Little Miss Santa Claws

10. Missy

CHAPTER 10

Missy

W hen I wake up, there’s an ache radiating through my temples and across the crown of my head. I inhale sharply and almost choke on the humidity in the air.

Sitting up, I squint at my surroundings.

The sleigh is immersed in a blanket of fog. I can only make out about a foot or so of black shingles on my side of the sleigh and the faint outline of Dasher and Prancer’s hairy rumps up ahead. The screen is lit up with the city we’re currently in. Bandon, Oregon.

Well, that explains the fog.

The last thing I remember is passing through the star portal with Nicole at the reins. Both her and my father’s coat are missing from the sleigh. The sack has been left open on the bench beside me. She must be delivering presents inside the house.

My mind snaps back into place, barraging me with snippets of our conversation when I was sick in front of the frat house.

I groan, slapping a palm over my face as I melt against my seat.

Not only did I kiss that woman, but I also drunkenly poured my stomach and heart out in front of her. She had to hold my hair back. She had to listen to me talk about my ex . How totally embarrassing…

I can’t believe Jack Frost is trying to sabotage Christmas.

Then again, she has done a lot of things lately that I never believed her capable of. A human is more supportive of me than she is, and Nicole is on the naughty list , for goodness sake.

I exhale shakily and grimace at the state of my breath.

Leaning forward, I dig in the bin of cookies until I find the small velvet bag containing my portable toiletries. The delivery route spans several time zones, and the only sustenance a Santa can get on Christmas Eve is milk and cookies. Carrying items to clean your teeth and face are absolutely necessary.

I withdraw my toothbrush and a Freschen fruit from the bag. I toss the bulbous blue berry into my mouth, crushing its transparent skin between my front teeth. The minty-sweet juice explodes across my tongue. I scoot to the edge of the sleigh bench and start brushing, and the tingly effects of the berry wakes me up a bit more.

By the time I’m finished with my teeth, there’s a tapestry of blue speckling the frosty roof.

I retrieve my silver comb and shimmery hair powder and quickly brush the dried puke out of the ends of my hair. Nicole couldn’t spare me from all of it, though I find it extraordinarily sweet that she tried.

She could have left me behind, but she stayed. She got Christmas back on track.

I don’t know how I’m going to express to her how thankful I am for that, but I’ll figure it out. She might be on the naughty list…but she was good to me . That counts for something. Caring for others always counts.

I’m flicking off the Polar radio when Nicole reappears, her warped figure shooting out of the roof vent and reforming in the center of the cloud of blue mist.

She staggers out of it with a gasp, her arms raised to steady her landing and her large eyes flicking from side to side to take inventory of her surroundings. Clearly, she has nearly fallen off a roof or two tonight. My stomach churns with a fresh wave of regret. She shouldn’t be risking her life for me. She shouldn’t be risking anything .

Nicole’s eyes remain on the roof as she walks carefully to the sleigh, but then she lifts her gaze and sees me, and a smile lights up her face. “Hey. You’re awake.”

I nod, fronting a weak grin. “And you’re delivering presents.”

“I hope that’s okay,” she says uneasily as she climbs into the sleigh.

“I gave you the reins. Of course, it’s okay.”

She sits down, twisting to stare at me over the sack of presents, her arms folding comfortably over top of it. “How are you feeling?”

I shrug. “Better than before.”

“Good. I was starting to worry you wouldn’t wake until morning. I’m not sure I’m doing your job justice. I set off at least seven alarms and pissed off a chihuahua that wanted to eat me alive.” Her cheeks are pink, and her hair is a wild mass of curls on top of her head. My father’s coat fits her well; she’s tall enough that the hem doesn’t drag, and her shoulders are slightly broader than mine. She looks tired but beautiful.

“You look like you’re doing perfectly fine,” I tell her. “You even remembered to take the cookies.” When her brow furrows, I nod at the snickerdoodle in her hand.

“Oh,” she laughs. “Yeah. I was getting a little hungry. Thank God one house a few cities back set out empanadas, or I might have passed out right next to you. Who knew jumping into vents and driving a sleigh took that much out of someone?”

I nod in understanding. “It’s a marathon.”

“So what happens now?” Nicole asks. “Do you take over again?”

