Bitter Thirst

by SM Reine

  Pops didn’t think it was funny. “Sidhe rulers are cursed! They have short life spans. If you don’t leave your husband now, Ofelia, you are going to die—if not this week, then in a week soon to come. You will die.”

  Her chin trembled. “I didn’t come to ask for your permission—only for your blessing, love, and support.”

  “You won’t have it.” Pops released her. She jerked like she’d been slapped. “I won’t endorse anything that kills you. And I won’t have a daughter who is suicidal.” He glanced at me and said, “Talk sense into your sister, Cèsar, or don’t talk to me again.”

  He left the room.

  There was silence. Total silence.

  Not the most pleasant way to wake up from a drug-induced mini-coma, let me tell you.

  Ofelia didn’t move after Pops left. She gazed at the door without a sound, jaw set.

  She wasn’t crying. She’d never been the kind of girl who cried. She was too tough for that.

  Even when she’d spent days being held captive by incubi—the same incubi who got revenge on me—she hadn’t cried that whole time. Even when they’d been digging holes into her neck with silver needles…not a tear.

  Pops didn’t get anything from her now either.

  This was worse in a way. Because I could see her breaking on the inside, shattering piece by piece, and I could see how determined she was to swallow it down.

  “I know it doesn’t mean much,” I said, “but I bless your wedding.”

  Her startled eyes leaped to me. “You do?”

  “Come on, Pops doesn’t know everything. Fated to die…cursed faerie queen…whatever.” I made myself shrug. That hurt too. “You’ve never done anything because you’re stupid, O. You weren’t blindsided by any of this. You went into your marriage with Cooper with eyes open, and you know what you’re doing.”

  “Even though werewolves are psychopaths?” she asked, taunting me with what I’d said before I knew Cooper wasn’t totally human.

  “They probably are. That particular psycho loves you and plans to protect you. Sometimes it’s good to have a psychopath at your back.”

  “Cèsar…” She smoothed her knuckles over my forehead, and it felt exactly like how I remembered Abuelita caring for me as a child. “You said to have faith in Pops.”

  “I was wrong. There’s only a man behind that curtain, and men make mistakes.” I sure as hell did. All the goddamn time. “Pops hasn’t earned it, but you have. You trust Cooper so I do too.” A smile twitched over my mouth. “You’re a fucking faerie, though, and I’m gonna have to laugh about that for the rest of your cursed life.”

  “Just remember,” Ofelia said sweetly, “if I’m a fucking faerie, then so are you.”

  Which was when Suzy walked into the room. Just in time to hear my sister calling me a faerie.

  “Oh hey,” I said. “Suze. ‘Sup?”

  “Sup?” she echoed, annoyance lowering her brow. “You almost died. Again!”

  Ofelia smiled as she stood. “And who’s this?” She offered her hand to Suzy.

  It was funny seeing my old partner next to my sister. Unlike the Hawkes, Suzy was pocket-sized. But very much like the Hawkes, she had enough attitude to fill a stadium. They looked about equally towering next to my bed even though Suzy’s head didn’t reach Ofelia’s shoulder.

  “I’m Suzy,” she said. “I used to be Cèsar’s partner at the OPA.”

  “Used to be?” Ofelia snapped her fingers. “You’re her. The actual girlfriend who was supposed to come to breakfast.”

  Suzy looked at me with one of those Looks that women get, where it’s like they can read your mind.

  “She is my girlfriend,” I said. “I hope.”

  Suzy rolled her eyes. “What are you, twelve? Who has girlfriends at our age?”

  “Me, I hope,” I repeated.

  She rolled her eyes again.

  But she didn’t argue with me.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet Cèsar’s girlfriend,” Ofelia said. “I have to find my renegade husband, but I want to talk to you. I want to know who’s keeping my brother in line.”

  Suzy cracked her knuckles. “Oh, I’m trying.”

  “Drinks later?” Ofelia asked. She grabbed a hospital branded pad of paper, wrote down a phone number, and handed it to Suzy.

  “Drinks,” Suzy agreed. “I can do drinks.”

