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Story: The Elf Beside Himself

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked softly.

His hands were fisted in my sweater, and he was drawing in deep, almost desperate breaths against my chest.

“Taavi?”

“The news,” he rasped.

I turned to look at the TV, but it was a commercial for a local new and used car dealership. So I waited, cradling him against me.

When the commercial ended, the local blonde newscaster, a somber expression on her face, began talking.“Early this morning, police found the body of local school board member Janice Butcher. Ms. Butcher has been in the news recently as a result of some controversy over her position on the school board and the fact that she had transformed into a fox shifter following a bout with Arcanavirus seven years ago when she lived in Wausau. Police haven’t issued a statement regarding cause of death, but those who knew Ms. Butcher said that she has been upset by all the attention recently.”

Fuck. Fuck and double fuck.

“Val?” His voice was muffled by my sweater.

“Yeah, Tav?”

“They killed her, didn’t they?”

I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that. On the one hand, I absolutely shared his deep suspicion that poor Janet Butcher had probably been murdered, and, if she hadn’t, she’d been driven to do it herself. Unlike Gregory Crane and Tara Redsky, Janet Butcher looked like a white lady, with greying dark hair and grey-blue eyes, although I knew she was half Mamaceqtaw. Even if she had been killed, I wasn’t sure we could jump to the conclusion that she’d been targeted by the same people.

Suicide had been strongly implied by the newscaster’s line about being upset, but the story hadn’t actually revealed cause of death. A lot of news outlets wouldn’t explicitly identify suicides because when suicide was featured on the news, it tended to spur other suicides. So stating there was no given cause of death followed by a vague statement about being upset was about as close as the news could get without coming out and saying it.

“I don’t know,” I finally answered Taavi.

“I’m—” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“I know.” He was scared. I could feel the trembling in his body, the fear in the tightness of his fingers wrapped in the knit of my sweater. I wanted to promise to protect him, to keep him safe. And I would try. I’d fucking die trying, if that’s what it took. But I couldn’t actually guarantee it. So I didn’t say it.

“Val—” He paused, swallowed, then pushed back against me so that he could look me in the eye. “You have to stop this,” he rasped. “To stop them.”

I took a deep breath, let it out. I hadn’t been expecting that. I’d expected him to ask menotto get involved.Notto put myself or him at risk.

I really should have known better. Taavi is nothing if not selfless—he always puts other people before himself. Always.

He putsmebefore himself. Always.

I cupped his face in my hands. “I promise I’ll do everything I can.”

He put his hands over mine and nodded.

On impulse, I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his forehead. “I love you,” I whispered against the heat of his skin.

His hands pressed against mine. “Te amo, corazón.” I rested my cheek on his head, breathing in the spicy scent of his skin. Then his stomach gurgled.

I kissed his forehead again, then leaned back. “Hungry?”

He grimaced. “Yes, but also no.”

I got that. Anxiety and stress killed the appetite, but the body still needed food. “You should eat anyway,” I told him.

He snorted softly. “I’m not the one losing weight,” he pointed out.

“And I should also eat,” I agreed, then stood up and went to get the bags of Culver’s off the hotel desk.

We spread out the wrappers and containers so that we could share all the sides, and I picked at my salad while Taavi took a bite of his burger.

“This is… weirdly good,” he observed around a mouthful.