by Davis, L. C.
"He's a corgi and he weighs as much as a Labrador," Daniel said, snatching an application out of her hands. "I'm not giving you another animal to smother in butter."
Her mouth dropped open and I realized the equinox festival was about to become a crime scene if I didn't do something. "Could I borrow him for just a moment?" I asked in my sweetest tone, offering the woman a brochure. "Maybe you could just go look at this over there, I think the live band is about to start"
She looked between me and the brochure, flustered as I gently led her away from the booth. "This is about heartworms."
"The silent killer," I said in a grave tone. "Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the festival!" I called, waving as she stumbled off. I made sure she was gone before turning back to Daniel. "What the hell was that?"
"She's a terrible pet owner, I'm allowed to use discretion in who I adopt an animal out to," he muttered, putting the trembling Chihuahua he was holding back in the pen with the others.
"Okay, but I'm a little unclear as to whether you're trying to adopt the animals out or start a riot."
"This is why I didn't want to do this," he said, moving a stack of applications off the chair next to him. "I'm not good with," he paused, waving distastefully to the crowd around us, "people."
"Maybe it would help if you saw people as animals, you're good with them," I teased, leaning over the pen. The second I reached in, my hand was showered with kisses. It was hard to pick one, but I went for a terrier who looked a little older than the rest and brought him with me to sit down.
"I guess people do bite sometimes."
"Some more than others." I wished I hadn't said that out loud as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Fortunately, a couple of kids chose that moment to pull their mom over to see the dog in my arms.
"Mommy, puppy!" the little girl cried.
"I see that," the mother said with a laugh. "We're looking for an older dog, though."
"You're in luck," I said, glancing at the dog's sheet as Daniel handed it to me. "Benny here is eleven."
"Can I hold him?" the girl asked.
"If it's okay with your mom."
"Sure," she said, smiling as I passed the fluffy gray-and-white dog over. The girl's brother scratched the dog's ear and it whined happily, eating up the attention.
"I think he likes you," I said, grinning.
"Has he had all his shots?" the mother asked.
I turned to Daniel, who looked like he was either surprised or thinking about diving across the table and wrenching the dog out of the little girl's hands. "Yeah, he's up to date on everything, and he's fixed. There's just a sixty-dollar donation for the shelter, but we're waiving it for the older dogs."
The woman reached into her purse and pulled out a checkbook. "Well, it looks like you're doing a good thing here. We were going to go up to the shelter next week anyway," she said, hesitating. "If you're sure this is the dog you want, kids..."
"Yeah!" they cried in unison.
"Alright, then," she said, handing me the check. I offered her one of the applications and before she finished, a couple of other interested adopters were lingering around the pen. I answered their questions with Daniel fielding the answers I didn't know and two hours later, the only dog left in the pen was one a young couple had already signed the paperwork for and promised to return for after the concert was over. I held the puppy in my lap, casually stroking his fur. Pet sitting wasn't so bad when they were actual pets and not demons with ulterior motives.
"You're sure you're not a demon yourself?" Daniel asked dryly. "You're a pretty good salesman."
"I'm having a hard enough time keeping my own soul these days without worrying about anyone else's," I said, taking a bottle of water out of the cooler.
"No sign of Locke yet?"
"Not yet, but that doesn't mean anything. You know how he likes his dramatic appearances."
"Don't worry too much. I'm sure Nick isn't far away, and even Locke seemed like he didn't want to mess with him."
"He's a pretty good bodyguard," I agreed. "Especially when he's in his alpha form."
"So he told you he's next in line for the Whitaker throne?"
"He did. I'm still not sure what to think of it," I admitted.
"It's a lot to take in. Even for a witch."
I smiled. "That doesn't help as much as you'd think."
For a few minutes, we just sat in silence and enjoyed the lull as the crowd was gathered around the band onstage. Daniel was easy like that. Most people had to fill a silence with idle chatter, but he was content to just be and I didn't feel like I had to talk, either.
