Heavy Metal gr-2 Read online

  After that, Sam had trained as a protector. The Protectorate was an autonomous organization as old as the Society, its purpose essentially to be bodyguards for vulnerable goddesses who were away from their power sources. The days of witch burnings and the like were long gone, but people still targeted goddesses for reasons both mundane and magical.

  But Nick was the most respected and well known of the protectors, and Sam had felt like an interloper. Plus, it wasn’t in his nature to stand around and wait for a threat. He wanted to use his mind as well as his body. The fact that he was doing neither at the moment didn’t sit well with him, and he didn’t care to expose his aimlessness to his old friends.

  The coffee maker sighed that it was finished. Sam poured a cup and carried it out onto the tiny back deck overlooking enough of a slope to expose him to the morning sun. It cast a pink-gold glow with just a hint of warmth, and he focused on the birds chirping at each other in his neighbor’s trees.

  “Mrrow?” A dusty white cat glided up onto the deck beside him and rubbed against his ankles.

  “Hey, there. Haven’t seen you in a few days.” He stroked her and scratched under the chin she tilted up for him. It was the stray he’d compared Riley to last night. It had taken months for her to come this close, but now she let him give her all the affection he wanted.

  And all the food. She trotted to the Cool Whip container he used to feed her and looked up with another inquiring meow. He poured some kibble out of a box he kept in a storage bin and petted her a few more times while she ate.

  The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he looked up to find Riley standing on the landing outside the garage apartment, watching him. Her hair was in a damp twist over her shoulder, and she wore the same clothes as last night. Funny how he hadn’t noticed the way the worn jeans hugged her hips and the plaid shirt nipped her waist. His hands would span that waist. And her breasts were the perfect…

  What the hell? Maybe it was the angle that made everything look so good. Or the daylight. Things always looked different in daylight.

  He stood and cleared his throat, uncomfortable at these thoughts so close to his memories of Quinn. “Morning,” he called.

  “Hi. I didn’t think you’d be up yet. I came out to see how chilly it was.”

  He rubbed a hand over his bare chest, noticing the cool air for the first time. He’d forgotten he hadn’t put on a shirt. “Coffee’s ready, if you want some.”

  “Sure, I’ll be right down.” She disappeared inside.

  Sam blew out a breath and pushed the sliding door to the kitchen open. He’d make pancakes and get Riley to open up about her problems, and then he’d send her to the Society—where she should have gone in the first place. And then maybe he’d figure out what the hell he was supposed to do with himself.

  But first he’d put on a damned shirt.

  …

  Riley took a deep breath and let it out slowly. And then she did it again. She’d stepped outside after her shower thinking to check the temperature to determine how cold she’d be with her shirt still damp at the seams after washing it in the sink last night. She hadn’t expected to see Sam standing out there, half naked, fairly magnificent, and petting a damned cat with more gentleness than those big hands should have been capable of. Now she was all flustered and flushed. And maybe some more F words.

  So inappropriate.

  She hurried to brush her teeth with her finger and some toothpaste she’d found in a drawer and ran her hands through her hair once more before checking that she’d left the room neat—bed made, towel hung, the T-shirt he’d loaned her folded on the bed. She hefted the metal pipe she’d carried from the bar, relishing the reassuring weight and what the cool smoothness represented. But Sam knew what she could do with it, and it seemed rude to bring an obvious weapon into the kitchen of a Good Samaritan. She’d take it with her, but leave it outside.

  She took another deep breath and nodded sharply. Okay. She was ready for this.

  She headed down the steps and followed the walkway to the deck. Sam had left the door slightly ajar. After leaning the pipe against the wall outside, she used her fingertips to nudge the door open some more.

  “Come on in,” Sam called. She stepped into a narrow kitchen rendered even smaller by an old Formica table…and Sam’s wide shoulders, now covered with a T-shirt.

  Bummer.

  The room was clean but old and worn, the linoleum curling along the edges, the walls a dingy tan that probably used to be white. The appliances might be older than she was, except for the fancy-looking coffee maker on the counter.

  “How do you like your coffee?” He poured some into a gigantic, plain green mug.

  “Black, please.”

  He set it on the table. “How are your hands?”

  Riley sat and palmed the warm mug. “They’re fine. Thank you.” She indicated the healing cuts on his face. “Those okay?”

  He gave her a dismissive look. “Oh, sure. Hungry?”

  “Starving.” She immediately felt uncomfortable. She meant it like anyone would at breakfast time, but given the circumstances, he might think she hadn’t eaten in a while. The burger I had for dinner didn’t last would sound defensive, so she held in her urge to say it. “I really owe you.”

  “Not yet, you don’t.” He pushed away from the counter and opened the fridge. “How do pancakes sound?”

  “I don’t want you to go to any trouble. Cereal would be fine.” There was an open box of Cocoa Puffs sitting on the counter.

  Sam shook the box and chucked it in the trash. “Empty. Sorry. You should have something heartier, anyway.”

  She laughed. He was kind of a mother, in a hot, manly way. “If you insist.”

  “I do.” He bent and reached into the back of the refrigerator to pull out what looked like a whipped-cream canister, except taller and wider. “They’ll only take a minute.”

