“I was there.”
He frowned and finished the chicken burritos. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You asked!”
“But you didn't have to tell me.” He licked his thumb, sucking off some errant hot sauce. “You want something.”
“Davey’s getting off Xen. During the shooting, he was drugged to the point where he was incapable of protecting himself. That can’t happen again. The creep who assaulted us the other night…”
“The one you shot.”
“Yeah. The sleaze ball made a bunch of claims about you belonging to someone. Sounded like he was recruiting you. He offered to take Davey off my hands. I respect you, Clifford, that's why I entrust Davey to you. With these guys lurking around, though…I mean, if you’re thinking about joining someone’s kennel, I need to know. Davey is in a tangled political web already. I can’t endanger him by letting him get caught between too many alliances.”
“I’m not joining anyone, Kaid, no matter how much anyone threatens.”
“Good. Now, tell me who is after you and how I can find them.”
“I’m not letting a broad fight my battles, Kaid. Furthermore, I’m not giving any mutts over to the FBHS.”
“Fine. Help me teach Davey how to kill.”
He froze. “No.”
“If I hadn’t shot that skumbag, he would have taken Davey. The death threats I receive have reached an all-time high, and I can’t protect Davey all the time. You saw him, Clifford. You know he needs more than a bit of confidence.”
He ran his hand over his super short hair, guilty and flustered. “You’re assuming I know how to kill someone. As far as I know, sweetheart, you’re the only murderer in the room.”
I sat back in my seat. Yeah, I assumed he had experience with the rougher side of combat.
“Look, Kaidlyn, I've carried the disease for a while. I'm getting to know it. I'm not some short-tempered pubescent boy. I've fought to control my anger for years, and I'm one-up on it. I spent time in the corner, being pounded on, getting worked over. I took it, fought myself as well as them, and I learned to cope. You’re asking me to take someone like Davey and show him how to become a killer.”
“He needs to do what’s necessary to survive. He doesn’t hear me because I’m all about guns. You’re a mutt. Talk to him about what that means.”
“Once you go down that road…once someone dies, you can’t take it back.”
“I’d rather have him breathing.”
“Whatever the risks? If we teach him to kill, there’s always a chance Davey will end up like Iago.”
My temper flared so fast and hot that Clifford reared back, face as red as sunburn. Hands on the bench, he watched me like I’d attack him. Wolves picked up on micro signals, and I tended to emote the angrier side of myself.
“What do you know of Iago?” I growled.
“Back up, girl. You’re like a goddamn solar flare.” His hackles rose, literally. Cheeks and spine beginning to fatten and flex their supernatural potential. I ignored him and popped a leftover jalapeno slice into my mouth.
“I would like to speak with this Iago.”
“Not a good idea, Cupcake. No one in their right mind wants to meet Iago, and you wouldn’t survive the introduction. Plus, I couldn’t give mutt information to an agent, no matter how cute you are and how much of an asshole he is.”
“Clifford—”
“I knew Hunter.”
My gut sank. “He was a good kid.”
“Did you know he had fallen in love?”
“I hadn’t known.” My voice sounded oddly blasé while I recalled Hunter’s eyes, the perfunctory bullet entering his skull. That could have easily been any of the dozens of mutts in my life.
“Helping you means hurting someone else,” he said. “I won’t do that. Personal feelings aside, I advise you to get out of the business, or one day, maybe, it will be someone you love that you have to kill.”
Again.
“Can’t. Quitters go under the microscope. They’ll tear my life apart and no matter how well Rainer hides me, they’ll find something. If my life comes crashing down, there will be collateral damage. That’s not a threat; that’s a fact.”
He shrugged. “I think you’re screwed.”
“And you? Iago thinks he owns you. He sent a guy to threaten you.”
