East Ten
Connecting Gifts
She is life. . . for me. . . That is what I felt when, as if going back in time, I was suddenly back in the lagoon with Saleeni.
Her hand over Styx’s, both resting on my chest. “B-Boy change… B-Blood and h-heart…” Then I heard Gage’s voice.
“Brother, you don’t need air to breathe.
” Air rushed into my lungs, but I was still in the pool, Saleeni asking me, “Is she okay?”
Confused by where I was because I now felt grass—earth—under my back instead of water, I reached out, scared I had failed. That I somehow got lost between realms of earth and the underworld and didn’t save Sarah.
Then, hand to hand, forearm to forearm, thumbs locked, Styx had me. “I’m here. I’m with you.”
Deep inhale…
That connection, the one I counted on, rose to a whole new level. Still with arms locked together, now bent and putting us chest to chest, we were both standing but not touching the ground. We were moving but not by our feet. It was more like a mystical, invisible conveyor belt.
Plus, we could see everyone around us, but they didn’t seem able to see us. Not even Gage as he searched the grass for me.
As Styx and I floated farther away, toward the shadowed trees, Styx sounded spooked. “Uh, Silly Rabbit, what the fuck is happening?”
I didn’t dare let him go. Something warned me not to.
It was like we were in a moving fog… “Gramps, see the haze we’re in?”
Still studying everything around us, he was panting in fear. “Yeah.”
Almost to the trees, I swallowed. “This is what I see when Saleeni transforms. Fin to legs. Legs to tail.”
Just then, we dropped to the ground, grunting when landing on our sides. I rolled in excruciating pain. “Styx, my back.”
Not even having the chance to adjust from the freaky ride we were just on, he crawled to me in a rush, quickly lifting my sweatshirt to see my back. He whispered in the woods, “Gotta be from getting hit—Oh shit.”
Er? Looking over my shoulder from the ground, I asked, “That bad?”
He kept blinking. “It’s… You… Kid, your skin is like black leather. Saleeni did this when she was mad at me. Remember?”
How could I forget? My little goddess rose from the water when Styx interrupted her ‘love’ dance.
Styx looked back to where we had just been. “You said the fog… when she transforms…” He now stared at me. “I think that is what you’re doing—” He examined my back again. “Or were doing. Skin is lightening up now.”
Apprehension rocketed through me. “Am I okay?”
He shrugged. “Besides the projectile in your back?”
Asshole! I whispered-shouted, “No, me becoming a creature!”
Styx rolled his eyes. “Aaaand here come the dramatics.” He stood and brushed off his knees as if I wasn’t in major trouble. “Let’s get back to the SUV. I gotta knife I need to dig into your back.”
As he walked away, I got to my feet, livid! “Can you please take this seriously, you old coot!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“I could be growing a tail soon!” I ripped off my ski mask, stomping behind him.
“Could be cool. Maybe you and Saleeni can take sunset swims or something.”
Sunset swims? “Or swim you to the bottom of an ocean,” I grumbled.
We made it back to the SUV after he said, “Ya don’t say?” After retrieving a knife from the glove compartment, he said, “Let’s do this outside in case you bleed.”
“In case?”
Again, the fucker shrugged. “How am I supposed to know whether or not shifters bleed?”
I turned my back to him and ripped off the sweatshirt and my holster. “Get on with it.”
Styx eyed my gun and grumbled, “That could’ve come in handy if someone remembered to use it instead of becoming a flying hero.”
The balls on this guy? “I’m sorry. I’m still new to the ‘pull a gun if a friend is going to die’ club.”
He had the nerve to chuckle. “Do you even hear yourself, making no sense?”
I was fuming now. “I’ve been a little distracted with a mermaid girlfriend.”
“All done!” He pressed napkins to my back. “You can stop bitching now, Silly Rabbit.”
Done? But I didn’t even feel… I shook my head. “When will I learn your tricks?”
“Hopefully never, because they sure come in handy.” He handed me my cut, a bit too pleased with himself.
“I don’t want to get blood on it.”
His grin shifted to a cynical chortle. “Then you better become an accountant.” Nonchalantly, he glanced behind him. “I guess I’ll handle the revenge part. Stabbing a child rapist is some righteous shit, if you ask me.”
He had a point. “Blade.”
Styx growled, “There he is,” laying the knife into my eager palm.
Thankful for the blacked-out windows, I crawled to the back seat, waiting for the dead man walking to be brought to me. I couldn’t kill him. That was Sebastian’s right, but I could at least have a little fun first.
I had ducked down while the pastor was rolled into the back of the SUV; nonetheless, when the door shut, like a stalker, I peeked over the backseat. I waited for the hostage to notice me.
