Huntress (26 page)

"It’s ok bubby. I know it’s scary, but it’ll be ok." Over and over again, I repeated these words. I almost believed them myself at this point.

"Grace?" Finally, Rose had gotten here. "Want me to check him out?"

"Yes please. I handed him off to Rose and nearly collapsed. I thought that going through regular puberty was rough. This was completely insane. At this rate, I was going to have to buy a whiteboard to keep track of all of the complete chaos that my life was turning into.

List of Crazy Shit
-

  1. Demi-God Kid going through puberty. Controls weather when hormonal

  2. Crazy destructive real father who kidnaps mother for kicks

  3. Ex-Husband finally noticed me (
Weird
)

  4. House Destroyed

  5. Weird feelings for Au Pair (
Never mind – that belongs on its own list
)

I’m sure that more would be added as this week went on. Maybe a whiteboard was over the top. A nice voice recorder or notebook would do.

"Well he looks okay to me. Whatever his temperature was before, it’s gone down and he’s only running around 99.8 right now. His eyes are a little dilated and I’m concerned that he may be in shock. Also, why is it so wet in this hallway? Did Brandon’s pipes burst?"

Closing my eyes and pursing my lips, I shook my head. "Oh no, that’s not what happened at all. I’ll explain later. Do you think we need to take him to the hospital?" Secretly, I was hoping that she’d say yes so I could take Dylan home and talk to him alone. I’m not that lucky.

"No, but I do recommend a sleeping pill. He seems pretty exhausted and could use the rest."

"Let me try this again," I gritted out between my teeth, trying to be a little discreet in case someone was listening. "Rose, are you sure you don’t think that Dylan needs to go to the hospital?" My eyes were staring her down at this point, wide, as though I could force my thoughts into her brain if I just focused hard enough.

"Yes?" She answered, confused.

"Brandon? It’s ok to come in now. Rose thinks that we should get Dylan checked out at her hospital. Drew thinks that your sprinkler system burst here in the hallway which caused it to look like snow. I nodded upwards at the sprinkler and Drew reached up and yanked on it, causing an entirely different spray of water to drench us anew.

"Thanks," I muttered.

"What? I just had the house inspected a few months ago?" Brandon replied annoyed as he stood at the end of the hallway. What a sight we must have been, all looking like drowned, frozen rats, while he stayed dry and cozy out of danger. How typical.

"She wants us to get checked out as well just in case we’ve caught something and exacerbated it standing here in the downpour, so I’ll take him. Is Zachary still with you?"

He scowled at me and opened his mouth to protest, when Zachary sauntered up behind him and smacked him on the back in a gesture of camaraderie. "Sure am, Daughter. I was just talking to Brandon’s fiancé," he looked at me meaningfully and suddenly the situation clicked. "Seems as though Dylan started getting sick after the big announcement. She thinks that it could have been something disagreed with him from dinner at Rose’s. Lovely woman. Wouldn’t mind giving her a quick tumble, myself."

Brandon wheeled on him and I took the opportunity to shuffle everyone out of the hall and toward the door. We were all soaked and going outside in this cold didn’t appeal at all. "I’ll bring him back when we get the go ahead from the docs, Brandon."

The biting cold air froze the clothes to my body and I threw Drew another dirty look. "You are going to be the death of me."

"Not anymore," he grinned unrepentantly at me and unlocked the doors.

"I’ll meet you at the hospital," Rose started to say, but I cut her off.

"No, I’ll meet you at your house." I pushed Dylan into the back seat of the car, which was thankfully slightly warm since we hadn’t been there long and climbed in after him, pulling him into my arms after I was settled.

I noticed that Drew hadn’t gotten in right away. I could hear him talking to Rose in murmured tones outside. That was ok. I needed to find out what had upset Dylan so much.

"Ok, are you ready to talk about it?"

"No," he responded sullenly.

"Really?" I wasn’t skeptical. No, not me.

Shifting in his seat to look at me, I could see the pain in his eyes. "She said that you weren’t fit to raise me and that Dad should just take me so she could be my new mom. She thinks that they can re-file with the court after their wedding next month"

It took every ounce of control for me to not lose my temper. One earthquake a day was enough, thanks. The temperature of the car started getting cooler and I nudged him.

"Hey, I’m already freezing so un-chill. Look at me." I gently nudged his chin up so that he could see how serious I was. "Nobody is taking you away from me. I paid a shit-load of money for a great lawyer
just
for that reason. You are mine and you are
staying
that way."

His chin dropped and he huddled closer into my body. "Promise?"

"Always and always." Giving him a squeeze and a kiss on the top of his head, I tried to think of how to broach the other subject. The kid was smarter than I was. He did it for me.

"Mom?"

"Yeah?"

"I was so angry, but then I got so scared. I didn’t know how I was doing that. You guys said that it wouldn’t happen to me."

"I know. I’m going to have to have a long talk with Drew about that one. The question is - you’ve got it, so what do you want to do with it?"

"I don’t know," he said hesitantly. "I’m kinda scared of it."

"Hey, I’m a billion times older than you are and I’m scared of it too. That’s pretty normal."

"Yeah, I guess so. I’ll be honest, Mom. I don’t know if I want this. I felt so weird. Like I was sick when it was happening."

"Ok, so we have a couple of options. We can send you off with the other kids your age so you can get a grasp on it. We could get a much better heating system for the house, or you can hold off until I find your Grandma so we can ask her to stop it. She stopped it for me right? She can stop it for you too."

The car was silent for a few minutes. It was important to let him work through his options. I had been instilling choices and consequences in him since he was little. He knew the importance of this decision.

"I’ll think about it."