  “Then I should get my things out of the motel before Pops throws them in a Dumpster,” Ofelia said, glancing at her watch. “We’ll be in touch soon.”

  Ofelia pinched me one more time—hard—and then I was alone with Suzy.

  Her arms were folded across her chest and she was glowering with the fiercest glower I’d ever seen. “I’m still in the Apple,” she said. “That’s not changing. If you like me, you’re going to have to accept that. I’m working with my parents. I’m going to try to figure out what the Apple means now that Cain’s run off with most of them and—”

  “Yeah, it’s fine, I don’t care,” I said.

  She blinked. “You don’t?”

  “I’ve been much more betrayed by people who don’t have apple ass-tattoos. I’m feeling nonjudgmental. Plus, I know you. You’re not a bad guy. If you think the Apple’s fine, it’s fine.”

  “Good,” she said. But she didn’t look less angry. “As for Isobel—”

  “We’re done,” I said. I was done with Fritz too, as much as I could be done with a guy who was walking around with half of my soul.

  “Good.”

  “Why do you still look pissed off at me?” I asked.

  “Because you almost died, and you never fucking called me for backup! I could have protected you! You asshole idiot mother-fucking—”

  “Suzy-fucking,” I corrected.

  She laughed despite herself. It was one annoyed laugh, but it was a laugh. Suzy climbed onto my lap. She pulled out the neck of my hospital gown and looked down. “You’re naked. Good.”

  “Why’s that good?” I asked.

  “Because,” she said, taking a condom out of her back pocket, “now that I’m certain you’re not going to die, I’m going to have my way with your body. Shut the fuck up.”

  I did.

  It turns out that hospital beds are too narrow to have sex in them comfortably, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. And Suzy has will in spades.

  Which was how I ended up even sorer a half hour after my family left the hospital. Just like that, thirty minutes totally gone. Vanished in a blur of rustling clothes, Suzy muttering curse words, and a whole lot of heavy breathing ending with wads of disgusting paper towels lobbed at the trash can.

  “So what is this about you being a faerie?” she asked.

  Oh man. I’d been hoping she hadn’t heard that part. “I don’t know. Pops says that the Mejía family—my family—have faerie blood. It’s why I get so sick with magic or whatever.”

  “Does your sister get sick too?”

  “No,” I said. “My brother doesn’t either. So fuck me if I know what that’s supposed to mean. I don’t feel like a faerie.” I snorted with laughter.

  Part-faerie.

  Fuck me.

  Suzy shrugged it off, like it was normal to find out that you had non-humans somewhere in your ancestry. “Whatever. Changes nothing. We can do this.”

  “We just did,” I said as she climbed off of me. My heart was still pounding from activities which were, realistically speaking, probably against hospital policy.

  “Not that.” She waved dismissively in the direction of my unflatteringly deflated man-business. “I mean this.” And she waved at both of us.

  “Use your words.”

  “I’ve been pardoned,” Suzy said. “I don’t have to hide anymore. It’ll make this a lot easier if we’re not hiding from security cameras—and I’m so goddamn sick of the Batcave.”

  “How did you get pardoned?” I asked.

  “Director Friederling has given me the all-clear. Because Lucrezia de Angelis is dead and Gary Z
ettel is missing—”

  “Missing?”

  “He vanished when PRAY passed,” she said.

  I sat up. “PRAY passed? No. How…?”

  “The justices issued an opinion before they died. The president’s upholding it.”

  “Tate spoke against it. Justice Mendez was going to do whatever Tate asked,” I said. “It shouldn’t have passed.”

  “PRAY got enough votes to stick around. Lucrezia was too smart to let her legacy die along with her, that fucking fuck-face,” Suzy said. “Angels. They’ve got Plan B’s for their Plan B’s. She’s fucking dead and I don’t think we’ll see the last of her machinations for years.”

  “Fuck,” I said, with gusto.

  The thing is, I wasn’t confident that it was Lucrezia’s plan to get PRAY to pass.

  I didn’t know much anymore.

  “So Fritz survived, if he pardoned you,” I said.

  “He survived. He’s got a lot of surgeries coming, but I guess he’ll be doing those privately, back in LA.”

