by Rhys Ford
“Kai,” Ryder murmured this time, his hand on my shoulder to pull me back. Gibbons groaned, the changing angle of my body digging into his crotch, and he pounded at the ground with his fists, barking his knuckles raw. “Come on. Get up. Jonas is fine. You’re fine.”
“Bastard tried to kill Jonas.” I debated driving one blade through his hand, twisting it around until the bones broke and he’d never be able to hold another weapon again, but I had a feeling in my gut his license was already in ashes, and the sirens on the wind meant Gibbons would be spending a lot of time staring at blank walls. “Tried to kill me. Give me one good reason I should let him walk.”
“Because you’re not a killer,” Ryder said, and from behind him, the small group of Stalkers who’d pounded up the walk to stop Gibbons snorted in a wave of varying disagreement. He gave them a lordly, dismissive stare, which they ignored.
It was always a good day when the Sidhe lordling got a good kick in his ego to remind him he was just another piece of meat like the rest of us.
“Boy, I’m okay,” Jonas said, shakily on his feet with Sarah propping him up. “Let the guys in blue handle him. You’ve got enough on your plate. You don’t need to be worrying about where you’re going to hide three hundred pounds of rotting flesh, especially since you live in a damned warehouse with no backyard. And you sure as hell aren’t putting that in my ground. Dogs will dig him up and play fetch with his skull before all the meat’s worn off.”
I got up off of Gibbons, moving gingerly when my ribs protested my straightening up, and he gave out another tortured groan when I gave him a final dig with my right knee. A police cruiser screamed up the curved drive, followed by two more, and an ambulance from Medical rode their tails. Sarah lodged Jonas onto the bench, ordering a couple of the Post’s security guards to keep Gibbons busy while she got the cops straightened out.
Ryder wiped at my face with a cloth and shook his head. “I can’t even leave you to patch things up with Jonas without you drawing blood. What happened to just talking?”
“I was talking.” I fought the swiping for a bit, then finally let him get it out of his system. My ribs were throbbing but seemed to be doing fine otherwise. Breathing in deeply didn’t make me wince, so as far as I could tell, my lungs weren’t pierced through. “Stop that. And if you put spit on that cloth and wipe my face, I’ll do to you what I wanted to do to Gibbons, but with my fingernails.”
Rubbing at my side, I spat again, trying to get the taste of human blood off my tongue. Then I spotted Martins, one of the guys I’d done runs with when Dempsey first brought us down to San Diego. Nodding at me, he smiled and held out his hand to another Stalker, a gaunt scrawny man barely old enough to grow a whisker on his chin but already with the cold, hard gaze of a seasoned hunter. The young man sighed and dug into his pocket, then handed Martins a wad of cash. Frowning, I cocked my head at Martins, wondering if I was going to have to worry about him next, when he cracked a grin at me.
“Told him you bit, but he didn’t believe me,” Martins called out, turning to head back down to the Post now there was nothing else to watch. “Drinks on me next time, Gracen. I owe you a beer.”
Twelve
NEWT WAS there to greet me by the time I dragged myself up to the top level of the tower the Court built for me. I’d left Oketsu in the courtyard below, eyeing the long garage still growing up out of the cobblestones near my tower’s front entrance. I didn’t trust the place enough to park my Mustang in something still struggling to grow walls, and if the damned tower took offense by that, there’d be nothing I could do. I still patted the wall and thanked it for thinking of me.
I didn’t trust it, but I wasn’t an asshole, not that anyone would think that if they listened to Newt.
Pushing Newt out of the way with my foot so I could get to his food, I scolded, “Stop screaming your fool head off. I’m going as fast as I can.”
I’d showered before feeding him, earning me a black mark on his shit list, but I smelled too bad and needed hot water on my bruises. Enduring his claws digging into my back when I crouched down to open a new box of cat food, I regretted deciding that cotton pants and a tank top would be good to sleep in. He hooked into my skin through the fabric, making me wish I’d pulled on full riot gear. Then he seemed to double down in the spots where Gibbons did the most damage along my sides.
