by T. D. Fox
“Usually I have a team to help bring down the big ones. I’m not a one-man operation anymore.”
“What do you want with Changers in the first place?”
W turned. He set down the towel he was using to dry his hands. “I think that’s enough questions for one night. Get some sleep. You’re in for a rough few days.”
“Why?”
“That was a question.” He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Go on. The more rest you get, the sooner you can control the Change, which means the sooner I can get you out of my hair. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do. Go in the other room and count sheep or something.”
She scowled. But he’d turned his back to her again, finishing up whatever he was doing at the sink. Courtney hoped he wasn’t cleaning blood off his hands. Her stomach cooled at the thought. Had he killed anybody today? No. Don’t go there. If she let her thoughts wander down that road, all the resentment and antagonism she felt toward him now would turn to fear. And that would be unproductive toward her escape plans.
Courtney started to push her chair out from the table. But her eyes caught hold of something beneath the paper bag W had set down. Sliding the sandwich wrapper aside, she uncovered a small stack of files. She recognized the topmost one. A single pair of initials marked the manila cover. J.W.
Her mind flashed back to all the nights she’d seen W sitting in the café, buried deep in files like these. Each with a different pair of initials on the front. She’d assumed they were work related. Now that she’d learned a little of what that work entailed, her stomach twisted.
J.W.
Jasper Wade.
She reached out to flip the file open. A hand shot out of nowhere and clamped down over hers. She yelped.
“Nobody likes a snoop,” W said from behind her, tugging the folder out from under her hand. She hadn’t heard him approach. In one swift movement, he gathered the other files up from the table.
“Why do you have a file on my boyfriend?”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do! Jasper Wade: those are his initials right there!”
“Really? Out of all the people in Orion City, he’s the only one with the initials J.W.?”
She stood. He was less than an arm’s length away. Before she could think it through, Courtney pulled out the pair of scissors from her pocket and brandished them like a knife. “Tell me what those files are for.”
W looked down at her. Any annoyance on his face vanished in a flash, replaced by a startling expression that almost looked like... pride. He chuckled. “Of all the things you could’ve found in this apartment, you chose that?” Slowly, he set down the files. Courtney leaned back at the movement. “What happened to the blade I gifted you?”
She’d lost W’s knife during the Change. “Don’t change the subject.”
“You want to know whose initials they are?” W reached toward the table again. Courtney leaned away, but not far enough. With lightning speed, he switched direction and grabbed the hand holding the scissors. She jerked back. His thumb crushed down on her pulse point, forcing her fingers to open. He caught the scissors as they fell.
“They’re not your boyfriend’s.” He released her wrist. Eyes on hers, he set the pair of scissors down on the table. Insultingly close. Daring her to pick them up again. “They’re mine.”
Courtney rubbed her throbbing wrist. “Wait...” His words registered. “W doesn’t stand for the Whistler?”
He laughed. Fear knifed through her at the sound. It took all her self-control not to bolt.
“Why read your own file?” she said. “Don’t you know everything about yourself?”
“Darlin’, nobody knows everything about themselves. You certainly don’t.” He stepped around her and scooped up the files again. She turned and watched him as he headed for the counter. Beneath the counter was a set of drawers. The topmost one had a lock on it.
“So you’re reading to learn more about yourself,” she said dryly.
“As interesting as that would be, no. I happen to share the same initials as my father.”
“Your father?” The last answer she expected. “I thought those were the files of your victims.”
“Victims? You make me sound like some sort of serial killer.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I like to think there’s more method to my madness.” W slid open the drawer, dropped the files inside, and pulled out a key. “No. These are cases.” He locked it. “And my father’s is a case that particularly interests me.”
Courtney folded her arms. “Why should I believe you?”
Pocketing the key, W turned. “Have you ever stopped to realize that I’ve never once lied to you?”
“You’ve lied about everything.”
“Actually, you are possibly the only person in Orion City with whom I’ve been entirely honest.”
