Heat blasted up my nape, and I had to rub the skin to ease the sting. “I didn’t kiss anyone.”
“He doesn’t mean literally.” Miller joined us with a fresh box of screws in hand. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”
Glaring down at Santiago, I noticed the slight hitch in his shoulders that told me he was laughing at me. I was tempted to reach down and yank his hair where the longish ends were starting to curl, black and glossy with sweat, above his collar. He and I had butted heads from the get-go, so I hadn’t expected a miracle even after we’d bonded during a late-night fishing trip, but whatever brownie points that had won me must have been lost during my weeklong absence.
“Hey, Miller.” I offered him a genuine smile that he returned. “It’s good to see you.” And since Santiago had stiffened on my periphery, I nudged his boot with a bare toe to include him in the moment. “Both of you.” He grumbled about toe jam, but he didn’t move away, so hey, progress. “I still don’t get why you guys are here. I already made arrangements with a contractor to handle the installation.”
“We’re your coterie,” Miller said gently. “We’re here to serve.”
Serve. The word coated the back of my throat with bitterness.
“Santiago,” I snapped, “put the caulk gun down.”
“Nope.” He kept his bead even as he traced the seam where the window met the wall. “I have somewhere to be in an hour. I don’t have time to argue with you.”
“Miller,” I pleaded with him. “Let me pay you. Let me help you. Let me do something.”
“I told you she wouldn’t be pleased,” Thom said, sounding smug. “You invaded her me space without permission.” The tracker joined us on the porch and lifted a hand. A dead mouse dangled by its tail from his fingertips. “I brought you a gift.”
“Um, well, okay.” Gamely, I accepted the offering in the spirit it was meant. “Thank you, Thom.”
“I found a nest of them near the back door.” He tracked the pendulum swing of the corpse and wet his lips. “I took care of them for you.”
“I appreciate that.” I lifted the mouse. “Would you like to, ah, take care of this one too?”
His gaze flicked up to mine. “You’re not hungry?”
“No.” Not at all. Not even a little bit. “I’m not big on breakfast.”
“You’re sure?” He waited until I nodded before shifting to his demon form, a boxy tomcat with midnight fur and a nubby tail. And wings. Can’t forget those. His scarred face tilted up to me. “Mmmrrrrpt.”
“There you go.” I held it down until he took it delicately between his teeth. “Good boy.”
Stub tail held high, Thom trotted off with the mouse swaying from his jaws.
“He’s on patrol,” Miller explained. “We’re all safer with him far away from the nail gun. There was an… incident… when we were constructing the bunkhouse, and Thom is no longer allowed to operate power tools.”
“I’ll take your word on that.” There was one member of the coterie who had yet to show his face, but I would rip out my own tongue and beat myself to death with it before asking about Cole in front of Santiago. “How much longer do you think?”
“An hour tops.” Miller grabbed a thirty-gallon trashcan I hadn’t seen before and started bagging debris. “We have a new client interview this afternoon in Ridgeland.” He wiped his brow with his forearm. “We both need showers and fresh uniforms before then.”
“How long did all this take?” I joined the cleanup effort. “I’m not usually such a heavy sleeper.”
The crew I’d hired had quoted me thirty dollars an hour plus the cost of cleanup and the dump fees. I could pull that from the ATM on my way to work and drop the money at the White Horse bunkhouse for Miller and Santiago to split. I would pay myself back out of the refund I got from the installers. Assuming they paid up, given the last-minute cancellation.
“We’ve been here about two hours.” He shrugged. “Cole explained about last night.”
That brought me up short. “What do you mean?”
“He was on Luce duty.” Santiago filled in the blank, as though the information were a blade, and he knew just how to cut me with it. “He trailed you out to Hensarling Farms.”
A snarl twitched Miller’s lip up over his teeth, but the cat was already out of the bag, and I didn’t mean Thom.
“This whole time?” I aimed the question at Santiago, the one most likely to give me the full truth since odds were good the delivery was going to hurt. “You guys have been rotating babysitting detail?”
“War is still out there.” Santiago finished what he was doing and deigned to look up at me. “Famine is coming. Can’t you read the signs? Desiccated animals? Burning crops?” His lips thinned. “You’re worse than useless to us like this. You can’t take care of yourself, and you can’t protect us either. Of course we’re watching your back. You should be thanking us, not taking us to task because we’re doing our jobs.”
“What is it you want from me, Santiago?” A cold spot blossomed in my chest. “Do you want Conquest back? Is that what this is about? Are you hoping you’ll provoke me into a transformation that will end this world and us along with it?”
“No charun has captured Earth and held it,” he informed me. “We aren’t walking off this battlefield. The least we deserve is a choice in how we die.”
“Santiago,” Miller warned.
“No, let her hear this.” Santiago stood with lethal grace. “Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon this shell of yours is going to crack. When that happens, people are going to die.” He wiped globs of caulk from his fingertips with a paper towel he crumpled in his fist. “You aren’t here to save this world. You’re here to end it.”
Miller grasped my hand, one of the few places I allowed contact, and I squeezed him back for all I was worth.
“I can’t believe that,” I rasped. “I won’t believe it.”
“You’re Conquest —” Santiago began.
“No, I’m not.” I released Miller to face Santiago on my own. “I’m well aware you all think I’m a construct, that I’m not real, that I shouldn’t be treated as an actual person with thoughts and desires of my own. I get that, and I don’t blame you, but I’m not giving up on me. Her ambitions are not mine, and I’m going to do everything in my power to hold onto my identity. So thank you for watching my back, and fuck you for being so ready to bury a knife between my shoulder blades.”
For the first time since I’d met him, Santiago was rendered speechless.
Ever the peacemaker, Miller cleared his throat. “I think we should all —”
Santiago pivoted on his heel, hit the steps hard, and strode to the borrowed truck. He got in, cranked up, and spun gravel as he hightailed it onto the main road and out of sight.
I threw up my hands and watched him go. “And here I thought we were making progress.”
“You are,” Miller said on a sigh. “That’s the problem. Hating you is easy. It’s as reflexive as breathing. Liking you? Wanting to believe in you? Protect you – from yourself and what’s coming? That’s hard. Santiago doesn’t know what to do with those feelings, and he’s not the only one.”
The remembered sensation of Cole’s fingers in my hair tightened my lower stomach, and I jotted a quick mental note adding my name at the tip top of the list of people figuring out what the hell to do with their conflicting emotions.
“Wait. Let me get this straight.” I flexed my toes on the porch someone had hosed clean. “You’re saying Santiago passively hated me when we met, nothing personal, but now that he might like me, he actively hates me?”
Miller considered the quandary for a moment. “That about covers it.”
I couldn’t win with him. Could not win.