“I appreciate the pep talk, Kaid, but I'm going to continue exactly as I am: running this school and keeping to myself. I have a disease, and that’s the end of it. I’m not joining a club, I’m not playing by anyone else’s rules. I have nothing to do with anything. This is my life, right here in the dojo. The end. I don’t give a shit about the rest of the diseased population. I can’t afford to. I mean, what do you think I am? An activist? A Mother Theresa? Fuck that. I have a life to live, and the disease won’t stop me. Neither will any other asshole. Let the world burn, if it wants to. I’ll be here, doing my thing.”
“As if it the world has nothing to do with you.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You can’t just close your eyes and wish the world away, Clifford.”
“I’m not wishing anything. I’m minding my business. You should try it.”
“Okay,” I said. He could do whatever he wanted, sure. “During the Second World War, Germans were pretty much killing everything they considered undesirable. Jews, of course, which everyone knows. Also socialists, homos, the handicapped and infirm. The sick incurables. A German pastor wrote some ditty about the extermination and how those capable of standing against the Nazi party kept quiet, because they weren’t targeted, and eventually, of course, they were. Because hatred like that keeps coming and ultimately doesn’t give a shit about who it crushes. We all live in this crap world, Clifford, and we can’t pretend otherwise.”
“Now you’re preaching. I don’t appreciate it, especially coming from you.”
“Fine.” I stood up to go.
“This is my life, Kaidlyn. Teaching martial arts, living it, is all I ever wanted to do. Heaven help me, I’ll do it to my last breath. Everyone else can rot in hell.”
I shrugged. “I see that.”
“Kaidlyn.” He sighed. “Eliminating Xen is a bad idea. Dangers hide everywhere, and everything provokes. It's not like there’s only one landmine here and one trigger there. The need to shed builds up, compounding, gathering speed. It doesn't go away; it gets worse. Eventually, we all give in to the compulsion.”
“Does it ever lessen?”
“Not until after a shed.” He crossed his arms. “Having lycanthropy is like living every day with an escalating migraine. It never relents, it's not something that can be ignored. Then, after a good shed, the pain goes away and there is such energy, such...bliss. Makes someone want to dance, sing, and fuck everything.”
“Singing, huh?” I tried to imagine Clifford frolicking through a sun-lit field of daisies and singing Afternoon Delight. The image started a smile, which quickly faded. “Davey hasn't shed at all.”
“Then when it happens, it's going to be bad. Epically, horrifically bad.”
“Can I ask about your first time?”
“That's hugely personal.” From the brightness of his eyes, it had been spectacularly good and bad for him.
“Yeah. Never mind.”
“It was the most painful thing I'd ever experienced, and then one of the most fulfilling. Exhilarating. Satisfying. I was lost to it.”
I wanted to know more, but he'd told me enough already. “I'll be in touch.”
“I've come to expect it.” He winked. “Bring more hot sauce next time.”
Was Clifford sweet on me? I shook my head. We were on familiar terms because we trained together and he helped me hide a dead body, end of story. Besides, he was attractive and aggressive and hadn't made a move, which meant he wasn’t interested. Determined not to think about it anymore, I turned.
A door slammed in the back of his place, startling me. I pivoted and set hand on my weapon, but Clif
ford didn’t get out of his seat.
“Come on out, guys,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
The sound of breathless, childish cries accompanied a shuffling patter of feet. Two kids ran from the hallway behind the shower room and scurried into the gym. Based on the smell, dirt, and ragged clothing, they were vagrants. A brown boy and a black girl staggered toward Clifford. The girl stopped at the sight of me and hung back while the boy threw himself at Clifford and babbled in a senseless, sobbing manner. Unconsciously, I took a step back from the display of youthful distress accompanied by the stink of rotting apples and stank water.
He babbled, blah blah blah Uncle, wah, wah, Uncle. It dawned on me that Clifford had a whole life I didn’t know about. He patted the kid on the back, and the trainer’s huge hand covered the kid from shoulder to shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind the smell.
Clearly, I wasn’t needed there on account of me not knowing the kids and having absolutely zero skills with prepubescent humans. I took another step back, but Clifford had a look on his face, something that seemed, dare I say, maternal?
