11 – Poor Burton

Leilani lightly dozed in a chair near one wall of monitors, in plain view of Canyon and Timber, but they didn’t see her. She wasn’t actually dozing, more… resting, not wanting to go back to the meadow just yet. Canyon and Timber were in the real world, but she didn’t think she quite was. She had a feeling that she was in the meadow still, but a part of it where the catamount would not or could not follow her. Even though she wasn’t quite there, in the office with Canyon and Timber, she almost was. This was where she belonged. Here. The real world. Not in the meadow. But she did not want to belong here. This world was too confusing, too painful, and she was already such a mess in it. If only she could stay in the meadow forever.

Both males were at their desks, fingers flying over keyboards, as the images on the monitors changed again and again. They weren’t speaking, only working. Night was coming, the images of VF on the monitors showing long shadows and darkening forest paths.

Canyon grunted, making Timber look him. Leilani could see them from under her lashes, her eyes only open a sliver, her entire body relaxed, thinking lightly as she rested.

Canyon indicated the screen in front of him. Think anyone needs to know where Burton is?

Leilani became instantly alert. She wanted to know where Burton was. She opened her eyes and sat up in the chair, twisting to get a look at the screen Timber was gazing at. Canyon caught her eye and she looked at him quickly, dismayed to see he was staring right at her. They locked gazes for a moment and her heart sped up. But he acted like nothing had happened and looked away.

Leilani did too, checking out the screen. There was Burton, face a sad mask, head down, eyes on the ground, plodding toward the camera in what looked like a concrete tunnel. He opened a door on one side of the tunnel and disappeared. The image flipped and showed him heading down a hallway, then into a room, where he sank onto a couch, kicking off his boots and lying down immediately, like he was exhausted. He covered his face with one big arm and breathed deeply.

He’s in the break room, Canyon said in ruhi. The one on the north end of this room. Through the shelves.

Timber looked at him strangely. “Yeah, dude, I know where the fucking break room is. Duh.”

Canyon threw his brother a look, then said, We’ll let him rest, we’ll go see him when he wakes up.

Leilani shivered. “Can you see me?” she said into the room before she lost her nerve. Neither brother answered her. Ok. This was getting weird. But she did want to see Burton. She hadn’t said a word to him when it had happened, only taken his hand when he offered it, taken them both back in time and watched while two of him cried over Eventine. She’d taken his hand again and brought him back to the present, using the clock to do so, even if she didn’t quite understand how.

Leilani stood and scooted out of the area where the brothers were, ducking between the wall of monitors and the other wall of computers. Shelves and shelves of boxes made a kind of corridor and she followed it until she found the break room.

The door was closed. Could she open it? Her mind scrambled and her body moved and the little hand of her pretty clock ticked only a sliver to the right before ticking back to straight up, then the clock disappeared like it had never been.

She was inside, and the door had never opened. That had been easy, except for what it did inside her head. She would never get used to the scrambling sensation. At least here it didn’t hurt.

The break room had a small kitchenette on one end, with table, fridge, toaster oven, and microwave. There were four couches at the other end of the room. Burton lay on the couch closest to the door. She made her way to him, slowly, wondering if he would be able to hear or see her. He was a Citlali, supposedly a powerful one with much vision and a direct connection to Rhen. If anyone could sense her, it should be him.

But he was snoring softly, his face still sad in his sleep. She wanted to comfort him. She lay one hand gently on his shoulder, wondering if she could. She couldn’t touch him, but when her body seemed to touch him, a bit of information flowed from him to her. He hadn’t spoken to Eventine yet and had been hiding from her for days, hiding from everyone, asking his own questions and finding no answers. Was he Eventine’s father? Had he slept with Rhen? He’d dreamed about it sure, but-

Leilani gasped and pulled her hand from his shoulder. Ah crud, she should just stay out of this. She patted him twice, quickly, wished him a restful sleep, and headed out of the room.

When she got back to Canyon and Timber, Timber had his chair over by Canyon’s desk and they had their heads together over a stack of papers. Leilani looked over their shoulders.

