Free Downfall by Rob Thurman Page A

knew how long I had? It could be weeks, months, maybe if I was lucky even a year, depending on how long I could keep control. I might have to go the hoodie route myself depending on how quickly my hair and eyes changed, but if a Wolf whose hands were stuck in mutated paws that couldn’t open pickle jars could pull it off, so could I.
    I couldn’t depend on luck, though. I’d learned that before my ABCs. That meant that I needed to do all I could for Nik before it was too late. I couldn’t convince him my end wasn’t his. That had been certain since the days when my first word had been his name and my first wobbling toddler steps had been toward him, not toward the woman who had sold her womb and had despised what had slid out of it.
    If I couldn’t convince him to let me go alone—and I knew that was nonnegotiable in all the ways that there were ways—then I could make sure his last days were the best I could make them. Voilà . . . breakfast, which was much more difficult than simply killing something for him. I knew he’d appreciate that the effort of the first far exceeded the effort of the latter.
    “Lucy taught me to make it. I had to pay her, singed my damn fingers over and over. And the wretched, evil tofu. Just looking at that crap made me want to . . .” I shut up. This was a present. A gift, and you didn’t ruin one of those by bitching. “Anyway, she’s a helluva lotmeaner than you. I had to learn fast if I wanted to keep my fingers. So it had better be the best breakfast casserole you’ve ever had.”
    “It is. I so solemnly swear.” This time he pointed the fork with a piece of red and yellow dripping goo at my forehead and the now-cleaned shallow gash. “Don’t tell me you’re docked another week’s pay or we may have to live off your casserole for the next two weeks.” Then his lips curved wickedly as his eyes narrowed slightly. “Hmm. I’m glad you’re not vain, baby brother. It looks like you’re going gray already.”
    Shit. I grabbed a handful of hair on each side of my head and pulled them forward. There it was, on the right this time. Another single silver strand that I knew hadn’t been there two hours ago when I shattered the bathroom mirror. So much for waiting until after Nik’s meal to break the news. After a quick jerk and a sharp pain, I placed the white hair between us on the sand-colored countertop. Blood smudged the root the same as it had with the first one. Wasn’t that the Auphe all over? You couldn’t even rip a handful of their hair free without a battle to the bloody death.
    Niko frowned at the strand before running his finger over it lightly, promptly losing most of the Greek-Rom olive tint to his skin. I didn’t blame him. I knew what he had felt—the unnatural bite and scrape of unseen barbs. If I hadn’t been born already Auphe-pale, I’d have lost a little color too.
    “Cal?”
    “I know.” Shrugging, I sat down heavily on a stool of my own. I dropped a more or less triangular-shaped piece of mirror I’d retrieved from the bathroom floor onto the counter. You only figure out you’re going to need a mirror after you’ve broken the only one you own. I added, “I first saw it at work a few hours ago. I hadsome red in my eyes too.” I smirked a little, because, hell, at this point, why not? “You know, the kind that Visine doesn’t get out? A few flecks in each iris, but they disappeared once my enormous initial freak-out faded.”
    I pushed the fragment of mirror, facedown, to and fro. “It’s okay, Cyrano,” I assured him earnestly. As earnest as I could be. It wasn’t an emotion I used often, but I needed it now. “Auphe genes always win. We’ve known that forever now, right?”
    Not forever as other people would think it, but for a few years. And in our life a few years was practically forever.
    My brother stared at me blankly, the lines of his shoulders and jaw as tense as I’d ever seen them. I should’ve kept my mouth shut, I