"Good kid. This isn’t a ‘decide now’ kind of decision. Take your time. You’ll know what you want and then you can tell me."

"Mom, my stomach hurts." Dylan curled into himself and I held him closer.

"It’s ok baby. It’s probably some sort of bug that you have. My tummy isn’t feeling so hot either."

Drew jumped into the car and threw it into gear, jerking us around in the back seat.

"Whoah, in a hurry?" I asked, scowling at his reflection in the rearview mirror.

"Yeah," he replied briefly.

"Okay," I drew the word out, raising my eyebrows. "Want to tell me where we’re going in such a hurry?"

"Away from here. Dylan, does your stomach hurt?"

"Yeah," my son responded in a small voice.

"How bad? One to ten."

"I dunno. Six?"

"Shit."

"Shit, what? What’s going on? My stomach is feeling a little queasy too. Maybe we’ve got a bug." I look back now and find it pretty amazing how stubborn I was in my ability to completely repress the obvious. I was repressing like nobody’s business at this point.

"Grace," he started with exasperation. "We don’t get sick. Are you both belted in?"

"No, we’ve just been sitting here talking." I was interrupted by a quick jerk of the wheel that sent me flying across the seat into Dylan.

"What the
hell
, Drew?!" Shouting sometimes makes things better. Oddly enough, it didn’t work this time.

"Get your seatbelt on," he ground out.

I belted myself in and then took care of Dylan, who was now bent over.

"It’s getting worse," he panted.

"What’s going on? You’re going to get pulled—." The sentence trailed off as a loud thump sounded on the roof above us. The ceiling dented a few inches and I yelped in surprise before covering Dylan with my body.

"I don’t know what’s going on," I whispered, "but if I tell you to run, I want you to run and hide ok?"

He didn’t respond and I was getting scared.

"OK? You promise me that you will run and
hide
, Dylan Murphy." I shook him a little to make my point and he nodded his head.

"Not good enough. I want to hear you say it."

"I promise," he whispered.

"Ok. I love you. Don’t ever forget that." With those words said, I pulled in my kukri and shoved it upwards with all of the strength I had. The sharp steel pierced through the top of the roof and was met with an unholy squeal of rage.

"Pull over," I yelled.

"We need to get out of this area Grace. We can’t do this with normal humans around." He punctuated his last sentence with a sharp turn of the wheel. The tires squealed and we briefly ended up on two wheels as we rounded a corner.

I glanced around to see where we were. Five more minutes and we’d be up in the mountains, far enough away from the densely crowded west-side of Colorado Springs.

"Got a plan?" I asked as the pounding on the roof started. I called in my other kukri and stabbed upwards, hoping to catch a break and shake this thing loose. A wave of disappointment washed over me when I realized that I’d missed. I could have used a gun right now.

I would have bonked my forehead with my hand if I hadn’t been holding onto my swords. Duh! I could call in a gun.

"Baby, cover your ears."

"Grace, that isn’t a good idea. People are going to hear you.  We’ll attract attention that we don’t want right now."

"Like the way you’re driving AND the whatever-it-is taking a joyride on the roof of my car isn’t attracting attention?"

"It’s not gun-shot attention," he replied grimly.

We were getting close to a stopping point and I tried to run scenarios through my head. How could I get Dylan out of this safely? Briefly, I considered throwing him out of the car and having him run to the nearest house, but I couldn’t be certain that whatever was attached to the car wouldn’t go after him.

"Drew? As soon as you stop the car, I want you to blip Dylan to safety."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"No, I’m trying to think of a safe place to stash my kid. Work with me here!"

"No, I can't leave you alone to fight this. Bad idea."

"Okay, got a better one?"

"He’s going to have to stay in the car. When I stop, roll out and come up firing. We’ll be far enough away from any subdivisions to avert attracting attention."

"So…fire toward the car that my kid is hiding in." I let the words trail off, allowing him to grasp the reality of how
bad
that plan was.

"Oh, right. Bad idea. Ok, I’m going to slam on the brakes. Unfasten your seatbelt now. Maybe it will shake it off the top."

"Is that a good idea?"

"You got a better one?"

I hated having my words thrown back at me, especially when they made sense when I wasn’t.

"No." I unbuckled my belt, planted a quick kiss on Dylan’s forehead and looked into his eyes. "Remember what I said?"

He nodded and then so did I. "I love you, kiddo."

Drew slammed on the brakes and I went flying forward. I thought I’d land in the front seat. I didn’t. My body crashed head first through the windshield and out onto the hood of the car.

I shook my head, a little stunned and safety glass clattered out of my hair.

"Yeah, that was a
super
idea," I muttered - wiping blood out of my right eye.

"Get down on the floor," I cried as I flung myself off the hood. I’d forgotten to pull my swords out of the rooftop, but I had other tricks in my magic bag of holding.

A Colt .45 appeared in one hand and a machete in the other as I burst into a sprint, firing at the creature that had tumbled off of the car in the stop.

Drew and I worked in tandem distracting the creature and getting our slices and dices in. It wasn’t the same kind of monster we’d encountered earlier.

Long, hooked talons extended from the forearms, perfect for slicing and digging. The body was lithe with backward jointed legs. Its face rose sharply into a point at the top of its head, not unlike a mole. Cone-head, I thought.

Beady eyes stared malevolently at me and it started talking. The sound hissed around the two stakes that it called teeth. I paused to try to understand what it was saying.

"Youuu will come to meee," it hissed. At least, I think that’s what it hissed. It really was hard to tell what the thing was saying.

"I don’t think so, buddy," I replied and fired two more bullets in rapid succession into the wiry body. I missed and one of the bullets lodged into the front of my car.