  He’d already left Washington DC without me. My kopis didn’t want to answer my questions.

  Who was chickenshit now?

  “He wanted you to know Agent Bryce survived. He also said to tell you sorry,” Suzy said. “I didn’t ask why. I don’t care.”

  Secondhand apologies weren’t going to be enough.

  “He got what he wanted,” I said. He’d gotten PRAY. He’d gotten Zettel and Lucrezia out of the way. The sky was the limit for Fritz Friederling.

  “So let’s raid the hospital pharmacy for opiates and benzos and get your ass out of here,” Suzy said. “I know you’re acting like you’re in more pain than you actually are. You fucking wuss.”

  I was actually in a hell of a lot more pain than I was showing, but I’d agree with anything at this point. I was still blissed out on orgasms. “Yeah, I’m ready to get out. I’m fine.”

  “Good. And you’re not going to run off to fight assholes without me ever again. I love you too much to worry you’re going to die when I turn my back.”

  I twisted to stare at her, tucked down under my armpit. “You what?”

  “I love you, you big stupid oaf. Don’t rub it in. You’re not special. But you are my boyfriend—mine. All right?”

  “I thought you said twelve year olds have boyfriends.”

  “Maybe I want to be twelve,” Suzy said, getting out of bed with her cheeks red. “I don’t care if you think it’s stupid and juvenile and ridiculous but—”

  “No, it’s great.” I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back into bed with me. “Fuck, Suze. I think that’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”

  “Unhand me, you madman,” she said airily, even while she wrapped her arms around my neck. Probably so she could hold me in place while she bit my stupid face off or some similar Suzy abuse. I couldn’t wait for it.

  “Nope,” I said. “Boyfriend’s rights. I get to cop a feel whenever I want.” And I did.

  She didn’t even slap me for it.

  Ofelia had been right that Cooper wouldn’t go far without her. When she met Suzy and me at the Leather Switch that night, about an hour before midnight, she was accompanied by a bristling slab of werewolf. Cooper was dressed as a biker. Leather, chaps, boots, the whole thing. Ready for the road.

  My sister was ready too. Same amount of leather. But she didn’t look to be in a hurry. She gave me a long hug when I showed up, and followed it with an even longer hug for Suzy, which turned into “Bartender! A round of drinks!” and grabbing pool cues.

  “Brave of you,” I said to Cooper. “America’s most wanted, and you’re still hanging around DC.”

  “If they try to arrest me, I’ll dismember them,” he said.

  “So uh,” I said, “I guess I’m not giving you the ‘don’t hurt my sister or I’ll kill you’ talk, huh? Because you’d definitely kill me first.”

  “She’s safe with me,” Cooper said.

  I believed him. I really, really did.

  Drinking started without me. I just sat back and watched Suzy enjoy herself with my sister, which was the most smiling I’d seen from either of them in a long-ass time.

  It was nice.

  “Where’d you even find this place?” Cooper asked, leaning against the wall beside me.

  “A gay guy took me here,” I said.

  He glanced at me, and then at Suzy, and then back at me again. Like he was trying to decide what the fuck that was supposed to mean. Then he shrugged, dismissing whatever thoughts had been marching in his head. “Drinks specials are good. Nice choice.”

  “Thanks. Gay guys have taste.”

  I’d have made jokes about it, but I trailed off when I realized a familiar figure was bowed over the far end of the bar. Tate Peterson wasn’t well-groomed anymore. He had a twenty-year-old’s version of five o’clock shadow and a scowl that could compete with Suzy’s.

  “Back in a sec,” I said, pushing off the wall.

  I took the stool next to Tate. He smelled skunky. Like he’d swan-dived into a mountain of marijuana as soon as the ruling on PRAY had gone through.

  My suspicions were confirmed when he pulled out a half-smoked joint, its end pinched off, and started fumbling for a lighter. “Hey Cèsar,” Tate said, turning his red-eyed gaze upon me. “What are you doing here?”

  I nodded toward the pool table. “Hanging out with family. Wanna join us?”

  “And what? Party until the apocalypse?” he asked.

