2. ROSES THORNS

ROSE'S THORNS

“ C an I have one? C’mon, let me have just one ! There’s over a dozen in there,” Caden begged.

“No, you may not have just one or any at all for that matter.” Rose carefully tucked the checkerboard napkin around the tomatoes in the basket. It looked like she was putting little children to sleep. Considering how protective she was about these stupid tomatoes, Caden was beginning to think they were her children. She had pollinated them after all. “These are for your mother, Caden.”

Caden tried to reach for the basket over the counter. They were at Wally’s and Rose was minding the register as Landry was at home with her brothers after the bombing.

“She’s bound to cut a few up and put them out on the table tonight!” Caden argued as Rose held the basket just out of reach as if teasing him. “So what’s the harm in letting me have one measly tomato now?”

She picked up the basket and tucked it underneath the cash register. “If your mother wishes to share these with you at dinner that’s one thing, but this is her gift and taking any of the tomatoes now is stealing.”

Caden let out a sound between a “guh” and a “gah” followed by a “noooooooo”. Rose ignored him and arranged the flowers she’d also brought for his mother instead. They were in a vase with water to keep them fresh until they headed back to his house for dinner.

“You’re a mean, mean person, Rose,” Caden said with a sigh.

“Yes, I am. Now go dust something,” she said.

“I’ve dusted everything. Twice ,” he said and leaned his back against the counter.

The shop was slow. After the bombing last night, a lot of people were staying out of public spaces. There had been two people that had come in. They hadn’t even bought anything. Just looked around quickly and--just as quickly--exited the shop. The bright sunny skies of the past few days had been obscured by clouds. The gloomy clouds had just added to his boredom.

His parents had almost not let him go to work but since Landry was staying home with her brothers and Rose was new at the shop, he told them he couldn’t leave her and Wally alone. Not that they would have needed the help with the lack of customers.

His parents hadn’t let Tilly come--despite her desire to be suction-cupped to his side--because as they rightly pointed out, she was not bomb-proof. He couldn’t exactly say that no one would bomb Wally’s as the first bomb had been right outside the door. So he had gone in alone and the day had been slow as molasses. And then Caden’s stomach seemed to focus on Rose’s homegrown tomatoes to the exclusion of everything else so that had just added to the torture.

Iolaire licked its lips as it too thought of tomatoes and how juicy they must be and… Caden shook himself. His stomach was already growling as if eating itself.

“What is your mom making for dinner?” Rose asked tentatively.

Caden noticed that whenever Rose spoke of his mother, she did so with this hesitancy . If he turned, she would be biting her lower lip and swinging her body back and forth a lot like Tilly did when she was to meet some childhood hero. He’d thought to tease her about it earlier, but then realized her mom had rejected her and this hesitancy was likely about that.

“I think she said prime rib,” he started to tick off the recipes on his fingers.

“Oh,” a breathy sigh.

“Mashed potatoes with cheddar and loads of butter,” he continued, a second finger flicking up.

“That’s… butter .” She sounded like she was drooling.

“There will also be brussel sprouts with crispy bacon.” He ticked off a third finger.

“Bacon.” There was definitely a sob in her voice now.

“Oh, and she’ll make her homemade rolls that are crusty on the outside and fluffy on the inside. They will make great sandwich rolls for leftovers with spicy mustard and sharp cheddar tomorrow,” he waxed poetic. “I’ll bring us in a bunch for lunch.”

He heard a thump and turned around. Rose was laying her forehead on the counter. He was sure she was drooling now. He grinned.

“My mom’s a great cook. That’s how I know she’ll love your tomatoes,” he told her.

She looked up at him through her black and yellow dyed hair. He could see one eye that gazed up at him with almost longing.

“Do you really think that tomatoes and flowers are okay? Marban wanted me to bring wine, but I haven’t made enough money to buy a decent bottle yet, and it wouldn’t come from me if he bought it. It’s my gift to her. Not Marban’s.”

Her jaw set and her lips pressed into a white line as she said the old Swarm Shifter’s name. Caden felt just as comfortable , which was to say totally uncomfortable, about him. When would Marban ask Caden to pay him back for the favor of getting him out of the Below? And what would Marban ask him? Undoubtedly, something he could not or would not give. But Caden would not think of that for now.

