by Lia Silver
“I had that too! I wish I’d known that was what it was. I thought I was losing my mind.”
“Yeah. It’s not much fun. But it comes in handy.” For the first time, DJ fell silent when no one else was speaking. He shot a furtive glance at the pack, then at Roy, then back to the pack.
Russell cleared his throat. “We were going to go apartment hunting, remember? And I want to buy some clothes, too. Most of our stuff got torched—”
“You mean, you torched most of our stuff,” said Miguel.
“Who’s coming?” Russell went on.
The pack promptly stepped toward him. Laura glanced at Roy to see if he wanted her to take off too.
Roy put his hand on her arm. “I think you’ve got enough clothes.”
Keisha smothered a giggle. As she went off with the rest of the pack, DJ called after them, “If any of you want a tactical vest, I brought three of them!”
“Dibs!” Nicolette shouted back.
DJ laid the bundle down on the driveway as the pack piled into Keisha’s car and drove away. Roy and DJ stood looking at each other in a silence that Laura could already tell was uncharacteristic for DJ, if not for Roy.
Laura thought of DJ telling Roy that if he was forced to take a medical discharge, it might be for the best. She thought of DJ screaming at Roy to live as he lay bleeding to death, with the helicopter burning behind them. And she thought of the ambush that had put DJ in the hospital for a month and given Roy wounds from which he’d never fully recovered. She wondered if DJ had managed to slip through with all but his body unmarked, or if he had his own scars and was simply better at concealing them.
“DJ…” Roy said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry too,” DJ muttered. “I never should’ve said that to you. In my entire lifetime of opening my big mouth when I should’ve kept it fucking shut, that took the fucking cake.”
You were right, Laura thought, but knew better than to say so.
There was a long silence.
“You were trying to help me,” Roy said at last. “I wish I’d let you.”
DJ rubbed his chin, inspecting him. “Seems like you got help somewhere. I know you went through hell, not having a pack, but you look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”
“No shit,” Roy remarked.
DJ gave a dismissive flip of his hand. “I didn’t mean better than dying, obviously. Better than when you got in the helo. Better than when I got out of the hospital. Actually… better than all of last year.”
“You can credit my nerves-of-steel mate for that.”
“Can I?” DJ’s dark eyes met Laura’s, all joking gone. “Thank you for what you’ve done for Roy. I owe you. If there’s ever anything I can do for you—anything, any time—just say the word. I mean it.”
For the first time, Laura caught a glimpse of the man Roy had told her about, who had carried him dying from the wrecked helicopter and risked everything in the hope that he would live.
“Roy wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” Laura replied. “He told me what you did for him. I owe you too. If there’s ever anything you need from me, you’ve got it.”
DJ grabbed her hand and shook it, smiling again. “Deal.”
Roy shifted uncomfortably. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”
DJ hefted the bundle and followed Laura and Roy inside. He ditched it on the sofa and sat down with them at the table, where he carefully divided the migas platter into thirds, gave a longing glance at the rest of the platter, then tipped exactly one-third on to his plate.
“I’m done,” Laura said, wondering where he planned to put all that food. Maybe superhuman strength required superhuman eating to sustain it. “You can take the other third.”
“Thanks, Lemon Meringue,” replied DJ, helping himself to a second third.
“You can call me Laura.”
“Have you heard from Marco and Alec?” Roy asked.
DJ hurriedly swallowed a mouthful. “They’re fine. And as soon as I heard from my folks that you were all right, I tipped them off privately.”
“Thanks,” Roy said. “And thanks for searching for me. I wish I could have gotten through to you sooner. But where the hell were you before you started looking for me?”
“Oh, boy.” DJ tapped his knife idly on the table. “That is one long story. And a lot of it isn’t mine to tell. There’s someone else I should check with before I give you any of the details, because a lot of it involves her and I don’t think she’d be crazy about me telling anyone, well, anything about her, really, without asking first. Do you mind, Roy? Lemon Meringue, do you?
