by Lia Silver
“I guess.” He stood up, a bit cautiously, and stretched. “Thanks for letting me sleep. I feel a lot better.”
He looked better, too: less pale, and he moved more easily. More like the wolf, Laura thought as he padded barefoot into the kitchen.
They ate dinner companionably, but Laura couldn’t regain the sense of ease she’d felt when they’d chatted in the living room. Roy might be feeling better, but he was clearly still tired. Both of them kept losing track of the conversation.
The one bed loomed large in Laura’s mind. The least awkward way to raise the subject of their sleeping arrangements would be to joke about it, but instead she found herself saying abruptly, “You can have the bed, if you like. If Dad was here, I’d be sleeping on the sofa anyway. It folds out.”
Roy met her gaze, his expression serious. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think we should share the bed.”
“Okay, but…”
He touched the gun in his belt. “If someone breaks in, I don’t want to have to run in from the other room. It’s not only the time that would waste. The sound of a gunshot will hurt—maybe enough to throw my aim for the next one. I might only be able to get off one good shot. I’d rather be close for it.”
Roy’s cool analysis was far more unnerving than if he’d sounded afraid.
“How likely do you think it is that the guy who shot you will come back?” Laura asked.
“Well, he knows I’m a werewolf, and he knows he missed my heart. He can probably guess I’m still alive. If he wants to make another try, now would be a good time, before I have time to recover more.”
Laura pushed her plate away, feeling nauseated. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water over her face until the lurching in her stomach subsided, then put on pajamas and crawled into bed.
She closed her eyes, and immediately saw the blood-soaked rug, bright red on white. The rough fibers were wet and cold under her hand, yielding and squishy. The smell of copper. A bitter taste in her mouth, of chemical smoke, of fear and defeat. Her entire body prickling all over, then going numb. Red on white…
She didn’t move when she heard Roy’s footsteps enter the bedroom. His weight settled down on one end of the bed, tilting the mattress toward him. Laura resisted the urge to let gravity slide her toward him.
“Laura?” he said softly.
If she answered him, he might ask her if something was wrong. And then she’d have to lie to him, or half-lie and tell him she was afraid of the werewolf coming back. She said nothing, and hoped he’d think she was asleep. A quarter-lie, she supposed.
“Good night,” he whispered.
Only inches separated them, but it felt like miles. She lay still, listening to him breathe beside her, feeling utterly alone.
Chapter Eight: Roy
Pillow Talk
Roy lay awake, all his senses attuned to Laura. He listened to her breathing, not deep enough for sleep, and the too-fast thump of her heartbeat. Her lemon pie scent was sharper, more tart than tangy. He could feel the heat of her body, so close to his, and wished he could reach out and take her into his arms.
At the very least, he wanted to tell her that he knew she was awake, if he could figure out a way to not make that sound creepy, and say…
Roy ran aground there. Don’t be scared, I’ll protect you? I’m sorry you were traumatized by nearly getting kidnapped and seeing me get shot? What exactly happened to you before you nearly got kidnapped and saw me get shot? Want me to kiss you and make it better?
While he was still trying to decide what to say, or if he should say anything at all, Laura’s breathing deepened, her heartbeat slowed, and her scent grew sweeter. She was asleep for real now, solving Roy’s dilemma and leaving him feeling like he’d failed her.
He gave the Raven under the pillow one last touch, to make sure his hand knew where it was, then turned over and let himself relax. Though he’d slept all day, he was still tired, and easily slid into oblivion.
***
Roy woke up on his feet, pistol in hand, crouched and ready. Laura’s scream still echoed in his ears, but he could see no enemies in the dim room. Nor did he hear any breathing other than his own or hers.
He jerked the bedroom curtain aside, flooding the room with silvery moonlight. It illuminated Laura sitting up in bed, wild-eyed and gasping. He could hear her heart pounding, louder than his own.
“Roy?” Her voice was shrill, frantic. “What’s going on? Is someone here?”
