To Protect and Serve Ch. 08

In the last three days, she had gone from loving her new life, loving her purpose, and basking in the feel of family, to suddenly feeling about as alone as she ever remembered being. Shamira could never go back to being the woman she had been before, but she couldn't imagine being around any of these beings anymore. She knew that she'd brought a lot of it on herself, and she wished she'd been able to control her temper. But she still felt that her basic position was right and that Shane's was wrong. She didn't know how to compromise on this. She didn't know if she wanted to.

So when she got out the second time, she didn't speak to anyone. She didn't meet Shane's gaze or answer any of Tabitha's questions. She was trembling, but more from a sense of loss than from any actual illness or even rage. The house had become a blessing to her . . . almost a heaven. It had been a place where she could be who she wanted to be. But it turned out that she could only be herself if it was okay with Shane.

Clara tried to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but Shamira shrugged her off. Shane motioned for everyone else to leave, though he had to stare hard at Clara before she obeyed. Once they were alone, he turned back to Shamira, and the bastard had the nerve to look upset.

"Are you ready to apologize to Bunny and me? And mean it?"

Shamira stared at him. "I'm ready to apologize to Bunny. I don't feel sorry for a single thing I said to you."

He shook his head sadly. "Shamira, don't do this. Don't make your life her harder than it needs to be. Everyone in the house loves you and respects you --"

"Everyone in the house let you shove me in that box, so everyone in the house can kiss my --"

"Stop it!" he hissed. "You think you're the first one to be punished? Good grief, how can a submissive be so damn stubborn? I have compromised with you far more than you can imagine, and you can't even be civil to me. I saw the way you reacted to Clara, and damn it I will not let you treat her like that after all she's done for you."

"You mean like bravely watching Banshee and Renata manhandle me?"

For a moment, Shane actually looked angrier than he had the other day. "She spent half a day in the cell next to you for arguing with me about your punishment and wanting to come speak with you, breaking the punishment of silence."

For once, Shamira was speechless. Why had Clara allowed things to progress that far before she had spoken up. Had she just felt guilty? 'Probably,' Shamira thought. That had to be it.

Shane relaxed a bit. "I don't want us to be like this. I still see in you the first thing I felt when I brought you over. You're passionate, dedicated . . . damn it, don't think I've forgotten at how well you've handled the faeries or the bugs or the Dark Pools --"

"But as soon as my 'dedication' runs contrary to what you want, you accuse me of being petty and stick me in that hole. Caring about beings that might be getting tortured is not petty," Shamira replied, her voice cracking a bit. She was incredibly thirsty. "I could get over this," she said, waving her hand at her cell. "I could calm down and maybe not hate you as much as I do right now. But I can't change who I am."

"Then don't change," Shane told her. "Unless you're saying that you've never compromised before."

"I don't see middle ground here." She paused, gathering herself for what she needed to say. She realized she really wasn't angry anymore so much as tired. "I want out, Shane. I've done everything else you asked of me, albeit badly sometimes, but I can't condone putting your traditions ahead of innocent lives. So either kill me right now where I stand, or let me go."

Shane didn't move, and his heart was as heavy as it had felt in years. "Where would you go? What would you do? You're too powerful to roam free, especially if you play it rogue like you seem to want to, and I guarantee that any other lord would be less . . . lenient . . . than I. And more importantly, I don't want you to leave."

Shamira had a hard time meeting his eyes. She'd rehearsed this in her head over the last two days, but saying it out loud was hard. "You know, I almost wanted to cry the first time you took me? I'd never actually seen anyone look at me like I meant anything, and you made me feel beautiful. And Clara --" She choked on her own voice. She couldn't put into words what Clara had made her feel.

"Now, I can't even imagine letting you touch me. Any of you for that matter." 'Except that beautiful Native American girl,' she thought, then suppressed the idea. "There are a lot of things I didn't know about myself, but this . . . How can you even ask me to? You sent me to a shootout with EFIs and Shell Walkers and that's okay, but if I pull a gun to defend myself, you go apeshit on me."

