BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 27
 

“Oooo! What about this one?” Lena said as she held up a short hemmed dress in teal.

  Cerise smiled as the doe held it against her front and twisted around trying to get an idea of what it would look like. “If you could find it in a color that matches your dye job, I’d say go for it!”

  “Don’t you think it’s a trifle short, dear?” Sharan asked. “You’d be showing an awful lot of leg, don’t you think?”

  The rabbit gave Cerise and her mother a wicked grin. “That’s sort of the idea! I want every male that sees Randy with me to be so envious they’ll be chewing on their livers in jealousy for the next six months!”

  Sharan gaped at Lena in astonishment before laughing. “You are a wicked young lady!”

  Lena only leered back. “I know. Horrible, isn’t it?”

  The group burst out laughing, enjoying themselves immensely.

  Cerise was thankful that her mother, Lena, Melise, Sonja and Odette had decided to take her shopping. It was a welcome relief after the trial, and helped take her mind off of the whole sorry affair. Even Pala was having a good time as she absently touched articles of clothing she found, though maintained a watch on Cerise and Sharan. Melise and Odette had already found outfits for later that evening when they would meet the males for supper. Her father had booked an entire room at the Azure, one of the most raved about restaurants in Grandstorm. It was a testament to her father’s sway and influence in that Rovi had no problem calling a few hours ahead and getting an entire room.

  With a giggle of excitement, Lena ran off to the dressing room to try the dress on, leaving Cerise with her mother and the other four females to continue looking for something that would have the desired effect on Elias. Before she’d gotten through a quarter of the garments in front of her, Cerise saw the doe return, and she had to admit that the teal actually went with her new dye job fairly well.

  The dress fastened at the neck and plunged down, crossing over her breasts then wrapping around her hips and covering her rump while leaving her small puff of a tail free. The front ended a few inches above her knees, and at mid-calf in the back. Her back was bare, exposing the swirling design the rabbit had on her back.

  “Oh, that’s perfect!” Cerise said with a smile.

  “Really? Do you think that Randy will like it?” the doe asked hopefully.

  Cerise nodded. “Oh, yeah.”

  Lena ran her hands over the fabric, relishing the feel of the silk on the soft pads of her hands. “Too bad there’s not enough fabric to conceal my pistol,” she said with a slight pout.

  “Heavens, Lena!” Sharan said with shock. “You won’t be carrying a firearm, will you?”

  All of the females nodded. “Orders. Even on a well policed planet like Dennier, we carry at all times,” Melise said, shifting her left arm and bags out and showing the older vixen the butt of her sidearm and two blades. “It’s like the Star farer Credit Card commercial. ‘Never go anywhere without it!’”

  Sharan looked at her daughter. “You too?” she asked with a slightly sickened expression.

  Cerise nodded. “I have to, Momma. It’s like carrying prophylactics. I’d rather have and not need, than need and not have.” She put her hand on her mother’s shoulder, “It’s just the way it has to be. I know you don’t like it, but you need to accept it. Now help me find something like Lena’s dress, but I think I’d like it in red.”

  “I might be able to help with that, if you’d let me,” a female voice said quietly a little way from the group.

  They all turned, but it was Cerise that reacted first. With a cry, she leaped forward to catch the newcomer in a fierce hug, the other female flinched slightly, then relaxed as the black fox’s arms wrapped around her.

  “I’m so glad to see you, Keena!” Cerise cried.

  Sharan moved closer and gave her other daughter a small smile, keeping her guard up until she was sure that the russet furred vixen wasn’t going to do anything rash.

  Keena melted into her sister’s embrace, a tear squeezing past her tightly closed eyes. She whispered  to her sister, but it was clearly audible to the rest of the group.

  “I’m so sorry for the way I acted, Ceri. I treated you so badly. And poor Elias. Gods! I am so sorry! Can you ever forgive me?”

  Cerise pulled back and looked at her sister with a genuine smile and all of the warmth she had in her heart for her sibling. “Of course I do. You’re my sister!”

  Both younger vixens reached out and drew their mother into an embrace. It was several moments before they loosened their holds on each other, and Keena composed herself quickly. “Now then, You have always looked great in reds and greens, so come over here and I’ll show you what we have.” As she led her sister away to another section, she turned to Lena. “If you give me a few minutes, I have a dress similar to that one that matches the dye color of your fur.”

  “That would be great!” Lena exclaimed with a grin.