I think about for a moment. If I was smart, I would wipe her memory and send her back home right now. She doesn’t need to stay. But for whatever reason, the idea of sending her away makes my skin itch, makes my Krampus want to surface. I’m not sure I could contribute in a positive way to the Christmas Spirit if she’s not here with me.

“I’ll take the reins…” I start slowly, “but you can help me deliver the rest of the presents if you want. I could use an extra set of hands. Sunrise is right around the corner.”

Nicole tugs lightly on the lapel of Papa’s coat. “But don’t you need the coat?—”

I stop her with a wave of my hand.

“Keep it for the rest of the night. Papa’s hat will assist me just as well as the coat would.” Her eyes anchor in mine, and it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking. So, I extend a hand over the sack and ask, “What do you say, Nicole? Finish this together?”

Her lips curl upward, and I decide it’s the prettiest smile I’ve ever seen. She places her hand in mine and shakes it. “Together,” she agrees.

I swallow the urge to pull her in for a hug and let go of her instead.

Her gaze dips to the uneaten snickerdoodle between us. After a moment, she breaks it in half and offers one piece to me. “Want to share?”

I reach over and take it, and we both take a bite at the same time. As the cookie crumbles in my mouth, I gag. This is not a snickerdoodle. I glance up and mark the mirrored look of disgust on Nicole’s face. Her nose wrinkles up, and her eyebrows slant together as she lurches for the end of the sleigh to spit it out. I force myself to swallow before chucking the rest of the cookie in with the other discards.

Nicole’s muffled words echo my thoughts. “That was terrible. I think whoever baked these mixed up the salt and sugar.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, that happens a lot.”

“Ugh, I’ve noticed.” She sits back and wipes the side of her mouth with her hand. She carefully wipes her spit on the inside of her leggings, and I know it’s because she doesn’t want it to get on Papa’s coat. “Why would people leave inedible cookies out?”

I scoot to the edge of the bench and sigh. “Santa isn’t real to the parents, so they don’t bother baking a second batch if the kids mess up the recipe.”

“You poor soul,” Nicole says with a solemn shake of her head.

“It’s not so bad. There are some really fantastic cookies too. We’ve all gotta embrace the bad with the good sometimes.”

Her eyes drift to the screen on the dash, and her face pinches thoughtfully.

“So,” I huff as I stand. “You ready to get back into the sky?”

“Yeah. Let’s just hope the rest of the cookies tonight are sweet.”

I step forward and take the reins off the hook. “If they were all sweet, you’d get too used to the taste.”

We’ve worked out an efficient pattern, thanks to Nicole’s management expertise. In the suburbs, we trade off on chimney diving. One of us stays in the sleigh and pulls gifts while the other uses the apparition device to move quickly from house back to sleigh. We get so quick that the sleigh doesn’t even need to land.

With apartments, we both deliver at the same time, working through building after building in half the time.

The sunrise looms just beyond the horizon, but I think we’re going to make it.

After finishing the last high-density apartment in the last major city on our route, I’m beaming from the inside out. I climb into the sleigh at the same time Nicole reappears on the opposite side. Her pale green eyes are practically twinkling, and her arms are full of bread.

“I scored Hawaiian rolls at the last one. Thank God for tired parents,” she informs me with a giggle. “What did you get?”

The present sack is small enough now that it fits in the footwell, so there’s nothing between us as we scoot in close to one another. Our warmth bleeds together, and I can’t help but lean in even closer. Our shoulders brush as she presents her winnings.

I smirk as I pull the napkin out of my jacket—well, out of the jacket she lent me. “My bounty was not as large as yours, but I did find your favorite.”

“My favorite?” She dumps the bread rolls onto the sliver of bench between us and takes the napkin from me, eagerly unwrapping the cookie. When the mound of pale yellow dough is revealed, she lifts her gaze to my face. “How did you know lemon curd cookies were my favorite?”

It would be easy to blame it on my Santa sight, but I hesitate—because that’s not how I know.

But how could I tell her the truth? How do I say that her mouth tasted like lemon when I kissed her, and that there’s a small lemon-scented stain on the breast of her tank top that I only noticed when we were grinding against each other? That’s how I knew.

