“Stop,” I whispered.
“They sentenced you to Atramentous without a fucking trial—”
“Stop.”
Boaz was past listening. How his parents didn’t hear us shouting, I had no idea. Then again, they ought to be used to yelling where he and I were concerned. After all, he was a firm believer that volume increased understanding.
“You kept in touch with Amelie.” His hurt pulsed like a sore tooth he couldn’t stop poking with his tongue. “Why not me?”
Telling him that facing his sister was easier wouldn’t make the truth hurt any less.
“I’m standing right here, and you can’t even look at me.” He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat, the kind the sentinels used to make before hocking a loogie in my face. “I might have lost a leg, but I can still kick your ass.”
The world ground to a halt on its axis as his threat permeated my skull.
I whipped my head toward him, and my vision ran crimson with fury. “You what?”
“Landmine in Afghanistan.” He bent over and knocked where his left femur should have been. It made a hollow sound that echoed in my chest. “Turns out they explode if you step on them. Who knew?”
One minute I was kneeling in the grass, the next I was climbing him like a tree.
Turned out I made for one pissed-off monkey.
“Oof.”
Impact knocked him to the grass, and I ended up straddling his hips with my right foot hooked over his shin, metallic and cold where he should be muscle and heat.
“When?” I fisted the front of his olive drab tee and thumped his head on the ground. “When did this happen? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Amelie—”
“I told her to keep her yap shut.” He glared up at me. “I told her if you wanted news about me, then you damn well came to the source or you’d go thirsty.” He fit his hand around the base of my throat, stroking over my carotid with a calloused thumb. “You want to get a drink with me?”
“What? You’re asking me out? Now?” I wriggled lower on his hips, trying to get off this crazy ride. His lips twisted in a grimace of pain. I scrambled off him so fast I fell on my butt in the cold grass. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Naw, Grier. It feels good having my head bashed into the dirt. I worried I didn’t have enough rocks rattling around in there already.” He lifted his head and rubbed the base of his skull. “It happened two years ago. You’re not going to hurt me. The new leg is titanium. It’s tough, but don’t tear it off and start whacking me with it, okay? TRICARE only covers so much.”
Ducking my head, shame burning my cheeks, I murmured, “Can we start over?”
“Sure. Give me a second.” Linking his hands behind his head, he crossed his legs at the ankles and wiggled his hips. “All right. You can straddle me again. I’m ready this time. I’ll even keep my hands to myself.” His mischievous wink made heat gather low in my stomach. “I like giving orders better anyway. I’ve learned I’m good at it.”
“Pervert.”
He rolled a shoulder, not disagreeing with me. “The offer stands.”
I bet it did. “Nice try. I’m not checking out your crotch.”
His husky chuckle was pure sin. “You never did say why you were skulking around in Mom’s garden.”
Glad for the safer conversational ground, I extended my hand so he could see. “I came to retrieve Keet.”
His lip curled as he processed what I was holding. “Your zombie parakeet?”
A bird pecks at one brain and people start throwing around derogatory terms.
“He’s not a zombie.” Sure, his flight patterns were off, but he didn’t shamble through the air or anything.
He nodded his chin to indicate the corpse. “Is resuscitating him kosher?”
“It’s not a resuscitation. He was already dead, or undead. Whatever. All I did was bring him back from limbo and anchor him in his body.” I showed him the blackened symbol charring my palm. “I was on my way to work when the locator sigil activated. I found him out here. Guess your little brother buried him rather than face the music with your parents.”
“He was on restriction for not cleaning the water bowl before refilling it last time we talked.” Boaz scratched his side, a grin tugging on his lips. “He must have figured hiding the body was better than another week of laundry detail.”
“Poor kid.” I combed through the blades of grass with my fingers until I found the discarded brush, its ends clotted with ink. “I’m guessing no one told him Keet can’t starve to death?”
“Nope.”
No doubt that was all his idea.
“Come on, Squirt.” He leveraged into a seated position, his abs flexing beneath the thin fabric of his shirt—not that I noticed—then rolled to his feet in a motion so smooth he must have practiced it. “I’ll walk you home so you don’t get into more trouble.”
At barely eight o’clock on a Friday night, with a full moon to boot, Boaz seriously underestimated my skills.
