Kindling (3 page)

“What the hell, papá?” I yelled. My father was so intent on the weird guys that he didn’t respond or even look at me and I wasn’t sure if he even heard me. I watched him lean in and tell them something. Vest Boy laughed but I could tell what my papá said wasn’t supposed to be funny. My father was furious - his neck was super red and his fists clenched and unclenched in unison. He looked like he could easily kick their asses, so I hoped he wouldn’t start a fight.

“Leave.” I finally heard my papá said. “I don’t know why you’re here but you should leave. Now.” Leather Boy smiled a little and Vest Boy’s grin got wider. Both were becoming a little scary.

“Mercutio, you know exactly why we’re here,” Vest Boy said. He glanced at me and raised his brow. “Does she?” He gestured back with his chin and my papá and Leather Jacket turned towards me. Vest Boy took a long look at me, kind of hungry-like and sexual. I was uncomfortable but I stood firm, in a fighting stance papá had shown me countless times. But, really, I was just confused as anything. How did this guy know my papá’s name? What did my papá know about them being here? And, uh, yeah, who the hell were they? “I never thought the kid would be a girl, though,” Vest Boy said after staring at me for close to a minute.

“I know the rules,” my father said. “No dieciocho años,” he added. “No se puede luchar.”

I couldn’t fight until I was eighteen? What did that even mean? Things were getting super weird and weirder by the minute. What was going on?

“Una advertencia,” Leather Boy finally spoke. “Para la niña.” A warning for me? How did they know who I was? I was so confused, but Leather Boy grinned a little at that last part. He sounded totally Argentinian. I was so torn because I was a little scared, but I was also really really really attracted to these guys. I obviously shouldn’t have been as attracted to them as I was - my papá’s dislike for them was evident - but I had no idea what was going on and these guys were gorgeous. And they had accents. And did I mention they were gorgeous guys with accents?

“You warned her now you should go,” my papá said. He was real quiet and I could tell he was a little scared of these guys. Why would he be scared of them? I didn’t have a clue and I was totally lost because these guys were kind of scrawny compared to my dad. My papá wasn’t that big, but he’s fit and muscular and, hello? He was trained in martial arts and was a flipping cage fighter for goodness sake!

Leather Boy sobered and narrowed his gaze. “No suficiente advertencia,” he said. The warning was insufficient - Leather Boy was more than a little foreboding. His change in mood was more than enough to catch my breath. I didn’t have a clue what was really going on, but I knew my father and I were in danger.

We were all quiet for nearly a minute. Finally my papá looked at me and had this real pitiful look on his face. “She’s not ready,” he said. He stared at me and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to tell me something or not, but then he looked at the men. “She doesn’t know,” he said.

It was the guys’ turn to look surprised. They thought over what my dad said and, finally, Vest Boy smiled. “How fast can she run?”

“No, no!” My father yelled. “Listen to me. Listen to what I’m saying. She’s not been trained for that. She knows nothing of that life.”

The men looked at me again, obviously not believing my papá. I had no idea what was going on so I just stood there, mouth agape and eyes wide. “You want us to believe that?” Vest Boy said. “A normal teenage girl doesn’t look like that,” he pointed to me - specifically, I could tell, to my biceps. I’ve been training in martial arts since I was an infant, so I was a bit buffer than the average teen, true. That didn’t mean I wanted to fight these guys for no apparent reason, though. I had never even been in a real fight!

I could tell my papá didn’t know what to say or do. To admit I had some training seemed like a mistake, but papá said I hadn’t been trained for something specific, for “that life.” What “that life” was I had no idea, but I knew this situation was getting progressively worse. As befuddled as I was, papá looked equally terrified.

Papá glanced from the men back to me. His face was stoic and firm, but his eyes told me we didn’t have much of a chance against these two.

