Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
OTIS.
On the way home in the jeep, I keep side-eyeing Clem to check she’s okay.
She’s quiet, probably trying to digest everything she’s just heard, and no wonder.
It’s such a huge shift of perspective, of her whole world view.
I don’t want her to ruminate on it, so I keep talking about inconsequential stuff, mainly about what I plan to cook for dinner and the different vegetables I have in the fridge.
And she even laughs with me at some of the names. Piggily, for example.
“What’s piggily?” she asks, brightening.
“It’s a green vegetable, shaped in a spiral, like a pig’s tail.”
“What’s the human equivalent?”
“Brussels sprouts, I guess.”
She pulls a face. “Urgh. Never been a fan.”
“I can recommend piggily. It’s not bitter like brussels sprouts. And according to Tippy, it’s a super food.”
She smirks at that. “I wonder if she’s got Jax to eat it.”
“She might sneak it into a smoothie.”
“Jax used to hate brussels sprouts,” Clem muses. “No wonder he refuses to drink her smoothies.”
After this, I get the sense Clem has relaxed a smidge. We don’t talk about the stuff Silas told her; her brain needs time to process it all.
When we get home, I throw my hat on the chair inside the door and stride down the corridor.
“Why don’t you take a rest while I prep dinner?” I suggest.
But instead, Clem follows me, her heels tapping on the flagstone floor behind me.
“I don’t need a rest. I want to help.”
“You’ve had a huge day.”
“Stop treating me like I’m made of glass,” she retorts. “I may be small, but I’m tough. I won’t shatter.”
“I believe you.” I grin, then can’t help a little tease. “Unless it’s a creepy crawly with a zillion legs.”
“Ah, now that is different.” She wags a finger and laughs too. Our eyes meet and an electric current arcs between us, and I’m sure, like me, she’s remembering the outcome of that episode.
I stride over to the fridge and get out the piggily, and she laughs at how it really is shaped like green corkscrews, just like pig’s tails. “Yeah, I see how it got its name.” She picks it up and sniffs it. “Not as bad as brussels sprouts, you reckon?”
“I promise it tastes good.”
Next, I get out the potatoes.
“They look the same as ours,” Clem observes.
“Spuds are spuds, below ground and above.”
“I guess that’s reassuring.”
“I’ll prep the piggily, you peel the spuds,” I say.
“Deal.”
So here we are, prepping together at the bench, Clem standing on a stool to bring her to my level. Our elbows occasionally nudge and I get little shivers down my spine at the contact. It feels so easy and effortless, like there was never a time when Clem wasn’t here by my side.
She certainly brightens up this old house, makes it feel like home again. I could get used to having her here—way too used to it.
“Let’s make potato fries to go with our steaks.”
Clem agrees readily. Like spuds, fries are fries, everywhere.
After it’s all ready, the steaks perfectly cooked, the fries crisp and golden and the piggily lightly steamed, I plate up, then I get my home brew out of the fridge. “Pink ginger beer,” I explain, plonking glasses of fizzy candy pink liquid next to our plates.
“Wow, it’s so pretty. You made this too?”
“Mom used to make it for us as kids, and now I brew it to remember the good times. Bit of nostalgia, I guess.”
As we sit, she asks softly, “Why is your mom in care?”
Her candid question is unexpected. I blink.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she adds hastily, but I find that I really want to talk to Clem about my life.
As we eat, I explain. “Mom—Sally—used to be this amazing, funny, bright, competent orc. She was the best cook in the Labyrinth, the best gardener, she could grow things from even the smallest amount of soil. And she brought us all up with love and a firm hand.” I wave my fork toward the kitchen cupboards.
“There’s still a wooden spoon in the drawer that we called Mom’s Devil Spoon. ”
“Did she ever smack you with it?”
“No, but the threat was enough to keep us orclings in line. We were more scared of her than of Dad, funnily enough. He would make a lot of noise, but when Mom said in a low voice, ‘behave,’ you knew she meant it. She had so much inner strength.”
“What happened to that strength?”
I shrug, “When Dad died, she fell apart.” I stop for a moment.
“He got caught in a fire on level three. We never found his body. Not even his wedding ring or his sheriff’s badge.
We had no-one to bury. Which meant Mom could never grieve properly.
Maybe if we’d found his body, or something of his, she’d have been able to let go. ”
Clem’s eyes are full of empathy, so much so I can barely meet her gaze.
“It’s so hard when a family member disappears and you never find out what’s happened to them.
” she says softly. “You’re left with this tiny glimmer of hope that you can’t quite extinguish.
