* * *
I called my sister Mud and told her I wouldn’t be picking her up before bedtime. She was at Esther’s Tulip Tree House—what the family had taken to calling the freakishly growing, deeply rooted living trees that had grown up around her log home when the babies were born.
Saving my voice, I listened through my earbud as Mud chattered about her day. She had been dropped off by the school bus and was having a great time helping her sister take care of the twins. Mud and Esther, once bitter enemies, were getting along famously since the babies were born. Mud loved them with utter devotion. She kept a bag at Esther’s for overnighters, since my ability to be home at night during dangerous or hot cases was uncertain, and the judge at the guardianship hearing had agreed that Esther was an acceptable babysitter when I ran late.
Mud and I had spent a lot of time together over the last month, preparing for the court case that had given me full custody and assigned me as her legal guardian. That guardianship was not intended to keep her from her family or from the church, should she wish to return to it and to that lifestyle, and the judge had approved visitation to her parents, her sister-mothers, her sibs and half sibs, so long as she was not forced to stay there, and was not “programmed to marry as a child bride.”
I knew she needed the noisy, joy-filled part of polygamous life. I remembered exactly how it had felt to be ripped away from everything normal and to suddenly be in an empty house, without dozens of people everywhere.
A week past, I had been given full—but conditional—guardianship and custody of my little sister by the court system of Tennessee. This legal approval had created inside me a confusing mixture of joy and terror each time I thought about it, and I had discovered that I mostly didn’t want to think about it in a conceptual way, but only in the way of immediate problem-solving—like getting the church’s support payments set up in Mud’s name for college, and my own finances in better shape to care for her. I was good at that, the figuring-out part. Not so good at recognizing that I had succeeded in several of my goals for my sisters, and what it all might mean for everyone’s lives.
I had succeeded. I had gotten custody.
And now vampires were after me. My sisters and the twins would be in danger. My steering wheel squeaked and I had to stop twisting it in fear and frustration. With my thoughts on what I had done and what I should do next, I followed the vehicles in front of me by muscle memory.
I could take my sisters to the church and leave them. I could take FireWind up on the idea of removing us all into protective custody. I didn’t know what to do, except that I had spoken truly. We were stronger on Soulwood.
As I drove, Mud filled me in on the details about the babies. Noah and Ruth Nicholson—my sister had taken back her maiden name and given her kids her maiden name because her ex-husband had deserted them all—were thriving, both far ahead of testing standards. They were trying to roll over already when they shouldn’t even be able to lift their heads, and, so far, neither was growing leaves. She prattled about Esther’s Christmas decorations and the plans the Nicholson family had for the holiday late next week. I had put up a small tree at our house, but I hadn’t decorated it yet, mainly because I couldn’t force myself to drag out and use the old Ingram decorations, the ones left behind when John died, the decorations that his first wife, Leah, and I had hung when I’d “married” into the family at age twelve. They were things of my victim-past, and I wanted betterfor my first Christmas with Occam and Mud in what would be, by then, our home.
By the time my one-sided conversation with Mud was over, I had arrived at HQ and pulled in behind the golden Ferrari. Sighing, I got out of my car and walked toward Yummy and FireWind, who were standing beneath the security lights and camera at the unmarked entrance to PsyLED Unit Eighteen HQ. The two were having a heated discussion.
The door opened behind them and Occam stuck his head out. An unknown emotion flashed across his face and was gone, replaced by a tense smile as he looked me over from top to bottom, his eyes lingering on my throat. “Hey there, Nell, sugar. While these two argue about protocol, I have pizza for you upstairs. Come on up.”
On cue, I felt faint with hunger.
“Wait, where’s your tree?” he asked. “Do you want me to go get it?”
“The tree stays in her trunk until she can safely dispose of it,” Aya said, interrupting his own conversation.
I took the opportunity to slip past the two arguers and inside. I squeezed Occam’s hand, pulling him with me. We were careful about PDA—which I had learned meant public displays of affection—at work. There had been a long-standing rule about agents in one unit not dating, but since Eighteen was the only mostly para unit, that rule had been relaxed, though not ignored. FireWind’s threat of transfer was always on the table, but we could have friendships as long as they didn’t bring trouble to the job.
“What kind of pizza?” I asked.
“One veggie supreme, one meat lovers’, and one spicy sausage and pepperoni with jalapeños, that one ordered for LaFleur.”
“I’ll make up something for his stomach.”
Occam laughed and, as we reached the top of the stairs, buzzed us in, placing a kiss at my temple and plucking leaves from my hairline before the door opened. “I missed you, plant-woman.”
“And I missed you, cat-man.”
“This working split shifts sucks.”
“At least he aligned our days off.”
“The FireWind giveth and the FireWind taketh away.”
“Let me clean up.” I pushed into the locker room and saw myself in the mirror. No wonder Occam had reacted. I was covered with dried vampire blood and more leaves were hiding in my hair. Stress always brought on leaf budding, even in winter when a proper deciduous tree was leafless. I supposed that even as a tree, I wasn’t proper.
Leaning toward the mirror over the sinks, I yanked leaves free and tucked them in a pocket. After drawing on my power, my eyes were greener, the leafy spring green that said I had been in contact with the earth too long again. My hair was brighter. A rich reddish tint in the tresses, brighter than the drying blood.
I stripped and showered, washing all the blood off. Looking under the door into the main room several times. Nervous as a feral cat.
I hated the unisex locker room, even though it had separate, lockable showers and changing rooms. It tripped what Occam referred to as myPTSD triggersfrom my childhood. I just thought it gave me the shakes. The men in the unit respected my need for privacy and had never, not one time, come in while I showered and changed. That was a kindness I could never repay.
When I was dressed, now wearing a pair of sweats, I retrieved the leaves I had groomed out of my hair during the day and just now, and flushed them.
Leaving my white shirt and black pants soaking in the sink to get the blood out, I returned to the hallway. Occam stood there, his gobag on one shoulder, a wriggling puppy in that elbow. In his other hand he held a plate of hot veggie pizza. I took a slice, biting experimentally into the greasy cheesy deliciousness and petting Cherry, who licked my hand enthusiastically. My throat seemed much better. I swallowed the pizza bite and said, “You’re leaving?”