That freaked her out a little bit. “You lied about not being in Chinatown.”
He inclined his head. “I said I rarely visit. Not a lie.”
“I don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know your real name.”
“My real name is W.”
Courtney covered her face with one hand. She felt like a match that had been struck too many times against the side of the box, one blow from fizzling out completely. Across the room, W sighed.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m left-handed, I’ve never seen a Tom Hanks movie, and I hate peanuts. Now you know everything about me.”
Dragging her fingers down her face, Courtney looked up. She met his gray eyes, which were blank as a slate and impossible to read. Her wrist ached. Suddenly, she could feel the weariness in every ounce of her body.
“I’m going to go count sheep,” she said in a flat voice. She turned and headed for the bedroom, letting the door slam behind her.
18. THE DARK
SCREAMS. SCREAMS EVERYWHERE.
Courtney stood in the middle of the street, dodging people as they raced by. Someone knocked into her. When she fell, she knocked into someone else, who shoved her back. She found her feet.
“It’s your fault!”
The scream blistered her ears. Courtney flinched. She turned. Whoever had shouted was gone, lost in the current of fleeing people. She turned again, facing the opposite direction of the flow.
“Your fault,” someone sang, near her other ear. “Your fault, your fault...”
Courtney squeezed past screaming figures. There were no faces. Only blurred shapes, streaking past her, pushing, shoving. Someone was crying. A little girl. Courtney wanted to turn around and look for her, but the crowd pressed in so close she lost direction of the sound.
Ahead, something broke up the stampede. The flow of people thickened and bunched like water around a rock in a stream. People sprinted away from a central point. She fought to get closer, lurching up onto her tiptoes. A man knelt on the ground, doubled over. Dark copper hair glowed red in the sunlight.
Courtney’s breath caught in her throat. “Dad!”
He convulsed. Body jerking, he pitched forward. Landed on his hands. His back arched.
“Dad!” she screamed.
He Changed. She knew it was a Change, and not a seizure, because she felt every jerk and convulsion as if it were her own. Pain ripped through her body. She gasped. Her father gasped too, there on the ground. He twisted sideways. She felt her own ribs seize at the motion.
He rose, growing larger and larger, while she stood clutching her middle, trying to keep her insides from exploding. Pain was everywhere. She couldn’t see straight. A red-and-copper blur loomed in the middle of the crowd. A lion, larger than life. It stood in a pile of torn clothing, crouched low, eyes narrowed into slits. The copper mane rippled in the sun.
“Dad?”
The beast’s head snapped sideways. Burning golden eyes landed on her. With a bone-shaking roar, the lion reared back on its haunches, lips ripped back over razor teeth. It launched itself at her.
BANG.
>
Courtney screamed as the lion collapsed, mere feet away. Hot blood spattered her front. She stared in horror at the heap on the ground. Crimson leaked over her shoes. Her stomach shook, rolled, turned to ice.
The lion melted away. At her feet, her father lay, curled in a fetal position. His copper hair was matted to his temples. Blood dripped down his ear.
“Dad!” Courtney dropped to her knees.
“Your fault,” came the sing-song voice again. Somewhere in the blur of people, a chorus of voices echoed: “Your fault, your fault, your fault!”
She became aware of a weight in her hand. Her fingers gripped something cold and hard. She looked down. A gun gleamed silver in the harsh sunlight. Blood coated her hands, the grip, slipping down the trigger.
She dropped it with a shriek.
“Dad!” The cry was that of a little girl, ripping from her own throat. She pushed toward him through the crowd closing in. “Dad!”
“C.”
“Dad!”
“C, wake up.”
Screaming, she burst up from the covers. Darkness blinded her. For ten loud heartbeats all sound drowned under the drumming. A lamp glowed by her bedside. A lamp that wasn’t hers. A room that wasn’t hers. The panic sharpened.
“C,” the voice said again.
