Wren

“What are you doing?” Corson inquired, his voice coming closer as I stared at the plastic doll hanging from a shoelace in the center of the locker. “That’s… ah, interesting,” he said over my shoulder.

“Not the weirdest thing yet.” I shut the door before turning to face him. My mouth went dry; my heart raced faster than a horse as I tilted my head back to take him in. I pressed my fingers against the cool metal locker behind me to keep from touching him.

“Humans are strange,” he murmured, his eyes on my mouth. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Supplies would be a lie. If there had been anything useful left behind, it’s gone by now, but I can’t stop myself from doing something I never do.”

“Which is?”

“Wondering what could have been,” I admitted. “And I have no idea why I’m telling you that.”

“Because I’m so easy to talk to.” The smile he flashed had me contemplating how fast I could get my pants off. “Plus, you’ll deny it, but you like me. It’s impossible not to; I’m good looking and funny.”

“Funny looking,” I retorted, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling back at him. Funny looking and irresistible.

My breath caught when he rested his hand on the locker next to my head. “Only to some.” His eyes met mine before going to the locker behind me. “So what do you think could have been?”

“I don’t know. I liked learning when I was a kid, and Randy continued to teach me things as I grew, but he had his limits to what he knew and how much he could teach me. It’s not like I could learn chemistry or biology, not when I didn’t have the tools and equipment to do so. There was only so far I could go in math and other subjects. He did his best, and I was lucky he was able to do so much with me.”

“Why could he do so much?”

His chest brushed against my arm as he moved subtly closer. His masculine scent engulfed me, and those orange eyes became all I could see. “He… ah…” I had to swallow before continuing. “He’d been going to college to be a middle school history teacher when it all happened. He only had a year left to go before graduation. I think it’s why he was so determined to save me. He loved kids, and he refused to let me die no matter how badly I wanted to give up in the beginning.”

His eyes sharpened on me, and his nostrils flared. “I will not allow you to die.”

“Thanks, demon,” I teased and patted his chest to soothe any ire my calling him demon might cause him, “but in case you haven’t noticed, you can’t declare something and have it be true. There’s a whole lot of nastiness out there that would like nothing more than to eat us.”

He grabbed my hand and flattened it against his chest. “And I will kill anything that tries to eat you. Other than me, of course, and I’m going to enjoy tasting you again, Wren.”

His heavy-lidded eyes fell to my mouth once more. Beneath my palm, I felt the increased beat of his heart. Demons may be immortal creatures who feasted on the energy of wraiths, could regrow any body part except their heads, and didn’t have the same bodily functions us humans did, but they had heartbeats and breaths, and right now his pulse was faster than mine.

“So sure of yourself,” I said and tugged on my hand.

I expected him to continue clinging to me, but he released me and stepped aside. “I am sure I need you.”

My lungs had a difficult time drawing air after that revelation, but I finally succeeded in doing so. I forced myself on to the next locker and pulled it open. Someone had scrawled 420 all over the inside of this locker. I had no idea what was so significant about the date or the time, but this person was obsessed.

Someone’s birthday maybe. I closed the door.

Now that I’d started, I felt obsessed too. I didn’t know if I’d be able to stop myself from looking into all of the lockers.

“Corson?”

“Hmm?”

“Was there ever anything between you and Bale?” I didn’t know why I’d asked the question. The answer might drive me nuts, but I had to know. I couldn’t sit and watch the two of them and wonder all the time.

I thought I saw a flash of satisfaction in his eyes. My hand clenched. If he said one smug thing, I’d knock him on his ass and hog tie him to the nearest desk. If I’d had an apple, I’d shove it in his mouth too, but a sock would do.

“I don’t mix business with pleasure,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“Bale and I have worked with Kobal for centuries, but that is all we’ve done. There would have been no jealousies between us afterward, no feelings, but I prefer to keep my sex partners separated from my work ones, and so does Bale.”

