Second Nature (50 page)

The phone rang before Brian could answer.

Brian turned his head and helplessly looked at it as if he didn't know whether he should be annoyed or relieved at the interruption.

"I'll go," Gus said and picked it up.

"Hi, Dad. It's Kylin," an unusually somber voice said.

Normally, Gus's middle daughter was more cheerful. "Hey, Ky. How are you? And how's Rufus?" he asked with a smile.

"Hush!" Kylin said hurriedly but then relented. "He's fine. Listen... is Griffin around?"

"No. She's not staying here at the house. I think it's too Kasari for her." He remembered how much Griffin had disliked the constant social interaction when she had stayed with them that summer fifteen years ago. The cousins stopping by at all hours, half a dozen guests for dinner, and friends dropping by unannounced... it had all been too much for Griffin's Puwar side.

"I can imagine," Kylin said.

Could she imagine because she knew Griffin well or because staying at the house was similarly taxing for her? Not for the first time, Gus asked himself whether she just endured it without complaint so she wouldn't hurt her fathers' feelings.
I should have asked her a long time ago. Brian always thought the twins were his responsibility and often kept them away from me, and I let him. I sat back and watched as the pride threw Griffin out for beating up Tarquin.

"Could you give her a message from me?" Ky asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"Sure."

"Just tell her I got her forty-eight hours. After that, all bets are off." Kylin's voice was as grim as the situation. "I wish I could do more. I wish I could just take the next plane and —"

"No," Gus interrupted. One daughter in the middle of this dangerous situation was more than enough. "You stay where you are. We need you to keep an eye on the council. You did what you could. Now let us help your sister."

Kylin was silent for a few seconds. "And? Will you? Will Brian really help her when the Saru come knocking on your door, even if he risks being exiled to Siberia this time?"

Hurt and anger made Gus grit his teeth.
A daughter shouldn't doubt that her fathers will protect her, no matter what.
Kylin's lack of trust in them hurt, but still, he couldn't blame her. All of them had made mistakes, and he hadn't done enough to instill unshakable trust in his daughters.

A tap on his shoulder jerked Gus's head around.

Brian stood in front of him. "Tell her," he said and stopped to clear his throat. "Tell her that Siberia is nothing compared to our Michigan winters."

Oh, no. I'm a doctor, not an interpreter.
Gus pressed the phone into Brian's hands. "Tell her yourself." He walked away, hoping that Brian would use this opportunity to talk — really talk — to one of his daughters.

*  *  *

The house was dark and quiet. Only the rumbling of Griffin's stomach interrupted the silence. Almost inaudibly, the door to the guest room clicked closed behind her, and Griffin tiptoed into the kitchen. Her mouth was already watering when she strode over to the fridge.

Something moved to her right.

Griffin whirled around and let out a startled hiss.

Leigh sat at the kitchen table in a terry cloth bathrobe that was too short for her and smelled of Rhonda. A glass of milk and an empty plate stood in front of her. She hadn't bothered to turn on a light, and now she was watching Griffin without saying a word.

You're on the run,
Griffin reminded herself.
You can't be so deep in thought and so distracted by your hunger that you don't even smell another person's presence. You're responsible for more than your own life now.
"Hi," Griffin said to hide that Leigh had startled her. "What are you doing up? Is everything okay?" If she had just made love to the woman she adored, she wouldn't sit around in the dark kitchen.

"Everything's fine," Leigh said. "In fact, everything is wonderful." The big grin on her face confirmed it. She looked so content that Griffin wouldn't have been surprised to hear her purring.

Griffin smiled. Despite the differences they'd had in the past, it was good to see her sister so deliriously happy. She opened the fridge and asked over her shoulder, "Then what are you doing out here?"

"I tried to fix the front door," Leigh said. "It should be fine for tonight, but I'll have Sid take a look at it tomorrow."

The door was beyond repair — not surprising after a 400-pound woman had crashed through it. Griffin had already decided that she would pay for the damage she had done. She leaned against the kitchen counter and dug into the leftover dinner.

"And I've been waiting up for you," Leigh said.