The men, however, were grinning. Vest Boy nodded to Leather Boy and he took off his glasses. His whole face grinned, but not the you’re-so-cute-go-out-with-me kinda grin that I wished for when I first saw them, more like a I’m-going-to-enjoy-ripping- your-larynx-out kind of grin. Then he looked at me and I gasped. His eyes – no joke – were red. Not bloodshot red, but his actual iris was a bright, bloody red sphere.

He started taking his jacket off and, suddenly, stopped with it halfway down his arms. Both of the men were looking behind me and their mouths hung open. Their eyes grew wide and they took a step back, obviously terrified of something behind me. I didn’t really want to look, because I thought it was probably like a cougar or a mule deer ready to skewer me or a Javelina about to charge or something that was going to maul me with horns or teeth or hooves. I turned, anyway, and instead of a wild animal I saw a very large, very blonde man holding a crossbow.

My 17th birthday was turning out remarkably different than how I imagined.

The blonde giant was terrifying. He loomed above us all. He looked like The Terminator or something, with his jaw set and dark sunglasses on a pale face. Immediately, I was more scared of him than I was of Vest Boy and Leather Boy, because it seemed like I could probably fight those two off but, the Blonde Giant? No flipping way. He was easily six and a half feet tall and his muscles - holy crap, his muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles - bulged and stretched out his black t-shirt and black jeans. He was wearing a belt with a strange insignia on the buckle and he had a long, black tattoo on the back of his forearm, all of which increased his menacing exterior. I couldn’t help but feel he looked slightly familiar, but I was too shocked at the moment to do or say anything.

“I think it’s about time you boys moved along,” he said. His voice had the slightest tinge of an accent, but it was so light I couldn’t place it. My papá, surprisingly, looked relieved and came over to me and the blonde giant. Vest Boy and Leather Boy stood there, looking dumbfounded. I guess I looked a bit dumbfounded, too, so I could hardly blame them, but at least they seemed to know what was happening. “They send you because you don’t have too many offences with me, huh?” Blonde Giant asked. He narrowed his eyes. “I know whose boy you were,” he growled to Vest Boy. Vest Boy narrowed his gaze and snarled a bit and tightened his fist. Then the Blonde Giant smiled a little and raised the bow towards the men. I seriously thought he was going to shoot them and I cringed in preparation. But, he released the arrow just slightly above Vest Boy’s head, so close that his hair blew from the wind.

“Okay, okay,” Vest Boy said. “We weren’t going to do anything, anyway. We’ll be leaving.” He paused and looked at me. “We’ll meet again, I’m sure.” And then he winked at me.

Okay, so right when the arrow shot from the crossbow I felt like I had gone so crazy my mind had become completely numb and I was on the verge of blacking out. Everything felt wrong and really scary, like we had just lived through a near-death experience that seemed, on the surface, way less serious than I intrinsically knew it was. And I was totally weirded out by the combination of my papá, the Blonde Giant with a crossbow, and the modelesque forest boys, all of whom discovered my papá and I on a relatively unused trail and they seemed to somehow know us and they planned to do ... what? I hadn’t a clue. All I could do was stand and watch the woods for nearly two minutes after Vest Boy and Leather Boy left, on edge in case they decided to come back.

Finally, the Blonde Giant broke the silence. “Are you guys okay?”

That knocked the life into my papá. “Heinrich, you ass,” he started yelling, but he really wasn’t mad. “You couldn’t have come five minutes ago? I almost wet myself!” My father’s serious face faded and he grinned. The Blonde Giant and my papá laughed and playfully punched each other and hugged.

So, okay, my father knew this guy.

Weird.

Way weird.

Could that day get much weirder? I didn’t think so, unless I give into the urge of the moment and broke down in tears.

“You’re okay?” The Blonde Giant - Heinrich - asked again. My papá nodded and they looked at me. I know I looked like an idiot, with my mouth hung open and my eyes wide and not really looking at them, but I couldn’t say anything. “Katja? Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you?” Heinrich asked.

“What the fuck is going on?!” I yelled.

