Текст книги "Dog Warrior"

Автор книги: Wen Spencer

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They were nearly to the house when the car phone rang.

Ru answered it, putting the call on speaker. "What is it, Kyle?"

"It's the house security," Kyle said. "The front door has been triggered."

Atticus glanced at the GPS system showing their location. They were still twenty miles from the house, nearly fifteen minutes at the speed they were going.

"The door down to the basement just tripped," Kyle said.

Atticus swore. If it were Ukiah leaving, the doors would have opened in the opposite order.

"The bedroom door is open," Kyle reported. "Should I call 911?"

"Shit!" Atticus considered all the messy entanglements that calling the police would involve. It would jeopardize their whole operation.

"Atticus?" Kyle asked after a minute's silence.

Chances were that Ukiah could survive any attack until they got there. They owed him nothing. But if it was a normal human Atticus had just put in harm's way, wouldn't he do something?

"Call the Hyannis police."

There was a pause. "And tell them what? That we have a man that was shot five times locked in a dead man's basement?"

Atticus glanced at the GPS system again. "No. Forget it." He and Ru would be there before they could talk Kyle through a safe report.

***

The house was dark, no sign of any vehicles.

Atticus slammed the Jag to a stop and leapt out, pulling his gun.

The doorjamb of the front door was broken and the door hung open. He went in, gun leveled, splinters of wood under his shoes. The house was silent and still.

He knew he should go slowly, but he found himself moving quickly and quietly for the basement stairs. Let him be there! Let him be in the bed. Dead is fine, just be there!

The bedroom door had been smashed open. He crept to it, afraid of what he would find.

The room was empty, the bed innocent of blood.

What had happened? Who had broken into the house and taken him?

I shouldn't have left him alone. I should have found a way to keep him safe . . .

For the first time in his life, his senses failed to give him warning of an attack.

Atticus stood staring into the room, sick with fear for his brother, and someone slammed into him. In that hard collision of bodies, he lost his pistol. They smashed through the sliding glass door and tumbled out onto the sand. They rolled across the sand, the stranger growling a deep rumble.

Ukiah? But no, Ukiah would have felt identical to him, and there was an "otherness" to this man. Atticus twisted and wrenched himself out of his attacker's hold and scrambled backward.

Rennie Shaw stood grinning, teeth and eyes gleaming in the moonlight, his breath misting in the cold. Shaw topped Atticus by several inches—taller than Atticus expected from Animal's photo. Lean and fit as the Iron Horses described, the Dog Warrior wore biking leathers with savage style. With dark hair grizzled with silver, he smelled like a wolf and radiated the same prickly awareness that Ukiah had against Atticus's senses.

Pack knows Pack.

"So you are like two peas in a pod," Shaw murmured in a deep, carrying voice. "The question is, at the heart of it all, are you the same man that your brother is?"

"Where's Ukiah? Is he safe?"

"It's a little late to worry about that, boy."

What did that mean? Did the Dog Warriors have Ukiah, or had someone else come and taken him? If his brother was safe with the bikers, why had Shaw attacked Atticus?

"I want to scratch your surface a little." Shaw sneered. "See what's underneath."

Shaw lunged at him with inhuman speed, and his punch felt like being hit by a high-powered bullet. Atticus countered with two punches, both of which Shaw dodged as though the fight were choreographed, allowing Atticus to come so close to hitting that he could feel the heat of Shaw's skin.

"Come on, boy, you're thinking too much." Shaw struck him again, knocking him down the sand dune. Atticus tried to duck the next blow, but Shaw, grinning, landed it anyhow.

Shaw battered him down the hill and to the water's edge. Atticus fought with silent desperation, but his kicks and punches kept failing to land on their target. Shaw was as elusive as a shadow, always a fraction of an inch out of reach.

" If you're going to fight someone who can read your thoughts," Shaw said into his mind, " you have to fight without thinking."

Atticus went still with shock. He'd been gathering information on the Dog Warriors, watching the evidence mount up that they were much like him, but he'd somehow denied the deep truth. He wasn't one of a kind—he was part of a race that he knew nothing about. The vast shifting of his universe stunned him to his core.

With a scoffing laugh, Shaw tackled him into the surf. The water sucked them out, away from the shore, and then tumbled them back to the land.

