Another Kind of Dead dc-3

by Kelly Meding

  “It worked.” I placed a palm flat on his chest, rubbing gentle circles. “You did good. We’ve got weapons.”

  “I think …” He swallowed hard. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  I helped him half run, half crawl into the bathroom, and I rubbed his back while he threw up. When retching turned to dry heaves, I soaked a rag in warm water and wiped his face. The pallor was back, and his entire body trembled. I sat down with my back to the wall and pulled him into my arms, holding him against my chest like he’d done so many times for me.

  “I feel so weird,” he said.

  “You channeled a lot of power through your body. Just relax.” I didn’t have a lot of practice in offering comfort. Even when Jesse and Ash were injured, I’d let them tend to each other. They’d tended to me on occasion, but some invisible thing kept me from returning the favor. From showing without words how much I cared.

  Wyatt’s head rested in the crook of my shoulder. I pressed my cheek to his temple, tightened my arms around him, and tried to do just that—show it without words. “I love you,” I whispered.

  One of his hands found mine, and our fingers threaded together, palm to palm. He kissed my knuckles, and I felt the smile on his lips.

  Another hour passed before the storm showed signs of calming. The worst of it had moved beyond us, but the air remained thick with residual energy. After I forced some crackers and half a can of soup down Wyatt’s throat, he seemed coherent enough to join me, Kismet, and Milo at the table.

  “His fever’s up,” Milo said, referencing Felix without saying so. “We can’t wait much longer.”

  “Even if we kill the hounds,” Wyatt said, “how do we get off the mountain? All our cars are smashed to shit.”

  “Someone will have to get down where there’s a signal,” Kismet said. “Make a call and get some backup.”

  I grunted. “That could take another hour to get someone up here, and then get Felix back down.” She shot me a look that asked if I had a better idea. I hated to admit I did, mostly because it was going to hurt like hell. “I can teleport him closer to the road. I’ll have more control now that the storm’s moving—”

  “But less power,” Wyatt said.

  “Yes, but with the condition he’s in, I need control more.”

  “Is that even wise?” Kismet asked. “You’ve been through two huge power surges, or whatever you call them, already today. Can you manage one more, and with a wounded person?”

  “I can try.”

  “No.” Milo surprised me with his sharp delivery, and even more with the cold glare he leveled in my direction.

  “Milo—”

  “No fucking way, Evy. You don’t know these roads. You can’t tell me you know exactly where to teleport so you don’t land both of you inside a damned tree. You’re not going to try with Felix’s life.”

  “I’ve been up here before,” Kismet said. “It’s not as fast, but I can run the mountain, and I know a shortcut to the road. I’ll go until I can get a signal.”

  “You can make it in the dark?” Wyatt asked.

  “Yes.” No hesitation. To me, she said, “You can’t do everything, Stone. Even you have limits.”

  And I had no business testing those limits with someone else’s life. She was right. I could get us farther down the mountain in seconds, but given the dense foliage and unfamiliar terrain, I was more likely to materialize with my legs in a boulder.

  “First things first, though,” Milo said. “Gina can’t get help until we take care of the hounds outside.”

  “Back at Olsmill we hit them with a mix of frags and a-c’s,” Kismet said. “Underbelly is the softest hit when they’re standing. But they’re strong and they’re fast.”

  Wyatt nodded. “We also can’t just open the door and rush outside shooting, because they could get in here.”

  With Felix, who couldn’t defend himself.

  “So we need to ambush them,” Kismet said. “Or at least distract them enough so I can slip out and get help.”

  “Without being followed,” Milo added.

  “Right.”

  As I gazed at our stock of weapons, an idea began to coalesce. My right hand still wasn’t healed enough to hold a gun and aim properly. That left the men to handle the heavy offensive. And it left me as bait.

  Kismet had one of the guns in her hand, her cell phone tucked into her pocket, and she bounced on her heels by the front door, ready to make a run for it. We’d closed Felix into the bedroom and blocked it with the dining table for good measure. Milo and Wyatt had their guns locked and loaded, and they flanked either side of the front door.

