18. Cassie
CASSIE
The morning sun slanted into the living room, casting soft gold light onto the wood floors. I’d gotten up early, leaving all three Hawks in Jagger’s bed to continue the methodical scan of my parents’ papers.
It had become routine in the two days since I’d played my mom’s recording: getting a cup of coffee, sitting on the living room floor with the papers spread out in front of me in familiar piles: those that didn’t seem to hold a message and those might with further study.
The Hawks would join me eventually, picking up one of the stacks that I’d already worked through, combing through the papers to see if there was anything I’d missed, something that was definitely possible after the hours — years really — I’d spent scanning the pages.
It was hard not to be disheartened. I was through all but three of the boxes, and with each day that passed I got more worried that there was no clue at all, that my mom’s strange turn of phrase in the recording had been nothing more than a verbal tic.
I’d barely remembered my mom’s voice before I’d turned on the recording for the first time. I wasn’t about to pretend I knew how she talked.
I jumped when a voice sounded from the hall.
“Get your shoes.”
I looked up to find Hawk in the doorway to the living room, long black hair falling over his forehead.
His black T-shirt made his eyes look more gold than brown, his tattoos etched like a secret message onto his skin.
He was starting to gain back some of the weight he’d lost in the hospital, and his muscled thighs once again filled out his ripped jeans.
I was getting used to the lust that had become a constant hum in my body since we’d brought Hawk home from the hospital.
I’d wanted the Hawks before the explosion at the paper mill — who wouldn’t?
— but almost losing them made my hunger feel more desperate, and sleeping with them every night definitely wasn’t helping.
I wasn’t the only one in a state of sexual overdrive: it was getting harder to hold them off when they reached for me. I told them abstinence was for their own good — they were all in various states of healing, especially Hawk — but I didn’t know how long the explanation would satisfy them.
Or me.
“Why do I need my shoes?” I asked, trying to focus on something other than how good Hawk looked, how much I wanted to unzip his jeans, take his dick in my hand.
“Field trip.”
I looked at the papers scattered on the floor around me. “I’m in the middle of… this.”
I didn’t know what to call this exactly. My Nancy Drew era? A PhD in agoraphobia?
“You’ve been at it for days,” he said. “You haven’t even been outside since we got home from the hospital. “Now get your fucking shoes, mouse.”
There was an undercurrent in his good-natured tone that made it clear he wasn’t really asking.
It got me hot all over again. Not that it took much to do that these days.
I got to my feet. “Will there be food on this field trip? I haven’t eaten breakfast.”
He bent to pick up a cooler from the floor in the hall. “There will.”
“Well why didn’t you say so?”
I moved past him into the hall but he stopped me by grabbing my hand.
“I don’t like waking up to an empty bed,” he said, looking down at me.
“Jagger and Vigo aren’t up there?” I couldn’t hold back the smile teasing my lips.
“Jagger and Vigo don’t have skin like satin. They don’t smell like vanilla. They don’t have a sweet little pussy I’m fucking dying to eat.”
I tried to ignore the heat that rushed between my thighs. “Did you say something about a field trip?”
He must have seen right through me because a long, low chuckle sounded from deep in his throat.
“Can’t put me off forever, mouse.” He straightened and took my hand. “Let’s go. I have something I want to show you.”
I’d never driven with Hawk alone in his black Hellcat. The Hawks almost always traveled in a pack, and the only car that accommodated all of us was the G-Wagon.
Now it was just Hawk and me speeding along the roads outside Blackwell Falls, dappled morning sunlight making its way through the riot of fall color overhead.
Jagger and Vigo had told me stories about Hawk’s music in the Hellcat: the earsplitting heavy metal you could hear from a mile away.
But Hawk didn’t put music on as we drove. There was just the sexy rumble of the Hellcat’s engine and the sound of the wind, cool and crisp now that it was October, coming in through the open windows.
Hawk held my hand over the car’s console, like he didn’t want to go a minute without touching me, and I had to say, the feeling was mutual.
After about ten minutes we swapped the shaded roads that wound through the Blackwell Preserve for a stretch of open asphalt that led away from town. The mountains loomed in the distance, a technicolor border of red, yellow, and orange that rimmed sprawling fields painted gold by the morning sun.
It was always a surprise to enter the farmland that surrounded Blackwell Falls. My hometown felt like a world unto itself, sheltered by the mountains of the preserve.
