Any Port in a Storm (14 page)

"They said they're along the creek," Wane says.

She's been quieter tonight than I've seen her before, but it doesn't seem to be out of any kind of antipathy. Instead, she looks…alert. Her eyes scan the wooded creek banks, and even in the falling dark I'm pretty sure she sees even better than I do in the fading light.

It occurs to me that I've never seen morphs outside the city. Most of the morphs I see around Nashville flit from hipster dive to hipster dive. I have no idea what to expect from morphs occupying Kentucky's very literal backwaters.

We make our way along the banks of the stream, which is barely a trickle. I don't know how Mira and Wane know where we're going, but I follow along behind them, keeping my ears and eyes open.

The sounds of the woods feel more resonant here, out of the city. Maybe it's that I'm used to parks, but here so far north of any large norm settlement, the insect and small wildlife noises are dense around us. The cacophony is a relief to me.

A light blooms up ahead, golden-orange instead of an alarming pink. When the wind blows in our direction, I get a whiff of woodsmoke.

Wane stands up straighter as we walk, her head high.
 

I've never thought to ask her what her animal form is. I'm never quite sure of morphs' social niceties, and I don't want to stumble into a faux pas with anyone whose second form has fangs.

I hear a murmur of voices around the campfire, and a single form walks toward us, silhouetted from the firelight.
 

Mira rushes forward with a small cry, then skids to a halt fifteen feet from the person.

I see why a moment later when she moves out of my line of sight.

It's not Saturn.

It's Jax.

"Jax," I breathe. I hurry to him, and his fingers touch my shoulder at the same time mine touch his. He's wearing a hoodie and jeans and nice hiking shoes. I've never seen him dressed before. A moment later, he pulls me into a hug. He smells like hickory smoke and night air, and the sensation of his muscles under the single layer of the hoodie is alien.

"I was worried for you," I tell him. "Miles and I tracked you as far as the creek, but that was it. I found the beacon you left in your home."

He looks from me to Mira, panic written across his face, clear to me even in the dusk.
 

"She's a friend, Jax. She's Saturn's friend."

He relaxes at that. Wane and Mira look over their shoulders as they pass us, heading for the morphs at the fire. I hang back with Jax.

He looks after Mira and Wane. "Saturn told me about her. He said she was different."

"She is," I say before I can stop myself. I'm not sure what I even mean by that, but it's true.

We start walking toward the fire.

"Things are bad back home," I say. "Shades are killing people."

"I know."

"Please, Jax, can you tell me why you left?"

He looks around as if he's afraid the trees are listening in. "I don't know."

"You don't know why you left, or you don't know if you can tell me?"

"Both."

"Then why did you stay here?" He had to have known we were coming.

"It's safer here," he said.

"Safer from what?" I ask gently.

"I want to be free," he says.

"What do you mean?" I feel stupid even asking. The shades working with Carrick and me, well. If they're not visibly helping, they're threatening. "Never mind."

He gives me a grateful look. "I'm sorry. You…we appreciate you."

Startled, I stop walking. From where we stand, I can see Mira and Wane talking to a group of about five morphs. One or two more pace around the perimeter of the campfire's light radius.

Jax's words slowly sink through my mind like a stone in quicksand. The shades appreciate me? "Why?"

He looks at me as if he's talking to a rock. "You're the only one who understands us."

There's a warning in those words, and I hear it ringing through in the cracks between them. "You're not coming back, are you?"

He shakes his head. "I need to go north. I hear nice things about Canada. My mother's mother was from there."

It's creepy how the shades remember the memories of their hosts. Mothers. Of their mothers. I still struggle to get it right. Maybe it's the disconnect that about half of the shades have men for mothers, but I make myself try and remember to get better at it. It makes sense. To them a mother is anyone who gives life from their body, and that's exactly what their mothers do, male or female.
 

"I hope you like it there," I tell him. "Do you at least have my phone number?"

I made sure to teach all the shades to use a phone, along with basic passing-for-norm skills like tying their shoes and not jay-walking.
 

Jax rolls up the sleeve of his hoodie. My number is tattooed on his forearm. I do my best not to cringe at the connotation of it; he has no way of knowing the history of such a thing. Unless his mother was a World War II history buff, but even so, the memories they get aren't raw footage. More of a highlight reel.
 

Instead, I take his arm in my hand and give it a squeeze. In many ways, the shades are innocent. Sentient beings born in blood and bone with a hunger for meat. Mix in memories of their mothers and no chance to acclimate to the world around them and multiply it by a fearful, hostile society — well.
 

"I'm going to go now," he says abruptly.

I drop my hand away from his arm. "Now? Right now?"

He nods. "You are good, Ayala."
 

In a flash, he's gone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Wane is silent as we walk back to the car, and Mira walks by my side.

"I thought it was Saturn," she says.

"I know. I did too."

"Is Jax okay?"

"I hope so. I think he'll be okay." He's so childlike in some ways, more so than Mason or Saturn. I hope he really will be okay. I've seen him fight, and he does it well, but he's a gentle person. His words echo in my mind.
I want to be free
.

Don't we all.

"Things are going to go to hells, aren't they?" Mira asks suddenly.