  I’d tucked a hunting knife into my shoe and another into the back of my jeans for good measure. In my hands I held one of the flash grenades, a second in my front pocket. Rain still pattered gently outside, but the thunder was soft and far away. The raw electricity was barely there—a gentle caress across my skin that was easy to ignore.

  Next thunderstorm, I was hiding under my bed for the duration.

  “We’re sure there are just two of them?” I asked.

  “Pretty positive,” Kismet replied, as though I hadn’t asked the same question four times since we’d agreed to my plan.

  On impulse, I took a step closer, lowering my voice. “You know, I never did thank you.”

  “Thank me? For what? After everything that’s happened these last few weeks, I figure you’d rather punch me in the head than thank me.”

  My mouth twitched. “Thank you for bringing me here to fight off the infection.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You could have killed me and gotten me out of everyone’s hair.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. “I don’t think my friendship with Wyatt could have survived killing you twice. Even if the first time didn’t take.” Her voice held a hint of teasing, but nothing in her expression was amused.

  “You did it for him?”

  “Yes.” Her gaze flickered over my shoulder. “I’ve known Wyatt for a long time, Stone, and I was trying to protect what he’d helped build for ten years. Bringing you here last week? That was for him, because he believed you could fight it. He never stopped believing you’d win, and he believes you’ll win again now. So let’s use his faith and do this.”

  I nodded and faced the door, adrenaline surging through me. My heart sped up and a metallic taste filled my mouth. I clenched my fist around the grenade. Bounced on my tiptoes. “Here we go,” I said.

  Milo and Wyatt took new positions by the sofa, prepared to shove it out of the way as soon as I disappeared. I closed my eyes and felt the spark of the Break. It was fainter than it should have been, and harder to grab. I struggled for my emotional tap, but loneliness wasn’t coming easily.

  I thought back to earlier in the day—a lifetime ago in some ways—that moment in the bedroom when I’d flinched and Wyatt had walked away. I tried to imagine if he’d kept going, driven out of my life by guilt. My guts clenched. Tears stung my eyes, and the power of the Break flooded through me on a sea of loneliness. I was moving, willing myself out of the cabin, to a spot ten feet from the front door. An open area of mud, according to Wyatt, and my best destination.

  Rain passed through me with the oddest tickling sensation, then spattered on my skin as I materialized. Mud squished around my shoes. I immediately pulled the pin on the grenade and spun in a careful circle, looking. Waiting. Tiny shafts of light spilled from the blocked windows and closed door, barely enough to see.

  A roar rattled the quiet, a terrible bass rumbling in my chest, followed by an answering growl. One on either side of me, closing in. Footsteps smacked the soaked ground. I held on to my tap. Listened. A flash of black in my peripheral vision was enough. I dropped the grenade and fell into the Break. Heard a snap, then cries of pain.

  I hit the cabin floor on my knees, disoriented by something—had I been caught in the blast? I shook my head, blinking hard, aware of rapid gunfire ahead
of me. Cool air wafted inside from the open cabin door. Kismet was gone. Something inhuman shrieked in agony. Wyatt shouted.

  I rushed outside, into the chilly rain. One of the hounds was dead, its hulking form limp on the ground by the front half of Kismet’s car, bleeding from a dozen holes. Even above the odors of wet earth and ozone, I could smell the stink of its blood.

  The second was trying to crawl away with one clawed hand. Its legs dragged behind it, covered in blood from two wounds in the center of its back. It gurgled and growled, leaving a trail of brackish blood in the mud as it slithered. Milo and Wyatt trailed behind it for a few feet, fascinated by the thing’s attempt to escape.

  Milo circled in front of the wounded hound and stopped. It raised its head and growled. Milo squeezed off a round that shattered the hound’s face. It fell, dead. His hand was shaking as he lowered his arm to his side. Rain slicked his face and hair.

  “That was for Felix,” he said, almost too softly to hear. He looked up, first at me, then past me. Up. His eyes bugged out.

