A Trip to Paradyz

An Argument... or two.

There was no time for him to elaborate, or for Dakota to ask questions. Even as she began to open her mouth to speak, she could hear the low rumble of an engine in the distance. She and Ontri turned towards the end of the driveway and waited until the car… a banged up, red Jeep Cherokee from the nineties, most likely… came bouncing across the uneven driveway. The vehicle came to an abrupt stop, throwing a plume of rocks and dirt in the air. Before they had time to settle, the driver’s side door flew open and an unremarkable man of less than average height and a head full of curly brown hair rushed to the front of his Jeep. “Hawthorne! Hawthorne, I know you’re in there!”

Ontri and Dakota exchanged bewildered looks. Ontri obviously assumed Dakota would know who it was. He was wrong. “Don’t ask me.” She threw her hands up in defiance and dropped them almost as quickly when the front door to the beautifully carved wood cabin flew open.

She could see the disdain on Hawthorne’s face as he looked at the man. By the man’s intro, she knew it wasn’t a welcome visit, but she wasn’t prepared for all of the emotions that wafted off of Hawthorne so violently. “What the hell are you doing here, Mikel?”

“Trust me, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”

Ontri tapped Dakota’s arm lightly. She turned to him, still trying to listen, to see what was going on. He gestured with his head. Really? She really wanted to hear the drama. She looked back at Hawthorne as he told the man that he wasn’t welcome there.

“Yeah…” she backed up just to the edge of the trees. “Okay, so this… festival… what is it?”

“It’s a festival to celebrate a hearty harvest. This festival has been going on for thousands and thousands of years. It started on the Puris continent. Their planet was suffering. They had damaged it a lot and had been spending hundreds of years in order to revive the planet. The Purisliy-Mocs are extremely religious people. They believed in praying and blessing their crops. There were even some people that had given blood to their crops in the hope that their sacrifice would be enough. One year, the crops finally yielded enough that they could feed their people for the entire winter. It was the start of the new world there. Their chance to rebuild their planet. It’s a very important festival.”

Dakota was listening. She really was, but she couldn’t help but to attempt catching parts of Hawthorne’s conversation. It wasn’t enough to establish what they were talking about, except she had heard the name “Kalie” which she knew to be Hawthorne’s best friend and first and only girlfriend when he was younger. So this person was from Hawthorne’s  hometown?

“So, uh…” she glanced at the man named Mikel. “The Puris whatever people… they would be the ones to have this little girl? I mean, since it’s their festival?”

“Possibly. But the planet is large. About three times as large as Earth.”

“You expect me to believe anything you say?” Hawthorne spat out, getting closer to the man.

“Or even on Vol-Es. There are a lot of people there who worship Izobil…” Dakota needed to listen to Ontri. She really did… but there was also something very serious happening with her brother.

“I think…”

She stopped before the rest of the words came out to listen to the man Mikel. “They didn’t take my child, they took yours.”

Whoa…. What?!  Her brain couldn’t seem to grasp what she heard, and it looked like Zander and Hawthorne couldn’t, either. “Ontri, I think we need to meet up and talk more about this. Tomorrow? We can meet for breakfast at the café?”

She hadn’t even turned to him. “Did I just hear that right?”

“Which part? Me saying to meet at the café or Hawthorne having a child?”

“The child part,” Ontri whispered, “definitely the child part.” They paused and watched as Hawthorne seemed to digest that possible truth. “Who is this guy?”

Dakota swallowed, thinking of the possibilities. “I think it might be his older brother. They kind of hate each other.”

“I thought James was his older brother.”

“He has two older brothers and two older sisters.” The words were a whisper as they waited for his response.

“How does James feel about Mikel?” Dakota didn’t need to respond. From above them, a shadow stretched across the ground. They all looked up. Above them was a large, angry cooper’s hawk. He hovered for only a moment, not even long enough for everyone to register his presence before he turned his body toward the ground. His body morphed in the blink of an eye and very human, very naked, feet planted gracefully on the gravel driveway. There was no hesitation. The bird turned man plowed his fist into the side of Mikel’s face and loomed over him. “Well, I guess that answers my question.”

“Get in your car and get the f**k out of our town.” The gravelly, angry voice boomed through the air. James, still very much naked, stood face to face with his other brother.

“Nice to see you, too, brother.” Mike’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t insult me, asshole. I’m not your brother.”

Mike’s stare faltered and, for a tiny glimmer of a second, Dakota could see regret in his eyes. He masked it quickly with disdain and stood up straighter as he cupped his right cheek. “You were never denounced, James.”

“I was denounced the second you kicked Hawthorne out of the family.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem when you came home from war. Who nursed you back to health?”

James shoved Mike as a growl of anger slipped through his clenched teeth. “I stayed in that hellhole because the brother you turned your back on thought that being in a familiar place would be good for recovery. So don’t think for a second that I came back because I wanted anything to do-“

“Alright stop!” Hawthorne threw his hands up in the air. “Let’s not get into that. It’s just gonna force us to talk even more to this piece of crap.” Zander came around to the other side of Hawthorne and handed over a pair of pants and a shirt for James to wear. Zander, of all the people in the town, could conjure clothes as easily as most people can whistle. Hawthorne looked up at him. “Thanks babe.”

Zander quirked a lip and kissed Hawthorne lightly on the lips. Then he turned his gaze to Mike. “Behave yourself, little boy, or you’ll have a good handful of people here ready to throw down, and I don’t think you’d have much of a chance.” The expression on Zander’s face had everyone straightening with shock and fear.

