by E. A. Copen
“No more protest. What good are children if they can’t take care of their elders? That’s what’s wrong with this country. The young don’t respect the old and the old are too stubborn for their own good, yeah?”
Chanter closed his eyes. Color crept back into his ashen face. Bran waved to Sal. “Go, brother. I’ll take him tonight.”
Sal stood and took a step back. “You call me in the morning so I can run him to the doctor’s, you hear me, Bran? And you make sure someone sits with him. If I find out he’s been alone for anything other than a piss—”
“Go, Saloso,” Chanter muttered through the mask, his voice was barely audible over the hiss of the oxygen. “I’m too stubborn to die just yet.”
His words didn’t put Sal at ease. He stayed where he was until I went and grabbed his arm. “Take me home?”
He looked at me, looked at Chanter, and then back at me, offering a weak smile. “Anything you want, babe.”
The ride into Paint Rock felt different than the ride to the roadhouse. It was slower, emptier, and the darkness heavier. Pressed in against him, I found myself reflecting on the ghosts of my past. In another life, I could have been with Alex, riding through the country roads of West Virginia on a late night on my way home instead of with Sal. Sal could be at home with his wife and a whole gaggle of kids, watching television and drinking beers. We could have been normal people. But then our paths never would have crossed, and I didn’t want to trade that, not for all the normalcy in the world.
Sal pulled up in front of my dark, dead house. The reservation was silent but for the gentle purr of his motorcycle. I stared at the house but didn’t make any move to get off the bike. Sal shut off the engine and reached back to pat my leg. “You want me to walk you up?”
“Yeah.”
I got off the bike, unstrapped the borrowed helmet, and placed it on the handlebars where I’d often seen him hang it. He climbed off and hung his goggles beside it and stopped me from stripping off the jacket he’d let me borrow again. “Don’t take it off.” He pulled the collar up and moving my hair out from under it. “Looks good on you.” Sal leaned in to kiss me.
All night, he’d been sneaking in a kiss where he might to ease the pressure or lighten the mood. This one was different, even if it started out the same. He leaned into me, hard and heavy and smelling of sweat, leather, cigarettes, and whisky. At Diabla’s, it felt like a performance, a step he felt he needed to take, a silent announcement to everyone watching that I was with him. In the darkness in front of my house, nobody was watching. He tangled his fingers in my hair and tugged it tight at the roots. When I opened my mouth against his, the edges of who I was and what I’d wanted blurred into the desire I felt in him.
In need of breath, and to focus on keeping upright on shaky legs, I pulled away. I thought about telling him to come inside and making the most of the night, but I was dead tired. Both of us had an early morning and a lot on our minds. Too much.
In the end, I gave him back his jacket and sent him home, standing out on the dark porch, watching him ride across the small patch of dirt that separated my house from his. He seemed disappointed, but agreed. Both of us had an early morning.
I was smiling to myself, still living in the afterglow of the moment as I came through the door and tripped on the remains of one of my kitchen chairs. I tumbled forward and kept my head from hitting the floor by landing on my palms in a puddle of milk. The fridge was open, the contents spread all over the floor and counters. Every drawer had been pulled out of the cabinets and overturned in a pile.
“Holy hell,” I whispered and then grunted as I pulled myself back up. Someone had ransacked my place.
Chapter Five
I walked around the house in a daze, righting what I could and picking up the pieces of my life, tossed around and broken as if it were nothing.
I made it as far as the living room before the severity of the event hit me. Strangers had been in my home, destroyed everything I owned, and I didn’t even know why. They had touched my things, broken pictures on the wall, torn open my sofa, my chair, pulled out my picture albums and scattered the photos in the spilled juice and milk on the floor. What would they have done to me or Hunter if we’d been home? What would they do if they came back?
I sank down among the ripped foam and torn bits of upholstery, and the shattered glass of my television gripping my hair, a tightness growing in my throat and chest. Tears fell despite my best efforts to keep them at bay. I wiped them away and sucked in a deep breath. It’s only stuff, Judah. Everything you lost is replaceable. But you need help cleaning up this mess before Hunter shows up in the morning.
