Wildcat Fireflies (29 page)

On the page Sammy had also scrawled
Miss you
.

On the back was a phone number with a 305 area code. “Where is this?” I asked.

“I don’t know. We can look it up,” Tens answered.

I looked at Tony. “Did Josiah say anything to you?”

“He said to tell you there’s power in unity, that a shared belief can move mountains. And”—he cleared his throat and looked at Tens dead-on—“and weapons of all kinds should be at the ready.”

Okay, that was a bad fortune cookie. “Anything else?” I asked.
Like a map? Battle plan? The phone numbers of Sangre on speed dial?

“Yes. He said to deliver this paper and to assist you. Might I know, is the paper important?”

“It’s from my family. I think Josiah is telling me to call them.” Were they in trouble? Were they injured or hurt or captured by the Nocti again? No, Josiah would have told me it was an emergency. Or something. He wouldn’t just deliver a drawing.

“Don’t think the worst,” Tens cautioned me.

U
nity. Weapons. Nocti manipulating plants? I focused all my attention on a daffodil and tried to make it raise up its cup. Nothing.
Lunatic much?

An hour after Tony left us to smear the rest of the ointment on our sores, I sat at the kitchen table with Auntie’s journal, Sammy’s picture, and a phone splayed out in front of me.

The blisters shrank and no longer itched like fire ants at a dance club. I felt human again, but that left my newly healed physical self trying to convince my emotional self to work up the nerve to call the phone number.

“Are you going to call them?” Tens watched me surreptitiously from the kitchen. I knew how I must look. My emotions felt at war with each other, so aggravated I was surprised I didn’t fall into two halves right there.
To call? Or not to call?

“I don’t know.”

Tens stayed silent.

“What would you do?”

“I’m not telling you what to do.”

“I know, but if it were you.”

“It’s not and there isn’t a right answer.”

“I just feel so helpless. All this stuff is happening to me, to us, and we aren’t prepared for it. Like a rowboat in a hurricane, you know?”

“I hear you.”

“What do the big guys have against explicit detailed instructions? Why all the subtle interpretive crap?” I griped.

“Some might say that’s because they’re not guys.” Tens put the dish towel down and marched toward me.

“Touché.” Neither one of us knew if the Creators had gender roles, and frankly, life hadn’t stood still long enough for me to really delve into the possibility of that. Besides, it made my brain hurt.

“Come on.” Tens picked up the truck keys and a duffel and tossed my hoodie at me.

“Where are we going?”

“Out. Come on.”

Custos was riding shotgun in the truck when I got out
there. I felt odd about banishing her to the truck bed knowing her straight line to the top. Pissing off Tens’s Protectoress creature probably wouldn’t win me any points, and I needed all the points I could scrounge.

I slammed the door, but couldn’t see Tens around Custos’s shaggy frame. “Switch places with me.” I climbed around her, careful to straddle the gearshift.

“Do I want to know?” Tens asked, waiting to start the vehicle until I was seated again.

Custos licked my face thoroughly. The seating arrangement was okay by her.

“Naw, we’re fine.” I patted his thigh, then leaned against him, watching his hands steady on the steering wheel. I wanted to pretend for a moment that we were two normal teenagers worried about getting into college and not breaking curfew. “Where are we headed?”

“Hmm …” He didn’t answer me. But once he eased onto I-65 he slung his arm over my shoulder and kissed my temple.

I flipped on the radio, picking up a rock and country station that played a lot of songs I’d never heard. I tucked myself more firmly against his side and closed my eyes, inhaling the heat and scent I knew as his alone, my home. Maybe it was pheromones, maybe it was hormones, or maybe it was the soap, but it was Tens no doubt.

Suburban subdivisions and cookie-cutter developments thinned out. Empty fields surrounded us; the highway grew flat and open save for a few trucks and roadkill. Silos dotted the horizon, and the occasional farmhouse or
red barn claimed that those living out here worked the land. Herds of cattle, some horses, pig farms, and dairies completed the animal census.

Eventually, Tens exited the highway. He pulled over on a dirt road that seemed to lead to the edge of the world.

