Preda's Voice (Guardians of Vaka Book 1) (5 page)

8

P
reda woke the next morning to the smell of bacon. She tried to lift her head, but the weight of a cat tangled in her hair weighed her down. She groaned, and reached back to carefully extract the sleeping feline. Fiver yawned lazily and stretched his front legs out. A paw landed on top of her eye. He was clearly not interested in helping.

After what seemed like minutes of struggling, Preda was free of the cat, and she clumsily rolled out of bed. She looked around the room in the light of day and sighed at how beautiful it was. Compared with the stark furnishings and bare walls she was used to, this room was lavish. Attention to detail was obvious in the coordinated colors and trinkets all around the room.

Preda gently picked up a teddy bear from the bedside table. She hadn’t even noticed him last night. He was wearing a red bow tie, and the plush fur was soft underneath her fingers. She hugged him for a brief instant and felt like a child again.

As she put the teddy bear carefully back in his place propped against the lamp, Preda turned to Fiver. “Ready to face this, buddy?” The cat hopped off the bed, trotted to the door, and purred. She laughed to herself and muttered, “That makes one of us.”

Fiver led the way down the hall toward the kitchen, and Preda could hear the comforting sounds of a metal spatula scraping a pan. She walked into the kitchen to see Mr. Scott standing at the stove. He was wearing an apron. He had his back to her as he was cooking. Foxy was nowhere to be seen, and she smiled in relief as she quietly pulled a chair out to sit at the table.

Mr. Scott was humming “Moon River”
and didn’t seem to notice Preda was in the kitchen. She took a minute to take in her surroundings. The kitchen seemed well used. Dish towels were on the counter, and a spice rack was in complete disarray. Despite the chaos, Mr. Scott grabbed things off the shelves without even looking to see where they were. Preda chewed her lower lip absentmindedly and watched him.
How long has he been living here?

As she watched the veritable ballet that was Mr. Scott in the kitchen, Preda realized no one had ever cooked for her like this—at least not that she could remember. As soon as she was old enough to reach the counter with a step stool and use a can opener, she had learned to fend for herself. That was the way of the Torrance household.

Just as she was about to speak and tell him so, Mr. Scott turned around with a panful of scrambled eggs. Seeing Preda sitting there quietly startled him, and he flung the pan back so that eggs fell over the side and onto the floor. Fiver immediately jumped off the chair next to Preda where he had been perched. The cat started making quick work of the eggs before anybody else could clean them.

Preda stood and stammered, “I’m sorry. I should have said something sooner. I was just watching you cook and…well…it was wonderful.”

Mr. Scott gave her an appraising look. “It’s all right,” he said after a moment. “I’m just not used to having people sneak up on me in my kitchen. You’re like Tamron in how quiet you can be.”

Preda moved to get one of the dish towels from the counter to wipe up the eggs. “Quiet is my specialty, Mr. Scott.”

“Don’t call me that. Please call me Al,” he said a little too quickly, and he carefully put the pan and the rest of the eggs back on the stove. “And please don’t clean that up, Preda. I’ll get it. You just sit down. What would you like to drink? I have orange juice.”

Preda giggled to herself at his effortless selflessness and continued to wipe the floor anyway. Fiver put his paw on the towel to prevent it from moving, and he quickly tried to lick up the last bit of egg.

“I almost forgot,” Al exclaimed. “I have something for you, Fiver.”

Al rummaged through the pantry until he found the stack of gourmet cat food tins. He picked out one labeled “Ocean Delight.” He emptied the can into a bowl and placed it on the table in front of the chair Fiver had been sitting in. Fiver jumped back onto his chair and politely ate at the table as if he ate breakfast there every morning.

Preda stared in wonder as she sat back down. Al served her breakfast with orange juice. It was delicious. When she and Fiver were cleaning their plates, Foxy walked in from the back door in the kitchen. He was wearing the same gray suit jacket he had been wearing when he had picked her up from class the day before.

“Good,” he said. “You’ve eaten. Let’s go. We can talk more on the way.”

Preda gulped down the last of her orange juice and said, “I have some questions first.” Then she looked at Al. “For both of you.”

Al stopped cleaning the dishes and sat down at the table. “I think that’s only fair.”