He shook himself and asked, “Are you kidding? My mom will love those tomatoes and the flowers more than anything!” He smiled down at her. “Just be yourself. My parents are a little weird, but they are really nice.”

Rose lifted her head from the counter. “You’re worried about me liking them ?”

“Uh, yeah, because my mom can be pretty intense with her Faith. My dad is really, really into the law right now and Shifters’ rights so he’s bound to be talking your ear off about that and–”

“Caden.” Rose was shaking her head, laughing, but not mirthfully, more like she was sad. “Caden… your parents sound great . Like parents . Who love you very much.”

“Yeah, and they’re going to love you, too, Rose,” he assured her.

She dropped her eyes from his. “Well, before I joined with my Spirit, parents used to like me.”

“Really?” Caden waggled his eyebrows at her. “Good girl, Rose? I’m trying to imagine it.”

She immediately started worrying at her lower lip and her voice was crisp, “Yeah, totally unbelievable, right?”

“Rose, Rose, I was teasing!” He quickly assured her. “I didn’t mean–”

“No, of course, you didn’t. But it’s true .” Her hands were facing palms down on the counter. “I had this best friend named Jack before I was a Shifter. I was constantly over at his house. In the Below, no one really has much, but that almost makes people more generous sometimes. What I have is yours and what you have is mine. And together we have enough for dinner.”

Caden smiled, because that sounded like a nice thing in some ways. But it hurt to hear that Rose might not have had enough to eat in the past. Her expression grew distant as she clearly remembered past happiness.

“It was like I had two moms. My own and Jack’s. And then… and then I became a Swarm Shifter,” she said and her lower lip trembled just a little. “After it happened, before I even went to my parents, I went to see Jack.”

“Is Jack still around?” Caden wondered if they were still friends, though guessing likely not if Jack was human.

She shook her head and gave him a rather watery laugh. “Oh, Caden, you still think so much like a human sometimes! Just because I look around your age doesn’t mean I am.”

“How–how old are you?” He blinked.

“That is not polite to ask! Not even of a Shifter!” She wagged a finger at him, but then grew serious. “Jack… Jack died last year.”

“Oh, I’m so–”

“Of old age,” she cut him off.

He was blinking some more. “That means…”

“He lived to see some of his great-grandchildren born. He had a full–if not spectacular–life. An ordinary life with a wife and kids and a dog and two cats,” she explained, and was smiling. She’d kept up on her best friend’s life.

“So that means your family…” He stopped, suddenly unable to contemplate what must have happened to her family if so much time had passed.

“They’re gone.” She nodded, interpreting his unasked words. “I was their only child and they didn’t have any siblings so I’m all that’s left.”

Caden’s mouth opened and closed. Iolaire flapped its wings in distress.

But then she waved a hand through the air. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to tell you about that day. It’s so strange. I’ve never talked about it since…”

“I’m honored you’d tell me.”

“I just sort of want it off my chest and you’re here.” She shrugged casually, but he knew that this was anything but. Rose prickled when she was vulnerable and she was very vulnerable.

He lightly crossed his arms over his chest and gestured for her to go on. He didn’t trust himself to say anything that wouldn’t go disastrously.

She continued, “Jack and his dad weren’t at home but his mom was. She answered the door and saw that I was shaking. My whole body felt like it was buzzing with bees.” She let out a laugh that was slightly hysterical. “Jack’s mom immediately hugged me. It was the last hug I ever got from her, because after… Well, you can already guess, I’m sure. But then, before she knew what I’d become, she told me to come in and I did.”

Rose’s eyes grew distant, a faint smile on her lips.

“She had me sit at their old dining room table. It had this terrible Formica top that was peeling away at the edges, you know? Jack and I had put duct tape down and painted over it so that it looked okay. Who am I kidding? It looked crappy, but it was better than having one of those sharp edges cut into your arm.” She bit her lower lip so hard that Caden feared she might draw blood. Finally, she released it and said, “I wasn’t able to speak at first. I–I was so scared and confused. I just–just needed her support. And she gave it to me. At first. She took my hands in hers and told me that I could tell her anything . Whatever it was, it would be all right. But she was lying.”

