Tooth and Nail (23 page)

“You okay?”

Before I could respond, Smiley pushed past both of us. “You and I are having a talk,” he said, and I nodded wearily.

“You’re in trouble,” Not-Rocky said as Smiley stormed into his office ahead of me.

“Yeah, well, must be a day ending in ‘Y’.” I followed Smiley at a safe distance and entered the office after him.

“Close the door.”

I obeyed, and squeezed into the tiny folding chair across from his desk. He handed me a ragged but clean white towel wrapped around a handful of ice. I pressed the towel to my upper lip, which throbbed against the cold.

The room wasn’t designed for two people. I didn’t actually think it was designed for one—I had a feeling that in the original floor plans, this was a janitor’s closet. But here I was, close enough to Smiley to feel the waves of anger evaporating off him. I began to pull the towel away from my lip but the sticky, clotting blood resisted my effort. I winced.

Smiley sat, and the chair cushion squeaked and hissed underneath him. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s up with you?”

“I’m sorry,” I began. “Mat was …“

“Not talking about Mat. Talking about you. What’s up with you?”

I didn’t answer.

“All week you’re coming in here exhausted and half-dead on your feet, a target for anyone with half your speed and a quarter of your concentration. Starting shit with that fool kid just now. Getting in the ring without a
mouth guard
, for crissakes.”

He slapped his palms on his desk and leaned forward. “You got a death wish? You don’t bring it in here. You leave it at the door. You
know
that.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“I got you coming in here day after day since you was a teenager. Always a stubborn pain in my behind. But now, now you’re an old lady.”

I glared at him. “Thank you.”

“Your best boxing years, you can count more of them behind you now than ahead of you. That’s a fact. So if you want to keep coming day after day, you need to be an example around here, and not act worse than when you were a crazy kid.”

Chastised, I cleared my throat. “Yes, sir.”

He leaned back again and scrutinized my face, or what he could see of it over the bloody towel. “You in some kind of trouble?”

I furrowed my brow. “Like what kind of trouble?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question. How should I know what kind? All I know is you’re acting like a mad dog. And suddenly you’ve got strangers coming by to see you.”

Frederica and Svein.

“Don’t know if I can help you,” he said, “but if you got a problem, go ahead and tell me.”

“There’s no problem,” I said around a now-numb pair of lips. “Everything’s fine. I’ve got a few old friends in town to visit me, and we’ve been doing some late nights. The campaign keeps me busy with social things. Look, I’m fine. I don’t need you to keep tabs on me.”

“Don’t tell me that now. I been keeping tabs on you since he left.”

I narrowed my eyes. “No one asked you to.”

“
He
did.”

I held my breath for several seconds, hoping I misunderstood. “My father asked you to keep tabs on me?”

“Right before he left.”

“I was a
kid
.”

“You were a kid he knew would grow up to be a fighter, and he wanted you to learn here.”

The cogs in my mind creaked backward, and I remembered. A guy named Jim Paolo had run afoul of me in tenth grade. The offense was too minor to recall the details but, at the time, I rewarded him with an punch that sent him sprawling. I spent unhappy time in the vice principal’s office and, shortly afterward, Mom had re-introduced me to Smiley, the guy who owned the gym where my father used to go. That day, Smiley was quick to tell me that my father didn’t have half the talent he thought he had. After an hour of working with me, Smiley assured me I’d be a far better student. That was all I’d needed to hear to feel like I was rebelling against my dad.

Now I wondered: had my mother been biding her time, knowing she’d eventually bring me to Smiley for years of male influence? Did she bring me here so I could be close to Dad?

“What made him think
you
could take care of me?” I asked now.

“I think it was more of a hope,” Smiley said.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been here forever and you never
told
me?”

“What was the point? You woulda never wanted to hear it. You don’t want to hear it now, even.”

“Why did he go?” The words burst out of me before I could think to stop them. “Why?”

“Don’t know his reasons,” he said. “He didn’t tell me. Wasn’t like I was his best friend. But he saw the way I keep an eye on guys around here. Lonely guys, angry guys, guys with no place else to go. Guess your daddy thought I had enough experience to handle the job.”

