“No chance. My dad’s been on high alert for a week, and I’ve never seen him so stressed. This isn’t the night to add boys to the mix.”
“He doesn’t know you’re out?” Horatio asked.
Naomi clasped one hand on her opposite wrist, twisting anxiously. “Not… exactly.”
“Take it easy on the old man.” Horatio leaned too close for Ryn’s liking. “Pretty sure he’s got a good reason for all that stress.”
“Oh my God—you knew who I was?”
“You’ve been on the news all week. And my dad’s got your old man’s campaign sticker on his bumper. Sorry I didn’t say anything. Just figured you were here to dance, not talk about shitty current events.”
Ryn definitely didn’t like the way Naomi laughed and dipped her nose slightly while still looking up at him. “Such a gentleman,” said the auburn-haired doe.
“After you get your friend settled, let us know how she is. Please.” He took Naomi’s phone—the way he just reached for it made Ryn’s claws twitch. He typed digits into it, passing it back. “My number.”
Wes nodded at Ryn. “Any way I can get in touch with you?”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“A themed signal I could flash into the sky, maybe?”
“My therapist gives me messages.”
“That is perhaps the most creative way a girl has ever blown me off,” Wes said. Horatio grabbed Wes’s arm, dragging him away, and Wes walked backward while shouting, “I was serious! About lessons, not about the penetration.”
“Come on, every second you talk it gets more painful.” Then, as they passed from human earshot, Horatio whispered, “What part of our thoroughly drilled ‘dial it down’ hand signal did you miss back there?”
CHAPTER TEN: After Hours
Walking into an emergency room after midnight was like wandering past a plot twist in other people’s lives. Everyone there was living that moment out of sync, interrupted. Naomi glanced from face to face. A nervous mother in a business suit with rolling luggage held an icepack to her listless six-year-old’s forehead. A bearded man with a sleeve of tattoos on each forearm clutched a rag over his bloody hand. His blood plinked onto the floor and he fought with a nurse over the mess: “Maybe if I had a fuckin’ doctor, I wouldn’t still be bleeding.”
Ten minutes before, they’d carted a gunshot victim through. He’d yelled at his brother in Russian to find his wallet and keys. He was belligerently drunk and asked the surgeon if she’d like to have dinner tomorrow night. They tried to pry the liquor bottle out of his hand, but he said, “Nyet, is not empty!” He still gripped it when they wheeled him into the operating room.
Ryn stood next to Naomi’s seat. “I could take you home.”
She shook her head. “I need to make sure Denise is all right.”
Elli had left with her father. He’d blown through the ER like a tornado, apologizing profusely to the staff he knew, checking Denise’s chart and talking to her doctor. He’d insisted to Naomi that her friend was in good hands and would be fine. Then Naomi had wilted as he’d grilled Elli about drugs. On the ninth iteration of the same questions, Elli had erupted into tears and confessed to taking a hit off a boy’s joint in the restroom line. Overall, her father had seemed relieved.
Ryn perched on a chair and seemed intent on the room. A pinch of anxiety sharpened in Naomi’s stomach the longer she watched Ryn. She’d felt silly putting her trust in the tiny girl’s vows, but that was before. Now she had only questions. What she’d done to three grown men had been unreal—no one had ever moved so blindingly fast. But seeing her after the melee shifted everything Naomi thought she knew: no trembling, no relief or bragging, nor any sign of exertion. Like she’d simply… scratched an itch, the same as a hundred times before.
Ryn had fought a war. Naomi didn’t know where, or how, but suspected she’d fought it nearly all her life. Almost certainly, this graceful predator had taken human life, and probably with her hands. Who the hell is this person?
A shiver worked through her, though not entirely from fear—also from the perverse sense of safety she felt, knowing now that she’d been protected all night. Ryn’s formidable presence had replaced fear with a tangle of feelings she couldn’t quite unravel: warmth, a jittery charge whenever Ryn looked at her, and the pleasure of watching the strange girl move, akin to the fascination in seeing a housecat prowl.