“Can you not call me that?” Laura asked. “It’s like a code name invented by the world’s girliest four-year-old.”
“You’ll get used to it,” DJ replied cheerfully. “Like I was saying, Lemon—can I call you Lemon for short?”
Roy nudged Laura. “Now you see what I had to put up with.”
“No,” Laura said firmly. “That is, not unless you also call Roy Guinness. Every single time. Without error or hesitation.”
“I can’t do that,” DJ protested. “I’ve always called him Roy. Except when we first met, and I called him Farrell and he called me Torres.”
“If he’s Roy, I’m Laura. But as a favor, seeing as how you’re Roy’s best friend, I’ll call you whatever you like. Would you prefer DJ, or Lechon, or Torres, or Dale?” Laura gave him her sweetest smile. “Or I could make up a special nickname for you.”
“I’ll pass, thanks. And nobody calls me Dale. Except—” The knife stopped tapping, and Laura once again spotted a flash of sadness. Then DJ laughed. “Okay, you got me. Laura. And I prefer DJ. Unless you come over to my parents’ house, and then it’s Lechon. And don’t try to get my folks to not call you Lemon Meringue. I was teasing you, but when they do it, they’re welcoming you as family. They’ll be hurt if you try to stop them.”
“Ash and Basil may call me Lemon Meringue,” Laura said graciously.
“What can you tell me, DJ?” Roy asked.
“I can tell you why I didn’t pack-bond with you. I assume you know enough now that you’ve been wondering.” DJ reached up behind him, fiddling with the window blinds. “I don’t know, maybe I should have. I’ve been second-guessing myself on that ever since.”
“You could’ve done that?” Laura asked.
“Oh, sure.” DJ turned to Roy. “I could feel you instinctively trying to bond with me. But you were so weak, it was easy for me to block it. I felt awful shutting you out, but I thought it would be better for you to have no bond for a while than for you to bond with me and then be separated. That’s traumatizing. The shape you were in, I was afraid it might even kill you.”
“You did the right thing,” Roy said. “From what I’ve heard, I did better with no pack at all than if I’d had one and been cut off from it. But how did we get separated?”
Sunlight flickered over DJ’s face as the blinds opened and shut, opened and shut. “I told you everything you needed to know—that you had to bond with my family, why you couldn’t bond with me, and so forth—over and over, hoping it would sink in. I had a feeling it might not have, but I thought I’d call my family and tell them what happened—we have codes for werewolf-related stuff—and they could visit you in the hospital.
“You were unconscious by the time medevac arrived, and you weren’t breathing that well. As soon the helo took off, you got a lot worse. They shoved me out of the way so they could work on you, and then you came to and started struggling.”
“I remember that,” Roy said. “Sort of. Did I actually change?”
“Yeah, you did. I practically threw myself on top of you, and you changed back. But for a couple seconds, you were a wolf.” DJ jabbed an accusatory finger at Roy. “And by the way, you shouldn’t have been able to do that. Changing takes focus. You can’t do it when you’re asleep or unconscious. But I guess you were conscious enough.
“All I could do was hope that I’d blocke
d most of the view, and they’d figure their eyes had played tricks on them. I kept on yelling to try to cover up and distract them. I hoped they’d think I was having some kind of combat stress reaction. I guess I overdid it, because one of them jammed a needle in my arm.”
DJ got up and paced, twisting his fork between his fingers. “I woke up in a lab. Not the same one you were in. They told me straight off that you had died, I’d been declared killed in action, they knew what I was, and I could either work for them in black ops or stay in the lab and ‘help with their experiments.’ I was there for a while, and then I broke out. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
“Who was running the lab?” Laura asked.
“Secret government-within-the-government agency. I wouldn’t worry about them coming after you, though. They had their chance, and they blew it. Oh, one more thing. I found my mate!” DJ’s face lit up with an astonished, giddy smile.
“Congratulations,” Roy said.
“She’s awesome,” DJ said proudly. “You guys would love her.”