A score of men and women lined the shore, waiting for them. Even standing still, they were sleek, dark, and dangerous in the way of poisonous snakes. The moonlight gleamed in their eyes, and the scent of wolves overrode that of humans. Over the roar of the surf, he could hear their growling, their hostility pressing against him, as irritating as his own anger.

His brother stood on the shore, flanked by Dog Warriors, wholly one of them.

CHAPTER FOUR

Hyannis, Massachusetts

Monday, September 20, 2004

Ukiah had only heard the car arrive, but he felt the Pack's arrival as they swept in behind it and broke down doors to get to him. Rennie reached him first, cuffing him lightly in rough affection. Then awareness moved through the Pack and they made way for an outsider among them. He recognized Indigo by her scent as she picked her way through the dark house to him. When he folded her into his arms, he found that she wore a plain black leather jacket, all signs of her being FBI hidden away. She clung to him hard and parted reluctantly.

She peered at the splintered door frame, smashed into the room and hanging drunkenly on a wedge of drywall. "Direct as usual, Shaw."

"It's faster to break them down than try to pick the locks," Rennie rumbled, anger pushing him to nearly growling. He didn't like that Ukiah had been locked up, or the silent reports from the Dogs upstairs on what they were discovering.

Ukiah realized then what their combined presence—Indigo and the Dog Warriors—meant. She'd brought them as backup. "You're working together?"

"We weren't sure what we'd be walking into," Rennie said, but meant, what Indigo would be walking into alone.

Ukiah flashed over his conversation with Max that morning. No, what he'd told his partner hadn't been too reassuring. He hadn't explained being rescued by his brother; to be truthful, though, he wasn't completely sure how safe he'd been with Atticus. "How did you find me?"

"We used the GPS on the cell phone you're using," Indigo explained. "Who is Hikaru Takahashi?"

"He's my brother's lover."

"What?" she cried as the Pack went still around him.

"I have an older brother. His name is Atticus Steele. He's the one who rescued me out of the trunk."

"Why did he lock you in the basement?" Her voice held the suspicious anger echoed by the Dog Warriors.

" And why is the upstairs dusted with Invisible Red?" Rennie added.

"I think . . . I think he's a drug dealer."

Into the following silence, Indigo's phone rang. She answered it with a brusque, "Special Agent Zheng." She listened to the thin voice coming through the cell phone, her brow gathering into annoyance. "Okay, I'll be there shortly.

"The two male cultists wounded in the shoot-out just died," Indigo told them. "I need to go deal with that. Here." She handed Ukiah his wallet and then a hotel room key card. "I'm at the Residence Inn in Framingham; I've got it stocked with food."

The cult had left his photo ID and Evans City Library card, but taken his cash and credit cards. One of Max's ATM/Visa cards, however, had been tucked into his wallet.

"My gun . . . and cell phone?"

"The cult kept your gun," she said. "We've reported it stolen. We found only pieces of your cell phone, but that's probably just as well—the cult used your cell phone to track you."

He flashed to the undercarriage of the rental truck, the flashlight lying flattened beside him on the road, and shuddered with recalled pain. "Keep yourself safe."

"Let me remind you that I haven't been shot or killed once this year," she said, without adding that he had. In fact, he'd lost count of how many times. She reached up, pulled him down to her, and kissed him, full of fearful passion. "Don't," she whispered huskily afterward, their foreheads still lightly touching, "do that again."

"I won't," he promised, even though he had no clue how to prevent it from happening again. He'd promise her anything to make her happy.

"Good." She released him then.

As Ukiah walked Indigo to her car, Rennie gave silent orders to Murray and Stein, who gave her an unrequested—and perhaps unwanted—protective shadow.

"I'll see you at the hotel."

He nodded rather than lie, then watched her drive away, trying to keep down feelings that he was betraying her. The phone call had distracted her from Atticus. Also she probably thought the drugs his brother was dealing with were of the more mundane type, not Invisible Red. Like one creature, the Pack's mind stayed firmly on Atticus, with a growing determination that he'd be tested in accordance to Pack law, and if found wanting, destroyed. Ukiah didn't want to get her involved, forcing her into impossible choices.

"Atticus is coming back soon," he told Rennie as her taillights vanished. "He left to buy Invisible Red off of the Iron Horses."

"After that massive dose of Invisible Red the cult gave you three days ago, your resistance to it is still low. We'll have to make sure you don't get exposed to any more."

Ukiah winced, memories of his rape while under the influence of the drug cuttingly sharp. "I can hang back until you've got the drug off him. But I want to be there when you test him."

