Mikko Lawrence

It was Mikko’s turn to pick up Lina from school.  He and Genie got off the bus across the street from the elementary school.  The last bell was already ringing, and parents crowded the pickup/drop off lane for their kids.  A young girl with black hair cried in front of one of the cars, her shirt streaked with blue ink, her mom talking to a teacher.

Genie and Mikko made their way across the street and up the pickup sidewalk.  One of the teachers overseeing pickups caught sight of them and pulled a walkie talkie from her hip, giving them a thumbs up.

If the teachers ever thought it was weird that an obvious teenager picked up Lina, they never said anything.  Genie really should have been in school, but after what she and Frankie had been through two months ago, school wasn’t a priority.  They had both been in their first year of high school when Rolly and Shirley were murdered.  They had dropped out within the first few weeks of the school year.

The door into the school was open, a steady stream of kids trickling out.  Lina came out, eyes going straight for the two of them.  They always stood in the same corner of the pickup area.  She smiled when she saw them and waved.

Lina was just past Mikko’s hips.  She was a skinny, lanky girl with shoulder-length blonde hair and dimples like her mom.  Her face lit up when she smiled.

Her knee-high white socks had splatters of blue ink on them, extending to her knees and the hem of her plaid dress.

“What happened?” he asked, pointing to the ink.

“Kayleigh brought a fountain pen for show-and-tell.  She dropped the ink bottle by accident and got it all over everyone sitting in the front row of the circle.”  She looked down, pursing her lips.  “I really liked these socks.  Sloane bought them for me when she was visiting.”

The girl crying with her mom made sense now.  That must have been Kayleigh.

“We can go by the corner store,” Genie said, taking Lina’s hand and signing one handed.  “Mira said we’re out of bleach.”  She smiled at Lina.  “We’ll see if we can get the stain out.”

“Or ask Sloane to buy more,” Mikko shrugged.

Genie smacked him.

“What?  She’s a sugar baby now.”

Genie scowled at him.  “She quit her job for us.  Karhi can take care of her for a bit.  It’s literally his job as her sire.”

“What’s a sugar baby?” Lina asked.

Genie glared at Mikko, and Mikko grimaced, looking at Lina.  “It’s an adult joke.  How was school other than inkgate?”

Her brow furrowed at the dumb name that was way too old for her to understand, but she didn’t ask.  She got the context.  “Good!  Mrs. Fiorelli gave me a gold star for getting all of my math questions right.”  She wore a white shirt underneath her plaid uniform dress.  She pulled the top of the dress aside to show a gold star sticker.

They both high-fived her.

“Can we go get the bleach after we get home?” she asked.  “Mom leaves today, and I want to say bye.”

Mikko knew he had been forgetting something.  “The thing with the vampires?” Mikko asked.  “That’s today?”

“Mom said she leaves at five.  But she promised to be home before Christmas.”  Lina pursed her lips in a pout.  “But I heard in her head that she didn’t know if that’s true, so I don’t believe her.”

Mikko and Genie exchanged amused smirks.

It was a mile walk back to the house, and as Lina had said, her mother was in a flurry of last-minute packing for her trip to Montana. 

“Oh, there you are,” she said as they walked in.  She kissed her daughter hello and handed Mikko an envelope that he knew, from the feel of it, was filled with cash.  “That should tide you over through to the end of next week.” 

“Oh, I don’t need—” he started, but she was already darting back upstairs.

Genie glanced at Mikko.  “I mean, you could keep it.”

“We don’t need it right now.”

“We always need money.”

She wasn’t wrong, but they had more than enough money to get them through to when Mira got back.  Especially because, as he understood, when Mira got back, she would be absolutely loaded.  They could finally afford to fix up the car and the house.

Mira came back downstairs.  “Amos is out of town, but Carlos, Arnia, and Timber are here.  So, if there are any emergencies—”

“Call them,” Genie finished her sentence.  “We know.”

Mira nodded, moving into the kitchen.  “There’s leftover pizza in the fridge—”

“We live here, too, we know,” Mikko replied, signing for Genie’s benefit.

Mira didn’t reply. 

“Where’s Annie and Frankie?” Mikko asked, following her into the kitchen while Genie took Lina upstairs to get changed out of her school clothes.

Mira shrugged.   “Drugs?  Fights?  Hell if I know.  They left before I woke up this morning.”  She moved from the kitchen, where she’d been filling up a water bottle, into the dining room, where there was a stuffed duffel bag and a backpack.  She stuck the water bottle in the side of the backpack.

“No water bottle going on a flight,” he reminded her.

