“I did kind of kick your ass.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Didn’t I? It took sodium pentothal for you to finally tell me anything useful. I’ve already made a mental note that next time I’m going to start with peeling your fingernails.” I sucked my teeth and looked up at the house. The windows on the second floor were oddly clean compared to the other houses—it was as good of a place as any to start.
The house was in much better condition than the old mansion on Foster. Signs pointed to people having occupied the home as late as a few decades ago—before I was born but still more recent than the dilapidated mansion. The ceilings here were intact, and so was the floor. The plaster wasn’t peeling, but the dated wallpaper was moldy and yellowed.
“Are you sure you’re okay enough to be out here?”
“I’m fine,” I grunted making my way up the steps into the second floor. The minute I reached the landing I could smell the blood, I followed that sharp scent to the bedroom where they had kept the girl.
The room was mostly empty, a dirty mattress sat in the corner with pieces cut out of it, and there was a single handcuff still on the radiator. I’d seen worse. Blood splatter adorned the wall, at this point, it was never going to come out. It had been days, and the smell was still potent even in the cold. The crime scene people had already been through so what I was looking at meant nothing to me. It was like trying to solve a crossword after someone did it before you and then filled each block in entirely with ink before giving it back.
I had been hoping that they had kept her somewhere separate from where they killed her. The fact that they hadn’t complicated things, and meant I had wasted two and a half hours of my day.
“Fuck,” I groaned covering my face. “Come to laugh at my drug induced optimism?” I dropped my hands and turned to Nate who was leaning against the threshold.
“No, I came to make sure you’re okay.”
“How did you find out I was here?”
“That’s not important.”
“Stalker.” I started walking down the stairs. “I know how you did it, probably the same way I got Jonas.”
“I didn’t get Cis involved. Did it all on my own. All of us have our little hidey spots. Yours is the Collins district.”
“That’s going to change.” I snorted and walked through the front door. Snowflakes fell from the sky, but it was a wet snow, so nothing stayed. Once it hit the ground all it did was disappear and make the crumbling sandstone walk slick.
“It’s a smart choice.”
“And you? You hide in plain sight behind your glasses and your horrible, horrible fucking muffins.”
“You’re wrong. They’re not horrible.”
“You’re the only one who thinks that. Your banana nut tastes like rubbing alcohol and rum.”
“There are plenty of people who buy them every day.”
“I guarantee that if you ask any one of those people for a quickie they’d say yes before you could say the word muffin, let alone finish your sentence.”
“Unfortunately for them, I’m not looking.” The way he said it made me pause and cringe recalling what he said when I tortured him. I decided not to say anything about it, I had more important things to deal with—like my two open cases. It wasn’t that I didn’t find Nate attractive it was that whole hollow chest thing; I was the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. I started whistling if I only had a heart as I approached my car and Nate started chuckling. “You do have one, you know.”
“One what?”
“A heart.”
“Do I?”
He chuckled. “You didn’t break my thumbs.”
“Because you could have gotten your hands out.” I grinned at Nate from the other side of the car door.
“So where to now?”
I looked at the sky. It was getting dark and not just from the snow clouds; I’d probably get a bunch of texts from Thorn any minute asking where I was. Sighing, I took out my phone, I hadn’t planned on visiting another location, but with Nate’s help if something went wrong I’d probably survive. Then again…
“I’m going back to the safe house. You can do whatever you want.”
“And if I want to go back with you?”
“That’s going to be a big fat no.”
“My, aren’t we assumptive. We want the same thing right now.”
“Do we?”
“Since my secret’s out, we might as well work together.”
“I’ll share information, but work together?” I scrunched my nose, that was a big old pile of nope. “Not gonna happen.” I beamed at him and sat in the driver’s seat. “Have a good night.”
“I’ll send you information.”
I nodded and stared at my hands for a few moments. “Thank you.”
“Oh?”
“For keeping an eye on me, and helping me—even though I… kind of…vigorously interrogated you.”
He chuckled and smiled at me with that same good guy grin that fooled so many into a false sense of security.
“Anytime, Rose.”
****
When I pulled up to the safe house, I sat in the garage for a while staring at my phone and the slew of texts from Thorn. It was a time to put space between us. A normal person would have been thrilled. They would have looked at Thorn’s interest in them like some sort of golden ticket opportunity, the instant chance at a charmed life. Most would have pursued him even if his body wasn’t a thing of wet dreams. Sex and money were two of the biggest motivators and Thorn having both made him the full package for most with a pulse and some without.
Unfortunately for Thorn, I wasn’t most. I didn’t even consider it flattering. It was just bothersome, kind of like Nate’s attention.
So, like a spouse weeks away from asking for a divorce, I sat in the garage and played puzzle games on my phone until my fingers were too numb to register on the phone’s glass. Then and only then did I go inside.