"And if he doesn't pass?"

What will you do if we have to destroy him?was what Rennie was asking.

"I think he'll pass," Ukiah said. "He was part of Magic Boy. He seems even more human than I am. He loves Ru."

"But if he doesn't pass?"

Ukiah shied away from the question and instead tried to find more evidence that his brother was worthy of living. He suspected that, if nothing else, Atticus was a far more complicated person than he was. Atticus seemed to think in multiple layers, and while the surface level had been damning, there had been occasional glimpses at something deeper and truer beneath. Unfortunately, Atticus seemed mostly annoyed at Ukiah, as if he disdained his existence.

"Cub?"

"I know he's flawed, but if he's worse than I think . . ." He didn't want to say it. It was a cold and heartless thing to think of destroying his own flesh and blood, but if Atticus was hiding a heart as barren of emotions as the Ontongard's, then Ukiah couldn't allow himself to be trapped by the word "brother." "We'll do whatever is needed."

Rennie nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself.

Atticus arrived a short time later, broadcasting his concern for Ukiah. In typical Pack fashion, Rennie made sure Atticus had no Invisible Red on him prior to their reunion by knocking him into the ocean. It was a bitter thing to feel Atticus's concern for him wash away with the salt water.

His brother stood now in the surf, face closed and emotions so tightly controlled that there was no clue what he was feeling. How did Atticus learn that, isolated as he was from his own kind? Was it that he merely didn't allow himself to feel?

"What do you want?" Atticus shouted over the surf.

"It's Pack law, Atticus." Ukiah wanted Atticus to understand more than he had when the Pack tested him. "You need to be tested, to see if you're human—or monster."

"Tested?"

"We need to know what kind of person you truly are."

"Go to hell."

On Rennie's silent signal, the Dogs swept in. Atticus was a better fighter than Ukiah; it took four of the Dogs to drag him out of the water, struggling in their grip. Once they got him to the land, the fight went out of Atticus, and he knelt in the sand where they forced him to, panting, eyeing Ukiah darkly.

In that moment, Ukiah would have given almost anything to change history. If only he'd found Atticus at some other time, gotten to know his secret heart without this violence.

Rennie's lieutenant, the Cheyenne warrior Bear Shadow, came down the sand dune, pulling Ru along by the arm. Ru's face was carefully neutral; the man guarded his inner thoughts as closely as Atticus did. Ukiah noticed that Ru rubbed his right hand, as if Bear had disarmed him with force.

" I don't want him hurt," Ukiah silently told Bear.

" He'll witness everything." Bear meant that he could testify against Ukiah, if the Pack killed Atticus.

" I don't care." Ukiah took Ru's arm and pulled him out of Bear's hold. " Either Atticus loves him, or, if Atticus is a heartless monster, then it was Ru who decided to rescue me out of the trunk."

" Ah." Bear nodded slowly. " He won't be hurt then."

Ukiah kept hold of Ru's arm, just in case the Pack forgot.

Hellena stepped forward, caught hold of Atticus's head, and held him still, cocking his head back to look up at her.

"Take a deep breath." She locked eyes with Atticus.

"Fuck you," Atticus hissed, trying to twist out of her hold.

Hellena pushed her will onto his body. "Breathe!"

And against his will, Atticus took a deep breath.

"Again." Together, the two took a breath and released it.

Synced with his body, Hellena pushed into his memories. Atticus grunted with pain as his body resisted another's control. Ukiah and the Dog Warriors reached out mentally, bonding with Hellena as she forced a union of minds. Instantly, they were all one. They were Atticus.

. . . the knifepoint of pain cut straight into him. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of screaming. He tried to shut his eyes, but couldn't. He couldn't even look away. The knifepoint reached bottom and twisted and . . .

. . . the game room had a vinyl floor that mimicked red and terra-cotta bricks in a random pattern, embedded with memories of the ages. He had been stacking colored blocks. He'd play with similar blocks later, in other houses with other families: green quarter blocks, square blue half blocks, rectangular red full blocks, and lemon yellow wedges. That week he had learned to stack one on top of another to build towers. Mama could stack them ten high, but his chubby, graceless hands could manage only three. He'd grasped that his hands were supposed to be larger, more like Mama's, and the night before had pushed his growth as far as his dinner would allow. To Mama's great height, the change seemed marginal, but Daddy called him a big boy before they left him with Jilly and the blocks. Still, this new size was awkward and he struggled to adjust, building and rebuilding his towers.

