Infected

by Andrea Speed

  Which didn’t mean anything. Maybe Alexei said something that really pissed Gerald off, but Alexei and he had a good laugh over it by the end of the night. Still….

  He texted Holden’s phone and sent him the picture. It reminded him he still had to trash his phone like Holden told him. That continued to seem weird to him, but not as weird as the fact that he didn’t feel guilty about leaving those men to the lion and never looking back. He should have looked back; he should have checked to see if they were alive and called an ambulance. But he didn’t. He should have at least felt some guilt over that, but again, he didn’t. They had assaulted him, were behind the shooting of Kevin and the attempted murder of Holden, and were discussing killing him like he was a sick dog that needed to be put down. What did he have to feel guilty about? Besides, he hadn’t hurt them—he just hadn’t gone out of his way to help them.

  Being a vigilante was harder than he thought. And if guilt wasn’t making him think about this, what was?

  He tried to get his mind off of things by following links and friends on Gerald’s pages, a wormhole of utter nonsense, only some of it offensive. Chai really didn’t want to stereotype straight people… but weren’t they the worst? Sure, there were some good ones, but they were few and far between. Chai had really had his fill of heteros.

  And that finally led him to Gerald’s Twitter page. It wasn’t under his name, but the name EmpCicero45. But the avatar was definitely a picture of Gerald. He had several linked tweets, buried deep in his feed, about how sick and tired he was of PC crap and how “so-called queers” were given an easy ride. Say what now?

  Although his grammar and spelling were astonishingly bad for a professor, it was clear Gerald was talking about a “pansy” he worked with, who he thought got a better deal at the university because he was a “diversity hire.” Holy shit—this guy was a fucking psycho. Petty as shit too. What grown man did this? Chai could tell him why he didn’t get the deal Alexei did—Alexei could spell and didn’t seem to blame his failures on other people or odds stacked against him by “PC culture gone mad.” He really didn’t want to stereotype, but… were all straight white men such whiny babies? “People aren’t kissing my ass—PC culture gone mad!” Poor straight white men. Everybody used to throw roses at their feet if they just showed up, but nowadays, they were treated like everyone else, which was definitely punishment they didn’t deserve. They were special little flowers.

  Now the possibility that Gerald had actually assaulted Alexei seemed more probable. He clearly held a grudge and seemed to hold Alexei—presumably the queer he mentioned—personally responsible for his failure. Since the dates of the tweets put this at several months ago, he had nurtured this for a while. Again, a real psycho. And if he’d followed Alexei up to the Pass, a stalker too. Considering the amount of pure hate he poured out, he might be a self-loathing closet case. That could never be ruled out, especially when someone went out of their way to be an asshole.

  Weirdly enough, his phone rang in his hand, and Chai almost dropped it he was so startled. He really wasn’t used to getting calls on this thing. But he answered it, once his heart stopped racing around his chest. “You can’t text me back?” Chai asked.

  “I’m stuck in a hospital bed. I’m fucking bored,” Holden replied. “Find anything else? More photos?”

  “No, but I did find a resentful tweet storm about a queer and the PC police, which leads me to think that maybe he did do it.”

  “There’s something off about that guy. Dahlia picked it up.”

  “I bet she doesn’t know about his Twitter, or she’d have dismissed him as your standard right-wing asshole.”

  “He could still be that. It’s just he’s also an attempted murderer too,” Holden said.

  “So how do we prove it?”

  Holden sighed. “That’s the hard part. We have to find out where he was on the day Alexei was assaulted. Short of directly asking him, I have no idea.”

  That’s what Chai was afraid of. “Should we get the cops involved?”

  “Love to. How?”

  Chai was at a loss. He said the only thing he could think of. “What about Roan?”

  “What about him? He’s an ex-cop. The chief is sweet on him, but Kevin was his inside man. Dropkick only covers homicides, and Estes is on cat cases.” Holden paused a moment. “Bloodhound.”

  “Huh?”

  “Roan can ask Gerald directly if he had any involvement in Alexei’s beating. If he lies, Roan will know.”