"I wanted to thank you."
"For this? It's no big deal. Hanging out with dogs all night isn't exactly my idea of a chore."
"No," he murmured. "Well, for that, too, but I meant for being there for Nick. It's not like he's ever had trouble in the romance department, but I've never seen him care about someone the way he cares about you. I guess I was just worried when you found out about him being trans, given your uh, past, it might not go well."
"My parents were pretty bigoted, but I'm not like them. I like to think I never was."
"No, I didn't mean you were, I just..." He sighed, running a hand down his face. Judging from the dark circles under his eyes, I wasn't the only one who'd had trouble sleeping lately. "I told you, I'm bad at people. I'm just glad he has someone who cares about him as much as you do."
"Likewise," I said, patting the back of his hand. "But we're just friends. For now."
"Right. Because you're dating Dennis?"
I froze, hoping I didn't look half as guilty as I felt. It wasn't like I was the other man, I reminded myself for the hundredth time. Daniel and Dennis hadn't dated in over a decade. "Nick told you?"
"It wasn't a secret, was it?"
"No," I said quickly. "Of course not. I'm sorry, I should have told you myself, there just didn't seem to be a good time."
"Hey, it's not like you need to clear things with me. You're my best friend's not-boyfriend and my ex's secret boyfriend. There's not exactly a social code that comes with that."
"No, but I'd hoped we were friends in our own right," I admitted. "Now that we've made it past the angry mob phase and all."
He made a gruff sound, somewhere between a snort and a laugh. "Yeah, I guess we are." He watched me, frowning like he was arguing with himself over something. "One friend to another, I think you have an idea of what I'm gonna say next."
"I might not be a telepath, but I think I can guess. 'Stay away from him before it's too late.' 'He's bad news.' 'There's a reason everyone in town avoids him.'"
"That about covers it."
"Daniel --"
"I know how this sounds, and I know I seem like I'm just being petty and jealous, but hear me out. I've been where you are. I know how Dennis is. He's charming and intoxicating and he says all the right things."
"That's just it, he doesn't. The guy I met isn't any of those things, Daniel," I said, treading carefully. "I had no idea he was the Dennis until I'd already gotten to know him, but he's not the way anyone describes him. I'm not saying the guy you knew wasn't exactly the way everyone describes him, I'm just saying that's not the person I know."
I expected him to argue, scoff, do anything other than agree with me. "Maybe you're right," he said with a sigh. "For your sake, I hope so."
I hesitated, knowing I was about to seriously overstep my bounds, but also that this was a chance I wasn't going to get again anytime soon. "It's been a long time," I began gently. "Maybe you could talk to him. I mean, you're both running for Council. Would it be so bad to give him a chance to prove he's changed?"
Daniel gave me a wary look. "Shouldn't you be trying to keep me away from him?"
I smiled. "I don't know where things are headed with Dennis, if anywhere, but I know healthy relationships don't involve playing keep away with exes. It's pretty obvious you both have some unresolved feelings, and I'm not going to be the thing that stands in
the way of you working through them."
"...I'll think about it."
I had a feeling he was just agreeing so I'd drop it, but I took it as a small victory and told myself I wasn't just selfishly trying to assuage my own conscience. I looked around, realizing the crowd had thinned out considerably. "Looks like we made it," I said, kissing the top of the puppy's head. It squirmed but it didn't wake up. "We make a pretty good team."
"Yeah, you do all the work and I try not to start fights with housewives," he teased. "Let me know if you ever get tired of selling snake oil and want a real job, I'm sure I could find something for you to do around the clinic."
"You're just trying to poach me because you know my cures work better than yours," I shot back.
He laughed. "Touché, witch. Touché."
The static caused by the frontman onstage mumbling his half-drunk thanks to the crowd too close to the microphone drew my attention. As promised, the young couple came back as soon as the show was over to claim the newest addition to their family and I started helping Daniel break down the empty crates and pens. "Where does all of this go ?"