“You screamed.” Even as he said it, he had an idea why.
Laura bit her lip. “I—I had a nightmare.”
Her scent was like lemonade without sugar, nearly bitter. She smelled more frightened than when she’d run out to him after he’d been shot.
He sat back down on the bed and replaced the pistol under the pillow, willing his adrenaline rush to subside. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
He looked her over carefully. She was trembling, her hair damp with sweat. If he touched her, she’d probably throw herself off the bed.
Roy picked up an empty water glass from the side table. Moving slowly, so as not to startle her, he offered it to her. “Hold on to this.”
Obediently, she accepted it in shaking hands. “It’s empty.”
“I know. What’s it feel like?”
Laura gave him a look like he was off his head, but Roy was glad of it: she was already coming back. “Hard. Smooth.”
“What else?”
“Um… cold. Roy, why—”
“Trust me, Laura. I’ll explain in a moment. Just answer now. What else can you feel right now? Describe it.”
Her breathing and heartbeat slowed as she answered him. “The mattress. It’s soft, but not that soft. The sheets are flannel. Fuzzy. My pajamas are fuzzy too. The room is freezing.”
The room was warm, but she was probably chilled from cold sweat. “Name three things you see that are white.”
She looked around, her trembling subsiding. When she replied, her voice sounded calmer. “The walls. The waterfall in the painting. The snow outside.”
“Okay, good. Now name three things you see that are black.”
“The dresser. The clock on the table. Your hair.” She rubbed a hand over her face. When she took it away, she could meet his gaze, no longer staring off into the distance. “What were you doing? What was the glass for?”
Roy took it from her and replaced it on the table. “It put you back in touch with the real world. Literally in touch. It’s more of a primal sense than sight, so it’s better to start with.”
“Where’d you learn that?”
Roy hesitated, not wanting her to think he was weak. Then again, he could hardly let her sit there and feel like she was weak. “Marco taught me. That is, he did it for me. A couple times. Nobody talks about it, but nightmares are kind of an occupational hazard.”
“I can imagine.” Then, with forced lightness, she added, “What would Marco say if he heard you giving away military secrets?”
“He’s given that one away himself. He doesn’t sleep well either.”
“Did I thank you yet?” Laura asked. “I’m sorry, I’m a little shook up. Thank you. I think I needed that.”
“Any time.”
They sat in silence, neither making any move to lie down again. Roy was intensely aware of how close she was to him, and of how troubled she still looked. He wanted to hold her tight and make her feel safe, but she hadn’t invited that, either directly or with body language. Her arms were folded over her chest, closing herself off.
But she’d seemed consoled when he’d confessed that he’d had nightmares too. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, especially with a woman for whom he wanted to seem strong. To be strong. But if it made her feel better…
“After you have a nightmare, the fear clings to you,” Roy said slowly, thinking out ho
w it felt as he spoke. “Like soap scum. For days, sometimes. Weeks, even.”
“Yes!” Laura exclaimed. “That’s it, exactly.”
If Laura already knew that a nightmare could shake you up for weeks on end, then she’d had a reason to have them before she’d ever met him.
While he was still wondering if he should ask about that, she went on, “How do you get rid of the soap scum?”
“A lot of people drink, to tell you the truth,” Roy replied. “Or do drugs. Not in-country, when they get back. Don’t do that, it only makes it worse. Some people drive fast. Seriously, a lot of Marines have motorcycles. Or—”
He cut himself off before he could say, “Sex.”
“Or exercise,” he said, after an awkward pause. “I like to lift weights. Or… No one wants to do this, because it can affect your career, but supposedly therapy helps a lot.”
“But then you’d have to talk about it.” Laura sounded horrified at the very idea.
“Yeah, I know,” Roy said wryly. “Believe me, I get it. But I have to say, after I told you about the helo getting shot down, I did feel better. Like you said to me: if you can stand to tell me, I can stand to listen.”
