Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2)

by Andrijeski, JC

  “I want Wu,” he said, his voice low. “Have him follow me up. Dex and Kiks on the door. Get Jasey. We might need her to do a sketch...tell B-team I want them ready. One hour. We need a forward unit to do a search prior to full engagement. Extraction scenario, but dress civilian...it’s in the middle of town. We’ll feed them intel as we get it.”

  I heard murmurs of acknowledgement, even as I glanced behind me a last time, right before I walked through the glass doors ahead of Black. When I did, I saw the taxi driver who’d brought me here, a man I didn’t even know by name, watching me, sadness in his eyes.

  He raised his hand to me in a silent wave, then placed it over his heart.

  I didn’t look back again.

  HIS VOICE WAS low, but I felt the tension there, the forced patience.

  “You need to let someone look at you, Miri,” he said. He sat next to me on the bed, and I could feel that was deliberate too, that he felt uncomfortable standing over me.

  He didn’t try to touch me.

  “You need to let someone clean and stitch up the cuts, before they get infected,” he said, softer. “Please, Miri. Please. I can bring anyone you want. Anyone.”

  His people had just left.

  Black and another soldier-type, the same man Black had called Wu, asked me a lot of questions. Another man took notes. A sketch artist, Jasey, drew everything I could remember in my answers––everything I’d seen about that barge, inside and out.

  Most of it had been useless, I suspected.

  Animal-type cages. Buckets for toilets. Long gas tanks of some kind, red with rust and black with oil and dirt. The smell of rotting fish and dead rats and excrement. The outside of the barge had been more or less nondescript. I hadn’t seen a name on the side, just tires hanging all along the edge, high curved sides, ropes tying it to a dock. The lower part had been dark green.

  I described everything about the dock I could see, my eyes closed as I recounted all of it.

  I asked to describe Solonik to Jasey too, so they’d know what he looked like. Black seemed to want to wave me off that for some reason, maybe to wait until tomorrow, or until they could get Pete back perhaps. When I insisted, he didn’t argue, though.

  After another twenty or so minutes, Jasey had a detailed sketch of Solonik, too. It was so accurate it unnerved me. Black stared at it for a long time.

  “Do you know him?” I asked finally.

  He shook his head, once. “No,” he said.

  Eventually, the rest of his people left.

  It was just me and Black now, which was both a relief and kind of a let-down. The last of my adrenaline spent itself working with Black’s team and with Jasey to save Pete and warn them about Solonik. Now I had nothing left outside of me to focus on.

  Nothing apart from Black himself.

  That heavier feeling washed over me again.

  I looked down at my bare feet, which were black with dirt and crusted with blood. The top of my right big toe had a deep laceration, making it a strange shape. I knew Black was right, that I needed to get them cleaned up and stitched and bandaged, but the thought of seeing anyone else right then made me sick to my stomach. I still held the dog-smelling blanket tightly around me. I knew there were other things I could have wrapped around myself by then, but I found I didn’t want to let that particular blanket go.

  “Can you do it?” I said finally.

  Relief washed over him, bringing a hard pain to his chest...and mine, by extension.

  “Yes,” he said. The relief was audible in his voice. “Of course. I can do it, Miri. I’d be happy to do it.”

  I nodded, strangely relieved too. Then something else occurred to me.

  “I should...” I looked down at myself, feeling another coil of...was it shame? I didn’t really want to think about that, either. “I should take a shower.”

  “Do you want to do that first?” he said.

  I gave him a blank look. Then, thinking about his words, I nodded. “Yes.”

  Again, relief plumed off him. I felt him wanting to help, desperately wanting to help me, but for some reason it only made that sick feeling in my gut worse. I bit my lip, suddenly having to fight not to yell at him.

  “You can yell at me, Miri,” he said at once.

  For some reason, him saying that almost made me smile. I didn’t feel a lot of real humor behind the impulse, though. I didn’t feel anything really.

