Chapter 26

Now that it was the middle of November, the weather was getting colder with a vengeance. Aleda couldn’t even imagine what it would be like in January and February, the coldest months of the year. She also wasn’t sure how many more warm layers she could feasibly wear in order to deal with the plunging temperature. Scarves would, no doubt, figure heavily. It remained to be seen whether she would even be able to fit all of these extra clothes into her locker while she was at school. Her books were already fighting for space with her heavy coat, hat, and gloves. Any more, and it would be impossible to close the thing, even without Lizzy’s thoughtful addition of several pounds of trash. She’d found that little gem when she got back to her locker after talking to Val for an hour in the art room after school.

Yeah…

The week had been an interesting one.

Aleda found herself wishing she had allowed Mara to exact some revenge on the girl for the episode at the cast party. That particular incident had only been a few unkind words, but now the girl had moved on to more tangible acts of brattiness.

Wednesday morning, Aleda had come back from the bathroom to find the zippers on her backpack locked together. She had spent the rest of homeroom trying to decide how good of an idea it would be to let Lizzy—who was in the room—realize that she knew how to pick locks. As a result, she ended up having to crack three hairpins and a jumbo paper clip trying to get her backpack open as quickly as possible before Mrs. Van started her daily lecture in English class. It was the sloppiest job she had ever done on a lock, but at least she still had her edge over Lizzy. She vaguely wondered if Talia or even Ryan would have any useful skills that they could teach her. So far, picking locks was proving to be much more useful than knowing how to do a back flip.

Thursday, Lizzy and some of her comrades decided that it would be uproariously funny to trip Aleda as she came out of the lunch line with a tray full of food. They usually sat at one of the tables far away in the corner, but that day they had decided to sit right next to the end of the lunch line, the idea being that they could trip up Aleda just as she picked up her tray and started walking. Lizzy had even prepared a particularly uncreative one-liner about Aleda’s eating habits to blurt out as they did so. Aleda supposed it would have made a spectacular scene, comparable to something out of a summer teenagers’ film—the unsuspecting and adorably awkward heroine trips over the outstretched foot, spilling milk, mystery meat, and canned green beans in a blast radius while the entire cafeteria points and laughs.

In reality, Aleda noticed Lizzy halfway through the line, saw the outstretched foot, and hopped easily over the tangle of backpacks that must have been their second line of offense. She never actually found out what Lizzy’s brilliant one-liner was, since the first few syllables sort of gargled in the other girl’s throat when the tripping scheme failed so spectacularly. Just to finish off the scene properly, the entire mass of other students eating in the cafeteria completely failed to notice anything.

It just goes to show: teen flicks lie.

Real life is far, far less entertaining.

Also, real life is far less full of spilled mystery meat clinging to one’s hair. For that, Aleda was eternally grateful. For that, Aleda could gladly kiss the rest of the theatricality of popular culture goodbye. 

Unfortunately, Lizzy was a little bit less eager to let go of the stereotypes that she’d been spoon-fed since infancy.

Hence, the locker full of garbage Aleda had found after school on Friday.

It was obviously meant to be a nice little surprise for Aleda when she arrived at school on Monday morning, especially since it would have had an entire weekend to get nice and ripe. The other girl had probably had some equally melodramatic scene in mind that would now never see the light of day. Thanks to one last trip to her locker after hanging out with Val, that was one more crisis averted.

It would be interesting to watch Lizzy’s reaction when nothing happened.

Of course, she would probably have yet another fabulous scheme ready for Monday. But that would wait for Monday. In the meantime, Aleda could look forward to a weekend full of awkward silences and even more awkward attempts at training.

It disturbed her that she was actually looking forward to it.

 

 

î

 

Opening the door, she was greeted by the imposing figure of Ryan Kavanagh, who was standing on the porch with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Aleda did a double-take, having expected somebody much shorter, blonder, and above all bubbly.

Ryan didn’t really fit the description of bubbly.