“Newt, stop,” I hissed, trying to dislodge him, but he was determined to make his ascent. Standing up with a packet of food, I tried to reach for him, but the twisting about only made my ribs hurt more, and the scars along my back tightened up in response to the waves of pain. “Just… give me a minute, you damned cat.”
Reaching my shoulder, he stood triumphant, all four and a half pounds of mottled fur and scraggly ears, and screamed in my ear, defiantly ordering me to stand and deliver his food lest the devil take me.
“Shit, what is this?” I stared at the can and then down at the box on the floor. “This isn’t tuna. Tuna and egg? Why is it the same color as the normal tuna ones? Crap, this isn’t your food. I mean, it’s cat food, but it’s not—”
Newt’s eardrum-curdling aria told me exactly what I could do with the can in my hand once I emptied its contents into his dish.
“Listen to me, you furry idiot.” I shook the can under his nose. “This is tuna and egg. You’ve not eaten this before. You might not like it. Just hold on.”
I opened the can and gritted my teeth when Newt objected to the wait once again. Dipping my finger into the meaty churn, I took a bit out and sniffed at it. It smelled mostly of fish, but there were definitely small yellow chunks in it. Ignoring Newt’s protests, I licked the concoction off my finger and tasted it, trying to compare the memory of Newt’s normal food to what I had in my mouth.
“Did you just eat the cat’s food?” Ryder stood in the doorway, his face twisted into an expression I usually only saw when I offered Newt a piece of broccoli.
“You think I’m going to feed him something I haven’t tasted?” Sniffing once more at the can, I held it up for Newt to inspect, since he was already perched on my shoulder. “It tastes the same to me, asshole. You good with it, or are you going to do what you did last time and try to starve yourself to death?”
I took Newt leaving long furrows of bloodied scrapes on my skin after jumping off my shoulder and landing with a ferocious scream at his empty food bowl for him to be okay with the tuna and egg.
Leaving the cat to his dinner, I grabbed one of the cloths I’d left on the kitchenette counter to dab at my shoulder. It stung enough to be noticeable, but getting to the spot proved to be more painful than it was worth. My ribs were definitely not knitting well, or at least not fast enough, and every time I lifted my elbow up, the bruises marbling my sides ached more. Hissing, I padded over to the low-slung couches, dabbing as I went until the slow burn faded, only to find Ryder frowning at me.
“Now what?” I frowned back, balling the cloth up in my hand to toss it toward the small sink on the other side of the room.
“Nothing,” he replied, shaking his head. “It’s always just when I think I’ve figured you out, you do something that makes me….” Ryder paused, framed against a sunbeam and I caught a delicious aroma coming from the tray of covered food he carried in with him. I narrowed my eyes and he said with a smile, “Readjust my understanding of you. It’s not a bad thing, that.”
The rag bounced off the counter, then slid into the sink, but the pain kicked up again along my ribs, stealing my breath. Hissing, I rubbed at the spots I could reach and gingerly sat down on the couch opposite of the one Ryder took. “This can heal at any time. Who the hell knew Gibbons was so damned strong? Medical said he cracked five ribs. Feels like he tore down my spine.”
“You could let one of the healers see to you,” Ryder muttered at me, lifting the lids on the dishes. “Unlike the human staff at the Medical Center, they know elfin anatomy.”
“The last time one of them put their hands on me—Celia, I think, th
e tiny one with the pink hair—she puked up through her nose,” I reminded him, carefully leaning forward to see what he’d brought. “Every single one of them hugs the walls when I go by. I’m a golem, lordling. Tanic shaped my flesh and pulled me into existence. I’m everything wrong about their kind of magic, and touching me is their worst nightmare. Leave it alone and don’t ask them. They’d do it but end up hating me because of it.”
He looked like he was going to argue with me, something I’d come to expect, but instead, Ryder closed his mouth and passed me a pair of chopsticks. “Here. Eat something. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
There were slices of rare beef over a bed of butter noodles and seared sugar peas for me to pick through—enough meat to fill my empty belly and fuel my healing. My hunger stomped down my stubbornness at being told what to do, and I once again reminded my recalcitrant brain that sometimes agreeing wasn’t a bad thing. I took the dish and chopsticks, plucked a sliver of nearly raw meat from the mound, and tucked it into my mouth, chewing while I stared out into the city lights fighting off the darkness with their sparkling web.
