Лорел Гамильтон - The Harlequin

«It wasn't your fault,» I said.

«But he did it to save me.»

«He did it to keep both my guards alive longer. He did it to give us time for other guards to come and help us. He did his job.»

«But…»

«I was there, Peter. Cisco did his job. He didn't sacrifice himself to save you.» I wasn't entirely sure that was true, but I kept talking. «I don't think he meant to sacrifice himself at all. Shapeshifters don't usually die that easily.»

« Easily ? He had his throat ripped out.»

«I've seen both vampires and wereanimals heal from wounds like that.»

He gave me a disbelieving face.

I crossed my heart and gave the Boy Scout salute.

That made him smile. «You were never a Boy Scout.»

«I wasn't even a Girl Scout, but I'm still telling the truth.» I smiled, hoping to encourage him to keep doing it.

«Healing like that would be cool.»

I nodded. «It is cool, but it's not all cool. There are some serious downsides to being a wereanimal.»

«Micah told me some of it. He and Nathaniel have answered a lot of questions.»

«They're good at that.»

He glanced past me at the door. I glanced where he looked. Micah and Nathaniel had given us as much privacy as they could without leaving the room. They were talking softly together. Cherry had actually left the room. I hadn't heard her go.

«The doctors want me to get the shot,» Peter said.

I looked at him. «They would.»

«What would you do?» he asked.

I shook my head. «If you're old enough to have saved my life, then you're old enough to decide this on your own.»

His face crumbled around the edges, not like he was going to cry, but as if the child was peeking out. Did all teenagers do that? One minute grown-up, the next so fragile like a dream of their younger selves? «I'm just asking your opinion.»

I shook my head. «I'd say call your mom, but Edward doesn't want to. He says Donna will vote for the shot.»

«She would.» He sounded resentful, face sullen. He'd been pretty moody at fourteen; apparently that hadn't changed completely. I wondered how Donna was coping with this new, more grown-up son.

«I'll tell you what I told Edward; I won't give an opinion on this one.»

«Micah says that I might not get the tiger lycanthropy even if I don't get the shot.»

«He's right.»

«He said fifty-five percent of the people who get the shot don't get lycanthropy, but that forty-five percent get lycanthropy. They get what's in the shot, Anita. If I get the shot and catch what's in there, it means if I'd just left it alone I wouldn't have gotten anything.»

«I didn't know the stats broke down that nicely, but Micah would know.»

«He says it's his job to know.»

I nodded. «He takes his job at the coalition as seriously as Edward and I take ours.»

«Nathaniel said he's an exotic dancer, is that true?»

«It's true,» I said.

He actually lowered his voice to say, «So he's a stripper?»

«Yes,» I said and fought not to smile. With everything that was going wrong in his life, he was weirded out that my boyfriend was a stripper. Then I realized that he might not know that Nathaniel was my boyfriend. No, we'd kissed when I came through the door. But then, Cherry had joined the hug. Oh, hell, now was not the time to try to explain my love life to him.

«Micah told me some of the jobs that other lycanthropes have. Nurses, doctors, but only if they don't find out. I might not be able to join the armed forces, any branch.»

«They consider lycanthropy a contagious disease, so probably not.» In my head I remembered a talk Micah and I had had about a rumor. A rumor about the armed forces looking into deliberate recruiting of shapeshifters. But it was a rumor. He couldn't trace anyone who had actually been approached. It was always a friend of a friend's cousin.

«Did you get the shot?»

«They didn't offer. It's too late for me, Peter. I'm carrying already.»

«But you're not a shapeshifter?» He made it a question.

«I don't turn furry once a month, or at all, so no.»

«But you're carrying four different kinds at once. The whole shot thing is based on the idea that that's impossible.»

I nodded and shrugged. «I'm a medical miracle, what can I say?»

«If I could heal like that and not turn furry, that would be amazing.»

«You still wouldn't pass blood screenings for some jobs. You'd still hit the radar as a lycanthrope.»

He frowned. «I guess so.» Then he gave me that young face again, that echo of before, and it was a frightened face. «Why won't you help me decide?»

I leaned closer. «This is what it means to be grown-up, Peter. This is the bitch of it. If you're playing eighteen, then you have to decide. If you want to fess up to your real age, then everyone will treat you like a kid. They'll make decisions for you.»

«I'm not a kid,» he said, and he frowned, going sullen on me.

«I know that.»

His frown slipped to puzzlement. «What do you mean?»

«You stood your ground today. You didn't panic, or lose it. I've seen grown men lose it around lycanthropes when the situation wasn't as desperate. Most people are afraid of them.»

«I was afraid,» he said softly. «I've been afraid since I was a kid.»

I had one of those moments of, shit and aha . «The attack on your father,» I said. How could I have forgotten that this wasn't the first lycanthropy attack he'd survived?

He gave a small nod.

«You were what, eight?»

«Yes.» His voice was soft, his eyes staring into the distance again.

I didn't know what to say. I cursed Edward for not being here. In that moment I might have traded a talk with Olaf for this talk with Peter. I could always shoot Olaf, but no weapon would help me deal with Peter's pain.

«Anita,» he said.

I looked at him, met his eyes. His eyes reminded me of Nathaniel's eyes when I first met him. Eyes that were older than they should have been. Eyes that had seen things that older men would never see.

«I'm here, Peter,» I said, because I couldn't think what else to say. I met his gaze and fought my face not to show how much it hurt me to see his eyes like that. Maybe they'd been that way years ago, but it took dating Nathaniel to teach me what eyes like that meant in a face that hadn't seen twenty yet.

«I thought if I trained with Edward that I wouldn't be so scared, but I was. I was scared just like last time. It was like I was little and watching my dad die again.»

I wanted to touch his shoulder, take his hand, but wasn't sure it was what he needed me to do, so I kept my hands still. «I lost my mom when I was eight to a car wreck.»

His eyes changed, lost a little of that awful look. «Were you there? Did you see?»

I shook my head. «No. She drove away and just never came back.»

«I saw my dad die. I used to dream about it.»

«Me, too.»

«But you weren't there; what did you dream about?»

«Some well-meaning relative took me to see the car she died in. I used to dream about touching the bloodstains.» I realized I'd never told anyone that.

«What?» he said. «What's wrong?»

I could have said so many things, many of them sarcastic, like I'm talking about my mothers death, why wouldn't something be wrong ? I settled for the truth, which crosses the lips like jagged glass, as if you should bleed when you say it. «Just realizing I've never told anyone about that dream.»

«Not even Micah and Nathaniel?»

Apparently, he did know they were my boyfriends. «No, not even them.»

«Mom made me go to therapy afterward. I talked about it a lot.»

«Good for Donna,» I said.

«Why didn't your dad send you?»

I shrugged. «I don't think it occurred to him.»