  “How do you know where everything is in here?” Cerise asked as she was led to another rack of dresses.

  “I, um, started working here two days after I last saw you. I moved in with Valentina, and she informed me that even though we were friends that I would have to pull my own weight. I’ve even started to learn cooking!” Keena seemed proud of her accomplishments, and Cerise was actually impressed.

  “So what time do you get off of work? We’re all meeting at the Azure tonight for dinner, and the rest of the crew will be there. You can tell me all about what you’ve been doing.” Despite the sore feelings when they had their last parting, Cerise was elated to see her sister and had missed her terribly.

  Keena waffled on her answer. “I really don’t want to intrude.”

  “Nonsense! You’re my sister! You wouldn’t be intruding. I want you there. Really.”

  The red colored fox smiled. “If you’re sure…”

  “Of course I am!” Then she paused as a realization struck her, and Cerise took her sister’s hands and led her a few feet away from the selection of clothing she’d been about to show her. “Um, I don’t really know how to ask this, so I’ll be blunt, and hope that you don’t get mad.” She swallowed hard and calmed herself before driving on. “You’re not seeing Marin Pizer are you?”

  Keena made a sour face. “Oh, Gods no!” She shuddered involuntarily. “I knew he had feelings for you, which was one of the reasons that I had him as my date for the weeding. We kind of played around afterwards for about a week or so, but his…um…tastes, well, he was mean, Cerise. He likes to hurt others.”

  “He didn’t hurt you did he?” Cerise asked. When her sister didn’t answer immediately and looked away, she squeezed Keena’s hands. “Did he?”

  Keena looked at her sibling, then away again and nodded. “He’s…crazy. I mean frighteningly so.”

  “You don’t have to worry about him ever again. No one does,” Cerise said flatly.

  “He tried getting a hold of me several times, but I was able to avoid him. He is obsessed with you, you know. He really is sick.”

  “That’s one of the reasons that I’m here. You can’t tell anyone else about this,” Cerise whispered. “I mean it. Not another soul. The reason that we’re back was to attend his trial for attempted murder.”

  Keena looked as if she’d just been hit in the back of the head with a club. “Murder? Are you serious?!? Who?”

  Cerise looked at Keena, her expression unflinching. “Me.”

  Keena seemed like she was going to speak, but Cerise stopped her.

  “There will be time for you to hear what happened later. Help me find something to wear first.”

  Together under far better circumstances than they parted, the little knot of family and friends continued their shopping foray, and while the day had been one of less than happy circumstances, the next few hours held the potential of healing a family.

***

  “Tonight was a good night, don’t you think?” Rovi asked Sharan as he slid under the blankets and next to his mate. “I’m happy that Keena’s back. And she and Cerise seemed to have made amends.”

  Sharan snuggled closer to her husband and lay her head on his chest. “Well, at least I have both daughters back for a little while. I don’t know why Keena didn’t want to move back in, though.”

  Rovi chuckled. “For the first time in her life, she’s standing on her own. She isn’t relying on others for her keep, she’s earning it. That does something to some. She has really grown up.”

  He was surprised to feel Sharan’s shoulders shaking and looked down to see that she was silently crying. “What’s wrong, Dearest? Why are you crying? You should be happy. Tell me.” He wrapped his arms around his wife and held her tight to him trying to sooth her.

  “I feel like I’ve been given one daughter back just so I can lose the other!” she whispered, her voice betraying the level of emotional anguish she felt inside. “I know what they’re going through out there, her and Elias and all the others. They have to carry guns with them even here! Aren’t they ever safe?”

  “Sharan, Cerise is with a fine crew. As fine, if not better, than any I served with for over twenty years. Yes, what they do is dangerous. I won’t lie about that. But Elias and the others won’t let anything happen to her. Even if it means they have to sacrifice their lives.”

  “But why do they have to do it? They’re such a wonderful group of young people. So young and alive! Why does it have to be them?”

  Rovi sighed. “I have tried to explain this before, but unless you’ve been out there, you will never really understand.” He felt Sharan stiffen in his arms, and continued before this turned into something akin to their arguments of years ago when they were first married. “There are four types of individuals, Dearest. Those that ignore what happens around them, those that want to help but do nothing because they are afraid to get involved. And then there those that roll up their sleeves and do what needs to be done. Cerise, Elias and the rest are that third group. They have to do this because it is part and parcel of who and what they are. They could no more not do it than you or I could will our hearts to stop.”