“When you’re going on a chartered flight from an independent airport it doesn’t matter,” she replied, rifling through her backpack.  “Shit, toothbrush.”  She looked up at the ceiling for a moment before nodding.  She had probably asked Genie to bring it down with telepathy instead of getting it herself.

“Mira,” he said.

“I told Lina I’ll be back by Christmas.  I’m going to try really hard, but if I can’t, please use that money to get her some Christmas gifts.”

“Mira.”

“I’ll call you when I get there.  I’m worried about cell reception, but Aoife said that it should be fine.”

“Mira.”

“And if—”

“Mira,” he barked.

She stopped, head whipping around to look at him in shock.

He passed the envelope of money back to her.  “We don’t need this.”

“What?”

“We scored big today.  Seven grand between me and Genie.”

She stared at him.

“We’ll be fine while you’re gone, so—”

She passed the cash back to him.  “I don’t need it where I’m going.  I’ll be spending my whole time in the mountains with the Ruaidhrí family.  I think we’ll leave the castle maybe once.  And it’s all expenses paid, so if we do leave the castle, I won’t be paying.”

He took the cash back.  “Fine.  I’ll put it in your room.”

She smiled before looking up past him.

He glanced back to see Genie coming down with a toothbrush in her hand.  She passed it to Mira, who put it in her duffel bag.

“Congratulations on the money,” she said, smiling at her and Mikko.

“It was Genie,” he said.

Genie grinned.  “And Mikko got you a present.”

Mira glanced at Mikko.  “A present?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace he had taken from Genie.  He passed it to Mira.

Mira took it from him, brow furrowed in confusion.  Looking down at the pendant in her hand, the confusion disappeared, replaced with disbelief.  She looked up.  “You found it?” she whispered.

He nodded.

She immediately put it over her head and around her neck.  Her eyes were glassy.  She wrapped Mikko in an embrace, and he could feel her happiness and gratitude flowing through him as if it was his own.  And it made the shame and guilt so much heavier.

She pulled away.  “None of that,” she said, shaking her head.  “What’s in the past is in the past.  I have this now, and that’s all I care about.”  She kissed his cheek.  “Thank you so much.”

He glanced towards Genie.  “She was the one who stole it back.  The pawn shop wouldn’t sell it to us.”

She smirked, high-fiving Genie. “Well, their dumb mistake.  Wouldn’t have had to shell out five grand for a stolen ring then.”

He smirked.  She had gotten that directly out of their heads.

There was a knock at the door, and Mira straightened.  “That’s my car.”

Mikko crossed the dining room to peer out the front window.  There was a black town car idling outside.  A man in a black suit and a black chauffeur hat stood at the front door.

“Is that a tailcoat?” Mikko asked, turning away from the window as Mira zipped up her duffel bag.

“Fuck if I know,” Mira replied, pointing at Mikko and pointing at the duffel bag before turning to the kitchen where there was a small roller bag.

Mikko picked up the duffel bag and opened the door.  When the chauffeur saw him, he tipped his cap to Mikko.  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said.  “May I take that bag?”

Mikko passed him the bag, and the chauffeur walked back to the idling town car.

A group of teenagers passed by on the opposite end of the street, eyeing the car.  They were nudging and muttering to each other.  He knew what was going through their minds.  It was a nice car in a poor neighborhood; maybe they could boost the car. 

One of the kids felt Mikko’s gaze on him.  He looked up and when he saw Mikko, he looked up at the house.  He turned back to his friends, shaking his head and pointing at Mira’s house.  When the other kids followed his pointing, they each got a boost in their step, and they practically ran away.

People in the neighborhood knew Mira’s house.  They knew what would happen to anyone who tried anything near or around her property.  The old woman on Mira’s left on social security income had told Mira that she didn’t know how Mira did it, but she appreciated that she never had to worry about someone breaking into her house.  The house on the other side was abandoned but it also never suffered from vandals.  Squatters sometimes, but they were respectful.

Mikko only barely heard Mira as she bustled up behind him with a purse, a backpack, and her final piece of luggage.  The chauffeur was already coming back to take it from her.

Mikko heard the familiar sound of Lina running down the stairs and then Mira made a slight noise of alarm as Lina barreled into her. 

“Mommy, you have to come back before Christmas!”  Lina’s voice was muffled in Mira’s stomach.

“I know, baby.  I’m going to try really hard.”  She leaned over and kissed Lina on the top of her head.  Lina reached up and made a grabbing motion.