"Killing humans changes things. Magical beings disappear from the world all the time and without notice. Six humans are dead and . . . okay, you were one-hundred percent right. Happy? Sebastian had Pierre run the plates and all those patrol cars were sold at auction six months ago. Guess what? I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again, but I can't be a lord in name only. If I chastise you and wind up wrong, I'll admit it, but you can't challenge me on every little thing."

"I don't want to challenge you," Shamira said. "I don't want to work for you anymore. I thought you'd be happy to be rid of me at this point."

"No. As I said, I don't want you to leave. I want you on my team and in my house. You adjusted to certain things so quickly and --"

"Shane, you don't get to choose which parts of me to keep. I became a cop to protect people. You know that. Now you want me to be something else."

"Absolutely not. I want you to be an enforcer. The goals are the same, only the methods. You criticize us for our callousness because you don't think we'll do what it takes. When we first brought that man from Prometheus here to interrogate him and find out about the morning star trade, you balked. How can you claim that you're willing to break the rules to save the innocent, but condemn us for doing the same?"

Shamira hung her head. She had no response to that. Of course, she hadn't truly understood what morning star was at the time, but torture . . . it was something she just didn't have the stomach for.

"Shamira, we're fighting a war here. Yes, we spend a lot of time it seems indulging pleasures of the flesh, but that's because we have a dangerous lifestyle. Today might always be the last day of your existence, and most everyone here believes that one true sin is to die with regrets and things left undone. But we get serious when we have to, we do what we can and what we must, and sometimes it sickens us that we can't do more. I promise you though that if the Tribunal doesn't think I have control of this post, that they could very well take it away. I also promise you that this city and the victims you wish to protect or save will likely fall much lower on the priority list than you desire if someone else takes over. I know that for you, choosing between the lesser of two evils isn't a good way to go, but it's the only choice you have. If you go rogue and I'm replaced, the next lord might well exert his or her right to bring you in and kill you."

"Great," she replied. "Great choices. Miserable or dead."

"You don't have to be miserable, and I'm quite opposed to you being dead. Listen, I need everyone on their game for the meeting. Give me that long. Do the job for four more days and then if you still want to go, I'll stand aside. I'll fix you up with a new identity, and you'll have no more contact with me or this house. Is that what you really want?"

Shamira looked past him to the stairs. "I'll give you your four days. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go talk to Bunny. Sir."

Shane heard the latent sarcasm in that "sir." He knew then that she wasn't even going to try to work things out. She was done, and he couldn't think of anything that would change her mind. "I won't tell anyone of your decision. I'll leave that up to you." He turned and went up the stairs ahead of her, leaving her alone for a moment in a hallway full of coffins.

Shamira found Bunny in the gym, where she was practicing some bizarre martial art with Monique. She appeared to be back to her happy-go-lucky self, something that made the muscular woman envious. She wish she could stop feeling like she did, and she wished that she could just let it go. She didn't want to leave, but she felt she had to.

Finally, practice let out, with Shamira waiting outside for the young woman to have a free moment. Monique glanced over and started to wave, only to receive an indifferent stare. She looked down, then left by another door.

"Hey!" Bunny said, oblivious to the exchange that had just happened, "Are you okay? I'm SO sorry about what happened. I should have kept my mouth shut."

Shamira shook her head. "Don't apologize to me. I didn't do anything to deserve an apology, and you didn't do anything wrong."

Bunny wrung her hands. "I need to be tougher, I know. I shouldn't go crying just because someone talks loud to me, and I so completely deserved that after that trip --"

"What are you talking about? You didn't deserve me treating you like crap."

"But I just hid in the backseat and screamed for most of the fight, and then I freaked out --"

"Bunny, you did fine. I doubt you'd ever been in a gunfight before, so you did right. You hid, you listened to Sebastian and me, and you learned. Me ripping your head off the other day had nothing to do with you. I was just mad about . . . about a situation I have with Shane, and I took it out on you. You're going to be a great enforcer for Shane, as long as you don't take shit from people like me. Promise me that you won't? And I am really sorry about the things I said. Don't take crap like that from me. Hell, from anyone."

"What . . . what situation with Shane?" Bunny asked. The girl looked so relieved at the apology that it surprised Shamira.