"Waiting up for me when there's a woman like Rhonda in your bed?" Griffin took her plate with her and sat down across from Leigh to find out what was going on.

A blush crept up Leigh's neck. "Strictly speaking, it's Ronnie's bed," she murmured. "I got a little worried when I came out here for a late-night snack and both you and the human were gone. Where were you?"

Worried about me? That's a first!
An offhand remark — something about getting laid doing wonders for Leigh's attitude — lingered on Griffin's tongue, but then she decided that Rhonda and Leigh's relationship was too special for bad jokes. Just a few weeks ago, she would have made the comment, if only to hide her true feelings.
Maybe this is a new beginning for both of us.

It meant that she had to tell Leigh the truth rather than tell her it was none of her business. "We went for a walk," she said, hoping Leigh would leave it at that. She didn't want to fight and ruin Leigh's perfect evening.

"You walked around town where every Kasari could see you?" Leigh asked with a frown.

Griffin sighed. "No. We went to the forest."

Leigh's glass of milk landed on the table with a resounding clank. "You took her with you when you shifted?"

The old feeling of having to defend herself and her decisions stirred in Griffin. She had known her fellow Wrasa would judge her harshly for showing her animal form to a human, but she knew it was the right decision. Showing some trust in Jorie had to start somewhere. "Since leaving her on her own was not an option, it was either that or staying and listening to you and Rhonda," she said.

"Oh." Leigh's mouth, already opened for a sharp reprimand, snapped shut. She rubbed her cheeks as if she hoped it would make her blush disappear. "Sorry about that."

Griffin shrugged. "I survived. Barely." She grinned to show Leigh that she was just teasing.

"So the human went with you of her own free will?" Leigh asked, quickly changing the subject.

"It was Jorie who suggested it," Griffin said. "And I've told you before that she has a name — and it's not 'the human.'"

"I thought she knew so much about us Wrasa. Didn't she know how dangerous being around a Wrasa when we shift can be? Did she mistake us for cuddly pets?" Leigh asked, clearly stunned that Jorie had been willing to come face-to-face with a hungry liger.

If anyone knew that Wrasa were not cuddly pets, it was Jorie. "The first time she got a glimpse of my animal form, I came close to attacking her, and you lunging at her earlier must have been pretty scary for her too. She knows we're not cuddly pets." An image of her cat form nuzzling Jorie in greeting appeared before her mind's eye.
Although I behaved a little like a cuddly pet,
she thought, surprised and a little miffed at herself for greeting Jorie the way a lioness greeted one of her pride mates.
What is it about Jorie that feels so... right to my cat form?

"And she still wasn't afraid to go with you?" Leigh's tone alternated between admiration and doubting Jorie's sanity.

"She was afraid." As usual, her memories about what had happened while she had been in liger form were cloudy, but one thing stood out: the scent of Jorie's fear. "But she wanted to see it — see me — anyway."

The stunned expression didn't leave Leigh's face. "And you? Weren't you afraid?"

"I was worried, but after I didn't even hunt her down when she bashed me in the head with her laptop, I thought she should be safe if she didn't run," Griffin said. It had been a leap of faith in both herself and in Jorie, and she was glad that she had turned out to be right.

"That's not what I meant but..." Leigh stopped. Her gaze traveled over Griffin. "She tried to bash your head in with her laptop? If I'd known that she would just throw her laptop at you, I wouldn't have gone to all that trouble to hack into it."

In the past, Griffin would have shot back a sarcastic retort about Leigh's skills as a hacker, but the more time she spent around Leigh, the more she realized that they weren't so different after all. They both used their dry sense of humor to cover their real feelings. "Don't worry about me," she said with a grin. "I had a nice cut on my forehead, but it was already halfway healed by the time I shifted back."

"Who said I was worried?" Leigh asked, frowning. "I just don't like a good piece of technology being manhandled. Why did she attack you with her laptop?"

"Jorie was scared and used the only weapon she could get her hands on," Griffin said. She didn't bother to hide her smirk. It was a nice feeling to have Leigh worry about her well-being. "It happened when I broke into her house with orders to kill her but then decided I wouldn't do it." With surprise, she realized that it had been only forty-eight hours. It felt like an eternity. "So, what did you mean?"

