Chapter Seventeen Gordon and Andrea #2
“It’s more that I think she may finally be too old and sickly to catch me.
She was hit by a car once. She was hunting the person pulled over on the side of the road, but their car was not broken enough to strand the driver.
She discovered it was still functional when she attacked, and the driver ran her down in his escape.
She had a broken leg, and then she told me I had to stay and ensure she was fed.
” Hugo looks at me nervously. “I am a good hunter, Gordon. All with traps and snares. And a good marksman, too. One blow, never more than one. I don’t like things to be in pain. ”
My heart warms in an unfamiliar way. A sort of familial affection that is odd and alien, but enjoyable. “That is the best way to be.”
Hugo nods, his dark curly hair flopping wildly.
For a moment, we stare. I don’t dare ask him to come home with me. Not yet. But I motion to him to join me where I stand. “How do you come to be here? In Pine Ridge?”
“I was looking for you! I was hoping... I was hoping you could teach me how to do things.”
“What things?” I ask warily.
“All of it! All the things Father tried to teach us but Mother tried to tell us were wrong. How to live with humans and in the human world. To get a job and work, and get to eat food you don’t have to kill yourself.
” His brown-black eyes shine with excitement.
“I have been working my way here for months, Gordon. I have seen hundreds of humans, and slept in homeless shelters, and worked little jobs for cash, and shopped in stores—well, I have tried.”
“Yes. That’s how it starts,” I explain, surprised to feel my cheeks lifting in a smile.
“But I don’t want to keep living like that.
I want things that trolls should have if they’re living as men!
Homes and meaningful work, and books, and movies, and a wife who will willingly share this life.
That was the problem, Gordon. Father forced Mother to be what she did not want to be, and even though he did it to protect us, it didn’t work, did it?
” He laughs ruefully and lifts up his shirt, revealing a great concave space between his ribs and hipbone.
“That is what she did with her bare hands two winters ago. I want to find a place where no one ever treats me like that.”
“You are in the right place,” I croak, guilt stabbing me all over. I should have taken him with me. I should have returned for him. I should, I should, I should...
Andrea’s voice is in my head. You can save him now. Help him. Bring him home. We’ll love him and take care of him—even if he’s what? Twenty-five or something?
“Do you like cats?” I ask suddenly.
Hugo cowers back with an apologetic wince. “I don’t eat them, Gordon. I know, I know, Mother says I am such a weak little... Well, I won’t say what she said I am, but I don’t eat cats or dogs. I don’t like to eat rabbits, either, but sometimes they’re what I have.”
“No, no. A pet cat.”
“I have never had a cat.”
“No one has a pet until they do. Or a wife, or a child, or a job.” I pull out my phone, but keep it in my hand, waiting for his response to be sure.
“You have a wife? And a pet?” Hugo gasps, and he gives a giddy little hop, promptly teetering with weakness when he lands.
“I have a bride and a pet. A job, and a house.”
“I knew about the job.” Hugo reaches into his pocket and pulls out a torn, crinkled paper that’s carefully preserved in a tattered plastic bag. It’s an old page of The Pine Ridge Gazette.
Last July’s paper. I’m there with Captain Sunderland, and we’re on the high school grounds. I look like I swallowed vinegar, even in the midst of laughing, smiling crowds of people I protect. “Where’d you get this?”
“A man at a homeless shelter was a veteran. He had once been homeless and out of work. He had addictions and was missing a leg from a war wound.” Hugo’s eyes are wide.
“He came to the hospital in Pine Ridge with the veterans’ program, and he was given a new leg and, as he said, ‘a new lease on life.’ Now he volunteers with the homeless to inspire others.
” Hugo turns the paper over to show an article about Dr. Jack Ellsworth and his work with the veterans.
“Why do you have the paper?” I ask.
Hugo looks at me with a shamefaced expression.
“After a year of wandering, sometimes I believed Pine Ridge was a fairytale that Father made up. I didn’t know if you had ever reached it.
Then I saw your picture, and it said you were a firefighter!
You had a job, and a friend, and people were celebrating a holiday together, with you.
” Hugo gives another giddy hop, this time crashing into me.
I pick him up and keep my arm around his waist, flinging his other arm over my shoulder. “You stole that man’s clipping?”