Someone had a hand on her shoulder, and she struck out, hitting them with a closed fist. A whoosh of air rewarded her. But the hand remained. She struck out again, punching and kicking until she tumbled off the bed—straight into someone. A shriek tore out of her as her fists pummeled them.
Two arms locked around her, slamming her flat against a solid chest. Courtney buckled, her cry muffled in the folds of a shirt. She struggled, arms pinned to her ribs and her feet useless, tangled up in the blanket. A sound filled the darkness above her head. She almost didn’t hear it over the mangled noises coming from her own throat.
“Shh...” A chin dropped to rest atop her hair. “Shh, shh, shh...”
The shirt smelled familiar. She realized her cheeks were wet. Sobs jerked up from her chest, racking her whole body. She turned her face forward until it was buried in W’s shirt. She didn’t even bother clinging to her final threads of self-control. The dam broke, and she let herself cry.
When he realized she wasn’t trying to attack him anymore, he started to let her go. But she latched her arms around his waist. He stiffened. Somewhere in the back of her head a siren went off, but she silenced it. For just this moment, she didn’t care who he’d become or what he’d done. He was there, and he was him, no switchblades or sirens or whistled melodies, for once silent and unmoving, and she clung to him like a drowning person.
Something twisted, deep inside of her. A familiar pain flared in her bones. Gritting her teeth, she beat it back. No. The Change had no right to her here. Not now, not ever. The pressure of her arms around W was the only thing keeping her from flying apart. For an unknown number of seconds, she held him there, focusing on her breathing. The jerking sobs didn’t slow, but they grew quieter.
An awkward arm settled around her shoulders. Courtney kept her eyes shut tight. She felt her hot tears soaking into W’s shirt, but she didn’t move. He didn’t either.
She listened to his heartbeat beneath her ear. The steady one-two, one-two was so human. Hers hammered over it, but as she listened to the strange duet she felt her own pulse fall to match his slower one.
W unlocked her arms from around his waist. He eased back. A bemused expression clouded his eyes.
“Always a surprise,” he murmured.
Courtney reached up and wiped her cheeks. “What?”
“You just resisted your first Change. In less than forty-eight hours.”
She sniffed. “How do you know?”
“In my business, you get good at spotting the signs.” Reaching up, he brushed a stray tear from her cheekbone. “Emotion is a powerful trigger.”
Courtney stiffened. The dream came hurtling back to her. “It was my fault.”
“What was?”
“I said I didn’t need a father. Every time he tried to make amends, I told him to go to hell. The night he Changed, we argued. He would never have been out in the street if it weren’t for—” She choked on her voice. “It was me. What happened was my fault.”
In the dim glow of the lamp, W’s eyes grew distant. “Sometimes fathers have it coming.”
She shook her head. The tears came fresh. “He Changed because of me. You said emotion triggers a Change, right? I hurt him. I hurt him, W, and now he’s dead because of me.”
“Hey.” Fingers grasped her chin, tipping it up. “Look at me. Stop crying and pay attention.”
Courtney blinked her vision clear. The bite in his voice had returned, and on its heels, her own awareness of where she was. Who she was with. But W didn’t look angry. His voice may have been sharp, but the grip on her chin was gentle.
“You don’t know he’s dead,” he said. “And even if it was your fault, you can’t go back. You don’t get a redo. You can only move forward and clean up whatever rubble is left. Understand?”
Courtney tugged in a watery breath. W’s grip tightened on her chin.
“It’s either that or wake up screaming every night,” he said. “Until the past pulls you apart.”
She noted the change in his eyes. They seemed unfocused, looking through her to something unseen. He let her go. His other hand started to slip off her shoulder, but she caught it before he could move away.
“Wait.” She wrestled with her voice. “You said I resisted the Change. If I can learn to control it—if I can keep resisting—I can go home?” She swallowed. “You’ll let me go? Everything could go back to normal.”
