Kenton (5 page)

He got up then and walked toward the woman. It occurred to Emma that she was

seeing this as if she were in the room too, and knew that couldn’t be it. She didn’t know

this person that was dead on the floor, and for some reason, Emma thought her brother

didn’t either. And where did the vampires go? When Bart kicked the woman, knocking

her body over, Emma cried. For some reason, and she had no idea why, Emma thought

she knew her. That somehow the woman was connected to the ring and the dragon.

You must help them.
She asked the dragon how
. You will need to help them when they

need it. Take them the ring and you’ll know what to do with it.

She’s dead. I can’t give her anything.
He told her that if she ran again, that she would

be. That helping them, the woman’s family, would do so much for them all.
You mean I

have to find them and give them the ring to save her? I can’t even get the fucking thing off.

Please help them. They need you more than you can know.

Emma wondered as she started to reach for the blanketing effect of the drug when

anyone would care about her needs.

Kenton watched his mom. She was upset, yes, but thankfully this time it wasn’t at

him. He’d been in trouble with her for the last three days, since he’d been stabbed, and

he was glad to let someone else take some of her anger. When she turned to him after

pacing for five minutes, Kenton tried to think if he’d missed something.

“You don’t know her.” He said that he had no idea who she was. “And this dragon,

you don’t think she was talking about yours?”

“No. I don’t know why, but I think she was out of her head with pain and infection.

I had to clean the wound three times before I finally got it to respond to meds. She still

has a fever that bothers me a great deal, but I don’t know what brought her to me or

what happened to put her in that position.” He had an idea, but he didn’t voice it to his

mom. “She’s got four broken ribs and a concussion. I had to use forty-seven stitches to

put her back together, and that’s not counting what I might need to fix her leg, if I don’t

have to take it off at the knee. Wherever she’s come from, it’s not been a very clean

place. I’d say she’s been on the run from someone.”

“Who? I know you think you know, so who might it be?” He reached for the

newspaper on the table and turned to the second section. The news of the explosion had

run its front page status and was now on the back pages of the paper. “You think this is

where she was hurt? Why?”

“The burns were consistent with what might have happened to her there. And then

there is the added information that someone thinks a woman matching her description

was seen leaving the scene of the crime. I have no idea why I think so, but I’m sure it’s

her.” He looked at the paper again before continuing. “She said that someone has been

shooting at her, and she told Jorden that he couldn’t help her or he’d be shot at too. I’m

assuming that she’s tried to get help before this, and only broke into my offices to get

help without anyone knowing.”

“Jorden said he heard the alarm go off and went to see about it. He told me that she

was talking to herself when he found her. You think…what about this dragon she was

talking about? What did she say?”

Kenton had a feeling that she knew something. Not sure what it was, he answered

her questions as best he could. When she sat down, he knew then that he’d been right,

she was aware of something.

“What’s going on, Mom? This isn’t anything that should bother you. A hurt woman

has been set to rights and when she’s better, I’ll put her on the next bus out of town and

she’ll be safe from whoever is hunting her. We’ve done it before.” She said nothing.

“Mom? What is it you’re not telling me?”

“I’d like to see her.”

He nodded and stood up. The woman was in the clinic that was on his mom’s

property. The clinic had been closed up for about a decade, but he still kept it supplied,

in the event that someone needed him there. As they made their way to the building, he

tried again to get her to tell him what was going on.

“I’ll tell you when I see her. It might be nothing.” He nodded. Kenton, like the rest

of his brothers, would do anything for their mom. And he knew as surely as he was

standing there with her that something was wrong and he needed to fix it for her. “This

girl, did you say anything to anyone about her being here? That she spoke of a

dragon?”

“No. No one but you and I and Jorden know about her. He helped me bring her

here and then we spoke to you.” She nodded. “Mom, you’re scaring me right now.”

As soon as she walked into the room, he knew that his mom was more upset than

before. And when she took the woman’s hand into hers, Kenton stood by helplessly

while she sobbed. He asked her twice if she needed something and both times he only

got waved off. The third time he asked her, his mom finally spoke.

“Remember a long time ago the story your grandda used to tell you about the

demi-parvure that belonged to our family?” He remembered his grandfather talking

about a lot of things, but not that. “Yes you do, only he called it a trousseau. Which was

wrong, we found out later, and it wasn’t wedding attire but jewelry, a demi-parvure.”

“Yes, I remember. He said it was our heritage. A bunch of jewelry that once

belonged to the queen of our kind. I think there was a ring, too, in the list.” His mom

nodded and showed him the one on the woman’s finger. “You think that’s the ring in

it? The one that grandda talked about? Mom, that was just a story he told us to have us

dig around in the backyard. To get us out of the house.”

“No, it wasn’t a story but the truth. This is the ring.” He asked her how she knew.

“The stone would be as blue as the oceans from which we were born. The setting as

golden as the sun that shown down on our wings. It would be as light as the wind that

kept us high in the sky and as precious to us as the children we bore. I know this is it,

Kenton. I know it.”

He wasn’t so sure. Kenton knew that there was this legend surrounding the jewelry.