“Now, Touchdown, relax,” he said. “Ain’t nobody gonna get you here. Go ahead and tell me what happened.”
Blubber, blubber, murmur, murmur. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“Where’s Rocket?” Clifford said.
The boy wailed further, clenching and panicking and in a downright tizzy. Clifford tried to comfort him. “Okay, I got you, buddy. No one is gonna get you while I’m around.” Touchdown, or whatever his name was, clung to Clifford’s leg like he’d need to be surgically removed. Tears streaked the mud on his face.
Maybe this was none of my business.
I crept toward the door.
“Kaidlyn,” Clifford said. “I’d say you owe me a favor, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know if I’d say it like that…”
He went behind his counter and handed me a pair of small boxes, distracting me from a well-warranted sensation of dread building in my spine. The cartons contained lice shampoo and a delousing kit. My eyes must have been as big as hockey pucks.
“Nancy needs a shower,” he said. The girl and I looked at each other, our eyes equally big.
“Dude,” I said, “I am not a babysitter. Hell, I don’t have a single maternal instinct in my body.”
“I’m taking care of your kid. It’s time you reciprocate.”
“Not fair.” It was completely fair. I sighed. “C’mon, hun. Looks like we don’t have a choice. Let’s get this over with.”
Nancy hugged herself, and no doubt she was equally concerned about my ability to successfully pull this off. I examined the ratted, six-inch knot of grime atop her head. “I need clippers.” She frowned, I frowned deeper. Clifford procured the item, and then Nancy and I trouped to the locker room.
I figured she’d put up a fight about the clippers, but she didn’t. She stood like a soldier by the trash can while I whirred away, trudging the electric trimmer through her hair as close to the scalp as I could safely go. I set my teeth when I saw what the poor kid’s head looked like under the mess, and then I got to work.
I had to read the directions on the box twice and felt like an idiot the whole time. Treating it, getting everything deep in, combing the eggs out. The process was so laborious and studious that I didn’t speak, and neither did Nancy, and the entire thing passed without us saying a word.
When I needed her to bathe, I simply turned on the water and helped her undress, gently pulling her frail arms out of the crusty, disgusting clothing. I coaxed her into the shower and gave her the soap, and she started to wash herself, rubbing the bar over her tummy in the same methodic circle.
She was under the water for several minutes before the first layer of filth rinsed away, and then I could see the nubs of her spine and ribs more clearly. Also, bumps caused by fleas, and old burns made by cigarettes. By then my heart felt sick and I wanted to puke, but I kept it down.
I grabbed a wash cloth and helped her with the hard-to-reach areas, cautiously keeping my touch fleeting and gentle. Bruises up and down her shins, blisters on her feet, scraped ankles. The kid was a mess.
I turned and gathered her clothing, tossing the nasty mess in the trash next to her ruined hair.
She attacked me: screeching, claws out, digging at me like a lunatic. Shocked the hell out of me. My first impulse was to put a bullet in her. I tried to catch her hands before she damaged either one of us, but that proved difficult. The girl’s arms were surprisingly frantic and strong for a kid so small and famished. I worried simultaneously about accidently breaking her and that she might scratch my eyes out.
“Take it easy,” I yelled, which didn’t help. I grabbed a towel and caught her in it the way a person would catch a small, feral animal in a net.
Clifford was at the door by then, demanding, “What did you do?”
“She’s just—”
Touchdown launched himself at me to defend Nancy. He wailed on me with haymakers and crazy kid kung fu. I tried to be patient, but he bopped me in the eye. “Enough!” I snarled, and Clifford dragged him away.
“I threw her damn clothes away, that’s all,” I said. “She’s not putting those rancid things back on.”
“She probably thinks you’re trying to keep her here. Sometimes, when people don’t want you to leave, they take your clothes. No one is going to run away naked, are they? Especially not girls.”
“Well, Jesus.” What he said made sense, but how was I supposed to know? I took off my shirt, leaving me in a sports bra with my guns out, and pulled it over Nancy’s head. Trapped her arms at her sides until we sorted out the sleeves. Then she and I stared at each other, panting, flushed, all riled up. I set my hands on my hips and addressed Clifford.