When emergency-room doors parted for her father, Naomi was filled with a more recognizable anxiety. He’d abandoned his charcoal suit jacket and had rolled his sleeves to his elbows, his red power tie loosened and his hair disarrayed from a long day on the Hill. Mark and his aide, Carol, flanked him and Carol worked twice as fast to keep up with his long strides.
Naomi jolted to her feet, with Ryn stuck to her like a shadow. The teenaged soldier positioned herself so that she met Mark face to face, forcing him to stop short, and the two took one another’s measure. Naomi’s father rushed past those two, dragging her into an embrace that drove the air from her lungs.
It felt good and sturdy and right, but she couldn’t savor it, because he pulled back and wore his fatherly face—not Dad, but Senator Dad.
She smiled weakly. “Heyyy, Daddy.” Clearing her throat, she shifted back and put an unconscious step between them. “So nice of you to swing back from the Hill to… pick me up.”
“Are you hurt?” His voice was tight, which alarmed her.
Fear, she realized. She shook her head decisively. “No. I—”
“You’re sure? No one harmed you? Physically, emotionally, verbally, tangentially, or existentially?”
“No. Dad, I’m fine, it’s just—”
“I’ll ask once. Did you take anything?”
“Of course not.”
He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “That’s exactly what I said to your grandfather the first time I smoked pot.”
“I’m not you.” She tried a smile she couldn’t feel. “I take after mom, remember?”
“Who the hell do you think rolled it for me? Do they do drug tests here?”
No one answered him.
He hated that. “Carol. Check with the nurse. See if I can have my daughter take a drug test. While she’s at it, ask her what kinds of drugs they have. I’d like a few myself. Find the ones that make tonight go away and put them in my briefcase.”
She split off to find a nurse, sorting through which of his requests to take seriously. Carol had worked with her dad a long time.
“Where’s this den of drug dealers and ne’er-do-wells? Please God tell me you bought them at a public university or something I can defund.”
Wincing, she whispered, “Private business. The Nine Lives.”
His face darkened—that old rage of a principled libertarian looking for a loophole. Partway through, he seemed to give up. “Fuck it. Fuck private businesses, fuck drug legalization, fuck sentencing limits and due process and bans on capital punishment. I’m having them shot.” Probably not, but he looked ready to do something, pressing one fist to his forehead, bouncing on the balls of his feet as though to exorcise the frenetic energy that possessed him. “Who took you out tonight?”
Naomi wasn’t ready for this turn. He was hunting for somewhere to vent his fury.
“Well? Speak up.”
She opened her mouth, but no answer came.
“Denise or Elli? Which one dragged you from your room? Put you in danger? Never mind, it was Denise. She’s the one who OD’d, wasn’t she? She going to be all right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good. I want to talk to her. She awake?”
“No. It wasn’t Denise. It was—”
“Elli? Swear to God, I don’t believe Elli’s assertive enough to convince a dog to eat red meat. Don’t lie to me.”
“No! Listen! I left. It was my decision.”
“You’re covering. You were terrified. You told me—”
“Let her speak,” Ryn snapped.
Silenc
e.
All eyes turned to Ryn. Naomi swallowed and inched a step away, fearing that lightning might peal from the heavens and zot the raven-haired girl into ash and vapor. When her father made no immediate answer, Naomi remembered to exhale.
When he did speak, it was pure senator. “Excuse me, you must be confused. You’re new, so I’ll be concise. Walk away.” He narrowed his eyes. “Walk somewhere far away from my daughter and me, because whoever convinced her to risk her life tonight—and now I’m pretty sure it was you—”
“It was.”
“That simplifies things.”
“No, Dad,” Naomi pleaded. “She’s just—”
“It needs to be said.” Though he stared, Ryn tilted her head in a display of curiosity rather than fear. Her father went on: “This friend is stricken from the book of my daughter’s companions. You never show your face at our home again. Don’t even speak to her.”
Ryn stepped forward, earning a warning look from Mark which she ignored. “Tell me once more what I may not do.”
