Page 84 of Forget Me Not

Ray willed the growl to stay in his throat.

Calvin had told Cal. Of course he had. He had called his son to come help calm Ray down, given him a factual version of events that might have worked to keep Cal from shouting if Guerrero’s employees, or owners, hadn’t been cleaning Ray’s blood from the carpeting at that moment.

Ray had been pulled back into what was apparently a family kitchen to have his hands and face scrubbed clean by the tiny, fragile, elderly Guerrero, and had just walked back out onto the sales floor when Cal and Benny had burst into the store.

Ray’s head was splitting, a phrase he finally understood. The sun had barely broken free of the morning fog and even that light was too much. People honked their horns somewhere ahead of them in traffic. Bike messengers shouted at pedestrians. Garbage truck hydraulics made Ray flinch. Everyone in the car was stressed and Ray could smell it, hear it in the strained quality of their voices. Their hearts would not beat steadily. Cal would not take his eyes off Ray.

Their hands were close, but Cal didn’t reach out, and Ray didn’t know if he should. Probably not. Ray was a threat now.

“We don’t know exactly what happened with him.” Benny was nearly whispering, trying to be considerate, Ray suspected. Benny knew what headaches felt like, after all. He might even know what this… panic… felt like. Ray didn’t know for sure. He had always tried to be respectful of human conditions. He’d never needed to ask about them.

He could not lose control of his body. It was dangerous if he lost control.Hewas dangerous. With so many innocent people around, two of them barely more than kids, being or not, Ray should have been treated with care.

But not like that, he thought Calvin would say.

Calhadsaid it. Cal had said a lot of things while Benny had been getting Calvin’s car and bringing it to the curb and Calvin had been calling some ex-cop friends of his, trying, in his clever, Calvin Parker way, to get badge numbers or names without saying that he was.

“It looked like a panic attack to others,” Benny related to Cassandra. “Which it may have been. He’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

Cassandra’s voice was distant but not hushed. “Do you know what triggered it, if it was a genuine panic attack or a reaction to whatever was done to him… which I suppose would also be genuine, just… different.”

“We don’t know precisely what triggered it, but Calvin heard some of what they said to him at least. They, uh, they asked about Cal. He said their syntax was a little off… stiff, or something.”

“Well, that’s… well, it’s notgood, but it might narrow things down. The magic still didn’t do what they wanted it to do, probably, since giving Ray anxiety seems like a lot of effort for not much reward for them. But it did cause a reaction. Possibly their syntax was stiff because they were trying to get the phrasing right, or the correct word order.”

“What if it had done what they wanted?” Benny asked, then shot a look at Calvin. His heart beat faster. “They were ready for the worst.”

“Even this would’ve done,” Calvin muttered.

“People have been shot for less.” Benny was terrified. Ray didn’t know how to make it better for him.

Cal shifted restlessly on the seat next to Ray. Ray reached into his pocket, where the candy ring had been joined by peach rings from their pantry that morning. He placed the packet of peach rings on Cal’s knee without looking at him.

Cal made a choked noise and brushed the packet away.

“What’s weird is them trying to fit the key in the lock at this stage.” Cassandra seemed to be almost thinking out loud. “Maybe they forgot the trigger phrase they were given. Or maybe after it didn’t work right the first time, they have been trying to figure what was off. Spells are set up according to the training or mindset of the person using them. So the precise combination of things required to… let’s say execute the code… depends on that. Stepping into a ring or a pentagram, wearing something and drinking something else at the same time, moonlight and herbs, et cetera. Ray seems to have all the other factors, whatever they might be, lined up, but the trigger is failing for some reason.”

“I think it’s weres,” Benny insisted, but glanced to Calvin again. “Because it’s not just mentioning Cal. The word, uh, m-a-t-e also seems to do something.”

Now, Ray really did feel like a dog. But he was too exhausted to argue about it.

“He must have said that word a lot for them to notice and decide to use it,” Cassandra remarked. “And it makes sense, that something about that drive would be strong enough in a were to affect what is clearly also powerful magic.”

“Everybody shush!” Cal commanded everyone in the car in a firm, but not loud, voice. He undid his seatbelt and threw it off before it could fully retract.

Ray turned toward him, frowning, but Cal didn’t see it or didn’t care. He slid over Ray’s lap, nudging his knee between Ray’s leg and the car door, and then, once settled, covered Ray’s ears with his hands.

“Close your eyes, Ray Ray.” This order was gentle despite the note of strain in Cal’s throat.

Ray stared at him as fiercely as he could, but then finally shut his eyes.

Cal’s hands did not shut out the rest of the world, but they muffled some of it. His scent was beautiful, but not pleasant, too worried and full of fear for that. But it was his scent, so Ray breathed in deep and exhaled slowly and kept his eyes closed.

“That’s it,” Cal praised him, very, very softly. “Listen to my heart, okay? That’s enough for now. We’ve got you, and we’re almost home.”

“Cassandra, I will call you back,” Benny whispered.

Ray took his hand off the door and put it over Cal’s chest. Cal’s skin was chilled. Cal still refused to admit it was autumn and wear a shirt. His heart, at least, wasn’t racing. It tripped faster, then slowed again when Ray kept his hand over his breastbone.

---