The moment I opened the door, I knew it was the right decision to distance myself from him. The shoddy table had a plate of food, on it and in the middle, was a single, sad, little rose centerpiece in a glass. Thorn sat on the couch tight-lipped and illuminated by the television. He was pissed, I didn’t need to have magic or be an empath to read him. He tried his hardest not to look at me. Instead, he gave sidelong glances as he shifted and twitched.
Wetting my lips, I walked over and took a seat on the coffee table. I knew the conversation was going to be a rocky one before I even opened my mouth. Again, I had to go back to my training to remind myself how people might act in such a situation.
“Thorn, we need to talk.” I took a deep breath and he sighed.
“I know I’ve been a little—” he clenched his jaw “—eager, but I really think this could work between us.”
“Thorn.”
“Rose! I’ve never felt this way about anyone before you.”
“Have you ever had anyone save your life aside from me?”
“Well no, but—”
“What you feel for me is called transference. You’re focusing all your emotions on me because I saved your life. If hadn’t—”
“I’d still be interested in you.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m putting a stop on this. It might hurt now, but this is for the best.” I ran my fingers through my hair and stood. He stared at me open mouthed in disbelief, it was the face of someone not used to being told no. Trust funds and cozy made up executive positions didn’t prepare one for rejection, neither did having your partners preapproved by a bloodline curator. “I’ll be out in the morning, and I’ll visit every other day until this is resolved.” I made my way to the bottom of the stairs and paused. “For what it’s worth, Thorn, I’m sorry; but it’s not fair to you.”
“Shouldn’t I be allowed to choose what I want? Don’t you think I have a better grasp of what I can handle than you do?”
“So, you want me to use you like a sex toy? You are aware that’s all you
could ever be to me. I’m not wired for attachment. You’d be something I’d fuck for a few weeks until I got bored. That’s it. No cuddling after, no feelings, certainly no dinners together. Just cold detached sex to sate a purely carnal drive. You’d be a backscratcher, something to reach an itch I can’t fix on my own.”
“Is that what Nate is to you?”
“No, Nate is just an associate. Admittedly, he was my backscratcher for a while, but then I had to have this talk with him—only it involved a chokehold.”
“Couldn’t you try?” Oh, the whining of a spoiled rotten brat. I covered my face and sighed.
“Good night, Thorn.” I walked up the stairs to the bedroom I woke up in.
Unfortunately, the walls paper thin so I could hear everything that went on below. The thuds from Thorn punching the wall echoed through the vents as I stripped off my jacket. The sounds continued even after I finished washing my face. I stood in the hallway and decided to do something I knew was going to end poorly. It was one of those moments that made me want to discover time travel just so I could go back and scream at myself “don’t you fucking do it!”
I walked right to where Thorn was still seated on the couch, with those amazing eyes made exceptionally vibrant by the outstanding shade of crimson his glossy whites had turned with his silent tears. His knuckles were bleeding and split, and there was a hole in the wall at the base of the stairs. After inspecting his bloody knuckles, I drew him into a tight embrace. Why did I do it? To shut him up of course. It wasn’t the hug I regretted, it was kissing him back as his mouth sought out mine. I placed my hand on his forehead and pushed him away, shaking my head.
“I meant what I said.”
“I’m okay with it being purely physical. I just want to be in your life, Rose.”
I knew he didn’t mean a word of it. The quickness to try and force some sort of domestic arrangement between us within days of me saving him proved it. He attempted to kiss me again, and I kept him at literal arm’s length.
“I came down here to comfort you, not fuck you. Now if you’re ready to respect what I said and not act like a drunk frat boy, I’ll take my hand from your forehead.”
“But—”
“I know I gave you hope by saying I wouldn’t mind fucking. It’s the truth, you’re attractive and have a nice body. That’s why you go to the gym three times a week, so people will want to sleep with you—bravo it works. However, you’re too attached to me and sex will only make that worse. You don’t even seem eager to return to your life. Look at this place. I’m not even that happy about being in this hell hole.”
“I’m fine with it because you’re here. You’re funny and sweet, and you’re protecting me when you don’t have to. You could have let the Vampires have me at the fundraiser, or the guys that broke into your apartment. Instead, you put yourself in harm’s way for me. I want you in my life.”
The silence that took the room after that was heavy and occasionally broken by Thorn’s sniffles. I stood and got him a glass of water that I pressed into his hands when I returned to the couch. I didn’t know what to do or say. My training had prepared me for similar scenarios, but every outcome was about screwing him to shut him up for the short term. It’d probably be good, and it’d quiet him for a little, but other expectations would grow. And as things were, I just didn’t see an end in sight if I went through with it.
“Wouldn’t you rather have someone in your life who can feel the same way about you? I’m broken. Right now, I’m struggling to have this conversation with you because I don’t understand feelings period.”
“I know.” He set the glass down. “And it’s okay.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. I’ve thought about this while you were unconscious. I watched you lying there in that bed, motionless…helpless and I kept thinking about what’s going to happen once everything is resolved.” You’re going to go back to Lexington and Park, and we’ll never see each other again. But that’s not what I said.