"Back to the shelter, but I can take it from here. You've done more than enough."
I shrugged. "It's not like I have anything better to do. Nick is in the arms of his mistress until sunrise."
He gave me a confused look and I pointed up at the full moon hanging overhead. "Ah, right," he said in a knowing tone. "Still hard to believe all this werewolf shit is real."
"It is. Kind of a relief, though."
"How's that?"
"I'm just glad to know there's an explanation for all of Nick's weird behavior."
"Most of it," he scoffed, breaking down another table.
I followed Daniel's lead and before long, we had everything loaded into the bed of his truck. "How far away is this shelter ?"
"About twenty minutes. You sure you don't want to stick around here? I think it's Carla's turn in the dunking booth."
"I'll pass," I said, biting my lip. "I feel pathetic even admitting this, but I'd kind of rather not go home just yet."
"Say no more," he said, climbing into the truck. I got in and a few minutes later, we were heading away from the festival lights and into the woods.
The window was open, so I let my hand dangle out, relishing the feel of the wind slipping through my fingers like silk. "Monsters aside, Stillwater is the most beautiful place I've ever lived."
"Same," he said, pausing. "Not that I've ever really lived anywhere else after I got out of the Army, but I never wanted to."
"I see why," I murmured, leaning against the door.
"You like the outdoors ?"
"Yeah. I get claustrophobic after...you know."
"I'm sure. I mean, I spend most of the day inside because of work, but I can't imagine what it'd be like to not be able to get out."
"When I first escaped, I stayed in this shelter for a while," I said, realizing it was the first time I had even thought about the place in ages. "It was out in the middle of nowhere. They wanted it to be relaxing, I guess. They had horses and ponds and everything, but I used to sneak out of my room at night and sleep in the woods. They weren't as beautiful as the ones here. The trees weren't as tall or as thick, but it was the only place I felt safe enough to close my eyes."
Daniel was quiet for a moment and I looked over, feeling awkward for the first time that night. "Sorry, I'm rambling. I don't know why I always do that when I'm around you," I said with a nervous laugh. "You're easy to talk to, I guess."
"You're not rambling." His voice was gruff and his knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel, but his eyes were fixed on the road ahead. "I'm glad you told me. I just don't get how someone could do that to their kid."
I worried at the raised circular scar on the meat of my palm, still not quite sure how to read the ice in his tone. "Me either," I admitted. "But I figure that's a good thing. I think there are just some things you're not supposed to be able to understand if you're a halfway decent person, and I'm glad I got out of there before I started to."
"That makes two of us." He was silent again for long enough that I looked up to see what was wrong. His eyes met mine for a split second. "Holden, I think --"
"Daniel, look out!" I cried as the headlights illuminated a solid black mass in the road. Only the golden eyes set well off the ground caught the moonlight. The rest of the beast was so black it seemed to swallow up even the moonlight.
Daniel grabbed the wheel and swerved, but the impact was unavoidable. I lurched forward and felt the pressure of the seatbelt snapping my collarbone, but it all happened too fast to feel pain. The truck was on the road one moment, and the next it was upside down. It rolled too many times for me to count, and I barely caught sight of the tree line before everything went black. The next time I opened my eyes, I was upside down again. Or maybe the world was. It was hard to tell when I could barely get my vision to focus on any one thing in particular. What I could see looked like it was on the outside of a fishbowl, and the ringing in my ears was making it hard to hear my own thoughts.
Twenty-One
HOLDEN
"Daniel ?" My voice was far off and cracked, and it didn't sound at all like my own. The sound of water dripping warred with the ringing and I traced the source of the sound up to the puddle on the floor above me only to realize it wasn't water. It was blood.
The pain hit me all at once when I turned my head, but the horror of what I saw in the seat next to me eclipsed it. Daniel was hanging limp from his seatbelt, a tree limb that had penetrated the windshield, leaving a web of cracks in the glass that were soaking up the blood dripping from his chest.