“You are getting too heavy for this,” Mira said.  But there was a smile on her face as she picked up her daughter.  Lina wrapped her arms around Mira’s neck and hugged her as tight as her forty-pound form could.

After a moment, Mira said, “Alright, pumpkin.  I need to go.”

Lina pulled away, scowling.

Mira made a kissy face, and Lina grudgingly kissed her mom on the mouth.  “You better be back,” she said as Mira set her down.

“I will try my best, baby.”

Lina scowled at her again, but Mira was already saying her goodbyes to Mikko and Genie.  She hugged them each, reminding them needlessly of food and resources for while she was gone.

After Mikko had assured her they were okay, she kissed Lina again before leaving with the chauffeur.  They watched as the chauffeur opened the back passenger door for Mira to get in.  They watched until the car was out of sight, and then Mikko finally closed the door.

“Alright,” he said.  “It’s almost dinner time.  Leftover pizza?”

“YES!” Lina signed emphatically.

When dinner was over, and they had settled Lina in for the night, Annie and Frankie still weren’t home.  Mikko told Genie he was going to go find them.  It was probably a fight night, so he knew where to look.

It was almost eleven by the time he left.  The streetlights cast a yellow glow over the neighborhood, giving everything a washed out feeling.  It made him uneasy.

Granted, since he’d been kidnapped, everything made him uneasy.  And when he didn’t know where Annie was, he felt even worse.  He had been kidnapped, and she’d been mauled and left for dead.

Mikko activated the house wards as he left.  A pinprick and a little bit of blood on the top of the doorjamb.  The only tell that the wards flared to life was his arm hair standing on end.  It was a little bit of a staticky feeling. 

About a week after Samhain, two mages had shown up to install wards on the doors and windows of Mira’s house.  It had been from Hazel Ruaidhrí to give Mira an added layer of protection.  After everything that had happened before Samhain, Hazel had wanted to make sure that Mira was as protected as she could be.  Mira was one of the Ruaidhrí assets—Hazel wouldn’t give her up so easily.  Especially after learning that her sister was unhinged enough to threaten Mira’s family even while they were under Hazel’s protection.

From what he understood about the wards—it would take a tank to get into the house.  And the magical equivalent was a powerful faerie.  The technical term had been “one of the high sidhe”.

The only gym that Annie really fought at anymore was Jack Bryant’s gym.  Over the past couple of years, it had slowly become a halfshifter-only ring.  When Bryant found out Annie was a halfshifter, it gave him the idea to host a halfshifter fight night once a week.  For a bit, it had cut into their income.  Bryant wouldn’t let Annie fight against the humans anymore because he didn’t want anyone else finding out.

But it had grown to be popular.  Halfshifters all over Phoenix and Tucson came to train at Bryant’s gym.  Annie didn’t always win anymore, but she also had a lot more fun than Mikko had ever remembered her having before that.  Especially because fullshifters both weren’t allowed to and had no interest in fighting at Bryant’s gym.  It was “below” them. 

The lights weren’t on outside the gym, but there were a few cars parked in the lot behind it, including Bryant’s black Jeep.  It was an overflow lot for the motel next door, making it the perfect cover for having illegal fights inside.

Mikko went to the back door and knocked.  There was a peephole in the door with a speaker and camera above it.  After a moment, the speaker crackled.  “Yes?”

Oh, shit what had Annie said the password was this month?  It was always a line from a book Bryant was reading.  “‘The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault’?” he tried.

The door opened to a dark-skinned Cuban man with a shaved head and a five-pound white and brown chihuahua in a sling against his stomach.  “Hey Mikko,” he said.

Mikko stepped inside the building.  A set of stairs next to the man led to the basement while a hallway led to Bryant’s office and the rest of the gym.

“What’s up, Reyes?” Mikko said, reaching out to scratch the dog’s head.  “Muñequito,” he said to the dog.  Muñequito grumbled in reply but closed his eyes at the head scratching.

“Your girl ain’t been on yet.  Twenty minutes, I think.”

The tension he’d been holding at the base of his spine dissipated.  He knew where Annie and Frankie were now.

“Thanks, man.  See you later.”

Reyes nodded to him, and Mikko set off down the stairs.

It wasn’t until he was halfway down the stairs that he heard the muffled rumble of a crowd behind the door at the bottom of the stairs.  He stopped at the door and prepared himself for the wall of sound he was about to walk into.

He could only hear fully out of his right ear.  His left had some hearing in it, but not enough to be useful beyond telling him that loud noise was occurring.  It meant that he had virtually no directional hearing.  Sound happened all at once.

He inhaled and exhaled and opened the door.

