Page 10 of Dream Weaver

Pieces of scrap metal flew out of a container and clattered across the shop floor. I couldn’t see Abby, but I could hear her mutter and curse.

“Abby, your assistant is here,” Matt hollered.

A rusty crowbar landed an inch away from my toes. An old shovel came next, pinging off the cement floor before coming to rest against my boot.

Yeah, I got the message.

I circled to the less lethal side of the container and peered in. It looked like the set of an apocalyptic movie, with Abby as the earth’s sole survivor crawling over wreckage, determined to kick ass against an encroaching army of cyborgs.

And, lucky me. I’d landed the part of the bad guy in that movie.

“Good morning,” I said, because my mother had taught me manners.

Apparently, Abby’s hadn’t taught her hers. After a sharp glare, she went back to heaving metal.

“Here to assist,” I added.

There. Now I could claim to have tried.

“Don’t need an assistant,” Abby muttered.

“Well, you got one.”

“We’ll see about that,” she mumbled.

Not exactly a promising start.

The morning was chilly, but she seemed comfortable in jeans, a tank top, and an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt. Maybe the flames tattooed onto her arms kept her warm. They seemed to flicker between light and shadow as she moved. The shop lights glinted off her hair, and that flickered too, between auburn and copper.

And, boy. She made a hell of a lot of noise for such a thin, wispy thing. A wispy thing full of pent-up power — or anger. She was way shorter than my six-foot-two, but what she lacked in bulk, she made up in sass and brute determination. At that very moment, she put her whole body into heaving aside a piano frame.

Yes, an entire piano frame.

“Can I—?” I started.

“No,” she grunted, shoving it aside.

I winced. A car crash would have made less noise. But, in terms of power-to-weight ratio, she was pretty impressive. I would have to push trucks around to exert as much force.

The banging, muttering, and tossing went on for another ten minutes. Then, quick as a cat, Abby leaped out of the container and stalked around, kicking the items she’d chosen into a rough line — everything from twisted wrenches to industrial scrap metal and rusty shovels. Chin in hand, she stood over them, considering.

I kept a safe distance, eyeing that rusty collection, then the nice, shiny steel ingots stacked by a wall. Back home at my family’s lumber mill, we MacGyvered repairs using scraps all the time. But not when lives were at stake.

“You’re not using fresh steel?” I asked.

She didn’t even look up.

I took that as a no.

Abby picked up a wrench as big as my arm and studied it.Seriouslystudied it, turning it this way and that, bringing it close to her eyes, then squinting along the length of it.

A minute creaked by, then another.

Back at the firehouse, the crew was checking lines…familiarizing themselves with new routines…getting to know one another. But not me. No, I was a spectator to a tattooed chick who preferred metal to people.

Abby discarded the wrench and spent the next five minutes inspecting a rusty sledgehammer.

I shuffled in place. Bob Dylan once sang that a person not busy being born was busy dying. Was this really the best use of my time?

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