It was easy to forget there was something outside of it: fields and farms that led, eventually, all the way to the ocean.
I took a deep breath as we left Blackwell Falls behind and felt the tension in my shoulders ease. Hawk had been right: I’d needed to get out, away from the house and away from my parents’ papers and the message it felt like they were trying to send me from beyond the grave.
We passed cows grazing in pastures and horses running through fields, farmhouses and barns dotting the bucolic landscape. Remnants of early morning fog were just beginning to lift from the long wild grass, painting a picture that looked like it belonged on a postcard.
We’d been driving for about a half hour when Hawk eased off the gas and turned onto a dirt road.
I looked around and didn’t see anything but an old red barn in the distance. “Where are we?”
“You’ll see.”
He slowed down as we approached the barn, then pulled to a stop outside the building.
He turned off the car and got out, reaching for the cooler and a blanket he’d thrown onto the back bench.
It wasn’t until I joined him at the front of the car that I realized something: this wasn’t just a field trip. Hawk was bringing me to his secret place, the place he disappeared to when he left the house alone.
He set everything down outside the barn and opened a big sliding door, then reached for my hand.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“It’s my reality check.”
We stepped into the building’s shadowed interior and I caught the scent of old wood and hay. Dust motes danced in the air, illuminated by the sunlight shining from windows up near the hay loft.
A rusted tractor sat to one side of the cavernous space, along with a workbench and shelves cluttered with old tools.
And there was something else too: the scent of leather and something musky and earthy I recognized as Hawk’s smell.
A moment later I heard the flutter of wings.
“What is this place?” I asked.
Scratching sounded from the shadows, followed by a soft chirp.
Hawk led me into the shadows, and then, in a shaft of sunlight from one of the high windows in the barn, I saw the cages.
“These are my birds,” Hawks said. “Hawks, to be exact.”
There were two cages, about ten feet wide and eight feet long, with plywood walls and areas of vertical metal piping that seemed to act as windows for the birds inside.
I looked up at him, suddenly understanding: the times he left the house alone, the smell that was so uniquely him…
“You’re a… a falconer?” I asked. “Is that what they call it with hawks?”
“It’s nothing official,” Hawk said. “They’re my companions, my friends. But yeah… falconer is the word.”
More fluttering of feathers, like a dog shaking itself after a bath.
“Can I get closer?” I asked.
One of the birds called out: kak-kak-kak… kak-kak-kak.
Hawk nodded. “Just move slowly. They’ll be nervous at first.”
I moved closer to one of the cages and peered between the metal bars.
The space was surprisingly large, with low wooden perches and several padded blocks on the rubber floor. A large bird sat on one of the perches, peering at me with sharp, curious eyes.
“That’s Ares,” Hawk said. “He was my first.”
The bird followed the sound of his voice, then emitted a series of excited chirps.
Kik-kik-kik… kik-kik-kik.
“Hey there boy,” Hawk cooed. “Sorry I’ve been away for so long."
The bird’s ivory and brown feathers were lush and full, and when I looked closely I saw that its tail was almost the same color as my hair.
“He’s so beautiful,” I said.
“Wait until you see him fly.”
I looked up at him. “Can I? See him fly?”
Hawk smiled. “That’s why we’re here, mouse. Come meet Freya.”
Hawk moved in front of the other cage. Inside, a brown bird sat on one of the rubber blocks, her long yellow legs a match to her bright yellow beak.
She studied me with dark eyes.
“Freya.” I spoke softly, not wanting to scare the majestic bird. “Goddess of beauty and magic.”
“Yes,” Hawk said.
Bram had loved reading stories about Norse gods when we’d been kids. After our parents died, he’d taken to reading them to me before bed, even though I was long past the age of needing a bedtime story.
It was comforting for us both, I thought. A way to remember that we weren’t alone before we fell into our own dreams.
According to the myths, Freya could predict and even influence the future. She’d owned a magical cloak of falcon feathers that allowed her to fly.
The bird shuffled on the block before letting out a long chirp.
Weeeeee…
Hawk laughed. “I think she likes you already.”
As if to prove his point, Freya launched herself off the block in a flurry of flapping wings.
I stepped back, awed by the sheer power in her movements.
“Come on.” Hawk walked to a wall of equipment: leather gloves and hoods, straps and leashes, a leather bag and some sort of liquid. “Let’s let her fly.”