The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (11 page)

             
Callie snapped, “Sometimes what you hear isn’t any of your business.”

             
“Touché,” Emeric replied, lifting his glass towards her in a mock toast. But then his lips twisted downwards, and his face became serious. “Callista, there has been something bothering me all day.”

             
“And what’s that?” Callie asked, sounding even to her own ears less than friendly.

             
“Your parents’ car accident. You told me this morning that you wouldn’t talk about it, I am aware, but I’m afraid I have to ask you to tell me something. After the accident, did you ever try to inflict injury upon yourself?” he asked hesitantly.

             
“What?” Callie said indignantly. “No, of course not. Why?”

             
“It is the only reason I can think of which might explain your…odd predicament,” Emeric said.

             
“My odd predicament? What, you mean the fact that I’ve been kidnapped and am being held against my will in the canopy of some rainforest?” she asked.

             
“The timing is the strange thing,” Emeric continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “You were, how old, thirteen at the time?”

             
Callie hesitated, resenting that he was speaking about this, but nodded.

             
Emeric shook his head. “That’s the age,” he murmured.

             
“For what?” Callie asked.

             
Emeric sighed and then set down his glass. “And you’re sure that nothing happened to you? No serious injuries, illnesses that year?”

             
“Yeah,” Callie said. “I mean, I think I’d remember. Look, I don’t speak Cryptic. If you have something to ask me, just ask me.”

             
Emeric drew a breath, about to speak. But then he held it for a second, and, after another thought, exhaled and shook his head. He looked down at the floor and stepped towards her. “Well, I think we’ve finished. Are you ready to go?”

             
Callie raised her eyebrows. “That’s it?” she asked. “Why did you have to tell them to leave, if you were just going to ask me questions that I’d already answered in front of them?”

             
“I assumed that you might be more comfortable, more willing to share new details, if we were not in his company,” Emeric replied.

             
“Whose company?” Callie asked.

             
“Alexander’s.”

             
Callie frowned, unsure why she should have been more comfortable now that Alex wasn’t around. She was about to ask what he meant, but before she could open her mouth, he had stepped closer to her and laid one hand upon her shoulder, looking seriously into her eyes.

             
“Callista, I would like you to be aware: whatever you need while you are here, do not hesitate to ask. You are doing us a favor, and we truly appreciate it,” he said, his words saturated with sincerity.             

             
As he was speaking, Callie got a weird feeling. She couldn’t explain it, even if she’d tried. It was as though her stomach had tied into knots. She’d had the same feeling when she had walked into a math test that she wasn’t prepared for. The best thing she could compare it to was feeling nervous, or afraid. Unable to speak, she swallowed, and then nodded.

             
Emeric stepped backwards, and then extended his arms. She couldn’t understand what he wanted her to do for a moment, but then she realized he wanted her to step into his arms so he could carry her home. She hesitated, feeling awkward about approaching him like that. It suddenly seemed too intimate.

             
Catching her reluctance, Emeric smirked and offered, “May I?”

             
She shrugged, but was relieved when he was the one to close the gap and lift her into his arms. He swept her up effortlessly and dived out the door before she was even fully secured. She gasped, but never felt as though he might drop her. She realized as he swam through the darkness of the forest that he flew differently than Alex did. His stride was slower, smoother.

             
When they got to Shay’s doorstep, Emeric didn’t go inside. Instead, he deposited her on the threshold, meanwhile suspending himself in the air outside. She turned once her feet were on solid ground, and was taken aback at the sight of him there, floating freely in the breeze as though upon a magic carpet. In this lighting, she could barely see the wings against the dark backdrop of the forest. In fact, she could barely see his face.

             
“Good night, Callista,” he whispered, and then he vanished almost before she could see him move, flying gracefully into the night.

Chapter Seven

Acquaintance

             
That night, Calli
e
spent her time tossing from side to side on Shay’s couch. Something about her conversation with Emeric was ringing in her ears.

             
Why had he mentioned Alex? What could she possibly have to hide from him, or any of them for that matter? And the way Emeric had said it, as though she should already know some secret to which he was referring, was what irritated her most of all.

             
By the time the morning rose in the peach-colored sky, Callie awoke bleary-eyed and cranky. Also, she realized, she smelled bad from having worn her pajamas for the past two days. She needed coffee and a shower. And a change of clothes. And when she realized that she didn’t have any of those things, her mood intensified.

             
She sat up and stretched her arms above her head. A movement to her left made her start. She saw Alex sitting at the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of what looked like cereal. She frowned. “I don’t need a babysitter,” she said crossly, standing up now.

             
He didn’t look at her, and she saw that he was reading the newspaper. The sight was likely the oddest one she’d had yet in this forest; a man with wings, sitting on a counter stool, eating cereal and reading the newspaper. But then she smelled the coffee, and she when walked over to the kitchen and saw that he’d brewed a pot, she found that she was no longer annoyed with him.

