stuff I still needed to buy and made my way to the cashier.
I’d driven from Florida to Wyoming, come all this way to find a boy who carried a god’s soul. A possible future warrior who would be a part of the battles of Ragnarok—when I’d never entirely believed in Ragnarok. But between this snow and the message my norn had just given me, it seemed that maybe I was here for something else.
So one quick stop before the drive to help my sister Raven.
* * *
“Can’t miss the greenhouses was right,” I muttered as they came into sight. The cashier had known exactly what I was asking about the second I’d pulled the article out.
“Another one, eh? Wish you people would leave that poor kid alone. He’s not some kind of Harry Potter wizard, you know.”
If I’d actually cared what the gum-popping woman thought, I would have been embarrassed about asking about a kid from one of those crazy supermarket tabloid articles. Especially one that said he could make crops appear like magic. But I didn’t. Care what she thought, that was.
She’d still told me where to find the “compound,” as she called it. Seemed a lot of people in town bought vegetables there year—round, so the place was popular. It was between Cody and the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park, off a long bumpy private road.
I nearly ran off the path twice. Ice was building on the off roads.
The place was something like twenty plastic-covered domed greenhouses next to a massive old barn and a small cabin. I hated the term compound because it made me think of a cult or a group of scary militia types—not that I’d ever been in a place like that. But then I eyed the row of off-road vehicles, the long trailers that held camouflaged black-and-white snowmobiles, and actually worried a little. Did I just want to walk up, knock on the door and say, “Hey, my mom might want to hurt you” when there could be gun-toting crazy end-timers gathered here?
And with snow happening all over the world, they were probably a little extra trigger-happy right now.
There could have been more greenhouses because I couldn’t see them all from the road. I drove around the back and parked behind the barn. The urge to hurry, scout this guy out and get on the road made me slam my scarf in the door when I got out of my car. Of course, the blast of frigid wind that hit me didn’t help. It caught both my scarf and the door, and I nearly lost fingers trying to stop it.
Glancing around as I freed the material, I waited for a troop of militia types to come running around the barn. It had sounded like the door slam echoed through the valley here. Had probably bounced off the plastic covers on all the greenhouses.
When nobody showed, I crept around the corner and saw that the back door was ajar on the closest one. At least I thought it was a back door. With one on each end, either one could be, right?
That was such a Coral thought. We called them random thought farts whenever she blurted things out.
Sleep. Need it. Badly.
Biting back a sigh, I sneaked into the fragile-looking building, crouched down behind a row of plants and listened. The slam of heat and humidity made me hold my breath. I immediately unwrapped my scarf because the material scratched when I started to sweat. The leaves next to me were bigger than my head. I moved one aside to peek through the vines but didn’t see any movement. Except for bees. There were a lot of bees. Which was weird because I’m pretty sure they don’t do well in cold.
Not that it was cold in here. Gods, it was a freaking sauna!
Grimacing, I kept an eye on the small buzzing creatures as I walked down an aisle, moving aside heavy dangling leaves, recognizing cucumbers. Halfway down the row, my hands started itching, and I realized the vines had these tiny prickly things on them that aggravated my skin.
Sweat ran down my spine. I thought about taking off my coat, but I reached the other end of the greenhouse and heard voices.
“I spotted powdery mildew on some cucumber plants this morning, so I’m going to prune them. Can you grab that portable television and bring it to me? I want to keep up with what’s happening south.”
“Sure thing, Arun.”
Both voices were male, both sounded young. And Arun was the right name. But he sounded like the guy I’d met in the diner. I peeked through the door, spotted two guys standing between the rows of greenhouses. I couldn’t see one of them. The one I could see was freaking huge, with broad shoulders, tight jeans that showed the thickest muscled thighs I’d ever seen and a cowboy hat on his head. A cowboy hat. I stretched my neck to see if he wore boots, too. He did! Black steel-toed cowboy boots. He lifted his right hand to adjust his hat, and it looked like he had black gloves to match. Something glinted off that hand. I squinted because who wears jewelry on the outside of their gloves?
He moved again so I could see his hand clearly, and I sucked in a breath. It wasn’t jewelry—it was some kind of metal. And it wasn’t a black glove. He had a prosthetic hand.
“Did you find Gullin and Freya?” His voice boomed as big as his body.
I lifted my eyebrows at the mention of Freya. And Gullin. It was so not random; I was in the right place for sure.
“Yeah, they wandered outside and got lost in the snow. It’s over their heads now, so we’ll have to try to keep a better eye on them. Silly things.”
“I’ve got to check some of the heat mats in the last seed greenhouse—then I’ll grab your TV. And maybe some lunch, too.” The big kid in the cowboy hat moved out of the way.
Those amused seal-brown eyes locked on me. “Bring a couple of extra sandwiches. I got distracted by something pretty when I was out and never got around to eating.”
“Gotcha.”
Panic kept me from moving right away. My first thought was to hide. Maybe I was imagining him being able to see me crouched behind the leaves. But the smirk on those poet lips let me know he had spotted me. He walked toward the greenhouse with the same confident strides he’d used in the truck stop earlier. He made me feel strange. He was unnaturally beautiful—godlike unnaturally beautiful. I’d never liked pretty guys. Had always preferred the rougher, craggier faces—but it was kind of hard to look away from this one. I thought of Freyr, reputed to be the most stunning of the Vanir, the sworn enemies of the Aesir.
The freaking fertility god.
Suddenly, the heat in the greenhouse grew unbearable. I bit my tongue to try to moisten my bone-dry mouth.
“The extra sandwich request was for you.” Arun stepped inside, and the space felt instantly smaller. Too tight. “I thought you might be coming here to find me,” he murmured as he pulled off his gray coat and draped it over a wooden chair beside the door. “It’s nice to see you again. I’m Arun Dahl.”
Now normally, I’m not slow, but I stared at him with my mouth open. Open too wide like I was mimicking a starving baby chick. Finally, I found my tongue, remembered how it worked. “Why would you think I would come looking for you? Kind of arrogant, aren’t you?”
“Arrogant? Me?” He laughed. “No, not really. And of course I knew you were coming here. You’re all coming here. You and the others—all those like us.”
I narrowed my eyes. Great. That sounded very cultlike.
“What do you mean like us?”
He sighed, leaned against the table behind him. “So you’re one of those who has no idea what’s going on then? I’m curious. What made you come north? Did you hear the music?”
At that moment, I was more confused than I’d ever been in my entire life.
He seemed to know it, too, because his smile became kind. “You carry a soul just as I do. Just as the other kids who’ve been showing up do. What do you think