  He still didn’t touch me, but I felt him wanting to.

  “You can do whatever you want,” he said, quieter.

  I nodded, trying to make sense of his words. Then I stood up. Gripping the blanket around me, I walked towards the bathroom. I felt him watch me go from the bed, felt the unsureness on him. I made it to the bathroom door before I realized he wasn’t going to follow me. I turned, staring at him.

  “Aren’t you coming?” I said, my voice a little cold.

  He flinched, staring at me. Then he rose abruptly to his feet. Walking towards me with his cat-like strides, he didn’t take his eyes off my face, but caution still radiated out of him almost cloyingly. I didn’t wait for him to reach me but walked the rest of the way into the bathroom and then just stood there. I watched him walk to the shower, which was huge, a glass-enclosed fishbowl with a sunflower shower head above, along with two silver-headed nozzles on the sides with detachable hoses. He turned on the main shower head and stepped back, using his hand to gauge the temperature. When he glanced at me, his face was unreadable again.

  “Do you want me to wait in here?” he said. “Or outside the door?”

  I shook my head, feeling my jaw harden. “I want you to come in with me.”

  I felt Black tense. Pain coiled off him in a cloud, confusion. I felt both things intensify, even as he tried to pull them away from me, to lock them behind a shield.

  “Miri,” he began. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  I didn’t return his gaze. Instead I let the blanket drop, walking past him and directly into the shower. I winced as soon as the hot water touched my skin, gritting my teeth at the pain as it hit my cut shoulder and scalp. I honestly couldn’t decide if it felt more good than bad in those first few seconds.

  Black just stood there, not looking at me. The shower door remained open.

  “Are you coming in?” I said. “Or not?”

  I felt indecision waver off him, more confusion.

  Then he seemed to make up his mind. Turning away from me, he kicked off his shoes, which I only noticed then that he still wore. I stood under the hot water, slowly feeling the good outweighing the bad as he shed his watch, then his belt, laying both on the counter. I noticed only then that he wore another of his black, form-fitting T-shirts and black dress pants. He turned towards me, but he didn’t shed the rest of his clothes, like I expected.

  Instead he walked directly into the shower, exactly like that, and shut the door.

  He stood behind me, out of my way, leaning against the glass wall.

  I gave him a questioning look, but I didn’t comment. When I looked around for soap, he reached down hastily in the corner of the shower where he stood and handed me a squeeze bottle. I looked at the label. For the first time, it occurred to me that I was in Black’s hotel room, in his shower. He’d brought me here, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  Even as I thought it, he stepped closer, moving so that he was standing more under the shower head. I watched his black shirt grow darker as it got splattered with water.

  “Sit,” he said. “I’ll wash your feet off... so I can fix them up later.”

  Thinking about his words, I nodded, then sat on the bench inside the shower. He crouched down in front of me. He didn’t look at my body at all I noticed, but picked up my closest foot gently––almost gingerly––and rested my calf carefully on his thigh. I saw him examine the rope burns there and the cuts, right before he peered closer as the soles of my feet. He winced when I did, as he touched my big toe where I’d sliced it on the window.

&n
bsp; When I glanced at his face, he was frowning. I could almost feel him trying to decide the best way to do this.

  “One minute,” he murmured.

  Setting my foot down carefully so that it rested on the edge of my heel, he rose fluidly, leaving the shower cubicle, his clothes dripping all over the floor as he rummaged through several bathroom kits hanging on the back of the door of his room.

  I just sat there, watching him through the glass.

  When he came back inside, he had a small plastic kit with him that held tweezers and what looked like a small set of scissors. He also held a few soft-looking cloths.

  He sat all the way down that time, cross-legged on the floor of the shower, and once more propped my leg on his. I just sat there, closing my eyes in the steam-filled glass enclosure as he carefully picked glass and gravel out of my feet with the tweezers, using the cloth to wipe it. I sucked in breaths a few times, unable to help it as he cleaned the cuts. But mostly I just sat there watching his eyes narrow in concentration.