Even though you suspect you’re wrong, you can’t quite give up. You have no closure.”
“I guess we both understand how that feels. You with your mom, me with my dad.” I glance up and we lock gazes, the kindness in her eyes sending warmth flooding through me. It’s so intense I force myself to focus on shoveling food into my mouth.
After another moment, she asks, “So, your mom hasn’t improved at all?”
I shake my head. “Her depression deepened as time went on. I’d come home from work, and if you think the house is untidy now, you should have seen it then.
She’d just sit at the kitchen table staring into space, dishes unwashed, food not put away.
She wouldn’t shower or tidy her hair or even get dressed unless I prompted her.
Which, for a proud orc woman like Mom, was heartbreaking to see. ”
“Especially while dealing with your own grief.”
I feel a muscle in my jaw working; her caring words are opening up feelings I’ve kept deeply buried.
“What about your brothers and sisters? Do they visit her much?”
I shake my head. “Dwayne and Nathaniel, the twins, disappeared to work on another level pretty much right after Dad’s funeral.
They were only sixteen at the time, they couldn’t process it, so they ran away.
My sister Amy stayed for a while, but then it got too much for her, so she scarpered to level five.
There were lots of expectations to hold up the Cane way of life, to show strength in the face of adversity, and they crumbled under the pressure.
After that, it all landed on my shoulders. ”
“And you’ve stepped up.”
“Yeah.” I stare at my plate, my brows drawn into a tight frown. “What choice did I have?”
“You could have upped and left like your siblings.”
“I would never do that,” I growl. “As the eldest, it’s my responsibility to support Mom and take on the role of sheriff. Dad would have wanted that.”
We eat in silence for a few minutes.
Suddenly she bursts out, “So the fire your dad died in, how did it happen?”
“A pack on the east side of level three were making illegal drugs. When they realized they were being investigated, they set fire to the lab. Dad got caught inside. The lab exploded, and the heat of it incinerated him.”
I glance up to see her frowning. “I just don’t understand how it’s safe for Sammy to live with wolves, when wolves were responsible for your dad’s death.”
“Not all wolf packs are lawless. The Trojan pack are trustworthy. They’re ferocious, yes, but they are also fiercely protective toward younglings. They revere pregnancy in their mates above anything else. They will not let any harm come to Sammy.”
“What if it was wolves that mauled Jax. I asked him again today who attacked him and he said I didn’t need to know.”
I’m silent. Clem presses, “Was it—wolves?”
I can’t lie, not with her green gaze on me. “Yeah, it was.”
“I knew it, I just knew it,” she says, her voice rising. “Which means they’re not a safe species for Sammy to be staying with.”
“What happened to Jax is…” I pause, “complicated.”
She lets out a little growl of frustration. “Why won’t anyone tell me the whole story?”
Anger flares inside me at the way Jax has handled this. He’s brought Clem here, thrust her into a whole new life, and he’s still not told her about his trauma. I can understand why he’s reluctant, but it’s unfair to his sister to keep it from her.
“Clem,” I say gently, “it’s not my place to tell you the details, Jax needs to. I will ask him to talk to you,” I say quietly. “As a matter of urgency.”
She stares at me, eyes cloudy. “Thank you.” She sighs heavily.
Her hands shake as she picks up our plates and heads over to the sink.
She turns on the tap, full blast. Soon she’s washing up, clunking pots and pans onto the drying rack.
I watch her as I gather the rest of the dishes.
Her shoulders are up around her ears, her spine rigid.
When I amble over, she turns and grabs a dish from me.
Somehow it misses her hand and falls between us, smashing on the ground.
“Oh—” she whimpers and drops to her knees to gather the shards. Suddenly, she lets out an expletive. Already, drops of blood are dripping onto the flagstone floor. She puts her finger in her mouth.
I crouch down next to her. “Here, let me look.”
I take her hand gently away from her mouth and survey her finger as more blood oozes out.
“I’ll get a plaster.” I stride over to the cupboard and bring out my extensive first-aid kit, take her hand and plaster up her finger, aware of her nearness, the sweet scent of her.
She’s started to shake like a leaf, and my heart drops.
“I—I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she gasps, gripping at the front of her shirt. “I can’t breathe properly, and my chest is really tight. And oh—I feel terrible.”
She lets out a hiccupping little sob, and I grab a chair and gently guide her into it. She huddles there, a shuddering, weeping little human who I desperately want to comfort. “Clem, I think you may have Labyrinth overwhelm,” I say gently.