“I told him it was you, my brother, in the paper. I told the man about how I was going to go to the fire station and try to find you after being separated for years. He gave me the paper. There’s something called a ‘copy machine,’ and he just made a copy of it.”
“So, last night, you were heading to the fire station?”
“Yes. Only I was so tired I must have fallen asleep in the little clearing in the woods and woken up with that monster on top of me.”
“You were literally outside my back yard. Another mile and a half, and you could have been in this picture.” I whip out my phone and show him the campfire selfie of Andrea and me. “That is your future sister-in-law.”
Hugo looks at me, the screen, and back, mouth dropping open farther with every pass. “You have a human bride?”
“I do. But I could have had a troll bride, an Orc bride, or any other sort of bride, if her heart was right. Andrea. This is Andrea. She is my sunlight—and she is waiting to meet you at home.”
“Home.” Hugo tries out the word. “I know that you have your own life now, but if you could just help me get started—”
“You are going to get wonderful pancakes and terrible coffee, a hot bath, and new clothes that actually fit. And then, we’ll worry about a job.”
“You would do that for me?”
“Yes.” I start walking towards the truck. “But after daylight. I... My Andrea needs her rest, and we can drive around the town in my truck so you can see the place properly.”
Hugo’s arm tightens on my shoulder, and his muscles shake with weakness. “Thank you. I’ve missed you so much, Gordon.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t take you with me. I should have.”
“I was too scared to go. I was angry at myself later, for not being brave enough to run. I used to be angry that you didn’t just pick me up and carry me. You could have.”
“Are you still?”
Hugo shrugs. “I’m too grateful to be mad right now. Besides, forcing me might have made you seem like the others, Gordon, and you were always different. Even when you were gone, I tried to be like you,” my brother says softly.
I hesitate, and then vow. “I haven’t had a family since I ran. Not until just last month when I met Andrea. We are making our own family now, but I would like you to be part of it if you truly want a life like mine. We protect. We do not harm.”
“And we don’t have to hunt unless we want to?” Hugo adds.
I can’t help but chuckle. “And we have pets and movies. We even bowl.”
“Bowl... Bowl? What about bowls?”
The chuckle keeps growing. “I’ll show you on our drive.”
“Oh my goodness. I love your brother,” I hiss when Hugo finally leaves the table after his seventeenth pancake. “We need to go to the store. We’re out of flour. And milk. And pretty much everything at this point. Should we take him with us? Has he ever been to the store?”
“I don’t know. I believe he’s made a few attempts, but he’s definitely not shopping savvy. It’s hard to blend in when you look like Hugo does, even to oblivious humans.” Gordon takes syrupy dishes to the sink and starts to scrub. “You love my brother?”
“Like I love my brother,” I am quick to clarify. Gordon’s back muscles instantly relax. “I’m a one-troll woman,” I promise, hugging him while he washes the dishes. “Can we get a dishwasher if I move in?”
“If?”
“I’m not sure that I should live with you and your brother while he’s trying to work out how to be a functioning member of society.
Maybe he just needs time for you to mentor him without me around so he can ask any awkward questions or learn things without an audience that might embarrass him.
I love him, don’t get me wrong. He’s funny, sweet, and so genuine. And talkative. But...”
“I noticed that, too. It’s like instead of learning that you never talk, Hugo talks more to spite the rules we were taught. No wonder he was Mother’s favorite target,” Gordon mutters.
“That’s so wrong. He’s the nicest, kindest—not nicer and kinder than you! You have a jealous streak.” I poke Gordon’s ribs, and find myself suddenly half-tackled against the kitchen counter, bent back in a kiss that steals my air and turns my insides to hot, molten want. “Whoa,” I gasp.
“You are mine. Hugo is younger, and gentler, and sweeter. He has a boyish, charming face. And curly hair.” Gordon looks genuinely worried for a second.
“Yes—he’s like a cute, injured puppy that you brought home.
I want my big, strong hero. I want you. Just how you are, because you are mine, too.
I want you, Gordon. I want to be your wife, your girlfriend, the one who lives in this little cabin with you with a bunch of cats and a slightly smaller bunch of kids.
What do I have to do to show you?” I push my hips forward.
“Climb you like a tree? I might have been taking lessons from Chopin, you know.” I scoot up on the counter, hips open, legs going around Gordon’s waist.
“We can’t,” he hisses—and unzips his jeans.