How would you even diaper that?
Rodger sat up against the camp stove. “We used to have these finger puppets we’d use with the kids in the bathtub. First time I showed Gabe, he chomped the rabbit. Ate it in one gulp. We knew right then he was a go-getter.”
I stuffed the invite into my pocket. “I wish you could go home.”
He took a long drag of Dr Pepper. “Me too.”
We sat in silence, listening to the tar bubbles in the swamp.
Sure, living with Rodger could drive any sane woman to drink occasionally, but he was fun. He was my best friend.
He was easy.
I eyed him as he scratched his belly and contemplated his soda can. “I missed you,” I said.
“You should.”
I shook my head. “I missed this.”
That got his attention. “Things with Marc finally get to you?”
I sat, elbows on my knees. “He wasn’t the one.”
I stared at the postcards Rodger and I had tacked up on the wall. Los Angeles, Topanga, Malibu—all of the places he and Mary Ann were going to show me once we got out of here. God, I had more happy postwar fantasies with Rodger and Mary Ann than I did with my almost-fiancé. “Now Galen’s back in the picture.”
Rodger choked. “What?”
“He’s back. I’m hiding him.” Sort of. When he wasn’t avoiding me.
My roommate stared at me. “When were you going to mention it?”
What was he? My father? “I just did.”
“Oh, well, naturally,” Rodger muttered.
I ignored him. I’d believed that Galen was the one man I could love with all my heart, but that wasn’t going to work. I had no idea how I could ever trust myself to know anymore.
Not when I’d fallen so hard, and hurt so bad. I blew out a breath. “How do you know when it’s right? You know: the One?”
He contemplated a second. “You don’t.”
Talk about a bullshit answer. “I’m serious.” Rodger and Mary Ann had a fantastic marriage, one that kept him sane when everything else was going to hell. “Don’t stand here and tell me it was all a happy mistake.” Not when I needed a plan. “I want what you have. So give it to me straight. How did you know Mary Ann was the right one for you?”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Did I ever tell you about her dimples?”
I was so not in the mood for a ramble down memory lane. “Rodger…”
He sat down on his cot and wadded up his pillow behind him. “Mary Ann has the cutest dimples. She can really light up a room. So at the end of every date, I’d ask her out again right away. And she’d smile and show off those dimples and she’d say, ‘I suppose we could go another round.’”
Just shoot me now. “That’s not even witty.”
But he was already in another world. “It was perfect.”
“Oh, barf.”
He gave me a knowing grin. “You want it straight? Here it is. You may not be able to communicate worth shit, but you’re ass backward in love with Galen. Stop overthinking it and be with him for whatever time you have.”
My stomach hollowed. Maybe I didn’t want what Rodger had—to love so deeply, but be kept apart.
“Petra?” Rodger leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “This isn’t a microbiology test.”
My head buzzed with a million issues and worries and fears until I blurted out the most important one. “I can’t lose him again.”
Rodger sat still for a moment. “It’s better than cutting you both off.”
“No it’s not.” I stood. I had to move, walk, do something. “Galen isn’t even pretending that he can stay, that he can love me, that he’s not going to walk away tomorrow or next week and get himself killed because he gave up his immortality for me.”
He tilted his head. “And what are you willing to risk for him?”
“Shut up, Rodger.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at the tar swamp. We were on two different roads. I never should have asked Rodger his opinion.
I stared at the swamp until I didn’t even see it anymore. “You don’t know how hard it is to have him right here.”
“No, but I know you.”
I did my best to ignore him.
He folded his letter and placed it back in its envelope. “Come on.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s grab some dinner.”
“Good. Yes.” Anything to get my mind on something else.
Before we left, we scooped up the box fragments. “What are we having tonight?”
“Meat loaf surprise.”
“What’s the surprise?” I dumped a handful of stoneware hearts in the trash.
“No meat.”
We wandered over to the mess tent and grabbed a few trays. They were always wet. In the desert. I shook some of the drips off mine. I didn’t know how the cafeteria staff managed it.
I did feel better—sort of—after unburdening myself to Rodger. I just wished things could be simple, or at least easier to take.
