Mikko Lawrence

“Lina?” Mikko called out as Annie rushed to Bell to rouse him.  He felt light-headed as he moved down the stairs.  He signed back at Frankie and Genie, “Search the house for Lina.”

He grabbed the railing heavily, using it to support most of his weight as he moved down the stairs.  Why was he so dizzy?

By the time Mikko got down the stairs, Bell was waking up.  He groaned as Annie pulled him onto his side.  Mikko couldn’t see any blood.

There was an overturned bottle of bubbles next to Bell, the bubble soap still wet on the asphalt.  Glass lay shattered on the ground, as if something had broken against the edge of the stairs.

Mikko wanted to move forward and search for Lina, but he wavered where he stood.

“Inside,” Annie said, helping Bell to his feet.  Bell’s eyes were open but unfocused.  He wasn’t doing a good job of keeping his own weight up by himself.

Mikko turned back, keeping his hand on the stair railing to keep from pitching over.  It took all of his energy to go up the first step.  His feet felt like lead weights.

“Mikko,” Annie growled behind him.

He didn’t have the energy to reply.  He just pitched forward, dragging his feet up the four remaining steps into the house.  It was like walking through molasses.  And that smell—sweet and heady.  It filled his sinuses, fogging his head.

His head cleared suddenly when he passed the threshold.  He sped up, clearing the doorway and turning to help Annie bring Bell in.

Annie stumbled on the last step and Mikko just barely kept her from landing face first with Bell on top of her.  He caught them, fire clawing into his side from his injured ribs.  He bore through it to get Annie through the door, pulling it shut behind them.

“What the hell was that?” Mikko panted, trying to help her bring Bell into the living room.

“Valerian,” she huffed as they finally shoved Bell onto the couch.  “My mom used to make potions.  That was a common one to help people sleep.  And that one was mixed with aconite.”

Aconite was poisonous to shifters.  It took a high dosage to kill them, but it interrupted their ability to shift and made them slower and duller.  Straight aconite on bare skin would cause chemical burns.

Mikko’s brain was still sluggish, and he wasn’t quite putting it together.  Annie saw that and said, “Someone threw an aerosolized aconite-valerian cocktail into the yard.”

“The broken glass,” Mikko said, understanding.

She nodded, crouching down to hit Bell’s face lightly with her hand to rouse him.  “It was still in the air, which is why it hit you and me so hard.  Valerian is no joke.”

That sweet scent.  Mikko looked back at the sound of creaky stairs to see Genie and Frankie.

“She’s gone,” Frankie said.  His eyes were wide with disbelief and a little bit of fear.  “What do we do?”

“We need to wake Bell up,” Annie said.  Mikko interpreted for her to Genie.

Genie nodded, disappearing back upstairs.  Frankie left at the same time but went outside instead. 

Genie came back down with an ammonia tablet.

Annie stepped out of the living room.  Mikko heard her pick up the phone and the sound of pushed buttons.  She was sensitive to the ammonia.

Genie snapped it under Bell’s nose and had to dodge when he jerked up in alarm.  “The fuck?!” he shouted, looking around wildly.  He caught sight of Mikko and locked wild eyes with him.  His pupils were almost the size of his irises, and Mikko could see his pulse pounding in his throat. 

“Bell, where’s Lina?”

Bell’s eyes went wider, if that was possible.  “What?” he whispered.

“Someone threw an aconite and valerian potion into the backyard,” Annie said, coming back into the living room.  Mikko hadn’t caught who she called.  “Do you remember anything?”

Bell started to stand, but his arms buckled underneath him when he tried to push himself up.  He sat back heavily on the couch.  He put one hand to his head, wincing.  His eyes squeezed shut. 

“Yeah, those potions leave shitty headaches,” Annie said.

“I . . . I remember the sound of breaking glass.  And something smelled sweet, but then . . .”  He shook his head.  “Then you were waking me up.”

“You didn’t see anything?”

He shook his head, his knuckles white as he dug his fingers into his skull.  “I was blowing bubbles for Lina.  I can’t remember anything.”  He looked up at them.  “I’m so sorry,” he said, taking his hand away from his head.  He clenched his fists.  “You trusted me to take care of her and I just fucking . . . didn’t.”

