Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

“But this isn’t just any other demand,” Kismet said. “If he gets his antidote, he has an effective weapon—”

“And you’ll deal with it, if it comes to that. Just like we always deal with everything that gets thrown at us. One step at a time. We can only battle what’s in front of us.” They can only battle what’s in front of them . I had to stop thinking in terms of “we.” A chill skated up my spine as the reality of what was happening truly set in. I was going to willingly turn myself over to Thackery, and all signs pointed toward a very slow death at his hands.

God, not again …

“I’ll call Morgan and Nevada,” Baylor said. “Start the phone chain. We need every team we have out there scouting potential attack zones. It’s likely Thackery hasn’t placed the hounds yet, so someone may get lucky. I’m going to stay here for now and coordinate things.”

“I’ll take the Hunters off base,” Kismet said, accepting his plan with a curt nod. “Where do you want—?”

“Can you take Oliver to the hospital to meet up with Carly?”

Ah, so Baylor’s female Hunter had a name. Good to know.

“Yeah, I’ll do that. I wanted to swing by and check on Felix anyway.” She looked at me, her expression warring between sympathy and grim determination. “You want a lift?”

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” I said, which was true enough. Our old apartment wasn’t the best spot, even though I hadn’t been back since the morning of the earthquake. Too many people knew where it was.

Kismet considered it a moment. “How about I drop you both at the boys’ apartment? No one’s there, and no offense, Wyatt, but you’re covered in mud, streaked with blood, and you kind of stink. Use their shower. Milo’s clothes should fit you.”

Wyatt blinked, and I couldn’t help but smile. It was the not-oft-seen mother hen side of her peeking through. It seemed that rumpled and worn fellow Handlers also rated high on her sympathy meter. And it gave Wyatt and me some time alone before … well, everything.

“Okay,” I said, then gave Bastian a fierce glare. “As soon as Marie or whoever knows something?”

“We’ll call,” he replied. “My word.”

I wanted to tell him just what I thought his word was worth. “Call Wyatt. I might not be able to answer.”

“Of course.”

“Kis, I’ll let you know when I’ve got things squared here,” Baylor said.

We left R&D, still the dead of night—well, morning, technically. Crickets were actually chirping somewhere nearby, and overhead a sky full of stars winked down at us. As beautiful as the mountains were, I didn’t stop to admire them. Wyatt, Kismet, and I crowded into the already stuffed Jeep. The Hunters waiting in the backseat were subdued, and Kismet filled them in on the way back to the city, giving them all the details she had. I just held Wyatt’s hand and tried not to panic.

Half an hour later, she dropped us off in front of the apartment with a key and promise to return in about an hour and a quarter. As Wyatt and I walked inside and veered toward the elevator, those seventy-five minutes loomed. It wasn’t nearly enough time.

But if Thackery had his way, it was all the time we had left together to explore the intense, if somewhat peculiar, relationship we’d begun so many months ago. Long before I truly realized anything had changed.

An hour-long soak in the tub has relieved the majority of my aches and pains. My own stupidity brought them on, and, for once, they aren’t the result of a fistfight or brawl with bloodthirsty Dregs. Our Triad isn’t even on rotation again until tomorrow evening. Nope, the bruises and scrapes on my back and shoulders are my own fucking fault.

No pun intended, however apropos.

I watch the bathwater swirl down the drain in a mini-cyclone of bubbles and soap, and hope Ash is still having a good time. I hated ditching her at the club but was in no mood to continue our usual barhopping extravaganza. The cab driver I flagged down took one look at me, muttered something that sounded like “hooker,” and drove me home.

Bastard didn’t get a tip. He was lucky I didn’t plant my heel in the back of his head.

After I’m thoroughly towel-dried, I check the scrapes in the bathroom mirror. A few along my shoulder blades are still oozing clear liquid. Most are surface abrasions—they’ll itch like crazy later. The backs of my thighs have smatterings of blue bruises, perfectly oval and fingertip-size. They’ll keep darkening, I bet. Good thing I prefer jeans.

In my line of work, dating is out of the question, but I’m a woman with needs, dammit, which is why Ash and I troll the bars on our nights off. Once in a while, one of us will find someone to hook up with for a little … activity. Location is rarely important, as long as I get my itch scratched.

Only tonight’s selection had been a little rougher than usual, and doing it up against a brick wall, in a storage room at the club, hadn’t been exactly comfortable. Oh, I got off all right, but my back regrets it with a vengeance.

I slip into clean sweats and pad into the kitchen for a snack. It’s been a week since I shook off a horrid bout of the flu, and my appetite has finally returned. I settle on a bologna sandwich with mustard and steal one of Jesse’s lagers. He likes the dark brown sludge that tastes like rat piss, but it’s that or water.

We need to go shopping.

Sandwich and beer in hand, I retreat to the living room and curl up on the sofa. A gentle ache between my legs reminds me my back isn’t the only thing regretting tonight’s interlude. What was it Wyatt used to tell me? Sometimes I don’t have the good sense God gave goats. I shoulda said no.

I didn’t, though.

The apartment phone’s shrill chime makes me jump. We keep the landline for emergencies and in case “real people” need to contact us; everything else is handled over our Triad-issued cells. I stare at the telephone, an old rotary Ash picked up at a yard sale eons ago, and debate answering it. On the fifth ring, I do.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, this is the super,” a deep baritone says, not happy about making this call. “One of your neighbors called and complained about a drunk man sitting in front of your door.”

“I—What?” I sit up straighter and peer at the metal door, as if I can see right through it.

“Drunk man in front of your door. People are tripping over him. If he’s a friend, take him inside. If he’s a vagrant, call the cops. I just don’t want no more of these damned calls at three A.M.” With that, he slams his phone down.

Okaaay.

On the way to the door, I snag one of my favorite serrated knives from the weapons trunk behind the couch, just in case. I press one ear to the door and listen—nothing. Try the peephole. All I see are a pair of black sneakers sticking out from jeans-clad legs that disappear beneath my line of sight. Confident in my ability to subdue a regular human male if the need arises, I turn the various door locks, grasp the knob, and pull.

Wyatt tumbles through the open door and lands on his back, cracking his head on the cement floor. He blinks up at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes. He hasn’t shaved recently, and a black beard creeps along his jaw and chin, spilling down his neck. A brown paper bag is clutched in one hand, obscuring my view of the bottle’s label.

“What the fuck, Truman?” I toss my knife on a nearby side table and glare down at him. “Don’t you have a home?”

“Sure,” he says. “Few blocks from here. Why?”

Oh boy, he’s three sheets to the fucking wind. In the four years I’ve worked for Wyatt Truman, I’ve seen him run the gamut from cool and collected to wholly enraged, but I’ve never before seen him utterly shitfaced.