“You should’ve brought her,” Laura said.
DJ let out a long sigh. “Yeah, well, some other time. She had stuff to do. Important stuff. I’m sure if I’d told her about the mission, she’d have been thrilled to come along, but I didn’t want to distract her. Like I said, she had… stuff.”
Roy’s eyebrows went up. “Did she? Or did you open your mouth once too often, and she kicked you to the curb?”
“Yeah, kind of—No!” DJ started talking so fast, he sounded like a sports announcer. “No, no, no! She didn’t kick me out, she really did have important stuff going on, it’s complicated, she’s complicated, we mutually decided it would be better if we split up. Not ‘split up’ like ‘break up!’ ‘Split up’ like ‘don’t physically occupy the same space.’ For a little while! Not forever! She’ll be back, I know she will.”
He stopped like a turned-off radio and sank back down into his chair. “I hope she will.”
Roy punched DJ’s shoulder. “Go after her, man.”
“Don’t chase her,” Laura advised. “Give her space to think about it and miss you.”
“Thanks for the united front. Now my path is clear.” Glumly, DJ started shoveling cold scrambled eggs into his mouth.
“I’ll make you some coffee,” Laura said, to give him some alone time with the eggs and his thoughts.
Roy joined her in the kitchen. Together they watched DJ from over the counter. He had his back to them, and was starting in on the second third of migas.
“So we’ll never fall out of love,” Roy said quietly.
“Do you believe that?” Laura pitched her voice low, so DJ wouldn’t hear over the coffee perking or at least wouldn’t feel obliged to respond.
“I did know when you were in danger. And I did feel a pull to come here.”
“But…”
“I know,” Roy said. “Psychic powers are one thing. Magically always staying in love feels too easy.”
“Even if it is real,” Laura said thoughtfully, watching DJ spinning a knife around and around in the hand he wasn’t eating with, “It doesn’t sound easy for DJ and his mysterious awesome mate.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Roy edged closer and lowered his voice to a murmur. “All the same, let’s not believe in it. Let’s believe that what we have depends on what we do. I don’t want to love you forever because of some mystic werewolf crap. I want to love you forever because you’re worth loving forever.”
“Shut up,” whispered Laura. “You’ll make me cry.”
She poured coffee for herself and Roy, and Roy emptied the rest of the pot into the biggest mug he could find.
They returned to the table, where DJ gratefully snatched up the mug. “Thanks. I couldn’t find a Starbucks for the last thirty miles.”
When he finally set it down, mostly drained, Roy asked, “Are you still MIA?”
“No. I called in and said I’d been in the hospital and I couldn’t understand how there could have been such a mix-up. I got booted up and up the chain of command, until I finally ended up talking to this secret squirrel.”
“Secret squirrel?” Laura asked, sure DJ was pulling her leg. “And he transferred you to the classified cow, huh?”
“It means someone involved in top secret stuff,” said Roy.
“The squirrel fixed my status, no questions asked. I asked about you, and she said you’d have to call in yourself, but once you did, she’d do the same for you. And she obviously knew what was up with you, because…”
DJ hesitated, swirling the coffee at the bottom of the mug. “She said that if you had medical issues, all you’d need to do was tell her what they were. She said she could arrange for you to get disability without having to show up in person to a medical board. I’m pretty sure she had your files from the lab on her desk.”
Roy stared into his untouched coffee cup. Laura could only imagine how much he must hate the idea of being officially declared to be disabled.
To give him space to think about it, she said, “Sounds to me like there was some kind of colossal screw-up, and now the cover-up is in full swing.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. I doubt they were snatching US military personnel on a regular basis. Someone saw an opportunity and grabbed it, and it blew up in their faces.” DJ pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the table to Roy. “Here’s the squirrel.”
“I don’t need disability,” Roy said, ignoring the paper. “Laura and I are going to be private investigators who help werewolves.”
“Seriously? Cool. I’ll spread the word. But how much money is that going to bring in? You don’t want to be turning away poor, desperate werewolves because you can’t afford to work for free.”
