“Yeah,” Nova agreed, his red, almost purplish mouth curling on the left in that way it did when he was teasing. “Dane’s a white knight in old denim, and he’s always wanted to do more. You don’t think enlistin’ would give him that? A real way to change lives?”
“It would change mine,” I blurted, a flush behind my tanned skin even though I knew it wouldn’t show. My anger burned and boiled under the surface like something ugly and toxic. I just kept thinking it’s not fair, it’s not fair. And it wasn’t, not really, for a six-year-old to be faced with losing a brother after she’d lost the rest of her family. But it wasn’t fair, too, that I should chain Dane to me just because I was too traumatized for a teddy bear replacement.
I knew there were real monsters in the world. I’d been born of one.
And I needed a real knight to face them for me.
“Flower Child,” Nova called, flicking the end of my nose just to irritate me. “You with me?”
“Yeah, I guess. You think he meant it? That he won’t have to leave right away?” I ventured, taking solace in the prettiness of the dark stubble sweeping over his jaw.
Without thinking, my fingers reached out to test the texture, finding it sharp and thick where Dane’s was softer, tufted in places.
Nova grinned and snapped at my fingers so I jerked them away. “Yeah, he’ll be around for a while. In fact, I gotta feelin’ he’ll never stay away too long, and even if he does, he’s always gonna write or text or email. He’s always gonna be thinkin’ of his little sister with the flowers in her hair.”
I blushed, this one warm and electric, as he plucked a daisy from my hair and twirled it between his big fingers. My stomach fluttered like a jar of butterflies had toppled over and opened inside my gut.
“You want Dane to have a dream just like you do. It’s important that you let him know that, okay? You keep any animal leashed for too long, they start to resent the hand that keeps them there, Li, and I know you don’t wanna be that restraint. Not when you love him like you do.”
“No one deserves a dream more than my big brother,” I said, because it was true.
He was the best person I knew, and even his potential abandonment couldn’t change that.
“And you gotta know,” Jonathon continued, the sparkle back in his thickly lashed eyes. “If Dane goes away, he’s leavin’ you with us, and there’ll never be a time you aren’t wanted in our house, yeah?”
“What if you move out, too?” I asked, suddenly rocked by the idea of losing them both.
Why hadn’t I thought of that inevitability?
They were eighteen. They could go out into the world by themselves.
And what were the los tres Caballeros without two of its members?
“Hey,” Jonathon said sharply, drawing me back to his sombre face. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’ve found my home, just gotta find my place in it. And I’ll tell you a secret, if you promise not to breath a word’a it to anyone.”
“Not even Dane?” I breathed, because we’d never had a secret, just us two.
“Not even,” he repeated with faux sobriety. “I found’a place that feels like home. With even more family––brothers, uncles, and friends––that could be yours as well as mine.”
“You mean,” I sucked in a deep breath, hope alive like fire in my throat, “You’d share with me?”
His lips twitched, but he didn’t laugh. “Yeah, Li, I’m happy to share with you. The way I see it, the more family the better, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agreed instantly, rolling to my knees with my hands braced on the hot pavement. “Can I meet them?”
“What?” he asked laughingly. “Right now?”
I nodded enthusiastically, and a flower, an iris, fell out of my hair. Jonathon grinned at me as he picked it up from the pavement and tucked it behind my ear before getting to his feet.
“Alright, Flower Child, let’s call Dane and my folks to let them know we’re okay and then we’ll go meet some new friends.”
* * *
* * *
The Fallen Men compound sprawled like an insolent giant from the Faversham Inlet to the Sea to Sky Highway in the industrial neighborhood of Entrance. When we pulled up to the chain link fence at the huge gates that separated the world from the club, I was already awed by the sprawl of buildings behind the metal. There was a low-slung brick building to the right down by the water, a big garage and parking lot labelled Hephaestus Auto in ragged, cut-out sheet metal hung over the multi-garage bays. Surprisingly, there was also a pretty garden and a hangout area with picnic tables and some children’s playground things tucked away amid it all.