Newt came by with fish-and-egg breath to shove his face into my dish, hoping for a handout. I picked out a small piece, holding it pinched between my fingers until he sank his front teeth into the morsel, letting go when he tugged on it. A bit of movement over Ryder’s shoulder caught my attention, but the flash of yellow and blue turned out to be a flock of macaws coming in to settle for the night. All around us, the Sidhe stronghold and its lands were quiet, steeped in shadow, with only a few lights at the edges of the territory to mark its boundaries and walls. The silence was a bit disconcerting, especially with the cityscape clearly laid out to the south of the tower, but I’d grown used to it. The rest of the Court lay behind me, the buildings growing toward the north and west, leaving my view open. I liked the feeling of isolation, especially with the empty courtyard below. I’d have to go home at some point, return to the warehouse with the sometimes noisy clatter of the harbor drifting up and the pounding of the sea on the shore during a storm, but for now, the stillness was what I needed.
Especially since I had some planning to do.
“There room on the couch for me?” Cari knocked on the open door, hefting three bottles of dark-chocolate milk tea up as some sort of offering. “I bring Abuelita and some dried fish snacks for the monster.”
“Which monster?” I asked, putting my dish down. “Me or the cat?”
“Don’t—” Ryder cut himself off, sliding down to make room for Cari. “You are not a monster, Kai.”
“Been called one by enough people,” I replied, taking one of the bottles from Cari. “And it’s a joke, Ryder. Sometimes the best way to deal with crappy stuff is to make fun of it. You made good time. I just messaged you ten minutes ago.”
“I was downstairs with Alexa.” She shrugged at me when I looked up. “I probably spend more time here than you do. It’s nice talking to elfin that don’t growl at you when you take more bacon. Now, tell me what you’ve got planned, and was Jonas still awake when you left the hospital?”
“Out like a light.” I gave Cari a quick rundown of Jonas’s injuries and how he fought to get released. “Spouses weren’t having it. He’s an asshole when he’s sick. They probably want the nurses to deal with him until he feels better. The Post’s picking up his medical bills, so that’s one less worry. They’ll probably give him stop-gap payments, because he won’t be able to do runs until that’s all checked out.”
“Oh, he’s going to be pleasant. You know how he gets.” Cari set one of the bottles down in front of Ryder, then picked at my leftovers, finding a pea I’d left behind. “So you two are all good?”
“We’ll talk more when he’s out,” I said, taking the bottle from Ryder after watching him struggle to open it. I popped off the cap and handed it back. “There wasn’t a lot of time in between Jonas trying to squeeze the air out of me with a hug and Gibbons trying to kill us. What about you and me? We good?”
“We’re always good.” Cari gave me a brilliant smile. “Especially since, with Jonas off the board, you’re stuck with me as your backup. What’s the plan? We going after whoever put the blacklist contract on you?”
“Sort of.” Sliding my plate over to Cari, I continued, “We’re going to go find Dempsey’s brother. He’s got an actual bounty on him, and Samms on his tail. I’ve just got to get to Kenny first. He’s got some stuff Dempsey gave him—things related to the original hit put on me—so I want to get that from him. Chances are, whoever put that first one up is the same someone who’s tagged me for this new one. I mean, I’ve pissed a lot of people off, but not the kind of people who can put up that much money to take me out.”
“Yeah, a contract on you doesn’t make sense. You’re not the kind of person someone would kill for a handful of coins,” Cari said with a chuckle. “Love you, but the contract doesn’t make sense. You’re a Stalker, for Bast’s sake, not some politician who steals candy from little kids.”
“Hey, if it’s the right candy.” I found another snow pea and slid it over to Ryder’s bowl, ignoring Cari’s playful warning hiss. “Tonight I’m going to go to sleep with a full belly, and first thing in the morning, begin rattling the trees for info on Kenny. He’s down here for something, and it sure as hell isn’t me. Someone’s got to be offering him someplace to squat until he can shake off the bounty on him. Either that or he’s got something worth selling. Either way, he’s going to be leaving a trace. We just need to find it.”