Caden swallowed hard. His hands had been slowly fisting at his sides, his fingernails digging into his palms as the story went on. If this had been leading to a happy ending, Rose would not have ended up working for Marban. In fact, she would not actually be here at all. So he had already known that Jack’s mom rejected her, just like her own would.

A tear actually left Rose’s eye, but she quickly reached up and swiped it away as if it had never been. “I really don’t know why I believed her. I knew that she was as prejudiced against Swarm Shifters as anybody. More so, because we lived under Marban’s rule.” She shook her head as if she could not believe her stupidity. “But I thought because it was me , she’d be… different.”

“Not a stupid thing to think, Rose. It makes sense.”

Rose nodded, but with little enthusiasm. “I thought, too, once I told her how it happened that she would understand that I wasn’t that kind of Swarm Shifter. Not like we were told. I had been trying to do something good after all and…”

She shook her head again as if arguing against herself. Caden had to resist telling her that she was good.

“I’d been in the community garden. I’d loved gardening even before…” She ran a hand through her hair. “And I had seen a group of these older men harassing a young girl. She was no more than fourteen .” Her lips curled in disgust. “She was crying out and begging for them to leave her alone, but they wouldn’t. And no one was helping her. People were moving away, scared of them. They were Rat and Snake Shifters. They were actually a part of Marban’s gang. So no one could stand up to them.”

“But you did?” He guessed, but it was more of a statement than a question.

She nodded and worried at that lower lip again. He saw a thin line of blood form in front of her teeth and winced.

“I stormed over there, so angry, buzzing with anger.” She let out a self-conscious laugh that didn’t sound very happy. “And the leader of the group, Jimmy, whirled around and grabbed me by the throat so fast I didn’t even have a chance to flinch.”

“Snake Shifter?”

She nodded. “He started squeezing the very life out of me. I fought him. I raked my fingers down his hands. I kicked him in the balls and the instep of his feet, but he was too fast and he didn’t seem to feel pain.”

Caden thought he might be drawing blood from his own palms as his fingernails dug even deeper as her story continued. Iolaire was making a soft whimpering sound, leaning towards Rose as if it could offer her comfort. Its wings fluffed a bit.

“What happened next?” He whispered. He had to remind himself that Rose was here, that she was okay, that she hadn’t died.

She blinked and there was another tear, but this one she didn’t wipe away. He thought she might not even notice that it was there, she was so deep into the story now.

“Everything started to fade away. The men’s laughter. The girl’s screams. My own choking sounds. There was only a strange and steady buzzing . And then there was a voice, I think. It was a voice that said simply, no .”

Caden thought of when he had heard Iolaire’s voice for the first time. It had been her Spirit.

“And then, all of the men were being swarmed by bees. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. They stung the men again and again and again. The Shifters were screaming. None of them got away. They were more welts than men after that,” she paused and licked her lips. “Jimmy was the last one to go. He didn’t even look human anymore with all the stingers in him. His fingers loosened from my throat. He dropped me and then fell to his knees. His eyes were full of blood. They had stung him in his eyes.”

Caden winced. Iolaire hid behind one wing.

“He then collapsed on his side and didn’t move anymore.” Her eyes were so distant again. “It went quiet then. So quiet and then there was buzzing. When I looked up, just a few feet from me was a-- a figure made out of gold and black. It was the bees.” She sounded almost awe struck. "They had formed a human shape. They extended a-- a hand to me. I know how crazy that sounds. And I reached back. Grateful for their help, knowing that I would have been dead if they hadn’t helped me. When we touched, they were inside of me. I was the bees and the bees were me.”

“That’s… That’s beautiful,” Caden said regarding the last part.

She nodded slowly. “It was. Whatever I had thought about Swarm Shifters it was nothing like that. The bees had protected me. They had been pollinating the vegetables and flowers. They had been doing good . And I had been trying to do good, too.”

“You are good, Rose,” Caden said this time.

But she shook her head. “I’m not so sure anymore. You see after I told Jack’s mom about what happened, I felt her hands loosening over mine and then she drew back altogether. She realized what I was. Even though I had told her what had happened, even though she had known me for years, had me at her dinner table, allowed me to spend the night countless times, been as proud of me as my own mother, she looked at me like I was a monster as soon as she knew what I had become,” Rose told him.