  “What about the fourth? What are they?”

  Rovi’s eyes hardened, though she couldn’t see them. “They are the ones our daughter and son protect the rest of us from.”

***

  Sitting next to the small fire pit that was located a dozen yards from the pool deck, another conversation was taking place. Sitting close to the crackling fire fueled with split logs of aromatic cedar was a pair that had surprised the rest of the party. Sitting close to Keena, his coat over her shoulders to ward of the chill of the evening was Lemuel Anders. The vixen had been drawn to him for some strange reason, though instead of reacting to the quiet and reserved tiger in what would have been her normal fashion just a few months prior, Keena had approached him almost demurely. She found him to be a fascinating individual.

  “Was my sister really that sick?” Keena asked, her eyes and expression more than a little haunted.

  The tiger nodded slowly. “If things had been the slightest bit different, we would have lost her. Fortunately we were close to Pomen and a very talented doctor.”

  Keena looked at the tiger. “From what I’ve been told, she owes her life to you, Lemuel. You saved her.”

  “I had a hand in it, but that’s about all. But tell me why are you crying?”

  She batted away the tears that welled in her eyes self-consciously. “Because when I left, just before she took off in your ship, I…it could have been the last time that I’d seen her and we were so angry at each other! I love my s-sister! The thought that my last words to her were so hateful…it’s tearing me up inside! And then with the way I treated her husband…”

  Despite what his head told him, Lemuel followed the advice of his heart and pulled the small vixen to him and held her close, letting her cry herself out with nothing more than his silent support. He didn’t speak again until her emotions had run their course.

  “We never know when a good-bye will be the last. We have to make the moments that we have with the people we love matter and treat them like the gift and blessing they are.”

  “You’ve heard stories about me, haven’t you.” It was a statement and not a question, and Keena looked up into the deep amber eyes that seemed to take on the light from the fire.

  He nodded. “I have. But we can change, so as far as I’m concerned, you don’t need to worry. You have a clean slate with me.”

  Without knowing why, Keena related her time with Marin to the tiger, telling him everything that had happened. And while a great deal of what had been done to her made her feel dirty, unclean and that she should be loathed, it seemed to give her strength at the same time, like leeching the pus from an abscess so that it could heal. She hadn’t realized just how toxic the fox had been to her, how he twisted things so much that she had felt the beatings, and worse, were her fault, that she deserved them. She’d been seeing a therapist for over two months, and told Lemuel as much, though talking to him, sharing the darkest parts of herself to the tiger, made her feel better than her ongoing regimen of psychiatric hygiene ever had.

  Finally she wound down, and sat there silently.

  “You know that you will never have to worry about him again, right?”

  Keena nodded. “Cerise told me that he’s on his way to some penal colony.”

  Lemuel shook his head. “No. In point of fact he is not. Mister Pizer attacked a guard shortly after his trial. The guards had no option but to shoot him. He won’t trouble you ever, ever again.”

  It was with some surprise that Lemuel realized that at some point his arms had slid around the small female and that he held her close enough to feel the heat from her body. With a pang of chagrin, he moved so that he could put some space between them. Keena caught his hand. “No. Please don’t. I…I know this may be forward, but I really want to be held right now. And I’m very glad it’s you.”

  “You’re not trying to seduce me, are you?” the tiger asked with a grin, but realized too late that it wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to say.

  Keena stiffened. Was she? Was she acting the way she used to? He was handsome, and available. Was she trying to seduce him?  Horror welled up in her and she started to rise.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “That really wasn’t the best thing for me to say. I really was just teasing.”

  Tears had begun to flow again. “I…I don’t know if I was or wasn’t,” she admitted. “Gods, Lemuel! I’m so screwed up that I can’t tell!”

  He gently pulled her back to her seat and wrapped his arms around the trembling female. “No, little one. You aren’t screwed up. Just hurt. Very, very hurt. Granted, a little of it is self-inflicted, but most was not your fault. Come here.” He held her to him, placing Keena’s head against his chest. “You are a good person, Keena. Sure, you’ve made some choices that weren’t the best, but that doesn’t make you bad, or terribly screwed up. And if you ever have any doubts, just come ask me. Okay?”

  He felt her nod, then he did as she’d asked and simply held her.

  Being a Doctor meant that at times you helped heal more than just the physical hurts.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.