Chapter Eleven
When I awoke to Laken Augustus busting through my bedroom door, I knew I’d woken up to a nightmare.
“Wake up, sunshine.” He raised his voice. “Time to get moving and grooving.” He pulled the curtains by my bed open.
What the hell happened? I snapped up, resting on my elbow with tired eyes and a racing heart.
It took me a moment to realize it was just my ex-boyfriend determined to piss me off.
Laken remained feet away from my bed with a smug grin as he leaned against the wall.
Meanwhile, my body sat half-exposed in a silk nightgown.
And I didn’t move as he noticed my bare skin.
I raised my brows. “What. The. Hell. Are you doing in my room?”
He pushed off the wall, tossing my boots to the edge of my bed. “Top reason the animals don’t like you? You sleep in too late and they’re hungry now. I’ll see you downstairs.” He turned around, making his way out.
I lay there, mouth parted and brows furrowed. Glancing at my boots hanging together by a thread, I silently said, Me, too. “How did you even get in?”
“I have a key.” He shut my door, and I dropped back on my bed. Staring at the ceiling, I simultaneously cursed the Gods for this and prayed I’d survive it.
About ten minutes later, I emerged from my sleeping cell and made it downstairs, where he waited with coffee. One sight of the drink in his hand and my smothered groans disappeared.
Laken held out a second cup for me as his eyes traveled my body. “I like the pants look.”
Taking a quick look at my brown pants, I shrugged with the warm mug now in hand.
“My dresses are all getting singed; if I keep wearing them to feed, I won’t have any left.
” The old raggedy boots barely hung to my feet, and I’d shoved my curly hair into a low bun, calling it good enough. I didn’t have anyone to impress.
He wore his usual loose but weirdly attractive shirt and brown pants with… “Is that a dagger?” I asked, staring at the weapon on his waist.
Choking on his drink, he set his cup down and glanced at his halter. “Oh, um, yeah,” he muttered.
“Why do you need a dagger?”
“You know… for protection.”
Protection? Really? I gawked at him. “Protection from what? What the hell do you think is going to attack us out there? A butterfly?”
Laken deadpanned, “There could be a wolf.”
I huffed. A wolf. Is he being serious? “Well, I hope that dagger saves us. I’ll be sure to yell for help so you can rescue me.”
My teacher for the day rolled his eyes and shook his head as he finished his drink, while I’d just started mine. The light coffee hit my taste buds, and my problems faded away. If Laken had always been good at anything—it was making coffee.
Unfortunately, the mugs were set down. We had business to do.
I stood by his side as we stepped through the door, and immediately things felt different.
Silence, not pissed off crowing, filled the air and all creatures rested, awake but calm, in their enclosures.
I followed Laken to the feed storage, and unlike me, he went for the chicken pellets first.
“You feed the hellblazers before the rest?”
He scooped some into the bucket. “Yeah, if you don’t, they get pissed, and they’re more short-tempered than the rest.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, “caught on to that.” Obviously.
Both of us carried a bucket of food and Laken nodded toward the horizon of the pasture. “They wake up when the world wakes up.”
They wake up when the world wakes up. I could’ve gagged. “Yeah? Do you recite that on poetry night at Goldie’s?”
He threw a look at me, then smiled. “You never were a morning person.”
“Yes,” I grumbled and hobbled behind him as he walked faster than me. “Well, I’ve never been a people person, either.”
“I know.” I couldn’t see him, but the pep in his tone sounded too happy.
Right.
We approached the coop. The war zone. The bloody, battered battlefield.
He set his bucket down, so I did the same. “Alright.” He faced me. “The trick to each of these creatures is to act as one of them.” I frowned as he continued. “I’m here to teach you, so go in there like you’re one of them.”
My head cocked. “You’re joking, right?”
Laken stood unfaltering.
“I have to be a chicken?”
Laken nodded. Mother-clucker. No wonder I’d had so much hell these past several days. Standing there in regret and anticipated shame, it came as a surprise when Laken squatted a bit and walked like… a chicken. Bobbing his ass out and doing whatever the hell they do with their necks.
No.
Clucking.
Way.
I covered my mouth. There was no way. What the fuck? I swear to the clucking Gods. I closed my eyes, knowing this had to be the worst outcome possible. But the faster I learned, the faster Laken left. So I squatted my legs and bobbed my way in.
Carrying the buckets made it more difficult than I’d expected; they kept hitting my bent knees.
My clammy hands and sweating pits didn’t help.