After her initial moment of surprise, she saw Talia sitting on the porch railing, swinging her legs and looking as though she would fall any second. In the few seconds it took for Aleda to remember her manners, Ryan’s bored expression had changed to annoyance.

“Move it, kid,” he growled, “I don’t have all day!”

“And top o’ the morning to you,” Aleda grumbled back at him.

She had finally, finally been able to sleep in past the crack of bloody dawn. After the past couple of weeks, she felt like she could have easily slept until mid-afternoon. But no.

No, that would have been too good.

Life had decided that it was going to give her trouble pretty much consistently for the rest of the foreseeable future. If it wasn’t school, it was Lizzy. If it wasn’t Lizzy, it would definitely be Ryan.

Aleda padded barefoot back upstairs, having let the two siblings come in. Ryan glared at her. Talia protested.

“Heya Little Leda, where do you think you’re going?” she called out to her from the bottom of the stairs.

“I am allowed to get dressed before training, right?”

“Oh. Well, yeah,” Talia replied. “By all means, get dressed.”

“Fantástico,” Aleda mumbled. “No sé para que yo los tolerar cada fin de semana, especialmente este asqueroso salvaje"

Figuring they would probably make her do more stupid flips this time, she pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a lose-fitting T-shirt. It was not, perhaps, the most flattering of outfits but Aleda couldn’t care less. She just wanted to do this and get it over with. Silly of her to think she would enjoy this week’s training session. She always looked forward to visits with Talia, of course; the problem was that she forgot just how bad-tempered Ryan could be. It would help if he at least gave some sort of warning before one of his frequent mood shifts. Aleda had never seen anyone go from polite to pissy with so little provocation.

She pulled a pair of sneakers onto her feet and trotted back downstairs.

There was Talia, looking as perky and blithely oblivious as usual, and there was Ryan with the same bewildering glare that he had worn since he arrived. She could feel it even when she turned away from him to open the door to the basement, burning twin holes her back. She tried to shrug off the feeling.

“So, Talia, how was your week?” she inquired as they headed down the stairs.

“Oh, not too bad.” Talia grinned smugly. “I got a date with the pizza boy last night.”

“Yeah? That’s good. What’s his name?” Aleda asked.

Talia hesitated. “…‘Pizza Boy’?” She shrugged. “He seems to like it, anyway. The important part is that he bought me dinner.”

“Finding a restaurant that serves popcorn must have been tricky,” Ryan commented.

“I didn’t have popcorn!” Talia protested, turning and making a face at her brother. “We had pizza, if you must know. The works.”

“Behold my sister, the true gourmet.”

Aleda had to swallow her snort of laughter. “The pizza delivery boy treated you to pizza for your date?” she asked incredulously, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“I’m not picky. Well, not with food. Trust me, his other skills more than made up for not being able to cook anything but pizza,” Talia replied, giggling.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Are we done with the girl talk?” he inquired.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Here, what did you do with the claws?”

Ryan hefted an incomprehensible collection of wood, leather, and buckles.

“What is that?” Aleda asked, backing away nervously.

“Training claws, silly!” Talia said. Aleda eyed them doubtfully.

“…It looks like some sort of complicated torture device.”

Ryan smirked. “That depends on your point of view,” he said.

“Okay, Little Leda, let me see your hands.”

Talia walked over to her and grabbed both hands, inspecting them. Aleda wondered what she was looking for, and when she would be getting her hands back. Talia seemed to come to a conclusion.

“Alright, you’re going to have to get rid of these.”

“What!?”

“Your fingernails. The training claws won’t fit over top of these, so you’ve got to get rid of them. Ironic, I know, but that’s what it is.”

“Oh. Um… okay.” Aleda frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so,” Talia told her. “Do you have nail clippers? No, wait here, I’ll be right back.”

The little blonde dropped Aleda’s hands and trotted back up the basement steps, presumably to fetch a pair of nail clippers.

