Northern Alberta, Canada
"Did that say we're in Laughlin?"
"I'm not sure what's more impressive—you being able to read that in all of this, or you actually not knowin', Cal."
In all honesty, she wasn't sure which odds were more likely to outweigh the other—rain pounded the windshield in a blanket that would make that old adage of raining cats and dogs blush like something awful. Wipers flung rainwater at such a speed it was nearly hypnotic, but was hardly fast enough, married to the perfect cocktail of hazy and just-the-right-time-to-not-see-anything-o'clock. Slowing the pickup to what could be assumed was faster than going backwards, it took every ounce of multiple-decades-alive willpower not to just pull over and wait the storm out on the shoulder.
The cab's glass filmed with body heat and occasional conversation, exaggerated by her assistant's seemingly endless need to light cigarettes and drag smoke into his lungs like it was a good idea. Stale Marlboros and the heavy musk of animal seemed ingrained into the leather seats, smacking her sense of smell in heady waves that could've–would've—made a lesser person's eyes cross. Reaching for the cup of water parked in the cupholder, she tossed back the lukewarm liquid quickly, fingers tightening around the steering wheel to a milky, almost ghost-white grip.
"'fulla surprises, you know that—wait. Should you be driving if you can't see, boss?"
She would've chuckled if it wouldn't have given Cal the satisfaction. Fingers flicking to life flame from his Zippo, he smacked the cap closed before spinning it through his fingers, back into the abyss of his leather jacket pockets. Sharp nicotine, smoky and warm, filled the car again, stinging her senses as he pulled a low breath of it, cracking the window. Even from the driver's seat, the smack of fresh air was divine—it whistled into the cab at such a right that it poured ice into her veins, settling the splash of acid in her stomach as she checked the rearview.
Her assistant didn't need an answer to the question, so she skirted the question. Like she did countless others, hundreds of others. "We'll stop in Laughlin," it was decisive. Final. "Give the horses a rest, we'll wait out heaven's floodgates there." Eyeing him from the corner of her eye, she settled back into the seat, eyes casting to the highway's shoulder for familiar white lines.
Feeling the weight of the trailer behind her, she sighed. They should've stopped an hour ago, when her headache was minimal and her muscles weren't wrought with tension. A simmering, hot knot had formed between her shoulder blades—first bearable, she'd dismissed it away with just the excuse of bad posture. Correction had only resulted in more effort diverted into maintaining that posture, exaggerating her headache farther. Souring her attitude. Coupled with clawing hunger in the base of her gut, she worked her neck side to side. Clenched and unclenched her jaw, curled and uncurled her toes in her boots. Worked her jaw, tried everything a lifetime of knowing one's body could possibly draw from to dismiss the pain.
In the end, nothing worked. She'd decided to just shut up and focus on driving. The ever-so-occasional sway of the trailer behind her reminded her that the more she endured, the sooner they'd make Laughlin. And the sooner they made Laughlin, the sooner the animals could rest. She, and the rest of the livestock—because, even being animals, they all needed to kick back. Get off the road, away from countless miles and the troublesome fight to stay upright and stable, fight the odds of perpetual motion and living.
They needed to stop surviving, just for a few hours.
If that ain't truth—
Her grip tightened a little more on the wheel. Familiar pain ricocheted off the bone of her knuckles. Into her wrist, jarring and abrupt. It took brainpower to keep things under control—release would only complicate an already overcomplicated, overtaxed situation. Rain and wind and a day on the road were one thing—an explosive outburst of mutation, entirely another.
But, that didn't really matter—flesh between her knuckles still burned, ached. Kicked like a mule, permanent reminders of who she was. Is. Where she had come from, where this all started—whom she had lost. Suffocating, she could feel her skin taut, could feel the tip of bone kissing at her skin, waiting to strike the air with blood and pain and white-hot fury. Bone starving for air, clawing desperately to be seen. Felt. Used. It had been…..heck, it had been what? Four days?
Six. Six days since she'd sent that cougar through the barbed fence on the back fifty.
Six days since her new hire promptly rendered his notice, eyeballing her with an expression two parts horror, two parts awe. As if staring into the face of a god. A sweet cocktail of pain and pleasure had skyrocketed her adrenaline, pulse little more than an off-the-rails locomotive, unable to be stopped. Heart rattling behind her ribs in a way only the alive knew. She'd eyeballed the carcass of the predator for all of a few seconds, bones gliding back into her body with a guttural squelch before turning to her crew—they knew, of course. Well, most of them knew.
Nobody had briefed—what was his name. Vince, maybe. Yeah, Vince.