Santa sight doesn’t tell me those small, intimate details. That would be like trying to pick out a deer roaming through the forest from hundreds of miles above the Earth. Santa only sees the big stuff, and that all-concealing forest grows thicker the older a human gets. Nicole’s loneliness was easy to see, a massive river cutting straight through. Her favorite cookie, on the other hand, is a delicate flower I would have had to bulldoze for. The smallness of that knowledge is what makes it intimate. That’s what makes it special.

So, I tell her, “Lucky guess.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but my stomach flips, and I push myself off the bench before she can speak. “It’s my turn to take the reins,” I announce. “You finish eating, and then we’ll complete the last few stops. We’re almost done.”

I take the reins from the hook without waiting for a response, and the reindeer take off with a hard snap of the ropes. We lift into the air, leaving behind the flat gray roof of the apartment complex. A faint whine vibrates up into the floorboards of the sleigh. My feet slide backward, and that’s when I realize the magic holding the sleigh together is weaker than it should be.

“What in the dusty snowglobes—” I tug back on the reins to slow our ascent, and the reindeer fight against my direction. They’re scared. Something must have happened on the roof while Nicole and I were delivering presents. “ Whoa !”

The reindeer slow, attempting to even out parallel to the ground, and I briefly glance back to check on Nicole.

She’s grappling with the side of the sleigh, feeling the lack of protective shields as I do. She has to squint to return my gaze, even with her glasses taking the brunt of it. “What’s going on?” she screams.

I don’t know, but I need to figure it out.

The back of the sleigh dips as the magic holding it up threatens to give out, and Nicole screams again, only this time, I have no idea what she says. The wind is too loud. That vibration under my feet grows, shaking my bones. There’s something wrong with the instruments.

The reindeer feel it too. They’re veering side-to-side, panicking.

I reach back and grab Nicole by the arm, tugging her forward until she’s sitting on the edge of the seat. Then, I shove the reins into her hands. “Keep them steady,” I shout. “I need to get underneath the sleigh.”

Her eyes bulge. “You need to what? ”

“Don’t let go,” I roar before hauling myself to the end of the bench.

My blood starts to boil when I see the frost covering the side of the sleigh. Jack Frost. She was tampering with my sleigh, again .

A sharp wave of heat rolls over my body as my Krampus rises to the surface. It takes a great deal of effort not to pulverize the wooden railing under my palms. If I ever see her again, I’m going to wring her treacherous little neck.

I spin around and lurch toward Nicole.

To her credit, she doesn’t recoil from my dark form. Her eyes only grow impossibly larger as she yells, “What’s wrong?”

“ Frost ,” I growl as my claws close around the belt of my father’s coat.

Before she has time to react, I pull it out of the rings and wrap the belt around my torso, tying it securely above the metal clasp. Nicole’s eyes flick between me and the team of reindeer as I slide a hand into my papa’s coat just beneath her breast. I feel for the interior pocket, ignoring Nicole’s hitched breathing as I remove the parcel inside. I wrap the closed strings around my wrist.

Hopefully, that’s all I should need.

When I return to the side of the sleigh, I hear Nicole calling after me. The wind distorts her words, but that’s for best, I think. I can’t afford any distractions at this moment. I lean against the edge of the sleigh and inch my way over it. I step down onto the golden foot rail on the outside of the sleigh. Then, I carefully turn around and sit down on the hardy pole runner, allowing my legs to hang between the pole and the side of the sleigh. I’m leaning back, precariously balanced, and only one of my hands is still anchored on the curved opening of the sleigh.

With my free hands, I feel along the underside, that ridge that runs along it. It’s here… somewhere .

The sleigh rocks again, half-falling through the sky for a heartbeat before the magic fights back, regaining control. My hand slips against the opening of the sleigh, and my heart bottoms out as I nearly lose my grip completely.

As my fingertips catch on an irregular hollow under the sleigh, I exhale slowly.

The city is a sparkling stream beneath us. A long fall.

I pull the emergency hook down from underneath the carriage. Terror pulses in my throat, but I bite it back as I maneuver my hands to get a lower hold. Then, ever so slowly, I spin my body to lie flat against the runner pole, as close as I can get to the hook. I thumb the belt clasp into the emergency hook, not even daring to breathe until I hear the tell-tale click.