In the kitchen, I stepped over a shattered pickle jar to stand at the window. Sal’s living room light was on, but the end of the house where he slept was dark. If I called, I might wake him, and I didn’t want that, not knowing he had to be somewhere in the morning. But who else was I going to call? He was the only one who lived close. I swallowed the tightness still in my throat and dialed him.
He didn’t pick up until the fourth ring. “Change your mind?” he purred into the phone. Good. He hadn’t been to sleep yet.
I opened my mouth to respond but paused when I saw the glint of something metal in the milk. Broken glass crunched beneath my shoes on my way over to inspect the floor. There, lying among ruined pictures and spoiled food, was Alex’s wedding band. My heart turned to a ball of ice in my chest.
“Judah?” His tone changed, suddenly more alert. “What’s wrong?”
I fought the panic creeping up my throat and blurted, “Someone was in my house while I was gone. They wrecked the place. They destroyed everything.”
A light came on in the back of his house. “Stay where you are. Did you call anyone else?”
I shook my head, and then remembered I was on the phone, and he couldn’t see. “No.”
“I’m coming over. Don’t touch anything.”
He came out of his trailer half dressed, hair down, and stalked angrily across the yard. I navigated through the mess to let him in. Once I opened the door, he surveyed the scene and cursed. “Jesus. Did they take anything?”
“I don’t think so. They just tore everything up, Sal. Broke the TV, cut up the sofa and chairs, dumped the fridge...” I trailed off and touched my forehead. God, I hadn’t even been back to Hunter’s room to see if his things were okay. “I should call Tindall. He’d want to know.”
“No.” Sal lifted his head, sniffing the air. Even in human form, werewolves have enhanced senses. I couldn’t smell anything over the fridge’s guts spoiling on the floor, but maybe he’d caught something I hadn’t. He wrinkled his nose. “Stay here.”
Sal pushed past me and stepped over the mess, going down the hall. I heard doors open and close as he searched the place and wondered if I should be doing something. I picked up the trash bag I’d been carrying around and started shoving things into it.
“Judah,” Sal called down the hall. “You should see this.”
I dropped the bag and carefully picked through the wrecked hallway. They hadn’t just torn everything out of the hall closet and thrown it around, but they’d brought a sledge hammer and knocked holes in the wall. I touched my fingers to one of the holes as I walked by and bits of drywall crumbled into the puddle on the floor.
As soon as I passed Hunter’s room on the way to mine, I put a hand over my nose and mouth. The stink of human waste hung in the air in a toxic cloud that only got stronger the further I went. It became overpowering when I slid into my bedroom next to Sal. I had to fight not to retch. They’d ripped up the bed and pulled the springs out. The lamp was broken and my laptop was in two pieces at his feet. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Attracting flies on the wall were two words scrawled in blood and feces:
DOG FUCKER.
I took it in, the smell stinging my eyes and my nose through my fingers. My stomach lurched, and I rushed out of the room, and threw open the bathroom door, finally discovering the source of
the river in my house. The bathtub was running. Bloody water cascaded over the side and onto the tile. The decapitated body of a dog lay floating in the water. I stopped in the doorway and emptied my stomach contents on the floor. Sal helped pull my hair out of my face to minimize the damage I did to myself, but I didn’t walk away clean.
Shaking, my head reeling, and with spots in my vision, I stood and used my wrist to wipe the tears from my eyes. “I need out of here.”
“I got you.” Sal tried to pull me back toward the hallway.
It was too much. I pushed him away and stumbled down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the front door. I collapsed to my knees in the yard, fighting for breath and pushing tears out of my eyes. How could I have been so stupid? I should have seen it. After the election almost turned bloody, it was only a matter of time before someone hit back. I had thought it would come in the form of a political mess, maybe a more difficult time at work. After all, everything I’d done to help the supernaturals and Tindall, I’d done it in my capacity as a BSI agent. That they would strike at me on such a low level as to destroy my home had never even registered in the realm of possibilities. I hadn’t felt this violated since Andre LeDuc sent me a tongue in a box.
