I See You (Oracle 2) (10 page)

It was late afternoon as we drove by row after row of sun-bleached bungalows with plastic kiddie pools on the front lawns. Every second house either had an RV, a spot for an RV, or a pickup truck in its driveway.

“Is that the high school you graduated from?” I asked as we crawled passed a large campus. The sports fields surrounding the sprawling, single-level, orange-brown brick building were huge. Three portable classrooms were set up in a concrete playground area.

“Barely.”

Beau was driving slower and slower. I didn’t know how close we were to his childhood home. But he’d been keeping under the speed limit since we’d gassed up, his foot seemingly barely touching the accelerator now.

We turned the block, keeping the school fields on our right. The grass was dry, but even I could tell that the high school put more money into their recreational facilities than their educational ones. Huge banks of expensive lights hung over the bleachers, which a crew of students and parents appeared to be painting despite the late-afternoon heat.

“Did you play football?”

“Badly. And carefully.”

“And under the bleachers? Smoking, drinking, and drugs?”

Beau snorted. He hadn’t even glanced over at the high school while we’d been talking. “Rarely. Shifter metabolism hardly makes the wasted hours worth it.”

“And sex?” I asked, wagging my eyebrows in his direction. “Maybe in the middle of the football field?”

Beau clamped his jaw tightly. I instantly regretted my playful question.

“I was —”

“No,” he said, interrupting me. “No sex on the football field.” He looked over and attempted a smile. “But I’m open to the suggestion.”

I laughed somewhat stiltedly, choosing to listen to his words rather than his tense tone.

Silence fell between us as we navigated another corner. Vehicles were parked on both sides of the street now, forcing Beau to slow even further.

“Should I stop asking questions?”

“No.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to ask him as we rolled by a corner store. “We could get some ice cream.”

“Do you want some?”

“Not really.”

“Rochelle …”

“It’s okay, Beau. I get it.”

“I used to steal candy from that store,” he said awkwardly, as if he was forcing himself to communicate. “Even after I had the money to pay for it.”

“Yeah? Pop Rocks and sour chews?”

“Sure. Licorice. Gummy bears. Small stuff.”

“Easy to pocket.”

“Yeah.”

Beau slid the Brave to a stop in front of a gray house with black trim. No. Correction. The main color of the house used to be off-white. Sunburned grass was encroaching on the concrete path that led to the front stairs and the black-painted front door. The double carport was occupied by what appeared to be the rusted husks of two cars, with another car sitting on blocks between the carport and the neighbor’s fence. The neighbor’s exceedingly high fence.

“Home sweet home,” Beau muttered. He didn’t turn off the engine.

I glanced around the neighborhood. It looked fairly cookie-cutter, but most of the houses were kept in better condition than the one we were currently parked in front of.

“Cy is a mechanic?” I asked. “Those are muscle cars?”

“No,” Beau spat. “And yes.”

“They’re your cars?”

“No, Rochelle. No. Just … give me a minute.”

I laid my hand on his arm. He was clenching the steering wheel too tightly but I didn’t say anything. His skin rippled at my touch. I’d seen him involuntarily transform once, when Blackwell had used an amplifying device at a restaurant the first time we’d met the sorcerer face to face. But now I wondered if anxiety or anger could trigger the same result.

Beau’s tiger wouldn’t be terribly comfortable in the driver’s seat of the Brave.

“I swore I wouldn’t come back,” he finally said.

“Okay. Okay. We can leave a note with my cellphone number.”

Beau growled and shut off the engine. Then he climbed out of his seat as if forcing himself to move.

I followed.

He paused with his hand on the exterior door, closed his eyes, and took a few measured breaths.

I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I didn’t. I wanted to wrap my arms around myself and fall to the floor in a fetal position. But I didn’t.

Beau reached back for me without opening his eyes. He pulled me tightly against him, cupping his long body around and over me. I curved into him, reaching up to wrap my hands around the back of his neck.

He pressed his lips to my forehead.

“You’re hot,” I said. “Feverish, even.”

Beau shook his head in response. “Ask me more. Ask me more questions.”

My mind blanked. Then I blurted out the first thing I could think of. “Did you have any pets?”