  He took a flat pan out of the oven and set it on the stove, coating it with cooking spray as he turned on the gas. A few moments later, when the pan had warmed up, he shook the canister, aimed the nozzle, and squirted what looked like batter on the pan. The mix spread and bubbled.

  “So,” Sam said.

  Riley braced herself.

  “How did you find me?”

  Embarrassment warmed her cheeks again. “I saw a video of you on the Society website. I thought maybe you could help me.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “That video didn’t tell you where I was.”

  Why hadn’t she anticipated that he’d ask that question? Her cheeks went even hotter. “I did some detective work.” That sounded better than cyber-stalking. “Social media makes it pretty easy to find people through their contacts.” She hoped he didn’t ask more. From the little she gleaned from the Facebook comments, she wasn’t the only one who found him…appealing.

  Luckily, he left it at that, but with his next question, she almost wished he hadn’t.

  “Why me? Why not go directly to the Society? Especially if you’re in danger. They can assign you a protector.”

  She wrapped her hands more tightly around her mug, not minding the sting of the heat against her raw skin. Her spirits sank a little. He’d been part of the educational program, so of course his first advice would be to talk to the Society. But because he was a guy and therefore not a goddess, she hadn’t expected him to be indoctrinated in their propaganda.

  She sipped her coffee for fortification, and because the mug was big enough to hide her face for a moment. “I’m not a member of the Society,” she said after she’d swallowed.

  He raised an eyebrow again but didn’t look up from the stove, quickly flipping perfectly golden pancakes. “Why not?”

  It was a long, confusing story that ended in I have no idea, but that made her sound weak. “Not every goddess is,” she countered.

  “Is your mother?”

  Complicated pain squeezed her chest. “No. She wasn’t.”

  “Wasn’t.” He looked sympathet
ic, obviously guessing the reason for the past tense.

  That made it easier to continue. “My parents and younger sister were killed in a car accident at the start of my senior year of college. She was driving on her permit. They never figured out exactly what happened, but it was a two-car collision, four people dead.”

  Sam set the spatula down and took the single step toward the table to reach her. His warm hand covered hers, leaving the rest of her chilled. “I’m so sorry.”

  She shrugged one shoulder, only feeling half as cavalier as the gesture indicated. “I don’t bother asking ‘why me?’ It’s life.”

  “Still.” He went back to the stove. “I’ve lost my family, too. Were they all you had?”

  “My mother’s family was already gone, and I haven’t seen any of my father’s since the funeral. I kind of fell off their radar.”

  He slid six pancakes from the skillet onto a plate and set it in front of her. “That had to be rough.” He brought a butter dish to the table, grabbed a bottle of syrup from the fridge, and handed her a fork and knife before turning back to fix his own plate.

  “It was.” Riley’s mouth watered. She doctored her pancakes with a little butter and syrup, cut one in half, and folded a piece into her mouth. Surprisingly delicious for pancakes from a squirt can.

  Sam joined her at the table. “What happened after the accident?”

  “I had enough money from the insurance policies to finish school. Sold the house, found a job in marketing.” She paused. “I know I look like a vagabond.” She gestured at her rumpled clothing. “But I had that job for three years. Somehow,” she muttered.

  “Somehow?”

  She sighed and set her fork down, though she’d barely eaten anything. “About a year after my family died, something started happening. Something weird.” She hesitated. Sam had seen what she could do, and he obviously believed in it. But a lifetime of skepticism, of listening to her family’s disgust, was difficult to set aside. So was three years of feeling like a freak.

  He waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he gave her a nudge. “Stuff like moving things around? Making things disappear or burn up?”

  “Yeah. Essentially.”

  “You sound like it was a surprise, though. Your mother never told you that you were a goddess? Never showed you her abilities?”

  “She didn’t have any.”

  “You’re sure?” When she nodded, he said, “Huh,” and set his elbow on the table, hand covering his mouth and chin, to study her. “So you knew nothing before your abilities emerged?”

  She shifted to prop her heels on the rungs of her chair, pulling her knees up and tightening her arms around herself. “Not really. It’s complicated.”

  “Are you adopted?”

  She shook her head. “Definitely not.”

  Sam set his fork on his already empty plate and leaned back, bracing his hands behind his head. Riley barely noticed the muscles rippling beneath his snug T-shirt. Okay, she definitely noticed. But she didn’t dwell.

  “So you lived your life not knowing you were a goddess. Your parents died before you turned twenty-one, when a goddess comes into her power. Your source is metal, obviously.” He waited for her to nod. “So you probably found out accidentally.”

  She cringed at the memory. “It was silly, at first. I was walking down the street with a friend and kept bumping into parked cars. She laughed that it was like I was drunk, only it was eight in the morning and I hadn’t had alcohol in days. But I wasn’t off balance or anything—it was like the cars were pulling me toward them.”

  “Hmmmm.” He looked thoughtful. “Every car?”

  “No. Older models mostly. You know, big-car-old-people-club kinds.”

  Sam laughed, the sound vibrating deliciously. “What? Big car old people club?”