Focused on the blocks, he hadn't noticed dusk setting in, or the first knock at the door, or the stream of people gathering in the remote living room. The porch grew dark except for the glow of the muted TV. Night filled the kitchen and dining room beyond. Only a slant of light from the far living room's doorway cut the still darkness.

Finally, he realized that he was alone. Where was Jilly? Thinking back, he realized now that she left him to answer the door and hadn't returned. Strangers were in the living room, the taint of their scent finally filtering through the house to him.

He abandoned the blocks and ventured into the darkness.

All the lights in the living room were on, and people towered there, ignoring the furniture, talking excitedly. He paused in the doorway, still in the dark, looking into the harsh light at the confusion.

" The Caddy swerved around a pickup pulling out of the ice-cream stand and went head-on into them. They never knew what hit them. . ."

A stillness moved through the worn as the strangers realized he watched from the doorway.

" Oh, oh!" Jilly sobbed, tears pouring down her face." What's going to happen to Johnnie Doe?"

Ukiah's life had been simple—decades of running with wolves followed by eight years of living as a child with his mothers. When the Dog Warriors tested him, Hellena had flipped through his memories rapid-fire, quickly finding proof of his humanity.

Atticus's memories, though, started when he was still a toddler, confused by a world where no one was like him, being shuffled through foster homes. Hellena abandoned this early memory and chose another, moving much slower, trying to get a sense of who Atticus really was, as life had shaped him.

. . . He lived in the land of the giants. These people so different from him towered over him and shuffled him from place to place without seeming to realize he wasn't one of them. He was lost in the bombard of new. His newly shorn scalp reported that he had only a quarter-inch of hair now, the rest buzzed off during the haze of a barbershop visit. His shoulders and neck itched from the uncomfortable reminders in the form of dead hair, lifeless parts of him pressed against his skin. Mixed in were ghost traces of everyone shorn by the cutters since their last thorough wash. In a hot car, vinyl seats covered in old tears of unwanted children, ghosts of strangers lay on his shoulders and whispered genetic secrets. The car stopped, the back door opened, hands undid his seat belt, and he was pulled from the vehicle.

Only later, late at night in the new bed in the new house of the new family, would he be able to pick out what the giants said in their thunderous voices.

" This is Johnnie Doe." The social worker herded him firmly into a house.

" They said he was two years old. He looks more like three to me."

" It's just a guess. He was found abandoned in a restroom. They thought he was only eight months old, but now they think he might have been over a year old."

A face loomed close." He seems very . . . confused. Is he retarded?"

" No. They say he seems to have some kind of sensory problem; he doesn't process well. It will be a few days before he comes out of his shell. They say he's quite sweet, once he warms up. He's been through so much for one so little, first abandoned and then the couple that wanted to adopt him were killed. . ."

The Pack grieved for lost opportunity. If they had only been able to find Atticus, things would have been different. Regret moved through the Dogs as they watched Atticus flounder through life, moved from one foster home to another in rapid succession. The joyful toddler grew into a troubled second grader.

". . . tell me about your picture."

He eyed Dr. Holland. He'd been lost in his own drawing and remembering. Normally he had access to only crayons to draw, and they were useless at capturing the details he remembered. Dr. Holland's colored pencils did a better job, but still his ability fell far short of reality. He had been focused, trying to capture real trees on paper." It's just a picture." He'd learned not to talk about the time in the woods, but Dr. Holland was a nice giant.

" Is this a little boy?"

" Yes."

" Is he you?"

" No, but he's just like me."

" Ah. And what's this? A dog?"

" No. That's me."

" Why are you a dog?"

" I don't know. Something bad happened and I ran away. I wanted to go back, but this part of me became a little boy and we couldn't go back together, so I stayed with him, protecting him, trying to get him to come back, but he'd forgotten almost everything but being scared."

" I see." Dr. Holland nodded as if he did understand." Where is he now?"

" I don't know. I forgot where I left him. I know I've forgotten a lot of things since then, so much drained away before I realized what was happening, so I think about this so I won't forget."

" I see." Dr. Holland nodded again." Did you like being a dog?"

" No."

" Why were you a dog?"

He lifted his shoulders up into a shrug." I don't know."

" Why did you stop being a dog?"

He shrugged again." I don't know. I've forgotten."

" Why did you draw this picture?"

