Wrong Side of Dead

by Kelly Meding

  It was kind of a low blow, though, since Kismet and Lucas had been secretly, madly in love for most of his tenure in her Triad.

  “That might actually work,” she said. But she looked anything but happy about it.

  Goodie. “Phin?”

  “I think it’s worth trying.”

  “Awesome. Prisoner it is.”

  Halfway back, the roof door swung open and Quince stepped out with Kyle Jane, another Therian team member, close behind. They both stopped and surveyed the scene.

  “It seems we missed the party,” Quince said.

  Marcus couldn’t reasonably sit on Felix in the car, so he stayed put until Phin returned with enough restraints to bind a raging rhinoceros. The end package wasn’t pretty, but everyone seemed satisfied that Felix could neither get loose nor bite anyone on the drive back. He was dumped into the SUV’s rear compartment with jaguar-Marcus and Quince as guards. Kyle drove, with Kismet riding shotgun.

  I wasn’t sure if the mission was a success or not. Sure, we prevented other innocent (drunken idiot) bystanders from being infected and potentially executed. I’d kicked a little ass and had the bruises and an itchy, healing cheekbone to prove it. We got our hands on Felix, who’d been rogue for two weeks. We were one step closer to knowing who was organizing this and why, but it still felt … incomplete. I mulled on it during the drive back to the Watchtower.

  Carved out of the bones of the abandoned Capital City Mall, situated on the East Side near the Black River, our headquarters was more a small city than a tower of any sort. Individual stores were now rooms with designated uses—weapons storage, a central Operations room, a small infirmary, a gymnasium and training room, as well as converted showers and sleeping quarters. About two hundred humans, Therians, and vampires lived here full-time, including me.

  Its conversion began six weeks ago, after the vampire Families made a deal with the Assembly of Clan Elders. The mall was protected by the vampires, because it had a Sanctuary—a magical hot spot where the power of the Break bled through—and it was offered as a headquarters for their joint efforts in protecting their people.

  Humans were invited to play after Boot Camp was destroyed last month. The Watchtower was run by a Triumvirate—one representative of each of the three races, and all major decisions needed a unanimous vote. Astrid, a were-cat and Marcus’s sister, stood for the Therians, my kind-of friend Isleen for the vampires, and former-Handler Adrian Baylor for the humans.

  Tensions were high and for good reason, but everyone mostly got along. We all had the same goals now: protect the city and protect our people. At all costs.

  Kyle followed a well-worn path through the weedy parking lot toward the interior of the U-shaped mall’s curve, which created a sort of canyon. The entire lot and structure were protected by a barrier spell, which urged anyone outside of it to look away. And that was only the first security measure in place.

  Kyle drove through the illusion of a wall and into a parking lot made of two hollowed-out former restaurants. The lot held an array of vehicles, mostly trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles of various makes, models, and colors. No sense in being predictable.

  Quince and Kyle hauled Felix out of the back and carried him by the ropes like a trussed-up Christmas tree. He didn’t struggle or protest. Marcus followed, a silent sentinel. Something occurred to me as I shut my door.

  “Hey, did anyone pick up Marcus’s clothes at the rave?” I asked.

  Blank looks. Marcus snuffled, and if a jaguar could act annoyed, he did.

  Kyle chuckled. Therians had to remove their clothing in order to shift. And, likewise, they shifted back to human form completely nude. I’ve learned that most have little issue with nudity—at least, in small groups. But I imagined Marcus had no intention of walking the length of the mall to his sleeping quarters in just his bare skin.

  The parking lot led into a short, tiled corridor, which intersected with the main length of the mall’s interior. The old fountain in the center now held a thriving herb garden—not all the plants meant for spicing food. Left and right, the corridor stretched down about a hundred yards in either direction before sharply turning again. Each end of the mall was capped by an old department store. The structure on the right/east was being converted into larger living quarters. The old store on the left/west would eventually be a training facility, not unlike the obstacle course we ran at Boot Camp.