Except Hawthorne. “How can I believe you about me having a child, Mike? When have you ever been honest with me over the last… what… fourteen years, give or take?”

“She’s already learned to change. Her favorite form is a white fox.” Dakota wasn’t sure why, but there was a significance in that statement. She swallowed hard, knowing that if Mike was telling the truth about that, then he was most likely telling the truth about other things, as well.

James turned away and pulled the pants on, then the shirt. After the shirt was settled, he looked up to meet her hard expression. It was obvious to Dakota the guilt he felt the instant he saw her. Memories of him confessing his love for her when he thought he was about to die. All that she went through to save his life. Then his ex-girlfriend showed up, and things changed. In one quick breath, he no longer wanted her. It hurt. He knew it, and he had done everything he could to avoid her over the last few weeks.

“Tell me more.” Hawthorne demanded through the silence.

“When you came home ten years ago. Remember that?”

“yeah, I do. You and your family wouldn’t let me see James. Tried to keep me from him. Kalie gave me a place to sleep at her Dad’s house.”

“And you two got drunk and had sex.”

“And the next day she tried to convince me that I would grow to love her if I gave her a chance. But I knew better, and she ended up marrying you, instead.”

“Because she was pregnant. With your child.” Mike ran his hands through his hair, expressing exhaustion that Dakota was sure he was faking. “You know how Elton is. I did it to save her ass, Thorn.”

“Don’t call me that. Only my siblings are allowed to call me that.”

“I’m still your sibling.”

“You lost that title the second you called me a disgusting cocksucker and told me that faggots weren’t welcome in your family.” There was a long silence before he continued. “Who do you think took her?”

Mike cleared his throat and looked down, “Um… Kalie got hooked on a fae potion. Diochuimhnich.”

“That’s gaelic for ‘forget’.” Zander folded his arms over his chest. “What does that have to do with her getting kidnapped?”

“She always got her fix from a vampire she met a few years back. He quit responding to her. Probably dead or something. So she ran off to San Francisco, to a club called ‘Dreamers’. It’s a vampire bar.”

“I know what it is, Mike. Did you know that was where she was going?” He nodded and Hawthorne curses under his breath. “Seriously? Why would you let her go there? That place is known for non-vampires disappearing!”

“Yeah, like I could control her. When have you ever known Kalie to do anything against her will?” Hawthorne bit his lip and closed his eyes to fight tears back. “Anyway… She and Scarlett vanished from home five days ago. I’ve called them both and neither one of them are responding. Scarlett always answers her phone, especially when Kalie is doped up.”

“What if she just left you? What if she was tired of the lies and ran off?” The words left Hawthorne’s lips but Dakota knew he didn’t believe them.

“And leave her other two children behind? I seriously doubt it. Besides, she didn’t drive off. She vanished. Her car was still at home, she took no clothes, no jewelry or anything worth money.”

“Except their phones, apparently.” James interjected.

“They must have had them when they were taken. Maybe the kidnappers didn’t check for phones.”

James and Mike continued to go back and forth for several minutes until James conceited enough to consider it a possible truth. “So you think the vampire she was working for kidnapped her?”

“Who else?”

James held his hand out in a gesture of disbelief. “Seriously? She was running off to a bar in San Francisco, doing work that you know nothing about for a vampire you’ve never met. You wanna really start calculating the possible suspects?”

Hawthorne groaned. “Either way, it’s the only lead. We’ll have to start there.”

Zander wrapped his arm around Hawthorne’s waist. “Excuse me, love… what do you mean ‘we’ll start there’?”

“I mean… we’re gonna have to take a trip to San Francisco.”

“So we’re assuming that this shithole is tellin’ the truth?”

“It’s all I can do at this point. Don’t worry, though. If I find out that he’s lying, I’ll drag him back here so James can take care of him.”

James turned to him. “I’m going with you.”

Hawthorne knew there would be a fight. Dakota could not just see it in his eyes, she could feel the emotional conflict that was welling up inside of him. “James, I want you to stay here. I want you to watch over Dakota. Please, I-“

“I’m a warrior, Hawthorne. You seriously want to leave me here to babysit?!” His voice was clipped and the bitterness in his voice made Dakota cringe.

But she also refused to let it show. She pulled up tight. “Or we can both go with you.”

“Dakota, we’re gonna be around vampires. I don’t know how deep into this they’ll be, and if they figure you out..”

“They’ve already figured me out. The know who I’m with, where I’m at. It’s only a matter of time before they try to come and get me. You think me being here is safer?”

“Yes. If you have James here.”

She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth at the idea of mentioning his name. “James… right. The guy who refuses to even talk to me? Yeah, thanks, but no.”

Hawthorne and James stared at each other, something that she knew meant they were having a private dialogue at that moment. “He’s been on special detail.”

“Is that special detail called Tarin?” The mention of his ex made him turn to look at her. He opened his mouth to speak, stopped, then opened to speak again. The last thing she needed was to hear his excuses. To hear him spew out lies to try and appease her. To ease the pain of his rejection. She huffed indignantly. “Don’t bother. I don’t need your excuses, alright?” She turned behind her and whispered, “the café at ten.” Ontri nodded solemnly as she turned and stormed into the cabin and slammed the door behind her.

Like hell am I gonna let that son-of-a-b***h anywhere near me.