Two
My feeble attempts at ignoring Boaz were about as successful as the time I tried resuscitating a T-rex skeleton at a natural history museum when I was eight. A security guard hauled me in front of Maud and explained how I had been caught painting the dinosaur bones red. She had laughed, brayed really, until tears streamed down her face and streaked her mascara. To prevent gums from bumping about the incident, she made a sizable donation to ensure the local media outlets wouldn’t come sniffing around for coverage of the chubby-faced vandal with artistic aspirations.
The Society for Post-Life Management was about as forgiving of such indiscretions as an old-money wife spotting a nouveau-riche neighbor wearing white after Labor Day.
The third member of our trio that day had been Linus, Maud’s nephew. He was five years older than me, so thirteen at the time, and he had spent that weekend with us. Call it a hunch, but I always suspected he was the one who’d tattled to the mortal authorities.
Even as a kid, he had been as stuffy as a taxidermied moose.
The short walk home thawed my limbs, and my unexpected arrival so soon after departing meant Woolly didn’t have time to mount an offensive. I strolled right in, Boaz on my heels, and headed straight for the kitchen. I set Maud’s bag on the table in plain sight to remind me to wash out the brush before returning her supplies to storage then patted the squirmy lump nestled in the front pocket of my T-shirt.
“Look who’s back,” I called out to Woolly. “Our old pal Keet.” I jerked my chin in Boaz’s direction. “Oh yeah. This weirdo followed me home too.”
The light cast from the overhead fixtures swelled with such bright joy I had to squint to bear the glare. Cupboard doors flapped open on their hinges, sounding like a round of applause as they bumped off the base cabinets, and he took a sweeping bow.
“Up high.” His palm smacked an upper cabinet door that swung out to meet him. “Down low.” He switched hands, and the lower cabinet bounced off his palm. Darting past me, he leapt up and tagged one of the smaller cabinets above the fridge before she guessed his next move. “Too slow.”
“Okay, kids.” I shoved him onto a barstool at the counter. “No running or jumping in the house.”
The lights overhead dimmed to normal levels, minus the occasional surge as happiness shot through her wiring.
“You hungry, boy?” I gathered a wriggling Keet in my hand. “You’re always peckish after rising.”
A weak chirp melted me into a puddle of goo. I really had missed the little guy. My tiny family, such as we were, was now complete. Woolly, Keet, Amelie, Boaz and me. The gang was back together again.
“What are your plans for the night?” I wedged a stopper in the deep farmhouse sink then shredded a few paper towels to make a comfortable nest. Keet’s poor little stick legs proved too wobbly to support him just yet, so I placed him on his side and went to make good on my offer. “Anything interesting?”
“My next stop is home. I’ve had all the interesting I can handle for one night.”
“Home?” I glanced up at him. “Your parents don’t know you’re back yet?”
“Figured I’d surprise them.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure the commander would let me go.” His gaze flicked up to mine. “This wasn’t my first attempt. More like my third.” He rubbed the base of his neck. “I was pissed at you, yeah, but I filed paperwork the day Amelie told me you got out. I wasn’t staying away to punish you. Or me. Or hell, both of us. I came as soon as I could without having desertion charges brought up against me.”
“You’re here now.” In my house. In my kitchen. In my life. “That’s all that matters.”
“It’s really not, Squirt.” His arms fell to his side. “How are you here? Why did they let you go?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “No one told me. Even if they did…”
A sentinel had written my home address on a sticky note and pinned the yellow square to my shirt like I was a kid about to ride a school bus for the first time instead of an inmate with the mental capacity of a kindergartener. He escorted me onto the plane, and I flashed the note at the first taxi driver to approach me after I landed, just as I had been instructed. The nice old man with his crooked smile had taken me to Woolly, hooked his arm in mine, walked me up to the door, and said in a crackling voice, “You’re home.”
That girl? The one who stumbled reading that sequence of numbers and letters, who wondered why the combination sounded so familiar? She had asked no questions. Not a single one. And I didn’t blame her.
“Grier…” The way he rumbled my name was better than being wrapped in a warm blanket. “If you ever need to talk about what happened…”
“Thanks.” My throat worked over a hard lump. “But I can’t.”