And it turned out Rodger was right about one thing—I didn’t detect much meat in the loaf. We moved down the line and I noticed he stuck to the buttered noodles.
The place was only half full. Rodger and I found a spot at a far table with Holly and Father McArio.
“How’s Galen?” Father asked.
My tray rattled as I dropped it the last few inches and grabbed a chair. “You told him?” I asked Holly.
She shrugged, chewing her meat loaf. “I’ve told him worse than that. Besides, Rodger doesn’t look too surprised.”
I peppered my meat. Took another look at it and peppered some more.
“Galen is a big guy,” Rodger said, shoveling in a forkful of buttered noodles. “He can handle himself.”
Holly stiffened. “There they are.”
I followed her gaze as a pair of overweight trolls walked in the door. They were dressed head to toe in red, with polished boots and the crest of the gods on each shoulder. Their uniforms would have been intimidating as heck, if these two didn’t resemble overgrown cranberries.
Their military haircuts made their pointed ears look even bigger. And their jowls shook with each heavy step.
“We’re scared of them?” Rodger snarfed. “I think I saw one of them at the airport working for the TSA.”
I glanced past Father to the table of nurses huddled together, talking and glancing at the trolls, who had managed to snag the prime table by the drink station.
“Be very afraid,” Father murmured. “They have the power to do terrible things. Once they find their pencils.”
“Pencils?” I asked. I didn’t want to imagine torture by pencil.
Father pushed his tray aside and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Trolls always play by the rules. Evidently, HQ forgot to send number two lead pencils. Without their pencils, they can’t fill out their paperwork. And without the correct forms filed in triplicate, they can’t begin the interrogations.”
Unbelievable. “How do you know these things?”
Father shrugged. “It’s in the handbook.”
Rodger brought his head in close. “I don’t get it. We have a ton of number two pencils in supply at the hospital.”
“Not anymore.” Father winked. “Shirley and I hid them in the junkyard.”
Well, color me impressed. “Isn’t there something in the Commandments about stealing?”
“You mean rule number eight?” he asked with a shrug. “I think the Lord will understand.”
“You’re swiping stuff from investigators that could kill you,” Holly said. I gave her the Look. “What?” She held up her hands. “I’m just pointing it out.”
I pushed my chair back. “I’ve got to talk to Galen.”
chapter ten
He wasn’t in quarantine.
His tent was dark, the bed made. I grabbed a torch and stepped inside. Cripes. It didn’t even look like anyone had been in here.
Leta’s tent, on the other hand, glowed with lantern light. I jammed the torch back in the holder and went to her place. “Leta, it’s me. Dr. Robichaud.”
I pushed open the flaps. But her tent was empty too. The floor was strewn with pillows, blankets, even an empty water bottle. I snorted. You could tell she wasn’t regular military. Then I saw the discarded hospital gown and an icy hand gripped my heart.
It was almost as if they’d left in a hurry.
He might be gone for good.
The thought lodged in my throat.
I hoped the investigators hadn’t found them. Maybe they’d decided to take off, although that was bad news too. Galen might be okay to travel. Barely. But he wasn’t at full strength. And Leta was still recovering. A long way from healed.
I shoved the tent flaps closed. He could have come to me. We would have hidden him better, worked out an escape plan.
He took too many risks. It was all about the mission. The endgame. No doubt he’d throw himself under the bus the next time too.
Laughter erupted from one of the supply tents down the way. I stood with my hands on my hips, staring at the cascade of stars, not seeing any of them.
Yes, I’d wanted him to leave camp. I did. But after how things had ended between us.
I rubbed at the back of my neck.
Raw hurt pricked through my veins. It felt worse, because I knew I had no right to feel betrayed.
When he left the first time, he’d had good reasons that had probably saved my life. This time, he was saving a creature who would have been enslaved, killed without him.
And there was nothing I could do to make it better.
I trudged across the blackened desert toward camp.
The rocky soil crunched under my boots. I should have grabbed a torch. Then again, if I fell flat on my ass it would almost be a nice distraction.