The sound and heat hit him like a freight train, but he continued through into it.  He had spent a lot of time at fight nights.  It didn’t make him nearly as anxious as it used to, and Annie was on the scene enough that any regulars also knew him.

He still hadn’t gotten used to how the room was always boiling from all the body heat.  Bryant kept the AC on in the room, but it just couldn’t keep up.

There were two rings in the room, but only one in use tonight.  Whooping and hollering halfshifters, paramortals, and magic-aware humans surrounded the ring, shouting up at the two fighters in the match.

The ring was three feet up from the ground.  There was a gap between the ring and the crowd, sectioned off by plastic construction barricades.  Trainers and family members were allowed there for the pauses between rounds. 

Bryant had upgraded to black wire cages a year or two back.  He had styled his business into more of an MMA gym.  It had been good for business, and Annie was thriving with being able to box and grapple.

Half-forms—where shifters transformed partially— and fully shifting were not allowed in the ring.  Bryant allowed human halfshifters (halfshifters who couldn’t transform) in the ring, but it was rare for them to go against form halfshifters (halfshifters who could transform) because they were rarely strong enough. 

Reyes had been wrong—Annie was already in the ring.  She wore a mouth guard and red boxing gloves, but that was it in the way of protection. Otherwise, she had on a sports bra and boxing shorts.  Fighting was done barefoot.

She wasn’t doing well.  She had blood smeared across her face and from the way she danced on her feet, she was unsteady.  It looked like a normal boxer’s stance, moving around and refusing to stay in one place, but he knew what her confident stance looked like.  This was not it.

The man opposite her was a tanned man with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. He looked to maybe be in his thirties.  He wore boxing shorts and blue gloves.  He wasn’t as bulky as a lot of the fighters in these rings, but he was still big.

His next jab at Annie was follow immediately by a savage knee into Annie’s side.  She flinched, leaving enough room in her guard for him to follow up with a hook directly into her head.

This guy was good.  Mikko was pretty sure Annie was going to lose.

Mikko searched the crowd for Frankie and found him standing on Annie’s side of the ring.  Her half of the ring had red along the cage, matching her red gloves. 

Mikko made his way to Frankie, glancing at the fight as he did.  Frankie was the same age as Genie, just beginning to grow into his height.  He probably wouldn’t beat Mikko or Sloane, but he’d be a respectable five-eleven.  His tanned skin glistened with sweat from the heat of the room, bronze curls matted to his face with sweat where they were pulled up.  He wore a tank top and cargo shorts, a duffel bag crossed across his body.  It held Annie’s gear and a change of clothes.

When he was behind Frankie, he said, loud enough to be heard above the din, “She’s up against a Muay Thai fighter?”

Frankie looked up at Mikko, surprised.  There were very few people that could get close into Frankie’s personal space without Frankie noticing.

When he saw Mikko, he looked back at the ring, shaking his head.  “It was supposed to be easy money,” he replied, voice tight with dismay.  “He’s a human and no one’s ever heard of him before.  Jimmy Park had to sit out tonight so this guy took his place.”  Frankie nodded to the blue side of the cage.  A Korean man in his thirties sat at the edge of the ring, looking up at the fight.  His arm was in a sling.

“It’ll be fine,” Mikko said.  He watched as Annie took another knee to the side.  She stumbled and almost fell.  Huh, she was struggling against a human?  Must have been a paramortal or something.

“This is round three,” Frankie said through gritted teeth.  “If she loses, we lose five hundred.”

“It’s alright, Frankie.”

Frankie looked up at Mikko, face screwed up in frustration.  “We need money for Christmas.”

“It’ll be fine,” he said.  Mikko didn’t want to get into a discussion with Frankie about why it would be fine.  Not here, when someone could overhear them.  Mikko didn’t have the money on him anymore, of course, but you never knew who was listening.

Annie’s opponent launched a roundhouse kick that Annie caught.  She yanked him forward, pinning his leg against her side.

Mikko recognized this move.  He grinned.  “She’s got him.”

Frankie looked up just in time for Annie to knock her opponent to the ground.  Before the guy knew it, she had him in a standing ankle lock.

He tapped out almost before Frankie saw what was going on.  The crowd lost their minds, screaming.  Some voices in the crowd yelled, “Falk.  Falk.  Falk.”  Though, at this volume, with this many voices, it sounded like “fuck”.

“The hell . . . ?” Frankie said, staring as the round was called.

“That’s my girl.”  Mikko grinned, swelling with pride.

