Authors: Tammy Blackwell
Liam’s hands paused. “You made him happy,”
he said. “I’m glad he found you before he died.”
He didn’t mention how if it wasn’t for me
Alex would still be alive, which both amped up my guilt and made me
feel oddly affectionate towards Liam. Would I have been so generous
if the roles had been somehow reversed? If it had been Alex who
killed Jase over something Liam had done? Could I have stood there
talking to Liam as if everything was okay? Would I have risked
myself to save his life?
“
Okay, turn around so I can
do the front.”
I swung my legs around so they would dangle
off the edge. The vanity was high enough that Liam and I were right
at eye level as he began doing something with what would have been
bangs if I had enough hair left. I didn’t know what to do. Looking
at his face seemed too intimate, so I kept trying to stare at my
hands, but that tucked my head down, which caused him to lift it
back up, which meant he would touch me. And that was just all kinds
of awkward. Because while Wolf Liam and I were cool, and Wolf Liam
and Wolf Scout were BFFs, Human Scout and Human Liam were merely
two people forced into a strange alliance. Touching was not part of
that alliance.
“
Well, that should do it,”
he said, brushing stray hairs from my shoulders. “Sorry, but there
were some patches I couldn’t do much with.”
Those patches were the places where I had
snipped a little too close to my head. And while Liam was probably
a better barber than most twenty year old guys, he wasn’t exactly a
trained hair stylist. The result left me looking like an
unsupervised three year old.
“
Thank you,” I said,
meaning it.
He shrugged and looked anywhere but at me. I
tried not to laugh at his obvious embarrassment. “No problem. It’ll
probably make the wig fit better, so that’s good.”
The wig! How could I have forgotten there
was a wig to cover up this mess? I leapt from the counter and raced
the three steps it took to get from the sink to the bed where Liam
had dropped it.
There were lots of layers, but eventually I
figured out the front from the back. I slid it on, turned towards
the mirror, and…
“
Did you beat up some old
lady and take her wig?” It even smelled faintly of mothballs and
Chanel No. 5.
Liam scowled. “It’s not that bad.”
“
All four of my
grandmothers have better hair than this.”
Liam stalked over to the other bags and
pulled out a second wig. This one was definitely not granny
hair.
“
That’s awesome!” I said as
I made gimme hands. “I’ll look like a rock star!” This wig was also
layered, but not in short puffs. This one had the whole razor cut
edges thing going on, some trendy hipster bangs, and the coloring
was a dark brown shot through with streaks of the deepest purple I
ever saw.
“
You’ll draw
attention.”
I ripped off the monstrosity on my head and
replaced it with the new wig. I just barely suppressed the urge to
bounce up and down as I looked over the results. “Too bad my eyes
aren’t a really light green instead of blue,” I said squinting at
my face. “I think the coloring of the wig would have made them
darken up a bit.” As it was, my eyes were still way too
Scout-like.
Liam mumbled something under his breath
about me being a girl, which I ignored as he went back to his bags.
This time he produced a small plastic case. I opened it to discover
a pair of turquoise colored contact lenses.
“
Where did you get these?”
The last thing our extended road trip needed was for me to get some
sort of bacteria that would rot my eyeballs out of my
head.
“
Stole them from a girl at
the park. I think she had to take them out because of a nasty eye
infection,” he said as if he could read my mind. I offered him the
sight of my newly healed middle finger, fully extended. “They’re
new, hence the safety seal you just broke.”
They were a little difficult to put in. My
eyesight has always been perfect, so there was never any reason for
me to stick little discs of plastic in my eyes before. It probably
would have gone a lot quicker if I hadn’t automatically squeezed my
eyelids shut every time my finger got anywhere near my face.
“
What do you think?” I
asked, turning away from the mirror once I got everything
adjusted.
Liam had stretched himself across one of the
beds and turned the TV to The Weather Channel while I was
ineffectually jabbing myself in the eye over and over again. His
glance lasted less than a second. “You still look like you.”