  “But what if he’s a total psycho who doesn’t feel bad about what he’s done?”

  “It really doesn’t matter. Roan will know.”

  The amount of trust Holden had in Roan was staggering, especially since trust didn’t come easy to Holden. But Chai had seen nothing to make him disbelieve Roan. He probably would know if Gerald was their man or not. “Okay, so… what after that?”

  “We’re going to have to figure that out on the fly. Can you come pick me up?”

  Chai was shocked anew. “The hospital is releasing you?”

  “No, I’m leaving. I have too much to do.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise? I mean, you were beaten by six guys….”

  Holden scoffed. “Think this is the first time I’ve been jumped by a bunch of guys? Besides, two of them are dead, so I only count it as four.”

  Chai didn’t understand that at all, but he decided he wasn’t even going to try. He knew he had not seen as much violence as Holden, or survived or handed out as much, but he winced at how casually Holden said it. Like it hadn’t left scars on him, most of the intangible variety. In fact, Chai imagined this answered the question of why he was a vigilante—why wouldn’t he be? He’d seen so much bad shit and had some of it done to him, why not? It wasn’t a healthy response, but it was kind of an understandable one. When the world kicked the shit out of you, might as well kick back.

  Chai shut down his laptop and limped to the bathroom to have a piss and make sure his hair was presentable. His stump was really hurting today, which could have meant the weather was about to change—it actually did that sometimes—or just that he was still hurting from being kidnapped, in a way he didn’t expect. He knew he shouldn’t take any pills and drive, but after catching the ugly mess of his black eye and the frizzy mess of his hair, he decided he could take a half of one painkiller. Even a whole pill was like water now for him. It wasn’t good, but at least he wasn’t impaired.

  But as he used his handy pill splitter to cut one in half and gulped down the half pill with some cold but slightly metallic-tasting tap water, he wondered if it was simply habit to take these pills now. Any effects they had, maybe they’d ever had, were psychosomatic. How did you tell? Did he need to get sugar pills the exact size and color of his pain pills and ask Holden to sneak them in so he never knew if he was taking a real or a fake pill? That seemed like way too much work.

  Chai supposed he should ask Roan. He had a pill habit that was almost legendary, right? But that seemed insensitive. Also, realistically, the pain probably wasn’t equivalent. Yeah, his stump could really throb sometimes, but at least he could move it. Roan didn’t seem capable of much movement until he had some pills in him, and even then, Chai could see the tension in his jaw, the way his veins stood out on the side of his neck. He was moving but still in pain. Every time Chai tried to imagine what it was like to have all your bones snap, all your muscles pull and tear as they assumed new shapes, he stopped nearly immediately. He would swear he could feel it starting, somewhere near the missing half of his leg, and that would be enough for him to abandon the entire exercise. Honestly, he was surprised anyone lived through the first change.

  Checking himself in the mirror turned out to be a good thing, as he saw a coffee stain on his T-shirt and changed it hastily. Maybe he was only driving to the hospital to pick Holden up, but he didn’t want to look like a complete slob. Partial was okay. He might never be able to get away from partial slob.

  It started ra
ining as he drove to the hospital, and that was a shame because people were fucking lunatics who completely forgot how you drove in the rain—even though this was Seattle and you should be able to handle it by now. Although global warming had made it rain much less than usual. Still, that was no excuse to lose the ability completely. Chai was on a low dose of painkillers, and he seemed to be handling it well.

  Parking and walking into the hospital, Chai reflected on the fact that he could probably get one of those handicapped parking things, but he never did. He hated thinking of himself that way. But why was he letting something like denial and body dysmorphia keep him from better parking slots? He was a fool on top of everything else. How depressing.

  By the time he reached Holden’s room, Holden was packed up and ready to go. While he looked better than he had when Chai first saw him, he still didn’t look great. Yeah, he was on his feet, and his eyes were full of his usual burning intensity, but his face was still bruised and partially swollen. He’d survived, and you could even call him the winner of the bout—if anyone could be said to be the winner—but it had cost him, and that price was written all over his face. A cut that had healed over made his bottom lip look bee-stung and lopsided, nearly matching his swollen nose.