He looked at Dr. Holland. The giants never ceased to confound him." You told me to."

" I see," Dr. Holland said.

Perhaps Dr. Holland said that when he didn't see at all.

" Why did you hit all those boys?"

" They were teasing Bobby Hyzen. He can't help the way he is. He would change if he could. But he can't."

" Why did you draw this picture instead of one of Bobby Hyzen?"

" Because I wish I could find him again, the boy just like me."

The end-of-school tone sounded, alerting everyone that buses were arriving.

" Can you sign it for me?" Dr. Holland pointed to the lower left-hand corner.

He put his new name down.

" Clark?"

" I don't want to be John Doe anymore." His last set of foster parents explained the meaning of his name.

" Why Clark?"

He didn't want to tell Dr. Holland that it was because it was Superman's secret identity. Not because he was afraid Dr. Holland would laugh, but because he'd write it down and someone else might find out. He was discovering many of the mistakes he thought he left behind at the last foster home and the last school somehow showed up to haunt him. It would be best not to say . . .

A jump forward in time, an angry sixth grader in another office, fingering a broken nose that was rapidly healing.

". . . what's this about you wanting to be called Parker? What kind of name is that?" vice principal Henry asked.

He'd decided that Clark was a stupid name. Aliens that looked exactly like humans? Only one man on the whole planet smart enough to know it was going to explode but too stupid to send a guardian out with his baby? And that whole kryptonite thing was stupid– how could that much stuff get to Earth?– and a little unnerving. Did he have his own personal kryptonite? Besides, the new Superman movies made his choice way too obvious.

He chose Parker over Peter because he'd seen how Peter Johnson suffered once kids realized all the nicknames for penis. Just like Spider-Man, he had inhuman abilities– but what had been his radioactive spider?

" I don't want to be John Doe," he told the vice principal." I don't like the name; it's like a big sign that says I don't know who I am."

" You can't change your name until you're of legal age."

Ah, yes, the magical age of eighteen, when he was free of so many annoyances." Anthony Cercone Junior goes by Tony, and everyone calls James Walton J.J."

" That's what their families call them. We all need to stay on the same page, John."

" I can have my foster parents call me Parker."

" What about your social worker, and your case files, and the state? Your foster parents are being paid to take care of a John, not a Parker."

He'd come to recognize insurmountable obstinacy. Luckily, he only had to deal with it until the next set of foster parents and the next school.

Flashes of junior high school followed, an endless flow of fighting in the halls, in streets, and on playing fields. Hockey was an excuse to legally hit the other kids. Wrestling. Basketball. Football. Atticus's natural skills got him onto sports teams. His aggression got him thrown off. An angry teenager, he refused to see that his actions dictated much of how the system treated him. One too many fights landed him in juvenile hall, and the fights became a necessity for survival.

When Hellena tested Ukiah, he had been aware only of his thoughts. Now he could see how she directed the search, suggesting a topic and then pulling up the strongest response. What had brought up the funeral of his adopted sister's pet rabbit? He would have to ask Hellena, if things went well. He sensed regret growing in the Pack, though, as they saw a near future where his brother's murder would taint their relationship with Ukiah.

There were areas where Atticus resisted invasion, somehow turning aside Hellena's probes. What he let her search through were fights in dark alleys, crowded barrooms, and even illegal fighting rings for bare-fisted fighters.

"Ru," Ukiah murmured to Hellena. "Have him remember Ru."

. . . Was there anything louder, drunker, randier than a party of college boys? Atticus couldn't decide if coming tonight had been a mistake. With the recent gay bashings, he didn't like his roommate walking alone, but Atticus was the only straight person at the party. And apparently there was some confusion over that. On the theory that a moving target was harder to hit on, he drifted through the party. Perversely, he felt like Goldilocks, critiquing each area: too loud, too crowded, too drunk, way too intimate.

Where the hell was Ru? Atticus felt a prick of jealousy that probably someone else was with his roommate. Ru had been moody and withdrawn since winter break and the whole mess with the stabbing.

At the time Ru had been surprisingly calm and efficient. He said the mice were cute. Instead of being upset about Atticus not being human and able to come back from the dead, Ru seemed to focus on the fact that he was the first person Atticus ever told his secret to. He invited Atticus home during the break, and introduced him to his parents and three little sisters. What had happened? Even with Atticus's perfect memory, he couldn't pinpoint the sentence or the gesture where it all went wrong. And it hurt like hell. Ru was the best friend he'd ever had, and it really felt like he was losing him.