  Operations was straight ahead, with weapons storage right next door. To the right of weapons was our brand-new jail, complete with restraint cells and an interrogation room. I despised that place more than any other part of the Watchtower, and I avoided it as much as possible. My initial look at the completed design had lasted exactly ninety seconds, and I’d left shaking.

  Three familiar faces emerged from Ops. Astrid Dane was my height, with long, straight black hair and the same exotic looks as her brother, Marcus. She led the charge, hands balled into fists, clearly unhappy with our gift. Behind her trailed Milo Gant and Wyatt Truman, both studies in shock. Rightfully so, I guess. We hadn’t left with the intention of bringing home a prisoner. It just worked out that way.

  My heart went out to Milo for the horror he must have felt at the sight of someone he’d once loved so much reduced to so little. Milo had been there with me the night Felix was infected. He’d been shot in the abdomen and hadn’t actually seen it happen, but that had only added to his guilt. Neither of us had been able to save Felix.

  “Hey,” Kismet said. “Did Dr. Vansis say you could be up and around like this?” When it came to her former Hunters, she was a mother hen to the end.

  “Yeah, as long as I don’t overdo it and pull my stitches,” Milo replied. His voice was rough, weighed down with emotion. He met my gaze, and I couldn’t even muster a supportive smile for the young man who’d once tried to kill me and who I now counted as one of my best friends.

  “I take it that has information,” Astrid said, pointing at Felix.

  Back to business. Curiosity was drawing a small crowd that wisely kept its distance.

  “He knows who’s creating and organizing the Halfies, and why,” Phineas said.

  “Is it sane?”

  “Mostly, yes. And self-aware.”

  “And it tells us in exchange for what?”

  “Good-byes to old friends before he’s executed.”

  Astrid glanced at Milo, who looked slightly ill—whether at the idea of talking to Felix or the mention of his execution, I didn’t know. But my money was on the latter. She turned back to our little group. “Who’s responsible?” If he gets loose and bites someone dangled at the end of the question.

  “I am,” Kismet and I said in stereo.

  Behind Astrid, Wyatt frowned, eyebrows furrowing. The silent disapproval irritated me, just as most of our interactions over the last few weeks had irritated me. Irrationally, maybe, but not entirely my fault. He was in the room, yelling right back, during the argument two weeks ago that fractured us down the middle.

  “Fine,” Astrid said. “Lock him up. We’ll debrief in the conference room in fifteen minutes, then see what the prisoner has to say.” She eyeballed everyone in our little cluster, nostrils flaring. “Who’s bleeding?”

  I touched my cheek. The cut had already scabbed over, the blood around it drying to a flaky mess on my skin.

  “I am,” Phin said.

  “What?” I rounded on him, planting both hands on my hips, all of my irritation firmly directed at him now. I couldn’t see any wounds, but with his black clothes that meant nothing. “How?”

  “The scuffle on the roof. One of the half-Bloods had a switchblade. It isn’t deep.” From his tone of voice, you’d think it was just a mosquito bite. And considering that two months ago he’d been kidnapped and cut open while fully conscious, a minor stab wound probably didn’t seem very important. But it still made me want to slap him.

  “Get it treated,” Astrid said.

  “But—”

  “Stone, make
sure he gets it looked at.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then clamped it shut. It didn’t matter that my feet hurt from those fucking boots, or that I desperately wanted to shower blood and bits of roof grit off my skin and maybe put on some real clothes. Astrid wasn’t a large woman, but her word was law. Especially in that impatient voice.

  “Fine,” I said.

  The infirmary was to the left of Operations, about halfway down the length of the mall. Why so far down? It never made sense to me, but I didn’t design the place. Maybe because it was closer to the training rooms, where injuries tended to happen on a regular basis. I still felt ridiculous, click-clacking my way down the hall.

