I See You (Oracle 2) (4 page)

“What did you see?” he asked, referring to the vision that had preceded our lovemaking session.

“A girl. Woman, really. Blond, murky brown eyes. Dead … I think.”

Beau grunted. “The dowser?” His tone was light, even as his grip tightened on his T-shirt.

“No.”

“Okay. Why now? What triggered it?”

“The far seer dropped by the laundromat.”

“And?”

“He said it was time to see.”

“Like he’d been blocking the visions?”

“I’m not sure.”

Beau tilted his head, waiting for me to explain further. I hesitated, then pushed through my fear-based reticence.

“Also …”

“Yeah?”

“I met his apprentice, Drake.”

“Okay,” Beau said, then smiled sweetly. “Now tell me what’s really worrying you.”

He wasn’t going to judge me. He wasn’t going to think I was crazy. “My butterfly tattoo did this thing.”

Beau tensed his shoulders, though his smile held steady. “Thing?”

“I’m not sure. It left my arm. Flew around. The far seer wasn’t really helpful.”

“Typical.”

“He said something about sorcerer magic that might have been connected. Or he was talking about something else without, you know, actually communicating anything I could really follow.”

Beau nodded but didn’t answer. He gazed at the scuffed vinyl floor between us, thinking. If there were any questions about sorcery that needed to be asked … well, we knew only one sorcerer, and Beau really wasn’t a fan of Blackwell.

“Okay,” he said. “Weird.”

“Yeah.”

And just like that — despite the morbid topic, the sudden resurgence of my oracle magic, and the tattoo oddness — we were grinning at each other like idiots again. Morons, really. Even with the impending doom that always loomed behind the mist of a vision, we were okay as long as we were together. That had to be one of the first signs of insanity, but it didn’t stop me from continuing to grin as I tugged on my jeans, pulled on my tank top, and laced my sneakers.

Beau didn’t take his eyes off me while I dressed. I didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t looking. Maybe I didn’t know why he liked to look at me like that. Maybe some part of my damaged brain still insisted that none of this was real. But I was beyond caring, beyond listening to that stupid voice.

I brushed by Beau to pick up the laundry basket and sauntered over to the back door. He followed, reaching around to unlock and open the door for me like a gentleman.

“It’s like that, huh?” he asked teasingly. “Use me and leave me?”

“Yep,” I said. “We have dinner with Gary and Tess in an hour. Don’t be late.”

Beau chuckled to himself. I walked off without looking back. The stupid grin was still plastered all over my face.

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” he called after me.

“Promises, promises,” I called without looking back. Then, as his warm laugh followed me, I turned around the back of the garage to cross to where the Brave was hooked up.

∞

Even though Beau and I had been living out of the 1975 Brave Winnebago for over a year and a half, the RV didn’t look much different than it had when I first bought it from Gary in Richmond. My intention then had been to flee the nonlife I’d been surviving as an orphan in foster care for nineteen years.

We were currently hooked up to water and electricity at the back of the garage Beau rented, because living out of RV sites full time was way too expensive, and dry-docking in a remote location made it difficult to earn any money. No cellphone or Wi-Fi signal meant no updating my Etsy store. No other vehicles around meant Beau didn’t have any work, either.

I had to place the laundry basket down to unlock the side door of the Brave. The lock was fiddly ever since Beau had replaced it. He’d also installed a crazy heavy-duty bolting system on the inside of the door, but only locked that down at night. I never mentioned to him that most of the predators we knew could just claw through the side of the RV if they intended us harm. I also didn’t mention that I doubted locks would stop many witches or sorcerers either. If Beau wanted to be protective, I wasn’t going to hinder him. The lock meant he cared for me, and fiddling with it every time I needed to get into the Brave only served to remind me of that.

The garish orange, green, and brown interior of the RV was definitely fading around the edges from constant use and sun exposure. But the assault of color was, as always, a calming influence on me.

I lugged the laundry through the tiny galley kitchen and dinette to the tall shelves next to the bed at the very back of the twenty-one foot RV. Other than the few items that had obviously tumbled out of the basket when the vision had taken my eyesight, I’d already folded all the clean clothing and just needed to put it away.