Maybe it was his first encounter with mutation. Maybe he'd only ever heard the stories—no, rumors. Because that's all that they were, rumors. She couldn't credit them with stories, because stories were found in comic strips and published pieces. Shakespeare and Poe. They were the lightbulb of the well-intended. Stories implied ethos, and ethos implied the world would actually give a damn and do as God intended—care, grow beyond themselves.
Ghosted to a white she didn't think possible while still functional, the boy had all but sprouted wings to fly back to the main house—that she could've believed, seeing the things she'd survived. He would've run back to the house had she not convinced him to ride with Cal and the others. Tossed the keys over from her pocket like they were nothing, because in situations like this, they were.
Promised to catch them at dinner, she'd stuffed her hands into her pockets before the slits could heal, could feel her skin stitching back together in the dark damp of her denim jacket—cells converging, anatomy correcting at a cellular level. Told the kid that if after the ride, following Cal's explanation, he still wanted to go, she'd gladly pay him his wages and drive him to town.
With a hesitant nod and a shaking hand, he'd backed away from her slowly. Looking agog and unlike anything she'd never not seen. His gaze never once broke contact with hands heavy in her pockets, the blood of the animal on her clothes like something from the Exorcist merely an afterthought after what he'd just witnessed.
She'd made the hike back to the house in the fading colors of night alone, aching and tired.
Six days ago had been nine weeks too long, and her body knew it.
Pearls before swine.
Shaking her shoulders a little to null the numb ache in her muscles, her tongue skated across the top of her back molars. She flexed her fingers once, switched hands on the wheel. Shook out the one low beside the left side of her seat, hoping Cal wouldn't notice—but Cal always noticed. Even from across the bench seat she could see him side-eyeing, calculating. Watching her. After so many years together, he still marveled at her with a childlike look of wonder.
The words may as well have been marbles rattling against his teeth— loud, clear.
"You sure you're—" Always putting himself in her personal business, where he didn't belong.
"I'm fine, Alejandro," she hissed, addressing him by first name. Alejandro Caliente, her longest—well, still living—friend. A Godsend in the dead of winter with ranch expertise unlike anything she'd ever seen—sometimes she joked that his mutation was reading animals and stacking hay. "Sometimes the weather irritates things." Things. Because that's all she was—a thing.
A thing existing among other things. Barely human, barely mutant. A fine specimen of what not to be.
"Oh." Oh. He sounded like a surprised toddler. Taking a drag on his cigarette, he waved it over the space between them, inferno end blazing with heat. "Just makin' sure," he dared to smile at her, almost suavely. Even though there wasn't a single thing in any universe suave about Alejandro Caliente, "wanna make it to payday, you know?"
She appreciated the attempt at levity, the change of pace. He didn't have to explain—it was written in the quicksilver of his tipped lips. He'd only been keening over that redheaded tart in Laughlin for months.
She snorted. "Tomorrow isn't promised, Cal,"
"Better odds with you around, I figure."
His look to her hand on the wheel sent a stone slingshotting the length of her spine.
Choosing not to weigh the observation with notice, Mare Howlett leaned forward over the steering wheel to swipe fingers through the haze. Back and forth, until a barely visible patch allowed her little to no improved vantage of the road. Beams from the headlights did little to cut through the torrential rain, but she edged the truck a little harder. Needling bobbing up a few ticks on the dash, she adjusted cruise control and checked her side mirror. Slight swaying of the trailer told her the horses noticed, driving rain smacking the glass in fat, thick drops.
Laughlin's exit was haloed in city lights as they roared up the off-ramp, transmission gears dropping to compensate for the weight on the incline with such a throaty growl that it made her heart skip. Edging to make a right, her foot fed diesel to the rig—-a tidal wave of water roared up to smash over the front of the pickup, the blaring horn of an oncoming car screaming at her in alarm. Jerking the wheel, her tires kissed wake-ups on the shoulder. Sudden correction jostled the trailer behind them, making her jump.
Foot slapping hard against the brake, her belt caught her around the shoulders and snapped her back against the seat. Pounding blood in her ears did little to cancel the hiss of the trailer's brakes, the rock of scared livestock rattling against a fiberglass trailer. Two wheels of the shoulder, the trailer careened under the weight of horses, their cries ringing like hot brass in her ears as the world stabilized, wipers thudding hard on the windshield as they fought rain. Back forth back forth back forth back—
Cal was stomping his dropped cigarette out on the floor with the heel of his boot when her hands flew to her belt, popped it, and snapped at the latch of the door. Barreling out, no sooner did her boots hit pavement and she was drenched in rain, all the way to the skin. Fingers white as they curled against the open door, she batted it closed as Cal slipped out the passenger's side.
"Check the horses—now!"
