Page 7 of Flock Around and Find Out (Flocking It Up #3)

The clock struck seven-forty as I climbed into Ruben’s truck. I wasn’t sure if it was the early morning or the conversation we’d had the night before, but he didn’t balk at the lateness.

Instead, he tapped the lid of a to-go cup. “Mocha.”

“Why, thank you.” I picked up the cup and took my first sip, not bothering to hide my moan and the decedent chocolate taste, the way it warmed my mouth, my throat, my stomach. There was something about sugar and heat that just soothed any complaints a person had.

And my biggest one at the moment was the whole before eight in the morning thing.

“None for you?” I asked when I noted his empty cup holder.

“I had a cup when I first woke around five this morning. I don’t like to have too much caffeine.”

“Does it affect Justices?” I gave him a side-eye, curious. They could hold this alcohol and didn’t seem to gain weight no matter what they ate—nor lose weight if starved. Honestly, it seemed as though no laws of physics bothered them in the least.

“It makes me anxious,” he admitted in a quiet, sullen tone. “I don’t like to drink more than a cup because I end up feeling unsettled.”

“ You, anxious?” I couldn’t quite believe that.

Ruben was unfailingly solid. Even when everything went to shit around him, his heart rate didn’t seem to raise in response. Instead, he simply went about the steps to resolve the problem with little to no emotion.

Suddenly, I wanted to see him jittery. I could almost picture him vibrating around, trying to fix things, talking fast.

“Whatever you’re picturing—stop. I’m sure it isn’t all that flattering given the way you’re smiling.” Even as he said that, I swore I saw his lips curl.

I knew he didn’t want to admit to being amused by me, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t.

“There are also pain relievers in the glove box, if you need them.”

“Why would I?”

“You had a few of those drinks last night.”

I blew out a sharp, dismissive breath between my lips. “ Puhlease . Like I’d get a hangover from that. Those were barely a pre-game.”

“You were slurring your words by the time I left.” He paused, then added, “I thought about staying to see if you needed a ride home, but your mother assured me it was handled.”

Was he asking if anyone else had driven me back?

I had to admit, while I wasn’t usually a fan of jealousy, a little of it looked good on him. “I slept at my mom’s. She drove me back home around six this morning.”

“And yet you were still forty minutes behind schedule?”

“I had to make her coffee when she got here, then shower after she left. It takes a while, okay?”

He huffed. “Well, settle in. The drive will take us at least six hours, then we will see how long it takes to locate the book.”

I did rough math in my head. “What, are we going to spend all night driving back?”

“We could, but I had your deliveries for today and tomorrow rerouted to other couriers, so we don’t need to. If we want, we can spend the night somewhere along the way.”

“From anyone else, I’d think that was a cheesy pickup scheme.”

“Do you think I wouldn’t attempt to pick you up?”

“No, I just think you’d be more upfront about it. Instead of, ‘oops, I ran out of gas and it’s cold out, hurry and climb in my lap to keep my penis warm,’ you’re more the type to just tell me you want me to take my clothes off.”

“You make me sound rather terrible and unromantic.”

“Not really. See, I don’t get romance. That stuff is all weird and confusing to me. I’d much prefer directness. I’d rather people just tell me what they want. Life is so much easier that way, isn’t it?”

“Well then, rest assured I will simply tell you in the future.”

Weren’t those words a nice little promise? I shifted in my seat at the strange tension that sprang up between us, the way it made me wonder if he was serious, if he though there was something more between us. It was a nice idea, right?

And given the way he’d kissed me before, he saw me in that way, too. Especially after the comments he’d made at the party.

However, it was easy to think that and different to address it.

The thought of something more with him was the kind of thing that was best safely relegated to fantasies and badly written porn—not reality. In reality, he was my boss, and also a Justice.

Did Justices have sex?

I thought about the ones I knew, and the idea sent an unpleasant shudder through me. They seemed about as passionate as old wet dog food. I couldn’t picture them getting all hot and sweaty with someone.

Though, a momentary flash of Ruben proved my brain was just fine thinking about him in that way. It didn’t mind it one bit.

I thought about his broad frame, that intense expression, all directed right on me. He was too much, but what if he put all that drive to pleasing me?

Well, I could think of a lot worse ways to spend an evening.

He let out a soft groan, one so quiet I almost wondered if I’d imagined it. When I turned to look at him, he wasn’t staring at me, his gaze locked on the road. To anyone else, he probably appeared entirely focused on driving, on the path ahead, but I knew better.

A twitch of his upper lip, the way he gripped the steering wheel just a bit too tight, the slight tremble in his arm, it all said something had gotten to him.

