Blind Trust (10 page)

“No use fretting over things you can’t change,” she reminded
herself for the hundredth time today and turned back to stare out at the
unlikely trio.

There was an energy about Aeron, a bright light shining from her
when she smiled, which only dimmed when she looked at Serena. Her smile faded
then, her amber eyes scouring her friend for an answer to some question. Serena
looked like she wanted to give her that answer too but something was blocking
the way.

Martha put the two sodas next to the milkshake and carried over
the tray. She saw all sorts when the people stopped by on their way to the
glamorous resorts. Some stories played out right in front of her eyes and some
she had to dream up the ending. She didn’t mind all that much, it was a habit
that had kept her going. One day, she would sit and write a book of her tales.
She smiled to herself as she ducked around a customer who got to his feet. When
she had time at least. Some day when she retired. Aeron looked up at her as she
got to the table.

Martha put on her best smile. “One milkshake for the gentleman,”
she said, enjoying the grin it provoked from the boy. “And two sodas for his
ladies.”

“Thanks, Martha,” Aeron said, trying to push money her way.

“It’s on the house,” she said, offering a smile at Serena.

The one she received in return was half-hearted that showed more
signs of aching loss than it did gratitude. Martha fought the urge to comfort
the young woman.

“Thank you.” Serena’s voice was so small that Martha feared she
would burst into tears at any moment.

“It’s been a long day,” Martha offered. “Why don’t you finish up
your food and I’ll pop by to set up a bed for your guest?”

Two beaming faces on one side contradicted a thin-lipped grimace
on the other. Martha left them to it and tried to imagine what could make
Serena so unhappy. Was it the boy? No, she had been just as sullen last night
before the avalanche. She’d assumed it was tiredness from a long drive, but no,
the weariness was very much evident even today.

Martha put on the steaks for her boys and watched the trio
quietly. Yes, there was a story there lurking beneath the surface, she only
hoped for them at least, it involved a happy ending.

Chapter 10

MARTHA WAS AS good as her word, and as I was not exactly parental
material, she helped to sort out the little guy with a bath and some bedclothes
before helping me tuck him in.

Now, lucky for me, I had gotten to know my half-sisters before
leaving Oppidum and the youngest was only four so I had learned a lot of kid
stuff from her.

One, was that kids, no matter how freaked out and lonely they
were, loved a bedtime story. Even more so, they loved an acted-out bedtime
story.

The second thing I learned about kids was that they knew when
something wasn’t right. You see, back in Oppidum, Renee had been a part of that
bedtime story act. You’d never believe just how good a bear she could be but
she did the noises like no other sane person I’d ever seen.

So, it didn’t surprise me when Zack “asked” if Renee was sad. What
did surprise me was how much I wanted to protect him from the truth. I told him
that she was sad because of the avalanche, which I knew was a lie. It seemed
like a better thing than to tell him that I didn’t have one iota what was
happening with her and that
I was pretty
sure she was either pre-menstrual or needed therapy .
. . or both. So I
stuck with the avalanche theory and hoped by the morning Renee would reappear
and Doctor Miserable would go hike over a high place.

I came downstairs, and Renee was sitting on the sofa, her feet
pulled up as she stared at the crackling fire. The shutters and curtains were
all closed and I wondered why she would want to close off such a beautiful
view. If I couldn’t tell by my burdens that she was healthy, I’d have been
worried that she was getting sick.

“You want somethin’?” I asked, heading into the kitchen for
something to do. I needed to get her talking somehow or we’d both end up being
committed, well, I would be re-committed, but same difference.

Not hearing an answer, I raised my eyes to see her staring into
space as though she hadn’t even heard me. “You enjoying the orbit over there or
what?”

Again, she was unseeing, unhearing, and my skin prickled with
worry. Growing up, I didn’t have nobody I was close to and Nan had been much
like Zack and never spoke. I didn’t know whether it was normal for people to
change all of a sudden. If it was normal to block people out. Had I messed up
so bad that she didn’t even want to look at me? If so, I sure as shoots didn’t
know how to fix it. Being at odds with Renee gave me a stomach ache.

“Nan,” I muttered under my breath. “You’re my guru, any ideas?”

I wouldn’t normally bother her but there was nobody else to ask. I
didn’t figure Blob as much of a people person. He was sitting on the sofa next
to Renee and I was pretty sure that he was asleep by the snoring sounds.

“What’s up, Shortstop?”
I smiled at the breezy voice. I missed her something terrible.

