“Not tame dogs but wild wolves who’ve decided he’s an ally for the moment?”
“Except we aren’t wild.” To be an Arrow was to live a tightly regimented life. It wasn’t a choice but a necessity. Because there was always a reason an Arrow was an Arrow, and each and every one of those reasons was deadly.
“There are different kinds of wildness,” Gwen said as they came within sight of the cabin once again.
He could see supplies for the window repair laid out against the outside wall—wood for the new frame, the old one having been cracked by the barrage of bullets, as well as a sheet of glass designed to click in. From the sounds echoing over the sunlit snow, Ivy and her father were working on the front door. It only took him a short time to take care of the window, his telekinesis at 7.9 on the Gradient. He didn’t have to pound in nails, simply push with his mind; they went through the wood as if it was butter.
The skill required was of subtlety. Push too hard and the nail would exit out the other side. Working with a thick plank and hundreds of nails had been one of his easier and more fun exercises as a child—back when he’d lived with his “father.” The same man had later dropped him off at an Arrow training facility and never looked back.
Not even once.
Vasic knew because the scared four-year-old he’d been had stood in the entryway of the training facility and watched his father’s vehicle getting smaller and smaller and smaller. According to his memories, he’d cried, but he could no longer access the emotion that had led to the response.
“Well,” Gwen murmured, this woman who’d proven willing to go toe-to-toe with an Arrow to protect her child, “that’s useful.”
“Yes.” People had found Vasic useful his entire life, but it didn’t usually have to do with anything as harmless or as oddly satisfying as fixing a window. “I assume from your earlier questions that Ivy has decided to accept the contract.”
“I’ll let her answer that.” Leaving him with that statement, Gwen went around to the front door.
Ivy came over soon afterward. The sleeves of her faded denim shirt were now rolled up to the elbows to reveal the white of a long-sleeved tee, her scarf having slipped a fraction to set several curling tendrils free. Rabbit, of course, was at her heels. He bared his teeth at first sight of Vasic.
“I’ll agree to the contract,” Ivy said without prelude, “but Rabbit comes with me.” Tipping up her chin, she folded her arms. “Where I go, he goes.”
“He’ll have to be taught to stay within the boundaries,” Vasic said, wondering if Ivy was as loyal to everyone who belonged to her. “I’m certain the changelings would do nothing to harm him, but there are natural wolves and lynxes in the area, too.”
Ivy’s arms dropped to her side, eyes huge. “We’re going to be near changeling territory?” It was a hoarse whisper that brushed over his skin like a tactile sensation.
“Inside it.” Neither Vasic nor Aden had expected the changelings to agree to Krychek’s request, but it was official as of the previous night. “DarkRiver-SnowDancer territory.”
Ivy turned her attention to her growling pet. “Hear that, Rabbit? Don’t go around snarling at our hosts or they might decide to eat you for lunch.” There was a flush of quiet pink on her cheeks when she looked back up. “Sorry, I’m used to talking to him.”
“Do you find it therapeutic?” Vasic had never had a pet, didn’t understand the concept.
Ivy didn’t know how to answer Vasic’s question without saying too much . . . but what was the use of hiding things? He already knew her most perilous secrets. On that realization came a wave of freedom. “He was a stray,” she began, “crawled into the orchard bedraggled, skinny, and broken up from a fight . . . while I was still . . . wrong.” Not real, nothing but a shade of the girl she’d once been, her mind brutalized and her soul battered, chilling screams at night the only sound she made all day.
“I fed him because I didn’t know what else to do, then carried him to the vet. No one would say anything, but I could tell the adults thought he was going to die.” It had been a moment of acute insight, slicing through the fog in which she existed. “I wanted to tell them they were all wrong, that I could see his will to live in his eyes, but I didn’t have the words then.
“Instead, I took him home with me after the vet cast his broken leg, fed him by hand, and made sure his wounds stayed clean.” Her parents had found her curled up with Rabbit in the barn the first night, and carried them both into the family cabin. “It was maybe five days later that he staggered up and started trying to walk.
“A week after that, he fell into a muddy patch of field, and I found myself washing him.” Laughter chased out the lingering echoes of horror. “I had to chase him around with a hose.” Her pet had been so fast, even with the cast on one leg. “By the end, I was drenched head to toe myself.”
Ivy met Vasic’s gaze, tried to make him understand. “Caring for Rabbit was the first time in seven months I’d done anything except follow simple instructions.” She’d been a living, breathing automaton, the only sign of conscious life her desire to help her parents do chores—even when it was clear her brain wasn’t sending the right signals to her limbs.
Vasic considered her snarling dog. “He was a wounded living creature, and you are an empath. He spoke to the most immutable aspect of your nature.”
Ivy didn’t care about the technicalities of how or why. She just knew Rabbit had saved her as she’d saved him. Skinny but stubborn, he’d wriggle his way under her hand when she sat staring out into nothingness, nudge at her until she gave in and petted his then-ratty coat. When her fingers kept spasming open to drop the apples she was attempting to collect, he’d used his teeth to pick them up and put them in her basket. His determination had given her the impetus to bite back her tearful frustration and try again and again and again.
And again.
Somewhere along the way, her brain began to rewire itself, finding pathways around sections so badly bruised, Ivy’s head had pulsed with the excruciating pain of it for three years after her reconditioning.
“I relearned to run because Rabbit wanted to play,” she said through the knot in her throat. “He was so small and skinny, but he never gave up, so I couldn’t, either.” It had taken time for her pet to put on weight, for his coat to become shiny and healthy, the transformation echoed in her own healing mind.
When he’d collapsed in exhaustion, she’d picked him up in her arms. And when she’d fallen because her body refused to do what it should, he’d nudged and barked encouragement at her until she dragged herself back up. “Three months after he arrived, I spoke for the first time. A month after that, I asked for brain therapy.”
The intense sessions with a settlement medic had slowly helped her reclaim the final pieces of her mind. “It was hard.” Comparable to the agonizing physical therapy sometimes necessary after severe injuries to the body. “But each time I thought I’d reached my limit, I’d remember watching Rabbit crawl into the orchard even when he was so broken, and I’d find another store of willpower.”
The wind riffled through Vasic’s hair in the silence that followed her story. “I’ll take care when ’porting him,” he said at last. “Though perhaps I should be the one concerned for my safety.”
Startled into a smile by that cool statement, she blinked away the burning in her eyes and reached down to pick up her teeth-baring pet. “He’ll behave, won’t you?” She turned Rabbit’s face toward Vasic. “Hold out your hand so he can sniff it.”