“He tapped,  but he still got more points, I think,” Frankie said as the door to the cage swung open from the blue side and the ref walked out on the floor.  Annie helped her opponent up and fist bumped him once he was vertical.

They both looked rough.  Annie’s nose had definitely been broken during the fight, blood gushing from it.  Her opponent was bleeding from one ear, and one eye was almost swollen shut.

Jack Bryant was the ref.  He was a short, thick man with muscles that strained against his sweatpants.

The crowd quieted as Bryant moved to stand between the two fighters.  He held each of their wrists.  “The winner is Russell!”  He held up Annie’s opponent’s hand.

The crowd cheered.  Something that Mikko had come to understand over the years was that no matter who was in the fight, there would always be cheers.  Even if people didn’t know the fighters.  The audience was just excited for a fight.  Especially a good fight.  And he knew Annie always had a good fight.

Annie and Russell did the bro hug, Annie congratulating him.  She left so Russell could do a circuit of the cage for his adoring newfound fans.

She exited her side and stopped short at the bottom of the stairs when she saw Mikko.  She broke into a smile that made his heart simultaneously flutter, and his stomach twist.  The sight of her black mouthguard always made him uncomfortable because it just seemed fundamentally wrong.  Where were her teeth?

Mikko hugged her.  The scent of ginger, blood, and sweat filled his nose.  She was slick from exertion and still breathing hard.

Frankie helped her take her gloves off, and she spit her mouth guard out into its holder.  Frankie packed up her duffel bag, pulling out a cloth bag that would have clean clothes folded up in it.  Annie hated leaving the gym still in her fighting clothes.

They went to Bryant to collect Annie’s money.  She hadn’t won any bets, but Bryant still paid every fighter a bit for fighting.  He said it was good for business to pay them.  Mikko knew it was more because the shifters in the ring, winners or losers, would beat the living hell out of him if he expected them to fight for free.  He charged cover charges to everyone who wasn’t there as support for a fighter.

Annie made a respectable two-fifty, but nowhere near the thousand she would have gotten if she had won.  Bryant himself seemed surprised Annie had lost.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a fight tonight?” Mikko asked her once they were upstairs in the women’s locker room.  No one else was in there so Mikko was allowed with her as long as Annie was okay with it.  Frankie stayed outside.  Mikko leaned against the lockers opposite where Annie was changing.

She winced as she pulled off her bra and didn’t answer.  The bag with her clean clothes sat on a wooden bench in front of the lockers.  She toweled herself off before pulling out a new bra from the bag.

“Annie,” he pressed.  “I was worried when you didn’t come home.”

“My fight wasn’t supposed to go for that long.”

“That’s not an answer.”

She took out a pair of jeans from her bag and took off her boxing shorts.  As she did, he saw a black bruise on her hip.  Muay Thai fighters were no joke.

He waited for her to answer.  Annie was good at remaining silent or submitting people with the fear of her anger.  Mikko knew better.

Finally, she sighed, meeting his gaze.  Her eyes were a beautiful jade.  “I was worried.  Because I wanted to win that money so we could have a good Christmas.  Bryant asked me last minute yesterday.” 

It was a rare moment.  She wasn’t hard, and she wasn’t being strong.  She was letting him see her disappointment.

He smiled gently, pushing off the lockers to move closer to her.  “You thought you wouldn’t win?”

She looked away, packing her dirty clothes in the bag.  The shirt she would wear sat next to it.  “I mean, I didn’t.”

He stepped over the bench and put a hand on her bare shoulder.  She looked up at him, biting the inside of her lip uncertainly.  A rush of affection flooded him.  It was so rare that she let herself look uncertain that it made him love her that much more.

He hugged her tightly to him.  He felt her surprise in the way she stiffened before she hugged him back.

“Genie and I hit the jackpot, so we’ll be fine,” he told her, pulling away.

Her brow furrowed.  “What?”

“I’ll tell you when we get home.”  He looked around the room in a gesture that meant he didn’t want people here to hear about it.

She nodded, a half-smile quirking her lips.  “Alright.”

He kissed her, being careful to avoid her broken nose that was slowly resetting.  “You were really good up there.  That ankle lock was awesome.”

The half-smile turned into a full, self-satisfied grin.  “Right?  Timber taught me that last month.  It’s so sick.”  She put on her shirt.

He put her dirty clothes into her duffel bag and zipped it up.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said as he handed her bag to her.  “I know you been jumpy since October, and I didn’t think about that.”

He took her hand and squeezed.  “Thanks.”  He kissed the backs of her fingers.

She nodded and started towards the door.  He saw a slight flush on her cheeks.

He still had it.