Capture (29 page)

We were on a mission.
And that was all that kept us going.

The sound of big engines drawing closer
pulled me from the circling fog of my thoughts sometime later. I turned off my chainsaw, nearly cutting off my own leg when I set it down before the chain had fully stopped cycling.

Ready or not, the houses were here.

I looked around me and sighed with relief. Yeah, we should have enough room to position the houses. But it would be tight, and the drivers would have to be careful not to puncture their tires driving over the stumps we’d left everywhere.

We had to help the drivers position rubber mats along the makeshift road into the clearing to give their tires enough traction.
Then we had to prune back a lot of branches along the perimeter to keep them from busting out the windows of the houses as they were arranged. 

While the drivers finished arranging and leveling the houses with cement blocks, the logging team and I leaned against the hood of my truck,
half asleep on our feet.

And then everything became a series of minute long moments separated by long, slow blinks.

Long blink.

“
Sign here, and here, and here, and here,” someone said, thrusting clipboards in front of me that I clumsily forced my gloved fingers to scrawl some attempt at a signature on.

Long blink.

The tail lights of the last delivery truck turned at the end of our newly created road and faded. I hoped Grandma Letty remembered to do something about the paperwork trail for the houses. She probably would. She was one smart old lady.

Long blink.

My chin bounced off my chest and I stumbled sideways. “I’ve got an idea,” I muttered, scrubbing my face. “Let’s cut up one of these trees, stick the logs in one of those houses’ fireplaces, and see how soft the living room carpeting is.”

Somebody laughed, which was kind of annoying because I was totally serious.

“
Yeah, sure. You volunteering to chop the firewood?” Harvey said.

I scowled.
“On second thought, my truck sounds better.”

Grunts of agreement were all the votes I needed.
We pulled ourselves into the truck, and this time I didn’t care at all about the snow we tracked in on the floorboards. I had just enough energy to crank the engine, turn on the heat, and call my grandma. No one answered, so I left a message to confirm the houses were in place. Then I conked out.

Wednesday, December 23rd

Tapping sounded against something hard near my left ear. I jerked awake to find the sweetest smile on earth on the other side of the glass.

“
Hey, guys, they’re here!” I cut off the truck’s engine and tried to casually unfold my stiff body out of the truck. A series of pops from my joints gave me away.

“
Oh my lord, Hayden, are you okay?” Tarah gasped as I hugged her with one aching arm I nearly couldn’t move.

“
Nothing a bottle of aspirin won’t fix,” I joked, drawing in a deep breath of shampoo from her hair.

She shook her head and looked up at me with a smile.
“Did you have much time to miss me?”

I knew she was teasing me.
So I didn’t tell her the truth, that thoughts of her were just about all that had kept me going the last few hours. She probably wouldn’t have believed me anyways.

So all I ended up saying was,
“Yeah.”

“
Everyone’s checking out the houses and putting together the bunk beds. Should we help assign families to each room, or...?”

“
Nah, let them sort it out.” Slinging an arm around her shoulders, I grandly swung an arm out towards the grouping of houses, intending to say, “So what do you think?” But before I could speak, I got a good look at the place in the daylight, and my free arm dropped to my side, screaming muscles already forgotten.

Cut trees formed haphazard piles all around the perimeter like forgotten Jenga pieces some giant had thrown down and forgotten to put away.
Despite the use of the rubber mats, the delivery trucks had still managed to plow deep ruts into the snow in places. And though we’d tried to cut the trees as close to the ground as we could, there were still stumps left visible everywhere.

And then there were the mobile homes themselves.
Grandma Letty and I had picked out a design that had a short, narrow porch on the front and a peaked roof with green shingles. So they didn’t exactly look like metal cans on wheels. But...

I walked over to the nearest cement steps leading up to one of the house’s porch.
I must have dozed off when the delivery drivers had set up the steps for each house.

“
What’s wrong?” Tarah asked.

I didn’t know how to answer her.
I looked around us, at the four matching white houses resting several feet above the ground, their wheels exposed below. Then I flopped down onto the nearby steps.

Tarah sat beside me with a frown, waiting.

“Well, this sucks.” I was too tired to be mad. All I felt was beat up and defeated.

CHAPTER 17

“
W
hat sucks?” Tarah looked around us, clearly lost.

“
This!” I threw my hands out at all the houses, the clearing, the stumps like huge zits making the whole area ugly. “This is supposed to be a village for people with powers so dangerous the government’s afraid of us?”

“
What’s wrong with it?”

I growled in frustration, trying to sort
out my groggy thoughts enough to put them into words. “It’s...not right. It’s just a bunch of ordinary houses in the middle of nowhere. Where’s the fantasy that says ‘secret Clann village?’”

She burst into laughter.
“Hayden, what exactly did you expect, Disneyworld?”

I lunged off the steps, giving in to the urge to pace though my sore leg muscles protested loudly.
“Not a trailer park in the woods, that’s for sure. Look around you. Does this look like Hogsmeade or Lothlorien to you?”