Justices had excellent senses, after all. Could he have been able to tell what I was thinking? Or at least guess it based on my reaction?

I pressed my thighs together to ignore the wetness there, between my legs, while repeating to myself that I was at work, for fuck’s sake.

This was going to be one long-ass drive…

* * * *

We went to a very questionable drive-through to grab breakfast sandwiches. Still, I’d eaten at far shadier places through my life. When a person didn’t have much money—which for the vast majority of my life I hadn’t—they get used to eating whatever it was they could get.

For lunch, we actually stopped at a diner, the place quaint and small and in a little enough town that we got a few weird looks from being there and not local. Still, it was tasty.

Through it all, the conversation flowed with the smoothness of sandpaper. Ruben’s every answer seemed to give as little information as possible, like he’d cultivated that skill.

Not like Kelvin, who would just lie, or Galen, who would simply refuse to answer.

Instead, Ruben liked to answer in as short a way as he could.

I had asked him about his hobbies and he said, “My job leaves me with little time for hobbies.”

That didn’t say anything! Little was still some, and I doubted he had absolutely none.

The worse part about it was that even with all those almost answers, I still wasn’t sure if he did that to everyone or was it a just me thing?. Was it just a game to him? Was he so used to responding to people that way that he didn’t know how annoying it was?

Maybe he was out of practice.

Whatever the reason, by the time we pulled into the driveway of a small house up a long, twisted path in the forest, I was so ready to be out of the confined quarters of a car with him. I deserved a small break from this torture.

I lifted my arms above my head and stretched to loosen my bunched muscles from the long drive as I looked around.

The trees were tall, breaking up the skyline, so all I could see were trees and the sinking sun above us. Birds squawked, the fluttering of their wings loud in the quiet, as though we’d personally offended them by intruding.

Porter would love this place.

I shook the thought away. I didn’t need to think about him, especially not here, not when I was busy with other things.

“No guards?” I asked.

“It’s protected well by Justice skills. No one but a Justice can enter. Anyone else would be repelled immediately.”

“By what?” Just as the last word escaped me, I moved closer to the door and dread hit me, so strong it nearly made my knees buckle. It was thick and choking, threatening to collapse my lungs with its intensity.

It felt like the fear of suddenly being shoved from an airplane, where I gripped the edge holding on, clawing desperately for a way to survive.

It drove me back one step, then another, lessening as I did so. My brain screamed to get away from it, to escape no matter what it took.

Arms wrapped around me, tugging me forward, toward more of that. I fought, blinded by anything but the need to get the fuck away from this place.

How could Ruben not feel it? Not understand the danger we were in?

He pressed his palm against the door of the house and it swung open. No matter how much I struggled, wiggling in his grasp, clawing at his arms to escape, he didn’t loosen his grip. It was steel against me, impossible to dislodge.

The fear crystalized in my mind.

Ruben is going to die. In my head, I saw a million ways it could happen, that if we went forward, if we didn’t turn back, something was going to attack. It would run him through, it would tear out his throat, it would take his head. A million different ways it could happen played across my eyelids all at once, until I shook and sobbed and struggled to draw air into my lungs.

We crossed the threshold and that overwhelming terror disappeared all at once. It shed like water from me, falling to the ground, shaken off by the movement.

My brain worked again, stuttering forward, and I peered around, wondering what I had just been so afraid of…

“Sorry,” he offered. “I knew what the defense was, but I didn’t think it would affect you so badly.”

“Could have warned a girl.” My voice came out thin and less confident than I would have liked.

“Usually it causes anxiety, but not that much. It locks onto a deep-seated fear, something that rests at your core, and exploits that. So people with more trauma, or more deeply rooted ones, feel it worse.” He paused, then added, “What was yours?”

I pressed my lips together, not about to admit that. It was far too humiliating to even think about showing that part of me to anyone.

Fuck that.

“Spiders,” I said, not even trying to make the lie stick. It was fine that he heard it for the lie it was, that he knew I was bullshitting him because I didn’t want to tell him the truth. I didn’t mind that one bit.

So long as he didn’t know the truth, nothing else mattered.

He tilted his head, then nodded. “Let’s go check the archives.”

I peered around the inside of the house and frowned. “You sure we’re in the right place?” The place was built like a little studio apartment, with a bed, a kitchenet, a seating and eating area. The items were nice, though rather dust covered, implying that it wasn’t used often.

“What did you expect? Rows after rows of books?”

“Something like that.”

He headed back toward a door that opened to reveal a closet. “Our defense measures work well, but there are always some who are immune. We set this up to appear like a rarely used summer cabin in case anyone finds their way in.” He reached in toward the back of the closet and pressed his palm against the wall. Much like the front door, it opened instantly to reveal a dark stairway.