Surprised she was able to see his return nod through the rain pouring off the brim of his stetson, she hustled to the back of the pickup and squatted low beneath the gooseneck's arm, to check the ball. A peek over the tailgate revealed the bed of the truck filling with rain, ball and chains still securely in place. Navigating to the tire, she hoisted herself into the bed, checked the chain and security latch. Wiping rain from her upper lip, she stood to jump out of the bed.
Swinging over the box, she jumped back when a shrill call erupted from inside the trailer—she knew it instantly. Fear. Deep, instinct-churning terror that chilled her blood. Spun her around on her heel, all but launched her at the trailer. Thunderous bucking against the fiberglass of the unit, the trailer rocked back and forth enough to rattle the rig. Mare's heart galloped in the base of her chest—for a second she half expected it to rip her spine out from between her shoulders.
She trailed her fingers along the rivets of the trailer, cold and slick with rain as she hopped up on the step to begin dropping windows for a look inside. Her fingers were chilled, flaming red with the driving spring rain, breeze biting at her skin like wolves beneath her completely saturated shirt and coat. Only imagining what Cal must've been experiencing, she poked her inside the first drop window, willing back the tears of concern brimming behind her lashes.
Pulling hard at the strap steadying his head in place over a now-empty bag of hay, the stallion was all but sat back on the separating wall. Eyes wide with horrified, age-old fear, if he wasn't strapped, his nose would be brushing the ceiling of the trailer. Trembling with rage, terror, uncertainty, his flesh was completely raised in a thin foam, sweat riveting down his legs like small rivers seeking absolution. Trembling violently, rage was tangible in the small space, already overwrought with heat and sweat and the stench of fear. Separated from the mare trailing with him was a small mercy—he surely would've trampled her had he the room to negotiate.
"No, no," she hushed into the trailer, ignoring the snap of chill that kissed beneath her collar, stinging her flesh which, ironically, felt like it was on fire. "Easy there, sweetheart—you're ok. We're almost home," Slipping a steadying hand through the drop window to press against the stallion's hot flesh, he flinched instantly—eyes snapped to her like his life depended on it. And in a way, it did—in this moment, and the next. "We'll get you some rest and some sweet feed, yeah? Tide you over 'til we make home, darlin'?" Snorting out a sharp breath of relief, his hoof knocked against the padded floor, triggered by her dulcet tones.
She chuckled. "Yeah, don't you worry, sweet boy—I got ya. Mama will make sure you're safe, don't you worry about a thing." Because that's what she does—what she'd always done, since…since her mutation. Since she'd stepped into this world. This new name, this new purpose. A grandiose purpose far bigger than any of them, wider than the stars. Higher than the sun. And she'd continued to do it, just in different ways, since—
—Logan. You taught me to fight for the good in people, even if you didn't always see it—
"Boss!"
Cal flung around the back of the trailer, body illuminated in ruby tail lights for all of a few seconds as he rushed up to her right side. Dripping wet, his cheeks were raised with scarlet, lips almost blue from the dropping evening temperature. Even an arm's length away, Mare could see he was freezing—she could've heard his teeth chattering if she'd been graced with heightened hearing abilities.
Sucking in air rapidly, he glanced from her to the stallion as she stepped off the ramp and swung the drop door back into place, checking the latch with a sharp fist to the lock. "Everything's ok on the other side," he looked from her hands to her, thumb over his shoulder. "Don't think we're stuck, none—should be able to make it at least to a rest stop."
Nodding, she signaled him back to the cab. "We'll stop at Riz's, get us out of this mess and get some feed in those bellies," rapping her knuckles against the trailer, "They need a few hours off the road, and I could use a drink," Cal jogged around the front of the pickup, slipped up into the cab, and tipped off his stetson—water fell to the floorboards at his feet in almost hurricane levels of volume.
She shook her head, pulling the diesel back into drive. "If we're lucky, we'll miss the rush," Cal checked the clock on the dash. "Fuckin' hell—can't believe it's still comin' down this hard." Shaking his head, he snapped his belt back into place before reaching into his breast pocket for a smoke—paused only when the saturated packing folded beneath his fingers.
"Those things'll kill ya, you know," her nose scrunched up into a small grin. Leaning over the seat, she plucked them from his hand and tossed them to the dash, against the warm defrost. "Always frickin' hated cigarettes. If you're gonna smoke, smoke a cigar—at least that's dignified."
"Dignified?" He snorted. "Didn't take you for the type to think any kind of sin was dignified, Mrs. H,"
Flicking the turn signal, "Sin never is dignified, Cal—wouldn't have a need for God otherwise. But there's something to be said for a moment of weakness," shifting in her seat to check over her shoulder for traffic, her fingers drummed the steering wheel, bones absolutely raging just beneath the surface.
"We can't help what we do in our weakest moments, Alejandro—we are, after all, only human."