There. Now, I’m anchored to the sleigh…just in case, though that won’t be helping me if the sleigh falls out of the sky.

I turn my upper body and pull myself halfway under the sleigh. The hook travels with me, holding my body weight as I slide through the maze of anchor wells toward the engine. I see the problem before I reach it.

There’s a sheet of thick ice covering the instruments, and the gears are grinding helplessly beneath it. The faint smell of burning leather fills my nostrils. I need to fix this quickly before the belts start to snap, both the ones in the engine and the one around my waist. Keeping a tight grip on the edge of the engine cutout, I grapple with the parcel around my wrist. A chunk of porous, black matter hits me in the face and falls, but I catch the second one. Verbrennen Coal.

My father’s sleigh has broken down in the freezing temperatures of Earth too many times, and he learned to always carry this in his coat. I’ll have to refill the parcel when I get home.

I hate Jack for making me do this. It feels like an erasure of some precious piece of him. His hands were the last ones to touch this bag, this coal. I can’t help but feel I’m diluting his touch with the presence of mine. I didn’t want the coat to change, to be altered. But now, it has to be.

Darkness clouds the edges of my vision. My Krampus is in control.

As I lift the coal to my mouth, I allow the rage in my body to gather in the back of my throat and tumble out. My hot breath ignites the magic in the coal, and it crackles to life. Undulating red heat starts shedding off the black surface. It’s almost too hot to bear. I hold the heat up to the frozen engine, allowing the ice to melt. As the gears start to spin freely, the engine makes a loud screech, and the sleigh drops.

My body slams flat against the engine, and I barely catch myself before my face gets sucked between two large iron gears. Instead, my father’s belt gets devoured.

The screeching ebbs as the belts finally catch up with the engine, and the sleigh lifts with renewed vigor. My adrenaline is still racing as I try to wrench the belt away from the gears. I watch in horror as the leather is ripped apart, and I move swiftly to rip one end with all my might to free my body from its death strap. My upper body falls as the belt breaks, and I kick my ankles up to the back of my thighs to save myself, swinging from the back of my knees on the runner pole.

“ Missy? ”

The fact that I can hear Nicole’s voice now means either the reindeer are calm enough that she was able to put the reins back on the hook, or the wind shields are back up. When I crane my back to peer up at the sleigh, I see Nicole leaning over the side, her hands still gripping the reins but her face twisted in concern.

There’s a faint shimmer in the air above her. The shields are working.

I clench my stomach and bend forward, twisting to latch onto the runner pole with my hands before rolling up onto it, stomach first.

My lungs burn as I attempt to slow my breathing. The sleigh’s magic might be operational again, but that won’t help me until I’m back in the cab of the sleigh. So, I peel my chest away from the runner and reach for the opening of the sleigh. My fingertips catch on the outer ledge, and I work to tug my trembling body upright.

As I glance up, I see Nicole is battling with herself, inching toward the hook for the reins before leaning back towards me. But the reindeer are nowhere near calm.

“It’s okay,” I grunt, slowly hauling myself into the cab. “I’ve got it.”

As I drag myself high enough to anchor my feet against the runner, I realize I don’t have it. The runner is slick from the melted ice drenching my chest, and the heel of my boot slips off the edge. My legs fall through the slot of space above the pole runner. I’m not holding on to anything, and as I slide downward, the underside of my chin slams against the opening of the sleigh, and black spots explode across my vision.

I’m going to die.

Those words resound like twinkling bells in the back of my head, but they are silenced as two hands catch my forearms. They squeeze so tightly, I know they’ll leave bruises.

I open my eyes and see Nicole hanging halfway out of the sleigh. Magic shimmers around her waist, holding her safely inside the cab as she holds on to me. We’ve entered the next star tunnel, and the entire universe glows around us.

Nicole’s face blooms red as she tugs on my arms, and I have just enough wherewithal to latch onto the side of the sleigh.

She crawls backward, and the shield envelops more and more of her. Then, she sits up, and it starts wrapping around my wrists, then my arms, my shoulders, my back. With one final pull, the magic sucks me the rest of the way inside, and Nicole and I topple into the bench seat.

