Page 45 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
Alice leans back against Fallon and grins at me. I grab the old Insta-Photo camera off the shelf above the bulletin board and snap a photo of them. We only have one package of the photo paper left, but I want to remember the two of them like this. Fern jumps up at the last second, and I’m pretty sure she’s in the shot. It’s all just fine. I’ve got a photo of my girls, and when it’s done drying, it’s going on the fridge with all the other family photos.
Caden showsup at six on the dot, with a case of beer, a cheesecake, and three loaves of freshly baked bread. He bows a little to Fallon as he deposits them on the kitchen counter, with a “Milady” for her. She pinches his cheek and tells him to get out of her kitchen.
It’s only on Sunday dinners that Fallon insists on it beingherkitchen, but that’s well enough. My little brother has a hug for Alice, another for Fern, and then he looks at me and asks, “So, what do you need help with?”
I punch his arm, but I do have a job for him. “Wanna help me with the old chalkboard?”
“The one me and Fallon stole from the old schoolhouse?” he asks with a disbelieving laugh. “We still have that?”
Alice looks up from where she’s been allowed to chop the lettuce for salad. “There’s a story there.”
“Have Fallon tell it to you while we get it out of the basement,” I say, pulling on Caden’s arm.
On the stairs, Caden grumbles good-naturedly. “What are you gonna do with it, anyway?” he asks.
“It’s got a corkboard on the back, remember?” I say as we reach the bottom of the cellar stairs.
“Not really,” Cade says, pulling the cord for the light on the ceiling.
“Alice is good with a pinboard. Figured we could use it for the investigation.” Caden nods, but he’s got an odd look on his face. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” he answers.
I shake my head. “That’s a something-face. Spit it out.”
He sighs. “Look, this could mean a lot of things, and I’ve got a theory, so don’t freak out.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “That is not a good way to keep me from freaking out, but go on.”
He rolls his eyes at me, and the kid could be ten, not twenty-five. “There’s some Sector code attached to Alice’s emails.” He can tell I’m about to say something, because he just keeps going. “It’s not like what I’ve seen attached to their internal stuff. It’s something else.” He pauses to take a quick breath before concluding, “Wyatt, they’re tracking her.”
My heart goes from beating wildly out of time to a slow, steady beat, before my blood pressure starts to rise. “Why are they tracking her?”
“That’s not the question you need to be asking, bro.”
“I hate it when you call me that.”
Caden rolls his eyes again, and for half a second, I wish I thought slapping him might help things. “Fine—that’s not the question you should be asking, Wyatt Hayes, Boss of Me.”
“Cut the shit,” I snap back.
“She emailed her parents from my house, Wyatt,” Cade says, gripping my shoulder. “I’ve got my shit pretty locked down, but it’s possible they know she’s here. The truth is, we’re not gonna know ’til they make a move. We need to know how they’ve tried to track her before.”
I push Caden toward the heavy oak-framed chalkboard looming in the corner. “Grab your end,little bro. Alice is gonna want to put all this on her pinboard of doom.”
Caden shakes his head and lifts the whole damn thing like it’s nothing at all, then practically sprints up the stairs with it.
“Show-off,” I call after him. Damn werewolf strength. But the kid’s got a point. We need to know just exactly what Alice’s history with the government is. With the Hunt moving in and Sector on our tail, the threats are coming in hot and fast.
“Always be prepared,” I mutter on my way up the stairs, remembering the crap Mama used to say. “Or trouble will find you with your pants down.”
The woman was wrong a whole hell of a lot, but when she was right, she was right.
Chapter 21
Alice
Fallon’s telling me about the time seven-year-old Caden accidentally made a bargain with a lesser Fey, and somehow Wyatt weaseled out of it by stealing the corkboard from the old schoolhouse, which is situated on a site sacred to Them, and of course made Caden come along as penance. I’m so absorbed in the tale that I almost slice off my finger instead of chopping lettuce, but luckily I manage to finish prepping the salad without any bloodshed.