Yeah, something about living in a tiny space made me a neat freak. I was constantly cleaning. Of course, this was the most space I’d ever had before, so to me it was all a luxury. I could count on one hand how many times I’d had a room of my own, and I wouldn’t need my thumb or forefinger.

The basket collapsed all funky-like, then was stored next to my portfolio between the shelving unit and the bed. Beau had bought the basket for me. He’d been upset when he’d seen me using a garbage bag for laundry.

I ran my finger along the edge of my zippered portfolio. My very empty portfolio … though I suspected it wouldn’t be empty for long. I wondered if I should try to draw the girl with the dying eyes, but I didn’t feel the urge to do so yet. Something about that nagged at me. More was coming. But there wasn’t any point in dwelling on it. It would come and we would deal with it.

Yeah, I was a ‘we.’

Grinning again like a moronic baboon, I crossed to the fridge and started pulling out fixings for the salad I was contributing to dinner tonight. The constantly full fridge and well-stocked dry goods cupboard was the only really new thing in the Brave, even after a year and a half.

Tess didn’t exactly like me bringing food when she and Gary were hosting, but I knew it was the proper thing to do. And for some reason, that kind of thing was starting to matter to me. Like seeing Drake bow to Chi Wen, and the language he’d used when saying goodbye to me. There were rules in place. Rituals that helped … well, that smoothed life. And the smoother things were, the easier they would be to deal with when everything fell apart.

Yeah, I was waiting — and not waiting — for that to occur. Though I didn’t know what ‘that’ was. Just that it would show up or simply happen, like a train wreck or a heart attack. It always did.

Beau slipped silently into the Brave while I was shredding the carrots. At least he tried to slip in silently, but the entire RV dipped as his weight landed on the outside steps, then righted itself as he came inside. Winnebagos hadn’t come with stabilizers for long-term parking in 1975.

“Nice try, Mr. Stealthy,” I said, not looking up from the cutting board that fit perfectly over the tiny stainless steel sink. “We don’t have time for a training session.”

Beau huffed out a laugh as he shut the door. Then, stepping to the side, he pressed a kiss to my neck. “I still can’t figure that out,” he mused.

“What?”

“The weight distribution thing.”

I shrugged. “You’re big. Heavy.”

“Hmmm, yeah.” Beau tossed a package on the lime-green laminate dinette table behind me and started stripping.

I kept my eyes on the salad fixings. Beau and I had an embarrassing habit of being late. For everything. Watching him undress was a surefire way to miss dinner.

“Is that what you and Audrey have been working on? Weight distribution?” I asked. The beta of the West Coast North American Pack took her duties annoyingly seriously, checking in about once a month.

Beau turned toward the front of the Brave and reached into the tiny bathroom to turn on the shower. “She thinks I should be able to take half-form.”

“Half-human, half-tiger?”

“Yeah, warrior form. All the strength and abilities of the tiger. But, you know, upright with opposable thumbs.”

I glanced over, catching a glimpse of broad, muscular shoulders as Beau stepped into the shower. I didn’t like the sound of this ‘warrior form’ thing. I didn’t like the training Beau did with Audrey at all. The only reason he was this bound to the West Coast North American Pack was because of me. And the only reason people needed warriors was to fight their battles for them.

Beau wasn’t a fighter. Or rather, he shouldn’t have to be.

I eyed the package on the table. The narrow cardboard box could have held anything, but the Amazon shipper’s address wasn’t particularly illuminating. Beau wasn’t buying tools, or books, or video games from Amazon when we were low on funds. So I knew the package contained something for our tactical training or end-of-the-world prep.

Beau might not be inherently aggressive, like the pack werewolves, but he was a prepper. Or he’d become one for my sake.

My magic didn’t come with enhanced strength or healing like Beau’s shapeshifting ability did. So now we had escape scenarios, emergency routes, and contingency plans worked out for every situation he could think of. Each plan was tweaked and adapted for every town we moved to.

“Open it. It’s for you.” Beau wandered out of the bathroom, still toweling himself off. I hadn’t heard the shower shut off, and my brain was momentarily scrambled by the sight of the naked size of him. All his breadth and width filled the space before me — and then around me as he brushed by to pull clean clothing off his shelf.

“Closing the blinds might have been an idea. Old Ms. McNally will be getting an eyeful from her bedroom window.”