  I didn’t ask, just pulled the knife from the back of my pants and started to pivot. The mud made my move awkward, and the undetected third hound slammed into my left side.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hound and I toppled to the ground and skidded a few feet, my knife buried in its guts. Claws slashed at my back. Teeth snapped at my face. I thrashed like a beached fish, desperately wrenching at the knife, trying to inflict maximum damage.

  Gunshots popped. The hound screamed, deafening my right ear and numbing my senses. Silver flashed above us and sliced downward. Its weight collapsed on top of me, smashing me into wet earth. The hilt of the knife jammed under my ribs so hard I expected one or two to break.

  “Come on, pull!” Wyatt’s voice was muffled, but no less welcome.

  The body was lifted enough for me to scramble out and, finally free, collapse on the ground, breathing hard. Noxious blood coated my skin. My ribs were on fire from my left breast to the small of my back, and I could imagine the furrows that thing’s claws had left behind.

  “Dammit,” I said. “Should’ve expected that.”

  “Can you move?” Wyatt asked, kneeling beside me in the mud.

  “Yeah. Any others?”

  “None so far. Milo’s scouting around.”

  Wyatt tried to be gentle about helping me stand, but there was no way not to disturb my new wounds. We limped into the cabin. He steered me straight to the bathroom, leaving a blotchy trail of mud, rainwater, and gore behind. The hound’s blood felt like acid in my open gashes. I clenched my fists, grateful for the ache in my still-healing right wrist. It gave me something to concentrate on while Wyatt turned on the shower. He helped me undress with the clinical detachment of the Handler he’d once been, and then he left and pulled the bathroom door shut behind him.

  I unwound the soaked and stained bandage from my wrist. The bone was tender and the skin angry-red, but the worst of the break had healed. It could bear weight. I let myself cry through the pain as the hot shower sluiced away the hound’s blood. Brown and red swirled down the drain together, and eventually the water ran clear.

  Clean clothes waited for me on the back of the toilet. Underwear and bra went on first and with extra care. I twisted to look at my back in the mirror and wished I hadn’t. Four long scores went from just below my breast down across my left side and stopped at the small of my back. The gashes still wept blood, the edges jagged and swollen. Just great.

  I opened the door and peered out. Wyatt stopped in the middle of what appeared to be impatient pacing. “I need your hands,” I said. Off his startled look, I added, “Not for that. Come here.”

  He came in and closed the door. I presented my back, and he hissed. “Damn, Evy, those look bad.”

  “No shit. Can you put some gauze on them so they don’t bleed through the last of my clean clothes?”

  “Yeah … okay.” Wyatt opened the first-aid kit. “Hold your left arm up.”

  I did, locking it across my sternum with my right. The healing ache was still present. How close to twelve hours had it been since my phone chat with Thackery? Maybe five hours? I’d lost track of time long ago and—“Shit!”

  He’d pressed too hard on a tender spot in the small of my back, igniting spikes of fire that shot all the way through me. I inhaled between gritted teeth.

  “Sorry.” He ripped strips of medical tape and applied them to my right shoulder for safekeeping. They tickled.

  In the mirror, I watched his black hair appear and disappear behind me as he reached for bandages and tossed their wrappers. I hated how much practice he had at patching wounds. His fingers were warm, tickling in places, a little too hard in others. Each time he pulled a strip of tape off my shoulder, my skin tingled. The pain of that first touch had settled deep in my gut, where it was slowly tightening into something that squirmed at his touch.

  I just closed my eyes and tried to ignore the rest of the process. The gentle presses of his fingers, the way they brushed over my bare skin as he covered my wounds. He traced lines across my ribs, testing the tape’s hold. Gooseflesh prickled my shoulders.

  His hand paused in the center of my back, just below my bra clasp, then withdrew. “I’m finished, Evy.”

  I let my left arm down, and sensation ran back into the starving muscles. Eyes still closed, I braced both hands on the edge of the sink and leaned forward. Just enough pressure to concentrate on. My left arm tingled; my right arm ached sweetly. My stomach quivered, fed by indecision and anxiety.

  “Do you want me to leave, Evy?”

  “No. Wyatt, I’m sorry I flinched.” The words flew out before I thought about them, and it was too late to take them back.