“I think I broke her,” I said, motioning to the brooding protector
in the corner. “How do I fix it?”

“You call me up to get me chasing ghosts and now you ask me about
your troubles?”

I sighed and nodded. I was a terrible person and she really needed
to get some rest instead of listening to my whining. “I don’t do people so
well.”

“Don’t be such a dimwit,”
she scolded.
“Some folks just got a lot on their minds.”

Renee’s grey eyes flickered in the light. One side of her face was
bathed in the warm glow and highlighted the smooth contours of her face. The
blonde hair, ruffled from the shower, jutted out like a feathered frame. She
looked like the Renee I knew so well but she felt like a stranger.

“Well, I gotta figure out a way of getting through to her or she’s
gonna get lost under all that armor again.” I swallowed the panic rising up
through my chest. “I’ll never dig her out.”

Nan’s presence took up a stool next to the breakfast bar.
“She
ain’t in a great place, Shorty
.
An’ you gotta figure if you really want
to follow her where she’s headed.”

“Great,” I muttered. “More riddles.” I folded my arms. “Is this
where you tell me there’s a storm coming and all the other cryptic messages
like back home?”

“Hey,”
Nan said.
“I ain’t got no crystal ball, darlin’.”

“No,” I said. “That would be my dear mother, right?”

Ooh, that sounded loaded with venom. Where had that come from?
Today was obviously another “Lilia sucks” day.

Nan sucked in a breath which sent shivers up my spine as it made
the room get that bit colder.
“Still got a gripe there
.
Can’t say I
blame you but if you want to scale our agent friend’s walls, maybe you should
lower your own first.”

I grunted. “I tell her everything.”

“Uh huh,”
Nan purred.

“I do,” I protested. “What don’t I tell her?”

Nan’s presence did an odd shimmer like I was about to get told a
thing or two. I tensed.
“How ’bout you tell her how tough boot camp was? How
mean that woman boss of yours was to you or the fact that you nearly died from
the shivers out in the cold.”

I fiddled with the edge of the counter top. “It wasn’t
that
bad.”

“Sure as shoots it was,”
Nan said.
“She don’t know that you ain’t got a clue ’bout the
cold ’cause you spent a month warming up.”

I looked down at the contours of the granite surface. My fingers
splayed out, making marks of condensation. I could still see my hand trembling
in my memory and the soul-sucking sleepiness that nearly took me over. I could
still feel that terror. That knowledge that I was alone, that I could never be
found.

“Tell her you got scared, Shortstop,”
Nan said. Her
presence at my side made me shiver.
“And tell her that her promise kept you
awake.”

“She’ll think I’m a crazy person.”

“She met you in a mental institution,”
Nan pointed out.
“That
won’t surprise her one bit now, will it?”

What could I say to that? “Good point.”

“Darn shooting it is. Now get on over there and shake her shield.
Heaven knows I would try but—”

“No, don’t,” I said, glancing up at Renee. “The last thing she
needs is to get freaked out.”

Nan’s presence faded and I mumbled a “thanks Nan” under my breath
before heading to the chair opposite Renee and slumping down. I thought about
all that Nan had said, that I should tell her how I was alone and pretty much
sobbing like a baby out in the cold. Somehow that was meant to miraculously
snap her out of her shell. I waved my hands in front of me in an attempt to get
her to at least flinch. Yeah, like that was going to happen.

At a loss of what to do, I threw a cushion at her. She caught it
without even blinking. It was cool. “So you are in there, huh?”

Renee said nothing.

I picked up another cushion and threw it her way. She caught it
again. It was kinda fun. “Orbiting planet Renee . . . searching for any signs
of life . . .”

I was smiling at my own humor but she wasn’t even glaring.

So I picked up a third cushion and readied my arm but she snapped
her eyes to mine. “Throw another one and I’ll smother you with it.”

The intensity of her anger hit me like fire. It burned into me and
flattened any confidence I had that she cared at all. It hurt and that made my
mood dip into prickly.

“Try it,” I snapped. Unsure of when, and why, I’d got to my feet.

Renee glared up at me. “Like you scare me.”

“I’m not trying to scare you. I’m trying to figure out when you
turned into asshole of the year.”

She folded her arms, and her anger rumbled on. “Maybe I’ve always
been that way.”

Had she? Had it all been an act? That nasty voice that had been
there my entire life telling me how nobody cared, how I was just a freak, took
her comments and twisted them. Maybe she lied. People lied all the time. Nan’s
words about walls blocked the stinging thought.