  He did one foot, then the other.

  Then he asked to see my hands.

  Only one of those was cut badly. I hadn’t realized, but a small piece of glass was wedged there too, in the fatty part of my palm under my thumb. He plucked the glass out carefully with the tweezers, then motioned for me to turn around and looked at the cuts on my shoulder and back, as well as one on my thigh I’d gotten when I climbed through the window.

  I felt pain on him through most of that. My mind was confused as to what kind of pain it was, but I didn’t try to pull that apart either. He offered to wash my hair after he’d examined all the cuts he could see and I nodded, weirdly relieved he’d offered so I didn’t have to ask.

  He washed my hair three times while I washed the rest of myself carefully. After rinsing out all of the soap, he poured conditioner on my head, too, which made me smile for some reason, even as he massaged it into my scalp.

  “What’s funny?” he said, gruff.

  “You,” I said. “Using conditioner that smells like flowers.”

  He grunted, but I felt him smile. “They’re manly flowers.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” I said.

  Silence fell between us again, and that pain in my chest worsened. It grew harder to breathe through as he finished rinsing the conditioner out of my hair.

  “Are you almost finished?” he said. His voice was still low, hard to hear under the sound of the water falling from he sunflower shower head.

  I looked up at him. That time, I met his gaze.

  Sadness shone back at me from his gold eyes, a grief that stood directly on the surface. I felt him trying to keep it from me, to at least keep the emotional side of it away from where I might feel it. I felt something personal in it, too, something beyond however he did or didn’t feel about me...or even how responsible he felt for what had happened to me. I remembered what Solonik told me, about Black as a kid. About Black coming here to “save the children.”

  I don’t really know why I did it.

  I don’t think my mind was working in that conscious way at all. Regaining my feet slowly, I faced him once I had. Still watching his eyes, I opened myself to him, more than I had to Solonik. As much as Solonik broke in me, there were parts of me he never got to see. I opened those parts now––consciously. I opened them to Black.

  While I studied his face, his eyes glazed.

  “Miri,” he said, his voice short. “Miri... what are you doing?”

  I shoved at his chest with my good hand. He followed the direction of my push, at least until his back hit the shower wall. He stood there, and I saw that discomfort on his face warring with something else now as I opened to him more.

  Miri... His mind rose sharply in mine. Miri, please... I’m seer. Maybe you don’t know what that means, what you’re doing right now, but... He trailed, as if unsure how to go on. Please... he sent. Please, Miri. I won’t be able to not react to this...

  What am I doing? I asked him.

  I opened more, and he let out a low sound, avoiding my eyes.

  Miri... please... don’t...

  What am I doing?

  You’re... He hesitated, meeting my gaze. Miri, gods. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I know there’s nothing I can say, that it will never be enough...

  What am I doing, Black?

  I opened to him more, feeling a kind of relief to drop my shields because I chose to do it, not because someone was making me. That relief shifted into a twisted kind of pleasure as Black squirmed, fighting to avoid reacting to me.

  You know what you’re doing to me, Miri... he sent finally. You’re making love to me... fucking me... I can’t do this. I can’t do this right now...

  I had my hand on him then.

  He let out a low groan as I massaged him through his wet pants, watching his eyes close. He was already hard. I’d known that somehow, but I didn’t think about how I’d known, or even how I felt about it. Some part of me could pick apart the psychology behind what I was doing later. I could even see the cruelty of it, but right then, I didn’t care about that, either.

  A colder anger rose in me as I watched Black’s face.

  “Don’t you want me anymore, Black?” I said.

  He let out a low groan, gripping my wrist. Miri. Please... please... don’t...

  I thought you said I could do whatever I wanted? Didn’t you mean it?

  He froze at that, his eyes meeting mine. I saw panic there, more guilt, and a pain that actually made me wince. I slid closer to him, massaging him more deliberately with my palm, opening myself to him even more.