“Dang it, and here I was trying to keep my fingernails nice,” Aleda protested to nobody in particular. She looked sadly at her hands. Goodbye to those nice nails. Maybe she could make up for it by putting on some nail polish. After this useless training session was over, that was.

“You’ll live,” Ryan said, walking closer to her. “Fingernails tend to grow back. That is,” he murmured in her ear, close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her neck, “If you can trust the word of an uncivilized a*****e.”

Aleda looked up at him with wide, guilty eyes. “You heard me!?”

“We both heard you.”

Aleda covered her eyes in mortification. She hadn’t meant for them to hear what she had grumbled to herself upstairs. Well, maybe Ryan. She looked back up at him, the apprehension visible in her eyes.

“Then Talia…”

“Doesn’t speak Spanish,” he finished for her.

Aleda breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” she gestured helplessly and trailed off.

“Yes you did.”

“…Yes I did,” she admitted, “But I shouldn’t have said it. Especially after you basically saved my life Monday night.”

After she had realized where she was that night, she had bolted back to her house as quickly as she could, but not without noticing the two feeders Ryan had killed for her while she stood there, frozen like a useless statue. Later, Mom and Papá had returned and told her that they had destroyed thirteen of the feeders: all but the one that had gotten away from Ryan because of her. She had seen it.

Ryan and Talia had left without a word.

Ryan’s face and eyes darkened at her words. “You had no business out there that night,” he growled at her. Even his already deep voice had darkened.

“I’m sorry! Geez! How many things do I have to ap–.”

“You could have been hurt!” he blurted, his voice husky.

Aleda’s mouth fell open. His face still glared at her, a hard, stony mask, but there was fear burning in his eyes. She stared at him for a moment, bewildered.

“Ry—.”

“Found them!” Talia announced brightly, bounding down the stairs. She glanced up to see the two of them standing barely a foot apart and raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Little Leda, let’s see those hands.”

Aleda reluctantly surrendered her hands to Talia, who deftly cut all ten nails down to the quick. Aleda sneaked a glance up at Ryan. He was preoccupied with the bundles of training claws, carefully untangling the leather straps from each other. Was he actually angry with her because she had put herself in danger? Was it possible he actually gave a damn about her?

Weird.

Aleda shook her head slightly, dismissing that thought. Whether he’d heard her grumblings or not, Ryan was an uncivilized a*****e. Asqueroso salvaje. His inexplicable mood swings had nothing to do with her.

When Talia was finally satisfied with her handiwork, she expectantly held out her hand to Ryan. He gave his sister one of the bundles of leather and wood. She glanced at it, frowned, and handed it back. Sighing, he handed her the other one. This one, apparently, was the correct one, because she smiled and began to examine the leather straps. From what Aleda could see, it wasn’t the best quality of leather. It also looked pretty old. Probably made from whatever scraps of leather the original maker had been able to find. Now, the aging material was rough and cracking in places.

Talia obviously thought so as well.

Without any warning, she sliced open her own fingertip and began rubbing the leather with the blood that trickled out, muttering something incomprehensible to herself as she did so. The leather softened and melded together under her fingers. Aleda was bemused.

“Huh,” she said, “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Yeah. Don’t ask me why it works, but it does,” Talia said. She examined the contraption once more, the cut on her fingertip closing now that she no longer needed it. Meanwhile, Ryan was industriously working on the other bundle. “Alright, it’s ready. Give me your hand. Other hand.”

Aleda once again relinquished her hand to the little blonde, wondering vaguely how many times she would need to do so before the two of them left. Talia began to fasten the wooden parts overtop of her fingertips. The wooden “claws” were held to her fingers with thin leather straps and metal rings that slid up and down to fit her fingers. The thin straps, that ran lengthwise up the underside of each finger and back down the other side to her knuckles, snapped into a larger leather pad that went across the back of her hand. A larger strap wound around her hand and buckled at the base of her thumb, which had its own claw, ring, and finger-strap. Once Talia had finished putting all the bits together, Aleda was left with a striking impression of adjustability. Whoever had first designed these training claws had very obviously intended for them to fit anybody comfortably.