“I got hypothermia,” I said.

Renee’s rage evaporated. “What?”

“I didn’t pass the cold weather training,” I told her. If she
didn’t care then she wouldn’t care about this. It was one way to find out. “The
expedition trek thing. I got separated from my group.” I rubbed the spot on my
hand where the drip had been in my arm. “I was critical.”

Renee hugged herself. Anger replaced with worry. Her blonde locks
flopped into her eyes. She stared into the fire. “Ursula didn’t say a word.”

“I asked her not to,” I admitted.

She met my eyes, trying to mask her irritation. Her aura gave her
away. It jumped and wriggled about.

“I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of failure but I am.”
I slumped back onto the seat, staring at my hand, trying to shake the memory of
that stupid tube in there. “I suck at being a soldier, I nearly drowned on the
assault course, got hypothermia on the cold weather exercise and she spent the
whole time giving me forfeits.”

“She
should
have told me anyway.” Renee picked at the
cushion in her hand. “I’m your commander, I need to know if you’re fit for
duty.”

“Well, I’m glad that duty is all that’s important to you.” I
gripped the arms of the chair, feeling like I had when Sam had hit me in the
jaw.

Renee stared at her own cushion. She was determined to act this
way, even though she knew it was hurting me, hurting us both.

“I ain’t ever been so cold in my life.” Thinking of Nan’s words, I
carried on. She said I had to lower my barriers. I had to keep going. “I got
real scared for a while. Sleepy too.”

“Where were you?” The concern shimmered around her even if her
voice sounded like it didn’t give two hoots.

“I set up one of them snow hole things and shoved my skis in the
top.”

Renee’s lips twitched like she wanted to smile. “Which is why you
survived.” Her voice was still non-committal.

“No,” I said and leaned forward. “The reason I survived was that I
promised you that we would get to visit your mom.”

I nodded as she looked up at me, a brief glimmer of something, of
her. Then she veiled her eyes like she was re-building her wall.

“I want to meet your mom. I want to go on a road trip and I want
you to stop shutting me out.”

Renee blinked a couple of times. The mask faltered. Her aura
growing stronger.

“You were real pleased to see me. You hugged me so tight that I
thought my ribs would switch sides.” Leaning forward, I clasped my hands
together to stop them trembling, my voice shaking with them. “What did I do
wrong?”

“Oh, Aeron,” Renee said, her voice cracking as tears spilled over.
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Then why are you closing me off?” I could hear the raspy tone in
my voice, feel my throat closing up. “You got scars, I get that and I ain’t
gonna force you into confessing nothing. I just don’t get why you are so mad.”

“I’m not mad,” she said. Her whole energy battled in front of my
eyes, the truth fighting to burst through as she wrestled to hold it back.

“Is it ’cause we’re so close to your mom’s and you miss her?”

Renee frowned. “You aren’t meant to know that.” She hugged herself
again, looking away. “I hate it when you do that.”

Why was she lying? “No you don’t,” I said, my confusion like
crystal in my voice. “You get to be yourself with me, remember?”

Renee shook her head. “You
can’t
know everything all the
time.”

I clenched my hands together and tried to stay calm. I felt like I
needed to keep trying to break down the walls even though her cold tone told me
not to bother. “Why can’t you trust me?”

“It’s not about trust.” She shook her head as if clearing her
thoughts. Her energy rammed back down behind the shield. “I’m your commander
and some things you are not permitted to know. That’s just the way it is.”

“For you maybe.”

Her eyes met mine as I got to my feet. “What is that supposed to
mean?”

My frustration drove my legs to move. I paced in a circle, hoping
that it would help me think but all I could hear was the negative thoughts, the
failings, the nasty voice telling me she didn’t care just like everybody else.
I was just another number to her.

Well, I was done being a number.

“I don’t have to answer to you,” I snapped. Renee raised her
eyebrows. “I earned my freedom and I don’t have to be a part of your stupid
team.”

“Aeron,” Renee warned. “You promised your mother.”

Oh, she was panicking now. Poor old Lilia would get hurt. “Like I
owe her nothin’”

“Don’t do that,” she said, her worry swirled around her. The
barrier leaking her building desperation. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, can’t I?” My voice bounced back off the walls at me and I
sensed Zack stirring. The last thing he needed was for me to start bellowing. I
hushed my voice. “If I don’t know who you are, how can I trust you when we’re
supposed to work together.”