The back door shut.  Mikko looked up to see Frankie coming inside.  He didn’t look dazed, like Mikko had felt coming in from outside.

“Lina isn’t anywhere outside,” he shook his head.

“Why aren’t you dizzy?” Mikko asked him.

Frankie’s brow furrowed.  “What?”

“The aerosol probably dispersed before Frankie went out,” Annie waved her hand.  She looked at Bell.  “Can you track?”

Bell nodded, standing up.  He didn’t sway.  He looked better already, his pupils going back to normal sizes.

“Annie,” Mikko started.

“Stay here,” she said.  “I called Carlos.  He’s coming here.”

Mikko stopped.  Annie and Bell could get more done without him tagging along.  They could also cover a hell of a lot more ground than he could.  Annie shapeshifted into a hawk—if anyone could find Lina, it would be the two of them.

“I’ll be here,” he said.

They left.

Carlos beat Annie and Bell back to the house.  He refused to knock on the door this time, calling on the phone from outside the front door to let them know.

Mikko opened the door, walking back into the living room without looking.  “It shouldn’t shock you anymore.” 

“Not taking that chance, boludo.”  The words were light, but Carlos’s tone was tight.

Carlos joined him in the living room.  The door shut as he came in and a second person followed into the living room.

She was dark-skinned, almost the color of ebony.  Crocheted braids fell to her shoulders with different colored wooden beads at the ends.  She had four scars slashing across her face, starting from her hair line at her forehead almost down to her lips.  Her eye was untouched by the scar, but it did curl her lip up just enough to make her look like she had a perpetual sneer.  She was almost as tall as Mikko with wide hips and a round face.  Her wrists were covered with metals bangles that jingled as she walked.

“Oh, Timber,” Mikko said, grimacing.  “Sorry.”  He hadn’t realized she was behind Carlos.

“Don’t worry, baby,” she waved him off, the silver and bronze bangles on her wrist jingling.  “You got a lot on your mind.”  She greeted Genie and Frankie with a touch of her index finger to her head.  Frankie was interpreting for Genie.  Timber and Carlos were decent in sign language, but not fluent by any means.

“Annie said you might know who did this?” Carlos asked.

Mikko grabbed the wallet that sat on the table next to the couch and handed it to Carlos.  “Yeah.  Annie didn’t tell you?”  He didn’t sign as he spoke, relying on Frankie to do it for him.  True ASL was better than simcomming in a situation like this.

“No, she was afraid of . . . someone . . . listening . . . FUCK.”

Mikko jumped when Carlos shouted that last word.  His heart spiked into his throat before falling back, racing.  “What?” Mikko asked.  He didn’t like how scared Carlos’s voice sounded.

“Russell?” Timber said, looking at the wallet in Carlos’s hands.  “What the hell?  Russell don’t fuck with children.”

Carlos shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

“You know this guy?” Mikko asked.  He didn’t like that.  Anyone that ran in their circles would be dangerous.

“Yeah.  We work in similar circles.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Amos does,” Carlos said, already pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing.  “Amos hires him sometimes.”  He paused for a moment before saying, “Amos.  I need to know where Russell Russell lives.”

Carlos went quiet for a moment, nodding as he listened to whatever Amos was telling him.  “We think he kidnapped Evelina.”

Mikko heard the scream that came from the other end.  “What?”

“Yeah, yeah—we’re taking care of it.  Give me his address.”

After a moment, Carlos nodded.  “Sure, yeah.  Thanks.  I’ll tell you more later.”  He hung up and looked down at his screen. 

“Carlos?” Mikko prompted when he didn’t say anything.

“Amos is—”  Carlos’s phone dinged, interrupting him.  “There it is.  He texted it to me.”   He read over the address.  “Scottsdale.  Bougie fuck.”

“Let’s go then,” Mikko said.  He looked back at Genie and Frankie.  “Stay here.”

Frankie bristled.  “We—”

“—are a liability,” Carlos finished sternly.  “Russell is a formidable adversary.  I barely want Mikko there, but he needs to be able to take Lina and drive away if necessary.  Neither of you have a driver’s license, and you’re both kids.  You stay here, in your heavily fortified, heavily warded house.”  He was already starting to turn toward the door.