“What will you do with him when we find him?” Ryder asked, and Cari’s chopsticks stopped moving, a few grains of rice trembling on their tips.
“There’s no we in this, lordling,” I replied. “You’re not coming with us on this. We’ll be heading deep down into the understreets, and that’s not someplace for the likes of you.”
If the room had a nip in it before, it was positively frigid when Ryder’s gaze hardened and settled on me. I met his stare, waiting it out until Cari finally cleared her throat and began to stack the dishes together. Plucking the utensils out of Ryder’s fingers, she stood up and stretched. Newt mewed an objection to something or other from his place on the bed, probably annoyed the lights were still on, but he was going to have to take a number to rip skin off my back. Ryder’s shoulders were stiff, and he had on his politician face—the smooth façade of someone choosing his words more carefully than a mushroom picker selected from the fungi sprouting across a field of cow shit.
“Well, since it looks like you two are going to fight, I’m just going to take these down to the kitchen so you can get to it,” she remarked lightly, nudging Ryder’s leg until he moved out of her way. “Kai, drop me a line when you’re ready to go. I’m staying down at Alexa’s. Just give me enough notice so I can make sure I’ve got enough ammo. Ryder, do us both a favor and don’t forget about that purple salve the healers put in the bathroom. He’s less crotchety when he’s not as banged up.”
Cari gave me a wink as she went by, a saucy smirk more to remind me to play nice than to chew Ryder apart. I was tired, and now that I’d eaten, there were stretches of my skin and bones throbbing beneath the tank top I’d pulled on after my shower. She wasn’t wrong. I was getting grumpier by the minute, and as the night wore down, there was nothing more I wanted than to crawl under clean sheets and fall asleep while listening to the rain slap at the tower’s enormous glass panes. I didn’t have the energy to fight with Ryder. Hell, I didn’t even have the energy to argue with him when he came back from the bathroom with a small jar of glowing purplish sparkly goo and motioned for me to make my way over to the bed.
“Come here and take your shirt off. Cari’s right. The least I can do is try to soothe the bruising, but the healers and I are going to have a talk after this.” Ryder’s frown deepened when I let out a small audible groan as I stood up. “They’re… healers.”
“Yeah, well, technically so is my father,” I pointed out, padding over slowly. It was ha
rd to get my arms back up, and I felt every twinge while trying to get my shirt off. Taking a deep breath was a mistake. It only hurt worse, and despite the satisfying warmth in my belly, my dinner threatened to come back up. “I don’t need you to—”
“Just… once… let someone take care of you,” Ryder growled at me. He sat in the middle of the bed, his bare feet tucked under his crossed legs. “Lie down and let me do this for you.”
“You just want me on my back so I can’t argue with you,” I muttered, swallowing the press of my stomach against my throat as I crawled onto the wide mattress. “Pele’s teeth, it feels like Gibbons cracked my spine.”
No matter how much I grumbled about the Sidhe and their spoiled ways, the damned Court sure as hell knew how to make a bed. The mattress cradled me, the linens I’d left rumpled slithering softly against my tortured skin, and it wasn’t a hardship to lift my head up to let Ryder put a pillow beneath me. Newt rumbled a soft mewl, jostled by my stretching out, but he quickly curled up over my bare ankle, resting his sharp fangs against one of my toes.
Ryder was too close, too warm and present for me to be comfortable, so I closed my eyes and let the sound of the rain drift over me. The shushing roll was quiet, a gentle patter compared to the storms we’d fled under during our desert run, and the scent of the water was different—greener and lush—and carried with it the sweet perfume of the maile vines growing along the balustrade. My shoulders began hurting again, forcing me to stop and think about why. I was tensed up, knotted in on myself, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when Ryder’s fingertips skimmed over my right side.
“Do you want to fight now or later?” he asked softly, his voice as deceptively sweet as the maile in the air. “Because I have a few good arguments about why I should accompany you. Or is this going to be another one of your… ‘my run, my rules’?”