Relief burst through me, and it took all I had not to clap my hands in delight. “I see.”

Corson walked beside me while I continued down the hall and peered into each locker I opened. “Why does this place smell like that?” he inquired after a few minutes.

I sniffed at the air and sneezed. “It’s mildew, dust, and decay,” I muttered as I wiped at my nose. The decay wasn’t only the wood doors rotting or the lockers rusting, but also the rot of death. I didn’t know where it was coming from, but animals and probably some humans had lost their lives in this place. “Everything smells like that now.”

Sometimes I wondered if the whole world possessed that musty, dying aroma. The odor hadn’t been as prevalent at the section of wall I’d visited, but it had been there too.

“No,” Corson said. “It smells like, I don’t know, something else.”

I scented the air again and smiled when I understood what he meant. “That’s the aroma of a school. My elementary school smelled like that too. Every school I’ve entered has that smell. I’m not sure what it is, or why.”

The smell was fading from this school, and perhaps one day, it would be gone for good. Then no one would ever remember the aroma of a school.

“Interesting,” Corson murmured.

He stared over my shoulder at the dingy, blue jacket tucked securely within the newest locker. The yellow patch on the jacket’s sleeve had a football in the center. Beneath the jacket was a set of white pom-poms. “Would I have been a cheerleader?” I pondered.

For some reason, I couldn’t picture myself jumping up and down while cheering. However, I could imagine the happy girl I’d once been, the one who had twirled in her apple dress, leading cheers.

“I’m not sure a cheerleader fits you, Wren,” he murmured. “But then, you wouldn’t be Wren either.”

I winced as I closed the locker. I didn’t know why I’d revealed to him that Wren hadn’t always been my name. Over the years, anyone who knew my name wasn’t Wren had either died or been killed, except for Randy.

“I was thinking the same thing earlier,” I admitted. “I’d have been an entirely different person.”

“I’m glad you’re not.”

My eyes widened at the open honesty he radiated with those words.

“What is your real name?” he inquired.

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied, but for some reason, it did when it came to him. I wanted him to know there had once been a different me.

“Does anyone know it?”

“Anyone living you mean, and other than me?”

“Yes.”

“No,” I said. “Not even Randy knows what my name was, but he did name me Wren.” I stopped in front of the next locker. The hinges creaked when I pulled it open to reveal the empty, dusty interior. “I’d forgotten all about my real name. It wasn’t until I had the nightmare in the tunnel…” my voice trailed off as I gazed at the emptiness within. “It wasn’t until then that I remembered.”

“Remembered what?” he asked.

“That at one time there had been a girl who lived for cookie dough batter, twirling in her dresses, trying to get through church every Sunday, and crazy about her lunchbox. Then, one day, that girl’s life was overturned, and for her to live, she ceased to exist. As the years passed, I forgot all about her.”

Corson rested his hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention to him. Emotion swelled in my chest as I gazed at him.

Don’t care about others! I’d repeatedly told myself this over the years, but I realized now I’d failed miserably in my endeavor. I loved Randy and his wife, Nadine. Jolie was my best friend, and I consistently took the last two pieces of jerky without complaint. I cared about others, but to care about a demon…

That was a betrayal of my family, wasn’t it? However, Corson and the other palitons were our allies now. Corson hadn’t killed my family and countless other humans for pleasure, or at least I didn’t think he’d killed humans for fun.

“Have you ever killed a human?” I inquired.

His eyes held mine as he replied, “Yes.”

I winced and went to pull away from him, but his hand tightened on my shoulder to keep me in place while he continued speaking. “It was a necessity, plain and simple. I killed them when they tried to kill me. I’ve never killed when I didn’t have to. I don’t kill for sport, but I put my life ahead of theirs. I would do so again, especially for you. Have you ever killed a human?”

“I have,” I admitted.

“Why?”

“Some to survive, another when he tried to rape me.”