“Activate the wards after I leave,” Mikko told them, ignoring the glares they each gave him.

“This is audism,” Genie argued, finishing her sentence with a middle finger for style.

“No, it’s ageism,” he replied, following Timber and Carlos.  “Activate the wards!”

As Mikko stepped out, he saw Bell was walking towards the front door, Annie next to him.

“Nothing,” Annie shook her head.  “Scent disappeared.  Got into a car, probably.”

Mikko held the front door open to Bell.  “Bell,” he said, “can you stay with them?  The house can protect them, but I would feel comfortable just in case.”

Bell nodded, already heading into the house without question.  Mikko thought he may have heard Bell say, “do it right this time,” under his breath.

Annie and Carlos were already conversing by the time Mikko shut the door behind Bell.  He felt a staticky current run across his hand as he touched the door.  They had activated the wards.

“We got a location,” Carlos said.  “Follow us.  Give us aerial.”

Annie didn’t need to be told twice.  She lifted her arms up, her skin already beginning to ripple and remold.  By the time she had swooped her arms back down, her fingers had turned into black-tipped white primary feathers, and she launched into the air.  A white ball streaked into the sky and disappeared high above them.

“You drive,” Carlos said, holding the keys out to Mikko.  “I want you ready to go, leaving me and Timber behind if you have to, okay?”

Carlos and Timber were more than capable of taking care of themselves.  Mikko took the keys and got in the car

“Who did you leave with the kids?” Carlos asked as Mikko started the car.  Timber climbed into the back.

“One of Sloane’s brothers.” 

“The family that adopted her?”

Mikko nodded, putting the car in drive and setting off.

“When you said the guy’s name, you said it twice?” Mikko asked.  Russell Russell.

Carlos shrugged one shoulder, pointing the direction Mikko needed to head.  “His first and last name are the same.  Don’t ask me why; I don’t know.”

Weird.

Mikko had never driven a car that moved so smoothly.  It responded to his touch almost before he did anything.  And it had all these lights and buttons on the center console, including AC/heat that adjusted based on the desired temperature of the driver and the passenger.

“Carlos, your car tells me that you’re the bougie fuck,” Mikko said as Carlos directed him to I17.  He needed something to focus on other than Lina.  If he thought about it, he was going to cry.

“Man owns a fucking Lamborghini,” Carlos replied.  “This is an MKZ.  It costs like thirty grand.  His car costs like 200 grand.”

“You think Lambos be ugly though,” Timber interjected.  “And don’t be acting like you ain’t got a fucking Aston Martin in the garage at your house.”

“That’s my wife’s—”

“Bullshit.  You just got it for her birthday cuz you wanted it.  She wanted the vacation you also gave her with the car.”

“Whatever.” 

“You—”

“He’s not hurting her, is he?” Mikko asked, his voice barely above a whisper.  He couldn’t contain his fear.

That stopped everyone in the car.

He had tried to distract himself, but it wasn’t working.  He was seeing terrible things happening to Lina in his head.  Things that had happened to him. 

Mikko had been kidnapped not even two months before.  He had been tortured, deprived of sleep, starved, and beaten within an inch of his life.  He had believed that no one would ever find him.  He had been so cold and so scared. 

He just barely held back the tears that threatened to spill at the thought of something like that happening to Lina.  Happening to a five-year-old.  When he was supposed to have been protecting her.

“No, baby,” Timber finally said, reaching over to put a hand on his shoulder from behind.  “Russell works by a code.  He would die before he let harm befall a child.”

“Are you sure?  How well do you know him?”

“I’m familiar with his work,” she said.  “He was a bounty hunter for a bit, like I am.”

He bit his lip.  Her words sounded nice, and she sounded like she believed what she said.  But he couldn’t take any sort of solace in that.  Not until Lina was safe.

Carlos eventually led him off the highway onto a tree-lined street where each block had a tall white wall along their perimeters.  That was how Mikko knew he was in a place he had no business being.  Trees that didn’t belong in Arizona and required a lot of up-keep, and tall white walls.  Some of the walls had big bronze letters on them spelling names of neighborhoods.  He could barely see houses behind the walls because of all the trees. 

Carlos pointed him down a street with one such neighborhood name.  The Highlands.  Except there were no highlands in sight.

