BRIDGER (27 page)

“Yeah, I did.
 
Why?”

“Well, I kind of wanna play your Wii.
 
If you have a decent TV now, that is.” He grabbed my leg and pulled me toward the couch so he could sit down again.

“Yeah, I do.
 
Don’t make fun of my stuff if you want to play with it,” I laughed, kicking myself away from the couch and back toward the desk.
 
Misjudging the strength needed, I erred on the side of strength and rolled past the desk and into the knees of Krista.

“Jeeze, watch where you’re going!” she said, rubbing her leg and looking at me scornfully.
 
Her nose was wrinkled as though she smelled something unpleasant.
 
It wasn’t too different from her face in general, though. It was usually screwed up in some disdainful expression.
 
That wasn’t a look she reserved for just me.
 
Everyone was lesser than Krista in her eyes.
 
I’d love to tell her how the rest of us felt about her.

Standing up, I pushed the seat away and back toward Reese.
 
I was a head taller than her, and I made sure she felt it right now. “Oh my fault, Krista, I didn’t see you there.
 
I don’t usually look for rats.”

Krista opened her mouth, but Liam’s hand materialized on her shoulder.
 
“Let’s go, Krista.
 
This room’s full.”
 
Without so much as another word, they wheeled out of the doorway and disappeared.

I spun around and smacked a bobble head off of Liam’s desk out of pure spite.
 
It hit the wall above where Reese was still laying, head flying in one direction while the body went another.

“Hey now, no need to get violent,” Reese said, teasingly.
 
“Let’s go to your place and play some video games.
 
Maybe you can hack someone up real good or something.
 
You know, stress relief where no one in real life gets maimed in the process. Everyone wins.”

In spite of myself, I smiled.
 
Reese was good at that.
 
“Alright, let’s go.”

* * *

Four hours later I had beaten Reese at every game I owned.
 
He had lost all pride in himself and decided that he had to borrow my Wii to practice overnight.
 
I obliged, allowing him to pack and haul everything over to his house.
 
Before he left, though, he gave me a tiny peck on the cheek.
 
“Keep your head up, Ash.
 
It’s gonna be okay.”

Standing alone in my room after Reese had left, I felt empty.
 
“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” I muttered to myself. I walked over to my computer just looking for something to fill the void that should be filled with time with Liam.
 
I couldn’t afford to think about how tomorrow we would have been together for three months, but I did anyway.
 
I shouldn’t be thinking about what he might be doing or where he might be, but I couldn’t help it.
 
At least I knew he was alive, because as long as I was, he would be.
 
That small piece of consolation allowed me to follow up on my emails with this unwanted free time.

Out of nowhere, the desire to try to talk to Liam became overwhelming. I grabbed my phone off the desk, finding his name in the contact list. Hesitating for a moment, I made myself “accidentally” press call. The line began to ring.

I’d tried to call him numerous times, trying to explain what had happened in the span of a thirty-second voicemail. He never responded. If he answered this time, I would make him listen. Make him understand. He had to at least know the truth, then decide what he wanted to do.

The phone stopped ringing. There was no voicemail message. A moment later, I heard his voice. “What do you want, Ashlyn?”

“Liam. You’ve got to listen to me. Just hear me out – ”

“No, Ashlyn, I don’t have to listen to you. Stop calling me. Stop texting. If I wanted to talk to you, I’d call you. There’s nothing to explain. You’re not who you said you were.”

Tears began to well up in my eyes. “You can’t be happy with her.”

There was a pronounced silence, and then he responded. “Krista hasn’t lied to me. You have.”

“That’s not the same as being happy. Just let me explain.”

“No. I’m with Krista. Leave me alone. Don’t call again.”

With that, he hung up.

Sitting there numb in at the desk, I tried to preoccupy myself with a game of solitaire. When that didn’t work, I fidgeted with my phone. After shooting off a couple texts to some friends in hopes of finding something to do, I went back to the computer.

As I went to log out of Skype, I saw that Tess was online.
 
Steeling myself, I clicked to call her, hoping she would be willing to talk for a little while.

“Ashlyn?
 
Are you alright?”
 
Tess said immediately as she connected to the video chat.

Hearing her voice sent a wave to homesickness through me.
 
I loved that woman almost as much as her son.
 
She was like a second mother to me.
 
She was also a friend and confidant.
 
She was the one person that could understand my struggles better than anyone else.
 
“Yeah, Tess, I’m fine.
 
I just missed you,” I said, sadness ebbing into my voice.

I saw her pucker her lips in an apologetic manner, eyes crinkling in concern.
 
It reminded me of Liam. It was amazing how much even that little resemblance reminded me of him. “Ah, Ash, you know I miss you too.
 
I heard about what my son’s been up to.
 
Do you want to talk about it?”

A single, silent tear wound its way down my cheek, splashing onto my keyboard.
 
