A Lar by any other name

Den’s sudden movement was enough to upset the balance as the two men…

The gun spiraled out of the man’s hands, landing near the second gas pump. It seemed so small at that distance, not the huge weapon it had been while it was pointed at him. Den moved so that he was between the gun and the man who had lost it.

Another car drove by but it didn’t slow down or stop. Apparently no one needed gas tonight. It was beginning to feel as if he’d been here all night.

The girl walked out of the gas station. She had nothing in her hands. Obviously this stop was only temporary. He certainly hoped she was planning on getting on her bike and riding out of here so he was free of this compulsion to protect her. He could think of many other things to do right now. Forcing pine needles under his fingernails ranked above this assignment. This was the main reason he stayed out of populated places. Too often this happened to him if he wasn’t careful.

It took the girl a couple of tries to kick start the motorcycle. The sounds it made at first 3were the whines of machine parts not made to work together. She leaned forward and embraced the metal as if she was giving in and leaning down to sleep right there. In two heartbeats, the motorcycle was purring as if it was a premium machine. If Den hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would haven’t have believed it.

But watching her had put him at a disadvantage once again. While his attention had been diverted by the theatrics of the girl, the thug grabbed for the gun and ran into the shadows. His truck roared to life and brought Den back to the moment, away from the beauty of a woman interacting with a wild machine.

The dark blue truck burst into the light, aimed at Den. With only a few seconds of decision left to him, he jumped beside the gas pump. It didn’t hide him but it was enough of a safe barrier to give him a few moments to contemplate his best move.

The truck’s first pass took out the jeep’s back bumper. It wasn’t hard to get it off considering it had been wired on after Kenyon’s last race through the desert. He had a tendency to take bumps with jarring speed and not much lasted on the vehicle that wasn’t soldered on very well.

...

Aria gravitated toward the group of people who appeared to be laughing and talking the loudest. They reminded her of the other performers she had hung out with at The Tale’s End. They’d all had a million stories to tell just like her friends. As she sat listening to the various exploits of both past and present, she tried to forget that she was still here. Her irritation hadn’t been strong enough to actually get down to the highway. It had been burning hot enough that she’d stormed into the kitchen and demanded her clothes. Since she’d only been wearing the shirt, they’d complied. The looks on most of the face were sly enough that she figured they thought she and Den had been up to something. As embarrassing as that might have been, her anger burned away everything but her desire to leave.

And then Den had shown up. The kitchen that had been so full of people was suddenly empty and she’d been forced to see, once again, how much her anger hurt him. Her heart still beat in time to the words “forgive me” that were running through her head but she hadn’t said them out loud to him. Maybe he would realize that her apology was simply that she was still here. It would have to do for the moment because she couldn’t bring herself to say the worlds to him. Not any words. Everything sounded wrong in her head and she knew it would until she could get out the apology.

“Where did you come?”

It took her a few precious seconds to realize the question was directed at her from one of the boys across the group from where she was sitting. This wasn’t the first thing she’d be expected to answer and she didn’t know what ot say.

“The East Coast.” It wasn’t a real answer but it seemed to satisfy the group at large.

“Ever been out to this coast?”

“That’s where I was headed. I heard it’s beautiful.” It was the answer she often used for anything she was questioned about. People liked to be complimented even if it was a backhanded compliment. It made everyone smile at her and she waited for the next question. One of the girls looked like she might want to ask a question but thought better of it. Instead, the conversation stalled. Not to be the reason for such a lapse in etiquette, Aria took a deep breath and asked the first thing that came to her.

“Where are all of you from?”

There was quite a bit of laughter as everyone tried to talk at once. When it was all ironed out, they decided to go around the circle so everyone could answer individually. The answers were a lot more varied than she’d imagined they would be. Out of the six people she was sitting with, only 2 of them claimed to be from the states. The girl from the Philippines was the last one that answered and Aria turned to her and began asking questions about the ocean there. It was a place she had always wanted to visit.

Time passed quickly. Lights were turned on and the group of people drifted off to other evening activities. Soon Aria saw she and Jenna were the only ones still on the deck. When she looked around, Den wasn’t far away, talking with Constantine, the older man who had formed this family. She hadn’t been consciously keeping track of where he was but she always knew where he was.

“Why is Den so special here?” The question took them both by surprise but Jenna blinked and shrugged as if she’d been expecting the question.

“I don’t know. He just is. He always has been. Ever since I’ve been here, there have been the four elders. Constantine, Alma, Delaney and Den. If you add Beau and Becca, you can joke about the only letters of the alphabet that are important are the first 4 letters.”

“Becca and Beau are elders?”

“Sure. They look young don’t they? They aren’t. Delaney and Den are both young compared to the two of them. There is talk that Becca lived in Ireland during the Black Plague of Europe. I do know for sure that she was already in America for the potato famine, though. Those stories I’ve heard myself.”