Laura’s scent went sharp, so much so that he could almost taste its bitter tang. Her heart sped up, too.
His impulse was to say, “Never mind, it’s all right, you don’t have to.” But he remembered DJ slapping him across the face, hard enough to drive his teeth into his inner cheeks. Pain wasn’t always harmful. If DJ had let him take the easy way out, Roy would have died there on the sand.
“What did you dream about?” he asked.
Laura didn’t reply, but her entire body started to shake. Her scent changed to pure lemon juice, acrid as fear.
Roy sat there silently and let her think about it, feeling like the worst person in the world. He’d probably have hurt her less if he actually had slapped her. But when he realized that she wasn’t going to say anything without another push, he decided to try one more. After all, DJ had hit him twice.
“What happened to you before you came here?” he asked. “You said you were already having nightmares. What were they about?”
Laura turned her huge brown eyes on him, bright and brimming with unshed tears. “If I tell you, you’re going to hate me.”
“I doubt it. Come on, Laura, I’ve been to war. There is nothing you can tell me that could shock me.”
A tear overflowed. “You saved me, and I—I lied to you.”
That did surprise him. “About what?”
“If I tell you, then you’ll know, and then you’ll hate me!” She scrubbed at her face, but the tears kept coming. “Ugh, I sound like a little girl. You must think I’m pathetic.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, but he knew it was a mistake the moment he did it; she flinched away, and he yanked it back. “Sorry. I could never think you’re pathetic. You ran out to save me, unarmed, remember? If I’d done that in Afghanistan, they’d have given me a medal.”
“I bet you have done that,” she muttered.
“Well—not unarmed. But yeah, I have. So I know exactly how scary it is.” Roy tried to recall how his own citation had been phrased. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action…
He raised his hand, slowly this time so he wouldn’t startle her, and pretended to hold a small object. “I take pleasure in presenting this medal for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action to Laura Kaplan. Her heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty reflected great credit upon herself and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the Mari—I mean, of exceptionally brave civilians. Here, I’ll pin it on.”
Laura let out an incredulous giggle as he pinched up a fold of her pajamas and pretended to pin a medal over her chest.
“There you go,” he said. “Don’t lose it. God only knows where mine are now.”
She sniffled, but her tears had stopped. “Okay. Here’s the truth. Dad isn’t an actor. He’s a con man.”
Roy wasn’t shocked, but he was surprised: a little bit at George’s secret, but more because he couldn’t imagine why Laura would think it would make him hate her. “I’d never hold stuff anyone’s parents did against them. What sort of jerk do you think I am?”
“And also I used to help him out,” Laura confessed, lowering her gaze. “When I was a teenager.”
“I did a lot of stupid things when I was a teenager, too,” Roy said. “And I was probably more to blame, considering that you had a bad role model and I had a good one.”
“What did you do?”
“I drank a lot, I got in fights, I borrowed Mom’s car without asking and totaled it, I ran around with this half-assed street gang.” He had to laugh at Laura’s astonished expression. “Come on, did you think I was a boy scout? A big part of why my mom supported me joining the Marines was that she hoped it would straighten me out.”
“Well, it obviously worked.” A dark flush stained Laura’s cheeks. “Now you’re Captain America. Aren’t you going to judge me?”
“Nah. I grew up in a rough neighborhood. Lots of my friends did worse.”
Laura sat there biting her lip, looking exactly as miserable as she had when she started. She’d worried that he’d judge her, he hadn’t judged her, and yet…
“What are you not telling me?” Roy inquired.
“You’re going to hate me,” she said again. “I—I kind of want to extend the moment while you don’t hate me yet, even though now that you know it’s coming, you already probably… pre-hate me.”
“Laura, this is nuts. Just tell me. It can’t possibly be as bad you think.”
“Okay, fine!” Her voice rose, but Roy thought her anger was directed more at herself than at him. “I’m a con artist. It’s true that I helped Dad when I was a teenager, but then I went on to my own life of crime.”