Once he did, I felt my sinister smile form. I felt my fangs slide out in a silent warning of what was to come.
As he pissed himself on top of the tarp he was on, I quietly told him, “Imagine what it’s like to be completely out of control of what is done to you.
What it’s like to be overpowered, not strong enough to stop someone—or something—from forcing you to live through it all.
The pain. The confusion and betrayal. The violation of your body.
Over and over and over. That is when you’ll have a clue of all the suffering you’ve caused.
And a teeny taste of all I’m going to put you through. ” I licked my fangs. “Before you die.”
In the driver’s seat, Styx chuckled. “On second thought, why don’t you get up here to the front seat?”
Staring into the pastor’s terrified eyes, I lifted my lips so he could witness me retracting my fangs. Then I sang out, “See ya soon, dead fucker.”
I glanced out the back window to see my friends, not sure when I would see them again, and was gifted with words from Seb. He chose to protect over murder. The young man I saw in the hospital, at Blue’s side, had returned.
My eyes closed, and I inhaled. So proud of you, my dear friend.
Reopening my eyes, I saw a blue glow against the pastor’s horrified face. “Don’t worry. The same doesn’t go for me.”
Driving to Noma’s, I couldn’t believe my ears when being informed of what the men heard and saw. Blue has a sister. And the man in the very back had been abusing her all her life?
“Easy, son.” Styx sounded concerned. He searched the middle console between us, then handed me my brass knuckles.
In a rush, I slipped them on, opening and closing my hands while taking deep breaths.
Styx nodded. “Well done. Thank you.”
In the middle row of seats, Avenger said, “I’ve never heard you sound scared before, Styx, not like that.”
Styx’s voice was steady but cautious. “Still much to learn.”
Peacemaker, sitting behind me, chuckled. “Hate to be the asshole in the back.”
Letti and Cocky, in the last row of seating, laughed. “He may have shit himself back here. It stinks.”
We all laughed with not one ounce of sympathy.
Having recently started learning about awareness and security, driving down Noma’s road, I now understood why her home was on a dirt road.
Dirt roads aren’t as inviting to strangers.
When I was younger, I found this lonely and inconvenient because I wanted to hang with friends.
Living on an isolated road only compounded that loneliness.
Styx gestured to the woods on both sides of the road. “You own all of this.”
Now, as a ‘someday president’, I smirked because we had no neighbors. No witnesses to what would be done to the pastor. “I don’t want his blood in her house.”
As if hungry to punish or angry at the thought of tainting Noma’s little pink palace, Styx gripped the steering wheel. “Shed has been prepared for him.”
I delivered one pleased nod.
Styx backed the vehicle to the side of the house. I was anxious to get to the violence but also to go inside and relive my memories of Noma. Getting out of the SUV, I was near the tree. I went to it, touching the Found carving.
“We take the money under your feet this time.”
I sharply inhaled because this money was being saved for a special day. “And her?”
Disturbing Noma’s gravesite would seem sacrilegious to some, I suppose, but leaving her behind was never going to happen. The alphas in Styx and I were going to have that woman near and under our care.
“That’s the plan.”
Noticing the pastor being dragged from the vehicle and toward the shed, I praised, “Aren’t you handin’ out gifts like candy today?”
Ruffling my hair, he repeated past words of mine. “Stop trying to make me feel better.”
Avenger waltzed up. “Don’t get too stab happy without me. Sugar just called about her contact. I thought it best we talk in person.” He hooked his chin toward a motorcycle.
A brow lifted high, I asked, “Who is Sugar?”
Styx snarled. “This asshole breaking rules.” He told Avenger, “Go on. Head on a swivel.”
As Avenger drove off in a hurry for some ‘sugar’, Letti approached us. “Boss Man, he’s secure. Before we get started on soon-to-be-dickless, I’d love some grub. Starving.”
Cocky joined us. “Dude, preach.”
Styx balked. “Sugar and dinner? What kind of damn operation we runnin’?”
Inside, Letti, Cocky, and Peacemaker were bragging about Styx’s cooking skills. I didn’t believe them. “But I’ve been fed pizza and frozen dinners.”
Letti agreed, “Yeah, he can get lazy, but here? It’s been on again!”
After pulling a big bowl from the refrigerator that they must have plugged back in, he set it on the table. “Voilà! The best meatballs and spaghetti you will ever have.”
That made me laugh as I sat down at the kitchen table. “Says someone who’s clearly never had Noma’s.”
Cocky sat down after handing out bowls to fill. His chair squeaked under the pressure of a big man. “Who the hell do you think taught her?”
My sight snapped to Styx at the kitchen sink, where she stood so many times, who wouldn’t look at me.
No way.
He shrugged. “She liked Italian.”