She snickered.
“Okay, first off, you’re talking about made up places. And secondly, this is just temporary until spring. The fantasy village will come. We just got here.” She stood up, walked over to me, and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Give it time while everyone settles in and gets used to their new home. Come summer time, I bet you’ll get your Lothlorien.” She rose up on tiptoe and nuzzled her nose against mine. “And your elven ears, too, if you want them.”

I tried not to smile, but it was a useless fight.
“And one of those clingy elven dresses for you?”

Laughing, s
he kissed me, and I let it ease away the frustration of the moment a little.

But the disappointment wasn’t completely gone, because I wasn’t sure I would still be here by summer time.

Still, I tried to forget about it. Why should I care what this place looked like? These people didn’t care, that was for sure. All they wanted was some place safe where they could be themselves. My ideas for a cool looking village for magic users had no meaning or purpose to people who were more concerned with just surviving right now.

So I focused on what was important instead, helping set up the solar panels and wind power systems so we could start generating electricity.
The water proved to be tougher. The ground was hard and cold, requiring the use of spell fire to first melt the snow and then warm the earth enough so we could dig trench lines from the houses to the water system, and from the water system to the creek. Even with the help of magic, it would still probably take the digging team a week to get it all completed. Until then, people from each house would have to haul water from the creek.

And then there was the bus driver, Bud Preston, to deal with.
Grandma Letty had woken him up enough to safely drive the group here. But she’d also sent her homemade sleepy time potion with Pamela so we could knock him out again and keep him that way overnight. Tomorrow, however, we’d need to wake him up and send him on his way back home.

As I took a turn fetching water from the creek, I worried about what using sedatives for so long on a man Bud’s age might do to his health.
Grandma Letty claimed the homemade herbal mix was harmless, but had she ever used so much of it for so long on someone Bud’s age before? I doubted it. And it wasn’t like the FDA had done tests on the stuff either.

While returning to my assigned house after fifteen long minutes spent breaking up ice at the edge of the creek, two loud voices behind one of the houses brought me up short.
Water from the plastic bucket sloshed out onto my jeans, forcing me to bite back a curse.

I recognized those voices.
Steve and Pamela. What the heck had they felt the need to discuss out in fifteen degree Fahrenheit weather in the woods at night?

I edged closer until I could make out their individual words.

“What is your
problem
?” Pamela said.

“
Seriously? You have to ask? We can’t stay here!” Steve all but shouted.

“
Why not?” she said.

“
Four people packed into every room? No running water, and twelve people sharing just two bathrooms in every house
and
I have to pour my own toilet water every time I flush? That idiot kid and his grandma have got us packed in like frigging sardines here! Is this what you really want for our family, for Cassie?”

“
It’s just for a few months, Steve. Then spring will come, we’ll build our own house exactly the way we want it, and everything will be fine. And besides, you should be grateful. These four houses alone probably cost Grandma Letty a quarter of a million dollars.”

Actually, it had been closer to half a million once you threw in the furniture and dishes and stuff.
I’d seen the paperwork when Grandma Letty had bought them.

“
Besides,” Pamela continued. “We have a shot at a real life here. No more hiding—”

“
But we
are
hiding! We’re in the freaking woods—”

“
But we don’t have to hide our abilities within these woods,” Pamela said. “Cassie won’t have to feel like a freak anymore.”

“
No, just grow up in some backwoods hillbilly commune with second rate education and no health care.”

“
Which is a lot better than no education at all and drugged out of her mind in an internment camp! Or have you already forgotten that place? And while you’re struggling with that memory of yours, why don’t you also try remembering that you’re talking to one of the resident health care providers around here, you insensitive jackass! Second rate health care? I can heal us just
fine
!”

Pamela was nearly shrieking at this point.
I was surprised the rest of the group hadn’t come outside to see what was going on. She took in a long, noisy breath, then let it out slowly. “Look, I’m not discussing this with you any more. Cassie and I are staying here where we’re safe and accepted. If you want to go brave that crazy world out there on the run, you do what you have to.”

I took that as my cue to leave in the other direction.
I wasn’t sure why I’d even listened in as long as I had. All I’d really wanted to know was if Steve’s pissy mood was based on something I did, or if the whole situation ticked him off in general. Obviously it was the latter. And definitely none of my business.

Though I sure wouldn’t have been sad to see Steve go, if that was his decision.
The guy was an idiot to think he could possibly keep his family safe somewhere else. With the way the international politics were shaping up, there weren’t too many safer places on the
planet
right now.

But Steve struck me as the hardheaded loner type.
Maybe he figured he could put a disguise spell on his family’s faces for the rest of their lives and keep them safe that way. Whatever he was thinking, I doubted it included giving up on his family this easily. I’d have to keep an eye on Pamela and Cassie for the next few days just in case Steve tried to force them to leave with him against their will, or something crazy like that.