  “That’s one heck of a change in tune from a guy who initially supported PRAY.”

  “Right? I can’t believe I’m this upset,” Tate said. “I was all gung-fucking-ho about it. Ready to go after the nearest werewolf pack with guns ablaze. What happened?”

  “You’ve got a brain,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “The bad guys won,” Tate said.

  “They usually do.” They’d been progressively winning more and more in recent years. The only difference was that now my kopis might have been one of those bad guys.

  Tate took a long drag of his joint and offered it to me. I shook my head. He puffed at it like he was a choo-choo train and skunked up his whole end of the bar in retaliation. “Now I’m about to go back on tour with Cain to give speeches about how PRAY is the Best Thing Ever, and I’m gonna have to make it look good.”

  “Or you could quit,” I said.

  “The fuck I can. It’s too late, I’m in too deep. What have I done?”

  I patted him on the back. “You did your best. Thanks for taking care of me the other night, by the way.”

  “Thanks for keeping me company,” Tate said. “You reminded me of my principles. And how much I like men.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I know. I’ve got a guy waiting for me back home. He’s pretty pissed at me right now…” He gave a dry laugh. “Because he’s a werewolf, believe it or not.”

  I glanced over at Suzy. She was in a competition to down shots with Ofelia, while Cooper watched with a faint smile. I couldn’t see Suzy now without seeing the apple tattoo. And yet I didn’t care.

  “Who cares if he’s a werewolf? Apologize to him,” I said. “You’re not such an asshole you can’t be forgiven.”

  Tate took one more drag, coughed, and stubbed his roach out on an ash tray. “I’m not going to ask for forgiveness. I’m going to prove I can do better.”

  “Then I think you’re going to do just fine. Look me up when you’re off the tour, if you survive.”

  “I’ll probably do that.”

  We shook hands. Then I pulled Tate in for a hug, because goddammit, he looked like he needed a hug. Or maybe I did.

  “Hang in there, Hawke,” Tate said. “Remember you’re not such an asshole either.”

  “Thanks man.”

  I’d like to think both of us left the bar feeling better that night. And I’d like to think that Tate went home, grabbed his boy, and had a happy ending.

  But I just wasn’t sure that I believed in happy en
dings anymore, even if having my sister and my girlfriend playing pool looked a hell of a lot like it.

  Chapter 28

  I should have been homesick for Los Angeles. But when I landed in Fritz’s private jet and looked out at home, I felt sick for coming back. Like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My head was full of Neo-Classical architecture, politicians wearing suits, and East Coast snow.

  Fritz’s palace was even worse. All the green grass in the middle of winter made me feel like I’d been tossed into Oz under the rule of an evil witch.

  I’d helped pick out the flooring in the entryway. I’d pulled down the paintings in the hallway to replace them with posters of Fritz’s new favorite movies. I had a closet full of my clothes.

  It was an alien world and I was miserable in it.

  We had dinner in the breakfast nook—blasphemy, according to Fritz’s favorite maid, but the chairs in the formal dining room were too uncomfortable for Fritz while he recovered from surgery.

  So breakfast nook it was.

  Someone served us a fancy dinner. I barely looked at it. Fritz ate, and Isobel sat in front of an empty plate, probably fantasizing about how much she wanted Oreos.

  It was a quiet night.

  The quiet hurt.

  I looked between the two of them, Fritz and Isobel, and I wondered what I was going to do. How I was going cope with them being different than I expected. “I don’t know how to start talking, so I’m just gonna do it,” I finally said. “Why the fuck did you do that, Fritz?”

  “Which part?” he asked quietly.

  “Any of it. All of it. Lying to me, making these crazy plans, letting Weston Connors kill people…”

  “My original arrangement with Weston Connors had him being disruptive, not murderous,” Fritz said. “The intent was to instill doubt in the OPA so that I could replace PRAY and become the organization’s secretary.”

  I grabbed my fork and held it like I was about to stab someone. “Why?”

  “I can do the most good as the secretary of the OPA,” Fritz said. “It’s a job with incredible power, and not one I could get by waiting for a chance to interview.”