Laura spat out the last phrase with bitter sarcasm, then sat back and watched Roy, obviously expecting him to be shocked and horrified.
He’d have been shocked, maybe, if she’d dropped it on him with no build-up and no context. But in his neighborhood, the boys whose parents were cops and firefighters often grew up to do something along those lines, and the boys whose parents were car thieves and drug dealers tended to follow in those tracks as well. Roy didn’t have much in common with his boyhood friends any more, but he’d hardly refuse to have a beer with the old gang just because some of them had graduated to real gangs.
“Exactly what sort of crimes are we talking about?” Roy asked. “Cheating widows and orphans out of their life savings?”
“No, of course not!” Laura’s horror was clearly sincere. “I’ve never in my life taken money off anyone who couldn’t afford to lose it, and neither has Dad. The cons I run only work if the person being conned thinks they’re ripping me off. I don’t cheat widows and orphans, I cheat wealthy assholes who legally cheat widows and orphans.”
“‘Some men rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen,’” quoted Roy.
He was trying not to smile, since it was such a big deal to her, but all he felt was relief that her not-so-dark secret wasn’t anything terrible after all.
“What’s that?” Laura said.
“It’s from an old folk song my mom used to sing, ‘Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw.’ He robbed rich bankers who were foreclosing on poor people, and gave the money back to the starving farmers. Do you donate any of your life of crime money to the widows and orphans?”
“You’re laughing at me,” Laura accused him, but she didn’t sound angry.
“Well, do you?”
Sounding a little embarrassed, Laura said, “Not widows and orphans specifically. I funnel some of it into homeless shelters and battered women’s shelters and no-kill animal rescue places.”
“That’s sweet.”
“You are laughing.”
“No, I swear!” Roy protested. “Well—okay, I am a little. You built it up so much, I thought you were going to say you had the c
orpses of fifty male hitchhikers rotting under the floorboards.”
Laura made a face. “Ew. Anyway, I’ve gone straight. I got lonely, I guess. I wanted to tell people my real name, and what I really do for a living. I’ve spent the last year as a perfectly respectable bank teller. Dad thinks I’ve lost my mind.”
Roy spread his hands. “Well, then. It’s all behind you now.”
“But I lied to you.”
“You had your reasons. I don’t hold it against DJ that he never told me he was a werewolf.”
“You’re so… so… reasonable!” Laura burst out, sounding almost irritated. “Why aren’t you outraged?”
“Because it’s not that outrageous?” Roy suggested. “I told you, I’m hard to shock. Are people usually more judgmental?”
Laura shot him an incredulous glance. “There is no usually. I’ve never told anyone.”
That surprised Roy more than anything she’d said so far. He had his own stories and secrets that he’d only ever shared with one or two people: DJ, a girlfriend, the chaplain, his mother. But he couldn’t imagine keeping virtually his entire life a secret from everyone.
“Literally, no one?” Roy was sure there had to be some exception. “Not even a serious boyfriend? What about your best friend?”
Laura’s gaze fell away. “No boyfriend’s ever been that serious, and I don’t have best friends. Dad knows, of course. But he already knew. You’re the only person I’ve ever told this to.”
Roy was stunned. “I’m honored. What made you pick me?”
“I’m tired of lying,” Laura sounded weary to the bone, like she’d been in combat for months on end. “I wanted to try trusting someone, for once. You seem trustworthy. Honest and upright and all that. Though that probably means you’ll decide I’m a terrible person after all.”
“No, I won’t,” Roy said firmly. “You have got to get that Captain America crap out of your head. Don’t put me on a pedestal. I’m a human being with flaws, just like you. I’ve done things I regret, and I’ve done things I’m ashamed of, and I’ve seen other people do things you can’t even imagine. So you’ve committed some not-that-terrible crimes. At least you never killed anyone.”
