Bruno got him a glass of water and tucked him back into his pad on the floor in their bedroom. “You want to talk about what happened today?” he asked.
“Nah,” Gil said. He was unnaturally quiet, but when Bruno stood up to go, he protested, “DON’T GO!” with all of his usual gusto.
Bruno sat back down on the floor next to him. “I’ll stay as long as you want.”
He sat there, quietly bathed in the glow of a nightlight, until Clarice crept in. “I could sleep out here on the couch,” she offered diffidently. “If it’s too weird with Gil.”
“I like Miss Clarice,” Gil offered in a quiet mumble. “She can be your mate.”
Bruno rose to his feet to greet her with a kiss. “You’re part of our family now.”
46
CLARICE
Monday morning’s chaos was, if anything, more pronounced than Sunday’s, and Clarice felt run off her feet before everyone had been through the bathroom line and been fed the rather paltry breakfast of stale crackers sprinkled with parmesan cheese and baked, plus a few granola bars that were cut up into thirds. Everyone wanted seconds that weren’t available, several whined for milk or juice. Amy burst into tears because there was no bread, and because she missed her mom.
The mood was decidedly more subdued, and Clarice found herself being clung to by several of the children. Tara had decided that Clarice wasnice, and trotted around at her heels being helpful in the kitchen to the point that Clarice nearly fell over her twice.
Even Cherry’s patience was strained, and she was sharp the third time Gil ignored instructions and went crashing into his classmates during games.
Vivian didn’t want to continue dosing the captives, so she let them wake up. Theo and Roderick took shiftswatching them, letting each have a turn in the bathroom under supervision while the kids were safely in the romp room playing a hide and seek game.
By noon,everyonewas hungry and grouchy. The mercenaries were complaining and swearing in the back room of the house loud enough to carry, the children were arguing about what game to play, and the adults were having heated discussions about the risk of getting a grocery order together.
“There’s no reason we can’t go in the back yard, is there?” Clarice finally suggested to Cherry. “They don’t want to be cooped up any more than I do. It’s snowing, maybe we can make snowmen. Does everyone have snow gear?”
This idea was met with universal enthusiasm, and Clarice got firsthand experience trying to get six kids and two babies into snowsuits and coats. It was like trying to herd puppies, and she was pretty sure that had nothing to do with the fact that they were shifters. Shane refused to put his arms and legs into the snowsuit that Vivian gave her, and every time Clarice got one limb in, he’d wriggled another one free. She finally figured out how to hold in his bottom half and wrangle in his top half and zipped him up so fast she was afraid she’d pinched his chin at his dreadful wail.
Darius grumbled about having to put his phone down, and argued with Theo about wearing his hat, Tara and Lucy quarreled over a scarf, and Gil put his boots on the wrong feet.
But once they were outside, everything was magical.
The softly falling snow turned the fenced backyard into a beautiful little Narnia, with lace-draped trees and banks of snow to run and leap into. The play was delightfully unstructured, as everyone—child and adult alike—ran tocatch snowflakes and form snowballs and join in elaborate imagination games.
“Christmas” was the children’s favorite, with Tara and Gil bossing everyone into lying in the snow so Santa could come. The presents under the tree were all snowballs, which children pretended to unwrap as they shredded them into sparkling dust.
“I got a NINTENDO!” Gil declared. “And a space rocket!”
“I got a magic wand!” Tara cheered. “And a PHONE.” It was as excited as Clarice had yet seen her.
“What do you want, Amy?” Clarice asked the girl, who was bouncing in place in snow that was waist-deep on her.
“COCCKA!” Amy said, which made no sense to Clarice, but everyone around them nodded sagely.
“What did YOU get, MISS CLARICE?” Gil asked.
Clarice looked at the lumpy snowball in her hands and then looked up from where she was sitting to meet his eyes. “I got a family,” she said. “It was just what I always wanted.
Gil was greatly unimpressed.
They were still outside playing, the youngest kids just starting to run out of steam and rub their eyes, when a stream of vehicles pulled up in front.
Clarice had a moment ofwhat NOWpanic, then heard Juliette’s voice. Jackson gave a shout of welcome and toddled for the gate, falling in the thick snow and landing on his face to shriek in outrage.
Parents came in through the gate to greet their children with great relief and Clarice hung back awkwardly as they went through reunions.
Olivia had one arm in a sling and had to hug Lucy from one side. Kendra’s face was mottled with bruises, and Clarice touched the side of her tender head toremember that she probably didn’t look much better. Tara trotted up to Becket very gravely and hugged his knees. Juliette picked Jackson up out of the snow and tossed him into the air to turn his wails to chortles of joy. Darius grudgingly accepted a hug and Juliette ruffled his hair (his hat had been stuffed into a pocket as soon as he was outside).