“What happens, happens.”
“I’m going to miss sleeping next to you, your warmth and your scent.”
I smiled, but I didn’t tell him that anyone could fill that primal need to sleep next to a warm body. I had tried to shut him down, but he was unshut-downable—damn that confidence. It was the spoiled brat thing. He decided he was going to have me in his life, for whatever awful and misguided reasons, and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer—like this was a merger he was desperate to make. Just from his attitude, I could tell he’d make his father proud someday—and have a slew of sexual harassment cases filed against him.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Can I join you?”
I stared blankly at him for a while, no one was that desperate or stupid.
“No,” I clipped out before heading up the stairs.
I locked the door to the room I had woken up in and flopped down on the bed, passing out almost instantly.
Shortly after falling asleep my phone rang, I only knew it hadn’t been very long because I felt more tired than I had before I went upstairs. Grumbling, I groped the darkness for my phone.
“Hello?” I groaned, pulling the thick comforter over my shoulders.
“Good morning, Darling. You sound like you’re in a bit of a mood,” Davy sounded entirely too chipper for the hour.
“Morning?” I checked my phone, it was only three. “I hate to break it do you, but this doesn’t count as the morning.”
“We can agree to disagree on that, Sunshine.”
“What’s going on? I know this isn’t a social call.”
“The last few days I’ve been digging through everything I could find on IPX. They’re in the process of moving their headquarters to London.”
“That’s not why you woke me up is it?”
“No, I got into their files, and I don’t mean their look we’re an international shipping conglomerate files. I mean their super shady, double encrypted this is clearly a hit list file.”
“Ooo, gimme.”
“I’ll send it over, but the list isn’t exact to the cases you’re working.”
“Thanks.”
“Get some rest.”
“Will do.”
“Oh! And before I forget, you’ve been evicted.”
“Figured as much. Thanks again.” I hung up and checked the file Davy sent me, it more or less matched the files I had with the exception of two things. Thorn’s name wasn’t on the list but mine was, I was admittedly too tired to think clearly about it, so I set my phone to the side and snuggled under the blankets, surrendering to sleep.
Fifteen
IN MY DREAM, there was only darkness, an inky expanse that consumed everything before me. Slowly, a room started to take shape from wisps of shadow slightly more solid than the rest. Once I could barely make out the outline of the empty chamber, light was projected onto the bare wall before me, and an image formed, but it was inverted, flipped on the vertical axis. It took a few moments of squinting, but I recognized it as the aftermath of fundraiser massacre. I was treated to a slide show of everything that happened since meeting Thorn, but the slides were upside down and backward. The images disappeared and the walls started closing in around me until I was crushed by them and swallowed whole by the hungry dark.
****
That was when I woke up, panting, exhausted, and absolutely confused. A thought stuck in my mind as I sat cocooned in the warmth of my blankets. I was clearly looking at the cases all wrong, and my subconscious was trying to tell me something it thought was glaringly obvious that I had missed. I hated trying to understand my dreams. More often than not, they were just garbled nonsense, but occasionally they contained the rare gem of insight.
I rubbed my shoulder, my fingers trailing over the ridges of the stitches as I went back through every scrap of the case I had access to. Nothing stood out to me. I felt no closer to what was going on than I had been before. I stared at the water spots on the ceiling, they had a
n almost pleasing pattern to them. Taking a deep breath, I thought all the way back to the beginning.
I jumped as a knock on the door jarred me away from my thoughts.
“Hey, do you want lunch?” Thorn’s voice sounded through the thick wood.
“No thanks, I’m probably going to head out soon anyway.”
“Oh, okay,” he sulked.
I rolled my eyes and decided it was time to get up and attempt that whole adulting thing for the day. I showered, dressed, and smeared on some makeup before slipping my Glock 19 into the inner-pants holster and heading downstairs. Thorn was in front of the television watching some crime drama. I didn’t say I’d be back in a few hours, I didn’t say goodbye, I just left. Before I had even stepped foot on the stoop, I had made up my mind not to come back. He needed time away from me.
“Audrey will be by tomorrow to take you to your new job,” I yelled inside before heading to the car. I was sure I could get him something working for Nate, Abby, or Tabs, even if it was just for a few days.
****
Thirty minutes later found me at Merlin’s Beard, and it was actually busy for a change. Clearly, her new Golem was having a positive effect on business. I meandered the shelves eating my fast food cheeseburger with one hand as Tabs finished helping a group of people.
“If I find an oil spot on anything you’re buying it,” Tabs chided as she stepped beside me.
“Deal. I was wondering—”
“If I could help you with another case?”
“Kind of, it’s the same one from before.”
“I’ll help you, but you’re coming to girls’ night out this week.”
“Fine, unless I’m in a coma again.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, jumped on to a roof and miscalculated the difference in height. But I’m here.” I shrugged and she laughed a little.
“That you are. C’mon, let’s go to the back. It was Isis, right?” She started walking into her office, I followed.
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