They turned off the main thoroughfare, passing ranch-style houses with covered garages and green lawns and tall trees.  Some lawns were edged with rocks and sand, but most of them were bright green grass.  It was a departure from the crabgrass in their own yard.  This was the nice, rich, white people grass.  They had sprinklers installed in their yards, little black plastic heads peeking out just above the ground.

Carlos pointed him down another street and started looking at the numbers on the houses as he turned.  “Okay, so, we should be coming up on it . . .”

They were coming up on another ranch house.  This one was coral-colored.  It had a covered two-car garage on one side and a metal gate on the other that connected to a fence disappearing behind the house.  The front was mostly gravel and rock with some cacti as accents.  The front door opened to a small porch with a couple chairs set up one step from the front walk that connected the house and the driveway.

A glimpse of blonde hair and gangly legs darted out from the porch, waving at him.  Losing all sense of “the plan”, Mikko barely had the sense to put the car in park before he was jumping out to meet Lina.

“Mikko!” she shouted, running to him.  She jumped up, and Mikko caught her, swinging her around.  She clamped her legs around his hips and wrapped her arms around his neck.  He crushed her to him, one hand pressing on the middle of her back, the other on the back of her head.  His ribs ached, but he didn’t care.

Tears threatened to spill, and he didn’t speak for fear his voice would break.  He buried his face into her neck.  Are you okay? 

Yes.  He didn’t hurt me.  I knew you’d be so scared after what happened to you.

He hated that she knew what he’d been through.  He hated that she had seen it in his nightmares.  How did you get out?

He—

The rest of Lina’s thoughts were lost as Mikko heard Carlos and Timber shouting.

Mikko looked up to see that, at the front door of the house that Lina had escaped, stood the man Annie had fought at Bryant’s.  Russell.  His green eyes were wide, staring at them all outside of his house.  He looked from Timber to Carlos, mouth parting in shock.

“He didn’t hurt me!” Lina called to Timber and Carlos.  “I’m okay!”

Russell looked between the four of them, getting more and more obviously confused as he met each person’s eyes.  Finally, unexpectedly, he said, “What the fuck is going on?”  He had a strong Southern drawl.

“Think that’s our question, forro.  Why the fuck did you take a little kid, Russell?  Who the fuck could possibly have wanted that?”

Lina lifted her head up.  Mikko let go of her head to put his arm underneath her butt to give her some support.  “Someone’s mad at Mikko!”

Baffled silence met that statement.  The anxiety and fear that had been building up and threatening to spill suddenly quieted, replaced with abject confusion.

“What?” Mikko finally said when it seemed like no one else was going to.

Mikko felt the small breeze of air just before Annie was standing next to him.  “Why is someone mad at Mikko?” she asked.  She reached over to put her hand over one of Lina’s arms where they were wrapped around Mikko.  Probably to prove to herself that Lina was really there.

“Because he took Mom’s necklace back from that jerk at the pawn shop.”  She pointed to Russell with the arm that Annie wasn’t touching.  “He works for the guy mad at Mikko.”

“Wait,” Russell said, staring at Lina.  “What?”

Lina tilted her head for a moment before she pulled away to look at Mikko.  “The man told him,” she pointed at Russell again, “that the necklace is really dangerous, and you took it to sell it to bad people.”  She looked at Russell.  “That’s not what happened, mister!  That necklace was my mom’s, and the pawn shop jerk wouldn’t sell it to Mikko!”

Russell’s gaze on Lina was baffled.  Good, because Mikko was also lost.

“Wh—” Carlos started to say.

Annie interrupted him before he could finish the sentence.  “I swear to god, if one more person says ‘what’, I’m going to lose my absolute shit.”

Silence reigned.

Finally, Mikko spoke.  “I feel like . . . we should have a conversation?  Like normal, civilized people?” 

“I would be okay with that,” Russell finally said.  He still sounded confused, but he sounded more confident now.  “I suspect I missed something.”

Carlos and Timber exchanged glances before straightening, moving out of defensive stances.

“I don’t want to invite you into my house,” Russell said, looking from one side of the street to the other.  It was empty and quiet.  “But we shouldn’t have this conversation in the open.”  He stepped down from his porch and headed toward the gate leading to the backyard.