“Why didn’t you warn me?” Tamika whines for at least the hundredth time. Her face and all the rest of her skin that I can see is covered in pink calamine lotion.
“Why did you decide to have sex up against a wall covered in poison oak?” Tina counters.
With a hand down the front of his pants, itching unstoppably, Mac just moans. He’s also got blobs of the pink lotion all over his body.
Griff makes a noise that might actually sound like a snicker. I’m tempted to join in. But I am a bigger person. I laugh out loud, right in their puffy pink faces.
“Serves you right,” I tell Tamika, “I should’ve known that sex magic wasn’t a thing!”
“Sex magic is definitely a thing,” Mac counters as he moves his hands to the back of his pants.
“Not to find Dionysus it wasn’t,” I grouse, still annoyed at being tricked by Tamika yet again.
After they finished banging each other's brains out (and rubbing poison oak all over their naked bodies) Tamika and Mac wandered down to the kitchen—both of them starving. As they raided the fridge and cupboards I asked Tamika if the seeking spell had worked.
“Seeking spell?” she’d asked, clearly confused.
“The seeking spell to find Dionysus!” I reminded her.
“Oh that,” Tamika laughed. “I didn’t need any kind of spell.”
“Everyone knows Dionysus is in Provence, France this time of year,” Trevor adds. “Getting his rosé on. You should have asked me.”
“What?” I screeched, my claws coming out.
Tina’s hand clamped around my shoulder before I could attack. “Let’s leave first thing tomorrow then, okay?”
Remembering we have a plan, I force myself to take a deep breath. Tamika lied. No big surprise. Tina’s poison oak delivered her comeuppance for me.
Now we all pile into the van.
As everyone climbs in, I pull Tina around to the back. “Tamika gave me and Dodi directions to—”
“Dodi?” Tina interrupts me. “Naming this hunk of metal is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.” Dodi—that’s what I’ve named our semi-sentient van. I based it off the writing that was printed on the side—Down & Dirty Supernatural Cleaning Services. Shauna has since found some spray paint and covered the logo with pink bubble letters. It now reads, Squad Goals.
“Um, you have a Venus flytrap that you treat like a pet,” I point out.
“Vee is smarter than most dogs and kicks way more ass than a pathetic little kitty cat,” Tina counters.
A blast of dirty air blasts out of the exhaust pipe, surrounding Tina in a stinky cloud.
With a laugh, I give Dodi a pat. “Yes, I agree, Dodi. Tina is very rude.” Tina glowers, but doesn’t say anything else. “As I was saying, we have directions to the vineyard that’s supposedly Dionysus’ unofficial party place. Tamika says it will be insane. Tons of satyrs in attendance, which means we gotta keep Mac on a short leash so he doesn’t go dancing off with a bunch of them.”
“Or put him on a no leash and see how many satyrs he can keep busy.”
“At least two dozen,” Mac says from where he’s suddenly standing behind us, scratching at his chest.
“How do you keep doing that?” I ask.
Mac just smiles. “Girls, keeping those hot half goatmen busy by getting busy with them is basically what I was meant to do.”
“Okay, Mac, point taken,” Tina says. “Now go away.”
Mac goes.
“So Mac keeps the satyrs busy. And the rest of us surround Dionysus?”
Tina shrugs. “Sure. I mean the dude might not put up a fight. But if he does, we’ll have the bear pick him up and shake him like a ragdoll until he realizes that we mean business.”
“Maybe we should let Griff do that regardless,” I say. “We kinda owe him one.”
Tina rolls her eyes. “It’s not your fault Hermes decided to self-immolate. Honestly, if anyone’s to blame it’s Griff. He was supposed to get White Tail out of there.”
“Tina let’s not go over that again. I’m pretty sure Griff knows that too.” She and I were up late last night while Cassie moaned and groaned from the floor. As the sun started to rise, she finally passed out and seemed to at last be past the worst of it.
To pass the time Tina and I talked about what had gone wrong during the last mission. There was plenty of blame to go around, but Tina still tried to shovel most of it onto my plate. “This is your shitshow,” she kept saying.