"Oh, God," I cried, groping for my seatbelt with trembling hands. It was taut and unforgiving, digging into my broken collar, but I somehow got the belt undone and barely caught myself against the weakened glass. I managed to turn around even though my grasp of which way was up was shaky at best, and I felt the windshield splinter underneath my sneaker as I reached for Daniel. He wasn't moving and the limb, as big around as my clenched fist, seemed to be sticking straight through his heart, but maybe...
When I touched Daniel's neck, his skin was colder than it should have been, making me wonder just how long I had been unconscious. I couldn't process what the lack of a pulse meant, not at first. One second, he had been talking to me, looking into my eyes, and the next he just...wasn't. My brain couldn't process it. I could touch him and see him and feel the blood, sticky and wet between my fingertips, but my brain didn't know what to do with the sensory input.
I barely recognized the strangled scream as my own; it sounded too far away, but there was no doubting the piercing pain that shot through my chest. I coughed and tasted blood, struggling to reach into my pocket only to realize my phone wasn't there. It had been in the pocket of my jacket before the accident, but now I couldn't find it anywhere.
It was getting harder to breathe. The more I thought about it, the harder it was. I closed my eyes and took in a breath by sheer force, pushing it out slowly through my lips. Breathing. It was the only thing I could control, the only thing that had gotten me through countless panic attacks in that basement. I was rusty at the basic meditative practice, but it came back quickly. If I could just get Daniel's lifeless face out of my head, just stop panicking for a moment, something would occur to me...
The door. Of course. I grabbed the handle above me and pulled, but the metal groaned. The other door was a lost cause underneath three tons of truck. I propped both feet against the door and tried to ignore the pain in my chest as I pushed, but it wouldn't give. The tree was blocking the windshield, and maybe I could break through the glass, but I didn't think I could wedge myself through the opening.
Trying not to look or think about anything more complicated than breathing, I reached into Daniel's pocket and fished out his phone. It was dead. Of course it fucking was. "Goddamn it," I screamed through gritted teeth. Then I remembered. I reached into my pocket again. My finge
rs had brushed against something while I was searching for my own phone. The card was still in there. Locke's card, stuck to Samantha's. I had forgotten it was even there.
I stared down at the sigil on a white background rendered imperfect by my bloody fingerprints. There was no conscious thought, just impulse as I dipped my fingers into the blood on the windshield and began drawing the sign on the window above me. My hands were trembling so badly I could barely hold onto the card with my left, but my fingers traced every curve and outline like the foreign sigil was imprinted in my muscle memory.
Nothing happened, of course. I stared at the bloody sigil for some undetermined amount of time, drifting in and out of consciousness, but there wasn't any flash of light or so much as a quiver in the glass to let me know it was working. A drop of blood fell from the sigil and onto my lips, but it hurt too much to move, too much to breathe.
My eyes fell shut as numbness took me over. I welcomed it. I closed my eyes, feeling the strangest sense of peace, and when I opened them, a shadow was blocking out the moon overhead. I stared in awe as the white-haired demon loomed over me, his green eyes full of rage and worry. That was the most absurd part of the hallucination. Not the way he ripped the door from its hinges and tossed it a few dozen yards away like it was nothing, but the fact that he was capable of feeling anything at all.
"Locke?" My voice was raspy and it sent a fresh spike of pain through my shoulder.
"Shh," he said, pressing a cool finger against my lips before he lifted me out of the overturned car. I strained against him but those lean arms were stronger than they had any right to be. He laid me out on the grass and looked me over, frowning in concern as his hand passed over me. The pain in my chest had made it impossible to notice the awkward angle my leg was bent at, but when he touched it, the bones snapped back into the proper position and I screamed in agony. He pressed a cool hand to my forehead and then against my collar. The pain ceased immediately, but the pressure of the twin halves of my broken collarbone fitting themselves back together was nearly as torturous.