Maybe this was good. The investigators could leave peacefully if there were no Galen and Leta left to find, or—I shuddered—more likely they’d start looking for a scapegoat or two to make it look like they were doing their jobs.
My tent was dark. It seemed I was the only one around who didn’t have a life, someone to be with. I banged in the front door and flopped down on my cot.
I was fine with being alone. I was. It was just pathetic how it had come about.
Torchlight flickered from outside. I hoped Galen was okay. I had that hollow feeling in my stomach that I got when he was deployed.
“Petra.” Galen’s voice sounded from inside the tent.
I sat up like I’d been hit with an electric charge.
“Relax,” he said, as if that would happen. I fumbled for the lantern above my bed. “Stop.” His warm hand closed over mine. “We don’t want anyone to see me in here.”
“Right.” Relief swamped me. He was alive. He was okay. I could practically feel his body towering over mine in the darkness. “You scared me half to death.”
“I figured you’d be more alert. But instead you went to bed.”
Yes, well, I wasn’t special ops. Besides, “I wasn’t going to bed. I was brooding.”
“Want me to build you a lair?”
Har-dee-har. I set the lantern on low, the tiny flickering light bathing us in shadows. It caught the outline of his face and the curve of his lips.
Merde. I’d been so scared when I thought I’d never see him again. Now having him here, with me, it was almost too much. He looked good enough to eat.
Perhaps I should just turn the light back out.
Instead, I cranked up my courage and prayed my voice didn’t shake. “What are you doing here? I thought you went back,” I said, as if I’d been hoping it were true.
I didn’t fool him for a second. “I needed to see you.”
“Why?” I stood, crossing my arms over my chest, as if that would somehow protect me from the intimacy of having him here, in the dark.
He smelled like the open desert in the evening and I found myself wanting to bury my nose in the crook of his neck. But I’d given up that right. Or rather, he’d taken it from me.
He moved closer, until we were almost touching. “I knew you wouldn’t come to me,” he said, his voice tinged with regret.
“I tried,” I said, and saw him smile a little.
Damn, he was so direct. Galen never hid from what he wanted. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t resist when he’d wanted me. “Look, I need to step back. I’m trying to keep my pants on,” I said, trying for a little levity.
His mouth quirked at that. “And you’re so confident I could get them off?”
I wasn’t going to debate him on that one. I eased away from him and walked toward the cold potbellied stove, trying to put some distance between us. It didn’t work. Galen’s presence permeated this space and everything in it.
“What are we going to do about the investigators?” I asked.
He stood completely still, like a predator. “I thought it would take them more time.”
“Just the opposite.” The entire camp was in danger.
People’s lives were at stake. These were my friends, my colleagues. I didn’t have a home to go back to anymore. These people were all I had left.
His face hardened as he considered his options. “We can’t leave. I talked with an associate who completed a similar mission last month. His dragon is gone.”
“Freed?”
“Guess again.”
“I understand why you can’t take her back, but I don’t know if it’s any safer here.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do with her. She’s more dragon than human right now.”
Oh, lovely. “Where is she?”
“Out flying.”
“Damn it!”
“Calm down.” He strode over to me. “The webbing on her wings is just growing back. She can only fly low. Besides, Marc is with her.”
“You dragged Marc into this?” Wasn’t it enough that he’d seen us naked together? Well, Galen was naked, but I was well on my way, and—
“He wasn’t happy about it,” Galen said stiffly.
Understatement of the year. “You asked my ex to babysit your dragon after he saw us…” I couldn’t even say it.
Galen’s jaw tightened. “It wasn’t an easy conversation.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Listen, Petra. This isn’t how I’d choose for it to happen either. I’m just trying to be realistic here.”
Oh, well, then. “I’m glad to see you have everything under control.”
At least I was starting to piss him off too. “We can’t keep this secret much longer.”
“That’s my point.”
“Marc seems to have a way with her. He could help rehabilitate her.”
“We can’t hide her that long.”
His face hardened as he made his decision. He seemed to stand even taller, if that was possible. “You’re not going to like this,” he began, as if I’d liked any of it so far, “but we need to tell the camp.”