Free Wildcat Fireflies by Amber Kizer Page B

appear at any other time. Only when a bunch of people use me.” I held my hands out toward him in surrender.
    He stilled. “Did she?”
    I stood and walked toward him. “Yeah, but the words were jumbled, broken. Like before. I got a few of them. We have to find Father somebody? Ask Custos?”
    “I still say it’s too risky.”
    “I’m careful.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    His words slapped.
    “I—” I sank down into a chair, the fight flying out of me. “I’m a wuss.”
    “What?” Bafflement paused his hands and he leaned against the counter.
    “I want to go to Siberia or Antarctica and hide.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Nocti hunting us. Me supposed to find other Fenestra and save them. Helping the dying reach the highest plane. I don’t want it.” I laid my head in my arms. “They picked the wrong girl.”
    “No, they didn’t.”
    “They did.” I raised my head and my voice. “They should have picked a brave, confident girl, instead they got me. What if that’s what Auntie’s trying to say?”
    Tens came closer, knelt at my side, wiped my tearing eyes with his thumbs. “Auntie believed in you.”
    “You’re just saying that.”
    “No, I’m not. Why do you think she asked your parents to name you after her? Why do you think she sent you quilts with Fenestra mojo and prayers for strength in every stitch?”
    “She did?”
    “She wanted you to come live with her immediately. She asked your parents to bring you so she could teach you, but your mom wouldn’t.”
    “She’d have to have been honest with my dad.” I shook my head.
    “Auntie used to talk about you. Your mom wrote her and sent her photos.”
    “Photos?” Fenestras don’t show up on film until we figure out how to operate the window. The light overexposes it, I think.
    “They weren’t good—you were mostly just a blob of light—but she kept sending them. Auntie knew, and still knows, that you are exactly who you need to be to do this job.”
    “Really?”
    “Really. And so do I. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time. But you need to understand how helpless I feel when you’re gone and I’m watching your body. When you do so many souls, it’s like the energy drains out of you. I can see it happening. First your skin pales and your hair loses its curl, then your heartbeat slows. And all I can do is sit there with you and hope you don’t go through.” His voice roughened and his eyes swam with tears. “I can’t lose you. I wouldn’t survive, Supergirl.”
    “I’m not going anywhere.” I leaned my forehead in the curve of his neck and held on to him as tightly as he gripped me. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
    He nodded against my head. “I want you safe.”
    “Me too.”
    “You’d get bored talking to penguins in Antarctica.”
    I giggled. “I’d teach ’em poker.”
    “With fish and chips?” He laughed.
    “Ha-ha.” I snorted snot bubbles, which made me laugh harder and break away for a Kleenex.
    “We’re supposed to ask Custos? Seriously?” He turned to me, then glanced over at the couch. “In English?”
    I nodded. “I guess.”
    Custos rolled over on her back, spread her legs wide, and wagged her tail.
    “So, in the morning, we ask her to help us find Father
somebody
?”
    “Anthony.” I snapped my fingers. “That’s it, Anthony.”
    Tens nodded, but didn’t say anything else. He poured soup into bowls and nuked them until they were piping hot. I rubbed the headache pounding at my temples.
    “Head hurt?” he asked.
    “Yeah, just a normal human headache.”
    “You sure?” He sounded skeptical.
    “Yes, positive.”
Like we are going to have the I-get-a-headache-and-cramps-with-my-period conversation. I don’t think so
. Before—before Revelation and all this—I rarely had a period. The doctors said it was because I was too thin, too anxious, too something indefinable. But forthe past two months, every twenty-eight days I counted on needing tampons, Midol, and chocolate ice