I looked down at my fingertips buried in the dirt as the familiar buzz of magick spread down my arm and into my hand. When I pulled my hand up, a tiny black flame danced on the end of each fingertip.
Footsteps crunched through the dirt. “Judah?” Sal stood behind me. “You okay?”
I turned back around and looked at my fingers again. The black flames, along with the familiar buzz of magick, were gone. “I could use another drink,” I said, raking my fingers through my hair.
~
I sat at Sal’s kitchen table, clutching a steaming cup of coffee sweetened with amaretto. My hair was wet from the quick trip to Sal’s shower and, even though I’d brushed my teeth twice with a borrowed toothbrush, my tongue still tasted like bile.
Sal paced back and forth in the small space that served as his kitchen with a cell phone to his ear. “I couldn’t smell anything through that. I don’t know. Maybe that’s why they did it.” Pause. “I don’t know, but when I find them, I’m going to make them eat some.” Another longer pause. “Fuck that. This isn’t club business. It’s my business. My town. My—” He looked up and saw me staring at him and decided to change what he was going to say. “This isn’t some stranger, Val. This is Judah. If they hit her, who the fuck do you think is next? It’s our fault this happened to her.” Another, longer pause. “You be here tomorrow morning, Val. And not a word of this to Chanter, you hear? He doesn’t need it. I’ll call you back.”
He hung up and paced back over. “You feeling any better?”
I took a big gulp of the coffee. “Still trying to process everything. What’s Valentino think?”
“He had a few choice words for whoever was behind it but not much else.”
I put the coffee down. “Sounds like him.”
Sal slid into the chair across from me. “He, Shauna, Daphne, and Ed are going to come out to help clean up tomorrow.”
“And what about the police?”
“I’ve got it handled. You keep them out of it.”
I pushed myself up, my arms and legs feeling weaker and somehow further away than normal. My vision spun, and when it came back, the lighting in the room felt off. Blood pounded through my ears, and my chest felt heavy. “It needs to be reported.”
“I said I’ve got it handled.” Sal rose and put a hand on my shoulder. That was all it took to push me back down into the chair.
Dammit. Why was I so weak? My stomach growled. And why was I so hungry?
“Any idea who might have done this?” he asked. “Is it because of what you’re doing for Marcus?”
I swallowed and shook my head. “I don’t think so. It might be related to the election. Why else would they do it tonight? Everyone in Paint Rock knew I’d be over at Tindall’s. Maude’s people had to be pissed. My money is on them.”
He nodded. We sat in awkward silence while I thought about how it might be easier to just tear the house down than to try to fix it.
“Don’t you worry about the house,” Sal said as if he’d read my thoughts. “Me and the rest of the pack are going to fix it up for you.”
“I can’t ask you to do that, Sal.”
“You didn’t ask. It’s done and arranged. In the meantime, you and Hunter can stay here.”
I shook my head again. “No, I couldn’t. That’d be... I just don’t think...” I trailed off, unable to find the right excuse.
“I’ve got two bedrooms that aren’t in use, Judah, and I barely use the rest of the place. Besides, Hunter already knows his way around. This way, if you need me, I’m right there.”
You mean you’ll be there to protect me, I thought with a frown. I didn’t want to be protected or avenged or taken care of, at least not in the way he meant to do it. Sal meant well, but he was more accustomed to getting things done himself rather than thinking them through. I didn’t want him to make whoever messed up my house and things eat shit and die. I wanted them to rot in prison. My version of punishment was far worse.
Try as I might to argue, he wouldn’t have it. He’d already called in favor after favor to make sure I had everything I needed: new clothes, a new laptop, cleaning supplies, repairmen. He’d taken care of everything. When I asked where the money was coming from he cited the pack’s funds.
