Family Bonds

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Dane circled around the block and pulled into Sean’s driveway again. He left his coffee in the car and let himself in, intending to be quick. He wanted a peek at the basement room, just in case he couldn’t talk his parents out of dropping by. When he’d finally answered his sister’s call last night and exchanged belated holiday wishes, she’d warned him their mother was itching to see him again. As far as Dane was concerned, that was never good.

The basement stairs creaked, and immediately off to the side at the bottom Dane saw the tool chest he’d used before. Not far off stood the various utilities, water heater, and washing machine, then plastic boxes storing whatever the hell it was Sean wasn’t going to toss out. The main area held an old, ugly couch and a television with one of those archaic VCRs, and Dane snorted. There was a little bathroom in the far corner that had a shower but no tub, and Dane took a quick peek into the guest room itself. A bit cramped, but a queen bed as Sean said, everything matching in a sort of Northwoods cabin way, browns and reds and blues.

Dane retreated back to his car and had a gulp of coffee. Yeah, that would do, but he didn’t really intend on letting his parents get anywhere near Bleu Falls anyway. That had been the whole point of not telling them where he’d moved. He friggin’ hated the way they meddled with his life.

He pulled up to Crypt Coffee, built to resemble a mausoleum above ground, spacious but gloomy below. It was a cover for his real job hunting down s**t for the Order of Decrypters, although for a secondary pursuit he sure had to cover for a lot of asses. He grit his teeth as he emerged from the staircase and Logan, one of his baristas, desperately tried to catch his eye.

“The hell is it?” he asked, glad now he’d spiked his coffee.

“Winter called in. She’s going to be late. Something about her roommate…”

Dane turned away and finished off his coffee. He’d been hoping to do a quick inventory of everything and have a nap in his Lair, the basement where he locked away all his decrypting s**t. He’d only had a few hours’ sleep and he was pissed he didn’t even get any time with Sean out of it.

Instead he spent the next hour helping Logan make coffees for people on the way to normal, everyday jobs. Dane didn’t even have it in him to make the assholes over thirty-five uncomfortable with a bit of flirting like he usually did, and though Logan shot him a concerned look, he didn’t ask. Crypt Coffee got a decent amount of business from college students, and with them being on their winter break there was a dip in sales at the moment. When Winter showed up, all apologies, Dane waved her behind the counter and ducked down to the Lair. His phone had pinged a few times while he was working, but Sean could wait for him to have a nap.

The place was dark and quiet, and Dane breathed out hard after locking the door, savoring the stillness for a moment. He didn’t really have any place to sleep down here, but he could curl up on the floor for a few hours. What did he care? He planned on getting himself killed long before he’d be old enough to have a f****d up back. He flicked on the light, went down the stairs, and stopped.

Ned was in the one wooden chair, just sitting and staring into nothingness. The ghost was solid enough to fill the chair, although vaguely smudged in appearance, as though not all there. Counting Winter, Ned was the second transgender person Dane worked with at Crypt Coffee. He wore dated clothes, including a bow tie, an indicator he was well over a hundred years dead.

“Yeah, that’s not creepy,” said Dane.

Ned’s eyes, greyish orbs at the moment, turned toward him.

“f**k, Ned,” said Dane, “keep it together. Something wrong with you?”

Ned held up a finger indicating he wanted a moment, and Dane took it to mean the ghost was fine. He was already dead, after all. Dane grabbed a hoodie he really should have taken home and washed, snagged a random bottle of booze from the assortment he kept down here, and left the creepy ghost s**t for the panic room.

He’d never bothered to stock it with anything but exercise equipment, something Sean nagged him about, but Dane was about a million percent certain he’d be dead before he’d need a place like this. He couldn’t imagine himself running from a fight like a frickin’ coward. He turned off the light in this room, bunched up the hoodie like a pillow, and had a drink to help him sleep.

His phone stopped occasionally chiming and actually rang. Dane swore, picked it up, and answered without looking.

“Sean, I’ll f*****g text you.”

“Who is Sean?” asked his mother.

Dane had to work hard to swallow back a groan. s**t. He rolled over, reaching around in the dark for the bottle, which he opened and brought to his lips. His mother wasn’t a problem bourbon could solve, but he could damn well use a little anyway.

“Do you have a boyfriend again? And you talk to him like that?”

“Hi, Mom, good to hear from you,” said Dane. He wondered if she could tell how little he wanted to talk to her. She’d never really been good at knowing when he was lying—or maybe it was that she didn’t care. “It’s been a while.”

“Says the kid who gets a new number every month and forgets to tell his mother. Ashley says you didn’t even tell her until after Christmas. I don’t understand how you…”

Dane sat up and had another drink, tuning out while his mother lectured him on responsibility or some s**t. It never changed. He’d long ago accepted his place in the family as constant disappointment, the bad child, the fuckup. He didn’t know why any of them kept expecting him to suddenly be any different than he’d always been, or why his mother thought that if she just told him what to do enough, he’d do it. He wasn’t that forgetful. He never cared much to talk to them.