  Are you extended? I asked him.

  He let out a low groan. “Miri, please. Please, I’m so sorry...”

  Are you? I asked, my thoughts harder. ...Extended?

  “Yes,” he gasped. “Yes.”

  Do you want me?

  “Yes,” he gasped, nodding. “Yes... I’ve wanted you since the first day I met you.”

  Come for me, brother... I sent softly.

  He let out a shocked cry.

  Some part of him slid out of control. His mind opened, meeting mine in that space and then he was moving against me, his fingers still holding my wrist. He groaned aloud when I massaged him harder, then he was grinding up against me, holding my hand where I rubbed it against him. I felt him starting to separate out, to lose himself, and bit my lip. His pain coiled up into me, turning aggressive, confusing me, then turning me on, making me angrier.

  I released him even as I felt him building towards an orgasm.

  I walked out of the shower without a word, leaving him gasping against the glass wall, bleeding pain out at me, pulling on me even as I walked away.

  I kept going, not stopping at the open bathroom door.

  I didn’t even bother to grab a towel.

  HE WORE ONE of the hotel’s terrycloth bathrobes when he came out of the bathroom. He didn’t look at me, but walked straight to the bureau near the television. I watched him pull a case out of a drawer there, and tensed when he unzipped it. It took me a minute to realize why I’d tensed. The case was big though, nothing like the one where Solonik kept his syringes.

  Black glanced at me at the thought.

  I saw something flicker past his eyes, but he looked away before I could interpret the look.

  He felt completely blank to me now, a wall of silence.

  He walked over to me where I sat naked on the bedspread, and he sat in front of me on the carpet, like he had to clean my feet inside the shower. Like he had then, he picked up one of my feet gently and placed it on his thigh.

  I watched him, wincing as he used antiseptic to clean off cuts. He pulled out a small suture kit then, and I sat there, my body tense, biting my lip as he sewed up the worst laceration and then wrapped a bandage around it after cleaning it again.

  Enough time had passed that I felt a little sick at what I’d done in the shower.

  I didn’t say anything though.

  He moved to the other f
oot, repeating the process. None of the cuts on that foot were big enough for stitches I guess, since he used band-aids that time. He repeated the process with my hands, using a small butterfly clasp on the bigger cut on my right palm, where the glass had remained in my hand. He bandaged that up too, after cleaning it a second time as well. He cleaned the cuts on my legs and thighs, and the rope burns, putting bandaids on everything but the burns themselves.

  Then he climbed behind me on the bed and began cleaning the cut on my shoulder.

  “I don’t think this one needs stitches,” he murmured, maybe to himself.

  I didn’t answer.

  He put a thicker bandage over that one and then slid back over the bedspread to sit next to me. I looked at him once he did and saw his gold eyes scanning over my body. His gaze was clinical though, assessing me as though I were a project he was determined to complete.

  “Is there anything else?” he said, gruff. “Anything I missed?”

  I swallowed, feeling my jaw harden. Then I shook my head.

  He started to get up, but I laid a hand on his thigh over the robe, stopping him.

  That time, he tensed, but he sat back down at once.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “About what I did.”

  He clicked at me, shaking his head, once. “Don’t apologize to me, Miri. I mean it.”

  I nodded, but that pain in my chest only worsened. I fought with whether to say it, then shook my head, exhaling.

  “I want you to fuck me, Black,” I said. “Like a seer. Extended.”

  He tensed all over again. Then he shook his head. “Miri... no. No. No way.”

  “We can call it making love if you want.”

  His eyes shifted directly to mine. That time, I felt a whisper of anger on him, but it didn’t feel aimed at me. “No, Miri. We can’t.”

  Despite the fact that I’d just apologized to him, I felt my anger rise back up sharply, worse than what I’d felt in the shower. I let out a humorless sound, staring at him.