I sat up and glanced around with more interest. “Why are we stopping?”
In the middle of freakin’ nowhere?

He pulled the duffel from behind his seat. Custos leapt out after him. When she jumped over me she left me with a mouthful of wolf hair and an imprint of her paw on my thigh.

“I have a feeling,” he answered. “I’ve been keeping it to myself, but Josiah—” He broke off and let his words hang in the air.

“Okay.” I paused, waiting to see if he’d share. No go. “And?”

“And no more feeling helpless.” He shut the door, walking around to the back of the truck.

I popped open the passenger door and shimmied out. There was a chilly breeze in the air biting my cheeks. I’d be windburned over my healing blisters.
Goody
. Were those snow clouds?

Tens motioned toward a stand of trees. With foliage, I might have been able to tell what type they were, but for the moment they were just tall piles of kindling and spiderwebs of branches. “I promised you a shooting lesson. Now’s as good a time as any. It’ll get your mind off Sammy to focus on this instead. You can’t do both when you’re learning.”

Makes sense
. “Are you licensed to carry concealed weapons?” I teased.

“Nope. Arrest me now.” He didn’t crack a smile.

“Nah, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.” I tried to lighten the mood.

“Catfish?”

“Yummy.” My stomach pitched with nerves. I talked a good game about wanting to shoot and protect my man and myself. Not rely on the differently equipped—men—to provide my safety. But guns made me nervy and I wondered if that would ever change.

“Come on.” Tens took my hand and we walked over the muddy ruts in the field toward a lone stand of weeping willows.

“Stop here.” He planted me about ten yards from the biggest tree. Setting down the bag, he unzipped it while I checked out the surrounds. Custos sat next to the truck, behind the front fender. As if she didn’t trust me to not shoot her, instead of the tree.

“Here?” Besides Custos and the trees, the only other potential targets were cows so far away they resembled flies.

“This’ll do.” He took the safety lock off a box and lifted out a gun. He checked and made sure it was unloaded, then he handed it to me butt-first.

“You think this is what Josiah meant?”

“Maybe.”

I almost dropped the gun, but grabbed it with both hands. “This is way heavier than I expected.” My mouth
went dry. I’d heard that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, but stupid and scared could be a combination deadly enough to push someone into the “accidental killer” category. I remembered holding the gun I’d shot Perimo with, but not what it felt like or how I’d managed to pull the trigger. It all blurred.

“What did you expect?” He waited patiently while I grew accustomed to the sensation.

I shrugged. “Light, like a toy gun.” Plastic?

He shook his head. “Welcome to the real gun.”

I was afraid to move.

“It’s not loaded,” he said.

I nodded. That should have helped. Knowing there were no bullets should have taken all the pressure off. It didn’t. “I don’t know that I want to do this.”

He squatted, watching the cows in the distance. “I thought you wanted to be all GI Jane. At least, that’s what you said at Auntie’s.”

Maybe I was wrong. “Yeah, well, it’s a huge responsibility to actually point it.” After Perimo I knew I would if I had to.

He moved behind me. “That’s why you don’t point it unless you’re completely confident that you can pull the trigger. It’s not for threatening. If you can’t kill, don’t pick it up.”

I raised the gun to eye level, then lowered it. My arm shook badly.

“It doesn’t make you a coward, Supergirl, if you don’t want to do this. You faced Perimo just fine while I was out of it.”

That night in the caves flooded back. I’d held a gun then. I’d used it. Failed. I hadn’t protected us very well; it took an avenging angel to get it right.

“I’ll always have your back,” Tens whispered, his words carried off in the breeze.

“Who has
your
back, then?” I asked.

“You do.”

“Not if you’re the only one who can protect us.”

“It’s my job.” He shrugged.

“My job isn’t to be a fragile flower, you know.”

“I know that. I’m trying to help,” he growled. “What do you want me to say?”

He had a point. I inhaled. “I need to do this. For me.”

“Okay, then let’s start with how to hold the gun.” Tens wrapped his arms around me, positioning my fingers, my palm.