  “Yeah, you know.” She sketched a wide space with her hands. “Big boats that only old people drive. It’s like they’re a club.”

  He shook his head, still chuckling. “Okay. So, the ones that are made of steel instead of fiberglass.”

  “Right.”

  “Does it still pull you like that?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know why.”

  He sat up, his voice taking on the educational tone from the video. “Goddesses have no sense of their source or how their abilities will manifest until they turn twenty-one. It can come on suddenly or subtly, and it changes as you adjust and adapt. What else happened?”

  “I bent my pen. One of those Cross ones, the refillables? While I was writing with it, it got all misshapen. Then in a staff meeting, my boss said something nasty to me, I don’t even remember what, except it embarrassed me and made me mad, and next thing I knew, his chair had dumped him on his ass.”

  “And that’s when you knew you were making this stuff happen, that it wasn’t just happening around you.”

  “Right.” Riley was surprised at how easy it was to talk to Sam. He acted as if this was all normal stuff that happened to normal people. But when she thought about all the things she’d done since that day, the idea of describing them wore her out.

  He read her mind. “Let’s skip ahead. I bet you experimented and found that it was the metal itself that gave you power.”

  Riley hated that word. Power. She’d read comic books, enjoyed superhero movies as much as the next person. She knew what “power” meant, but for lack of a better description, she nodded.

  “That’s rare.” Sam stood and moved the dishes to the sink, then grabbed the coffee pot and refilled both their mugs, though Riley hadn’t drunk much of hers. “In the last three years, I’ve never seen or heard of anyone whose power source is metal. It’s from the earth, sure, but it’s processed. The only thing that comes close is a woman who uses oil and can get a little power from plastic. But we’re talking only enough to snap a flame onto her fingers, not blow people across a lot.”

  She wondered if he judged her for that. The whole “power equals responsibility” thing. “I didn’t mean to push them so hard,” she said quietly. “It’s difficult to regulate. Small pieces of metal, like jewelry, don’t do much. I carry some metal nuts and washers and stuff in my pocket, just in case, but it takes something big like the pipe to be able to do anything significant. And when I’m scared or whatever, I guess I…” She trailed off, not sure how to describe it.

  “You channel more energy than you mean to,” Sam offered.

  A knot of tension unraveled in Riley’s gut. That made it sound at least understandable. Almost scientific. Maybe coming here had been the right thing after all.

  “If you’ve had people after you, why don’t you carry more metal?” Sam asked.

  Riley fingered her mother’s pendant and thought about the pipe on the deck outside. “I have some pieces in my car, but what am I supposed to do, drape myself in chains? Metal is heavy. And this is the first time they actually got that close. I’ve felt them watching, following, but there was no one to defend against until last night.”

  “Okay.” Sam leaned forward, the front legs of his chair thumping to the floor. “Back to the Society. Was your grandmother a member?”

  Riley snorted before she could stop herself. “My grandmother hated the Society.”

  “Why?”

  She opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I always thought I did. I mean, it was just the way things were. My mother and grandmother would go off on rants about how evil the Society was, how they ruined good people. I didn’t realize they never talked about specifics until this happened to me and I had no one to go to. I always thought they were scammed by someone claiming goddess abilities or something. But now that I know the power is actually real…I just don’t know. They’re not around to ask, and if they were still alive, they might not tell me, anyway.” That was something she tried hard not to think about. They were all dead, so she’d never know if they’d have set aside their feelings and supported her, or if they’d have shunned
her because she’d become the enemy.

  “I’m sure we can figure it out,” Sam said. “The Society records might shed some light. You really should have gone to them right away. They’d have helped you with all of this.”

  “No.” That was the one thing she knew for certain. “I don’t know why they hated goddesses so much, but the Society did something to them. There was a reason my family felt so strongly. I can’t trust them. Or anyone, really.”

  “You trusted me.”

  She looked away. “I got desperate, and you seemed…nice. Plus, you’re not a goddess. Or a god. Gods don’t exist, right?” According to the Society website, any power gods originally had failed to be passed down, so Sam was an outsider. Maybe not exactly like her, but it made him more approachable than the Society itself.

  “The people at the Society are nice, too. I promise. They can help you train, teach you about your origins and your abilities.” Sam checked his watch. “They can also protect you from these people who are after you. Do you have any idea who they are?”

  “No, but it’s not just them, I don’t think. There have been others in the last few months,” she admitted. “For nearly a year now, I guess. I lost my job when someone told my boss I’d been doing drugs. I’d been acting strangely enough that he believed it. Then somehow these people tapped into my life. Phone messages disappeared, my mail was searched and some stuff stolen from the mailbox. Then I couldn’t get another job. The electricity was shut off, so I assume they intercepted my payments. I handed my rent check directly to my landlord, but he claimed it bounced and evicted me.” Laying it all out like that overwhelmed her again, bringing back the choking anxiety. She sat up straighter, trying to breathe against the constriction around her lungs.

  Sam reached over and laid his hand on her arm, seeming not even to notice he was doing it. The touch was enough to slow her racing heart.

  “But no one approached you while that was all going on?”