“Creepy. Also, if you take your dates to scary murder rooms inside of closets, it’s no wonder you’re single.”

“Are you saying you won’t come?” He lifted an eyebrow as though calling my bluff.

“Well, no, I’m not saying that, but I’m not like normal girls. I’m a bit more twisted.”

“Which is why I brought you and not anyone else.” He headed down the stairs, into the darkness, as though our conversation had ended.

It sort of had, I guess.

I took a deep breath, not a huge fan of the dark, but what was I supposed to do but head that way? When I crossed the barrier, when I got down into the stairs rather than the closet, the door shut behind me.

It plunged everything into darkness, and I lost my footing for a moment.

A moment was all it took for me to tip forward. Great, I die on some freaky stairs.

The only benefit was that since they were stairs, I’d probably hit Ruben and take him down with me.

Except the bastard kept his balance, even when I struck him from behind, stopping my freefall.

A breath later, lights illuminated the space, soft and flickering as candles ignited along the walls, which I could now see were made of brick, appearing much older than the house had.

“Neat trick,” I muttered as I found my footing again.

A chill got to me, one that hadn’t been there before. Granted, in the mountains it had been cold, but not like this. This was a different chill, a deeper one. I wrapped my arms around myself. “What the hell is up with the weather?”

“We aren’t where we were anymore.”

“Um, what?”

He tapped his fingers against the bricks, making me recognize that, yeah, these appeared much older than the rest of the building, like they were made to connect with something entirely different. “The threshold of the stairs is a portal made to connect this place with that. This place is far older than we’ve been located there.”

“So where are we now?”

“Somewhere in Northern Canada.”

“Well, that explains the cold, I guess. You didn’t warn me, so I didn’t bring my passport.”

He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around me without saying a word. “Well, we’ll have to avoid any immigration officers, won’t we?”

I stopped as he turned around. “Was that a joke?”

He didn’t answer, instead continuing down the stairs.

“Wait, I’m serious. A joke, from you?”

The stairs went deeper than I would have expected, and by the end, by the time we reached the ground floor, my knees were complaining about the whole thing.

However, the sight of the massive space that could only be called a library astounded me. It had to be at least three stories high, with bookshelves that ran from floor to ceiling all along it and large ladders hooked in.

It made me want to have that princess moment where I rode the ladder across the space.

Except I was pretty sure if I broke Ruben’s precious archives, I’d be in trouble.

Bastard.

“So where did he say it was?” Ruben asked, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt.

It was freezing in here and he was getting less dressed? What the fuck was wrong with him?

Not that I minded the sight one bit. That could warm a girl up quite nicely on its own.

He turned to look at me, prompting me to recall his question.

“Yellow book, top shelf, left side, next to a book made of human skin that I shouldn’t touch.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much. We have a lot of yellow books and there is a left side to each of these rows and shelves.”

“Okay, but do you know where the book made of human skin is? Because it’s next to that one.” At his look, I groaned. “You really have so many made of human skin that even that doesn’t help? Great. Just fucking wonderful.”

He shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, few of these were made by Justices. We collected them, stored them here, but we didn’t craft them. They were made by humans and Spirits.”

“Humans? But they don’t have any magic…”

“That isn’t wholly true. Think about the tales of old witches.”

“But I figured those were some sort of Spirit, one that didn’t exist anymore.”

He shook his head. “Some people believe that, but most Justices don’t. We know that there are things that exist out there that appear to be human in nature but still retain certain qualities of Spirits, but none of the energy. Besides, if this realm has none of its own power, how do you think the Justices were made?”

That drew me short.

I hadn’t thought much about how Justices were created. I knew what they did, that they kept the peace, that they prevented war, that they were terrifyingly powerful—and shockingly boring. I hadn’t really considered who made them or what power had crafted them.

“So you’re telling me that humans—and Earth—have their own energy?”

“Of course. Think about it—why wouldn’t they? We just don’t often recognize it because it is the majority, because it is present in everything, including Spirits.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, or how I felt about it. Did that make me happy? I wasn’t human anymore, of course, but I still had more of an affinity for them than most of the other Spirits. Maybe it was because I’d never really vibed with the Spirits that I clung to those roots.

Instead of forcing me to talk about it, Ruben turned toward the first large shelf. “I think our only choice is to check the top left of first every shelf, then every bay within the shelf, since he wasn’t clear.”

I groaned at the sight of the ladder that just earlier had seemed like so much fun.

First the stairs, now the ladder.

What the fuck was today, cardio day?