Timber was talking and drawing lines from paragraph to paragraph, scratching some out, circling others. “We have to talk to Eventine,” Timber said. “Get her to hear our ideas.”

Timber squeaked his chair back to his own desk and Leilani settled back into the chair she’d been in. She wasn’t hungry or thirsty or too tired, and she was… content there. Watching VF with Canyon and Timber was better than watching from the meadow. Here, she was with people who were supposed to be watching, so it was less like she was a peeping tom, and more like she was part of what was going on. She wanted to be part of it, at least on some level.

Canyon’s fingers flew over his keyboard, fast and urgent. Get this, he said.

Timber sailed over to his desk on his chair, slamming his chair into his brother’s chair. His brother shoved at him, almost knocking him and the chair over. Timber hit back at Canyon. “What? Fucker. I saved your fucking life a couple times. Show some fucking thanks every once in a while.”

Canyon grabbed him by the back of the neck and forced his head to the computer screen.

“Hey, is that Trent?” Timber asked. Canyon let him go.

Canyon didn’t respond, but he worked his keyboard. Three more screens popped up, then the images they showed appeared on the wall of monitors in front of their desks.

“That is Trent!” Timber said. “What in the hell is he doing?”

Leilani leaned forward with the both of them.

The monitors showed a large black wolf with a bit of white on the tip of his tail and a spray of white on his chest, prowling inside what looked to be a small pharmacy. An alarm blared incessantly. The camera angle switched to other views and other parts of the building, showing a front window that had been destroyed. Glass littered the pharmacy floor.

“Shit, did he go in through that window? Where is this?”

Canyon’s fingers made rapid clacking noises on the keys, and still he didn’t speak. His brother just stared at the screens.

Bear Key, Wisconsin, Canyon said in her mind. The Good Neighbor Pharmacy. Cops are four minutes out. The pharmacy owner is screaming about it on the Internet – he’s the one streaming the footage from the cameras. Activist groups have gotten ahold of it, The All Wolves are Beautiful forum is already trying to name him.

Timber laughed. “Tell them to call him Wolf 477.”

477?

“His badge number.”

Canyon snorted. His fingers flew.

Leilani pulled her legs up to her chest, watching intently. She kind of knew who Trent was. He was one of the wolven, but he couldn’t shift. He was locked into a wolf’s body. He had been sent to find Jaggar. Her body was in his room, in his bed. She shivered, her eyes searching the screen. Maybe Jaggar was with him and she could get a look at him. Looking was safe. Looking didn’t mean anything.

On the screen, the black wolf loped through racks of shelves, slowly eyeing them. Trying not to look like he was reading the labels, she thought.

Canyon pointed at his computer screen, where a stream of comments flowed by almost too quickly to read. They love it, Canyon said. Wolf 477, it is.

Timber laughed. “Get me some fucking cereal, bruiser. This is better than Game of Thrones. What the fuck is Wolf 477 gonna do now?”

Better tell Trevor, Canyon said.

“Trevor doesn’t know his ass from his breakfast bowl.”

Canyon shook his head. Still gotta tell him.

“I’m serious,” Timber said. “I heard him tell someone that our mom was Jaggar’s mom. And I heard him tell someone else that Jaggar’s mom was wolven, and that she had Wade’s job.”

Yeah, I know, you’ve told me that four thousand times. He’s new. Cut him some slack.

“He ain’t new anymore.”

Canyon growled. Timber laughed. “Ooh, I’ll tell Wade. He’ll throw a fit. It’ll be more fun than telling Trevor, because if tell him he’ll be mad for a second and then a baby will puke on him and he won’t even remember what we said.”

On the screen, Trent stood up on his hind legs, hooked a box of medicine off the shelf with his paw, then picked it up off the floor with his mouth, and out the busted window he went, into the night, disappearing from the camera’s vision.

Leilani’s attention was drawn by the images at VF that were showing on the other monitors.

Canyon saw what she saw. Graeme’s on the move.

“Yeah, Eventine wants him to give his blood to the time-traveler. She hasn’t moved or spoken in a few days.”

Leilani shot to her feet and ran without hesitation. She wanted, no, needed to be in her body if there was going to be an opportunity to heal.