Kelly Meding - Requiem for the Dead

The apartment was empty, no sign of anyone having been there today. The phone number he'd written in mustard had dried to a greenish-brown, and the air was musty-stale.

"Where did you go, Wyatt?"

I'd lived here with my Triad partners once, but Wyatt had kept his own apartment a few blocks away—close enough in case of emergency orders, but far enough to give him privacy and distance from his Hunters. In all my years of knowing him, I'd never actually been to his apartment, even though I knew the address. He probably didn't hold the lease on it anymore, since we'd both been living at the Watchtower full-time since July.

Worth a try, though.

I walked four blocks west, one block up, to Culpepper Street. His building wasn't much nicer than ours, but it had an entrance that wasn't stuck between the doors of two tiny businesses, or a led into stairwell that reeked of old urine. My nerves jumped when I reached the third floor, and I took a steadying breath in front of his number. Normally I'd have jimmied the lock, but I didn't know if other people lived here now so I did something slightly out of character. I knocked.

Nothing. I knocked again, harder, and figured what the hell. "Wyatt? If you're there, please open the door."

A lock turned. The door pulled back a few inches, stopped by the security chain, and a pale face peered out. A somewhat familiar face with red hair and freckles. One of the Lupa pups. Crap.

"Is he here?" I asked.

"No," the boy replied. "You're his mate?"

"Yes."

"You look different."

"No kidding. Have you talked to him today? I need to find him."

"I haven't seen him today. He hasn't called us." There was accusation in his voice. The poor kid had no idea what was going on in the outside world.

"May I come in, please?" My healing cut still hurt, and I was already exhausted. Going at this on foot so soon after being sliced open was not my best plan ever.

I also needed to regroup. I hadn't planned on revealing myself to anyone else except Wyatt, much less a twitchy teenager I simply did not trust.

He closed the door far enough to remove the chain, then let me in. The apartment was tastefully decorated in a very manly style—dark furniture, wood, perfectly matched fabric patterns, like Wyatt had pointed to a room in a catalogue and made it magically appear in his space. It was impersonal, too, lacking photos or books, or anything that told me about the man who'd lived here. The only sense of being lived-in came from the messy kitchen, with its collection of trash bags, food containers, and empty pizza boxes.

Three teenage boys could eat like nobody's business.

"Which one are you again?" I said to the twitchy pup.

He shut the door and turned a deadbolt, but didn't slip on the chain. "John. You're Evangeline."

"Evy."

"Can't you call Wyatt?"

"I tried." I sat down on the sofa, grateful for a chance to rest for a minute. "Either he doesn't have his phone, or he isn't answering for anybody." Or checking his voice mails, because I'd left one demanding he call his not-dead mate back immediately or else. "Where are your brothers?"

"Out getting dinner. We're allowed to leave for food, as long as we stay on this block and don't interact with strangers."

"Better than being locked up, I guess."

"It is. I like Wyatt. He's fair to us."

"Considering you infected him, I think he's being super fair to you."

John's mouth puckered up, and he stepped behind a nearby armchair. "I didn't infect him."

"Your brother did."

"Please don't assign his actions to me. It isn't fair."

True enough, but I was too tired and cranky to be fair, and I was scared out of my mind for Wyatt's mental state. I wanted him here so he could get pissed at me for hurting him, so I could see for myself that he was okay.

"Why is Wyatt avoiding contact?" John asked after a moment of awkward silence.

"Really long story, but he's upset and I need to talk to him. I thought maybe he'd come here."

Keys jangled in the door locks. John turned around, while I hauled my tired bones to my feet. Peter and Mark tumbled inside the apartment with two white plastic sacks of food I could smell before they were three steps in the door. And it smelled great. They noticed me right away and froze in place.

"Wyatt's mate is here," John said, earning him his own crown as King of the Obvious.

"Why?" Peter asked. I remembered him easily enough. He was the oldest, the one who'd spoken with Wyatt yesterday when he took them under his wing. The suspicious glare he was tossing my way did not endear him to me at all, but it did make me respect him.

"Because Wyatt's missing, he's upset, and I need to talk to him," I said.

Mark shut the door and carried the food into the kitchen, out of sight. Peter eyeballed me like I was part of his dinner, and I was very glad to have John between us. "Why is Wyatt upset? And why do you think he would come here?"

"He doesn't have anywhere else to go." As much as I hated to admit it, the pups were his family now.

John snapped to attention, followed an instant later by Peter. Both turned to face the door in the same moment that Mark appeared in the living room. The hair on my neck prickled with alarm. The front door slammed open, and all three pups dropped to their knees, heads down

Wyatt stalked inside, his face shifting in his rage, as though all of the control he'd maintained on the way here had finally snapped. I didn't move, barely had sense to breathe, while his face bi-shifted into the thing that terrified me the most. His silver eyes flashed as he looked over the boys, who were all trembling—with fear or from his shared rage, I didn't know. Words stuck in my throat as terror won out over love. I tested for the Break and found it waiting.

Wyatt snarled something, and Peter scrambled to close to the door. It shut with a bang that made me jump. Silver eyes turned on me, in a face so full of rage and hate that I lost all sense of the man I loved. He simply wasn't there. A monster had taken over, and it was all my fault.

The monster took a step in my direction. I fell into the Break and let it shatter me, carry me away. Too late I focused on a nearby location, someplace I could go without risking rematerializing inside of a solid object. The only place I summoned was the hallway outside, and that's where I landed a moment later. My wound screamed at me. Sweat popped out on my forehead and shoulders, and I dropped to my knees, dizzy from the exertion. Dizzy from having run from Wyatt like a coward.

I was down the hall from the apartment, near the stairwell door. I could leave, get away before his rage sent him into the hall looking for me.

An odd déjà vu struck me. Months ago, I'd done something very similar—teleported out of Wyatt's reach out of terror and shame. The circumstances had been wildly different that night in the motel where we shared so many secrets, but the result had been the same. I'd run from his touch, and the devastation in his eyes had torn me apart.

Running from Wyatt now wouldn't help settle his soul or convince him I was still alive. He told me once he'd never hurt me physically, even at his angriest, and I believed him. Time to put my money where my mouth was.

I stood on shaky legs and walked back to his apartment door. Froze at the sound of a mournful howl, so heartbreaking that tears tightened my throat and stung my eyes. The boys were talking, voices and words muffled behind the door. Were they calming him down, telling him I was alive? Did he believe them?

No sounds of furniture breaking or kids screaming in fright.

I steeled my spine and knocked.

Peter whipped the door open, the relief in his eyes stark and shaming. I stepped back into the apartment, surprised by its pristine state. Not even a throw pillow out of place. John and Mark hadn't moved from the floor, but their expressions were identical to Peter's.