“
What do you mean I look
like me?” I leaned back over the sink. Thanks to my bloodshot eyes,
I looked more like a strung-out coke head than Scout Donovan,
Granddaughter to the Senate Majority Leader. The eye color didn’t
look one hundred percent natural, but only if you looked real
close. It was much less distracting than my normal shade. The hair
was obviously not natural, but it was an expensive wig, not one of
those things you buy at the Halloween shop for ten bucks, so it
looked like real hair with an extreme dye job. I didn’t see that as
a problem since at least half of American women color their hair. I
thought I could easily walk into a mall and not be rushed by the
FBI.
“
I mean…” Liam did some
sort of wave thing with his hand that I think was supposed to
indicate my general appearance. Or maybe there was a fly. “You look
like Scout in a wig. It’s not exactly going to keep someone from
recognizing you.”
We were going to have to agree to disagree
on this one, except… “I’m not riding in the trunk.”
I think he might have considered it, but
finally relented. “It’s probably good enough that as long as you
don’t talk to anyone or draw attention to yourself, no one will
look close enough to notice.”
Oh yay! An existence of
only talking to Liam. Maybe I should revisit that
I want to live
thing.
Liam went back to his magical bags of treats
and tricks and fished out a pair of Jackie O sunglasses. “Here,” he
said, tossing them my way. “Wear these at all times.”
“
What is the point of the
contacts if I’m going to keep half my face covered with
sunglasses?”
“
The contacts are the
backup plan.”
Of course he had multiple
plans for keeping my identity concealed. Liam was a man just filled
with plans. Plans on how to save me from the Alphas without
implicating Charlie. Plans to go out and buy me some snazzy costume
supplies while I sat in a motel room thinking he was never coming
back. Plans for where we would go next. Problem was, he never saw
fit to inform
me
of any of these plans.
Chapter 5
“
Let me see if I’ve got
this right.” I rubbed my eyes underneath the sunglasses I was
forced to wear. “There are more Stratego than the three we
killed?”
The sun was just starting to stream through
Liam’s window as we headed south. Today was a backroads day, which
made me happy. I liked looking at all the tiny towns, seeing
something other than the side of an interstate.
“
Nine more, although
they’ve probably already promoted some of the Taxiarho so there’s a
full twelve again.”
Dots appeared on the horizon. I zeroed in on
them without turning my head so I wouldn’t draw Liam’s
attention.
“
Is there always twelve
Stratego?” The dots solidified into animals. “And those are my ten
cows.”
Liam looked around until he finally spotted
them in the field. His cuss word was said from between clenched
teeth.
“
That’s forty-seven cows
for me, and only three for you.”
“
This is the stupidest game
I ever-- My cows!”
“
Five for you.”
Liam gave his head a good frustrated rub.
“Stratego,” he said, getting us back on topic. “Always twelve, same
goes for the Taxiahro. Sometimes it will take them a while to
decide who will fill the spots, but they never let them stay open
long. That’s why they tap so many Potentials.”
“
A Potential being someone
who may one day join the Alphas as a Taxiarho or Stratego?” Not for
the first time, I longed for a handbook.
Liam was just as frustrated by my lack of
knowledge. “Do you know anything about Shifter culture?”
“
Let me see…” I tapped my
bottom lip with my finger. “They treat all girls except for the
Alpha Female like crap and like to kill anyone they consider
different or annoying.”
“
And…”
“
And nothing. I think that
about covers everything I know about you guys.”
Thus began a long, long, loooong lecture on
all things Shifter (included how it was “us” instead of “you guys”)
by Professor Liam Dry-As-Burnt-Toast Cole. By the time we pulled
into a parking lot of a garage on the outskirts of Houston I was
contemplating fashioning a noose out of the seatbelt.
“
I don’t think they’re
open,” I said as he cut off the engine.
Liam just glared and told me to stay put.
