Act normal.  Just act normal.

Emily kept her eyes forward as the elevator started making its slow ascent.  "So...doing anything for Christmas."

Barbara turned and gave her a slow, withering look.  "Yes, I am.  I plan to babysit a teenage werewolf.  And how about you?"  Her words came out as empty of emotion as ever but still managed to drip with honey-thick sarcasm.

"Right.  Stupid of me.  It's just Christmas makes me think of family and stuff."  Emily muttered her excuse, hoping that its blandness would make it convincing.  She really didn't want to discuss what the holidays actually made her think of.  Not with Barbara anyway.

For Emily, Christmas would always be a season of gray, empty days.  She could think of only three times when the holiday had been a pleasant experience.  The two years after Aaron was born and the one she'd spent with the Burkes.

The briefness of the time she'd lived with that couple was offset by the magnitude of the fantasies she had entertained.  In her funny, teenage dreams, she had imagined the successful couple adopting her and their home becoming hers.

Back then, they seemed old.  Maybe a lot less gray and worn out than most of the foster parents, but too old for their lives to experience many more changes.  Perhaps her coming into their home would be the last big one.

They must have only been in their early thirties.  It didn't seem old at all, now that Emily was in sight of that age. 

The Burkes had both been lawyers and their clapboard house in the trendy, bohemian district of Boston was like something out of a dream.  The Jamaica Plain home had shown off their eclectic hipness.  The hallway was hung with carvings they had brought back from Africa, Indonesia, and Tahiti.  Fierce faces stared down at young Emily as she walked in for the first time.    She was shocked there wasn't a TV in the living room.  Instead, there was a stereo that was all mirrors and glass and looked like it had been taken from a sci-fi movie set.  The CD player hung on the wall and the six disks it held could be seen spinning through the translucent panel.  The dining room had been sleek and modern with benches instead of chairs.  And the centerpiece was a gilt Versace tea set, on display high atop an armoire buffet.

Compared to the place she had been living at in Quincy, it was magical.  It made her forget the cramped, dingy quarters, with holes in the drywall, windows that icy gusts whistled through, and piles of laundry everywhere.  There had been six other kids at that home and only three bedrooms for them all.

At the Burkes', Emily had her own room and never had to share.  Except for when they had houseguest and she had to sleep on the sofa in the den. 

Mary and Ben had treated her like their own daughter.  They had spoiled her that Christmas.  She remembered presents—plural.  She only had a vague memory of the clothes, CDs, and gadgets she had gotten.  Although, she still had the antique-looking crystal neckless in a box under her bed.  But the thing she would never forget was the warm feeling with the decorations all around her and the smell of dinner cooking.  She had felt safe.

But then in the spring, Mary had announced she was pregnant, and then they needed Emily's room for a nursery.  So off she went to the next foster home.  Emily discovered she had only been a trial child.  She had been thirteen. 

Right around the same age as Amy.  What will Christmas mean to her in ten years?  Dried out turkey on a metal tray, sitting in the pass-through slot?

Barbara yanked Emily out of her thoughts, with one of her snide questions.  "Oh, I thought you and Max might have something planned?"

"What?  I have no idea what you're talking about.  Why would Mr. Wiley and I have plans?"

"Oh, please.  Give it a rest."

What the hell did she suspect?  Did she guess they were in a relationship or did she have some clue about what Max was doing?  Was she purposely needling Emily?  Poking at her distress out of her innate cruelty?

"You're a delusional bitch."

"We both know I am not delusional."

The elevator shuddered to a stop at the halfway point.  They stood still as the sensors scanned their heartbeats and RFID chips.  Day after day, the tediousness of the security protocols vanished into a dull but irritating haze.  The trip to the surface may not have required the password and voice scan, but it only served as a reminder to Emily that she would need to do it the next day on her descent.

They started moving upward again.  The only indication that they had passed the test was the maddening lines scrolling across the screen like the stupid hourglass icon on a computer, which made you believe something was happening so you didn't pound your fist against the damn thing.

"I've never spent a winter in a place without snow.  It's strange."

Those were perhaps the first normal words Emily ever heard Barbara Gracie speak to her.  They almost sounded wistful.

"Yes.  It's a big change.  Are you from up north?"

"Minnesota."

Emily nodded.  "I'm from New England.  Boston mainly, but all over."

Barbara gave her an expression that said, whatever.  

The heat of anger rose up and covered Emily's face.  Her molars ground against each other. 

