by R. J. Blain
I went to work picking dried blood off my arm. “That’s something at least.”
“Look at the bright side. I bet that cop is asking if that hot number of yours is actually married. Aren’t you interested in finding out what he’ll say?”
“I’m pretty sure we’ve been over this before. He has a list of regrets a mile long. We could spend a year trying to prioritize them and get nowhere fast.”
“Are you sure you’re not a natural blond?”
I yanked off a piece of dried blood and threw it at her. “He’s—”
The interrogation room door slammed open, and my injured leg gave out when I jumped out of my seat. I hit the floor with a yelp, and Amelia cursed. I shuddered, drew several deep breaths, and sat up.
Blood smeared over the tile floor, and fresh rivulets dripped down my arm.
“Karma?” Jake breathed my name, and I stiffened at the sound of his voice.
Amelia leaned over the table and stared down at me. “That looked like it hurt.”
I reached up with my right hand, grabbed hold of the table, and staggered to my feet.
Jake wore a suit, one I recognized as the spare he had kept in his car for emergencies. Unlike me, who had a full-body layer of dirt and blood, he’d showered so recently his hair was still damp.
He looked me over, and his eyes widened. “How much of that blood is yours?”
His question took me by surprise, and I looked down at my stained sports bra and exposed stomach. How much of it was mine? “Good question.”
“Why are you covered in blood?”
If he wanted to pretend nothing was wrong between us, I could handle that. It wouldn’t change anything, but I could handle it. I shrugged and winced at the ache in my shoulder. “Heard some asshole had gotten himself trapped in a warehouse, so I decided to have a look around. Since I wasn’t in the mood to chat, my rifle did most of the talking.”
Jake grimaced. “I should have known you were one of the two tangoes who assaulted the building.”
I sat and waited in silence, clenching my teeth together. Turning my head and staring at the wall made it easier. If I didn’t have to look at him, I could pretend he wasn’t in the room with me.
“Oh, look at the time. It’s awkward o’clock,” Amelia muttered. “Hello, Agent Thomas. I’m Amelia. I’ve heard all about you.”
“I bet you have,” Jake replied in his driest tone.
“Her mother murdered her father and almost killed her, too. I found the poor thing next to his body. She was shot multiple times before she used lethal force, although I don’t really know if she was the one who used the lethal force. Her ma’s body wasn’t too far away, though. I recommend therapy. Bail might be useful, too. And a trip to the hospital. She’s kinda high maintenance. I tried to tell her she shouldn’t wear her blood, but she’s not very good at listening sometimes.”
“Amelia!” I hissed.
“What? I’m just cutting through your bullshit so the man knows what he has to work with. Otherwise, I’ll have to put up with you dancing around the problem for weeks, which will only make things worse. Of course, I expect your hot number over there has the same exact syndrome.”
“Hot number?” Jake asked.
“You’re not bad. You’re not my type, but you’re not bad. I can see why she might like you, assuming you get your head out of your ass and adjust your general beliefs. You can reach the upper cabinets without having to work at it. Useful, when you’re as stunted as the doll over here.”
I sighed. “Let’s just get this over with. There’s no need for bail, I have no intention of fighting any charges, and it’s better for you if you just go away, Jake. I got myself into this mess, and I’ll get myself out of it—or not—on my own. Go back to your life and your career.”
“She’s also completely convinced you want nothing to do with her, and that it’s better off for the entire world if her ship just sinks. It’s really annoying. Please don’t listen to any of the bullshit coming out of her mouth.”
“Amelia!”
“Yes, I know you know my name.”
“All right. Where was she shot, Amelia?”
“She’s taken a few rounds to the leg, a few rounds to the arm, her shoulder has seen better days, and she dodged damaging anything vital. I recommend against tossing her over your shoulder. You might want to just knock her out so she doesn’t struggle. A slap to her right calf should be enough to do the job; that one’s healed enough it shouldn’t reopen even if you’re a bit rough.”
“Amelia!”
“She’s very good at telling people my name. She took two rounds at the warehouse despite my suggestions she avoid getting shot.”
“Tried watching your back and hers at the same time?”
“Bad luck, fast draw. I didn’t shoot the one in time, and he got a pair of rounds off. She was busy taking down his friend.”
“And you two were wearing that getup? Were you auditioning to be Rambo?”
Great. Jake and Amelia were getting on perfectly. At least she was the right species for him. The pack would welcome her without hesitation, leaving me alone yet again. “If you two are done flirting, I wouldn’t mind a chance to go to the bathroom and get some of this grime off me.”
Jake’s solution to a lot of problems often involved picking me up and moving me to where he wanted me to go, an easy task for the man when I weighed in at ninety pounds. In the time it took me to suck in a breath, he had me tossed over his shoulder, an arm wrapped around the back of my legs, leaving me to clutch his jacket.
The fear of falling choked off my breath, and I squeezed my eyes closed.
“She’s going to bleed all over your nice suit like that.”
“That’s fine.”
“She’s afraid of heights. I assume you know this, right?”