“I guess this means you had a good Christmas without me.”

“Oh, Dane, don’t act like we don’t want to see you. Everyone asked, your nieces and nephews, too, we miss you. You don’t have to hide away with your boyfriend. We won’t bite.”

“It’s not that,” said Dane, even though it was. Holidays with his family were the f*****g worst. All three of his siblings were grown, married, and had kids, and even being the cool uncle didn’t make the situation any easier. There were too many people in one house for way too long, his brothers and sister always showed him up with their yearly accomplishments, and Dane ended up sleeping on the floor of his mother’s overflowing craft room.

Take a boyfriend there? No friggin’ way. Show up himself? He had better things to do with his life. He called when he felt like it and spied on social media otherwise.

“Too good for us? Hannah—you know, Wesley’s wife—was telling me how she didn’t think you’d ever said more than two sentences to her.”

“You know she doesn’t like I’m gay.”

“She’s never said that! You’re overreacting. Work is stressful, they have three kids…”

Dane tuned out again and drank. He was beginning to feel the bourbon enough to be disappointed it wasn’t doing more for him. It didn’t matter to him Hannah had never said a damned word—he knew for a fact whenever he stayed over, she insisted her kids sleep on the floor of the bedroom instead of in the family room with their other cousins. He’d mentioned it once, years ago, and his mother had laughed at him before blaming it on his tattoos.

“Okay, sorry. I would’ve been there but I couldn’t get away.”

“You said that last year,” said his mother. “Dane, we’re not asking for much. Just to see you once a year—twice would be a miracle. You know, growing up my family got together every Sunday for dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Your father and I haven’t seen you since you moved. You never even bothered to give us your address. I have a Christmas card for you.”

There was no way in hell Dane was giving his parents his address. He’d made that mistake once, when he’d first moved out, and having them randomly drop by while he was in the middle of f*****g another Decrypter soon set him right about that. He’d been lucky they hadn’t had a key.

“Everybody else sends e-cards.”

“Everybody else can be lazy. I send real cards. Did you go to Sean’s family’s Christmas?”

“What? No.” Dane set the bottle down to rub his forehead. He was about to get a huge friggin’ headache. “Mom, I was working. You know. Work. Job.” He saw an opportunity to brag a little. “I own my own business now. It’s a coffee shop. It eats all my time.”

“Well, maybe if we drop by you can make your mother a coffee and catch up. Where’s this coffee place?”

Dane hesitated. The less information he gave away, the better.

“Dane.”

“It’s a few hours away, Mom. Bleu Falls. It’s not someplace you just drop by.”

“Isn’t that in Wisconsin? You left the state and didn’t tell anyone?”

Shit. Dane winced, reached for the bottle. He hadn’t thought his mother would actually know where Bleu Falls was. It wasn’t exactly big on the map. Hell, he hadn’t known where it was when the Order reassigned him. He hoped this wouldn’t come back to bite him on the ass, although knowing his family, it would. He needed to end the conversation now.

“I’d love to tell you all about it, but I’m getting a rush and one of the baristas has the day off. I gotta go. Love you.”

Dane hung up and let out all the swearing he’d put on hold while talking to his mother. A glow at the door caught his eye and he glanced over to see Ned standing there, two inches off the ground, leaning against the door frame. His eyes were normal now, pupils and whites distinct, and his form wasn’t fuzzy any longer. He was, however, smirking.

“Don’t say a f*****g word,” said Dane.

He grabbed the bourbon and stood, doubting he could get back to sleep now. Ned slid aside as he went into the main area of the Lair and then followed Dane as he replaced the bottle.

“You sick or something?” asked Dane. “What was that s**t from earlier?”

“Interesting you’d think I can get sick.”

“Can you?”

“Hmm. Well, I wouldn’t call it sick, exactly—”

“So yes.” Dane crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “I suppose if someone could kill you again…”

Some of the color drained from Ned’s form, leaving him black-and-white for an instant before he regained his normal appearance. He wasn’t sneering now.

“I can’t technically die again, either. And no, I’m not sick. I was…I guess you’d understand it as projecting. Having a conversation elsewhere.”

“Couldn’t just go over there entirely?”

“I wasn’t welcome. Where’s Sean?”

“Guild initiation.” Dane hadn’t meant to growl it.

Ned raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll wait. I don’t want to have to repeat myself. It’s a nice, juicy murder, though. You’re going to have a hell of a time with it—it’s a Pack matter.”

Dane had been checking his phone for texts, but at that he groaned and pocketed it. f**k, if a local Pack had decided to start picking off civilians…

“It’s not what you think,” said Ned, raising hands, palm up, at Dane’s glare. “The Pack didn’t kill anyone. A werewolf is dead.”