“He’s got a point,” Laura couldn’t help saying.
Roy folded his arms across his chest.
DJ slid the paper closer. “Forget the disability. Just call the squirrel and say, ‘I’m Roy Farrell and I’m not missing.’ You can’t be MIA forever.”
“I wouldn’t be the first.”
“Yeah, but those are guys who are actually missing!”
Roy didn’t budge. Laura forced herself to say nothing. Pushing Roy was obviously only making him dig in his heels.
DJ gulped the last of his coffee, put down the mug, and squared his shoulders. “Listen, Roy, there’s something I have to tell you. That hit I took—” DJ turned to Laura. “Did he tell you about that? He probably didn’t tell you about that.”
“He did,” Laura said.
“Oh, right, mates, I forgot.” DJ looked envious. “You tell each other everything. That must be nice.”
“Is there anything you normally don’t tell people?” Laura teased.
She regretted it when his bright eyes went blank and distant. It was only for an instant, but she recognized that look. She’d seen it on Roy, she’d seen it on the pack, and she’d seen it in the mirror. It was the look people got when they were wishing they could take a damp cloth and wipe away their memories.
“Yeah, what I’m trying to tell you guys right now. That ambush sure made me wonder how much good my awesome healing powers would have done if I’d been just a little bit closer to the blast, or if I’d been shot in the head like Suarez. And when the helo went down…” The silverware he’d picked up clattered in his hands, and he quickly laid it aside. “Roy, you kept trying to talk to me, and nothing but blood would come out of your mouth. I thought you didn’t have a chance. I don’t know how the hell you even lived long enough for biting you to do you any good.”
Roy looked up, meeting DJ’s eyes. “I’m one tough wolf.”
DJ laughed shakily. “Clearly. Well, when you turned into that huge fucking wolf, I figured I’d done enough. My time’s up, you know. I didn’t re-enlist. I’m done.”
“You’re out?” Roy asked incredulously.
DJ brushed his palms together: finished. “Alec didn’t re-enlist either. Said he was tired of taking orders. Ma
rco wants to go back to school. He’s out too.”
“Marco’s out?”
“Yeah. He’s had enough. Everyone’s had enough. Don’t think we ditched you, Roy. Even before I heard from my folks, I told the guys I was sure you were alive. But I knew there was no way you were coming back, and I told them that too. That was it. Turns out that a lot of what held us all together was you.”
“You guys were all that was holding me together, by the end,” Roy said quietly.
“Were we? It sure didn’t seem like we were doing that great a job of it.” A quick succession of emotions flickered across DJ’s boyish face, almost too fast for Laura to catch: pain, bitterness, anger, guilt. Acceptance. Relief. “Well, I guess we did okay, because you’re still here. Anyway, it’s all over now.”
“I guess so,” Roy said slowly. “You know, I do realize even if we had all re-upped, the odds of us getting to stay together would have been pretty low.”
“Low?” DJ snorted. “Try non-existent. We had a good run, but you know what they say about all good things. You’ve got a new pack now. Take good care of them.”
“I will.” Roy spoke as if he was swearing a solemn vow. Then he picked up the slip of paper and handed it to Laura. “Dial the number for me, will you?”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Laura got her phone, dialed, passed Roy the phone, and then took his hand and held him in the pack sense.
“This is Roy Farrell. I’m calling to let you know that I’m not missing.” There was a pause. “No. I’m asking for a medical discharge.”
Laura stared at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught DJ staring too.
Roy took a deep breath. Every muscle in his body tensed as he said, “I can’t drive a car. I can’t ride in a car. I can’t fly. I can’t use a computer. I can’t even be in the same room with a TV on. Electric lights give me migraines. It’s hard for me to talk on the phone with you now.” There was a pause. “No. I’m not working now. But I’m hoping I can be a private investigator, because I’ll have a partner to pick up my slack.” Another pause. “No, I haven’t started yet.”