“Satisfied?”
He stared at my torso like he’d never seen it before, and I realized he hadn’t. His jaw clenched and his teeth set, and he examined the furrows and knots of old damage. Mutt-wounds, which I happened to be brandishing in front of a mutt fully capable of causing more such wounds.
This could escalate.
I caught his eyes. Oh, it escalated alright.
His smile started at one side of his lips, grew, and brightened his whole face. A twinkle struck his eye. “You look surprisingly hot for a chick who is way out of her league,” he said.
“Shuddup,” I grumbled. “What’s the deal with the kids crying?”
Clifford looked at Touchdown, who had stopped wailing during his assault and now stood with arms crossed, frown on his face, glaring at me. Clifford nudged him. “You know the deal. If you want to sleep on the bed, you have to take a shower.” The kid’s lower lip wriggled. “No exceptions.” He ushered Touchdown to the shower, drew the curtain, and crossed his arms.
I waited for an explanation.
“Rocket and his brother, Touchdown, were scavenging near a fast food joint in Sector Nine. A group of three men found them and took Rocket. Nancy hid, and they left Touchdown behind because he was too small.”
“Where did they take him?”
“Don’t know.”
“Who were the guys?”
“Don’t know.”
“Were they wearing gang colors?
“He’s about seven years-old, Kaid. How is he supposed to know?”
“Maybe he’s seven, but he’s a street kid. How old was Rocket?”
“About twelve, give or take.”
“They thought Touchdown is too small for what?”
He shrugged.
“Clifford, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but things aren’t looking good for Rocket.”
“Think I don’t know that?”
“Have you heard anything from anyone about who might be responsible?”
He sighed and shrugged his meaty cannonball shoulders. I opened my mouth to argue and he tipped his chin, distracting me. I glanced over. Nancy wavered, eyes almost shut, rocking back and forth.
“Is she sick?”<
br />
He rolled his eyes. “She’s tired, Kaid. C’mon, let’s get you both situated. Touchdown, don’t forget to clean the gunk behind your ears.” He turned from the locker room and I followed, figuring Nancy would either come with us or wait for Touchdown. Her soft pat-pat steps trailed behind me, and we went to Clifford’s office-apartment combo. He rolled the blanket back from the bed and left it open for Nancy, not bothering to coerce her. He turned and rummaged through a short stack of shirts, chose one, and handed it to me.
I blinked.
“You’re distracting,” he said. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or embarrassed, so I took the shirt and slipped it over my head. It smelled good. It smelled like him. Damn it. Talk about distracting.
“I have strong yet unconfirmed suspicions about who might be doing this.” I said. “If I’m right, it’s the same group of people who are leaving body parts for me in place of a calling card.”
“Body parts? Why haven’t I heard about this in the news?”
“Because it’s confidential and the vics are all undesirables. I think the kidnappers who have been stealing vagrants all over the city are running low on stock and decided to snatch homeless kids. It’s pretty apparent that bad guys are recruiting for seriously bad reasons. Competing kennels—”
“Kaid,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Stop. I don’t know who’s doing what and I don’t care. I can’t care. I’ve got too many things happening right here.”
Nancy had crept into bed, quiet as a mouse. In the neighboring room, Touchdown turned off the shower.
“Clifford, what are you going to do about Rocket?”
“I’ll walk the neighborhood and ask around.”
I nodded. “I’ll alert the detective on the case.”
“That’s it then,” he said. I shrugged and left him with his orphans. Unsure if I accomplished anything, I crept back to my truck, dialed Contrell, and told him about the child-snatchers.
“Jesus, just when I thought it couldn’t get worse,” he said. I agreed, and we hung up. I drove home, smelling Clifford’s scent on the shirt the whole way. For an instant, I wished his bed hadn’t been occupied.
As if I didn’t have enough trouble.
Bait and Bleed Page 23