Page 24

CASPIAN

This Dan guy isn’t one of my crew. Normally, I’d resent him taking charge like this, but it’s safer for Julia on this side of the door, and Tonya’s leaning into him as if she trusts him. I like her. He’s getting the benefit of the doubt for now.

He turns on his phone’s flashlight and shines it down a wooden flight of stairs. “This is the delivery entrance from the service road. It kept the trucks from trampling the property.”

“Tonya,” Julia says, “are you okay?”

Dan smiles. “She was beating the shit out of the Secretary of the Interior.”

“I have no idea who that is and I didn’t ask you.”

“He fine.” Tonya pats Dan’s shoulder.

“Let’s go,” Mr. Fine says, helping Tonya down the stairs.

Julia follows, but not silently. I can feel the panic coming off her.

“Why is he here?” Julia asks.

“I was worried about you.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“He worried about us.” Tonya isn’t slurring, but her words are slow.

“How’d he get in?”

“You’re not asking me.” Dan looks up at us from the bottom of the stairs. “But I’m answering.” He flashes the light around an unfinished space with crates lined against the walls. “They didn’t bother to get new cylinders for the service entrances.” He turns to Tonya. “You okay?”

“Just floppy.”

“Say more,” Julia demands of Dan as he half-carries Tonya in the dark. She has no choice but to follow deep into the basement.

“I told you my family owned a house up here.”

“You didn’t say it was this one.”

“Why would I?” Dan stops at a door with a deadbolt. “I was trying to fuck you, not make you hate me for selling to these assholes.” He takes out a ring of keys and fingers through them. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

He was trying to fuck her. It’s confirmation of what I already knew, but it didn’t happen, so I’m not mad about it. I was a man just a few hours ago, and I know what it’s like to have a body that can do things. Desire a woman. Know her. Protect her.

He didn’t have to risk himself to sneak into his old house, but he did. He used his body in service of Julia. I can’t fault him for that.

Dan opens the door to another flight of stairs.

I can feel that Julia trusts him.

Because of that, and because I still have my own mind, I trust him too.

But not to touch her.

If he does fuck her though? I’m going to have to kill him. She has a toolbox full of men she can fuck. My flathead wouldn’t even get half a degree warmer if she decided to give Giancarlo or Enzo or Tony a try.

But any other man? God help them if I’m ever returned to my body.

Down the dark tunnel, they make a plan to go to the exit nearest the golf carts, steal one, and take one of Dan’s boats back to the mainland. With their whispers in the background, I plan how I’ll explain to Julia that I killed him.

She won’t be sympathetic. She likes him.

When we’re out of the tunnels, and Julia takes me out to start the old cart, I feel no pride in my usefulness.

“Sorry to say, he was why you changed back,” my demon says.

It’s a spider again. It crawled out from the ignition socket when Julia jammed me inside it.

The half-busted cart is speeding down to the dock toward Dan’s boats.

“She forgot about you for a moment, so you became untethered again. The curse is stronger than any one of you, but not stronger than her.”

It’s not just that I’m on the toolbelt. I’m with her.

When she pukes over the side of Dan’s boat, I’m there. When we’re back on the mainland, she takes off the belt but keeps me in her pocket.

She takes me into the shower and washes me. She places me on the night table while she gets dressed. Then in what feels like a miracle, she sits on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap and talks right to me.

“So, I’m sorry about the bathroom.” She lowers her eyes. I have no idea what she’s talking about. “You didn’t consent. That’s really important to me.”

Consent? Is she talking about the bathroom on Catalina, when she was trying to get me to turn back into a man? She doesn’t need to apologize for that.

“I never want to use someone without consent. I don’t know how to make it up to you.” She pauses as if waiting for a response.

But I can’t tell her she had my consent. If I had a mouth, I would have consented ten times over, with my whole chest. I wanted her to use me. I am at her service, always.

“And so now I don’t know what to do,” she says. “I’m pretty sure you want to be a man again, but you can’t tell me, and if I’m going to try, I have to do it without consent. And if you don’t want to be a man, I don’t know how to change you back.”

I do. I know how. All she has to do is forget me, which would be a disaster.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Yeah?” Julia calls.

“It’s me,” Tonya says.

Julia gets up and lets Tonya in, closing the door behind her. Tonya looks at me, set on the night table instead of in the tool shed.

“Are you all right?” Julia asks.

“Really fucking drowsy. I don’t even remember doing what Dan said I was doing. Beating the Secretary of the Interior with a lamp?” She shakes her head as if trying to get the sleep off it. “I mean, come on.”

“I believe it.” Julia glances at me. “I believe a lot of things that surprise me.”

Tonya catches her partner’s glance. “I didn’t tell Dan about Caspian.”

“Thanks.”

“But we do have the problem of the entire Duke family.” She hands Julia her phone. “They’re tweeting out the stitches in his head.”

“Fuck.” She scrolls and reads. “He’s full of shit. I wasn’t trying to rob him.”

“Yeah, well.” Tonya takes her phone and goes back toward the door. “We gotta figure out what to do. They’re nasty people.”

“I’m sorry I missed. For this trouble, I shoulda put his eye on a stick.”

Julia leans against the counter and spins me on her thumb. Dan and Tonya are sitting at the breakfast nook, eating Saltines and pistachios. Tonya’s holding her head up with one hand as if preventing it from falling on the table.

“So the question is, do we go public with the truth or disappear?” Dan cracks open a can of Arizona Iced Tea and puts it in front of Tonya.

“No, the question is when you’re going back to your life.” Julia tries to spin me in the other direction, which doesn’t work. She catches me before I fall. “This is between me and my business partner. It isn’t your problem.”

“It sure is,” he says. “Look, it’s just a matter of time before they find out I helped you. I saw too much. I know Ton was roofied. Didn’t stop her from being a total badass.”

“Which is going to play as proof I wasn’t drugged at all,” Tonya says.

“Look, I’m not getting into the weeds with you.

You’re a straight white man. You make up some story about not knowing we were terrorists or whatever and you’re fine.

You’re not on the hook for anything that happened tonight, and you know it. ”

“Well, I’m staying with you.”

“Really?” Julia asks.

“I’ll fuck off if you want me to.”

“Would you really?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I’m waiting to see if a real life drops in my lap.”

“Don’t you have a business to run?” Tonya asks.

“Don’t you?” he replies.

“Not if the Dukes want to destroy it. And they will. Like that.” She snaps her fingers. “Just because they can.”

Dan nods. “My sister can handle the shop. She’s been trying to get rid of me for years.”

There’s a silence I recognize between the two women. They’re talking without talking.

Julia holds me tight in her fist and says, “I say we run.”

“Honestly I’m scared shitless of those assholes.” Dan breaks a cracker but doesn’t eat it. “If you can use a guy, I’ll come. I mean it.”

“We already have a guy.” Julia walks toward her room.

“I have a boat.”

Silence. I have no idea what they’re thinking at this point. It may have something to do with the fact that I don’t have a brain. That’s more self-aware than I’ve been in years.

Julia speaks first. “Whether or not you come with us is up to Tonya. I’m going to my room.”

She takes me with her.