I deflate between the cushion and Nicole’s body.

For one fleeting second, I let myself rest in the sense of safety I feel here, wrapped in her arms and cradled against her chest. Adrenaline wars with relief in my veins. My next exhale shakes my entire body. And that’s when I realize I’m sobbing .

“Oh, no, no,” Nicole coos. “You’re okay, Missy. I’ve got you.”

She pets my hair, and I try my best to soften my sobs. I cry against her collarbone for a few minutes, and then I linger there when I’ve finished. The number of times tonight this woman has seen me at my most vulnerable… There’s no other person alive who has.

This is my first watcher, and I don’t want to let her go. I don’t want her to forget these pieces of me no one else knows.

Steeling my nerves, I peel away to return Nicole’s frightened gaze. I want to take off her glasses. I want to straddle her lap and fix her lopsided bun. I want to do a lot of things, and none of them are reasonable. None of them are fair to either one of us.

“Are you okay?” she whispers.

“No,” I reply truthfully. “I am in agony.”

She cups my chin and trails her gaze down the length of my body. “You hit your jaw pretty hard. Did you get hurt somewhere else?”

I shake my head, and her dark brows furrow.

“No, Nicole. That isn’t why I—” I pause, gasping for air my lungs won’t accept. “I am in agony because all I want to do in this moment is kiss you, and I shouldn’t.”

Nicole is taken aback for a moment, her lips parting as she studies my face. Then, very quietly, she says, “Why shouldn’t you?”

My mind stills. Why shouldn’t you? As if she wants me to.

“I thought you…didn’t like it? When I kissed you earlier, you pushed me away.”

“I liked it just fine,” she murmurs. “I just didn’t like that you were drunk.”

My heart starts pounding. “Oh.”

The air between us electrifies, and I can’t tear my eyes away from her, even as the sleigh exits the tunnel and a sky full of stars reappears around us. Nicole brushes my hair out of my face, tucking the strands behind my ear before she trails her touch down the length of my neck and over my collarbone. With one finger, she traces the edge of a tattoo on my chest that’s mostly hidden.

Nicole studies the ink with a small smile, and then her lashes sweep up as she returns my stare. “How many tattoos do you have?”

I graze a hand over her hip, resting it against her waist. My skin is still gray. I’m still in my dark form, at least partially, and she wants me to kiss her like this? She’s certainly a brave little human. I almost want to see how much braver she can be.

“I don’t know,” I rasp, forcing my dark form to recede. “Do you want to take my clothes off and count them for me?”

She huffs a soft laugh, and we lean in at the same time. My legs tangle with hers, my entire body yearning for her lips. I only get to savor the faintest brush of her mouth before the radio sputters to life. It startles Nicole, and she quickly spins around to look at it.

I sigh and sit up.

A familiar voice pours through the speaker. The head elf, Betty. “North Pole to Santa,” she says shakily. “I repeat, North Pole to Santa. We received alerts about a malfunctioning engine. Are you okay out there?”

I grab the walkie and reply, “We’re okay. I was able to fix it. Listen, I need you to send out the TWAT.”

Nicole’s eyebrows lift in surprise, and she bites her lower lip.

“The TWAT? Why do you require the TWAT?”

Nicole’s face reddens as she fights to keep silent, laughter shaking her shoulders. A little squeak slips out that makes me want to kiss the fa-la-la-la-la out of her.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling and inform Betty of Jack Frost’s interference. After she assures me the team will be sent out immediately, I return the walkie to its holder and turn to face Nicole as she absolutely loses it.

“What the hell is a TWAT to you?” she gasps between giggles.

It’s impossible not to smile as I tell her, “It’s the Tenacious Watcher and Adversary Team. They’re elves trained to track down and immobilize dangers to the Christmas delivery route. The TWAT will take care of Jack Frost until I have the time to deal with her.”

Nicole starts laughing harder, wheezing mutely as she doubles over. “A Christmas…” she gasps, “TWAT!”

A giggle of my own bubbles up, and we both dissolve. By the time the sleigh lands on the next house, tears have streaked our cheeks, and we’ve wiggled so close, I can smell the creamy lemon stain on her shirt again.