Hotbloods, Coldbloods, and the Creatures In Between

#16. Sonny

Gryle told me to be careful. He told me to watch out for Vito, that he didn't trust Vito. He thought one day Vito would bite me. That he'd kill me if I didn't watch my back. I told Gryle he was being overprotective, and even though I was mad at him for not ever telling me that Emie was a vampire or that Gryle was related to a witch, I didn't bring it up. It was a cheap shot and Gryle was just being Gryle, never saying more than he needed. He gave me his jacket. A brown leather bomber with pockets, big and small, down by the bottom near my waist, all the way up to my chest. "If you go to the Alps, you'll need this." He said.

He never told me about Victoria, and while I thought I was family to him, there was so much I didn't know about him. He knew everything about me. He raised me, with Emie whenever she was around. A few older kids that grew up, left and started their own lives. "I'm lending this to you." He said, his brows raised, cuing me for an answer. "Do you understand?"

"So, it's not mine?" I stopped myself from getting excited to own a leather bomber jacket.

"Make sure you bring it back to me." He said.

"You afraid I won't come back?" I say.

"Florence is a beautiful city. I've been there once." Emie said as she slipped into the shack. She walked close to me, stood straight, and tried not to cry. A red line formed on her bottom eyelids. "I never thought you'd leave." She sighed and opened her arms for a hug. When she pressed herself into me, I felt the same cool feeling I felt when I was close to Dominic. I never noticed it before. "These tunnels won't be as bright without your smile, Sunshine." She brushed her cold thumb against my jaw, gave me a kiss on the cheek. Gryle gave me a handshake. A firm handshake. Like I'm a business partner. It's okay. I've never seen him huge anyone before.

The distance we had to walk from the tent to the tunnel exit felt longer than before. The nods I got from other inhabitants. Tick, who gave me a hug, her head only reaching my chest, her thin dangly arms tightly wrapping around me, "tell me all about it when you get back." She whispers, before taking two beastly steps to Dominic, jabbing him in the chest with her index finger. "You take care of my older brother," she said with a scowl.

Dominic passed me a helpless glance, asking me what to do. "That's a threat, Dom." I tell him. "She'll carry through." Tick grinned.

Vito leaned into my ear, "our plane leaves soon; we don't have all night." One eyebrow arched to a point, insistent. The dwellers think I'm leaving; one by one, they come out of their shacks, give me a hug, tell us an anecdote about me when I as a child, running amuck in the tunnels. Getting in trouble. Getting out of trouble and by the way they told that part of the story, you'd think it was their favorite part. One, two, fifteen kisses on the cheek and we reached the end of the tunnel.

"Nyle called us a limo." Vito said. "There was some confusion over where to tell the driver to pick us up."

"You didn't just say to stop at the rusted maintenance door at the end of the Callahan Tunnel?" Ry chuckled.

"I told him the coffee shop just outside the tunnel. Uncle Nyle doesn't need to know we were underground. He'd be horrified." Vito said.

The stretch Lincoln picked us up outside the coffee shop and drove us to the airport. I was the only one that buckled my seatbelt and my heart began to beat a little harder. "Is there something wrong?" Dominic asked, quietly, as Ry raided the limo's bar and Vito criticized Ry's choice of drink; a little bit of everything.

"No." I said, and felt the knot in my stomach shift right, then left, but stuck to me like chewed gum on the bottom of a shoe.

"I can hear your heartbeat." He said, and in the mirror at the end of the limo, I could see him glance at my shoulder, still a fresh and sore wound, and he backed off. He slid away from me on the leather seat and looked out the window. His finger brushing over the window controls. He was sulking.