’d been too busy running away before the Covenant could use me as an excuse to kill Sam and everyone he’d ever cared about.
“I’m her boyfriend,” said Sam gruffly.
“Boyfriend,” I concluded. My stomach did a flip that had nothing to do with the trouble I might or might not be in, and everything to do with the way Sam kept glancing at me, quick, sharp-edged looks, like he was cataloging every inch. My hands itched, not with heat, but with the desire to touch him and keep touching, tactilely reassuring myself that he was really here, that this wasn’t some sort of cruel dream cooked up by my overstimulated subconscious. “Sam, this is Fern. She’s one of my roommates.”
“Wait,” said Fern, eyes going wide again. “This is the boyfriend? This?” She waved her hands, encompassing the whole of him. “I didn’t think this was your type.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Meaning what, exactly?” he asked, in a dangerous tone.
“Hobo,” said Fern.
“Uh, have you met her?” Sam pointed to me. “Hobo is precisely her type. Especially since last time I checked, she was running away from everyone in the world who cared about what happened to her. Dating someone like me just means she’s sticking with her theme.”
Listening to the two of them avoid using my name was already getting old. “Sam, Fern knew me before I went undercover. Fern, Sam knows my real name, remember?”
“Wait, you told her about me?” Sam looked obscurely pleased.
“You were serious about that?” asked Fern.
“I was.” I looked between the two of them. Normally, I’m against revealing cryptids, even to each other. That sort of thing is private. Normally, they’re not both standing in my living room, eyeing each other with anger and mistrust. This was my fault. I needed to fix it. “He also knows what I do for a living. I mean he understands.”
That was about as broadly as I was willing to hint. Fern’s eyes narrowed, studying Sam with a new intensity. Sam took a half-step back.
“Is she going to turn inside out and start waving weird tendrils of flesh at me?” he asked.
“What?” I said. “No. Fern’s not . . . I don’t think I know of anything that does that. Have you seen something that does that? Where?” I shook my head. “No, don’t tell me. We’re getting off-topic.”
“Annie, is your boyfriend human?” Fern’s tone was icy. “I think you should have to tell me if he isn’t.”
This was escalating quickly. I glanced at Sam. He nodded. Looking back to Fern, I said, with some relief, “No. He’s not.”
/> “I didn’t think so.” Fern returned her attention to Sam. “He stands wrong for a human.”
“I do not,” said Sam. “I stand perfectly fine.”
“You don’t,” said Fern. “But that’s okay. I don’t stand right either. I’m a sylph.”
“I thought you might be.” Sam smiled—a quick, relieved expression. “We had a couple of sylphs with the carnival when I was a kid. When they did the flying silks, nobody could even come close.”
“So if we’re all done glaring at each other, can we get back to me figuring out how pissed I am?” I asked. “Sam, what are you doing here?”
“Mary found me.” He didn’t even have the grace to look contrite. “She said you were in trouble. I came running.”
“Mary?” asked Fern. “Your dead aunt really went looking for your hobo boyfriend because a parade fell on people? Because I thought she was kidding.”
“She knows about Mary?” asked Sam. “Wait—a parade fell on people? How does that even happen?”
His questions, while valid, were more than I felt like answering right now. I was tired, and I wanted to go to bed and sleep for a year, and I wanted to throw myself into his arms and enjoy the feeling of having someone I could hold onto, someone who wouldn’t push me away, no matter how much I encouraged them to. I couldn’t do either of those things. I rubbed my face instead.
“Mary told you I needed you,” I said wearily.
Sam nodded. “She said things were getting really weird for you, and she wanted someone on the ground who was allowed to help and was faster than you are. I think it helps that I’m not, you know, actually one of your relatives.”
“Family can’t come here,” I agreed. “Blood. Too easy to trace.”
“I’m here.” Fern sounded hurt. “I’ll help you if you need me.”
“But I’m still faster than you are.” Sam stepped out of his flip-flops.
I knew what came next, and so I watched Fern instead of Sam as he transformed, marking the way her jaw tightened and her eyes went wide. Her shoulders seemed to lift a few inches higher, signaling a decrease in her personal density. That was an instinctive flight response in sylphs. As it wasn’t followed by screaming, jumping into the air, or running away, I guessed it was probably okay.