The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,99
orange and ochre stripes sliding down the flanks of the Wasatch Mountains. The canyon was darker, full of thick shadows that shifted when they went around corners and the steep rock walls closed behind them. Tean seemed to want to talk, so Jem buzzed down his window, and air whipped through the truck. It was cool and slightly humid, and it smelled like stone. Glassed under by two Xanax, Jem played with the door’s latch, wondering what Tean would do if he pushed it open.
Instead of turning south and heading toward Heber, Tean followed I-80 east a few more miles and then exited and turned north. The sun had dropped behind the mountains now, and a weak, crushed-red light flickered along the crests, brighter where a saddle opened the ridge, extinguished where a spur extended. Some of the land they passed was pasture, with barbed-wire fencing along the road, and some was hayfields with tender young stalks that were colorless in the night.
Tean slowed and turned, crossing a cattle guard and passing under a ranch sign that was suspended on two posts. It was too dark to read the name of the ranch, but the gate was open, and in the distance, a bonfire flickered among trees. Tean followed the drive until they reached the cars parked on the shoulder, and then he guided the Ford off the gravel and onto the grass. Jem was surprised to realize they hadn’t spoken during the drive.
“Are we looking for anything in particular?” Jem asked.
“I don’t know. Someone who shouldn’t be here. Someone who’s not acting normally.”
“What’s normal at a celebration of life for an ecoterrorist?”
“I don’t know,” Tean said again.
Jem opened the door and dropped out of the truck. Gravel crunched underfoot as he headed toward the fire, and behind him, the Ford’s door opened and shut, and steps moved after him. The breeze carried the smell of woodsmoke, and someone was blasting music: what sounded like bluegrass, with a fiddle calling out wildly. Even over the volume of the music, Jem could hear people shouting and laughing. The dark outline of a house was off to the right, and the party was off to the left. Jem followed the drive past the house and toward the party.
When he got closer, he could see people—just shadows against the flames—dancing, some of them tangled up in each other, some of them kissing, almost all of them holding cups. Beer kegs made a line at the edge of the party, and a card table held red plastic cups and a mason jar stuffed with cash. Jem headed straight for the beer. A girl in a leather skirt and a red bikini top was standing there, swaying to the music, sipping from a plastic cup. She seemed impervious to the chill. As Jem got closer, she caught his eye, smiled, and did a little more swaying.
Jem filled two cups from the keg; Tean put some cash in the mason jar, which made Jem smile even under those glassy bricks of Xanax stacked on top of his brain. The girl must have thought it was for her. With one hand, she tugged on her top, and with the other, she waved the cup in Jem’s direction. She smiled again.
“If you try to drink that,” Tean said, “I’m going to take it away from you. I don’t know what you’re on, and I’m not going to let you mix it.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t. You’re freaking me out, and I don’t want to hear any more lies.”
The blaze of the bonfire flickered and twisted. The smell of woodsmoke mixed with the cool air off the mountains, the pine, the wet grass of the trampled field.
“I’m just holding it,” Jem said, passing the second cup to Tean. “To blend in.”
“Great. So long as we’re on the same page.” Then Tean put his head back and chugged the beer. He made a face when he pulled the cup away, but he shoved it into Jem’s hand without missing a beat and took the full one. “Now you’re blending in.”
“Hey,” the girl called, swishing her hips.
Tean didn’t exactly growl, but he did bare his teeth a little, and he grabbed Jem’s arm and pulled it across his shoulders.
“What in the world is going on with you?” Jem asked, but he liked the feel of those thin shoulders, he liked the way Tean fit against his body.
“I’m cold.”
Jem opened his mouth.
“Not tonight,” Tean snapped.
“Ok,” Jem said. “You’re cold. We’ll go with that.”