             
She poured herself a mug, and took a sip, savoring the bitter flavor. It had only been a day, but she felt like this was her first cup in a long time.

             
“I’m serious, you know. You can go, you don’t need to stay here and watch me,” she said to him now. He didn’t move other than to thumb through the pages of his paper. She sighed and approached the counter, leaning on it with her elbows as she stood across from him. “Honestly, what am I going to do? Go skydiving from the nearest tree branch?”

             
A soft chuckle escaped him, even though he didn’t meet her eyes. She realized that he was making fun of her, remembering yesterday morning again. “Oh, shut up,” she snapped, pushing back from the counter.

             
His smirk grew more pronounced.

             
She looked around the kitchen, hungry in spite of her anger. After checking each of the dozen cabinets in the place and finding no more than spoons and weird herbs, she sighed. “Where is the food in this damn place?” she asked no one in particular.

             
Alex made a movement. She turned and froze at the sight of him reaching over the counter, his arm knotted with long, limber muscle. He reached underneath the lip of the counter and withdrew a box of Capt’n Crunch, offering it to her as he continued to read. She took it from him gratefully, and poured herself a bowl. Then she paused, a thought occurring to her.

             
“How can you guys buy cereal?”

             
He swallowed. “Backpacks.”

             
“What? What do you mean, backpacks?”

             
Looking up at her, he grinned. He held up a finger as he pushed himself up from the stool. She watched as he disappeared into the backroom, only to appear a minute later with a large, empty duffel bag.

             
“What’s that?”

             
“Exactly what it looks like.”

             
“A duffel bag? What, you put your wings in there for the afternoon and then hit the mall?”

             
He chuckled. “Sort of.” He turned the backpack around, and Callie saw that someone had gutted it. The back side had been cut out, and Callie realized it performed like a massive slipcover. She could easily see how Alex would put that on over his wings, strapping it on like a regular backpack, and suddenly become an average member of society.

             
“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish. “But don’t people think you’re…I don’t know, out of place? I mean, you’d look like you were backpacking through Europe, or homeless or something.”

             
“You want to know a secret?” he asked, mischief in his liquid brown eyes.

             
Her heart fluttered, and she couldn’t tell if it was because of his expression or because she suddenly remembered that there was a secret about him that had been keeping her up all night.

             
“Sure,” she breathed.

             
“Most homeless people with duffel bags aren’t really homeless,” he said. And then, as an afterthought, “Or human.”

             
He disappeared again to put the backpack where he’d found it, and then came back out and sat at the counter. As he began to eat his breakfast again, she felt disappointed. More than that, her bad mood had come back. She felt like she’d been tricked. Surely
that
hadn’t been what Emeric had been talking about.

             
“So what’s your story?” she asked, picking at the cereal with her fingers. “I mean, that’s the most I’ve heard you speak in the past two days.”

             
He chewed for a moment after taking a bite of his own breakfast, and then looked up at her. “You have coffee on your shirt,” he remarked.

             
She looked down and saw a brown blotch on her pajama top. “Perfect,” she grumbled. She took a towel from beside the sink and blotted at it, her irritation growing. She saw that the laughter hadn’t faded from Alex’s eyes, and slapped the towel back down onto the counter. “You know, for someone who doesn’t seem talk much, you can be really annoying.”

             
He met her furious eyes with his own, gentle ones. The smile had disappeared, and he looked as though he were being intentionally patient with her. Of course, this did nothing to soothe her temper.             

             
“So, what
is
your story? I’m dying to know,” she said, suddenly intent upon angering him. He said nothing, seeming to understand her angle and unwilling to give into it. “Oh, don’t be so shy. Big, tough guy like you? You’ve got the dark and broody thing going so well. You must have a story,” she said, hearing the words tumble from her mouth with aggression and derision. “Some tragic secret buried in your past, right?” she asked, twisting the knife.

             
He met her challenging gaze levelly, and took another bite of cereal, unflinching.

             
Her own irritation grew more defined because his didn’t. “Huh,” she went on. “Maybe I’ve got you wrong. Maybe you’re just the brawn of the operation. You put out a mysterious line, but really there’s nothing going on upstairs.”

             
His smile returned at the comment, as though he enjoyed her baiting him. Angry, she forced herself to return the smile. “Well?”  she asked, goading him again.

             
“Are those my only options?” he asked, leaning forwards now. She stepped back, surprised that he was actually talking. His voice was steady and low, though there was a fire in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

             
“What?” she asked, her voice small.

             
“You have summarized two different characters, narrowed each down to a simple personality. But must I categorize myself as one or the other? Should I necessarily be either an insurgent or an idiot?” he asked, each word punching a little harder.

             
“I—“ she said, wondering what
insurgent
meant, but was cut off.

             
“Allow me to ask you—which makeup are you?” he asked. “I see you are wearing yesterday’s shirt, which now bears a coffee stain. This must make you a rebel, as your culture frowns upon such poor grooming. But, wait, you are in a culture now about which and about whose customs you are completely ignorant, which paints you as the fool.”