Chapter 26 #2
Pax found his brother at the trucks a little before midnight.
Ari’s bag was already loaded. He was leaning against the tailgate with a plate of their mother’s tamales, wrapped for the road, sitting beside him.
He was watching the party through the trees with an expression Pax knew well.
He was taking a picture with his mind. Filing it away for the long drive.
“You were going to leave without making a scene,” Pax said.
“I said my goodbyes an hour ago. Mom cried on schedule. Dad shook my hand and told me to check the oil in Texas.” Ari shrugged.
Pax came and leaned on the tailgate beside him. Through the trees, the fire flickered, and the sound of the celebration carried on the night air. Laughter. Music somebody had started an hour ago. The warm noise of a Clan that had come through danger to the other side of it.
“Cole called this afternoon,” Ari said. “The Wraiths have eyes on Charity Gomez. She’s still at her beach house and likely doesn’t know her partner is gone.
If she moves, we’ll hear about it before she finishes packing.
” He said it easily, one professional closing a file for another.
“It’s handled, Pax. Leave it in Wyoming. ”
“Consider it left.”
They stood in silence. Out in the dark, a coyote called and another answered, ordinary desert business carrying on.
“Eleven days,” Pax said.
Ari looked over at him.
“When I was hurt, and you were up north finishing the job. Eleven days was the longest we’d ever been apart in our lives. I counted.” Pax looked at the fire through the trees. “This is going to be longer than eleven days.”
“Yeah,” Ari said quietly. “It is.”
“I keep waiting for it to feel wrong. It doesn’t. That’s the strange part.” Pax turned to look at his twin. “It feels like it’s time.”
“It is time.” Ari straightened off the tailgate.
“You built something here, brother. I watched you do it. Now I want to go see what I can build.” He paused, and the grin came, the one that had been getting them both into and out of trouble since they were cubs.
“Besides, one of us has to learn to fly. You’re too heavy. You’d never get off the ground.”
“We weigh exactly the same.”
“Keep telling yourself that, married man. It’s all tamales from here.”
Pax laughed, and then the laughing was done, and they came together the way they had at the airport in Phoenix, the way they always had. Pax’s hand on the back of his brother’s neck. Ari’s forehead against his. The energy between them settled and held, and neither of them moved.
“Find her,” Pax said with calm conviction. “Whoever she is. Wherever she is. Don’t let anything talk you out of it.”
“That’s the plan.” Ari stepped back, and his eyes were suspiciously bright, and neither of them mentioned it. “Take care of our Clan. Take care of your Bree.”
“With everything I’ve got.”
“I know.” Ari swung up into the cab and started the engine.
He rolled down the window and looked out at his twin, and for a second he was fourteen again, grinning from the dresser photograph in their childhood bedroom.
“Tell Mr. Leeland I want in on the masonry workshop when I come back. I’ve decided I’m going to be terrible at it. ”
“You will be.”
“Looking forward to it.” Ari put the truck in gear. “Love you, brother.”
“Love you too. Now get out of here before Mom comes to cry again.”
The truck rolled down the long dirt drive, taillights bobbing, and turned east onto the dark ribbon of the road.
Pax stood and watched until the lights were gone and the engine sound had faded into the desert stillness, and the strange, unfamiliar feeling of being one half of a pair with the other half in motion settled over him.
It didn’t feel like loss. It felt like a door standing open.
“Fly high, brother,” he thought. “We’ll be here, waiting, when you find your destiny.”
He walked back through the trees toward the light.
Bree met him at the edge of the clearing. She’d been watching for him, he could tell, and she didn’t ask how it had gone. She just stepped in close, put her arms around him, and he held on to his mate while the party glowed and murmured behind her.
“He’s off,” Pax said into her hair.
“He’ll be back.”
“He will.” Pax drew back enough to look at her.
The firelight caught her face, and her eyes were tired and shining and entirely happy, and he thought that he would remember her exactly like this for the rest of his very long life.
“Dance with me before this thing winds down. My mother will never forgive us if we don’t give her something to talk about at sewing club. ”
“We can’t have that.” She took his hand.
They danced in the firelight while the Clan celebrated around them, and later, much later, when the fire had burned down and the last tables were being carried in, they walked out to the truck under a sky so thick with stars it looked close enough to touch.
She leaned against his side, and his arm was around her, and deep in his chest, where only she could hear it, his jaguar purred.
“I heard that,” she murmured.
“Jaguars don’t purr,” he said, with great dignity, and his mate laughed all the way to the truck.
*
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