Page 67 of Missiletoe
Baz yelped, “What the fuck, man?”
“Sorry. He said he likes the color and thought you wouldn’t miss a few since you have so much hair.”
“I am very good at cooking birds!” Baz called to the trees.
“He’s kidding,” Paris said to the flock when all the crows stirred restlessly.
I chose not to correct Paris. Baz wasn’t kidding. He was petty and vindictive. Hopefully I’d be able to distract him with Paris’s stalker until he forgot, because I didn’t want a war with the neighborhood crows. I didn’t think that would end well for any of us.
Paris eyed the porch warily as we approached it, and I tugged on his arm and said, “The porch defense can’t activate if a member of the family is on it. There are cameras to make sure it only fries the people we want to get rid of.” I pointed out the cameras and then stepped on the first step. “See? It’s perfectly safe.”
“Don’t worry, Paris. Gareth made sure Vix did multiple tests on this one. He does that with all of Vix’s devices we use in the field and on the house.”
I bristled at the implication that I was a crappy engineer. “All prototypes have the possibility of failure, Baz. Not just mine. I would have done multiple tests whether Gareth had made me or not.”
I folded my arms and began to ignore my brother. He deserved the silent treatment for at least a day for that. What if Paris refused to stay with us because he thought I’d blow up the house? If anything, it was far more likely that Vale would be the one to do it.
My explosions were always contained in my workshop. Vale’s tended to destroy entire portions of his wing of the house. It was why there was so much distance between his wing and any of ours.
If I could, I’d build him a completely separate structure, but Gareth refused. He claimed he wanted to make sure Vale had to interact with people on a regular basis.
So I set up several fail-safes to keep the rest of the house protected in case Vale blows up his wing completely.
Contrary to popular belief, I do havesomeself-preservation instincts. Vale is the one who truly doesn’t give a shit. I’ve seen him walk out of a flame-ravaged room that was charred beyond all recognition without so much as a first-degree burn to show for it. I can’t come close to doing that and have a nasty scar on my arm to prove it.
I stuck out my hand and wiggled my fingers at Paris in encouragement in case he was worried about getting barbequed and needed reassurance.
Paris took my hand, followed me up the stairs without a word, and allowed me to lead him inside.
Trixie came too, and I hoped Apple was with his husband and far from the foyer. If he was any distance from Adam at all, he’d be here in seconds to kick her back out again.
In an attempt to avoid that scenario, I tried to hurry Paris through the foyer and to the wing where my floor was.
Paris paused when there was a faint banging sound coming from the direction of Adam’s and Apple’s hallway. When the moaning started, Paris asked, “Do you have ghosts?”
Baz laughed and said, “No, that’s just Apple getting fucked through the drywall. He and Adam have a special relationship.”
I added, “The kind where they aren’t happy until everyone in town knows what they both sound like when they come.”
Paris nodded like it was a normal thing and allowed me to continue pulling him down the hall.
Apple being in Adam’s immediate vicinity made his luck decrease enough that we were probably safe from Apple finding us. The fact that he was occupied with his favorite activity upped the odds for us, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Even with Adam around, I’ve seen Apple take a bullet and come out with nothing worse than a ruined shirt and a shattered phone case.
I was literally the only person in my house without a weird unexplainable ability of some sort. Even Baz had something interesting going on with his knife skills. He never missed a target in his life, even when we were kids.
You can’t tell me there isn’t something odd about that.
I often wondered what would happen if Baz used Apple for target practice, but there was no way I’d ever find out. Adam would turn our small town into a mushroom cloud if Baz and I tried to put that thought into action.
I managed to get Paris and Trixie onto my floor without any mishaps and heaved a huge sigh of relief. They were as safe as they could get there. It was my domain, and until last night when Paris stormed our house and spirited me away, no one had ever been able to enter without my say-so.
Jesus, even Paris had special abilities, and there I was a tiny, silly fainting goat of a person surrounded by extraordinary people. How I ended up with them was far beyond my scope of understanding.
I was pretty sure I’d spend the rest of my life hoping to keep up whatever facade I had going that had convinced everyone I belonged with them. Baz told me constantly that I was more special than all of them combined, but I believed giving each other pep talks was part of the soul brother code.
I led everyone to the safest part of my wing of the house—a small sitting room several rooms away from my workshop.
I never worked on projects in my sitting room. That way I had somewhere to hang out with anyone who visited me.
