Okay. Dew was getting tired of this. Setting her plate down on the mattress next to her, she faced Blythe squarely. "You’re jerking me around and I'm feeling pissed off."
"You’re right, you’re right," Blythe said quickly. “I suck at this. The people who can go in and out of the Junkyard have all been able to do so after forming very close attachments with someone else in here. Like me with Jase."
Oh, gross. This was a cult. To be free, people had to have sex with the leader. Dew hadn't sensed those creepy vibes in Blythe and Jase, but wasn't that how it worked with cults? People were taken in by charismatic leaders. Already Dew had started to trust Blythe. Blankets, pancakes, an “honest heart-to-heart.”
Fearing that her pancakes were going to make a reappearance, Dew leaned forward and swallowed several times, trying to dispel her nausea. She vaguely listened to Blythe continue the conversation.
"First it was Grant and Caitlyn. Then Carter and Lena. After that, my friend Jessica met her mate, Marcus. And then Jase and me. Ha, that almost didn’t happen. We were both so stupid—”
"Wait," Dew said. "We don't all have to have sex with Jase?"
Blythe stared, several emotions flitting across her face. Shock, befuddlement, and then horror. "Hell no! Oh my gosh, is that what you thought I meant? Holy shit, no way. He’s mine—find your own mate.”
“Mate?”
“It’s just what we call our partners here,” Blythe said.
"Did I walk straight into a paranormal romance novel?" Dew mused.
Blythe's eyes widened. “Um...why would you think that?"
Dew leveled a look at her. Blythe wasn't stupid, and neither was Dew. "I've accepted the magic wall," Dew said. "You’re talking about mates. And I saw a bear light up like a torch and turn into a naked man last night. So, I guess I'd like to know everything, right now, so I can figure out what I'm dealing with."
"All right," Blythe said. "I'm not trying to lie to you, it's just that a supernatural prison for shapeshifters is kind of a lot for most humans to handle. And the fact you need to fall in love with one of them to escape this place is even more to wrap your head around."
Dew's mind buzzed while Blythe kept talking.
“Dew?”
“Are there vampires?” Dew asked. “You said witches made the boundary. So how about vampires? And zombies?”
“Vampires, yes,” Blythe said, “although I haven’t met any. They tend not to live in North America, according to Jase, although supposedly there’s a court in Montana.”
“Cool,” Dew said absently. Vampires. Shapeshifters. Witches.
"No zombies, though,” Blythe said. “I was going to reveal everything more slowly, as you got used to each part of this whole"—she waved her hands at the junkyard beyond the windshield—“but I guess if one of these idiots shifted in front of you last night, then it doesn't make sense to hold anything back. Dew—Dew? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Dew said quietly. "I'm great."
She moved forward to the bookshelves. A piece of blue envelope stuck out the top of one of the books like a bookmark. After tugging it free, she saw her own handwriting.
Dear S,
I haven't been able to stop thinking about the last poem you sent me. I don't know what to say, except it was beautiful and I'm grateful you shared it with me.
Sometimes I don't know why I moved from Sacramento, except for the quiet of this small town. I loved the big public library there, the diversity of the patrons, the bustle and busyness of it all—
“Um, should you be looking through Stetson's mail?" Blythe said, a tiny thread of reproach in her voice.
Dew turned to her, feeling stunned all over again. It was one thing to strongly suspect she’d been corresponding with this man, and another thing entirely to handle the evidence.
"He probably won't mind." Dew said. “Seeing as how I wrote this."
"What?" Blythe leaned forward.
“Yeah. Do you think...do you think you could introduce me to him?"
“This is major,” Blythe said. “Heck yes. Let’s go talk to Jase, he’ll know where Stetson is.”
Carrying their dishes, the women walked through the Junkyard. A handsome guy with black hair and olive skin was tinkering under the hood of a rusty Camaro. When Dew and Blythe walked past, he said, “Hey.”
“Hi, Luca,” Blythe said. “This is Dew.”
“Hi, Dew. You going to eat those pancakes?”
“No, do you want them?”
He was in front of her so fast, Dew barely saw him move. She handed over her plate and he grinned, his teeth white against his natural tan. “Thanks.”
“You’re taking care of her dishes, then,” Blythe said before hooking her arm in Dew’s and leading her away.
“Happily,” he said, but he sounded muffled because his mouth was full of pancakes.
Blythe brought Dew to a large heap of sheet metal, car pieces, and stacked tires. A door was nestled into the middle of the pile, and Dew realized she was looking not at a pile, but at a building.
Blythe opened the door and stepped inside, so Dew followed her. The interior of the building was tidy and very much at odds with the slap-dash nature of the exterior. A large worktable took up one side of the room, surrounded by shelves full of tools. Crates held odds and ends, but they were stacked neatly on the shelves, as well. A low bed sat on the opposite side of the room, blankets folded neatly on top of it in a stack.
Jase stood bent over the worktable, working with what looked like a headboard for a bed.
“Did Stetson even come into the workshop last night?” Blythe asked.
“Nope.” Jase looked up. “Hey, Dew.”
“Hi.”
“So,” Blythe said slowly, “I have a revelation.”
Dew wanted to laugh at the way Jase’s eyebrows went so high on his forehead. He stood to his full height and folded his arms over his chest.
“Babe,” he said, “spit it out.”
“Remember that poem we found on the ground a couple months back? The love poem?”
Jase nodded. Dew’s breath got stopped up in her throat somewhere. A love poem, Blythe said. Were the poems about love? Yearning, yes. Desire, definitely. She wished she had them all with her, so she could read through each one again, searching for love.
“Well, check it out,” Blythe said. “This is Dew.”
“Yes, I know,” Jase said, looking for the connection.
“Oh, come on, you don’t remember the poem?” Blythe asked.
“Why would I remember it?” Jase said.
Blythe threw her hands in the air and recited, “What I find…sparkling in the dawn, is Dew.”
“Okay,” Jase said.
Blythe pointed at Dew. “Dew.”
Jase merely stared at Blythe, then at Dew.
“I love you so much,” Blythe said to Jase, “but I kind of want to smack you right now.”
“Loving me never stopped you from that before,” Jase said with a laugh.
“Argh! Stetson’s poem is about Dew. This Dew. Not some precipitation or whatever shows up in the grass in the morning.”