Contrary to what I thought I would want, suddenly there was no desire to talk about my fickle Protector.
 
“Not really, Tess.
 
I’m just not sure what to do. Nothing seems to matter to him. Even when I call to explain, he won’t listen. He refuses to talk about it with anyone.”

I knew if Tess could have given me one of her bear hugs, she would have.
 
“He’ll come around. There’s no doubt about it. We should probably tell him our side of things now.
 
I know that’s hindsight of something we should have done long ago, but with Aiden being kidnapped and our condition…” she trailed off, hopeful that I would be able to see her side of things.
 
Unfortunately, I could.
 
If I were in her shoes, things probably would have played out the same way.

“No, I totally understand.
 
Actually, I’d been thinking about something you mentioned when we were out in the fields behind your house with Memaw.”

Tess looked at me funny, trying to remember what she might have said.
 
“What’s up?”

“Well, you said I could do things you couldn’t because of Memaw being my grandmother.
 
That I could shift at will after practicing, right?”

“Yes.
 
Apparently you’re getting it down quite well if you shifted back from Reese’s form quickly enough to diffuse the havoc Liam was wreaking in your room.
 
By the way, how did you explain that to your mother?” Tess was smiling now, just imagining the fast-talking I’d have to do to get out of that mess.
 
Of course Liam had been long gone by then.
 
It had been all on me.

I smiled in spite of myself.
 
“I told her Reese and a bunch of his friends had gotten into a full-contact Guitar Hero tournament.
 
They’ve done it before and trashed their own rooms, so it wasn’t too far from what could have happened.”

Reese had come away from the Guitar Hero tournament with a sprained ankle and black eye after he had been playing with Liam.
 
He had attempted to hurdle his couch to get back to the TV screen and misjudged the height, Liam clipping his legs in the process.
 
For some reason I never thought Liam looked too sorry about that incident.

“Oh, nice cover up.
 
I heard about that one.
 
My son did a pretty good job of taking him out.
 
I hope he healed quickly?”

“Yeah, he did.
 
He got Liam back by putting shaving cream in his hands one night.
 
It was a mess.”
 
Boys were ridiculous.
 
Liam and Reese were even worse, especially now that Liam and I were no longer together.
 
Liam had taken to Reese quite quickly afterward.
 
Part of me wondered if it was a way to keep tabs on me but not be around.
 
He knew Reese would always know everything going on.

Turning the conversation back to the original point, I began again. “Tess, you said I could do a reconnaissance mission for you before Memaw cut you off.”

The color drained from Tess’s face.
 
“Oh, Ashlyn, that was nothing.
 
That was wishful thinking on my part – nothing remotely safe or your problem.”
 

She was suddenly babbling away, partially in Gaelic.
 
It proved there was something she wanted very badly; she only talked in Gaelic when she was nervous or Memaw made her to exclude me from the conversation.

I looked her straight in the eyes, trying to make her see that I meant it. “Tess, just be straight with me and say what you’re thinking.”

Studying my expression for a moment, she caved.
 
“Ashlyn, this isn’t your battle.
 
But if you must know…I had been thinking if you could shift into a Changeling, you could enter a crack into Neamar without being noticed.
 
Once you were in, I was thinking you could possibly find Aiden and MaKenna.”

I could see how tempting that idea could seem to her.
 
“Oh,” was all I could manage. “Well, that makes sense.”

TWENTY-TWO

There was a long silence where we both seemed very interested in things off screen.
 
“Why do you think Aiden and MaKenna would be together?”

Again Tess blanched.
 
“Did Memaw tell you about the fact humans reach adulthood and then never age in Neamar?”

“I remember her mentioning it, yeah. What about it?”

“Ankou knows I’m a Bridger.
 
He wants to make that middle race to control the human realm.
 
He thought perhaps Aiden could be a breeder, so he kidnapped him and is using him with MaKenna from the intelligence we can come up with,” she said, looking down.

Well, that tied things together.
 
Ankou knew Memaw’s and Tess’s abilities and was hoping to come up with something from their children.
 
Children who never aged.
 
Children who could always give him more children for his hoard of Changelings.
 
I saw the sense this made for Ankou, though I couldn’t bring myself to believe we had family stuck doing this unmentionable task for the Reaper.

I couldn’t even think of something to say.
 
Struggling to keep down the bile threatening to rise up from my stomach, I looked back up to see Tess silently crying.
 
I couldn’t imagine the pain she was in.
 
“Does Liam know?”

“No.
 
I don’t think he could handle more than what he already has on his plate.”

We sat in silence yet again.
 
I wasn’t sure I could live a thousand years and fathom what she must be feeling.
 
That’s why I agreed to what she hadn’t even asked me to do.

“I’ll go.
 
I’ll do it.
 
What does a changeling look like when they’re not in human form?”
 
I said, pushing away from the desk to prepare to try the shift from her description alone.