Curiously, he seemed nervous as he knocked on the office door. Even
more curious, someone actually answered it. I couldn’t really tell
much because the light bombarding the darkness was blinding, but I
thought there were several someones inside. Four minutes later, he
came to get me.
“
Keep your head down and
don’t say anything,” he said under his breath as we walked towards
the building. “Nothing, Scout. No words of wisdom. No questions.
Just keep your mouth shut. Got it?”
“
I don’t know. Do you think
you could explain it to me in more detail? Maybe give me some
examples?”
I’m not sure where the ability to actually
snip back at Liam was coming from. Either I was finally growing
comfortable with him after so much time together, or Wolf Scout was
still close to the surface. Then again, it could be that what my
mom referred to as my “Good Sense Filter” was broken again.
Liam led me into an office, which was indeed
filled with people. There was a guy either asleep or passed out on
an old ratty couch in the corner. His skin and hair were dark, and
his arms were covered in tattoos, several of them written in
Spanish. A woman sat next to his feet, eyes glued to the phone in
her hand. Another guy, who looked like he was maybe a brother to
the unconscious guy, sat at a desk. His gaze was critical and
assessing. A third guy sat on the edge of the desk, tossing a ball
in the air. He was the only white guy in the room, so of course he
was the one to greet me with a “Hey, Chica.” None of them seemed to
notice the toddler crying in the middle of the floor.
“
So, this is your girl?”
the guy behind the desk asked.
Liam wrapped an arm around my shoulders and
tucked me into his side. It took some effort to override my
instinct to stomp on his foot. “Elizabeth, this is Diaz, a friend
of mine from way back. He might be able to help us find a place to
stay for a little while.”
Since I wasn’t allowed to speak, I just kind
of shook my head a little bit. I was really more concerned about
the poor kid, who had graduated from full-on tantrum to tiny
defeated sobs. My hand itched to grab a tissue and wipe the snot
off his face.
“
Turn around for me,
Beth.”
Since the guy reminded me of a Mexican Shawn
Michaels from Dad’s Monday night wrestling show, I complied.
“
Not bad,” Diaz said.
“Tight, young body. Average face. You’ll need to get some new
clothes, but Trina can help you out.”
I was still confused, but apparently Liam
had caught on because he was well beyond pissed. “No,” he ground
out. “She’s with me. She’s not working the streets.”
Working the streets? What…?
Oh. My. God.
“
You want me to be a
hooker?” I completely forgot my orders to keep my mouth shut. “Are
you insane?”
White Guy laughed. “Ooooh… She’s all sweet
and innocent, too. That’ll definitely jack up the price the first
few times.”
I buried an elbow in Liam’s hip to keep him
in place, although I really wanted to stab White Boy in the eye
with an ice pick myself.
Diaz leaned back in his office chair and
stretched his beefy arms over his head. “I thought you needed
money,” he said to Liam.
“
I do, but I’ll work for
it.” His arm tightened around my shoulders. “Leave her out of
it.”
The kid on the floor started screaming
again.
“
I don’t know, friend.”
Diaz sat back up and shrugged as if he somehow regretted what he
was saying. “Around here, everyone contributes. That’s how a family
operates, everyone pulling their weight. Now, either your girl here
is part of our family and has a place to stay for a while, or she’s
not.”
Liam’s body tensed. For a guy who was
usually so closed off and stoic, his internal conflict was
amazingly obvious on his face. He wanted to tell Diaz to go and do
inappropriate things to himself, but he was counting on whatever
arrangement this was working out. I knew we needed the money. The
roll of bills I found obscenely huge when we first started our
journey was getting rather small. How much more did we have? How
long would we survive on it? And for the love of all things shiny,
would someone please shut that kid up so I could actually
think?
And just like that, inspiration struck. “I
can babysit,” I said. To prove my point, I shrugged off Liam’s arm
so I could go scoop the kid off the ground. He kept crying, and
looked more than a little frightened, but I bounced him up and down
a few times while making shushing noises until he calmed. “See? He
likes me.”