I closed my eyes for a few seconds, then reopened them. My lip throbbed hard. “Did you?”

He raised his brows. “You’d try the patience of a saint of God. You had problems, you had talent, and you had brains, and that doesn’t add up to nothing but trouble.”

“Must have been what he thought,” I said with a half-smile to try to mask the bitterness.

“No.”

Smiley rose from his chair, rolled it a few inches away, and opened the tiny freezer box on the floor. He pulled another towel off the clean pile on the wall shelf and filled it with ice chips. He held out his hand and I peeled my towel away from my face and exchanged it for the new one. He sat down and watched while I gingerly pressed it to my face, the fresher cold shocking my nerve endings.

“Bricks,” he said. Then, “Gemma. I don’t know why your daddy left, but I know why he didn’t want to leave, and that was you. When he asked me to keep an eye on you, he was desperate, nervous, like something was coming after you and he couldn’t stop it. You were the most important thing to him. He looked at you and saw himself. Hell,
I
looked at you and saw him. For a while. Now, you’re all you and you’ve gotten this far. He’s proud of you.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I know what I know. Quit asking me questions. There’s nothing else to say.”

My emotions were mashed up together into a hard lump that sat on my chest. “Well, you waited too long to say
that
much to me,” I said. “Way too long.”

“Go ahead, take it out on me,” he said. “I’ve gotten used to being the punching bag around here. But think about this. Only reason you’re angry now is because you’re finding out you don’t got as much to be angry about as you thought all this time.”

I stood and my knees banged into his desk. “Anything else?”

One corner of his lips tugged upward. “Big, bad Brickhouse,” he said. “But you’ve got a few cracks. Yeah, we’re done.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I turned and reached for the doorknob.

“No, you won’t.”

I slumped my shoulders and looked at the ceiling.

“Take your stuff,” he said, “and don’t come back for a week. And when you walk back in, I want to see you awake and alert and able to knock the crap out of the first person you see—but you won’t, because you’ll be under control. Are you hearing me?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool out, Bricks,” he said to my back. “Get some sleep. Send your friends home. Tell your boy no more late nights. Tell him my vote depends on it.”

“Okay.” I walked out of his office without looking back, grabbed my bag off a folding chair, and left the gym with my head down. I didn’t want to make eye contact or start a conversation with anyone just then.

The afternoon was gray with ineffectual raindrops spitting down, just enough to frizz my hair, but not enough to make me regret not having an umbrella. I walked—almost stomped—for about half a block before realizing I didn’t even really have a destination, so I turned back. I planned on crashing Dr. Clayton’s office again and asking for an emergency tooth repair, but I couldn’t do it until tomorrow afternoon, when that little boy Brian would hopefully be back and I could get a good look at him.

I’d have to give Svein a call, and—

And what?

This was ridiculous. Svein couldn’t take care of me. I had asked him to be my backup when I went into Clayton’s office the first time, but it was more to soothe his feelings of inadequacies and to keep my own nervousness at bay. If it came right down to it, fae Svein couldn’t do a thing to defend me. He’d only be able to stand around and take notes while Clayton beat the crap out of me or set me on fire. He’d taught me all he could about using my abilities, and even still, it was an effort for me. It was going to take a lot of practice to be able to master them, even with flying out of the picture. I wasn’t having any of that. Point was, Svein couldn’t do anything more for me.

I trotted across the street and into Grounds Floor. I bought a chai from the same barista who Frederica inadvertently charmed last time I was here. He did stare at me now, but it was my bruised and bloody lip that captured his attention. I took my cup and slid into a booth at the window. I watched cars, watched the rain fall heavier, drop by drop.

Turning, I noticed a powwow in the corner—lots of binders and legal pads and papers and general busyness. At the center of the executive circle was a senator—from New Jersey. I had a pretty good memory for faces and I recognized him from my polling office work. He looked very young for the age he probably had to be. He was a pillar of calm within his aides’ chaos.