No one was in the backyard. While there was afire going in a brick grill, it was dark and cold: a perfect spot to sulk. Ru found him there a short time later.

" Hey!" Ru breathed out a haze of wine, snuggling against Atticus's back." What are you doing out here?"

" Sulking." Atticus immediately wished he'd said something else. For a moment, things had been right, with Ru playfully affectionate. He liked the closeness they had, despite what it was doing to his image.

Ru, though, pulled away." Whatever for?"

" The mice weirded you out– didn't they?"

" Why would you say that?"

" Because . . . Nothing, just forget about it."

" You sorry you told me?" Ru asked warily, putting more distance between them.

" No. It's just things seem broke between us. And it sucks."

" Yeah, it sucks."

So they fell into silence except the crackling of the fire.

" Yeah," Atticus whispered finally," I'm sorry I told you. I hate this."

" Atty, this has nothing to do with the mice."

He looked at Ru, dubious.

" This is about you and my sisters," Ru explained, or rather, didn't.

" What?"

" All the girls you dated last term were complete babes, but my sisters . . . I couldn't deal with that."

" Ru, what the hell are you talking about?"

Ru gave him a look of pure agony." You'll hate me."

" What, you've taken up killing babies and torturing puppies when I wasn't looking?"

Ru laughed, and then sobered, falling back to the hurt look.

Atticus didn't know what to say. He never knew what to say. He tried to bridge the gap between them; he went to Ru, awkwardly embraced him, and asked quietly," Tell me what's wrong. Until I know, I can't do anything to fix things."

Ru's heart started to hammer, and he let out a trembling sigh, as if he were going to start crying." Oh, Atty, sometimes you're just so clueless."

Just as Atticus was going to ask him what he meant, Ru reached up to undo Atticus's top three buttons, leaned his head down, and dropped a kiss in the hollow of Atticus's neck. His kisses moved upward, strange for their maleness.

It all clicked for Atticus. Ru was in love with him, and Atticus was straight. Things had been fine as long as Atticus was unattainable, but then they'd gone to Ru's home and Atticus had flirted with Ru's sisters. With Ru's long hair, and his sisters' relatively flat chests, the only difference between the siblings was an X chromosome and some southerly plumbing. He felt stupid not to have realized it before.

Shaking now, Ru whispered," I love you."

Ru, who knew that he wasn't human, who had seen the mice form and be reabsorbed, who watched him die and come back to life, loved him. A jolt of something as pure and blinding as joy flashed through Atticus, stunning him.

Ru kissed him, then, firm male lips against his.

Atticus was fairly sure he was straight-straight; as totally aware of being driven by pheromones and animal instincts as he was mystified that he could not be human and still so desperately want to mate with a human female. In his blackest moods, he felt similar to a randy little dog that humped visitors' legs, driven over the boundaries of his species by lust. But he had no species of his own; he was a solitary creature, a freak of nature.

And Ru loved him just the same.

Ru kissed him again, tasting of tears, and then, realizing that Atticus wasn't responding, tried to pull away. Atticus tightened his hold, sensing that if he let Ru go now, it would tear a larger rift between them. The slight pressure was enough to check Ru. As they stood in the cold darkness, neither wanting to let go, it started to snow. Huge white flakes drifted down silently around them.

Could he maybe not be as straight as he always thought? Certainly he'd never tried . . . that. Never had the desire to. But if he really were entirely straight, why'd he never rebuff Ru? Why would the thought of Ru loving him hit him with lightning-intense happiness? And if asked—just minutes ago—for a word to describe how he felt about Ru, wouldn't he have used the word" love" ?

Ru traced the line of Atticus's jaw with his fingertips, snowflakes in his long black hair.

What was the depth and width of his love? For Ru, couldn't he bend a little?

Wetting his lips, Atticus tilted his head to Ru and kissed him. Strangely, while his senses told him that this was just another set of lips, with an X chromosome instead of a Y, there was something different—some electricity that had nothing to do with taste or smell or touch. Was this love?

So while the snow sprinkled them with cold kisses, they tested the possibilities, Atticus unsure and hesitant, Ru eager and growing bolder.

After having Ru as a roommate for months, his body was imprinted on all his senses, and yet it was like Atticus was discovering him for the first time. His musky scent. His soft skin over hard muscle. His silky black hair.