“Catalina,” my father said. “Watch your language!” As if he was more upset with me swearing than with a possible near-death experience. I started to cry a little, but my papá came over to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I know it’s confusing. But, those guys ...” he looked at Heinrich, who shrugged. “I’m sorry, mi cielo, but right now I can’t really explain everything. We have to talk to mom and abuelo first. And we have to get ready for your party.” He pulled me in for a hug and kissed my forehead. “Hablar más tarde, eh?” I pushed away from him.

Is that all he had to say? “Talk later?” Hell no I wasn’t going to “talk later”! What was going on? “¡No! No, más tarde! ¡Ahora! Now!” And then, I realized, every bit of the last few minutes were an insane blur of confusion but I knew it was something extremely serious. “What just happened? Who were those guys?” My papá and Heinrich looked at each other.

“Listen, Katja,” Heinrich began, then paused. “Do you mind if I call you Katja? It’s Dutch, a pet name.”

I looked at him funny. “Like a dog name?”

He smiled. “No, like a short form of your name. It’s Dutch,” he said again.

The Dutch thing explained the accent, but nothing else. “Oh, yeah, I don’t care,” I said. He could call me Lewis for all I cared at that moment, I just wanted some answers.

“Okay, you’re father and I are friends, Katja, old friends,” he said. “I knew you when you were a baby.” He smiled and his eyes glistened a little. “I swear to you, and I’ll make your papá promise, too, we will explain everything tomorrow. Sunday. Okay?” I looked up at him and then to my papá, who nodded in agreement. I didn’t know if I should believe him and I didn’t want to agree, but I knew if I was too difficult my papá wouldn’t tell me anything at all. So, I went against my better instincts and nodded. I guess I was in too much shock to really be argumentative. “Good,” Heinrich grinned. “I know you’re confused, but I hope almost everything will be explained tomorrow. Okay?” I nodded again. “Tonight we have your party, tomorrow we have a big talk, eh?”

“I don’t want to have the party anymore,” I said. I almost whispered because my adrenaline rush had gone and I was feeling drained and ready to cry.

“Your grandparents want to celebrate, eh? Your friends are coming,” Heinrich looked from me to my papá. “It will be okay to have fun.”

“What if they come back?” I asked.

“No, honey,” my papá said. “They won’t. They can’t. Not while Heike’s here.”

“And, you know, I brought a friend with me,” Heinrich said. “He’s around here, somewhere. He’ll be some help, too.” Heinrich smiled. “Maybe,” he added, and he and my father laughed.

“Do I need protecting?” I asked. “I don’t even know what you’re protecting me from.”

My papá and Heinrich looked at each other again. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk. I promise, mi cielo, you will know everything tomorrow,” my papá assured. I nodded, but I was still unsure. I looked around for any signs of the men that seemed to scare my father, but there was nothing.

We began to walk down the hill. Heike - apparently a nickname of some sort - and my papá
talked the whole way down. It was weird, at first, but then really heart-warming to see my papá with a friend. My papá had some acquaintances he camped with - mostly Gaby’s friends’ dads - but he was usually too busy with his family for real friends. Heike, I could tell, was his real friend, so much so that they often finished each other’s sentences and lines of thought in alternating Spanish, English, and, apparently, Dutch. I was really surprised my papá knew Dutch and, of course, I only understood ⅔ of the conversation so I quickly got lost. My papá and Heike seemed to have completely forgotten the scare on the mountain and I wondered if I had hallucinated the whole thing, but every so often one would glance back at me and look at me in a way that I knew I hadn’t dreamt anything. But, they had fun talking and joking with each other and left me alone so I could breathe and relax and let the adrenaline ease out of my body. It was difficult, though, to make it down the hill without tripping as I continually looked behind me in case those weird guys were following us.

It took only about a half hour to make it down to the road. I didn’t think, didn’t go over what happened, I just tried to breath and meditate because, if I didn’t, I thought I would probably pass out. But, I knew this wasn’t over. There was no way I wasn’t going to grill my father about what the hell was going on. I just needed to convince my mind to chill out until then.