After seeing him kill that cop back at the gas station with zero hesitation, I had no doubt Steve was fully capable of anything in the name of protecting his family.

Once I finished delivering the water to the ladies giving sponge baths to toddlers and washing dishes in the kitchen, as well as refilling the toilet tanks in the house where Tarah and I would be staying for awhile, I joined Tarah in the living room.

She was playing Monopoly with Cassie and Mike.
Grandma Letty had suggested a huge stockpile of board and card games for each house since we couldn’t safely have cable or satellite TV. I had a feeling we’d all be getting tired of the games before winter ended, as they would be our only entertainment for months.

“
Mikey, you’re cheating again,” Cassie cried out, her wild head of white-blonde curls bouncing as she whapped Mike on the arm.

“
Cassie, play nicely,” Pamela called out from the kitchen where she was drying dinner plates. To her credit, she gave no sign of her recent argument with her husband. Maybe they argued all the time and it was no big deal to her.

“
Oh please. How can you tell?” Mike said to Cassie, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “All I did was roll the dice.”

“
And then used mag—” Cassie hesitated, her hand flying to her mouth as her eyes widened. She turned to her mother in fear.

“
It’s okay, honey.” Pamela smiled, but sadness kept it from reaching her eyes. “But only talk about it here with our friends.”

What had our country’s latest civil war done to kids like Cassie?
How long would it take before they learned to feel safe again? Months? Years?

“
Anyways, you can’t tell I used magic just now,” Mike teased the little girl. “Everyone’s using magic around here.”

“
So? I can tell it was you who did it just now,” Cassie insisted. “I can smell it.” She tapped her tiny button nose.

I burst out laughing.
“Mike, she says your magic stinks!”

“
Shut up,” he muttered, punching my shoulder. He turned back to the little girl. “Oh yeah? What does it smell like?”

“
Oranges and sunshine,” she chirped with a giggle.

Mike grinned.
“Ha! See? She says my magic smells good.”

Tarah rolled the dice then asked,
“And what does Hayden’s magic smell like?”

Cassie frowned.
“Hmm. Do something, Hay-Hay.”

“
Hay-Hay!” Mike fell over sideways laughing.

Hay-Hay?
Couldn’t Cassie pick a different nickname for me?

I tried to forget about my new nickname and focus on doing something
magical on a small scale. But what?

Then I had it.
I held out a finger a few inches from Tarah’s neck and blew softly, pushing a tiny bit of my will into the breath of air. The breeze lifted a strand of Tarah’s hair and coaxed it to wrap around my finger several times. As Tarah’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink, Cassie giggled and clapped her hands.

“
Blankets!” she cried out. “It smells like the blankets after Mommy washes them.”

“
I think she means the fresh breeze scented laundry detergent we used to use,” Pamela explained with a grin.

My
magic smelled like laundry soap. Great.

Steve walked into the room, joining us from the master suite his family had claimed, his face clouded.
He added a log to the fireplace, jabbing it way harder than needed with the poker before jerking the metal safety chain curtain back across the opening. Muttering about how we’d all die of the cold, he stomped back to his family’s bedroom. Either they had taken the master suite, or everyone else had assigned it to them so we wouldn’t have to see Steve every time he needed to visit a bathroom. But apparently the compromise was that his end of the house wasn’t getting much heat from the fireplace. Probably because he insisted on keeping their bedroom door shut.

That reminded me.
“Hey, Tarah, want to help me bring in more firewood?”

“
Sure.”

As we pulled on our coats and boots at the door, Mike waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Keep her out there a while, would you? I need to get past her Boardwalk and Park Place in a few turns, and I’m running short on cash.”

“
Cassie, you keep an eye and a nose on him for me, okay?” Tarah said, tapping the side of her nose. “Play my turns for me till I get back. And don’t let him cheat anymore.”

Cassie nodded solemnly.

As I held the glass and metal storm door open for Tarah, I heard Cassie howl, “Mikey, you heard Tarah. Quit cheating!”

Chuckling, I followed Tarah down the steps, pulling her in against my side as we strolled along the houses.
We’d chopped up and piled firewood behind every house earlier so no one had to go too far, and taking a shortcut in between the houses would have been quicker. But I wanted time alone to talk with her, so we walked past the shortcut and took the long way around instead.

As we crunched along on the snow, carefully avoiding the tree stumps everywhere, I told her about the argument I’d overheard between Pamela and Steve.
“So we might want to keep an eye on at least Cassie when we can.”

“
You don’t think Steve would really try to take her away, do you?”

“
He killed that cop in Oklahoma without even blinking an eye. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for his family.”

“
Well, what if he uses magic on them to make them agree to go with him? How would we know if they’d really changed their minds or not?”

Good point.
I sighed. “I guess we’ll have to deal with that possibility if it comes up. Maybe some of the others have a way to break another's spell?”