'Does what I think really matter that much to her?' she thought. "It's a private matter. Listen, you'll be a great enforcer. Something tells me that you've been good at everything you've ever tried. Just ignore me, listen to Henry and Sebastian and Bjorne and Yosyp, and you'll be just fine at this too."

"Thanks," Bunny said, her smile back in full force. The girl just had so much positive energy . . . it was amazing. "Hey, wanna go grab something to eat?"

Shamira's stomach grumbled angrily, but she shook her head. "Maybe later. There's someone else I have to talk to."

"Okay. Maybe breakfast? Or whatever the hell it is we call the meal we have right before dawn?"

"Maybe. I'll let you know later." Shamira felt bad about lying. No reason to try and develop a friendship that will only last four days. She was dreading the one she knew she still had to end.

Before she could find Clara, her search was interrupted by a couple of phone calls. One was from her sister, who seemed to be on much more solid ground than she had right after she discovered her husband's infidelity. Patrick had apparently planned on trying to take the kids and everything and even get child support, despite the fact that he'd been the one cheating, but he had suddenly withdrew a lot of his requests.

Samantha thought his attorney must have talked some sense into him. And apparently that Clyde had dropped by her clinic several times to check on her, and she was getting a lot of business from the were community in Huntsville. Shamira hadn't known the community was that big, though it apparently involved most of northwestern Alabama, some of northeastern Georgia, and even southwestern Tennessee. Shamira found herself wondering if Clyde had anything to do with Patrick's sudden compliance to the rules of decorum. If so, she owed him a big thank you.

The second call was from Arthur Blanks, part of the married couple that were Shamira's only official donors. She hadn't even thought about them since deciding to leave. If she was exiled from Shane's territory, they would go back into the candidate pool, and she doubted anyone else would see them for their worth.

Arthur was just calling to confirm a date for the next feeding. They worked out a time for the next day, and it broke Shamira's heart to know that she'd be dumping them too. They deserved better. She was glad to hear Arthur's voice though. He sounded surprisingly energetic. She wondered how he'd feel when he found out that she was leaving.

She finally found Clara running laps around the golf course and since the girl looked tired, she must have been doing it for a long time.

"What the . . . Shane said he wasn't letting you out until ten! I wanted --"

"It's eleven," Shamira interrupted.

Clara looked down at the watch that she just realized that she wasn't wearing. "I wanted to get cleaned up and be there and make sure you had at least one friendly face when you got out."

"There wasn't anything friendly about any of this," Shamira replied, looking away. 'Just say what you have to say,' she told herself. "I heard about you getting thrown into a cell too. You didn't need to do that. You should've just stayed out of it."

Clara stared. "Are you mad at me?"

"No," Shamira said quickly. "I just feel bad enough for Bunny getting hurt in all this, and I don't want anyone else to suffer. Like I told her, this is between him and me."

Clara grabbed her companion by the vest, picked her up and pinned her against a tree. Needless to say, it wasn't a reaction that Shamira had been expecting.

"Listen to me and listen good," Clara said, her voice low and edgy, "What matters to you matters to me too. Yeah, I believe in rules, and sometimes it bugs me that we can't do more. Yeah Shane's incredibly progressive, but he can be just as stubborn in some ways as . . . well, as stubborn as you. He thought that he'd been too lenient in some ways up until now, but I thought he overdid it. We've always been allowed to question him, assuming we do it with some tact. But you're so powerful that he overcompensates, and I know you! I know you better than he does. There's no way that you were going to just stay there complacently, come out and say you learned your lesson and that you'd behave. Tell me that I'm wrong! Tell me that you aren't thinking about leaving."

Shamira was a little nervous. Okay, she was terrified. Not only that a woman thirty or more pounds lighter than her was holding Shamira a foot off the ground, but by the fact that Clara knew . . . somehow, that this woman knew her better than she'd ever let anyone know her. "Yeah, I'm leaving." Shamira pried Clara's hands away and dropped to her feet. "He asked me to give him until the meeting was over, but I can't see staying in this house."

"And me?" Clara whispered. "So do I get to factor in to your decision?"

