Death Weeps Part 2

"You need to fold them and put them in the drawers."

Uh-huh... I'd get right on that. I looked down at the pulse.

"Uh-huh," I muttered as I swiped my thumb across the pad.

Operational, thirty seconds.

Eff... finally.

I pushed open the dryer door and jerked out a s.h.i.+rt and a pair of jeans, socks and new boxers bunched in my left hand.

Onyx started sifting through the sorted dirty piles on the floor.

"Knock it off!" I hissed at Onyx. "Mom's gonna have ten cows."

I turned and there was Mom, hands on hips, a frown on her face.

"Do we need to have another responsibility discussion?"

I didn't think I ever needed one of those especially after that beaut of a dream and it being Lame Monday and everything.

No.

"No," I said, breezing past her on the way to the bathroom.

"I don't ask much, Caleb."

Right, and monkeys fly outta my a.s.s.

"But I'd like for you to at least remove your laundered clothing from the dryer."

"Yeah, okay Mom. Can we talk about all this fun stuff later?"

Dad came into the kitchen and arched his brows. "Got your stuff there, pal?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Great, have a good day at school... I've got to head in early."

Good. Day. At. School.

Yeah. The only thing that made it good was seeing my girl.

s.h.i.+t!

I looked at my pulse.

The luminescent characters came together in a rush: Operational.

I swiped it as I locked myself in the bathroom and jerked on the tap for the hot water.

Just a small pulse, I told myself, seeing that time was not my friend.

Top Five Contact: Hot One.

Hey- Stud Hey back- Hot One Is everything okay? Stud Yes... for now. Let's talk more later when we get to school- Hot One I knew that was code for her walking on her tiptoes around the False a.s.s Fam.

Okay, you're not...

Break in pulse communication No, no... I'm fine, I just want to get out of here as soon as I can- Hot One K, just checkin' in- Stud I know smiles- Hot One Love ya- Stud Me too- Hot One I swiped to hibernate and stepped into the shower. The warm spray ran down my face and hit the porcelain of the shower pan. I was thinking about everything. The nightmare of the last ten months. The problems with Brett, waiting for a Parker interruption, my probation. All of it.

We'd only just started junior year and already the c.r.a.p was rollin' downhill. Jade had a month before she could take possession of her aunt's house legally, not that she could live there right away. The place looked like a dump now. The weeds that were once a choked but short brown lawn grew up in strangled patches like forgotten islands in the middle of a sea of muck. I sighed, remembering the awful move into her foster family's house. It was almost worse that they lived in the same neighborhood.

So close to her former house and the memories of the murders there.

So close to Brett, his spark of life given freely and now part of why Jade lived.

I felt myself scowl and turned off the water tap hard, the spigot groaning under the a.s.sault.

I stepped out and approached the fogged mirror.

I wiped my forearm across the gla.s.s, making a swish mark so I could shave.

A thing that was so fun I wanted to stab myself in the eye. And to think I thought I'd be such a Man when I could. Now it was buying the razor that had the best blades so it might actually cut the hair off my face rather than tearing it off.

Jade liked a little stubble, she'd told me and I smiled over that. That's not all she liked, I thought with a little perv-glee. I thought we were getting pretty close to doin' the deed... but I hadn't pushed. This year had been kinda awful. Her dad and aunt both dying... how it happened. Then the move to the Foster Fam from h.e.l.l.

Yeah, the old love life took a back seat to all that noise. Brett was an added complication.

He was totally in love with my girl. And there wasn't jacks.h.i.+t I could do about it.

After all, if I hadn't given her a piece of him, he might have just stayed infatuated, feeling all Knight in s.h.i.+ning Armor and it would have faded.

Instead of intensifying.

I nicked myself on my chin. That GD cleft was a pain in the a.s.s to shave.

Jonesy called it a b.u.t.t chin.

Dad said it was the way to tell if your parents were biologically yours (insert internal eye-roll here). One of the Parents had to have an a.s.s chin or you were a stork kid.

I smiled at my reflection, was.h.i.+ng off the razor and clicking it three times on the rolled porcelain rim of the wash basin. Yeah, I had a b.u.t.t chin, but not too much, just an indent really.

Jade liked to kiss that too.

I whistled a little as I walked out the bathroom door, thinking about stuff.

Mom was outside, my lunch pulse at the counter's edge. She lifted it like a small flag. "I credited your month already."

"How much?"

"Two hundred."

"Mom, that's not gonna cover the second milk."

"Going..." she paused and I frowned at her correction. "Alrighty... another...?"

"Fifty bucks, Mom."

She sighed, rolling her eyes. I don't know why. Dad made a b.u.t.tload of cash being the Big Scientist, they could ante up for the milk. h.e.l.l, I bet we could have an incinerator in the house to burn away the extra money. Mom didn't believe in Waste though. She wanted me to have a "balanced" childhood.