To her surprise, Ryan had meanwhile taken her other hand in his and fitted on the second set of claws. His rough hands were so large that hers were all but lost in his grasp. As big as his hands were, though, they put the contraption together with a dexterity that spoke of long practice. He saw the look on her face and smirked.

“These were Talia’s,” he explained. “I’ve put these together more times than I can count.”

“How do they feel?” Talia asked, stepping back and allowing Aleda to move her hands around a bit. There was some sort of trick to the straps that let her bend her fingers as much as she liked without knocking the wooden claws out of place.  All in all, not too bad, although her hands were so small that the extra lengths of leather strap had to be wound around her wrists in order to keep them out of the way.

“Okay, I think,” Aleda replied. “They’re a little heavy, though.”

“Yeah, I know. You’ll just have to get used to that. It’s either that or really featherweight wood that snaps like a middle school guidance counselor in June.”

Aleda looked at Ryan.

“Lighter wood is too breakable,” he translated.

“Alright then.” She waved her hands around a bit more, doing her best not to stab anything. “So…now what?”

“Well, what we really need is a training dummy,” Talia said. “So that you can practice attacking it. Get used to where all the vital organs are, that sort of thing. Unfortunately,” she said, turning her head to look around the cramped basement. “We don’t have one.” Her eyes lit up. “Hey, Ryan…”

“No.” He barely glanced at her.

She pouted. “You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!” she protested.

“I didn’t need to,” he retorted.

“But you don’t—,” she tried again.

“I’m not going to be your training dummy.”

“Come on, please?” she begged, doing a credible impression of a small, kicked puppy. “There’s no other dummies around.” Ryan frowned at this. “And Little Leda needs it to train.”

He glanced over at Aleda. “Fine,” he sighed, looking away. “I guess I’m the dummy.”

He shrugged off his leather jacket, setting it carefully on the steps. He then walked to the center of the floor and adopted a pose similar to something one might see in an anatomy textbook, his legs set apart and his arms spread out to the sides. The one sarcastic eyebrow he raised belied his easy acquiescence. Talia grinned in triumph, practically skipping over to him and beckoning Aleda to follow.

“Now, look here Little Leda. Most of the time you’re going to want to aim for the heart. If you’ve got claws, a direct blow to the heart will kill anything you come up against. That’s right here.” Talia poked her brother in the chest directly over his heart. “You can tell where it is on this guy because it’s beating, but don’t rely on that because suckers and raptors don’t have a heartbeat. You’ll just have to remember where it is. Go ahead, give it a poke. Don’t worry about hurting him.”

As gingerly and awkwardly as possible, Aleda touched a wooden claw to the spot Talia had indicated.

“All of them,” Talia prompted. “And keep the knuckles loose. If you hit a rib, you don’t want to jam your finger.”

Aleda tried again, this time pressing all but her thumb against Ryan’s chest. She felt kind of silly. Talia nodded her approval.

“Good,” she said, “You’ve got it.”

To Aleda’s surprise, Talia then came over to her, grasped her shoulders, and spun her around in a circle.

“Hey!” Aleda protested, feeling a bit dizzy.

“Find his heart again,” Talia commanded, and let go of her. Aleda wobbled back around to face Ryan and made a guess at where his heart should be. “Almost,” Talia said. She moved Aleda’s wooden claws up and to the right a little. “You should be right there. Let’s try again!”

Aleda whimpered.

 

 

----------

 

Ten spinning sessions later, Aleda was positive that she was going to throw up. Every time Talia spun her around, she demanded that Aleda find his heart even faster. Every movement counted, the girl told her, and she couldn’t depend on getting another chance to strike. So every time she spun around, she tried to aim more quickly. Every time she tapped Ryan’s chest, she tapped a little harder. If she had done the same to a mortal, he would have been on the floor with a bruised chest and cracked ribs by the end. Ryan didn’t even appear to notice. After a few additional repetitions Talia finally stopped her.