"You've already gotten into trouble because of me, and I don't want that to happen. Besides, do you really want this? Me getting shoved into that box just for being myself? I can't look at most of the people in this house anymore, and I certainly don't feel . . . anything towards them," she continued, waving her hands. Why did Clara have to make this so difficult for her? "Two days. I feel like such a weakling because it only took two days to completely fuck with my head."

"Most people don't get stuck in solitary before they really understand. You were still so angry. Like I said, you're powerful, and Shane's so damn concerned about making sure that you behave responsibly that he isn't even hasn't realized that you are responsible. One day or two days shouldn't matter, but only if you're going to use the time to actually reflect, not stew in your own anger. And don't be too hard on the rest of the house --"

"They watched me get stuck in there, and they even helped. They don't give a damn --"

"They do too care!" Clara said, backing Shamira up. "I told Shane I thought he'd made a mistake. So did Bunny and Sebastian and Yosyp and Renata and Banshee --"

"Renata and Banshee?!" Shamira shouted, taking a step forward.

"Before you start, think about their positions," Clara pleaded. "Renata is Shane's chief of security and Banshee is his assassin. They have to do what he says, and both of them walked back to his office afterward and told them they thought he was wrong. You think the secret service will avoid protecting the president just because they disagree with his policies?"

"So if everyone was so offended, why were you the only one who got stuck in a cell?" Shamira said, unable to really question this logic.

Clara, in spite of her rant, looked sheepish. "I was the only one who threw a lamp at his head and called him a dumbass." She dug her foot into the ground, making herself almost appear as the eighteen-year-old girl she had died as. "That was probably pushing my luck a bit."

"You actually threw a lamp at him?" Shamira found it hard to be angry or cynical when picturing this gorgeous creature hurling furniture at her boss. It was just so . . . preposterous.

"It was an antique too. It's why I grabbed it. I was actually trying to make a point of what happens when you destroy something priceless just because you're being pissy. Seriously, I know you've heard this, but people have to obey rules they don't like all the time, and sometimes people get hurt. I think you know that. But you've seen the faces of the victims and you've seen what happens to them and you're too damn passionate and wonderful that you can't let it go."

"Wonderful?" Shamira asked mid-rant, but Clara wasn't done.

Clara put her hands on her friend again, this time more gently. "You need to stay because you were right. You need to stay because someone needs to keep everyone else honest, and you have to stay --"

"Clara, I came out of that cell, I looked at Shane, and I can't imagine ever wanting him to touch me. And I'm so damn mad at him that it sucked all the energy out me. When I was human, I was used to doing the right thing and getting ignored, but to do it and be punished?"

Clara was looking pained. "Like I said, Shane fucked up. But I know him and I know he'll make amends somehow."

"Bullshit. All he cares about is his image."

"That isn't true! Okay, image is part of his job but it isn't the only thing. He spends most of his days finding homes and arranging new lives for magical beings immigrating to the United States. He keeps the peace and makes sure everyone obeys those laws he was talking about, and he keeps the magical world from being exposed. He just inherited one of the most important territories on the planet, and he spends a lot of time trying to get his secret weapon ready."

"What secret weapon?"

Clara just stared at her for a moment. "You really don't get it, do you? You! You're the secret weapon."

"I'm not that much --"

"Shamira, you're faster and stronger than any fledgling vampire I've ever heard of. In a world that lives in the dark, you heal quickly, see everything, and can go anywhere. The one excuse I'll make for Shane in this is that the idea of you, with three different Shadow Aspects, running loose through the land with a sharp mind and a chip on her shoulder . . . well, that's something else you should be able to understand. He can't allow vigilante justice, no matter how much he wants to. Please, just think about this before you make your decision." Clara paused again. "And think about me. Damn it, I don't want this thing between us to be over. I haven't even gotten that first date." She turned and started to head back to the house, but she stopped after a few feet. "I still want to share a bed with you, but I won't kiss you again if it means that I'm kissing you goodbye. I can't handle that." Then she left.

Shamira was stunned. She had known how she'd felt about Clara, but she'd underestimated the girl's feelings about Shamira. Again, she found herself cursing Shane for putting her in this position. She gave Clara a head start because both women needed a chance to cool off. Before she got back to the house, she saw Sebastian waiting in the shadows next to the house.