“We’ve wasted precious time sleeping this morning. I would like to make sure we reach the airport before this evening,” Foxy grumbled, but he still sat down with his fingers laced together on the table in front of him.

Preda swallowed. “The airport? Not the Miami airport. We drove away from it last night.”

“No. A different airport,” he replied. “By necessity we’ve had to detour from the most direct path.” Foxy glared in Al’s direction.

Al shrugged. “A little detour and delay will throw them off her scent.”

“Throw who off my scent? I have had enough secrets. I want to know where we’re going, why I’m in danger, and who I am!”

Without realizing it, Preda had stood and raised her voice. She looked at both men and then sat down. She immediately regretted her outburst. Al was shaking and staring at the table. Foxy had his hands over his ears and an expression of extreme concentration while he gazed at her.

“I’m so sorry.” She spoke barely above a whisper. She realized she had actually come close to hurting them. “I thought my voice didn’t affect you.”

Foxy lowered his hands and took a moment to collect himself before speaking. “It does affect us, Preda. We are devoted to you. On a genetic level, we live only to protect you. When you speak, your voice does not force itself on us, but it does affect us.”

“What do you mean, genetic?” Preda was speaking normally now but in a quiet tone. She could see Al was starting to recover.

“I mean our families have been linked for generations,” Foxy said with a serious expression. “Our ancestors have been aligned with yours since the beginning of our written history. You are not human, Preda, and neither are we. We share a common ancestor with humans, but we have evolved on a different path. In a different place.”

Preda’s head was spinning, but she tried to keep her voice calm and level. “Why am I here then? Are you both from these families?”

Al answered this time. “Tamron and I are cousins from the same family. We are from the Kait family, but there are three others.” After a moment he added, “Besides yours.”

Preda smiled at this. “You and Foxy are related?”

Al burst out laughing. “Foxy?” he exclaimed as soon as he caught his breath. “Oh, I love that.”

Tamron Fox looked less amused and continued as though nothing had occurred. “I know this is a lot to take in. To put it simply, you’re here because we are at war. The sole purpose of your isolation was to allow you to grow up, but we have been here with you every step of the way. Even if you didn’t know it. You are younger than we’d like, and we will have to train you and teach you along the way, but your family has always been resilient.”

Both men stood expectantly, but Preda numbly stared straight ahead. After a minute she said, “My family? Along the way where?”

Al answered. “You are the last of the Vozia family, and we’re taking you home, Preda.”

9

P
reda Vozia had such a nice ring to it. Preda tried speaking it aloud a few times quietly to herself as she walked back to the bedroom where she had slept the night before. It sounded so much better than Torrance. She thought back to all the times her father—no, Phillip—had used her full name as a taunt against her. Preda-Tor. Maybe she was a predator, but she was also a Vozia. Whatever that meant.

Fiver led the way down the hall. She galloped with the excitement and anticipation she felt. By the time she followed him into the room, he was already turning around in his carrier and settling in. The cat acted as if it was a chariot rather than a cage.

Al was right behind her and indicated she should open the closet. Preda did and found several sets of shirts and pants as well as a bag to keep them in.

“I hope everything fits all right,” he said. “We’ll be waiting in the car whenever you’re ready. I’ll take Fiver.”

After Al left with Fiver in his arms, Preda immediately started rummaging through the new clothes. They felt expensive. They looked fitted. There wasn’t enough black, though. She sighed and grabbed a light blue silk top and jeans and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and change.

As Preda gazed in the mirror with her toothbrush in hand, she felt as if her face had changed. It seemed impossible, but the girl who had woken up yesterday was a different person today. Her eyes looked a shade brighter green. This time, though, when she gazed back at herself, she didn’t have the compulsion to look away.

When Preda was finished, she stuffed her new wardrobe into her bag and considered her oversize gray hoodie. With a sense of finality, she chose not to take it with her and left it lying across the bed. She took one last look at the cracked ceramic pot Al had saved for her and shut the door behind her.

Preda walked out of the house and locked the door behind her. Both men were sitting in the front of the Crown Vic, and she crawled into the backseat with Fiver. “Would you like music?” asked Al.