"I'm surprised you miss it.  I can't picture you making angels in the snow."  She was disappointed in herself that she couldn't think of anything nastier to say.  She'd have to work on that.

"I liked the cold."

"Yeah.  That figures."

The LCD lines slowed to a stop.  The door slid open and the guardroom expanded in front of them.  It was a dull windowless cave but it might as well have been a mountain vista.  Emily sucked in a deep breath of air, happy to be free of her confinement with Barbara.

But being back on the surface brought a return of the anxiety she'd been feeling all day.  How could she just go home and pretend that everything was normal?  Her fate was being decided—might very well have been decided already.  Until she heard from Max, she was in a limbo state hovering between joy and despair.  If all went as planned she'd have Aaron back with her tomorrow.  And if things didn't go as planned...

Emily didn't want to think about it.  She was so close to having a family again.  And so close to having it all taken away.

The door swung shut behind her and Emily took her first steps into the reception area.  She didn't even notice that Barbara wasn't behind her.

***

The endless Christmas music had worn out its welcome and there were still two weeks to go.  Horus had banished the radio and switched to CDs to accompany on his commute to the Music Box.  Bill Withers was spinning out smooth soulful nostalgia.  Memories of his dorm room at Berkley and his first few tentative dates with Vanessa interlaced with the passing scenery and pushed work and his upcoming session with Amy out of his mind.

There was an afternoon that spring when they sat side by side on the couch listening to this album.  Horus had just bought Menagerie and it seemed like the most romantic record that there ever would be.  They listened and watched birds reel in the sky outside the open window, which let in cool, sweet air.

 His arm was stretched out along the back of the cushions.  It stretched to the end and his hand hung off.  Horus had hated how thin his arms were.  No matter how much he worked them, the muscle mass spread along the lean limbs and hid, making him forever lithe and wiry.  At twenty-three he was skinny—honest to God, skinny.  And it bothered him.

He smiled at his own foolishness.  What he wouldn't give for that body today.  But at the time, he feared it made him look weak.  He made up for it with what he had called swagger.

Horus almost laughed out loud thinking about that.

But that spring day he had no swagger in him.  Timidly he had kept his scrawny arm two inches from Vanessa's shoulders.  It was as though a force field kept him from touching the precious, dear girl beside him.  She seemed so skittish that he feared one wrong move would send her out of his room and out of his life.

She was the one who made the first move.  Vanessa leaned into him and nestled herself into the hollow of his body resting her head on his chest as Tender Things began to play.  The shock of her movement and the sensuousness of her touch sent his heart into a tremulous bebop tempo. 

"I could just stay like this forever," she said.

He wrapped his arm around her.  "Me too, baby.  Me too."

Horus was brought back to the Arizona morning, as the teeth that had been gently worrying the inside of his cheek bit down hard.  He peered down at the dash to find the eject button.  He had had enough of this music.

Soothing silence filled the car.  He let out the breath he had been holding.

Ancient history, he thought.

Looking back up the road ahead of him was clear, but something flickered in his periphery.  When he glanced over, the grill of a white pickup was insanely close and barreling toward him.

There was no time to do anything.  As he hit the brakes, the impact tilted the car upward.  It jarred him as though the bumper had hit him directly without the mitigation of steel and fiberglass.  His BMW spun across the blacktop.  The outside world was a tornado of chaos—hell erupting from a geyser with Horus in the center.

The car leaped past the shoulder and careened to a stop in the desert.  Dust clouded around him.  The airbag trapped him in place.  Adrenalin shot through his body with agonizing electricity.

Where had it come from?

There weren't any intersections on this part of the road.

People were approaching the car.  Wavering, shadowy figures—black against the bright day.  But Horus lost consciousness before he could focus on them.

***

Author's Note:

I don't normally leave a note in the middle of the chapter but there's a couple of things I wanted to touch on.  First, I was hoping to get up three parts this week but that didn't work out. Part three will be up next week.  Maybe as an early posting or as the Friday posting depending on how much time I get.  Second, the music.  I usually leave the music track to the last posting of each chapter, but this just paired so well with Horus's scene I had to use it here. I was recently re-introduced to Bill Withers while on vacation. Some nights after dinner, I would end up at a bar where a small jazz ensemble would play. The singer was fond of Bill Withers and played one of his songs in every one of her sets. While I was struggling to write something about Horus I dredged up his music and this scene came into being. Oddly, within minutes of finishing it, I saw on Twitter that Bill Withers had just been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.