“I’ve changed my mind.” He leaned heavily against me, his legs beginning to shake. “Snowmen suck.”
My lips curled despite our situation. Cursing, pornography, and obstinacy; under that shockingly mature façade the teenager just kept breaking out, bit by bit. “I guess maybe they do,” I said placatingly as we reached the front of the house. Two-storied and sprawling, it was separated from the others on the street by a large lot and a literal wall of trash. Old tires seemed to make the majority of the divider, but I was only guessing by the shapes under the snow. The house itself was old and in a better neighborhood would’ve been considered a historical treasure. Here it was one more pile of crap two or three years away from being condemned, razed, and replaced with a parking garage.
Warped and uneven, the ancient wood of the stoop was as rippled as the incoming tide. But it was somewhat protected from the icy onslaught by a shingled overhang. That left the surface clear enough that Michael breathed a sigh of relief to be on more or less solid ground. Knocking sharply on the door, I kept an eye on him as he rested against the wall of the house. “Don’t lean too hard,” I advised. “You might take the wall down.”
“There was a crooked house. . . .” His smile was equally as crooked as he began to regain his breath. “A lady was reading nursery rhymes to the children at that bookstore.”
“Clowns and nursery rhymes, the two creepiest memories of any childhood.” I knocked again in case some elderly person as decrepit as their house was meandering their slow way down from the top floor. When that didn’t happen, I stripped off my gloves, pulled out a card from the wallet I’d taken from Pavel before we’d left the mansion, and went to work. I wished I had something more high-tech than that asshole’s credit card.
The card, despite being maligned, did the job. A few jiggles had the old lock giving way with a rusty creak and then we were in. Closing the door behind us, I sneezed immediately. The dust was thick in the air—dust and something far worse for my sinuses. I sneezed three more times and didn’t have to rely on the winding motion around my ankles to identify the type of fur floating in the flickering lamplight. Cat.
“Ah, damn it.” I rubbed at my stinging nose with the back of my hand.
“What’s wrong?” Snow was sliding off Michael and melting into a puddle on the wood floor. There were so many other stains—cat urine from the smell—that I didn’t think we needed to worry about one more.
“I’m allergic to cats.” I carefully nudged away the one now gnawing at my shoe. It was gray with black stripes, a huge puffball of long hair, pumpkin orange eyes, and rampant feline dander. Another one, white with a lashing tail, sat at the bottom of the stairs curving up to the second floor. The third was yellow, hugely obese, and curled around the base of a lamp. The lamp sat on a table that rested against a wall covered with patterned paper. With roses, roses, and more roses under the yellow film of age, cats, and paper flowers, this place had old lady written all over it. I wondered where she was. Maybe she was staying with her kids until the storm blew over.
“You’re not much of an animal person, are you?” Michael pushed his hood back and bent over to give the tabby a pat on its head. “Nice kitty.”
Feeling another sneeze coming on, I buried the lower half of my face in the crook of my arm to muffle the wet explosion. “That nice kitty is suffocating me,” I said nasally before straightening. “Stay here. I’m going to check out the house and make sure we’re alone.”
I did a quick run-through of the place. Everything was old. The furniture, appliances, rugs—all dated to several decades before my birth. Even the quilts on the beds were faded and worn; the afghans raveled and covered with fuzz balls. It definitely belonged to an old lady. Two bedrooms, a bathroom with a claw-foot tub and cloudy mirror, and a sewing room made up the second floor. After a quick look around, I concentrated on scooping up two blankets, a quilt, and a pillow before heading back down the stairs.
Michael was sitting on the bottom step, leaning against the wall. He was fast asleep and he wasn’t alone. One of the cats had seized the opportunity to curl up in a convenient lap. Annoyed at the competition, Zilla had crawled out of the ski jacket and was currently racing up the banister. I let it go. If anyone was a match for three cats, it would be that damn ferret. “Misha.” I shook his shoulder lightly before shooing off the cat. “Come on.”
His eyes opened, just barely, and he allowed me to shepherd him to the couch in the living room. The cushions sagged from years and years of use, but he didn’t seem to mind as he dropped onto it. He could’ve used one of the beds upstairs, but if we had to make a sudden getaway, being on the ground floor would be best. As Michael slithered out of his jacket and with clumsy fingers worked on removing his gloves, I helped him with his shoes. The laces were too encrusted with ice and snow to untie and I didn’t even try, simply pulling them off. The socks went too, a sodden pile on the rug. “All right, kiddo. Down you go.”
He obeyed without argument, showing me how exhausted he truly was. Michael had shown that he wasn’t one to let me fuss over him, at least not without some self-deprecating or distancing remark. But now . . . he was like a tired five-year-old, obedient and docile. It brought back memories. God, did it. Lukas had been able to sleep anytime, anywhere. There had been many times I’d hauled him from an unconscious heap on the floor to lift him into his bed without waking him. His name had changed, but inside he was still Lukas. It was like they said. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In the here and now I slid the pillow under his head and piled on the blankets. “Sleep for a few hours. I’ll keep an eye out.” His eyes closed, but his mouth twisted downward. A hand slipped out of the blankets to move his thumb back and forth across the rough texture of the worn cotton in a self-soothing motion. It wasn’t sleep. It wasn’t even a good imitation. I thumped his chin lightly with a finger. “I said sleep, not mope.”
With eyes still closed and a voice thick with a fatigue he couldn’t completely fight, he said softly, “I told myself I couldn’t get attached.”
Confused, I eased from a crouch to a sitting position on the floor. “Misha . . .”
He ignored me. “After John . . . I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. People go away; they die. I knew . . . know better than to get attached to anyone.” There was anger underscoring the words, anger and resignation. “Why did you make me?”
Ah. Damn. The kid could make me happy as hell and rip me up inside all in one fell swoop. Trust was a ridiculously hard step for even the well-adjusted. For the rest of us walking wounded, it was nearly impossible. But Michael had already demonstrated that impossible wasn’t a word that applied to him. That didn’t make the wonder any less for me. He was coming to accept me, to trust me. And because of that, he now was also terrified of me. The one person he remembered relying on had left him . . . had died. It was one thing to be deserted by someone you cared for; it was a completely different circle of Hell to be abandoned by your family . . . by your brother.
“I’m your family, Michael. I won’t leave you,” I promised. “And I won’t die. Not until I’m knee-deep in dentures and adult diapers.”
“You can’t know that.” His eyes opened, and the challenge in them was clear.
“No?” I rested my shoulder against the couch. “I knew I’d find you, didn’t I? I know lots of things. I knew you’d get me a god-awful ugly coat. Hell, I’m practically psychic.”