  Partway there, I grabbed Phin’s arm. “Hold on for a second.” I balanced on my left foot and yanked down the zipper on the right boot. Cool air hit my legs, and I peeled the offending leather away from sweaty, red-marked skin. My ankle protested being bent back to its normal angle, and again when I put my weight on it. Blissful pain. I moaned.

  Phin made a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Better?”

  “Almost.” My left leg soon joined my right in boot freedom. I let go of Phin, then threw the offending objects against the nearest wall. They hit the floor with a clattering thud. I bounced on the balls of my feet, stretching my calf muscles, smoothing out the aches. “Yeah, much better.”

  “You’re going to leave them there?”

  I eyed the boots. “I borrowed the damned things for this rave. If someone wants them, they’re welcome to them. Knee-high leather boots with three-inch heels are torture devices.”

  He chuckled and continued walking. I padded behind, the ceramic tile floor cool on my bare feet. A familiar buzz of power tickled over my skin as we passed the Sanctuary. A vampire was always standing guard at the hall entrance leading down to what had once been a set of the mall’s public bathrooms. The women’s restroom was the last place anyone would think to find a Sanctuary. Its location had certainly surprised the hell out of me.

  The infirmary was a few stores down, in what I’m told was once an electronics outlet. Not that it mattered much, since the entire thing was gutted, outfitted with an emergency surgical suite (not that we had a surgeon yet, but it was on the To Do list), a fully stocked closet of supplies, an exam room, and four private patient rooms. The adjacent store was under construction as an expansion. We were in a pretty dangerous and injury-prone line of work, after all.

  The infirmary wasn’t a doctor’s office, so there was no waiting room. Just a desk, some filing cabinets, and the curtained exam room. All of our Boot Camp medical staff had been slaughtered last month. The Assembly brought in an Ursia (were-grizzly bear) physician they trusted, and who was familiar with human, Therian, and vampire anatomy. Dr. Reid Vansis was good, and he knew it. He also had the grumpy personality of most Ursia I’d met, which made him someone I preferred to avoid. But he’d saved Milo’s life when he was shot, and I respected him for it.

  But Vansis also wasn’t in. As the only doctor in residence, he had a large whiteboard on the wall behind his desk where he wrote his location when he wasn’t in the office. In large black letters he’d scrawled “SLEEPING.” Which meant we were not to disturb him except for emergencies. Which this clearly wasn’t.

  Terrific.

  “Take off your shirt,” I said.

  Phin yanked the hem of his shirt out of his jeans and up over his shoulders, and whipped it off in one smooth motion. He wasn’t fast enough to hide his wince, though. A long, pale line divided his chest from sternum to belly button—a terrible reminder of the hell he’d been through because of me.

  “Turn around,” I said.

  He did, presenting a lean, perfectly muscled back. Hiding just above the waist of his jeans was a four-inch gash, still oozing blood. This close, I could see the dark, damp patch where the blood had soaked into his pants. I could also see more meat than I was comfortable with.

  “Damn, Phin, that might need stitches.”

  “It does?” He twisted his torso in a vain attempt to see his own lower back, and only managed to make the wound gape wider. He hissed, then quit trying to see it and felt around with his fingers. “It’ll heal, Evy. Use those butterfly bandages to keep it together until it can mend.”

  I eyeballed the gash. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  Therians healed faster than the average human, but it would still be several days before that wound was completely gone. And it would likely scar. Small lines and imperfections dotted his back and shoulders—scars I never had the guts to ask about. I still didn’t.

  We moved our little production into the curtained exam area and assembled a tray of useful items—bandages, medical tape, alcohol, gauze, scissors. He turned, once again presenting his back. I wetted some gauze with the alcohol and paused to assess the playing field. This wasn’t going to work.

  “Okay, Phin,” I said, “I need you to drop your pants.”

  “I—pardon me?”

  Chapter Three

  Saturday, July 26

  12:20 A.M.

  Phin turned his head far enough to see me over his shoulder. “Drop my pants?”

  “Yes, please. The wound is too low and your jeans are in the way.”

