Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
F or a second, my ears were ringing so badly that it affected my vision, everything wobbling and wavering. But I was a California boy, and I knew exactly how to handle an earthquake, only there wasn’t anything to stop, drop, and cover under.
Then I felt Cassander’s warm fingers around my own, and even if I couldn’t see through the dust and chaos, I followed when he pulled my hand.
We ran, climbing over rubble to reach outside. What was left of the emergency exit was a pile of drywall and rebar, 2x4s and 4x4s turned into splinters. I scrambled up, trying to get over the top, and my shoe slipped, but I managed to grab hold of a piece of rebar, pulling myself over the edge and sliding down the other side.
Cassander was next to me, and we ran until we reached the street, where Betty’s truck idled. She and Leonard gaped from the front seats, and all I saw of my sister was moving shadows in the cab of the truck. This time, it was my turn to grab Cassander’s hand, and I dragged him forward, leaping into the bed of the truck.
We landed hard, and as soon as we were in the back, Betty slammed the car forward. We fell back, lying flat as flashing police lights passed next to Betty’s truck. She took a hard turn, then another, then pulled to a stop in a parking lot.
Tentatively, I sat up, glancing through the rear window, only to find her, Leonard, and my sister all staring at me. Betty mouthed a profane question, and my sister turned to give her a sharp look.
I shook my head, looking at Cassander, only he was still lying down in the truck, curled on his side, toward me.
Looking up, I mouthed the word “Home.”
Slowly, Betty turned to face forward, her hands resting on her steering wheel. Leonard continued to stare while my sister gathered the kids close on either side of her.
“Hey, Cass.” I lay down next to him, curling so our faces nearly touched. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t respond, and I reached out, grabbing one of his hands between mine. He was cold to the touch. Slowly, he blinked his eyes open.
“Are the children safe?” His eyes opened wide, brows pulling together. He looked surprised at having asked the question. His pink tongue darted out, wetting his bottom lip.
“Yeah, they’re in the truck with Candace. What the hell did you do?” I traced my gaze over his face. The dust from the collapsed building had settled thick on his skin, giving him a gray tinge.
“Our deal…” Cassander’s lips pulled up in a slow smirk. “She didn’t fulfill her end of it. One can do great magic when a deal is unfulfilled.”
The car pulled out of the parking lot, driving much slower, and I turned so that my back was flat, my hand still holding Cassander’s. I watched the sky, the pale desert blue fading to gorgeous reds and oranges, the painted colors of sunset.
I recognized the trees as we pulled onto my mother’s street. No, my street. The street of my childhood, the street of my youth, the street that even now, twelve years since I had seen it last, was home.
When Betty parked the car, I looked up into the waving branches of a maple tree, a few birds hopping from limb to limb up above.
One of the car doors opened, and I felt Cassander’s fingers twitch in mine, but when I looked over, his eyes were closed, breath evening out. The tailgate opened, and I turned my head to stare at Candy, both of her kids framing her.
“What the absolute”—Candy wrapped her hands around her kids’ heads, pressing them against her body and shielding their free ear with her palms—“shit, Damian? That was supposed to be a Click and Clack . You set off a bomb! What if my kids had been inside?”
“We knew they weren’t.” Cassander spoke with his eyes closed. He tightened his hand again before pushing up to sit. He rubbed both hands over his face, sighing. “If your children had still been in the building, we wouldn’t have been able to bring it down.”
“What?” Candy looked between us, and I shrugged.
The front door opened, and I pushed myself up to see my mother framed behind the security gate. She unlocked it, pushing it open.
“Everyone inside.” When we all hesitated like kids caught up at midnight, television on, surrounded by the wrappers from every cookie in the house, my mother leveled a glare. “Now.”
Candy nudged the kids forward, and both of them ran, wrapping their grandmother in a tight hug. Leonard shifted awkwardly on the sidewalk, looking between the truck, the open door, and the empty street.
Betty got out, closing the door. She stared at me with wide eyes, but my mother said loudly, “Betty? Come here. It’s been too long.”
