Kelly Meding - As Lie the Dead

“You may have little choice, for the man’s sanity.”

I grunted. It was the most Joseph had spoken since showing up this morning, and all he could do was criticize and offer bad suggestions? I liked him better as a mute. Ignoring that elephant for a while, I crouched next to Aurora. My stomach ached. “You okay?”

She nodded, her round eyes searching mine. “Why isn’t Phineas with you?”

“We had to split up for a while. He’s following a lead while I follow a different one.”

“Okay.”

Her absolute faith in me was astonishing. “I’ll take care of Leo. You just relax and stuff.”

I listened at the bedroom door before going in, but the current source of sound was somewhere far from it. I didn’t bother knocking, just turned the knob and pushed, and was presented with a hurricane. Clothes strewn from dresser and closet, sheets off the bed, books on the floor, desk turned inside out. A handful of those plastic under-bed storage containers were emptied of their contents—photos, knickknacks, old papers, a lifetime of paraphernalia hidden from prying eyes—as were half a dozen shoe boxes.

In the midst of the mess was Leo, slumped in the desk chair, shoulders drooped, turned toward the room’s only window. I half expected the glass to be broken. As I gazed at the destruction, my temper soared. I flushed, fury lighting up my face in a way it had never done in my old body.

“What in the blue fuck are you doing?” I snarled.

My voice caught him unawares, perhaps too consumed by his own breakdown to notice my entrance. He spun in the chair, alert. His face caught me just as off guard. Bright red, watery eyes, mouth open in a near-mockery of a frown. He panted through his mouth.

“There’s no note,” Leo said. The shock in his voice was startling, unexpected. As if receiving this note was so obviously what was to happen next, he just couldn’t understand why it didn’t exist. Childlike in its plaintiveness. My heart almost went out to him.

Almost.

“Note?” I repeated. “No note, Leo? That’s why you tore Alex’s room apart? Looking for some sort of goddamn note? He didn’t commit suicide.”

“You always leave a note. Whenever I went away on business, I left a note so no one worried. When the kids went out and no one was home to tell, they left a note so we’d know. You don’t just leave.”

I could have been anyone, or not even in the room. He looked right at me, but I wasn’t there. It was difficult to accept such concern from a man so quick to temper. So much like the stepfather I’d blocked from memory—a man who hadn’t given two shits about me. Only how often he could lock me in my room, get high with my mom, and screw her until she screamed for him to stop. He’d been fast to temper and faster to let his fists fly.

He’d left, and he didn’t leave a note behind.

“You had no right!” I said. “No fucking right to tear through his room like this. What makes you think—”

“I’m his father!” Leo shot to his feet, faster than the squat man seemed capable of moving. His face colored cherry red, both fists clenched at his sides. He seethed as he stalked toward me.

I stopped him an arm’s reach away with: “Yeah? You’re so concerned now, Dad, but when was the last time you saw him?”

“He wouldn’t see me. Don’t you think I tried?”

“I have no idea how hard you tried, but I do know there was a reason he didn’t talk about you, or his family.” Through my own anger, I felt that statement to be true. Felt it from deep down inside Chalice.

Leo blanched. I’ve never seen a person go from fire red to ghastly pale in only a few seconds. “He told you?” he asked, voice shaky.

I wanted to say yes and then drop the subject. The city was going to hell around me, Phin was out there playing a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, and I was stuck in this apartment playing therapist to a dead man’s father. Not to mention the pregnant shape-shifter in my living room, nesting in my blankets, about to give birth at any moment. Saying yes meant an end to the conversation.

“No,” I said, “he didn’t talk about it.” What the hell was wrong with me?

Leo relaxed his fists. “Good, because it’s a family matter.”

“Doesn’t sound like there’s much family left.”

His hand flew. My new reflexes didn’t respond as quickly as my brain. The open slap snapped my head to the right. I tasted blood with the sting. I also didn’t hesitate in returning the favor. My knuckles crunched right into his nose, sent his glasses skittering to the floor, and released a short spray of blood. He stumbled backward and fell into the desk chair, muttering that I’d broken his nose.

“Touch me again, and I’ll knock a couple of teeth loose,” I said. My face burned where he’d hit me. I tongued the corner of my mouth; the little cut would heal fast. “If this is how you solve problems, it’s no wonder Alex didn’t talk about you.”

I braced for another attack. Leo just sank deeper into the chair, both hands cupped beneath his nose. Defeated. There was a man quick to temper and just as quick to feel remorse over what he’d done. I’d grown up with the type. I didn’t need him around.

I grabbed a white undershirt off the dresser and held it out. Leo took it and pressed it against his nose. The cotton turned red. He didn’t look at me.

“Maybe you should go to a motel.”

He cringed. “Alex asked me—”

“And I’m asking you to leave. If I hear from him, I’ll let you know.” Good way to guarantee I’d never have to speak to the son of a bitch again. I swiped his glasses off the carpet. Held them out. “Go clean your face up.”

He left the bedroom like a chastised child, no longer the angry man in charge. My gaze swept over the mess, the ragged remnants of Alex’s life. It occurred to me to clean up, but what was the point? He wasn’t coming home. I didn’t know how much longer I’d stay at the apartment. It wasn’t my home, not really. I needed a place with fewer residents, no nosy child neighbors, and more convenient exits. Like my old shared apartment on Cottage Place.

I hadn’t been back there since before my death. I didn’t know whether our stuff was still there or whether the other Triads had gone in and cleaned house. Not a bad place to hide out, if so; the Triads wouldn’t think me dumb enough to return to such an obvious location.

Fallback plan, in case this one didn’t work out.

I shut Alex’s bedroom door, enclosing the mess. It wasn’t important. The bathroom door was shut, water running on the other side. Joseph stood at his end of the sofa, still as stone, watching.

“Joseph, Leo will be staying at a motel tonight.”

A curt nod, then he returned to his seated position, still stiff and wary. He probably wouldn’t relax until Leo was out the door.

I flopped down in the upholstered chair near the sofa. Too hard. Fingers of pain squeezed my belly, and I groaned. Let my head fall back against the cushion and closed my eyes. Just a little break. Most of the sleep I’d gotten lately came from being knocked unconscious. Twelve hours ago, I’d joked with Wyatt about finding a motel and sleeping for a week.

That option no longer existed. A few minutes to collect myself while Leo cleaned his face was all I would get.

I snapped awake in a dark apartment. Orange lamplight filtered in from cracks around the plastic-covered windows, giving me enough to see. Joseph was asleep on the couch, stretched out flat on his back, tense even while unconscious. Aurora was still curled up in her floor nest, as relaxed in slumber as her grandfather was alert.

My neck ached from the awkward position. I stretched as I stood. An angry beep came from my back pocket. One missed call on the cell phone. I stared, perplexed that I’d managed to sleep through it. More so when I saw the time on the phone’s display: after midnight.