“Convenient, as it keeps her from putting up a fight. I did this entirely on purpose.” Jake carried me, and he walked with a smooth stride. “Have you notified them she’d been shot?”
“That cop from the Georgia State Police said he’d call an EMT, then you showed up. How long has it been since the bust?”
“Six hours.”
“Well, she hasn’t bled to death yet, so she probably won’t. That said…”
Amelia smacked my leg and everything went dark.
I missed the transition from unconscious to rabid wolverine on a mission to kill everyone and everything. While vaguely aware of my attempts to murder anyone who got near me, I slipped back into a semi-aware haze before climbing my way to coherent consciousness.
Jake’s mother sat in the chair beside my bed, and she flipped through a binder on her lap. Of all the babysitters, why had I gotten her? She’d been the first to question if I really had anything of substance with Jake. I understood the reasons why, but it hurt all the same.
Most of the time, I couldn’t tell if she liked me at all or if any acceptance I’d gotten from her had been due to her love for her son rather than anything she felt for me.
I was too tired to deal with it, and I couldn’t afford to trust her. Not now.
Probably not ever.
“If you’re going to try to kill someone, try not to rip the catheter out this time. You’re running out of usable veins,” Pauline said.
It took me several long minutes to figure out my arms were mottled with bruises and puncture wounds. I’d always had a talent for yanking out the catheters despite the nurses working hard to keep them in place. In most people, they didn’t come out on accident, but somehow, the slippery bastards popped right out of my veins if I looked at them wrong. “I’m a pin cushion.”
While I slurred, I was pleased I could understand myself.
“I was thinking more of a colander, as you’re full of holes.”
“I sieve.”
Jake’s mother looked up from the binder, arching her eyebrows high. “That was absolutely awful.”
“It was draining coming up with it.”
Pauline
twitched. “I’m not sure if I preferred when you were on the other medications; all those did was turn you into a psychopath out for blood.”
I swallowed, and before I could put a brake on my mouth, I said, “Ma killed Pa, and then she tried to kill me, too. She wanted me to know I was the reason she killed my pa.”
Jake’s mother set her binder aside, stood, and brushed her hand against my brow, pushing my hair away from my face. “I know. Your friend Amelia told us everything. We’re taking care of the details. With Amelia’s help, all the crime scenes have been identified, and we’ve gathered more than sufficient evidence to cover you. I doubt there’ll even be an official hearing of any sort. You’ll be able to go home, and once you’ve been given medical clearance and go through a round of retraining and evaluations, you’ll be able to go back to work. That will fix one of the big problems, right? We built a timeline showing when you’d been kidnapped up to your escape, right up until you, like the little idiot you are, decided to raid a building on your own with guns blazing.”
Had I not remembered the past so well, I would’ve believed Pauline liked me, but the truth wore away at me as always. She cared only for her puppy, and she believed that I was a mistake.
Or at least that was what I believed, and she hadn’t gone out of her way to prove me wrong.
To Pauline, Amelia would be the solution to all of her problems, a suitable replacement for what I might have been if I’d been a little less fox and a little more wolf. To hide my dismay, I said, “Don’t get caught in a building with a bunch of tangoes next time, then I won’t have to raid the building with guns blazing.”
“My son is quite offended you accused him of flirting with an unmated bitch.”
I scowled and turned my head. Everything offended Jake, although it wasn’t like him to be offended over the truth. “He shouldn’t have been flirting with her, then. He shouldn’t have come home smelling like other women, either.”
That made the woman hesitate before she said, “Ah. You’re jealous.”
I was, and it wasn’t for the reasons she thought, but I lacked the courage to tell her the truth. I liked Amelia. I missed Jake.
They’d be good for each other, after I made myself scarce and gave them space. I’d heard them talking.
Wolves belonged with wolves, and wolves didn’t really know how to handle a fox like me, an unknown—someone outside of their prized pack bonds.
My need to know drove me into asking, “Are you going to bring her into your pack?”
“We already have.”
It hurt, but I nodded and focused my gaze on the window, which was covered with heavy, dark drapes. “That’s good.”
If Jake’s mother used her nose and hunted for a lie, she wouldn’t find it. Amelia had been too long without a pack, and I wasn’t going to hate her for what I couldn’t have. I meant it, no matter how much it hurt.
She deserved to be happy, and maybe she could fix what I’d broken beyond repair.
“You should get some rest. The nurse should be by in a few hours. I should make sure Sebastian or our son isn’t causing any trouble.”
“Does the window open?”
“Want some fresh air?”
I nodded.
Jake’s mother circled the bed, pulled back the drapes, and opened the window. To my relief, I was on the ground floor, and while the screen would get in the way, it opened enough I could slip out as a fox as soon as I was left alone for a few minutes.
Maybe I would never be good enough to be in a pack with wolves, but I’d learned the trick to shifting on my own with some help from Amelia. With Amelia safe in a pack, I could resume where I had left off and truly disappear.
Pauline left me and closed the door behind her. Once again, I was alone, and the weight of solitude smothered me.
It didn’t matter if I stayed or went. Nothing would change.
