“You killed our mother!”
She had him, there. He bounced off a willow bough and into a brake of beech. She was smart, pushing him into the deciduous trees and out of the evergreens that might keep him hidden. And every time he jumped, he disturbed the snow in the trees. He might as well have tagged them with spray paint.
“I didn’t! Powell did! Mitch!”
“Liar!”
Javier rolled his eyes. Why had he thought that a daughter would be easier? “I know you think he’s your friend, baby, but–”
“Don’t you baby me, cabrón.”
She landed just a little below him. She swiped for his feet, but he tucked them up just in time. Then he was in the air. He aimed for a broken-down old elm. It was badly scarred by lightning, and it creaked under his sudden impact. Parts of it were frozen. The outermost branches crashed around him. He was exposed. He held his hands up.
“I don’t want to fight you,” he said.
She was on his back instantly. The knife went to his throat. If she depressed the lever, his body would fill with vomit vapour, and he would melt.
“That’s too bad,” she said.
“Wow.” He forced himself to smile. To be funny and light. Goofy dad. “When they hired you to play a ninja, they weren’t messing around.”
She snorted. “I’m the star attraction.”
“Is it the hair? I bet it’s the hair.” He turned his head a little so he could face her. “I really like your hair, by the way.”
She pinked up, but her mouth kept a straight line. “I am seriously going to kill you right now,” she said. “Right after you tell me who sent you.”
“Oh, honey.” Javier jumped backward, against the tree’s trunk. Her arms loosened, and he pinned her up against the icy trunk with one arm while he grabbed her slashing wrist with his other hand. He buried the knife in the tree, and depressed its lever.
“First of all,” he said, “I had you the moment you jumped on me. If my own dad caught me pulling that amateur hour bullshit when I was your size, he’d have whipped my ass until it smoked.”
Anza rolled her eyes.
“And second, who the hell gave you this?” He gestured with the knife. “Any daughter of Amy Frances Peterson, shit, any great-granddaughter of Portia the fucking godless killing machine, can probably annihilate her target with her bare hands. This shit is beneath you. OK?”
He tossed it into the snow. Anza’s eyes tracked its progress and then rose, mutinously, to glare at him. “Mitch gave it to me.”
“Well, isn’t that nice. You got a knife from the man who really killed your mother.”
She tried to kick him. He grabbed her ankles. “You’re strong,” he said. “I get that. You’re a phenomenal jumper, already. Hell, they pay you for it. But I am bigger than you, and I am better at this than you are. Now you might think I’m an asshole, but I think we can both agree that what I just said is true.”
Anza said nothing. He held her in place.
“He raped me, Esperanza. He raped me, and he failsafed me, and he got me to poison your mother. I didn’t know what it would do to her. I promise you that. I didn’t know.”
Anza swallowed. “Even if that’s true, what are you even doing here? I thought you went back to be with the humans.”
“Is that what he told you I did?”
“Well, yeah. Xavier said you used to… Well…” Her blush deepened. Oh, he was over the moon for her already. “He said the others, our brothers, told him stories…”
“Those stories are true.”
“So what are you doing here? Why aren’t you off…” She squirmed. “I don’t know! Doing whatever it is you do with humans!”
He had seen this reticence before. This squeamishness. Of course.
“You don’t like humans, do you?” he asked.
She looked away. “Sure I do! I like them! They’re great! Mitch is great!”
The smoke inside his body changed its orientation immediately. For a moment, he felt carved out of pure diamond. When he spoke, his voice came out low. “Does Mitch touch you?”
She shook her head. “No. He doesn’t like me that way.”
He was starting to let her go. He was remembering Powell’s record. It fit. “Does he like Xavier that way?”
Her eyes met his. Snowflakes were still caught, unmelted, in her lashes. His lashes. Amy had always said she liked his better than hers, because they were so much longer and darker. And in her last act of creation, she had iterated her favourite parts of him into their little girl.
“It’s OK,” he said. “You can tell me.”
“I…” Her lips pursed. “I think so. And… I know it’s OK, because Xavier likes him, too, and because he’s normal, but…” Her eyes filled with tears. “But…”