She opened her arms, and Betty walked forward, letting my mother wrap her up tightly. I saw my mother’s mouth moving, and Betty’s shoulders relaxed. She pulled her tighter, and my mother rocked her for a second before pushing back and brushing some of Betty’s hair out of her face.
“You work too hard, mija.”
She gestured at the rest of us, stepping back until we all filed inside. My mother shooed us all into the backyard, where Brad was setting out chairs around a folding table.
He looked haggard, face pale, but as soon as he saw his kids, he dropped to his knees, extending his arms. They fled into them, both children wrapping themselves around their father, talking on top of each other.
Riley’s voice was thick with snot and tears as she recounted the story. My mother looked at me and Cassander.
“Bathroom. Shower.” She pointed, and I didn’t even protest, heading to the bathroom, stripping off my jacket and turning on the water.
The door closed behind me, and I felt Cassander’s warm presence at my back.
“That was quite the first date. I brought the explosion, you brought the building down. Guess we aren’t the type for flowers.” I didn’t turn away from the water, my hand lingering under the spray. Water was precious in the desert.
I heard the shift of fabric and imagined Cassander revealing his skin, one golden inch at a time.
“Should we start with candles and dinner next time?” Cassander’s voice was wry, amused, just enough himself that I turned, needing to see he was back and not the pale imitation of himself that had been lying passed out in the back of the truck.
“Sure. Open a nice bottle of wine, maybe go someplace with live music?” I suggested. “Or we could go see a movie. Maybe one without any explosions.”
“Oh, I think we did pretty well with the explosions.” Cassander finished unbuttoning his shirt and pulled it off his shoulders, revealing the smooth, golden skin I had been fantasizing about. “Wouldn’t you say?”
He looked at me in challenge, and I began unbuttoning my own shirt, pulling it off and dropping it on the floor next to his. As he peeled off his pants, I felt in my pockets, putting the cell phone on the counter and then the coin. Dragon side up.
Frowning, I picked it up. “My luck has been better, hasn’t it?”
“Well, you haven’t tripped on any banana peels recently.” Cassander looked at the coin, then at my face, trying to read what I was saying.
“That piece of shrapnel could have killed me. If Milner had been slightly quicker, I would have been shot.” I thought back even further. “Hudson had a lot of things on hand that I needed on short notice. If my luck had been bad, he wouldn’t have had the guitar case or the firecrackers.”
“Are you suggesting your luck changed?” Cassander asked.
I picked up the coin, rubbing my finger across the dragon, feeling it heat under the pressure of my thumb.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
Cassander stared for a moment longer before pushing pants and underwear off his legs and stepping under the spray. I watched as water cascaded over him, dripping from his chin, trailing down his shoulders and chest. I swallowed, thirsty for him, desperately wanting to follow the trail of water with my tongue.
Turning his head, Cassander caught my eyes. “Are you going to join me?”
This was a man who had just destroyed a building with his words, with his power. If I were any sort of decent agent, I would arrest him immediately, call Twenty-one, and demand an exfiltration. But he had pulled that building down to save me, to save the kids. He could have left, abandoned us, walked away.
That would have been easy. But he had stayed; he had followed my plan until my plan meant both of us dying. Then, he’d saved us. I should arrest him.
Instead, I finished stripping, slipping into the small shower with him. As I pulled the shower curtain closed, he grabbed a clean washcloth, drizzling it in my mother’s bodywash. The honey-sweet scent curled between us, and Cassander watched me with heavy eyes as he began soaping up his neck and face, scrubbing down his chest and arms. He offered over the washcloth when he turned to face the spray, and I lingered on his shoulders and waist, I dragged the washcloth over his pert ass before crouching and moving it over his thighs and calves. When he turned, his half-hard cock was right at mouth level, and I looked up at him in challenge.
“Was there something you wanted, Cass?”
He held out his hand, and I put the washcloth in it, and he began washing his groin, the suds white against the dark, curly hair. I stood, taking a bottle of shampoo from the nook. As I poured it on my hands, Cassander turned, tilting his head backward, and I began scrubbing my fingers into his hair, rubbing my fingers against his scalp.
Cassander sighed, leaning back until he was pressed against me, his shoulders against my chest, his ass pressed against my cock. I wrapped an arm around his chest, pulling him tight, holding up as much of his weight as I could.