"I meant weren't you afraid of the consequences of letting her see you shift?" Leigh asked. "You're already in deep trouble with the Saru and the council, and now you're not only keeping the human alive when you were ordered to kill her, you also broke the First Law and let her watch you shift." Was it just confusion that colored Leigh's voice, or was she criticizing her decision? Griffin couldn't tell.

"I know you don't share my opinion, but I think the First Law has outlived its purpose and is no longer protecting our kind." She had started suspecting it a long time ago, and being ordered to kill Jorie under the pretext of the First Law had cemented her belief.

"Not protecting us?" Leigh's voice squeaked with disbelief. "How can you say that? It's the only thing that stands between us and extinction."

Griffin shook her head. "Maybe it was that way in the Middle Ages, but nowadays? The world is overpopulated, and we live door-to-door with humans. It's just a matter of time until our existence is discovered by more than a single human — and then what? Kill an entire town?" They needed to stop and adapt before things went that far.

"The Saru are there to stop things before they escalate like that," Leigh said.

That was what Cedric Jennings was telling her too, and she had blindly followed his orders for a long time. "Oh, yeah, nipping things in the bud, taking action when there's trouble on the horizon," she said sarcastically. "Frankly, that's just a bad excuse for paranoia. We've become really paranoid, and we use the First Law to justify our actions."

"Bullshit! Humans killed my mother. They are a real threat. It has nothing to do with paranoia." Leigh's good mood from before was vanishing.

"Do you really think Jorie is a threat? Out to kill us? You're staying under the same roof with her, so tell me: do you smell murderous intent?" Griffin knew that Leigh couldn't have scented anything like that. Leaving behind her home and the shampoo in her shower, Jorie had slowly stopped smelling of coconut, but she still smelled like fresh leaves and a spring breeze on a stroll through the forest. Sometimes Griffin detected fear and distrust from her, but never hatred or aggression.

"She doesn't need to kill us personally to be dangerous," Leigh said instead of answering the question.

"Come on. She's an almost unknown niche-market writer, not the world's most famous investigative journalist. We had no proof that she knew about our existence, yet the Saru ordered me to kill her just to make sure." The fork landed on her empty plate with a clank. "Do you really think shooting first and asking questions later is the way we should live our lives?" For Griffin, the answer was no.

"You're starting to sound like Ky," Leigh grumbled. "I thought you wanted to stay out of politics?"

Griffin had stayed out of politics. Until recently, she hadn't even known that her twin sister belonged to the small, but growing faction of younger Wrasa who thought that hiding their existence, living as humans was slowly killing their culture, their old language, and their traditions. They wanted to reveal their existence and come out to the human public on their own terms instead of waiting for the fallout when they were discovered by accident one day. "It's not politics, Leigh," Griffin said. "It's a question of my own personal honor."

For a few moments, only the soft humming of the refrigerator could be heard in the kitchen.

"Apropos Ky," Leigh finally said, giving up on their discussion. "Dad called earlier. He left a message for you on the machine. Ky says to tell you 'forty-eight hours,' whatever that means."

Relief made Griffin close her eyes for a moment. Kylin had come through for her. "I asked Ky for help," she said.

Leigh's eyebrows leaped up. Not that Griffin could blame her. They both knew Griffin had never asked any member of the family for help before.

"She managed to get the council to call off the search for Jorie and me, giving me two days to find out why Jorie knows so much about us."

Leigh gave her a doubtful look. "And if you don't?"

"Then I'm screwed," Griffin said. She might be screwed even if she did find out. The Saru wouldn't just ignore her refusal to follow their orders. With a sigh, she stood and put her plate into the dishwasher. "Goodnight."

"Griffin!"

Leigh's call made her turn back around.

"The main reason why I stayed up to wait until you got back was because..." Leigh looked away. "I wanted to apologize."

In the twenty-eight years since Leigh's birth, Griffin had never once heard these words from her half sister. She put her hands on the doorjamb to her left and right and looked at Leigh in amazement.