  “I was uncertain if I would have to shift this evening.”

  I frowned. “Okay. And?”

  “In the interest of expediency, I wore as few layers as possible.”

  What the hell was he—? Oh. “You’re not wearing underwear?”

  “Correct.”

  “I’ve seen you naked, you know.”

  He turned completely around, his face a question mark. As a general rule, Therians weren’t shy about nudity, but he was always more careful than most about exposing himself. In front of me, at any rate. “You have?” he asked.

  “Well, I was half-delirious from smoke inhalation and it was hard to see through the inferno.”

  “I don’t—Oh, the factory fire.” Understanding dawned, and he smiled. It was a warm, friendly smile. “I suppose that’s only fair, as I’ve seen you naked, as well.”

  I forced a grin, even as my heart pounded against my ribs. Neither of our situations had been ideal; however, the reason he saw me naked nearly two months ago was one of the worst memories of my life. I shoved it away, not wanting to ponder the circumstances of that day and what that fucking pùca had done. Mimicking Wyatt’s body and face so perfectly, then knocking me out and stealing syringes of my blood. Driven by an instinctive need to leave chaos in its wake, the pùca made me believe, for the merest fraction of an instant, that Wyatt was actually hurting me.

  I looked at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at Phin.

  Warm palms cupped my cheeks. “Evy, I am so sorry. That was a callous thing to say.”

  I swallowed against the acid creeping into my throat. Met his gaze and found myself staring into intense twin pools of concern. “It’s okay.”

  He pursed his lips, eyebrows furrowed, his sharp features displaying every bit of the predatory bird he shifted into. “No, it isn’t. It was meant in jest and it caused you pain, which wasn’t my intention.”

  “I know, Phin. I’m fine.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.” I pressed gently into his hands, appreciating the gesture. The joy of simply being touched in a nonviolent manner. I curled my fingers around his right wrist and squeezed, marveling again at the hard muscle beneath feather-soft skin. “Thank you. Now turn around and drop your pants.”

  His eyebrows arched, and then he laughed. He undid his belt and shoved his jeans down to his knees. With the field clear (and my eyes firmly on the wound) I cleaned the skin around the slice, then put a clean gauze pad over it.

  “Hold this down hard,” I said.

  He reached around and pressed the pad against the cut while I opened a few butterfly bandages. I still thought it needed stitches, and I didn’t trust myself to apply the liquid b
andage stuff to anyone besides myself.

  “Have you spoken to Wyatt recently?” he asked, breaking a perfectly good nonawkward silence.

  I swatted his hand away and peeled off the bloody gauze pad. The bleeding had slowed, but it was still oozing. “You mean besides him telling our squad to not get killed tonight as we left a few hours ago? No.” Two of the butterflies adhered easily. The third was refusing to stick, so I opened another.

  “Evy, may I ask you a personal question?”

  “Sure. Just remember your bare ass is at my mercy.”

  He chuckled, and I had an irrational urge to poke him in the ribs. I tore strips of medical tape instead. “What changed?”

  “You’re going to have to narrow that down.” I covered the butterflied wound with a clean gauze pad. Taped it down, creating a rectangle of white against tan skin.

  Phin hauled his pants back up, turning to face me as he buttoned them. His eyes searched my face, genuinely curious. “I know things were difficult after Thackery hurt you, and you told me that you and Wyatt were giving each other space to figure things out. But something changed between you two the night Felix was infected.”

  My heart ached at the memory of that awful night two weeks ago. The evening began so normally, but had devolved into blood and violence, and ended with heartbreak. It was the night Wyatt and I realized just how much we’d both been changed by those three weeks I was with Thackery. Wyatt and I both said some things that night that had needed to be said for a while. The fight broke us both; there was no going back to how things used to be.

  “A lot changed that night, Phin.”

  “I know. I’ve seen you every day since. You’ve thrown yourself into your training and you rarely interact with anyone outside our squad except for Milo. You make it a point to avoid Wyatt, and when you do see him—”