At some point, I guessed I’d grown slightly scared of these assholes.
Keeping a keen eye on all corners, edges, and feathered bodies, my heart didn’t relax until I made it out.
Safe. Fine. Unscathed. It actually worked.
They didn’t even stir. Not a beak out of place.
Laken nodded with a surprised grin. “Not bad,
McCarthen, not bad.”
I did it? I did it. My cheeks burned as I tried not to smile back, but I couldn’t help the curl of my lips. After days of suffering, it felt as though a weight lifted from my shoulders.
“Let’s go to Finneas and Finnigan next.” He nodded back to the storage, and I followed. For once, I admitted he knew more about this than me.
“Have you thought any more about what you’re going to do about the debt?” Laken asked, carefully watching for my response as he scooped pellets into the bucket.
Frowning, I grunted. “I told Ruth I’d help with deliveries. If I can work there for a little while, maybe I can at least save up enough to get them to buy some time.”
He stood from the feed storage bins and straightened. When he looked down at me, I didn’t like the way his lips thinned and brows furrowed. “You know, I think it’d really be better to pay it as soon as possible.”
Narrowing my eyes, I could’ve screamed. “Oh, I’m sorry, was that you offering to pull thousands out of your ass? Or was it an unnecessarily obvious comment?”
Laken immediately turned and moved past me, continuing toward the goats.
“I don’t see you tossing out any grand ideas,” I added, following behind.
“You told me you didn’t want my help.” That would be true. He carried the bucket in his hand and swayed with each step. “But I’m sure my mother would love to organize a town fundraiser; you know she loves doing them.”
Faye Augustus did love hosting events. But it’d never work. A laugh ripped from my throat. “These people would never donate their money to me. I’m not even sure they want me here.” After all the comments about Laken Laken Laken, it’d left its bruise on my heart.
“Not you,” he corrected. “But maybe the sanctuary. They adore the creatures and use the healing cream, along with many outside of Honey Brooke. The tavern thrives from hellblazer eggs.” He had a good point.
I wasn’t aware of anyone else who made healing creams; that was why we charged so high for it.
The town did love the sanctuary, or respected it at the very least, for what it offered them.
Gods. Once upon a time, it even had donors. “I can talk to my mother about it.”
Biting my cheek, I didn’t respond. Walking and aimlessly staring at the grass, my stomach tore up from the thought of it alone.
“I don’t hear a no,” Laken teased over his shoulder.
“It’s not a no.” I exhaled, kicking the weeds. “But I still don’t see it working.”
I knew a grin tugged his lips without having to see it. “We’ll see.”
The goats came easy; baaing like one of them did the trick.
Speaking their language. Finneas even came to Laken and let both of us scratch her ears.
I’d hate to say I regretted refusing his help for as long as I did, but watching him care for the animals, I thought Laken might care for them more than I’d expected.
He stood with the sunrise behind him, broken and scattered rays catching the edges of his dark-blond locks. I stared for too long when the orange, foggy haze caught his deep-blue eyes, like the sun over the ocean. He seemed… at peace.
He didn’t deserve peace. He deserved poison ivy and sunburns and curses and bad luck.
“Phoebe’s next, but as long as the others aren’t disturbed, she’ll be easy. Nothing special, just keep the calm around her.”
And of course, he’d been right.
“We have to get to Benedict pretty fast, or else he’ll start trouble. I usually do the left animals then start with him on the right.” Laken grabbed a mixture of things I didn’t even want to look at.
He cut some fruit and vegetables into chunks, adding some bugs and some sort of…
fish? I wasn’t entirely sure, but by the smell of it, it definitely came out of water.
I started gagging. Repeatedly. “My Gods.” I covered my nose and mouth.
“He’s literally a walking trash can.” I backed up, continuing my retching noises.
Laken stood with the bucket, took one look at me, and by the amused smirk on his lips I knew exactly what he thought. No no no—
“Laken Augustus, I swear to the Gods I will be the cause of your death.”
He held the bucket out closer to me; if he touched me with it, I’d puke. He hummed, “I’ve always liked your murderous mind.”
And he lunged.
The dawn’s first light barely peeked above the horizon, spilling its rays onto the world through a hazy fog as I sprinted with Laken close behind me.
My shrieks followed me, accompanied by short-winded pants.
I wasn’t meant to run. The dew from the grass soaked my pants and my feet were slipping in the raggedy soles of my boots, yet I continued.
Laken’s arm wrapped around my waist, and he yanked me back against him.