  I felt air movement. Oh no, he wasn’t leaving. I turned and took a long step sideways, positioning myself in front of the door. He stopped short, hands clenched. Tension bracketed his eyes and etched fine lines around his mouth. His clothes were rain-damp, streaked with drying blood and mud, both eyes still bloodshot. Behind his front of annoyance wafted a soft breath of fear.

  “I’m. Sorry. I. Flinched. I hurt you, and I didn’t mean to.”

  Surprise widened his eyes. “That son of a bitch used my appearance to attack you, used your trust of me to get close to you, and you’re apologizing to me?”

  He was not getting to play the self-pity card this time around. No way in hell. “Screw that, Truman, and stop fucking blaming yourself. I know you, and I know you’d never hurt me like that.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t speak. Just stared at me from an arm’s reach away, emotions warring behind his black eyes.

  “Come here,” I said firmly. He hesitated, then slid a half step closer. I glared. He moved again until a thin cushion of air separated us. I felt the heat of his body, the gentle puff of his breath on my cheeks. My heart fluttered. “Now hold still.”

  I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to his, nose to nose. His breath dusted across my lips. I inhaled. No sour smell, no unfamiliarity. Just Wyatt—heady maleness, with the barest hint of cinnamon and tomato soup. “I can smell you,” I whispered, allowing my fingertips to skim his chest. “I can feel you. Not the trickster. You, Wyatt Truman.”

  He shuddered, his breath hitching, catching. His eyes were closed.

  “You can’t blame yourself every time someone tries to hurt me. You’re one man. I have enemies, and I always will. You cannot always be there to save me from them. Hell, you won’t always be able to save me from myself.”

  He choked through a bark of laughter. No, not laughter. Something else, sadder. More desperate.

  I flung my arms around his shoulders and pressed my face into his neck. He pulled me close, tight to his shuddering chest, and I just held on, keenly aware of my near-nudity and how perfectly our bodies locked together. I pressed my lips to the pulse in his throat, parted them just enough to stroke it with the tip of my tongue. Tasting him. He shivered, his skin prickling.

  “I don’t know what I did
to deserve you, Evy.”

  “Under different circumstances,” I said, “that could be construed as an insult.”

  “It’s definitely a compliment. You’ve been my life for four years.”

  I skimmed a fingertip down his throat to his collarbone. “I haven’t given up on that happy-ending thing, you know. We just seem to have more dragons to slay than most.”

  “Dragons?” His lips quirked.

  “Metaphorically speaking. If dragons ever start spewing across the Break, I’m moving to Antarctica, I swear to God.”

  He chuckled. “Not without me.”

  Our mouths came together with a clashing of teeth and wrestling of tongues. His taste flooded my senses, so familiar and wonderful and him. His cheeks were rough, unshaven since the day before, a delicious abrasion on my skin. My hands locked at the nape of his neck. The towel around my hair was loosened, and the damp locks tumbled down around us. His body pressed against me, hard in all the right places, holding me against the bathroom door.

  My wounded back hissed and sputtered, and I didn’t care. All I felt was him—a man who would give (and had given) up everything for me. He’d follow me anywhere and—I hoped—stay put and let me go ahead when I asked. And with Thackery’s deadline looming, I knew I’d be putting that dedication to the test. Wyatt would have to let me go alone.

  He pulled back, eyebrows slanted curiously. “You tensed up.”

  One of these days I’d learn how to control my body’s reactions a little better. Instead of telling him the truth and sharing my thoughts, I lied. “Back hurts.”

  Worked better than a cooler of ice water. He backed off and reached for my clothes. I cleaned up a few smears of gore that had transferred from his shirt to my chest—a perfect reminder of just how fucked-up our lives were, in that his blood-smeared clothes hadn’t even fazed me. He helped me into my jeans, and as he tugged my shirt down over my head, I felt my wounds start their familiar healing itch-ache. I ignored my damp hair in favor of allowing it to air-dry in whatever wavy, tangled mess it chose. Wyatt helped me put on the cross necklace, and I was grateful for its familiar weight.