“Yeah. It’s me. Is everything okay? I’m really sorry about your living room, by the way. I didn’t mean to trash the place.”
“I don’t care about it,” she said. “Really. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Aaron is back from the hospital, and he’s going to be fine.”
I hadn’t realized he’d been in, though in retrospect it made sense. Dog bites, the
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear that. And Charlie?”
“Charlie’s doing all right too. I think he’s a little confused by the whole thing. Needy. Dogs, you know.”
I didn’t, but I made appropriate social noises. There was a pause on the line, the kind of silence where no one is bringing up the difficult issue. I would have taken the lead if I’d known what was up.
“I was…” Candace said, and then stopped. When she started again, she sounded grim. “My friend. The one who gave me your number. He said that I should have talked about this all before. He’s right, I know that. It was just with Charlie and Aaron and all the rest, I was focused on the situation at hand.”
“Sure, of course,” I said, not knowing what she meant. There was another pause on the line. “Candace. If there’s something we should be talking about, we should maybe talk about it? What’s up?”
“I needed to talk to you about the price,” she said. I could tell from the way she said it that she was past uneasy and into scared.
It was the first time the thought had even crossed my mind. Eric’s money had to have come from somewhere; that was true. And since this was what he did, I suppose it followed that whatever he’d charged for his work had to have been pretty astronomical. I didn’t know what to say. From the little empire that I’d inherited, I had to think the money had been huge. On the other hand, I hadn’t talked to the lawyer about it. Maybe the money had come from someplace else. Maybe Eric had some sort of sliding scale. I was caught flat-footed, and I felt stupid for not knowing the answer.
But then, the question wasn’t really what Eric would have done so much as what I was going to do. That made it easier.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s on the house.”
Whatever Candace had expected to hear, it wasn’t that.
“Are you…do you mean that?”
“Look, I’m actually kind of new at this,” I said. “My uncle was the expert. You didn’t get the high-powered guy, and I got some on-the-job training I needed anyway. Besides. We trashed your place.”
There was a sound I couldn’t make out. Ex, still over at the tarp, gestured to me impatiently. I held up my hand in a “one minute” gesture before I realized that what I was hearing was Candace in tears.
“I owe you,” she said. “If you ever need anything, please call me. You saved my life. You saved me.”
“I was glad we could help. Seriously. Look, Candace, I’ve got to go. But you tell Aaron to get well soon, okay? Take care.”
I dropped the call and shoved the cell back into my pocket. Ex frowned down at the rifles as I came back. Aubrey raised an eyebrow, asking wordlessly what the call had been.
“Follow-up,” I said. “Nothing important. What did I miss?”
For the next hour, Ex talked us through the workings of the rifles. It wasn’t as complex as I’d expected in theory, but the practice was tricky. I knew that the gun would kick when I fired, but I underestimated how much my sore shoulder would object. The first four shots I tried missed the target completely. The fifth got on the paper, but outside the concentric rings of the bull’s-eye. Ex walked me through the whole process, his voice serious and low. I got better until I started getting worse, and he decided I’d had enough and turned his attention to Aubrey.
It turned out Aubrey had a much better eye for the thing than I did. His second shot hit the paper target. His fourth was in the center circle. I tried to figure out what he was doing differently, but as I watched him, my mind kept wandering. The afternoon was sweltering hot, and we drank through our bottles of water long before we fired the last round. I tried a couple parting shorts and kicked out bits of hay from the bales, but nothing better than that.
I had the sense that Ex was confused that my uncanny ability to fight didn’t translate to being able to hit the broad side of a barn with firearms. I felt a little ashamed of my lack of talent, but he tried to keep my confidence up.
“It doesn’t really matter how good a hit you get on Coin,” he said as we broke down the rifles and folded up the tarp. “We aren’t trying to kill him with the shot. Graze his pinky finger, and as long as it breaks skin, we’re fine.”
“It’s going to be hard,” Aubrey said. “I mean, this was fun, but looking at a real person is going to be different.”
“He’s not a real person, though,” I said. “He’s just a rider in a stolen body.”
“It’s still going to be hard,” Ex said. His voice didn’t leave room for discussion.
I didn’t realize how hot and tired I was until we had loaded everything back into the minivan and turned back toward civilization. The first blast of air-conditioning was like standing in front of an open refrigerator, and I think I must have sighed, because Aubrey glanced over at me and grinned. Then his smile faded.
“Jayne,” he said. “Look, if you want to postpone…well, postpone tonight. I absolutely understand.”
“No,” I said, surprised by how much I meant it. “I really don’t.”
We spent the ride into Denver listening to the radio. Twice, I turned to look into the backseat. Ex was staring out the window, his face etched in a frown. We hit the tech center on the south side of the city right around rush hour, and the traffic slowed to a crawl. Long rows of red brake lights beaded I-25 like a Christmas tree. I propped my legs on the dashboard and looked out as the buildings slid slowly by.
A small knot of tension was building in my gut. I wanted to get back to the house, get out of my sweat-soaked clothes and into something clean. I wanted to go out with Aubrey and drink and dance and show the world that I wasn’t scared. I wanted Saturday to be over, and the thing that lived inside Randolph Coin’s body defeated. The traffic moved languidly, shifting forward, pausing, then shifting again. My mind moved between unease at the still not quite faded memory of the monstrous eye looking down at me and a deep, slow-rising desire that came from the immediate, distracting presence of Aubrey’s body and breath. We reached our exit, and Aubrey pulled us off the highway and onto surface streets that easily went twice as fast.
He pulled into the carport that we’d left empty specifically to allow the transfer of firearms without alarming the neighbors. Chogyi Jake met us at the door and helped Ex with the equipment while I headed to the back to fulfill the first of my fantasies.
I was glad I’d donated most of yesterday’s purchases. The debate over the handful of outfits I had kept was painful enough. If I’d had the full wardrobe, I would have melted down completely. I settled on a red skirt with a white scoop top that showed off a little cleavage without screaming slut. A little lipstick and eyeliner. Nice leather shoes with a heel low enough I could still run in them if something happened. I considered taking Eric’s cell phone, but decided against it for the small, petty reason that it was too bulky for the purse I wanted to carry and I sure as hell wasn’t taking my leather backpack on a date. Besides, Aubrey would have his cell.
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and told myself I looked beautiful. I didn’t look like a high school kid trying on her older sister’s outfits. I didn’t look desperate. I didn’t look out of my depth.
I tried putting my hair up, just to see if it helped. I decided it made me seem like I was trying too hard, so I left it down. I hoped that the others wouldn’t be around, and that Aubrey and I could head out without any comments. While I was at it, I might as well have asked for a pony.
“Well, now,” Midian said. “Our little girl cleans up pretty nice.”
“You don’t have to sound surprised,” I said, willing myself not to blush.
Aubrey, sitting on the couch, looked much better than I did. While I’d been dithering, he’d clearly run home, transformed, and come back the best version of himself. His honey-colored hair was just ruffled enough to look at ease. His clothes were half a notch more formal than mine-slacks, jacket, and a deep blue shirt that worked for his complexion. And when he saw me, his eyes went a little wider, which was exactly what I needed just then.
“You shouldn’t go,” Ex said. He was leaning against the back wall, his arms crossed. “Both of you. After what happened last night, you should see this isn’t the time for fun and games-”