His jaw clenched so forcefully that I heard his teeth clamp together and a muscle twitched in his cheek, yet his hold on me remained tender. “Did he hurt you?”

“He tried,” I replied flippantly and ducked out of his hold. “He failed, and it cost him his life.”

“What happened?”

“I was fifteen, an easy target, or so he assumed. I slit his throat when he became distracted by trying to pull off my pants. Afterward, I was fully prepared to slice off the dick of the next man to try it.”

Corson smiled, but rage still simmered in his eyes. “You really can talk sexy.”

“You are one twisted demon. Would it grow back if it were cut off?”

“It would, but I’d prefer not to have that experience.”

“Understandable.”

Stepping away from the locker, I strolled down the hall before stopping and opening another locker. Pictures of a boy and girl who had their arms draped around each other covered every available inch of space. “They look like they were in love,” I murmured.

“They do,” Corson agreed. “So why did Randy name you Wren?”

“In the beginning, he tried to get me to tell him my name, but I didn’t speak for months after what I witnessed with my mom. Then, one day, on a scouting mission we came across a group of people. This was before all Wilders agreed to work together, so everything was fair game back then. While Randy and some others tried to formulate a plan on how to get their supplies without violence, I darted in and stole them without anyone knowing what I’d done.

“I didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was thirteen, so I was really small then. When I dropped the supplies at Randy’s feet, he’d gawked at them before grinning proudly and hugging me. He’d declared I was like a wren—fast and small, but with a whole lot of attitude. One day he stopped saying I was like a wren and just started calling me Wren, so did all the others.”

“And when you started speaking?” Corson prodded.

“By the time I talked again, no one thought to ask if I had a different name, and I didn’t offer it to them. There was no point. I was Wren by then, and I didn’t want to be anyone else.”

“And you said your nightmare made you remember your name?”

“I guess I always remembered it,” I replied. “I just hadn’t thought of it in years.”

He followed me down the hall while I continued to examine the lockers. “Bonnie girl wasn’t an endearment from your mom. Your name is Bonnie,” he murmured after a few minutes.

I flinched, and my shoulders hunched up as if he’d struck me. “My name is Wren,” I replied through gritted teeth. I should have known he would figure it out; I had shared all the details of my nightmare with him. “Her name was Bonnie, but she died that day. I am Wren.”

He rested his hand on my shoulder again, and I reluctantly looked at him. I didn’t know what I expected him to say as his thumb stroked my cheek. “You can be both,” he murmured. “You don’t have to be one or the other.”

“No one is going to call me Bonnie Wren, and that would be ridiculous. Besides, do I look like a Bonnie to you?”

“I don’t know what a Bonnie looks like.”

“She looks like a happy girl who eats cookie dough, wears pigtails, is excited about lunch boxes, and loves bear hugs from her dad. She’s not a girl who worries about starvation and being eaten by a manticore or corrupted by a horseman.”

“She sounds boring.”

“Or normal,” I retorted.

“So, boring then.”

“Yes, boring. Normal is boring.”

“And what was your last name?” he inquired as he lifted his other hand to cup my face between his palms.

I frowned as I gazed at his mouth, and much to my horror, it took me a few moments to recall the answer. “Steward!” I blurted when it finally came back to me.

“Bonnie Steward,” he murmured.

I flinched again before catching myself. It had been so many years since anyone had spoken my old name out loud. It sounded so wrong, yet so right that my head spun from the dizzying confusion of Bonnie trying to reassert herself into my life. I had the disconcerting notion that Wren was an alien who had invaded her body.

I didn’t belong here, but I did. This was my body now, my life. Corson was mine, not hers.

I realized a name was causing my mind to completely unravel when so many other things had failed to do so over the years.

“Wren,” I whispered.

He bent his head and brushed a kiss across my lips and I knew names didn’t matter when I was with him.

He is mine, I realized as his tongue slid over my lips and I opened my mouth to him.