“And what about Beau?”

Jenna shrugged. “I have no idea. She’s got this look in her eyes sometime and you just know she’s seen more than her fair share of life.”

“They look so young.”

“And you don’t? How old are you, anyway?”

Once again, she was reluctant to give a year. To say thirty now was to lie. She remembered thirty years but that didn’t mean she was thirty. Instead she looked back at Den. he was by himself, now, looking for all the world like he planned on spending the night in that one place. For the first time, Arai wondered where he slept. The Manor House or one of the rooms at the bunkhouse?

“We were told not to ask you those sorts of questions. I’m sorry. It’s a habit. We all talk about it. Here, with the family, there’s nothing strange about living longer than the average lifetime.”

“I don’t mind,” she assured her new friend. “I just don’t know how to answer the question. I know of thirty years. There are some before that but I don’t know how many or how they were spent.”

“You have no recollection of them at all?”


He let her ramble on about the conversation she’d heard in the family room after dinner had been cleaned up, reeling from the information she’d told him.

Everyone else was waiting with him. There was nothing they could do until morning when the sun erased all but the strongest leeches. Con had decided, after he heard everything Den and Aria had been through, that they wouldn’t do anything tonight. There were only a few hours to dawn at this point. It was stupid to waste resources.

And so they waited. He wasn’t sure what everyone else was doing but it didn’t appear anyone was sleeping. They would come by at intervals to check on him and the sleeping girl. Since neither of them had provided a name for Aria, they’d taken to calling her TG, an abbreviation of The Girl. He’d been meaning to come up with a name for them to call her but let it go when he heard this newest nickname. This was a way to keep true to Aria’s wishes without lying to anyone.

He waited patiently through each visit for Delaney to show up. The rest of the family was there to make sure he didn’t need anything and, no matter that they respected her privacy, they were there to gawk. Each time he watched as they looked at her and back to him, trying to figure out what he saw in her. What made her finally crack his smooth façade?

“It’s about time you showed up,” Den growled from the middle of the hallway. He didn’t stop his pacing even as she made herself comfortable in the open doorway. It was her room, after all. She’d given it up willing when he’d asked.


“Stay still,” he hissed again. This time she heard him, her eyes suddenly going wide as it dawned on her that his expression wasn’t because of anything she’d done.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s someone on the other side of the perimeter.”

“Can they see us? I thought we were safe here.”

Without any show that he thought anything amiss, Den moved so he was between the edge of the grove of trees and here. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. But I can feel them watching us. Can’t you?”

She chuckled and ducked to hide her face against his chest. “No. I guess I can’t feel them. Maybe in a minute when my heart stops so beating so fast and I can concentrate again.”

His hand stroked down her back, inciting shivers in both of them.

The lie was obvious in his expression. With narrowed eyes, she tried to figure out why he suddenly went against his world. they’d been having such a nice conversation until he’d decided to hide once again.

When she tried to move away from him, he held on tighter until she felt trapped. The urge to flee was rising until she was gagging on the taste of her fear for him.

“Stop, Aria. Stop fighting me.”

“Let me go. You’re lying to me again. Let me go.”

“Stop fighting and I’ll talk. Damn it, Aria. This isn’t the time for this.”

Her blood was boiling for a fight. With him or the figure in the darkness, she didn’t care. A mist began to wraith around the base of the trees, obscuring the perimeter and everything inside it. In a few minutes they would disappear completely to anyone who cared to look. It was enough to throw off Den’s perception for long enough that he loosened his grip. In an instant, she was out of his arms and across the clearing, her hands held up but clenched into fists.

“Why does this happen every time we’re together? Either you get hurt or you get mad. Give me a sec to come to grips with your changes, Aria. I’m only a man.”

“I get mad because you keep lying to me.”

“It’s to protect you. Do you really want to know the truth? The truth is that I don’t think the leeches let you go. I think, but I’m not sure which is why I haven’t mentioned anything, that the leeches had you with them all along. They kept you happy and forgetful. Until the moment you decided to leave, they had you fooled into thinking you were a perfectly normal human.”

Her hands fell to her sides and the mists began to clear up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe I don’t. Like I said, most of this is just a gut reaction. I haven’t had a chance to think over anything. You asked for the truth and I gave it to you.”

She stared at him, unable to understand what he was saying to her other than the fact that this was truth again. “Don’t lie to me again. Not like this.”

Den nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d want to hear it. I know how important family is. Just remember you were the first one. I didn’t want to surprise you the way you surprised me.”

The rest of her anger cooled instantly. Indeed, her memory of her words to him about his family wasn’t pleasant. He’d tried to soothe her feelings and she’d deliberately riled him. It had been a deliberate move but it hadn’t been nice.