“Okay, enough,” she announced. “We’ll do a bit more of that next week but I think you’ve figured out where the heart is. How are you holding up?”

Aleda responded with a woozy groan.

“Yeah… sorry about that spinning, but I had to make sure you were disoriented,” Talia apologized.

“I think you achieved that,” Aleda said, still unsteady from the constant spinning. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Ryan shook his head, relaxing his arms and adopting a more natural posture. “It takes more than a few taps to injure me.”

“Hey Dummy, what do you think you’re doing?” Talia exclaimed when she saw that he had slipped out of his training dummy mode. “We’re not done with you yet!”

Ryan bared his teeth at her a little but went back to his anatomy-book pose.

For as much as he protested, he was being surprisingly tolerant of his sister’s demands. Frankly, Aleda was shocked at how good of a sport he was being about the whole thing. She knew he couldn’t have even wanted to come to her house in the first place. Granted, Talia was damn near impossible to refuse. If anything, though, Ryan should have far more practice than Aleda at doing so, having been Talia’s older brother for over fifty years.

That was probably also why he hadn’t tried to strangle her yet.

Talia went back over to her brother and prodded a spot on his stomach with her finger. Ryan looked annoyed. Aleda shot him a quick apologetic glance, and he responded with a sort of facial shrug as if to say ‘don’t worry, I’m used to this’. For a brief moment of insanity, Aleda felt a bit sorry for him.

“As long as it’s a feeder, another good place for clawing is right here,” Talia said. She continued her prodding. “Right in the stomach. It won’t kill it, but tearing up the stomach a bit will slow it down for several seconds.” She indicated for Aleda to try it out herself. She touched her claws to Ryan’s stomach again, concentrating on the spot Talia had shown her. She just had to make sure she got the right place; it wasn’t as if she was avoiding his gaze or anything.

Once again, Talia began spinning her around in dizzy circles. Aleda did a bit better this time around—no pun intended—and was soon hitting Ryan square in the stomach every time. She knew she was striking harder this time, too, but between his lack of reaction to the blows and Talia’s encouragement to strike as hard as she liked, Aleda found her slight concern about hurting him fade away.

Unfortunately, it faded too far.

On the last trial, Aleda got ahead of herself and attempted to hit his stomach before she had even stopped spinning, as she had seen her mother do in those few brief seconds in the forest. Instead of landing a glancing tap on his stomach, Aleda felt the sickening resistance of her wooden claws digging into his chest. She had missed completely, her claws disappearing over an inch into his side. Her whole body froze as she stared at him in horror, eyes wide and mouth agape.

She couldn’t get her hand away. It was firmly bound in the snug leather straps.

The claws were stuck in his ribs.

 

----------

Ryan looked down at his side, raised an eyebrow, and sighed.

 

Well, his shirt was bloody well ruined.

 

 

He tugged the poor girl’s claws out of his side, grimacing a little at the pain. Fortunately they didn’t leave any splinters—now that would have made for a fun ten minutes.

 

 

Damn it all.

 

 

Nearly two months he’d been in this endless forsaken suburb, and the worst wound he had suffered was from a little girl with wooden training claws.

 

 

His eye twitched as his left lung finished healing.

 

 

The blow had been deep enough that a little blood had escaped before the capillaries closed, and now four red stains joined the four ragged holes in the cloth of his shirt. Definitely ruined. How in the hell had that girl managed to get so far into him?

 

 

She was standing off to the side looking miserable. Far more miserable than him. She had backed away from him as soon as her hand was free, and now she was desperately trying to wipe his blood from the tips of her claws. An effort not made easier by the six-inch pieces of wood still affixed to her fingertips. Her attempts were having an unintended effect, however; every time her skin came in contact with his blood it soaked in until it was nearly all gone.

 

 

Movement caught his eye, and he turned to see his sister jogging back upstairs.

 

 

“I’ll be right back,” she called. “I’m going to get you a glass of milk.”

 

 

“I don’t need it!”