“No. I … found a stray dog once. Brought him home …” Beau’s entire body shuddered and he didn’t continue the story.

“You don’t have to do this,” I whispered. “I can go alone, find Ettie, and tell her what to avoid or where not to go. That sort of thing. Or convince her to hang with us for a few days. It’s my vision, my responsibility.”

Beau pressed a fierce kiss to my lips, darting his tongue into my mouth without a hint of his normal playfulness. I dug my fingers into the back of his neck, submitting to and participating in his passion. Our teeth knocked together and he pressed his hands to the back of my head to hold me steady. Then he broke the kiss the moment before it turned into something more, before our hands began roaming and removing clothing.

“You see me.” Still cupping the back of my head, Beau brushed his thumbs across my cheeks. He didn’t need to be holding me. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was completely ensnared in his dark aquamarine gaze.

“No matter what else I see today … or tomorrow … or the next day,” I said. “I see you. As you are.”

“As I am with you.” Beau sighed and dropped his hands. “Okay.” He spoke to himself, then met my gaze again. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Beau opened the door to the RV. Then, climbing down the steps, he crossed the sidewalk onto the brown, untrimmed lawn of his childhood home.

I followed, instantly feeling as if the late afternoon sunlight was frying my skin. Though I was sweltering in jeans and a tank top, I was glad I didn’t own any shorts. Not only did I hate the way they looked on me, but I also didn’t need the nasty burn that much exposed skin would result in.

I squinted toward the house after I locked the Brave, shielding my already-covered eyes from the sun. I couldn’t see any evidence that anyone was at home.

I wasn’t sure what we were about to see, about to confront.

I wanted to pull Beau back inside the haven of the Brave and drive away. But I didn’t.

∞

Ada Harris was a piece of work. Except for her striking blue eyes, I couldn’t see any bit of Beau in her long, bony face. Though with the heavy curtain in the living room pulled against the heat of the sun, I really couldn’t see much of Beau’s mother except for the cigarette dangling from the same fingers that loosely held a bottle of some dark-colored bourbon. Or so I gathered from the label.

The house hadn’t been locked. The front door opened onto a hall that stretched back inside. The living room was on the immediate right. A closet that was missing its doors and crammed with broken sports equipment stood to the left. A quick glance put the kitchen behind the living room at the back right side of the house, with the bedrooms on the opposite left.

The place wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t well tended either. A pile of car mechanic magazines took up the dull-grayish-blue carpeted area between a recliner and the wood-burning fireplace. Ada was sprawled lengthwise on a faded floral-print couch on the far side of the room. Books were strewn across the coffee table alongside her — romance novels, to judge by the amount of skin tone on the covers.
 

Ada’s almost-feverish gaze had locked on Beau the moment he stepped into the living room. She’d muted the TV.
 

She didn’t even glance at me, which was okay. I was happy not being noticed.

Ada had one of those modern, Japanese-influenced aromatherapy diffusers misting on the white-painted mantel. Its sleek black exterior and mesh top looked out of place and expensive. I couldn’t smell whatever essential oil it was burning … or melting, or whatever the thing did. The mist the diffuser created looked uncomfortably like the kind that filled my mind before and after I had a vision. I looked away before it could trigger me, though I had no idea whether that was even possible.

“Beau.” Ada’s voice was rough, as if she hadn’t spoken in a few days. The long ash of her cigarette dropped onto the carpet between her and the leg of the coffee table. I eyed it, ready to leap into action if the carpet caught fire. It didn’t. “Who’s the girl?”

Ah. So she had noticed me.

“You aren’t bringing her here for my blessing, are you?” Ada laughed harshly. “Ugly thing, isn’t she? For my handsome Beau. Your neighborhood ladies won’t be so free with their cash with her tagging at your heels.”

Beau flexed his fingers, curling his hands into fists, then keeping them that way.

“Or maybe I’m wrong,” Ada said, continuing her vitriol. “You’ve grown. Your bitches might like the manlier you, even if it comes with a pale-faced nothing of a wife.”

“I’m looking for Ettie,” Beau said, grinding the words between his teeth.