His grandda had told them there were six pieces of it. Necklace, earrings, bracelet,

brooch or a pin, hair combs, and a ring. Kenton was sure there were no pictures of the

things, but when he’d asked as a child, his grandda had claimed that he’d seen it and

would know it like it was his own. But in all that time no one had ever offered up why

they were gone, who had taken them, and what sort of reason there would be for them

to have them back. He, like his brothers, had blown it off as a story from their beloved

grandda.

“I can’t get it off her.” His mom asked him why he’d try. “Because it’s more than

likely not very clean. And if she has anything under it, like dirt or other bacteria, it

won’t help her to recover. I think if this ring were as precious as you think, she might

not be wearing it like she is either. Right there on the first knuckle of her finger.”

“I’m sure she has a good reason to have it on this way.” He only nodded and

watched his mom. “Kenton, what do you suppose brought her here to us? There had to

be some force that had her breaking into your offices when she did. You said she spoke

of a dragon and that it wasn’t yours. Do you suppose she talks to something that holds

the magic in the jewelry?”

“I’m a doctor and it stands to reason that I’d have something in the offices to help

her. She broke in here because she knew that on some level she could get help on her

own.” His mom only looked at him. “Look, we can try and analyze this all you want,

but we won’t get any answers until she wakes up. In the meantime, I’m keeping her

well and full of drugs so she won’t hurt herself if she does wake. As for the ring?” He

shrugged. “We’ll have to wait on her answers for that as well.”

When his mom left him, Kenton checked on the woman’s leg and the rest of her

wounds. He’d had to put in a drainage tube in her leg. The infection had been deep, and

he wanted to make sure that he could clean it better. She would survive, he knew that,

but what kind of story she had would be anyone’s guess. He had a feeling that whoever

was after her, if they found her here, then there would be hell to pay. But Kenton also

knew that his family would not be caught in the middle of whatever was going on that

would have her running like this. Ring or not, she wasn’t going to bring anything down

on his family.

Going to the smallish cot in the other room, he stretched out. He’d been staying

there, close, in the event that she might wake. He didn’t want her to wake and be

frightened, and he also needed to make sure that she didn’t run. And she would too,

he’d bet.

The more he thought about how stupid she’d been to go for so long without proper

care, the angrier he got at her. He really supposed it wasn’t her fault that she’d been

hurt, but he also wasn’t sure that she was all that innocent of what had been going on

there. Kenton wanted nothing to do with the family that had been in the building when

it had gone up.

He knew the name Gentry as well as anyone did. Bart Gentry was a man to avoid.

Even to be friends with, which his family had never been. But more importantly, they

also knew to not be an enemy of the family.

When it came out in the paper that the elder Gentry had been killed, leaving his son

badly burned, Kenton wondered what sort of things Bart had done to bring something

like this to their lives. He knew as surely as he was a good doctor that Bart had had

something to do with this. More than likely both the father and son, he’d bet.

Bart Gentry had gone to school with his brother Lewis, but they all knew him. Bart

had been a bully and a bastard, thinking that whatever he wanted he should have, even

if he had to take it from someone who actually owned it. So when he’d come upon

Lewis, wanting the coat that he’d gotten for Christmas one year, Kenton and the others

had stepped in and showed Bart the errors of his ways. It had been the most wonderful

school detention he had ever received for fighting on school property. Not long after,

Bart had been removed from the school and he’d never heard his name again until the

newspaper said that his father had been killed in an explosion. And that the younger

Bart was expected to make a full, but painful, recovery.

One of the doctors that Kenton had worked with said that Bart would be lucky if he

was able to speak again, and that some of the burns would take years to repair, if they

ever did. The burns to his body, he’d been told, were extensive. The man that had been

found under Bart, Whitaker, had been burned as well, but he had been released from

the hospital a few days ago. Apparently Bart had saved him from most of the damage.

Kenton wondered what he’d think of that when he found out.

Kenton was thinking of the woman in the other room when his phone rang. He

answered it, knowing that it was his brother Dalton. Dalton was a cop, a beat cop that

loved his job more than he did most things. Kenton had asked him to do some

searching on the mysterious woman from the building just on the off chance that he

was wrong about her. He’d told him that he was just wondering why someone would

run instead of getting medical help when she would need it.

“You are not going to believe this shit.” Dalton was laughing as he spoke. “You

remember that fuck that used to beat up the freshmen because he could? The guy who

tried to hurt Lewis when he didn’t give him his coat? Gentry was his name.”

“I do, as a matter of fact. I was just thinking about him. Why do you ask?” Dalton

was laughing pretty hard by then. “You want to share your good joke with me?”

“It’s his sister. That woman that was coming out of the building that day? It’s none

other than his little sister. Didn’t even know he had one, did you?” Kenton got up to

look in on the woman in question. “Seems that they kept her under wraps in the event

that Daddy ever had any trouble with the police. She was going to be his money bags.

At least that’s the way we’re seeing it. Apparently everything that Daddy owned, and

we’re talking billions, belongs to her. There are any number of people looking for her

right now. And not a great many of them in the best of humor about Dad dying off like

he did. The only reason I found out is because there is this guy that is bragging all over

the place that he was asked to test the DNA that was found at the scene. It matched the

older Gentry’s perfectly.”

“You think she ran because she figured that they’d be after her next?” Dalton didn’t

know that she was hurt or that she was now in the house with him. “I would have

thought that Bart would have been the next in line for his money.”

“Yeah, apparently so will Bart when he finds out. He’s royally pissed, apparently,