 

 

She had already disappeared. He shrugged. He hadn’t really been hurt that badly, and his side had already healed completely, but if she had decided he needed the milk then there was no point trying to stop her.

 

 

The girl had abandoned her attempts to clean off her claws and was now trying against all logic to get them off of her hands. Utterly unsuccessfully. He watched her for a moment. Finally, he couldn’t stand watching her increasingly desperate fumbling, so he strode over to her and grabbed her hands to make her stop.

 

 

“I can’t get these off,” she lamented. She kept staring at her hands, giving them a token tug so that she could try again, but Ryan held her fast.

 

 

“Why are you trying?” he asked.

 

 

“W-well, because I… you got hurt, and… and I shouldn’t be allowed to have these things,” she stuttered. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

 

 

“I’m fine,” he told her. He adjusted his grip to one hand and used the other to lift up the corner of his shirt so that she could see his unbroken skin. “See? Fine. It was just a slip.”

 

 

The girl looked glumly at his side. “I still ruined your shirt, though,” she pointed out.

 

 

“Well, yes, you did,” Ryan admitted. He shrugged dismissively. “I have other shirts. Now, are you going to leave these claws on so you can keep training?”

 

 

“I shouldn’t—.” She broke off. She gnawed on her lower lip and shifted her gaze even lower.

 

 

“Aleda…”

 

 

“Why milk?” she asked suddenly, finally looking up at him. He blinked at her in surprise, his mind’s gears grinding at the sudden shift. “I mean, we all— you all drink so much of it, and now Talia’s getting you a glass, and why milk?”

 

 

It took him a moment to remember the answer.

 

 

“It’s fast,” he said finally. “Efficient. As quick as our bodies go through food, it’s easier than eating all the time.”

 

 

“And now?”

 

 

“To make up for the energy it took to heal. I was hardly scratched, though, she didn’t need to—.”

 

 

“Yes, I did,” Talia retorted, walking slowly down the stairs to the concrete-floored basement now that she had a fragile glass full of milk in her hand. “Don’t listen to him, Little Leda, he…” She paused, looking at their joined hands. Ryan dropped the girl’s leather-bound hands in what he would never admit was embarrassment. “He hates admitting any kind of weakness,” Talia finished. “Here, big brother, drink up.”

 

 

Ryan took the glass and downed it in one go. He handed the empty glass back to his sister. “Here. Happy?”

 

 

Talia grinned. “Yep!” She set the glass on the stairs. “Remind me to take you shopping again on Monday so we can replace that shirt.”

 

 

“Goody.” Talia never had gotten the hang of the concept that, while he was indeed at home during the hours she spent at work, he was actually using those hours to sleep.

 

 

“Okee-dokee,” Talia said. “Break time’s over, folks. We’re here to train!”

 

 

The girl groaned.

 

 

Ryan almost did as well, but he stopped himself. Instead, he walked back to his spot in the middle of the room and did his anatomy textbook impression.

 

 

After a few seconds it was clear that the girl had no intention of resuming her practice.  Ryan groaned impatiently. “What’s the hold-up?” he demanded, glaring at the girl still hugging the wall. She shot him some kind of look. “Well?”

 

 

“Hey, easy,” Talia said. She put a hand on his arm. “She’s still a bit shaken up about before. Give her a minute.” She walked over to the girl and muttered some encouraging words to her while the girl rubbed her arm nervously and looked at the floor.

 

 

Ryan crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t see what the problem was—if anything, she should be encouraged. After all, she had just pierced a hunter’s lung with dull wooden claws. Momentarily uncomfortable for him, yes, but he had suffered significantly worse. At the moment, they were focusing on training up this kid so she didn’t get herself killed on her first hunt. As far as Ryan could tell, the hardest obstacle to that would be to get the girl to stop curling up like that whenever there was trouble.

 

 

He checked back on Talia. She was still having trouble getting the girl to move. He caught his sister’s eye, hoping she got the message. She did. She gave him a slight nod, telling him to go ahead with whatever idea he had.