Naomi’s heart caught. No one had ever spoken to her father with such anger.
“I will find your parents and make you wish—”
“I have none.” Ryn tilted her head to the other side.
Her father cupped a hand over his mouth, dragging it to his chin, a gesture he mainly used to conceal his anger in front of the press or opposition party.
“Dad,” Naomi soothed, “she’s not from around here. She—”
“You put my daughter’s life in danger.” The catch in his voice wasn’t rage, Naomi realized. It was nothing less than the distilled helplessness of a father.
“Nothing can harm her when I am close.”
“Do you have any idea who tried to hurt my girl? She was attacked, nearly murdered—nearly tortured—” His voice broke off and left volumes unsaid; cold panic passed from her father’s words in waves through her every capillary. “Last week.” He could barely speak, holding his sleeve to his mouth. “And you took her from me? From my home. Dragged her across the goddamn city…” He turned away and punched the wall.
Mark and Naomi jumped, but Ryn stood unflinching. There was a crack in the plaster. The whole ER stared.
“Shit,” her dad said to the wall, as if he and the wall were the only two in the room and he felt compelled to explain himself.
“She did protect me,” Naomi insisted, knowing how crazy it seemed.
“Six. Damn. Days ago.” Everything in him sagged and at bottom he seemed to be drowning. “There are more out there, God knows where, and all they want to do is hurt my girl. We can’t find them, and they might be anywhere—might be anyone. And you took her.”
Her father’s attention on Ryn, Naomi reached out and touched his forearm. He startled, as though she’d scalded him. “Dad.” She tried to swallow the tightness in her throat. “Listen. Just for a minute, please.”
He nodded. “You have until Carol brings my drugs.” Shutting his eyes, he sucked on his scraped knuckle.
“Ryn didn’t drag me. She came to my room and made me realize those walls and guards and motion sensors weren’t just keeping bad things out. They kept me in. I can’t live that way, Dad.” He tried to interject, but Naomi lifted a hand and raised her voice to cut him off—a trick she’d picked up from him. “I know it’s only been a week, but it wasn’t making me feel safer. Just isolated.”
Again, he opened his mouth to talk.
“—yes, I should have taken Mark.”
His mouth clapped shut.
“It was stupid not to. I could have called you, convinced you—and Mark would have been there when we needed him. But in my defense, I left a note.”
Her father wasn’t trying to get a word in edgewise, so she had a moment to think. Her heart sank as she realized how grave her mistakes really were.
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted. “I’m not sorry for going out, but I’m sorry I didn’t call, and I’m especially sorry about Denise. I could have kept closer tabs on her; I shouldn’t have freaked out when she took that pill. She ran straight into that bastard’s arms.” Her stomach twisted at the memory. “Oh God, Dad, it wasn’t just the drugs. Those guys… they were trying to do things to her.”
“What happened?” His expression was far too schooled.
“I couldn’t stop it. There were three of them and they were so big.” The words came in a torrent of feeling. “No matter what I tried, what I said or screamed, they were going to take what they wanted. They would have.” She was trembling. “They didn’t care, they were getting off on making me realize it—making us helpless.”
She glanced sidelong at Ryn, whose hands squeezed into fists on hearing the story told. “Except she was there. Don’t be mad at Ryn. I know you think she’s full of it, but she’s not. Tonight is my fault.” Every last piece of it—ditching Mark, scolding Denise, letting her friend fall in with those scumbags. “I didn’t mean to mess up this bad,” she sobbed, tears starting to form, trying to force her apologies around the tightness that choked off her voice.
Her father crushed her against his chest in an embrace so firm her ribs compressed, the words no longer necessary. He didn’t speak either. His vise grip and the single ragged sob told her everything. That sound alone broke her open.
She wept, eventually ushered into a waiting room where she cried herself nearly dry. Mark blocked off the space, and somewhere in the shuffle Ryn disappeared without a farewell.
That stung, but Naomi chalked it up to whatever strange, war-torn place the wildling had come from.
Her dad sat beside her, never asking again about drugs, but explaining, “I called Bill Holowaty.” He was the only cop in the world who liked her dad. “Said they’ve got the same detective on those three punks as they put on your case. He’s supposed to be good.”
Naomi sniffed and smiled. “That was lucky.”
“Not really. Guy insisted on taking the case—maybe he thinks it’s related. Point is, Bill seemed confident, so I don’t think they’ll get away with it. It’s likely the drug dealer switched her pills, so there’s a raft of charges they could nail him with if Denise testifies.”
“I don’t think she’ll want to,” Naomi murmured. “How about you? Is this a problem for your job?”
He snorted. “I’m a second-term senator and I’m fucking adorable. Old ladies love me; they think I look like a smarter George Clooney. Look at me, Naomi.”
She did.
“Not one of my constituents cares what you do. You know that, right? That’s not how elections work anymore. You can shave your head and snort a line of coke off a clown’s ass and all I have to do is give the ‘I love my coke-snorting daughter, clowns and all’ speech. Situation defused. They elect me because this state is packed full of Republican gun owners and ex-Soviets who get twitchy about big government. Scandals involving kids won’t even move the needle.”
“I know, Dad.”
“The reason I want you out of the news is for your good, not mine. As I do not place a ‘D’ after my name, the press are not fond of us, and what few rules they have about kids and women won’t apply to you. You shouldn’t have to pay that price—it’s my political career. But that’s why I worry. My politics make you a target for some of the media’s less savory gossips—not to mention the conspiracy nutters.”
“Do you think someone has footage of tonight?” Naomi asked. “The room was crowded.”
“Maybe it ends up on YouTube, maybe it doesn’t. We’ll figure it out if it does.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, dragging her close, squeezing. “You’re a good kid. Not sure what I did to deserve you.”
She leaned into him a while, thoughts allowed to wander. They kept coming back and sticking to Ryn, who danced her ferocious ballet whenever Naomi shut her eyes.
“We do need to talk about last week,” Dad finally said.
Naomi’s gut pinched, but she nodded.
He fetched his
briefcase from Carol and both sat on the other side of a coffee table, where he opened the case and removed a thick ream of paper. Taking the top sheet off, he tapped it twice and glanced at Carol. “You need to tell her what you found.”
Carol pursed her lips briefly. “Are you sure?”
He passed the sheet to Naomi. “These are highlights. It’s from the webpage, where Banich was posting about hurting you. Normally this stuff is bullshit—there’s loads of it out there, nearly all of it pointless screaming and naked id. Ninety percent of the internet is just kids trolling or crazies howling at the moon.”
“So why is it printed out in your briefcase?”
He frowned at the stack of paper, fingering its edges. “Because one of them tried to kidnap you, and he wasn’t alone. For whatever reason, this group—they’re different.”
The sheet rattled in Naomi’s hands, and at first she read without feeling the words, a curious delay between their meaning and impact. But like poison, there was no stopping them once they were inside her—she grew lightheaded, sweating from her palms so that the page stuck to her hands. She sucked in a gasp, only then remembering to breathe.
It was strange that the words that echoed weren’t the sickest, but the most profoundly earnest: I want to see her face and watch how it goes still when she dies. Then her dad’s eyes when he sees it happen—how it changes him forever. They clung to her, because a real person had written them. A real person craved that.
“Enough.” Her father plucked the sheet away before she’d finished more than half the messages.
“They aren’t serious,” Naomi whispered, stomach churning.
“At least one more is.” Carol sat straight and pale, her mouth a thin line. “Someone sent… something to the office today. In the mail.”
“What?” Alarm tingled through Naomi.
“A body part. Police are testing it against who they have on record. Based on the letter, we think he’s someone who helped Banich, and who posts in that group. He cut it off himself. Mailed it as some sort of threat.”
“He mailed a piece of himself?” The room felt crooked, her head spinning. “What— What kind of piece?”
The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow Book 1) Page 16