I knew that if he stood like that and lent me his strength of spirit, I could face any opponent. I thought of Sammy out there with only our parents to protect him. Our parents, who had tried to hide my destiny from me because they were so afraid. Fear makes everyone vulnerable. I was tired of being afraid. “I can kill.”
If I have to
.

“All right. Now, pull the trigger.”

I did and heard the click.

“Now, here’s what you need to know.” Tens launched into how to load the gun, the hollow-point ammunition.

We spent the next hour with him teaching me to load and unload, how to stand, how to hold the gun, until my arms were tired. So tired they wanted to sink to my sides and stay there. So exhausted they started to shake
involuntarily, not from fear but from muscle fatigue. I carefully turned the gun back over to Tens before I shot my foot.

“How did you learn this?” I asked.

“Grandpa taught me from the time I arrived. We’d hunt for our food, but in retrospect I also think he trained me like he’d trained soldiers.”

“Did he want you to be in the army too?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think he just wanted me prepared for anything.”

“Did he know about the Protector thing?”

“Maybe. He never said anything about it.”

“Was he one?” I asked.

“Not that I know of. I don’t think so. My grandmother died of a heart attack, so she wasn’t a Fenestra.” Which meant the odds were Tyee wasn’t a Protector. We Fenestras live to one hundred and six years if Nocti don’t interfere. I didn’t know how long Protectors were supposed to live. Something else to research.

“Well, we know he served with Charles and Auntie during World War II.”

“Right.”

“And he was in Vietnam with Tony.”

“So …”

Tens’s expression clouded. He didn’t want to jaunt down memory lane with me. “Want to shoot more? Try another size?”

“My arms are really tired. Another time?”

“Are you sure?” He seemed disappointed.

“Yeah, I’m scared I’ll shoot the wrong thing.”

The white sun turned the sky a dazzling menagerie of pinks and lavenders with the sunset. “Let’s head back.”

We grabbed burgers and Tater Tots at a drive-through. Custos stole a few bites of fried potatoes from my lap along with the entire pile of ketchup I’d squeezed out.

We pulled into the cottage’s driveway and I felt an electric hum building in my gut. “I’m going to go clean some,” I said, pointing at Helios. Maybe if I did a little mindless moving around I’d figure out why I was so anxious. Besides, Joi was kind enough to let us flex our schedules. I wanted to make sure I worked enough for her that she didn’t regret her invitation.

Tens stretched his arms and rolled his head, loosening up from driving. “I’ll tackle the weeding and edging by the dining room windows. I don’t want to do that while people are in there eating.”

“Oh, you know the old ladies would love seeing you sweaty with your shirt off,” I teased him, and was rewarded with a belly laugh.

“Jealous?” he said, leaning down and kissing me.

I broke down boxes and vacuumed the carpets. Picked over the new sale items—many of them reminded me of Auntie or Sammy.

We ate a late dinner of salads and cheese scones. I tried to ignore my growing antsiness, but by nine p.m. my uncertainty turned to determination. Rumi’s open house had started at seven.

“We have to go to Rumi’s,” I said, pulling on fresh
jeans and a snowflake sweater set Joi had marked down to not quite free on the sale table. It was so kitschy that I felt like it came from Auntie’s eclectic closet. I loved it.

Tens put down his wood and whittling knives. “You feel like it? What will people think when they see us so improved?”

The ointment Tony brought us had sucked the sick out of us so that each blister was now only a red patch of freshly healed skin. We weren’t pretty, but no one would think we were smallpox carriers either. “I need to go. I can’t explain it. Rumi already knows we’re different. Maybe we just tell Joi the truth if she’s there?”

“Can we go in the back door?” Tens didn’t argue, but his face said he wanted to.

“Of his house?”

“Yeah.” Tens’s expression was troubled. The kind of face he wore when he felt me or events in my life.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. A feeling.”

I shrugged. I felt like we had to go; he felt like we needed to be very careful. Compromise made a healthy relationship, right? “Okay. We go in the back door.”

Tens and I walked toward Rumi’s. He wore the long black leather trench that once belonged to Auntie’s Charles. I was in a quilted velvet coat I’d picked up on my Carmel shopping.