"I think it's pretty likely." My legs feel like they're on autopilot. It's after nine, and I haven't slept in two days.
 

"I wanted to help Saturn."

"I think you did help him," I tell her. "He cared about you."

"Yeah, well, that Little Bunny Foo-Foo bonked me over the head like a fucking field mouse as soon as he needed to get away." Even though Mira spits out the words, I can hear the pain in her voice.

"You're not a field mouse. Garter snake, maybe."

"Fuck off, I'm a gods damned copperhead."

I grin at her, and she grins back, but after a few seconds our smiles fade. Back at the car, I grab another burrito, not caring that it's cold, and pop open a can of Coke.
 

I'm not really sure what else to do.
 

The rest of the ride back passes quickly and quietly, all three of us lost in our thoughts. About a half hour out of Nashville, I finally ask what the morphs had to say.

At first, my only answer is the sound of the car downshifting as the speed limit drops.
 

"They're migrating," Wane says finally.

"They're what?"

Never in my life have I heard of morphs having migration patterns. Wane and Mira exchange an unreadable look in the front seat.
 

"You know how animals know if a tornado is coming? Something like that."

Well, shit.

I think of my city, the familiar skyline with the bat-eared building dominating the view. The winding squiggle of the Cumberland River. The badass hipster witches of East Nashville with their boutiques and beauty shops and bars. I don't want Nashville to become Mississippi.

Then something strikes me. The Opry. It used to be a bustling center of country music and boasted the best of the best. Dolly Parton. Loretta Lynn. Johnny Cash. Then the hot springs bubbled up around it, and the whole thing went into the shitter.

"Mira, when'd the Opry shut down? Do you remember?"
 

"Ten, fifteen years back now? I'd have to look it up."

Have we been blind this whole time? Are we already on the edge of a cliff, one mudslide away from Mississippi-status?

Suddenly the car feels too small, too hot. I roll down my window and breathe deeply, trying to dispel the sudden panic. Maybe it's my ongoing exhaustion this week, but I can't help the feeling that I'm right, that somehow we've all been missing important clues all along.

"You okay?" Mira turns around in her seat, craning her neck to look back at me.
 

"I don't know."

"Hey," she says. She reaches her hand back and takes mine. "It's either gonna be okay, or we'll all go overboard together."

Maybe for most people, that wouldn't make them feel better, but for me it does. The grip of her hand grounds me a little, and I take another deep breath. I've never gotten this way before, and I'm also not used to people supporting me.

Maybe it's okay sometimes.

I squeeze her hand back, and she lets go. She rolls her own window down then, and the wind gusts through the car, blowing our hair everywhere.

"Why don't you crash at my place tonight?" Mira says suddenly. "Carrick can fend for himself, right? He won't eat Nana."

Good gods. I never even thought of that possibility. I start laughing, a barking, helpless sound. "That sounds great."

We stop to get my car, and I follow them over to Mira's. It's strange getting used to having actual people to hang out with. Until the summer, I only saw other Mediators at functions and otherwise kept my presence to myself. I didn't even have the bunny. I'm surprised at how much of a relief it is to know someone else gets what's going on. I don't think any of the other Mediators does. Alamea's a tough sonofabitch, but she's my superior and not someone to confide in.

Mira pops popcorn while I change into a pair of shorts and a tank top. I steal a corner of the couch for myself and find it reclines, popping out the foot rest. Wane sets up the movie — The Expendables; I don't even care that I just watched it the other day — and Mira comes in a few minutes later with three heaping bowls of buttery popcorn. She hands one to me and plops down in the middle of the couch, propping her feet up on my foot rest.
 

"My section doesn't recline," she says.
 

"How did you know those morphs?" I ask Wane.
 

She's behind the entertainment center, fiddling with a wire. "One of them's a Gonzalez, like me."

I start to nod, then stop. "Wait, I thought your name was Trujillo."

Wane freezes, and beside me, Mira's foot goes still on the foot rest.
 

Mira's last name is Gonzalez.
 

Wane turns, placing her hand on the entertainment system shelf to steady herself. She looks at Mira. Mira looks at me, and I know even before the next words are spoken.

"My married name is Trujillo," Wane says.

"You're related." I look back and forth between them, more certain of this than I've been of just about anything else in the last six months. I think of them putting lunch together, the way they move together, the looks they exchange and the way Wane is here all the damn time when Mira says they're not a couple. Her reaction when I asked her. "You two are family."

Mira's chest rises and falls noticeably faster. "Cousins. Our dads were brothers."

I put my popcorn bowl down on the side table and turn in my seat to look at Mira. "Fuck, dude. Fuck. How did you—"

"Find out?" Wane asks.
 

I nod, again feeling helpless as if the world's spinning away from me. Mediators are taken from their families at birth. Down the water slide, snip the cord, gone. Forever. Six months ago I saw that my birth mother was missing. She ended up mother to a shade. A hells worshipper who birthed a Mediator also birthed a half-hellkin hybrid. That's what started my part in all this. Me poking around where I shouldn't have been poking. Somehow Gregor found out, put me on the scent of the missing men and women who were becoming mothers to shades, and here I am.