 

 

“Are we going to be here all day?” Ryan demanded loudly. “I’ve got better things to do that stand around waiting for this little girl to get her act together! If she doesn’t have the spine to hit an unarmed man, there’s no way she’ll ever be able to take on a demon.”

 

 

The girl glared at him, her eyes like ice.

 

 

“I mean, what the sod-all are we doing here if this little girl can’t go ten minutes without curling up into a little ball and crying for her mommy?” he continued. “Go ahead, take away those claws! The only thing I’ve seen her do yet is sulk around like a whiney, little girl!”

 

 

She snarled angrily at him, an animal sound, tearing from her pretty little throat.

 

 

“I am not a little girl!” she snapped, breaking away from the wall and moving toward him in a fury.

 

 

“Prove it!”

 

 

Without warning, she sprinted the last few feet and lunged at him. Ryan barely had time to flinch. Her supposedly dull claws slammed into his stomach and shoulder, and she used the leverage to bring his face down to eye level and glare directly into his eyes. His first thought was that it was kind of her to avoid his lungs this time. He held her gaze, a slow smirk spreading across his face. Seeing his expression, she snarled again and jerked her claws back out of him, no ribs this time to stop her.

 

 

“Not bad, Aleda,” he said softly. She just stared at him, breathing hard from her recent exertion. He winked at her and looked down to inspect his shirt. Eight new holes graced the fabric, and eight new spots of crimson. His flesh was still industriously healing itself, though her blows had gone deeper this time and it would take a little while longer for him to heal completely. He unbuttoned the shirt to check his wounds more closely. The roughness of the wood hadn’t helped matters, and it hurt something awful. Not that he would ever admit that. He prodded the holes on his stomach. Still no splinters, although she had sliced into his stomach a bit and it stung like bloody hell. He would have to remember to sand down those claws some more when he got home.

 

 

Talia rolled her eyes. “I’m getting you another glass of milk.”

 

 

Yeah, he could use that this time.

 

 

“You did that on purpose,” the girl accused.

 

 

Ryan contemplated feigning innocence, but decided against it. He had goaded her enough for one day, he thought. Instead, he shrugged.

 

 

“It needed to be done.”

 

 

She scoffed. “Please. You’re always a jerk. I’m surprised Talia hasn’t caught on. I guess she just worships you so much she can’t see anything else.”

 

 

Ryan was taken aback. He frowned at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

 

 

“Oh, come on! You’re all she ever talks about — ‘Ryan’s so great’ and ‘Ryan can do this’. Hell, just look at the way she looks at you, like you’re Hercules reborn!”

 

 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

 

“Then, please, enlighten me! Was your daddy mean to you as a little boy? Is that why you’re an a*s? Or am I just the lucky one?”

 

 

“You will not talk about my father that way!” Ryan growled, low and dangerous. “He was the best man I’ve ever known.”

 

 

“Fine! Fine!” The girl threw up her arms. “We won’t talk about your precious Da! How about your mood swings, then? I mean, one minute you’re… you’re all nice… and helpful, and decent, and then Bam! You’ve gone from zero to A*****e in five seconds.”

 

 

“Maybe,” he growled through gritted teeth, “I don’t have patience for a seventeen-year-old hunterborn who’s acting like a five-year-old girl.”

 

 

“And maybe I’d be more inclined to listen to somebody who wasn’t acting like a total b*****d!” she shot back.

 

 

Ryan stood there for a moment, fuming, willing himself to not say anything he’d regret. If he opened his mouth again, he knew he would. There was no use trying to get through to this silly little girl. He was more than useless here. He was done.

 

 

He grabbed his jacket and stalked up the stairs, slamming open the basement door and startling his sister on her way back.

 

 

“I’m through here,” he announced. “Let’s go.” He continued walking to the front door without breaking stride. Behind him, Talia set down the glass she had prepared and stifled a chuckle.

 

 

“Whatever you say, Zeus.”