Just as she had decided the wee hours couldn’t get even a bit weirder, she caught movement on her periphery and saw…
No.
No, definitely not. She was seeing things. She had at long last cracked, because while she could handle the bear cub and the fox and the B&E and the trashed screen door and the pop-ins and Ox’s distracting cuteness and her sudden urge to forcibly strip the man and make him knock her up and 1:00 a.m. teddy bear surgery and two wolves prowling a suburban lawn while a house fire raged in the background…
…all that, she could take. But the sight of a kangaroo bounding over was, obviously, the most direct way her brain had found to signal her impending insanity. Everything else could be real, but not the Australian marsupial squatting unconcernedly on a front lawn in Lilydale, Minnesota.
“Jesus Christ,” she muttered, and she knew that as a response, it was both lacking and overused. But… She had nothing. Nothing. Sure, the big wolf had made the smaller wolf back off. And yes, the kangaroo had bounded closer but wasn’t pummeling or kicking her (at the moment). And none of the animals were trying to eat her. Or Devoss, who was still peeking around her and seemed remarkably unconcerned about all of it.
And yeah, she was resigned to nightmares about fires for the rest of the month. Or season. Or year.
But now what? Now…the fuck…what? Because this was problematic even if they weren’t her neighbors.
Fortunately, the distant wail of sirens snapped her out of her WTF trance. She cleared her throat and said, “You know the fire department will call animal control about two seconds after they get here, right?” But would they? These, um, people had their own social services agency. Maybe they also had their own fire and rescue? Maybe if you lived in certain neighborhoods, any call to 911 was re-routed to…what?
Now I know why the Curs(ed) House is almost always vacant. No time to ponder that now; instead, she grabbed Devoss’s hand, startling a yelp out of him. “I’m taking Devoss to my place where it’s safe, relatively speaking. The first responders are going to want a word with Mama Mac.” She made a point of not looking at the kangaroo. “So go do your thing—or don’t—and come find us when you. Uh. Figure out what you’re going to do.” Whatever the hell that was.
“Don’t worry,” Devoss reassured her. “They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”
It sounded like a lie.
Chapter 18
It was 3:00 a.m., and her kitchen was absurdly crowded.
“You’re not sleeping in Lila’s horrible basement, Caro Daniels, and that’s an end to it!” There was an awkward pause, and Garsea flushed. “Let me rephrase…”
It was so ridiculous, Lila had to laugh. “No, you’re right. My basement is horrible. Unfinished, crumbling cement walls, musty, it’s always damp though I can never find a leak… It’s basically the set of every black-and-white zombie movie you’ve ever seen.”
Garsea cleared her throat. “I only meant…”
“I know what you meant. It’s fine.”
When Garsea had pounded on her front door, then let herself in before Lila could take one step toward the foyer, Lila had been braced. The woman had come in hot, hair mussier than usual, eyes redder
(eep)
than usual. Daniels had been right on her heels and they both looked relieved when Devoss raised his glass of chocolate milk to them in cheery greeting.
Still, Garsea’s eyes had narrowed when she saw Lila leaning against the counter. Which was why Lila let her hand drop to the silverware drawer behind her and thought about her forks and knives and the wicked–sharp fillet knife and corncob holders with their spiky ends.
But there’d been no need for corn accessories; instead, Garsea came right to her and enfolded her in a smothering vanilla-scented hug. “Thank you,” she murmured intensely, which Lila hadn’t thought was possible. She pulled back to scrutinize Lila’s face. “You put yourself in danger to save my favorite delinquent. I’ll owe you a debt for the rest of my life.”
“Not really. He wasn’t in any—”
Garsea waved that away. “You couldn’t have known. You came for him anyway. And when you thought he was in more trouble, you stood your ground. I’ll never be able to repay you. Which isn’t to say I won’t try.”
Well. How to respond to that? “Eh, no biggie”? That was an insult to Garsea and Devoss. But Lila’s default was to immediately downplay praise and/or emotionally charged moments. So she just nodded and didn’t say anything and tried not to feel (more) awkward. Garsea was acting like Lila had done something above and beyond, which simply wasn’t true. Who wouldn’t help a kid in trouble?
After that, talk of sleeping arrangements came up, which was when Lila had made her offer, which was when Garsea got hot again. But all the while, Caro Daniels, a gorgeous teen with dark skin with golden undertones, short black hair, and brown eyes, was scribbling something in a battered notebook that clearly went everywhere she did. The girl’s pajama top was inside out and spotted with grass stains, but Lila wasn’t going to bring that up if no one else was. More worrisome: the girl was too thin and hadn’t made a peep since Lila had let her and Garsea in. And though it wasn’t relevant, Lila knew plenty of women who shelled out big bucks for highlighter that would give them the same golden undertones Daniels was sporting naturally.
Her eyes, now that Lila was close enough to get a better look without being obvious, also had gold undertones. Or would those be overtones? In the light, they almost look like…
Well. Baleful lamps. Like they’d gleam gold, not brown. Like they’d be the first thing you