Ada rolled up into a sitting position on the couch. Her oily dark hair tumbled around her gaunt face as she leaned forward to snub the cigarette out in an ashtray alongside two other butts. Either she didn’t actually smoke much or she emptied the tray frequently. Hunched over her knees, she tilted her head up to look at Beau, then tilted it farther back to take a swig from her bottle.

Beau made a pained, disgusted noise that sounded as if it had torn from his chest involuntarily. I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound, but I didn’t falter any further in front of his terrible excuse for a mother.

“Come for Claudette, have you, Beau?” Ada laughed again. The noise was so grating I actually had to stop myself from trying to brush it away from my ears. “Going to ride her success now?”

Beau sighed, then scrubbed his hand across his face. He half-turned to include me in the conversation. “Ada, this is Rochelle. If you weren’t completely blitzed, you’d smell her magic.”

“I’d have to be at least two more bottles deep not to smell the stink of a witch.”

“She’s an oracle.”

Ada looked at me then, narrowing her eyes as if that would help her see me better.

I didn’t smile. I didn’t offer any pleasantries. But I did remove my sunglasses, so I could meet her stare without wavering.

Shapeshifters didn’t hold each other’s gazes. To do so was a challenge, though not necessarily one of aggression. But I wasn’t a shapeshifter, so I didn’t play by their rules.

One of these days, that was going to get me seriously injured.

But today, it won me Ada’s fear.

Beau’s so-called mother recoiled back from me. Her lips pulled away from her teeth in a terrible grimace as her shoulders hit the back of the couch.

Yeah, my pale gray eyes were freaky. And paired with the declaration of my magical prowess, they were even otherworldly. Though obviously, that was only if magic scared you, as it did Ada. According to Beau, she never transformed if she could help it.

“What … what …” Ada stuttered.

“Where is Ettie?” Beau repeated.

“School,” Ada spat. Her fear slowly melted into anger.

Yeah, we were really ruining her afternoon buzz. Wait until she heard our news about the impending death of her daughter. Though I wouldn’t put it past her to not give a shit.

“When was the last time you spoke with her?”

“A couple of hours ago. She checks in every couple of days. Like a good child should.”

“Still okay,” Beau murmured to me.

Ada’s mounting anger dissolved into confusion. “What do you mean, ‘still okay’?”

“I’m taking care of it,” Beau said. “What school? Did she get into college?”

Ada snorted. “College. Keep up, Beau. She’s at Ole Miss.”

“Which campus?”

“Oxford.”

Beau turned his back on his mother, completely dismissing her. “University of Mississippi. We need to go to Oxford. It’s about an hour and a half from here.”

“What is she doing there now?” I asked. “Summer classes? Will she still be on campus by the time we get there?”

Beau glanced back at his mother, who folded her arms and glowered at us. “She’s taking evening classes through the summer for extra credit,” Ada spat. “On Tuesdays she has elementary organic chemistry.” She raised her chin and her voice. “She graduated top of her year and got a private science scholarship.”

“Yeah, good for her,” Beau said. “Maybe it’ll get her out of this hell someday.”

We’d barely moved into the living room, so it took us only two steps to get back to the front door.

“At least she isn’t some whore!” Ada screamed after us. “With a juvie record as long as my arm!”

Beau faltered, turning back. I threaded my fingers through his and tugged his arm toward the open door. For a moment, I thought he might not follow me. I wasn’t going to be able to drag him.

But then he stopped resisting me. Instead, tucking me behind him, he jogged down the gray-painted, peeling concrete steps to the front walk.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

A man snickered, drawing my attention over Beau’s shoulder to the driveway. A short, stocky guy — dressed in a white wifebeater replete with beer and ketchup stains — slammed the driver’s-side door shut on an old Mustang parked in the driveway.

The guy was balding, or about to be. His thin, dark-blond hair covered the top of his head so sparsely that the next breeze was liable to blow it off. His prison tats looked seriously cheap and cheesy.

“Just can’t stay away? Can you?” The guy snickered again, glancing over his shoulder at the Brave as he sauntered across the dead lawn to place himself on the front path between the RV and us.
 

I hadn’t ever heard a man snicker like that. It was seriously creepy.

“What do you want? Money? Tricks ain’t paying like they used to? Or did Byron send you?”