“She was wrong to do that! She–”

“Yes, at the time, she was wrong. The person I was then didn’t deserve that. Simply being a Swarm Shifter shouldn’t have meant she didn’t love me anymore,” Rose agreed with him. More tears were falling and she was wiping them away as fast as possible. “But I’ve done things since then, Caden, to stay alive, to have a future of some sort, I don’t know. And then I met you and…”

He frowned. “I hope I haven’t made things harder for you.”

He thought of what he’d asked her to do the night before at the Humans First meeting where she’d almost gotten herself blown up with the rest of those poor people. But she was looking at him with wide eyes and shaking her head.

“Are you kidding? Since I met you I’ve felt human again,” she said and grabbed for a piece of tissue. “Now I’m all snotty. I want to look my best for dinner tonight.”

Caden reached out and put one hand over hers and held it tightly. “Tonight is the first time you'll have dinner with my family. It won’t be the last. It’ll be something you do so often that you’ll grow sick of it.”

She gave him this sad, fond smile.“I can’t imagine getting sick of that. I’m afraid to actually want that again. You make me want things. You make me hope.” She suddenly bit her lower lip again and looked at him suspiciously. “I swear I think your power is the ability to make people hope. Not to make ice. But to make people believe that things could be different. Be better. Make them want to be better. I just don’t know if it’s… possible for me. And doesn’t that sound stupid?”

“I’m not going to pretend I know what your life has been like or what it’s like now. And I realize that you don’t need someone to save you, you probably will be saving me,” Caden babbled. “But I do want to tell you, Rose, that I am your friend and that means I’ll do anything to help you.”

“Caden, you must not do that! You stay true to yourself and not compromise! Your power as the White Dragon Shifter is huge. Marban is going to ask…” She shook her head. “Once you’re one of his grandchildren, you can’t get away. Not even if I lived in the Mid and came to your house every night for dinner and worked at Wally’s would that change...”

At that moment, Wally emerged from the back room. He had been on the phone all day as he sometimes was with his cronies. He must have overheard the last bit of what they were saying, because he said, “Marban is going to have his work cut out for him so he should be leaving you alone.”

Rose, who quickly wiped her tears away and tried to pretend she wasn’t snotty, asked, “What do you mean? Nothing could make him that busy to ignore Caden.”

Wally reached over and grabbed one of the black Dragon plushies from the pile and held it up. “Valerius has done something very clever.”

“You know, I think Valerius would kill you if you referred to him while using the black Dragon plushie as an exhibit.” Caden grinned.

“What he doesn’t know, won’t hurt me,” Wally said and waggled the plushie at them both. “In all seriousness, though, Valerius has determined to create a Shifter Council, and he’s appointed Marban as its first member.”

“No!” Rose gasped.

“Really?” Caden’s eyebrows rose into his hairline.

Wally nodded. “It’s a brilliant move. It’s what Marban has wanted all along. And he won’t want to mess it up. Well, let’s hope he can stop himself from messing up. But my point being is that he will be keeping his nose squeaky clean, Rose. He doesn’t want to upset Valerius so he’ll leave you and Caden alone.”

“Where are you getting this information?” Caden asked, stunned at this turn of events and Wally’s knowledge of it.

Wally stuck his fingers into the belt loops of his pants and rocked back and forth, looking very smug. “I have sources!”

“It’s Chione, isn’t it?” Caden narrowed his eyes.

Wally shrugged. “What can I say? She’s a fan of the store.”

“And it’s owner,” Rose laughed. But though she was teasing Wally, her eyes were bright with happiness and a lightness seemed to flow through her. She had really been worried about Marban asking her to do something that would impact Caden badly.

She won’t. She wants to get away from him. But that sounded very naive to him.

“Have you heard anything from Landry?” Caden asked.

Wally was in the process of shaking his head “no” when the bell sounded above the front door. Caden turned around to greet whoever it was. He’d been dying for a customer all day, but now he wished they hadn’t come.

“Landry?! You shouldn’t be here,” Caden said, only seeing her at first and not the person behind her.

“I’m afraid that after hearing all about this wonderful store that I asked her to bring me here,” Jasper Hawes, the leader of Humans First, said with a huge grin on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes.