“So.” Emma reached for a bagel made rubbery by microwave magic, sliced it open. “Just as a point of reference, how much use is my gun actually going to be against your friends?”
“Not my friends.” Ricky scowled. He poured himself a mug of coffee, dumped a few badly measured teaspoons of sugar into it. “But since you’re asking,” he paused to sip at his coffee, and then drank half of it down in one swallow. “It would slow one of us down, but that’s all. The rounds aren’t explosive, the gun’s moderately sized.” He drank some more coffee. “You’d have to empty almost a whole clip just to get a good head start on running away. Depending on which species you were shooting at.” He seemed not to notice the horrified expression Emma could feel plastered over her face, and went on. “Of course, a military standard assault rifle or something similar would do a lot more damage. Shapechangers can be killed with those.” Ricky’s face became solemn. “You’re talking M 16, that sort of thing. Got one of those lying around?”
Emma bit off a mouthful of bagel and managed to choke it down before she said, “Not exactly.” She tore the rest of the bagel in half, smeared it with butter and handed it down to the dog. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he took it delicately from her fingers and swallowed it with a look of disbelieving bliss.
Ricky talked around his food. “They wouldn’t hurt us.” He swallowed noisily. “Or they wouldn’t hurt you, at least,” he added before Emma could remind him of the wound on his leg.
She thought about that a few moments before finally pouring herself a coffee. She warmed her hands with it. “Ricky…” She hesitated. His face tightened. She flexed her fingers around her mug and went on. “They did hurt you. According to you, these are the sort of people you have to empty a full clip of ammunition into just to give yourself the chance to run. Am I really going to be an obstacle to them?”
Ricky stayed silent a long time. Staring at the tabletop, hand resting loose around his cup. His eyes were shiny and he didn’t blink.
“You left these people in another country, Ricky. They wouldn’t come all this way on a whim. You told me none of them had any personal interest in you, but here they are, and their interest seems pretty damn personal to me.”
“I don’t know why they’re after me.” He didn’t look at her when he spoke, his unblinking eyes liquid with tears. “I just know they scare me. I’m one of them, but they still scare me.”
Emma reached across the table and touched his hand. “You’re not one of them.” He looked up. “You’re you. We’ll get through this, Ricky, you and me. Okay?”
He just stared at her, amber eyes dark with some misery she didn’t know what to do with. She fought to keep her face serene as panic and frustration bubbled up. She was so not prepared for any of this, and it seemed neither was Ricky, but she needed him to keep it together, able to think. Hell, she needed to keep it together. This was really happening, no matter how ridiculous it seemed.
“Maybe we should get out of town for a few days,” she said slowly, not wanting to upset him. “I really don’t like the idea of these people finding out where you live.” She stood up and came to his side of the table. “I’m going to get you a bandage to protect the stitches from rubbing, okay?” Ricky nodded, looking tired and fragile and older than he should.
When she stood up from the first aid kit with a large pack of gauze in one hand and a roll of surgical tape in the other, she found Ricky leaning against the frame of the small archway outside the kitchenette, one half of his face profiled by the light from behind him, the other shadowed by the dim lamplight of the living room. He looked slightly ridiculous in his one legged slacks. Bruce sat on his haunches beside Ricky, chewing on a bagel.
“If we’re going anywhere today, you might want to put on a new pair of pants.”
Ricky grinned, seeming to have recovered himself. “Thought I’d just show it off. I’ve got a damn fine left leg, just saying.”
Emma gave him a sincere look. “The other leg isn’t too bad either.”
“Thanks.” He propped his left heel on the small table next to the entrance to the kitchen, so she could bandage the wound. “So are you really going to break up with Alan?”
“Yes.” Emma padded over to him and looked down at the first aid stuff in her hands. “Maybe. I think so. I don’t know.”
He huffed a short laugh. “Okay.” Then he reached out and chucked her gently under the chin with his knuckles. “Hey, you don’t have to pretend not to be upset. Just because I don’t like him.”
She gave him a dry stare. “Ricky, you don’t just dislike him, you think he’s Norman Bates with a Platinum Amex.”
He shrugged and crossed his arms. “I’d probably feel that way about anyone you dated.”
“Thanks for making it weird.”
“Ha ha. You know what I mean.” His expression soured. “There’s just something about him, Em. He’s kinda, I don’t know.”
She sighed. “Scary.”
“Yup.” Ricky frowned and straightened. “Did something happen? If he —”
“No, no, nothing like that. Relax.” Emma waved him into submission and started ripping open a pack of sterile gauze pads. “It’s stupid. He gave me jewelry. A necklace.”
“I thought you canceled dinner.”
“Tried. He swung by the clinic instead, just to give it to me.” She bent to tape the gauze pad in place. “It’s a diamond. A black one.”
Ricky snorted. “Real subtle. Glad he’s trying to tone down the billionaire sociopath vibe.” He made a thoughtful noise. “Fits you though.” At her sharp glance he raised both hands in surrender. “I’m just saying! It’s kinda metal. Maybe he does actually know you after all.”
“God, don’t.” Ricky’s main beef with Alan had been that he seemed to have nothing in common with her and didn’t understand a single one of her interests. It didn’t help that Ricky had been mostly right. Emma grabbed surgical tape and started securing the gauze in place. “Look, I don’t know what I want, I just know I freaked out when he gave me the necklace and that’s probably not a good sign, right?”
Ricky drew a breath to reply and the home phone rang. Emma yelped.
“Who would be calling you at five in the morning?”
Working fast, Emma bit off a length of surgical tape with her teeth. So hygienic. “I don’t know.” Dread unfurled inside her, like a spider from a leaf. The phone seemed deafening in the early morning stillness, like a beacon, the howl of an ambulance. She finished taping Ricky’s leg and headed for the phone on the desk, but Ricky grabbed her arm.
His fingers squeezed. “You’re hurting me,” she said, and looked into his eyes — and he looked straight back and didn’t see her. “Ricky? ”
At her side, Bruce growled, low and wet. Emma’s scalp began to crawl — and then her skin was awash with goosebumps, hard and frigid enough to sting, wriggling down her spine in a cold, unnatural rush. Her breath turned to lead in her lungs, her blood turned to roaring waves of ocean sound — underwater stillness, a sonic whine, like the chime of a tuning fork. The ringing phone sounded hollow and far away.
“Emma?” Ricky’s voice broke it, whatever it was. Emma’s breath exploded from her body and on the next inhalation her throat rasped raw.
“What — the hell — was that ?” She jerked her arm from his grip and wobbled, but didn’t fall. The apartment felt suddenly too hot. The phone stopped ringing.
Ricky blinked at her. His pupils were huge, irises wider still and bright gold — not human, not anymore. “You felt it.”
“Felt it? Felt it? Ricky, it hit me like a goddamn truck.” She stared at him, still breathing hard. “You did that, didn’t you?”
He gave her an agonized look. “I’ll explain later, I promise. Em —” His gaze slid to the front door. “Someone’s coming.”
The doorbell rang.
Bruce slunk in front of Emma, wrapped his shaggy body around her legs. Ricky moved toward the door.
“No,”
Emma said, mouth gone dry.
He looked at her. “I’m not going to open it.” He glanced at the door again but stayed put, mid stride. “Just look through the peephole.”
“Don’t do that either.” She didn’t want Ricky in front of the flimsy door, pressing his face to the little fisheye lens, whole body framed like a target. “Stay there.” She patted Bruce’s head, ducked around the corner into the kitchenette and came back with the gun in her hand, barrel pointed at the floor.
Ricky raised an eyebrow. She motioned for him to take a few steps to his left, as she took the long, wide way around the back of the couch so she stood on the opposite side of the door to Ricky. Both their bodies were shielded this way, by the walls on either side of the front door — her apartment was good, solid brick. Gunfire was not the most likely thing to come through the door whether she opened it or not, but she didn’t care. Bruce pressed against her left leg, warm and vibrating but silent.
Ricky glanced at the gun in her hands, still aimed at the floor. She glanced down, too. Her knuckles were going white, then pink, then white again as she strained not to grip too hard. Gripping too hard would make her hands or her fingers cramp, slow her reflexes, encourage sweat and make her hold slippery. But she was tense. Hell, she could feel her heartbeat in her ears, not just the deafening roar, but the thud and pop as though her circulatory system weren’t made of flesh and blood but instead of whirring cogs and pistons. She was so not made for this. She had training, but this was different. This was real.
She remembered Ricky could hear her heartbeat, and she made an effort to slow her breath, because panic could be contagious.
The doorbell chimed again. Emma glanced from the peephole to Ricky’s face. His lips parted, jaw tense; scenting the air, but even with his sense of smell, he probably couldn’t detect anything definite from the other side of the door.
“Ricky, you have to open up.” The voice from the other side of the door was a shock in the silence. Not female, as Emma had expected given what Ricky had said about the ocelot maidens, but deep and male. She watched the color drain out of Ricky’s face. His mouth closed with an audible clack of teeth.
“Ricky,” she hissed at him. “Do you know who it is?”
Ricky said nothing, just gazed at her, stricken.
The stranger at the door called out, more insistent. “You know it’s me. I’m alone; you have to let me in.” Hispanic accent, much stronger than Ricky’s. “They’re coming.” Emma heard feet scuff. “We don’t have much time, and you know it.”
“Ricky.” Emma raised her voice. “Who is that?” He looked right at her but wouldn’t respond.
“Tell her who I am.” A note of frustration had crept into the tone of the disembodied voice, muffled slightly through the door.
“Shut up,” Emma called out. She heard a surprised grunt from the other side of the door but kept her eyes on Ricky. “Come on, sweetheart,” she coaxed, willing him to snap out of it. “Tell me who it is.”
Instead of telling her who it was, he wrenched the door open.
4
Emma darted backwards and brought the gun up before she had time to think.
Bruce jerked forward, legs stiff, hackles up and lip curled, but he didn’t attack. Emma’s butt bumped up against the couch; she sighted down the barrel of the pistol and tried to focus on the stranger. Weak dawn light threw the porch into deep shadow, and it took her eyes a moment to adjust — but when they did, she stared. And when her brain finally made sense of what she was seeing, her mouth fell open.
Hair darker than Ricky’s, so was his skin; his boyish features were harder, body taller, wider and way more sculpted beneath the red chambray shirt, but there was no mistaking the resemblance. Unless Ricky had one hell of a doppelganger, the man on the doorstep could be none other than Ricky’s brother.
A brother Emma hadn’t known existed.
She closed her mouth and willed herself not to take her eyes off the stranger no matter how badly she wanted to look at Ricky. Mister tall, dark, and doppelganger stared at Ricky with eyes glassy and fierce; not the warm amber of Ricky’s but a thick, cool, luminous green. Tree-frog green. They were startling and disturbing, and not human. Not even close. His face seemed carved of electrified restraint, so sharp and still, almost painful to look at.
Emma’s hands began to tremble with the effort of holding the gun two handed and aimed at the height of the stranger’s chest. She’d had regular practice handling the weapon, but she sure wasn’t used to pointing it at anybody for an extended period of time. Hell, she just wasn’t used to pointing it at anybody, period.
“Is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?” She shifted her arms, providing a little relief, but it wouldn’t last. Her arms would get tired again.
Bruce let a snarl trickle out and backed up against Emma’s legs, but his ears cocked forward. She risked a sideways glance at Ricky. “Were you planning on telling me you have a brother? Say maybe, ever?”
Ricky turned to her, and so did the green eyed version of him, those liquid eyes meeting Emma’s dead on for the first time. They were dark and hooded in the shadows of the stoop, with the gray-blue day behind him, and they made her think of things that lived in cool, wet jungles, far from civilization. She did not enjoy being the object of that gaze.
The look on his face relaxed, amusement rippling through the stillness, and suddenly he wasn’t just striking but flat out handsome. No other word for it.
She lowered her arms and pointed the gun at the floor, no longer staring at him over its length. Her arms fizzed with pins and needles. She flexed her hands on the grip of the gun, but she wasn’t ready to put it down.
Ricky spoke, voice rough. “This… is Antonio. My —” he paused, growled, didn’t finish. As though he couldn’t say it — brother . She saw him out of the corner of her eye, run both hands through his hair, and his tone went from rough to sheepish. “I never exactly planned not to tell you.”
“Never exactly planned not to?” Anger made her voice a hot, shaky thing. Antonio raised both sculpted black eyebrows at Ricky before glancing at Emma.
“You can call me Anton,” he said casually.
“And you can shut the fuck up.” Emma clenched her teeth to keep herself from shouting and ignored Anton as best she could without taking her eyes off him, which wasn’t much. “Ricky, he’s your brother. How do you —”
Ricky growled, but it was a desperate sound. Bruce’s ears flicked once. “He is not my brother, not anymore.” His tone hardened. “I left him behind when I left everything else.”
“Jesus.” Emma fought to keep her eyes on Anton when all she wanted to do was stare at Ricky. Such raw, red hurt in his voice.
Anton’s expression darkened. His hands turned to fists, forearms twisting with muscle, biceps straining at the short rolled up sleeves of his shirt — he was one very tense individual. “You didn’t leave,” he said to Ricky in a low tone. “You ran from the truth.”
This was not getting better. Emma looked at Ricky, but his eyes were fixed on Anton, blazing amber fire.
“What do you want, Anton?” Ricky’s voice shook.
“To help you.”
Ricky snorted. “Liar.”
Emma tensed, readying the gun. “Wait a minute, wait a minute — you’re one of the good guys?”
Ricky said, “No.”
Anton said, “Yes.”
Emma shook her head. “This bites. One of you, start making some sense.”
Anton let out a short, sharp breath. “Emma, it’s not prudent for me to be out in the open like this. I need to come in.” His eyes flicked down her body, then up again. “I like your t-shirt.”
Ricky took a step toward Emma. “It’s not prudent for you to come in here, either.”
Emma ignored him and narrowed her eyes at Anton. “Fuck my t-shirt, why the hell do you know my name?” Neither she nor Ricky had spoken it.
Anton rolled one broad shoulder, expression guarded. “I c
an explain later.”
Emma let him know with her eyes what she thought of that idea. “Can you tell us why the maidens are after Ricky?”
“Yes.” Something pained and knowing slid behind Anton’s eyes, like a low shape glimpsed through thick, wet leaves. Emma didn’t even think that made any sense, but she felt it anyway.
Anton glanced at Ricky, then seemed to dismiss the idea of appealing to him and looked at Emma again. “There are worse things out there, heading this way. I’m no threat to you. And frankly, the weapon is no threat to me.”
Emma fought to keep the gun aimed at the floor. “I’d like to see you shrug off a bullet in the eye.”
Anton cocked his head. He didn’t look surprised, but his green gaze sharpened with appraisal. “Ricky didn’t teach you that kind of tough.”
What a presumptuous bastard. “Nobody taught me.” But she couldn’t shoot him just for being a dick. “Why don’t you just invite yourself into my home, if this doesn’t bother you?”
“Because I can’t force you to accept my help, or my protection. Believe me, we’re running out of time, and if I could force you, I would. You’d thank me later. But I can’t, so you have to trust me, which involves allowing me to come inside.”
She couldn’t figure out whether he was being honest, arrogant, or calculating; judging by the expression of disgust on Ricky’s face and not suspicion, it was arrogance. He might be full of himself, but he got her vote for being invited inside, because it meant at least he might be telling the truth.
“Come in.” She moved away, refusing to let him out of her sight. Bruce followed her, slinking backwards unerringly. Anton stepped off the welcome mat and into the apartment.
Ricky slammed the door behind him.
Anton came around the side of the couch toward Emma and she skipped backward even further, but he kept going past her, towards the bathroom. “Pack a bag,” he said over his shoulder. “Now.”
“What?” She watched him enter the bathroom and scan the room, examining the small window. Bruce pressed against her legs. Ricky came up beside her, rested a hand at the base of her spine, eyes angry and worried.
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