Kelly Meding - As Lie the Dead

“You saved my life.”

He shrugged and dipped back into the tackle box. Scissors, gauze, cotton balls, and peroxide were added to his pile before he snapped the lid shut and settled the box on the floor.

“Don’t you want to know—?”

“Hell no.” He shook his head emphatically, wire glasses sliding to the tip of his nose. “Because if I even entertain the notion that I saw what I saw, I’m going to want a drink. And then I’ll want another drink, and then five drinks, and then I’ll be off the wagon for the first time in six years. So I didn’t see what I saw.”

Fair enough.

“Take off your shirt,” he said.

It took some doing—every time I moved my shoulder, the gaping wounds shrieked at me—but we got the shirt off. I shifted to face the window and watched Leo’s partial reflection in the glass. He soaked a cotton ball in peroxide. I closed my eyes, clasped my hands, and clenched my teeth until the painful process was over and he was taping down the last of the gauze pads.

“It’s the best I can do, but they need stitches,” he said.

“They’ll heal. Can you get my bag?”

He retrieved it, then put it on the seat between us. I rummaged inside for a clean shirt. Put it on with a little help from Leo. The pain was lessening but still present, as was the need to vomit. I was eager for the familiar itch of the healing process. His bloodstained jacket was on the floor by my feet, ruined.

“Thank you for this,” I said.

“You’re in some bad trouble, aren’t you?”

“It’s not good trouble.”

“Was Alex in trouble, too?”

I turned to look at him. He had the framed photo out, clenched in his hands. He looked so miserable, I wanted to spill the truth right there. I didn’t. If he thought accepting that he’d just shot two shape-shifters would dump him off the wagon, the real truth would send him on a fatal bender. “Alex isn’t involved in this,” I said, as close to the truth as I could manage. “How long have you lived in your car?”

“About four months.” He continued to speak to the photo. “Alex doesn’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Me and Alex, we were talking and trying to fix things. I lost the job he helped me get, then I lost my apartment. I was too ashamed to tell him. That’s why it took me so long to get here. Had to hustle some cash for gas.”

“He would have understood.”

Leo shook his head and put the photo back in the bag. “No, not about this. I’m an old fool, thinking he’ll ever forgive me.”

“You might have been surprised.” Forgiveness is a tricky thing—a lesson I’d learned the hard way, many times. A lesson I was still learning—especially when it came to forgiving myself.

We didn’t speak for several minutes, and I was grateful for the silence. I needed to think. The relationships among the Clans were beyond confusing, and I still couldn’t reconcile my feelings for Phineas. He could have been playing me this entire time, using me to get inside information on the Triads’ plans. Setting me up so Belle could take me out and be a hero to the Clans for protecting their secrets. Facts and events pointed toward his treachery.

My gut told me otherwise.

I hadn’t a clue where to start looking for Joseph and Aurora. Part of me wondered if they’d be safer with Belle’s people. She seemed to have resources beyond that of a simple diner waitress, and I didn’t doubt her hatred of me. Or her sincere belief in protecting the identities of the other bi-shifters at any cost. Including my murder.

My hand jerked. She hadn’t mentioned Wyatt, but he also knew about the bi-shifters. Had she sent people to silence him as well?

“I need a phone,” I said.

“There’s a cell in the glove compartment,” Leo said. I gave him a sideways frown. “Borrowed it from a friend, but the battery’s low.”

It was also about five years out of date, but it was still a cell phone. I waited for it to power up, my anxiety mounting. Wyatt would already be in fits from our interrupted phone call. The Triads would have heard about the throw-down at the apartment by now.

I pulled the antenna, punched in the number I’d called back earlier, and waited. It rang and rang. No one picked up. “Shit.” I canceled the call and tried to drum up Kismet’s phone number. My mind blanked. “We need to go to St. Eustachius.”

“Now you want the hospital?” Leo asked blankly.

“My friends are there. They can help us.”

He seemed poised to argue—or beg against it, I couldn’t be sure—but started the engine. I leaned gently against the seat as he drove, concentrating on the alternating sensations of pain and itching as I fed Leo directions.

The city quieted as we left Mercy’s Lot for downtown, moving closer to the Anjean River. Everything seemed still, as though it were holding its collective breath. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. I hated that feeling. It left me tense, on edge, ready to burst out of my own skin.

I directed Leo to the same side street Phin had parked on. “You don’t have to wait for me,” I said as he parallel parked on the curb opposite the river.

He gave me a wan smile. “If I don’t, then I’m likely to go find the first all-night bar I can, and I’d rather avoid that temptation.”

“It might be safer.”

“Maybe.” He paused. “Chalice, can I ask you a question and get the God’s honest truth?”

I almost said no. I didn’t want to give him a truthful answer, especially if he asked about Alex. Maybe the were-cats hadn’t sent him off on a bender, but learning his son had been turned into a vampire half-breed was the perfect excuse to end a six-year sober streak.

“Please?”

The reply leaked out. “Okay.”

I braced for the question I didn’t want him to ask. He surprised me with, “You’re not really a barista, are you?”

I blinked, almost relieved. Granted, the question opened up a whole nother set of complications, but these I could handle. “No, I’m not. I help deal with things that most people don’t see and don’t want to see.”

“Like tigers who turn into girls?”

“Yeah, like that.”

He blew hard through his nose. “And Alex found out? Is that why he left?”

In a roundabout way … “Yes.”

“Is it really more complicated than that?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

I wished he did, but complicated didn’t even begin to cover my world. “What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “Almost quarter to two.”

“I’ll be back before three. I need to be somewhere at sunrise.”

“Be careful.”

With the most confident smile I could muster, I climbed out and jogged to the corner, gritting my teeth the entire time. The block was quiet, save the gentle rumble of the river. Even the hospital seemed to be sleeping, despite dozens of windows blazing with light. I turned the corner, out of Leo’s sight. I just hoped he stayed in the car.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on Wyatt’s hospital room. The open space near the window. The Break caressed me with static fingers, no longer hindered by that strange force field. I pulled on the power, and the world around me dissolved. I floated. Felt smashed flat as I moved through the solid walls of the hospital—uncomfortable, but not as painful as the first few times.

Motion ceased, and solid linoleum formed beneath my feet. The scratch wounds smarted and stung, and a dull ache pressed between my eyes when I opened them. The room was dark, empty, the bed stripped. Equipment put away.

“She was right.”

Heart thudding in my ears, I spun around, fists clenched. Felix stood in the shadows of the far corner, hands in his jeans pockets. He looked bored.