  Holden rolled his eyes. “I know. I look like someone beat me with the ugly stick.”

  “Actually, it looks like you got a shitty nose job.”

  Holden shrugged, shouldering his pack. “Same difference, really.”

  Chai shrugged in return. “Kinda.” He didn’t offer to take Holden’s bag for him because he knew him, and Holden would hate it. So Chai allowed him to be a macho asshole and carry his own bag to the car.

  Once there, Holden called Roan, and they had a brief conversation. As soon as he hung up, he reported, “He’s going to meet with us in the car, at his hotel.”

  “Oh?”

  “Dylan’s sleeping. He doesn’t want to wake him. Also, he probably doesn’t want to be seen in public with us, in case some forensic evidence turns up at the farmhouse.”

  Chai felt a sting of guilt in his stomach, but it was brief and passed quickly. “It would be on the news, right?”

  “Dead cops? Fuck yeah.”

  That was exactly what Chai assumed. “So why haven’t I heard anything about it yet?”

  Holden glanced at him askance. “Really? Huh. I guess it means they haven’t been found yet.”

  Again, Chai’s assumption. “Three cops? It’s super weird.”

  Holden nodded. “It is. You have any thoughts on the matter?”

  “Not really. I just expected something by now. And the fact that there hasn’t been anything is making me nervous. Do you think at least one of them survived?”

  Holden scoffed. “No. Against Roan, maybe. Against the lion, never. Animals don’t take prisoners.”

  That probably should have gone without saying. But nothing about this situation was normal in any sense of the word. Chai really thought he had grasped all this weird shit that was Holden’s life now, but apparently he hadn’t. Would he ever? He thought he’d done well with Roan the other night, considering.

  Holden grimaced at nothing, and Chai guessed he’d just thought of something unpleasant. Or the pain of his injuries was getting to him. “What is it?”

  “I know why the cops haven’t been found yet.”

  “Why?”

  “They all took time off, told their wives or whatever they were going fishing or had some kind of cop meetup, so no one’s going to realize they’re gone until tomorrow.”

  “They thought that far ahead?”

  “They thought they’d be getting rid of bodies today. That’s not a thing you usually want to rush.”

  For a single blissful moment, Chai didn’t understand what Holden meant. And then he did, and it walloped him like a two-by-four to the head. His stomach clenched into a fist, and he could feel the ache like a reverse punch in the gut. “They were always going to kill me.”

  Holden scoffed. “Kidnapping you was a fucking felony. You could identify them. Fuck yeah, you were dead. If there was an argument about it, it was probably good cop, bad cop. They were hoping you’d give something up before they offed you. Sorry.”

  Chai thought he might be sick, but honestly it was too much effort. “What could I have given them?”

  Holden shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t know where Roan was and wanted you to drop a dime on him. Although, it remains crazy that they thought they ever had a chance with him.”

  Chai felt slightly better about leaving them to Roan and the lion now. That was some real Darwinian shit there. The biggest monster won. You’d have thought it was the murdering cops—they certainly thought so—but no. Monsters, yes, but not the best.

  Chai noticed his hands were shaking and folded them on his lap, trying to hold them still. He didn’t know why he didn’t want Holden to notice how scared he was, but he didn’t. Besides, the fact that it was hitting him now was ridiculous. Maybe he was simply having a hard time accepting that one man—not to mention three—could be so cold-blooded. But Holden was right. That explained why they hadn’t been found yet. No one knew to look for them.

  Holden must have guessed this was hitting him hard as he asked, “You okay?”

  “They were cops. How could they be so psychopathic as to plan for a day of body dumping?”

  Holden smirked. “Haven’t you seen the news lately? Cops have been killing people left and right. Besides, you don’t need to be psychopathic, just organized.”

  Yeah, maybe he wasn’t cut out for this life. Was there any help for it now?

  Chai drove to Roan’s hotel, gripping the steering wheel way too tight in an effort to quell the shakes. It ultimately didn’t work, as Holden put a hand on his arm, probably trying to comfort him. It only made him feel embarrassed.

