“Jewels won’t,” I say. Then I turn back to the boy, Cal.
Lou instantly stiffens, shuffling to place herself firmly between him and me. Brave, but stupid. She might not understand the power I hold — maybe she can’t feel it or doesn’t understand what she’s scenting — but she just clearly witnessed the berserker capitulate without protest.
“You don’t come between me and what is mine,” I say again, trying to be gentle about it. Problem is, the universe doesn’t feel patient, not about any of this. It wants me moving, though not enough to just move me itself. Not yet. “All I want is Cal safe, and to keep him that way. That’s my role here.”
I’d really rather not be standing here with sweat running down my spine, gathering along my hairline, and a headache threatening to splinter my head either.
“That’s what I do,” Lou says stiffly. “I stand between the world and Cal. I made a promise to his mother, on her deathbed.”
Cal snorts derisively. “Not the deathbed promise,” he mocks, weariness echoing through his words.
A combination of his fear and loneliness, patched over with sarcasm and dark wit, aches through my chest. If I hadn’t already felt it, that alone would have confirmed the connection between us. Because I’m not empathic with anyone who’s not tied to me. As all the Guerra siblings seem to be tied.
I’ll have to ask Rath about the research he’s done into soul bonds, but I suspect that what has happened between us all might be utterly unique. It might be that Oso, aka the Cataclysm, was bonded to my aunt when she was the Conduit, so that even though she rejected him, enough of that tie remained to transfer through his children to me as the Conduit-to-be.
Or maybe the universe is just fucking around for the fun of it.
Or it might be both.
Cal steps around Lou, not approaching me, but wanting to see me better.
She throws out an arm to hold him back.
I don’t like that at all, so I reach out and give her threads just a little tug of warning. Without really thinking about it. It’s that easy. That instinctual now.
She gasps, stumbling to the side as if I’ve knifed her.
“Allow Cal to make his own choices,” I say. “It’s not for you to direct his fate.”
“Oh yeah?” she says, trying to rally. “That’s your job now? I hear you got yourself caged even worse than us. You wouldn’t have gotten out if Jewels hadn’t risked us all.”
I don’t disagree with her. And she doesn’t try to block Cal from stepping a little closer to look at me.
We squint at each other in the sunlight. Not a hint of purple in his eyes. Not yet.
“I know your sister, Presh,” I say. “Well, both your sisters. And three of your older brothers.”
“Good for you,” he says caustically. “They don’t bother with me.”
“Jewels didn’t tell you?” Lou looks around us nervously, even though as a shifter, she’d pick up the nearby presence of people by sound. Depending on what sort of ‘chill pill’ she’s prone to taking, of course. “Cal isn’t one of the Cataclysm’s kids.”
Cal doesn’t take his attention off me, but when I don’t correct her, he smirks. “You said we had somewhere else to be? That ‘pop stand’ thing?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Pascal.”
“What is?”
“My stupid name,” he grumbles.
I hold my hand out to him.
He eyes it like my offering it is a personal offense. “I’m not a baby. I can walk fine on my own.”
I quash a grin. “Keep up, then.” I turn to walk through the patio doors that Lou flung open. Cal follows on my heels, Lou and the berserker trailing behind as if helplessly caught in our wake.
After bickering with Ricky, then bickering over the amount of luggage everyone is taking, Jewels loads five other kids and two more women into two trucks — the one we drove here and a second identical vehicle, same color, make, and model. Plus, Cal and Lou. They’ve obviously been planning their escape for a while.
