Rob Thurman - Chimera

“No.” He rolled his eyes. The glasses had been discarded in his pocket for the moment, but I had thoughts of contacts for him in the future. His bicolored eyes were simply too distinctive. They would be remembered by anyone who saw him up close.

“Don’t come crying to me when Albert doesn’t keep you warm in the snow.” I speared a mushroom off his plate, popped it in my mouth, and chewed. It hurt to swallow, but not too badly. Sevastian would be hurting far more—if he ever woke up. Appetite waning, I dropped my fork and pushed the plate away. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it? This place?”

Michael took a long look around. The crowd was sparse. The snow had kept most people home and it was a weekday, but it was still a mall. “It does,” he admitted reluctantly. He toyed with his food, knotting the noodles into neat little piles. “They drugged us, you know. On the trips.”

“Drugged you?”

“Not so much we couldn’t function.” The fork kept moving. “They wanted us to interact, wanted to see if we could pass for normal. They gave us just enough to slow us down in case we tried to escape.” The tines of the plastic fork bent under the pressure and broke against the plate. “Not that any of us ever tried. What a waste.”

I knew what he was thinking, that his fearless friend John would have made the attempt . . . that he wouldn’t have let the chance go by. But John hadn’t lived that long. “Actually it wasn’t.” I piled our plates on the tray for disposal. “That last field trip is how I found you. One of the girls who worked there spotted you. She’s one of Saul’s. He’s had your description out to his network for years now.”

“She recognized me?” he asked doubtfully. “How?”

“Your eyes. Your age. Faces change in ten years, but there aren’t many kids out there who fit both of those.” I stood and dumped the contents of the tray into the garbage can beside our table. “Face it, kid, you’re unique.”

The expression that shimmered across his face was partly wary and partly something I couldn’t identify. “Stefan—”

“I know,” I interrupted with a tug of the hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re not my brother. You can keep telling yourself that, Misha, but it’s not going to make any difference to me. Now, you want to hit the pet store for ferret food before we go or just toss the rat out the window?”

He sighed but went with the change of subject. “The pet store. I like Zilla. It’s nice having someone around I can have an intelligent conversation with.”

“You certainly bitch like a brother,” I grumbled affectionately under my breath. I might have lost my uncle, but I still had family and it was right here with me, bad taste and stubborn nature included.

“I remember that girl. The one who saw me.” Michael hoisted his bags and followed me. “I was off from the group a little. She tried to sell me a hat.” His voice took on a longing note. “She said I was . . . um . . . hot.”

I slung an arm around his shoulder as we approached the doors. “We have to get you a girlfriend, kiddo. We really do.”

The trip to St. Louis was uneventful. I could see myself saying it. I could hear the words as if I had. The trip was uneventful. Uneventful.

Yeah, it would’ve been nice.

The bastard hit us from behind. It wasn’t Sevastian, soaked in blood, or Jericho looming dark and menacing against the white background of the blizzard. It was just some random son of a bitch who couldn’t drive. Maybe he’d forgotten to put on his snow tires or maybe he wasn’t paying attention. Six of one, a half dozen of the other—it all equaled a world of hurt for Michael and me.

The roads were covered in a thick slush growing more treacherous by the moment, but they were still passable. The streetlights had flickered on early as a combination of the storm and approaching dusk conspired to make the gloom midnight thick. It was one of those helpful streetlights that we hit head-on. The blow from behind was massive and the SUV leaped forward as if swatted by a huge paw. We slid into what felt like a never-ending spin, swapping the front of the car for the tail God knew how many times. There are things to do in that situation, I know, but given that I was from Florida, they weren’t exactly second nature to me. Tapping the brakes, turning into the curve, it all sounds good. But when you’re caught in a whirlwind of metal and glass, it’s not that easy. To give credit where credit is due, they might not have been meant for collision conditions.

Hitting the pole was almost a relief to the sickening motion. The airbag against my face muffled the crunch of metal and the wind-chime splintering of glass. There was the taste of chalky powder in my mouth and a faint burning of my skin, but that was overshadowed by the searing band—the seat belt—slanting diagonally across my chest. “Michael?”

Coughing at the talc, I shoved at the white material as it deflated. “Michael, you okay?”

He was fighting with his own airbag with panicky uncoordinated movements. “He’s here,” he choked. “He’s here.” Lunging at the door, he struggled with the handle. I stopped him with a hand on his arm, not that he would’ve gotten far with his seat belt fastened.

I’d already checked the rearview mirror to see the man who had hit us. He was a big, bearded lumberjack in a delivery truck. “No, Misha. No. It’s not Jericho. It was just an accident.”

He was still pushing at the door, and I moved my hand from his arm to his shoulder to give him a gentle shake. “Listen to me, kid,” I said firmly. “We were in a wreck. Somebody slid on the ice and hit us.”

It finally seemed to penetrate and he sagged under my hand. “An accident?”

I nodded. “Just a dumbass who rear-ended us. That’s all.”

Michael had been so calm and composed since his rescue, even when facing down Jericho in the parking lot where I’d been shot, that I was momentarily surprised by his distress now. But the sudden shock of the collision had shaken me, and it was bound to have disoriented him. Then I saw the trickle of crimson winding its way down his face and it was all the more clear. Swiping my thumb across the welling of blood in his right temple, I revealed an inch and a half laceration. He must have struck his head on the side window when we hit. The new tightening in my chest had nothing to do with the pressure from my seat belt.

Michael blinked at his blood on my hand and exhaled a steadying breath. “Oh.” He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand, wiping blood away. “It’s okay. I’m a fast healer, remember?”

Who was reassuring whom here?

“You guys okay?” A cold reddened face appeared at our demolished windshield. A thick brown beard bristled around a mouth chapped by the elements and large gloved hands were clapped for warmth. “Goddamn, I’m sorry. The truck got away from me. Frickin’ weather.”

Pulling the sleeve of my shirt over the heel of my hand, I carefully mopped at Michael’s still sluggishly bleeding cut. His pupils were equal. There was no bloody discharge from his nose or ears. Those were all good signs. All those overwrought medical shows on TV said so. “We’re fine,” I said brusquely. “Now go away.”

Suffering patiently under my makeshift first aid efforts, Michael allowed his eyes to meet mine. He knew as well as I that we were in trouble—big trouble.

“Fine? The boy’s bleeding.” The man pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and started punching buttons. “I’m calling 911.”

An ambulance and police—that was everything we didn’t need. I was in a stolen rental car with a kid I couldn’t prove was related to me, and I still had no idea of the extent of Jericho’s connections with the government. The scrutiny of the authorities, no matter how casual, was something we couldn’t afford. Grabbing a rumpled and worn shirt from the backseat, I folded it, put it in Michael’s grip, and manipulated his hand to the cut. “Hold pressure there, okay? I’ll be right back.”