The edge of his mouth tipped in a cynical tilt. He leaned forward and, to her startled intake of breath, pressed his lips to her forehead.
“Darlin’, nothing will ever go back to normal.”
Drawing back, he started to stand.
Her unrelenting grip surprised them both. Fingers clenched on his sleeve, shaking, she swallowed several times while he waited, her mouth dry as she fought for words she couldn’t find.
“Stay,” she finally managed. It didn’t come out a request, and it gave away far too much.
A gleam of uncertainty flashed across his eyes.
Face heating, she dropped her hand. Retreating to the bed, she curled up on it with her back to him, heart thumping with her own stupidity.
“Sorry,” she blurted. “Nevermind.”
Unable to turn around, she waited for the sound of his footsteps leaving.
They didn’t.
Behind her, the bed dipped, and two warm arms slipped around her. Open coat adjusted to invite her into its cocoon, W settled his head on the pillow behind her. Her breath vanished. A few skipped, dumbfounded heartbeats, and then her pulse slammed fierce enough she was terrified he could feel it.
“Get some sleep, Courtney.” His whisper warmed the back of her ear, a low murmur gentler than she’d ever heard. “Mornings are brighter.”
No more sound, not the slightest movement, from behind her. His breaths rose and fell, steady and slow against her back. Courtney couldn’t close her eyes. The lamp still burned on the bedside table, a feeble glow not bright enough to drive away the dark. Neither of them moved to shut it off.
She wasn’t sure when it happened. But at some point, the smooth rhythm of his heartbeat slowed hers. She found herself nestled back against his chest, curled into him until the coat enveloped her fully. Sleep felt less like a threat, and more like an uncertain ally, waiting at the edge of her peripherals for a truce. Weary of the fight, her eyelids fell shut. As her mind drifted, she played over the last words on W’s lips.
He’d never called her Courtney before.
⬥◆⬥
She woke up alone, warm and wrapped in a familiar gray coat. Courtney couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so long. When at last she opened her eyes, the bars of sunlight from the window had moved all th
e way across the room.
It took a tremendous effort to drag herself out of bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress, the heel of her hand pressed against one eye. Fragments of the previous night drifted back. Her stomach curled. She cringed, pressing the other hand to her face.
She’d thrown her arms around W. She’d cried on his shirt. Beautiful. As if she needed to make this tense, weird sort of connection between them any more precarious than it already was. But then he’d... stayed. Held her in the darkness, in her pathetic state. Courtney rubbed her eyes. She pushed a hand through her messy hair and looked to the door.
She’d have to come out sooner or later.
Glancing down at her rumpled clothes, she debated pulling on a fresh shirt from the bag at the foot of the bed. She chose instead to focus on her hollow stomach. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached for the coat, trying to ignore the way her face burned as she pushed her arms through the sleeves. Warmth trumped embarrassment. She headed for the door.
When she opened it, she half expected to find an empty kitchen again. She’d prepared herself for W, and prepared herself to be alone. But she hadn’t prepared herself for W not being alone.
A small figure perched at the table across from him. A box of Cheerios froze, tipped over a bowl of cereal. Large, unblinking dark eyes fixed on Courtney’s. Courtney stared back.
W didn’t look up from his files at the other side of the table. “Help yourself to some cereal if you like. Margo shares when asked nicely.”
He flipped to the next page in the folder he was reading. After what felt like a minute, Margo returned to pouring her Cheerios. The little round pebbles tinkled against the bowl.
Courtney’s stomach growled again, and she found herself moving toward the table. Margo’s eyes slid sideways to watch her as she sat down. She picked up a spoonful of dry Cheerios.
“May I?” Courtney nodded at the box she’d just set down.
Those large eyes followed her as she reached for it. A clean bowl and spoon sat nearby. Courtney watched herself unfold the cardboard lid like her hands belonged to a stranger. Sitting here between a wordless child and Public Enemy Number One, pouring herself a bowl of cereal.