Rob Thurman - Chimera

“Can we go see?”

I dropped my duffel bag by the stairs leading up to the house and gave Michael a shrug and half smile. “Why not? It’s definitely worth seeing.” The Institute hadn’t been too far from Miami, but that didn’t mean Michael had had the opportunity to see the ocean—not that he remembered.

Leaving Zilla in the car, he took off toward the dunes. I zipped up my jacket against the biting wind and followed with less enthusiasm. When I crested the slope, slipping and sliding with every other step, I wanted to turn away from the sight. Gray water under a gray sky; it wasn’t like that day. That day had been all blues. Blue overhead along with crashing waves the color of a million shattered marbles was what I’d seen then. Gray or blue, it was all the same. It was where I’d been the moment life had fallen away beneath me. Sitting on my horse’s back as the water soaked my jeans, I had watched blue meet blue as water met sky. I’d watched that instead of watching Lukas, and . . . here we were.

It was why I lived in a condo on the beach. I wouldn’t let the impulse to close my eyes defeat me. I lived by the ocean; I swam in it, because I wouldn’t let myself forget. I didn’t deserve to. Seeing the waves fall was the same as seeing Lukas do the same. I wanted to look away, this time as all times, but I didn’t.

And because I didn’t, I was lucky enough to see Michael’s expression. He stood on wet sand in brine-soaked shoes and stared without blinking. This time water met sky in his eyes. I draped an arm over his shoulder. “Big, huh?”

“Big,” he agreed softly.

We stood for a long time in the presence of that which should’ve made me feel very small. It didn’t. Standing next to Michael, I suddenly felt big, and as whole as I’d ever been. In a place that echoed the beginning of a nightmare, the nightmare finally ended. And it felt right that it happened that way, an inevitable circle.

After a while the cold drove us back to the house. Inside the smell of damp and must wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected, but I still cracked a few windows. As I worked, Michael roamed about exploring. He would stop here and there to peer at a framed picture or pick up a seashell collecting dust, although even that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe Anatoly had a cleaning service come in once every few months to keep the place from falling apart. Being what he was didn’t change the fact he’d respected Babushka Lena and, in turn, would respect her treasures. “Pick a bedroom, Misha,” I prompted. “There’re four of them upstairs.”

He looked up from the abstract pink and purple curl of abalone shell nestled in the palm of his hand. “I get my own room?”

He sounded like a five-year-old, simultaneously thrilled and apprehensive at the prospect. If he was afraid, I didn’t blame him. Jericho had decorated many of my dreams in the past week and a half, propelling me from a sweat-soaked sleep with my hand searching desperately for my gun more times than I cared to admit. And Michael had ten more years of that evil bastard to contend with than I did. The things that he dreamed of I couldn’t even begin to guess. If he wanted to bunk with me until he was ninety, I wouldn’t hold it against him.

“Maybe,” I answered noncommittally. “Tell you what. You take a look. If two of them are in good-enough shape, then take the one you want. If only one is livable, then sorry about your luck, kiddo. You’ll be stuck with me for a while.” That left him an out. If he found only one to be acceptable, we would go with that and there would be no embarrassment on either side.

“Okay.” Carefully placing the shell back in a cloudy glass bowl, he headed for the stairs. It was circular, a wrought-iron monstrosity that showed the red bloom of rust. At the top and out of sight, he called down, “You know you’re not half as clever as you think you are, but . . .”

It had been obvious all along that my college psych classes were sadly lacking compared to the ones he had been exposed to, but I kept on trying. Yeah, I kept on trying, and I kept on getting shot down, I thought ruefully. “But . . . ?” I prodded, flipping the switches to check the lights. The utilities had been kept on all these years in the name of Babushka’s long-gone gentleman friend. It was just one more way of keeping the place untraceable. “But what?”

There was a pause and then, “Thanks.” Footsteps creaked overhead as he hurried away from the stairs and toward the bedrooms. He wouldn’t want to get caught up in a wave of gooey emotion or anything. God forbid. I allowed myself a small grin and headed back out to the car for our stockpile of groceries. We’d switched roles, Michael and I. When we were kids, he’d been the open one. Every emotion he felt he wore on his face, so clear and bright that it couldn’t be missed. Hell, you would know what he felt before he knew himself. I’d been more like our father in that respect and, to be honest, I still was—aloof, a little distant. But not with Michael. He needed to know how I felt, and he needed it pretty badly. It was the only evidence he’d been able to accept so far that I considered him family . . . no matter what he considered himself. Photos and stories were suspect, but emotion couldn’t be faked. Michael was too damn smart not to see through anything that wasn’t completely genuine.

Turned out he picked out two bedrooms for us. I wasn’t surprised, and I couldn’t have been any damn prouder. What did surprise me was the pang of separation anxiety I felt. I was worse than any overprotective mom waving good-bye to Junior on the first day of kindergarten. But I bit my tongue and stood in the doorway to watch as he shook out the sheets. Apparently the cleaning service had skipped this bedroom. Dust billowed in huge clouds and I waved a hand in front of my face. “Sleeping on a bare mattress isn’t that bad.” I coughed. “Maybe you should give it a try.”

Blond hair sticking up in dusty spikes, he shook his head. “No. I’m done with sleeping in cars and going to the bathroom in bottles. No bare mattresses either.”

“Aren’t you the picky one? Wanting clean sheets and real bathrooms. You’re like a little girl.” I ducked as the sheet was snapped in my general direction. “I never did teach you to write your name in the snow, but we’ve got a whole shitload of sand out there to practice in.” Another fierce snap of the sheet expelled me from the room.

That evening I made my first home-cooked meal in months. In the condo, I lived mostly on takeout. Natalie had managed to get me involved in cooking despite myself—mainly by threats or promises. Both involved kissing, soft touches, and the occasional brisk swat to my ass. Needless to say, after Natalie had her wicked way with me, a Cordon Bleu chef had nothing on me in motivation, if not talent. Since she had left, I’d done much less cooking, but you never really forget how to make a tuna casserole.

Michael regarded the steaming pile of cheese, fish, and crackers on his plate with a dubious frown. “What’s wrong with hamburgers? I like hamburgers. And pizza.”

“This is healthy.” I didn’t know what they’d fed him from that place before I snatched him, but the kid now had a love of junk food that was passionate, if not borderline obsessive. I sat down at the kitchen table and dug into my helping. “Growing boys need healthy food once in a while.” I knew it was true. I’d read it in a magazine.

Spearing a chunk of cheese with his fork, he stretched it out from the plate in a near-foot-long streamer. “Healthy. Useful in grouting tile maybe, but healthy?”

“And what do you know about grout?” I grumbled, taking a bite and swallowing. It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t that good either, but it rose above the grout standard.