  They had to park in the parking garage, which Chai never liked. Parking garages gave him a weird feeling of claustrophobia, something he never had anywhere else. Honestly, he blamed the X-Files. He kept expecting Mr. X to step out of the shadows and eye him evilly.

  They hadn’t been there long when the back door opened, and Chai’s heart jumped into his throat. Goddamn, he had no idea he was such a coward.

  Roan slipped into the back seat like this was his taxi. He looked better than he had the last time Chai had seen him, lying on Dee’s couch looking like death warmed over. Roan now appeared to be a genuinely living person, although a tired one. He had some actual color in his cheeks, but he also had dark crescents beneath his eyes, marks of poor sleep like smudged eyeliner on his face. Still, in regular light, with no sign of the lion around him, he remained surprisingly handsome for a redhead. Chai had never thought of himself as prejudiced, but apparently that was always going to floor him.

  Roan’s emerald eyes fixed on him, and Chai could feel it, like it exerted actual physical force. “How are you doing?”

  “How am I doing?” Chai repeated, shocked. “I wasn’t the one who could barely move last time we saw each other.”

  Roan shrugged. “Sometimes physical pain is the least of it.”

  Chai needed a couple of moments to process that as Holden went ahead and told Roan his plan. Roan was making Chai’s head reel. Every time he thought he was beginning to get the guy, he’d do something really confusing.

  Roan listened patiently to Holden’s plan, but the simple narrowing of his sharp eyes told Chai he didn’t like it much. “And then what?” Roan wondered.

  Holden, for whatever reason, decided to play dumb. “Huh?”

  “Say I ask him the question and he passes. What then?”

  “Nothing. If he didn’t do it, I have no interest in him.”

  “So what if he lies to me and implicates himself. What’s your plan?”

  Holden smirked and caught his sharp-edged gaze in the rearview mirror. “I’ll figure that out.”

  Roan shook his head. “So you think it’s okay to lie to me now?”

  “I’m not—�
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  “Don’t insult both of our intelligences.”

  Chai sat perfectly still, not sure what he should do, so he’d lapsed into his old habit of freezing and hoping the bigger, angrier person didn’t spot him. He’d never heard anyone talk to Holden in that tone of voice before. And he’d never seen Holden simply take it. “I think it’s best if you’re out of it, don’t you?” Holden volleyed back.

  Roan’s eyes narrowed, and Chai saw anger flash by. Maybe the lion wasn’t so submerged after all. “You’re better than this, Holden. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t even try that shit with me.”

  Was Chai crazy, or did he hear the slightest growl between shit and me? Suddenly the car felt slightly unsafe.

  Now Holden gave Roan a stony look. “I don’t need this shit either, Roan.”

  “Considering you’re still doing it, I think you do.”

  Holden sighed and rolled his eyes. “Can we not and pretend we did? I know what you’re gonna say, and you know what I’m gonna say, so why bother?”

  Chai felt like this was a weird party game. What were they discussing? Holden’s vigilantism? That seemed to be confirmed by Roan’s next statement. “It ends one of two ways—prison or death. And I don’t want to see either for you.”

  Holden scoffed. “It was always gonna end that way for me, Roan. The legal things I’ve done in my life could be counted on one hand.”

  “It’s not too late to change.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

  A muscle jumped in Roan’s jaw as he briefly gritted his teeth. “You can help people in other ways.”

  Holden sighed. “Again, let’s not have this argument but say we did. We really need to get to the Starbucks on Fawcett. Gerald is always there between 11:00 and 11:35 a.m. weekdays.”

  Roan looked disgusted but seemed willing to let it go for the moment. “That’s a weirdly specific fact to know.”

  “Well, I found Gerald’s Twitter,” Chai explained. “And that led me to his Instagram account. It turns out he’s one of those jackholes who takes pictures of all of his food, even when it’s just coffee and a scone. All his photos have time-stamp information, and from there it was easy to figure out his daily routine. We got the location from the buildings visible out the windows.”