“Was it hard?” I asked.
“I’m hard right now if you’re offering,” Cassander teased.
“Bringing down the building. You did magic I’ve only ever seen done with artifacts before. Powerful ones. Was it hard? Did it take something out of you?” I pressed my palm flat against his chest, feeling the quick beat of his heart, feeling his breath make his chest rise and fall.
“No.” Cassander’s voice was stiff, and I felt him lean forward, try to pull out of my grip, but I tightened my arm, and he relaxed against me. “Yes. Once, I could have destroyed this entire town, but losing to my brother took something out of me. And now, I’m not sure I can ever get it back.”
“Cass.” I murmured the word against his wet hair, my mouth touching the shell of his ear. He started to turn in my arms.
Someone pounded on the bathroom door.
“Perverts! My kids are in this house!” Candace shouted. “Get out here. Mom’s serving ice cream, and yours is going to be soup by the time you’re done.”
Cassander and I both stiffened, and he pulled away, turning for one last rinse before stepping out. I washed quickly, scrubbing down with the efficiency learned from too long in the field. There were too many times when the only way to stay clean was a stale bucket of water and a cloth without soap.
Cassander tossed me a towel when I stepped out from the water, and I dried off quickly, the drag of the towel over my sensitive dick reminding me exactly how long it had been. Wrapping the towel around my waist, I opened the door, blinking in surprise to see Candace leaning against the wall, one eyebrow cocked.
“Hey, Candy. We were just… conserving water.” I could feel my cheeks heat, but I kept my eyes locked on hers.
She rolled her eyes. “Get dressed fast. I wasn’t joking about the ice cream. And… thanks.” She looked between the two of us, shoving both hands into the pockets of her skinny jeans. “Really. You saved my kids. I appreciate it.”
Before I had to think of how to answer that brutal honesty, she turned away and disappeared around the corner.
Back in the bedroom, I chose a new suit, grabbing a pair of underwear from the drawers. As Cassander dressed, I ducked back into the bathroom, grabbing our pile of dusty clothes and hesitating before I picked up the phone and the coin, putting both of them in my pockets.
Cassander lingered in the hallway, looking at some of the family photos on the walls. I came up beside him, glancing at a picture of me and Candy when we were younger, more innocent.
“Why is it you dislike your mother so much?” Cassander asked. “Whoever took this photo loved you dearly.”
“My dad took that picture,” I said. “The only thing my mom ever gave me and Candy was a way of looking at the world that sees everyone else as a mark, everyone else only by what they can get you. That’s the only thing she gave me in this life.”
I turned, walking to the back door quickly. Cassander caught up with me, not saying anything as I pulled open the door, letting him out first.
Outside, Riley was reenacting some portion of their adventure, and by the relaxed angle of her father’s shoulders, clearly he understood it to be an exaggeration. When he had been helping my mother set up, I had only read terror and anxiety on his face. But now, he was almost too relaxed, too calm. I didn’t understand it.
“And then I leapt on his back, and I stabbed him here.” She indicated a spot on Junior’s arm, then another on his neck. “And then again here.”
“Really?” Leonard’s eyes were wide, mouth dropped open. “And then what did he do?”
Brad exchanged an amused glance with Candy, who had one of my mother’s ceramic bowls held in one hand, spoon full of ice cream in the other. At the head of the table, my mother tilted her head, observing.
“And then he fell down, but the second guy grabbed my arm and wrenched the knife out of it. That was the only way they could’ve caught us. If there hadn’t been two of them, if Junior hadn’t laid down like a coward.” She shot an annoyed glance at her brother, who looked appropriately cowed.
Betty was the first one who saw us, and she grinned. “The heroes of the hour. Come on. There’s pizza.”
Cassander and I took the seats next to her, leaving me sitting next to my mother. She gave me one cool look. I looked away, focusing on taking pizza out of the boxes and serving me and Cassander.
Just as I brought the first slice to my lips, the crispy brown spots on top of the pizza singing to me like the sirens calling to Odysseus, my mother said, “Well, mijo. Now, because of you, Iris Milner and her gang want our family.”