I was the wrong species, and because of it, I’d always be alone.
Instead of shifting and running, I stared out the window and did nothing at all. I was aware of doctors and nurses coming in and out of the room, but it was too much work to acknowledge them, and when I remained silent, they left me alone.
The sun went down, and a light rain pattered beyond the window.
Stay or go? It took too much work to pull out the catheter and slip away as a fox, but the alternative didn’t leave me any happier. It shouldn’t have surprised me Amelia would end up part of the pack. I wanted to blame her, to feel something—anything—other than empty at the realization she’d gotten what I needed just on virtue of being the right species.
Worse, Jake would like her. She was everything he liked with the extra benefit of being the right species. Amelia had sworn up and down Fenerec mated for life, and that no one could compete with me for his attentions, but I didn’t believe it.
She’d figured I’d been claimed property from the start, although she agreed there was something odd about my scent. Her theory offered hope if I could find the strength to grasp it.
My species mattered.
She’d claimed her wolf believed me to be mated, and that was all that mattered to her.
I wish that had mattered to everyone of importance.
As always, everything circled back to Jake. When it had come to his pack, he had sided with them without hesitation. Only wolves were wanted, and I wasn’t a wolf. I could never be a wolf.
I was a stray fox, and I would be nothing more than a stray fox.
Long into the night, I stared out the window, the monotony broken by a nurse doing her rounds. I’d been trapped in the same mire before, waiting and watching the world go by. In a way, I would’ve given a lot to return to the tedium of anchoring, trapped in a prison of my own choosing.
Once again, I was on the outside looking in, wanting what I couldn’t have. No amount of hard work or effort would change anything. There’d be no offers of playing rogue agent in an effort to restore my balance and bring me back into shape to work on a real team in the force.
On a technicality, I was still in CARD, although I hadn’t done a single proper case. Everything I had done revolved around the Greenwich case and the mercenaries behind it, the same ones who had trapped Jake and his parents in the warehouse, the same ones who had bought my ma and driven her into killing my pa and attempting to kill me, too.
My chance to escape faded with the rising sun, and I stared out the window wondering what might have been if only I’d been a normal person. My ma wouldn’t have snapped because of me. My pa would still be alive.
Maybe Jake would have waited a little longer and found someone like Amelia before being stuck with me.
I had no appetite, and I played along with the doctor’s general verdict of drug-induced queasiness and disinterest in anything edible. I ignored food like everything else, aware it came and went while the nurse clucked her disapproval at me.
Her name was Francesca, and she closed the window so I wouldn’t catch my death from cold. At least she left the drapes open, allowing me to watch the world go by. I had a view of a spacious green lawn, part of a parking lot, and a busy street beyond.
Busy streets were bad places for foxes, even preternaturally large and fast ones like me.
Pauline returned and brought Mellisa Sampson with her. The fire witch frowned at me before taking a long look around the hospital room.
Like everyone else, I filed their presence away in the back of my head and returned to staring out the window.
“I could have told you exactly what’s wrong with her instead of hiking all the way down from Washington, Pauline. If the doctors and nurses haven’t figured it out, they should have their heads examined.”
“Humor me, Mellisa.”
Mellisa sighed. “Were you expecting to find her and everything would magically work out, and there would be some magical happily ever after? She’s depressed, and with good reason, and it isn’t the sort of depression you can just erase with medication with any expectation of it helpi
ng. Everyone has convinced her she has no value, and that there is nothing for her here.”
In a way, I appreciated I didn’t have to say a word, but on the other hand, I really disliked how they talked about me like I wasn’t there. Then again, maybe I wasn’t.
I didn’t want to be, and I already regretted having stared out the window instead of shifting, becoming a fox, and abandoning my humanity for the simpler life of hunting, sleeping, and finding a territory to call my own.
“I was hoping you could enlighten us about what to do about it.”
“She already told you. It isn’t her fault you didn’t listen. No, this time, enlightenment will have to be found by bumping your heads together—and I don’t mean with her—to figure out where you’ve screwed up. You already have the answer if you stop and think outside of your carefully constructed box. Talk to your mate. Talk to your son. Talk to her new friend, and actually listen to her this time. Make a list. Think about it for a while. Take everything you know about her, put it into order so it makes sense, and start looking at the whole picture. When you figure it out, come back and have your talk with her. Pitch it to me first, so you don’t make even more of a mess of things than you already have.”
I hid my amusement that Mellisa managed to scold Jake’s mother without retribution.
“And you think this will help?”
“I wouldn’t be suggesting it if I didn’t think it would. Despite appearances, I do actually know what I’m doing, and I’ve been working with Karma long enough to have a basic understanding of how she ticks. Give it a couple of days.”
Pauline growled, and she left without another word, closing the door hard enough I flinched at the sound.
“I’m completely surrounded by idiots,” my psychologist complained. “And I don’t mean you. You’re just up shit creek without a paddle or a boat, and anyone who thinks you’d be walking around happy-go-lucky needs to have their head examined.”
“Most people would be concerned if their psychologist said you’re basically fucked,” I pointed out.
