Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

“Can I get you anything?” he asked as he motored down the short hall to the living room.

I followed, taking in the carefully arranged décor as I went. “You can get me Wyatt on the phone.”

He snorted softly. “I would if I could, Evy. How about in the realm of breakfast foods or coffee?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” He circled around and indicated the sofa.

Look who’s talking . I slid into its plush upholstery with a grunt. “How’d you look if you’d been held captive and tortured for twenty days?” He flinched, and I sighed. “You really don’t know where Wyatt went?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t. He or Phineas, as a matter of fact. Wyatt’s gone off on his own for a day or so before, but he always came back. He’s working on four days now without a word, and that’s just—”

“That’s what?”

Rufus shook his head. “I was going to say it’s just not like him, but he wasn’t himself the whole time you were gone. I think if he’d had proof you were dead, instead of uncertainty eating him up … He drank a lot but wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even Gina. We tried to get him to accept you were gone, and I think near the end he did, but he was just so—”

“Cold?” I offered the word Kismet had used.

“Yeah. So is that why you came over this morning? To make sure I wasn’t in cahoots and hiding it from Gina?”

“Kind of.” It was also better than hanging around the apartment alone, slowly going crazy.

“His room is down the hall, first door on the right.”

I nodded my thanks.

The door was shut. I turned the brass knob and pushed. The furniture in the bedroom was the same carved mahogany as in the rest of the house—a headboard, nightstand, and dresser, and thick navy area rug over more wood flooring. It was impersonal, except for the small pile of laundry by the corner of the made bed. I snagged a black short-sleeved polo, held it to my face, and inhaled the rich, familiar scent that was Wyatt.

I could almost imagine him standing in front of me wearing that shirt, his heart thrumming steadily against my breast as he held me tightly in his arms. You son of a bitch, if you’re out there doing something stupid …

A quick search led to nothing of note. Rufus had probably searched once. I did it for personal peace of mind. Whatever Wyatt had been planning, wherever he and Phin had gone, they’d been careful to leave no trace behind.

Rufus was in the kitchen watching coffee brew. Two mugs were on the counter, next to an assortment of sweetener packets. I sat on one of the stools and fiddled with the red ceramic mug nearest me.

“Didn’t find anything either, huh?” he asked.

“No.”

The pot gurgled the last of its water through the grounds. “What are your plans now?”

Plans? “Get back into fighting form, mostly,” I said. “I need to gain weight, rebuild my muscle mass. Frankly, I’ve needed to train since I got this body, only I haven’t had the chance.” It had been almost two months since my resurrection—a difficult concept to swallow, since I’d spent half of it unconscious for various reasons.

“You know, Gina said Tybalt made a similar comment to her the other week, about staying in fighting shape.”

I met Rufus’s hazel gaze. “Did he?”

“She says he’s found something to keep himself occupied but won’t tell her what. She got stuck with three rookies last week anyway, so she doesn’t see much of him.”

“Three?”

“Yeah, they’re graduating rookies earlier and without the usual pomp and circumstance.” Read: without fights to the death. “Because they’re several Handlers down, the working Triads are all getting extra team members.”

No wonder Gina and Milo both looked so stressed. I was glad for Tybalt, but also a little sad for Gina. She and Tybalt had been together for four years. In just a few weeks, she’d lost two of her longtime Hunters and had them replaced by green newbies. “Are you lending your sage wisdom to the rookies, too?” I asked, unsure just how to continue the conversation.

“I’m not a Handler anymore, Evy. And I never will be.”

“What?” I hadn’t expected that. Yes, he was recovering, but it was supposed to be a temporary setback.

“I’ll never walk normally again, so I can’t be out in the field,” he said with no ire in his voice. Just bland acceptance.

Christ on a cracker. “But you were a Handler for ten years. You and Wyatt were two of the first Hunters in the Triads and founding Handlers. You’re good at your job, Rufus. You can train—”

“No, I can’t.” He grabbed the pot and whirred over to the counter to pour. “Brass won’t let me. But it’s kind of weird to think that Wyatt and I are no longer part of something we helped create.”

“Weird?”

“Okay, fucked-up.”

I blew across the top of my steaming coffee, then inhaled its rich aroma. “Things fall apart,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I pondered that as I sucked down the scorching liquid, grateful for the heat in my stomach and the caffeine jolt that would accompany it. Rufus was out of a job. Tybalt and Felix and I were out of jobs. Wyatt and Phin were … somewhere.

Phin had come to me once with the very genuine desire to see his people—not just Therians but all Dregs—have a hand in policing themselves. He’d never get his wish of seeing Therians join the Triads, I knew that now. He had to see it, too. But the Triads were rotting from the inside out. Losing members left and right, breaking apart, betraying their own. With the experience Rufus and Wyatt had in training people to hunt, track, fight, and kill, we could be a new force to be reckoned with.

All I had to do was find my fucking boyfriend, tell him I was alive, and lay out the suggestion.

I scratched my fingernail across the smooth granite countertop, once again struck by the condo’s class. It wasn’t upscale by any means, but it wasn’t cheap. And Rufus looked completely out of place in its high level of comfort. The apartment he’d maintained in Mercy’s Lot was a hole compared to this (charitably, it had been a hole compared to almost anywhere else) but had somehow seemed more him.

My face must have given me away.

“What?” he asked.

“Just marveling at your new digs. They’re nice.”

His expression soured. “This is all Phin, trust me. But the wood floors are handy, and so’s the elevator. I’d have had a bitch of a time navigating the stairs at my old place in this chair. I only got upstairs that first time because of Nadia.”

“After everything you’ve been through, Rufus, I think you kind of deserve the break.”

“That’s debatable.” He fiddled with his coffee mug, and I wanted to reach out and hit him with it.

I déjà vued back to our conversation in the hospital when he’d thought he deserved execution for his part in the Owlkin massacre. He hadn’t wanted me to fight for his life. I’ve done some amazingly shitty things in my lifetime, Evy. You’d never believe it. Feels like it’s finally my time to pay up, is all .

He was stuck in a wheelchair, scarred for life, and unable to go back to his old job with the Triads—and the idiot still thought he had more than he deserved? What. The. Hell? “Well, I guess you’ve still got the market cornered on self-pity,” I said.

His glare didn’t dissuade me, either. I was tired, hurt, mentally wrung out, and bordering on a nervous breakdown. I was so sick of bullshit I could scream. “Look, whatever the hell you did that was so awful? Get the fuck over it, Rufus. Most of us don’t get forgiveness, and we don’t get punished by the people who deserve a shot at us. Life’s unfair, but we keep going. There’s no other choice.”