She was right, too. I’d started this. I wear the bracelet that kept these maniacs somewhat under control. Worst of all, I was the one who was starting to care too much about all of them.
Even Tamika and Mac. As much as I was enjoying watching them itch and scratch, I planned on ending it before we got on the road. Years ago during a spy training mission a bunch of us had hidden beneath a batch of poison oak—that’s why I was able to immediately identify it. One of the witches taught us all a quick healing spell we could easily put together out in the field using the crushed leaves of the same plant that had poisoned us. With gloves on, I’d carefully harvested some leaves from mine and Tina’s bedroom an hour ago to put together a batch for Mac and Tamika.
“Let’s get the show on the road,” Shauna’s high little voice squeaks from inside the van.
I look at Tina. “You ready?”
“To find my brother and move on with my life? Um, yeah. I’m super ready.”
“Hey!” Shauna says.
“Oh, not from you,” Tina assures her.
“Great.” I move towards the driver’s side, but Tina pushes past me and slides behind the wheel. “What the Hades?” I demand. “I was gonna drive.”
“I’m gonna let Dodi know who’s the boss around here,” she tells me, wrapping her hands around the steering wheel in a near strangle.
“And keep an eye on Cassie,” I remind her, pointing to where the seer lies in the front passenger seat.
“I can’t believe you let her have my seat,” Shauna complains from behind Cassie. “If I get carsick and blow chunks, I just want you to all know it’s gonna smell like curdled hot cocoa, ’cause I had like a whole tub of that for breakfast. And for dinner last night, if I’m being honest.”
“Go sit in the back with your favorite inmates,” Tina says to me, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.
With a sigh, I walk around to the other side of the van and climb in. There’s an open seat next to Shauna, but when I move toward it, Travis wafts down and settles there.
“Trevor, you don’t need a seat,” I remind him.
“Yeah, but it helps me feel like one of the team,” he says. “And when I feel like one of the team, I want to help the team. But if I can’t even get a place in the van…” he shrugs theatrically.
“Fine, Trevor, have the seat.”
I move back a row where Mac and Tamika itch together. No way am I sitting with them. I toss them the plastic tub full of the itch cure. “See if this helps,” I say and then stepping past them, there’s only Griff left on the tiny bench seat at the very back of the van. It’s shorter than the rest of the seats to make more room for cleaning supplies. Right now he’s taking up almost the entire space, but when he sees me, Griff shifts slightly. I perch on the end of the bench as Dodi punches forward. I tip sideways and am about to fall on my ass, when Griff’s arm wraps around my waist, pulling me close.
This is...awkward. We haven’t really talked since his whole promising to kill me in retaliation for White Tail’s death. Of course, Griff isn’t much for talking at the best of times. I did try after our run.
“Griff,” I said, “Look, I’m sorry about White Tail. I should’ve—”
Before I could get out another word, he roared loud enough to blow my hair back. I was pretty certain he was gonna follow that up by trying to smash me into little bits. But instead he shook his head.
“My fault,” he said. “Mine.” And then without another word, he spun around and took off running once more.
I think that means that at some point Griff must’ve decided to absolve me of White Tail’s death, while putting all the responsibility on his shoulders. Once Cassie’s better, I’ll have her talk with him about it. Or talk at him. It’s kinda difficult for me to tell someone how to deal with their feelings in a healthy way, when clearly I don’t have the slightest clue how to do that for myself.
We rumble onto a straight bit of road, and I’m able to get both of my buttcheeks onto the seat. Once I’m sitting securely, I expect Griff to pull away. At least as much as he can. But his arm stays around me, hugging me close to his side. Eventually, I relax into him and as Dodi rumbles down the right, my eyes start to drift closed. I fight sleep, though, trying to put a name to the strange feeling filling me right now.
As I drift off, it finally occurs to me.
Safe. That’s the foreign feeling. For just the length of this trip inside Dodi, surrounded by murderers and deviants, snuggled against the side of a bear shifter who recently vowed to kill me…
I feel oddly, strangely—protected and safe.