Preda said yes, and he found a generic classic rock station they could all agree on. Foxy gave his assent with a grunt when asked if it was acceptable. They drove back onto I-95 northbound, and no one in the front of the car seemed eager to divulge exactly where they were going. Preda busied herself with stroking Fiver’s fur through the bars of the carrier door, and she felt him purring. Eventually she rested her head on top of the carrier and fell asleep. She drifted in and out of sleep but occasionally caught snippets of conversation.

“The cat is going to be an issue,” she heard Foxy say.

“The only issue I foresee is if we try to take the cat from her,” Al replied.

Preda smiled to herself. She knew he was right and fell back asleep. She had no dreams and no concept of how much time had passed until she awoke suddenly to Foxy parking the car. She looked out the window and saw a sign that said Fort Lauderdale Airport.

Preda wiped the drool from the side of her face with the back of her hand and dried it on her jeans. She imagined this probably wasn’t very Vozia-like behavior, whatever that was supposed to be like. She hastily smoothed her straight black hair back from where it was sticking upward on the left side of her head, and moved to open the door. It was locked. She caught Foxy’s eyes in the rearview mirror and belatedly realized Al was no longer in the car.

“We’re waiting for Al’s signal,” Foxy said.

Al’s signal?
Preda almost laughed to herself. This was too much like a spy movie to take seriously. She stopped as soon as she saw the trace of anxiety in Foxy’s eyes.
Fine,
she thought.
We’ll wait for Al’s signal.

“Can we turn the music back on?” Preda asked after what seemed like at least five minutes of silence.

“No,” he replied.

After what seemed like an eternity, Foxy’s phone vibrated on the console. He hesitated to answer after glancing at the caller ID. “I told you to await further instructions,” he said curtly after picking it up. He spoke to the person on the other end with barely restrained anger. “You’re where?”

There was silence for a solid thirty seconds. Preda felt uncomfortable listening to the conversation, but she couldn’t do anything. She was locked in the car with no music for distraction and no one else to converse with. She could see Foxy’s knuckles had turned white where he gripped the phone. Finally he sighed and started speaking again. “There will be disciplinary action for this, but since you are already there…Puerto rendezvous eighteen hundred tomorrow.”

He hung up the phone, pressing the button a little too aggressively. Preda was silent in the backseat. She hoped never to be on the wrong end of that anger. After another period of awkward silence, Foxy’s phone beeped twice with a soft tone. That seemed to be the signal. Suddenly the doors were unlocked, and he got out of the car and moved to open the door for her. Preda grabbed Fiver and awkwardly squeezed out with her feline burden.

Foxy was quick to grab their bags, and they started to make their way through the parking lot. Once again Preda had to skip every fifth step to keep up with his long strides.

When they were inside the airport, Foxy leaned down. As though it was a secret, he said in a low voice, “We’re going to Buenos Aires, Argentina.”

After that he was quick to utilize his faux badge, and they were ushered through check-in and security. Before she knew it, they were sitting with Al in a first-class lounge and waiting for their flight. Preda wondered if perhaps that badge might actually be real.

No one had asked about her feline passenger, and while they were waiting, a woman walked by to take the cat to a back room at Al’s request. He was to be fed and allowed to use a litter box. Preda was reluctant to see him taken away, but she trusted Al. Fiver was brought back after ten minutes. There was at least another thirty minutes until boarding, and Preda needed to use the restroom herself. When she excused herself to go, she was met with resistance.

“Can you wait until we are on the plane?” Foxy asked with what she thought was a slight degree of annoyance.

“Fiver wasn’t asked to wait,” she replied.

“I’ll go and stand guard,” said Al in a placating tone.

Stand guard?
Preda didn’t know whether the precaution was amusing or terrifying. As they were walking to the bathroom, she asked Al, “Whom are we hiding from?”

“I wouldn’t call it hiding so much as avoiding. You are going to be a very strong young Vozia. Sooner than you think. Until that time, though, you are vulnerable. Unfortunately the events of yesterday might have alerted them to your presence here. They look no different from you or me from the outside, so you can’t trust anyone, Preda. Promise me.”

His words’ gravity weighed heavily on her mind. As she rubbed her hands over her thin arms, she doubted she could ever be strong enough to fight against anyone. She looked up at Al while they walked. “I promise,” she said.