Fae?

I knew the fae were everywhere, in all walks of life, in all locales exotic and mundane. But this city—I had subconsciously convinced myself that we fae were a very small minority. When I thought of magic, and the Olde Way, and the idealism of the morning fae, the last place I thought of, frankly, was Washington D.C. It was so serious, so corrupt, so
real
.

But fae governing human society? Making and enforcing and upholding the laws by which we lived? That was power, and if the fae had that kind of power, why not throw humanity under the bus? Humans were the cause of the Olde Way’s demise, after all.

Because they couldn’t perpetrate physical violence.

But in my heart, I knew there was more to it than that. The fae remained separate and secret, but not angry or hostile. That was not the way of the morning fae.

I turned away and tried not to think about the big picture for the moment. I needed to sort out my thoughts.

I sighed.

I loved Smiley and I knew he had his reasons for making his decisions, but I was angry all the same. I wouldn’t have wanted to hear about my father back then, but he still should have said something. Maybe something would have shifted in me, maybe my resentment would have faded a bit more or changed shape. Or maybe I would have been more bitter, and developed a bigger chip on my shoulder.

He’s proud of you
, Smiley had said.

Well, my father didn’t know me anymore, but if he did, what was there to be proud of? I spoke without thinking, easily flew off the handle, and hated to compromise. And now I was lying to my boyfriend, breaking laws, manipulating people I didn’t know with glamour and picking fights with the people I did know. I was running after a dentist, running from a journalist, and running out of reasons to do all of it. I was alternately ignoring and acting on my attraction to Svein, which, if I was being honest for a change, amounted to nearly cheating on the only man I’d ever loved.

Not much to be proud of, eh, Dad?

But really, why did I give a damn what he would have thought? He didn’t know me anymore.

I was the one who had to live with myself the rest of my life. What should have mattered most was what
I
thought.

I sipped my chai, keeping my damaged upper lip from touching the cardboard cup, but the drink stung me anyway.

What would make me proud of myself? What would I have to do to become the person I thought I should be?

The fae instinctively trusted me. They didn’t know me personally. They only knew who I was—the legendary half-breed, the warrior born to defend the Olde Way. They didn’t look at me and see Gemma Cross, mixed-up basket case. They looked at me and saw Gemma Fae Cross, the one who would fight for them, the descendant of the warriors I saw—became—in my dream journey, and all the warriors whose pasts I hadn’t seen.

The morning fae trusted me.

Earning that trust—that was what would make me proud of me. Fulfilling that destiny I was born for, despite my mother’s efforts to hide me from it.

If I stayed on this path I chose, I knew full well that I was going to screw things up. The D.C. Digger would find me out, or Avery would, or both. Or Dr. Riley Clayton would kill me with his rubber-gloved hands. But this was what I was now, and no matter how often Svein insisted on standing by my side, I was in this alone. I needed to stick it out so I could live with myself, or die with self-absolution.

I would make myself proud. I would do this on my own, the way my
worthy
ancestors did. And if I ever saw my unworthy father again, I wouldn’t be the one looking for approval. It would be him. And he wouldn’t get it from me.

I drained my chai and stood, half-expecting to draw the kind of attention a hero should, but I was only a would-be hero right now, and the few customers in the room didn’t glance up from their newspapers or conversations to acknowledge me.

Except for the senator from New Jersey.

He looked at me, and I looked at him.

I hoped I’d wiped all the blood off my face. But I had a feeling that he recognized me as the warrior, and that bruises and bleeding were part of what I was.

He smiled a faint smile. A smile that said,
we both have work to do
.

I wanted to smile back, to acknowledge my fellow creature. But I backed out the door and clung to it as I tore myself away from our eye lock. I tried not to run down the street.

>=<

I pushed the door open and walked into the waiting room of Dr. Clayton. I hadn’t called ahead because I didn’t want the receptionist to insist on an appointment at a different day and time. I needed to be there when I knew little Brian would be there, and so I walked in off the street as a tooth-chip emergency case.