Yeah, that worked out. s.h.i.+t was so normal in the Hart Household. h.e.l.l, we'd just gotten Clyde weaned from hanging around the trash separators.

She laid the lunch credit pulse card against the disc behind her ear and thought the additional money into the thing, handing it to me.

"I want the..."

"Credit, yeah Mom, duh."

"Caleb..."

"Mom, I think I'm clear about the credit now?" I responded, c.o.c.king an eyebrow.

She frowned again, smoothly changing the subject, "Did you get the weekend squared away with the gang?"

I nodded, it was Labor Day and Gramps was torching flesh on the BBQ-er.

Mom looked at her clasped hands nervously and I hesitated at the door, Onyx's tail whacking into my knee in a dog-rhythm.

Her eyes met mine, so like Gramps. I knew what she was thinking and answered her unspoken question, "Yeah, I won't forget."

"I'm sorry to remind you like this all the time Caleb... you're nearly an adult now it's just." Her eyes welled with tears and I fought being a male then, I just wasn't upset or emotional about the whole thing. I'd been tried, there were rules in place, my youth had protected me just not fully.

"I'll check in with probation, Mom," I said, giving her a pat on the shoulder.

"I'm just scared you'll go to jail," she said in a whisper.

Well h.e.l.l, me too."Nah... it's been forever, I've got... what, two months? Then I'm off the hook." I gave her a wider smile than I felt.

I hated checking in with probation, I hated feeling like I was guilty of something that I knew I couldn't have handled differently. It was different when the people that made the rules had never been challenged with the things they were making the rules for.

Lame.

Mundanes shouldn't be judging paranormals. If I had it my way, only paranormals would judge paranormals. Where was their d.a.m.n point of reference anyway?

Nowhere.

I grabbed the lunch credit pulse and stuffed it in the back of my jeans. I gave Mom a last look and she returned a watery smile.

Onyx gave a little whine at the door and I thunked him affectionately on his squarish black head.

"You be a good dog when I'm gone and take care of Mom, k?"

That last part was for Mom's benefit. Obviously, Onyx couldn't know what I meant.

The Dog pushed his head into the Boy's hand and closed his eyes in pleasure at the rough pat the Boy gave. The Boy had a specific way of showing he was Pleased with the Dog that was unique to him. He relished being one of the favorites in the pack.

The Dog c.o.c.ked his ears at the command, swiveling his eyes to the Alpha Female. He watched her all the time as it was? Was there a reason for this special directive?

He lifted his nose into the air, scenting it for the emotion of the pack... he smelled the faintest aroma of the water that females so often made from their eyes. It was perplexing. The scent was not especially unlike the emotion he would scent on other sentient beings after injury... yet, none was present.

The humans were a mystery. Complicating things beyond what the Dog could understand.

He gave a bark in response to his Boy. He would Watch the Alpha Female this day.

Huh... Onyx barked like an answer. Oh well, he was paying attention even if he didn't understand. I gave him a little scratch behind his ears.

The Dog felt the answer from his Boy, the pleasure in the affirmation that he would do as he was told.

He loved his Boy.

I walked out the door feeling pretty good about the day (even though it was a Monday). I pulsed the lock open on the Camaro and slid behind the wheel, the locks engaging when I shut the door.

I headed over to Jade's, internally tensing when I thought about running into her foster brother. I hated that guy; I'd like to see his steaming guts on the side of the road. Actually, I got a nice smile thinking about that as a solution. I was going to Reactive Management cla.s.ses and the instructor there would have said I needed to visualize my inner calm.

I think I missed getting that when they were handing them out to people. Like I don't even think I was in line for that.

That was part of the Fun Probation. They'd determined in court that I needed to learn better control.

Translation: I needed to not allow zombies to pop up every time s.h.i.+t got exciting.

Yeah, like they could manage that? Them and who else?

a.s.shats.

The Camaro purred up to the curb, not two blocks from Jade's old house and she looked as if her hand had been on the k.n.o.b, just waiting to escape. I got outta the car and walked around to her door. I'd like to claim I was a gentleman and wanted to open the car door, but what I really wanted was to put my hands on her and know she was safe, feel her tangible presence like a solid weight in my grasp.

Make sure she was okay.

I so couldn't wait until her birthday. All this skulking around would be over. Her lame ten o'clock curfews, the rationed food... her creepy a.s.s foster siblings. I had no patience for their motivations. It was really obvious to him... to the Js. The chicks weren't so sure. Well, Tiff was sure. He remembered when Jade had gotten all her c.r.a.p moved into their bas.e.m.e.nt.

Tiff looked around at the dungeon-like room, cement walls and floor, not a lick of paint on any surface. Kind of looked like a garage, I thought. After a full minute of perusal, she blew a bubble the size of her head and popped it, snapping it back into compliance with a loud bang.

"Where's the drain?" she'd cackled.

"What?" Jade asked, frowning.