Beau grinned at me, then buried his face in a clean T-shirt and inhaled deeply. My stomach flipped at this sight, and suddenly blurry-eyed, I turned back to tossing the salad in a sealable Tupperware container before I started weeping like a mooning idiot. Yeah, tears of joy over the simplicity of Beau appreciating clean laundry. Over him appreciating the fact that I washed and folded his clothing for him. It was the absolute least I could do in exchange for all he did for me.

I reached for the package on the dinette while Beau pulled on shorts and black Tevas. I sliced through the packing tape that sealed the box with the paring knife I’d been using to chop cucumber.

I dug through the bubble wrap and pulled out a pen. At least it looked like a pen. But a weird, heavy, black metal pen with an oddly scalloped grip. I looked at Beau questioningly.

“It’s a tactical pen, military and police issue. Smith & Wesson.”

“Well, that’s illuminating.”

“Using a pen in a self-defense situation should be a last resort. It’s a weapon of opportunity.”

“Okay. It’s … ah … heavy.”

Beau nodded, deadly serious as he stepped closer to switch my grip on the pen. “It’s constructed out of aircraft aluminum, and when used correctly, it can inflict some serious damage to an attacker’s eyes or throat. But you have to understand the pros and cons of using such a weapon. Because the drawback is you need to be very close to use it against someone who’s trying to hurt you. And we don’t want you to be close, right?”

“Right.”

“Because when I say run, what do you do?”

“Beau …”

“Rochelle.”

“When you say run, I run.”

“No questions. No hesitation.”

“I hear you. I’m listening. If I can’t run right away, I aim for the soft parts. Then I run.”

Beau nodded. He brushed his thumb across my knuckles where they were gripped around the thick grooves that made up the body of the pen. “We’re going to be late. We’ll work the pen into our training tonight on the beach.”

“Ah, the beach?”

“Good footwork practice.”

I pressed the pen into Beau’s hand and shifted over to the clean clothes, quickly swapping out my jeans for a black jersey skirt and putting on a clean tank top. “Sure. Gary and Tess will get a real kick out of me trying to stab you with a pen.”

Beau wagged his eyebrows as he leaned against the dinette. He took his turn to ogle me while he flipped the pen in the air and caught it without looking.

I laughed, shoved my feet into some black flip-flops, and crossed back to grab my satchel from the dinette bench seat. Yeah, this was my version of dressing up.

Beau blocked me playfully with his body, reaching over the dinette to retrieve my hand-painted satchel from the bench beside and behind him. He pressed a kiss to my forehead as he looped the strap of the reclaimed army duffle bag over my head and across my shoulders.

Then he held the pen out to me, completely serious. “Put it in your bag, please. Have you got your sketchbook?”

“Always.” I took the pen.

Satisfied, Beau grabbed the salad and headed for the door. “I’m sure Gary and Tess will be overjoyed watching you attempt to stab me.”

I looked down at the pen in my hand. It didn’t seem like much of a weapon. But then, since it had taken eighteen months of training with Beau for him to not be afraid I’d accidentally stab myself, I seriously doubted whether I should be wielding anything deadlier.

“It writes, too,” Beau said.

“Well, that’s useful at least.” I tucked the pen in my bag and followed him out of the RV.

∞

I trailed Beau around the back and side of the garage. We usually walked the two blocks to the interstate, then hitchhiked to Gary and Tess’s campsite. My skirt-and-tank-top combo was definitely a cooler outfit for this time of year, but I hated the way the dry grass and pebbles got caught up in my flip-flops. I stopped to shake my left foot free of annoying debris and got buzzed by some insect.

No, not some insect.

A black butterfly flitted through my peripheral vision.

My stomach churned even as I raised my head to follow the butterfly’s flight path. It danced along the eaves of the garage, then up over Beau’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice as it stopped to kiss his ear.

In fact, he was standing awfully still, staring at something ahead. Or maybe across the road. I couldn’t see beyond his broad shoulders.

I glanced down at my left wrist. Yep, it was bare. Now tattoo free.

I stepped forward just until I could see the huge black SUV with dark-tinted windows parked across the street. Beau was gripping the salad Tupperware so tightly that I was fairly sure he was going to permanently dent the plastic.