“I’m not taking money from them,” I answered. “I’m not part of your pack, Sal. Those funds are for Chanter’s medical expenses.”
“Dammit, Judah!” Sal wiped his hands over his face. “I want to do this for you and Hunter. They want to help. Is that so hard to accept?”
I crossed my arms on the table and put my head down.
Sal sighed. “Look, at the very least, let me put you up for a few days while we clean the place out. You should tell Marcus what happened.”
My head shot up and I glared at him. “Why? Why the hell should I tell him anything and not the police?”
“This might come as a surprise to you, Judah, but he won’t let that kind of thing stand. Marcus might be an arrogant, self-centered prick, but he won’t tolerate someone singling you out like that for doing the right thing.”
“No,” I snapped. “Not Marcus and not anyone in your club. You haven’t told them, have you?”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “No. I just talked to Valentino. Him, Shauna, Daphne, and Ed are coming over to get started while I run Chanter out to his appointment at the hospital. I can keep it quiet, but they’re going to find out, Judah. You were singled out because of your association with me and Chanter and the rest of the pack. I think that message was clear. It’s not going to go away just because you don’t tell people about it. They’ll do something else. This was a warning of things to come.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Focus on what’s important. You and Hunter. Do your job for Marcus, and let me take care of the rest. That’s what you do.”
I wanted to object, to kick and scream and cry and punch life in the face for dealing the hand I’d just picked up. But there wasn’t time and Sal was right. There was a little girl in the hospital that needed my help—his little girl; his secret little girl. If I didn’t save her, I’d be facing something a lot worse than a wrecked house.
“Just promise not to make it weird for Hunter, okay, Sal?”
He made a sour face. “How would I make it weird?”
“And do me a favor and call Tindall. Tell him to drop Hunter off here in the morning. I don’t want him to see. As far as he knows, there’s an electrical problem or a gas leak or something stupid. Okay?”
Sal agreed and went to the back of the house to make up one of the other two rooms so I could pass out. I wandered over to the sofa and picked two empty Corona bottles out of the cushions and a Pulp Fiction DVD case, depositing them on the coffee table. I only meant to sit down
, and not to fall asleep. After the night I’d had, I like to think I earned a sleep on Sal’s sofa.
Chapter Six
I woke up lying in a twin-sized bed on three pillows, a down comforter, and no idea how I’d gotten there. The light filtering in through the blinds was still a pale blue and my phone alarm wasn’t going off, so it was early. But there were also clothes on the floor that weren’t mine, along with a mostly empty tequila bottle. My head was pounding and my stomach felt woozy. The last clear memory in my head was a pleasant dream mixed with the kiss Sal and I had shared outside my house.
Oh no.
Panic overrode confusion and I bolted upright. The werewolf stretched out across the floor popped his head up, canine ears perked. It began to sink in that I had desperately misinterpreted the situation. I hadn’t had the night I thought I had.
Last night’s events came back to me slowly. The pounding in my head wasn’t tequila. It was another stress headache that fed the uneasiness in my stomach. Sal had stripped down to shift and taken up a protective position in wolf form near the door, because his senses would be keener should danger arise. He’d probably downed the tequila just prior. Werewolves being how they were, he could process that much and only get sleepy while I would have blacked out. Yeah, it’s not fair. I know.
I let out a deep breath and rubbed my face in my hands while Sal stretched and let out a squeaky yawn.
“Yeah, I know it’s early. I’ve got stuff to do, though.” I threw the covers off me, stood and stretched before I grabbed my phone. I had two hours before I had to get Hunter and try to explain why we’d moved in with our neighbor without bringing anything with us. That, I wasn’t looking forward to.
Things with Hunter were complicated, as it often is with teenagers. He was embarrassed by his mom, but thought his pack mentor walked on water. I hadn’t told him yet that Sal and I were dating, mostly because we hadn’t been on a proper date yet. I wanted to make sure we weren’t better off as friends before I talked to Hunter.