Wrong Side of Dead dc-4

by Kelly Meding

  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 bandage 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—”

  “What?”

  “The temperature in the room drops twenty degrees.”

  “Weather control isn’t one of my gifts, Phin.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  If anyone else had asked me that, I’d have told them to fuck off. “I’ll always love him,” I said as I leaned my unbruised hip against a supply cabinet and crossed my arms over my stomach. “But the way you love someone can change, especially if you hurt them badly enough. And what if—?” I froze, the thought stuck in my throat. Something I’d never voiced out loud, much less to another person.

  “What if?” Phin asked. He took a step toward me, hands tucked loosely in his jeans pockets. Intent.

  “Nothing.” I reached for the small pile of bandage wrappers and shoved them into the nearest waste can. As I turned to leave the cubicle, Phin blocked my way without (wisely) grabbing me.

  “What if what?”

  I heaved a defeated sigh. He wasn’t letting it go. “What if, despite all the pain and heartache we’ve endured, Wyatt and I really aren’t meant to be together? What if that’s why we can’t seem to make this work?”

  Phin tilted his head to the side, considering me, my words, probably both. “What if you’re wrong?” he finally said.

  “But what if I’m right, Phin?”

  He went silent again, his mouth pressing into a thin line. I could almost see the wheels turning, the gears clicking away as he made connections. Weighed his words. “Evangeline, may I present the Therian’s perspective on this?”

  “Go for it.” The human perspective wasn’t doing me much good.

  “Shit or get off the pot.”

  My jaw unhinged. I think my brain fuzzed out for a moment, because I couldn’t have possibly heard him say what I thought. I finally squawked out a garbled, “Huh?”

  “Granted, that’s a human expression, but it sums up my perspective very simply. Therian lives are relatively short compared to humans. You have the luxury of waffling on matters of the heart and on choosing a mate. We don’t. We must follow our instincts, make our choices, and then live with them.” He paused, eyes searching mine. “Therefore, if you are not willing to follow your gut, to choose Wyatt, and to live with the consequences of that choice, then get off the metaphorical pot and move on.”

  A small amount of time must have passed with me simply staring at him. At some point, I realized my mouth was really dry and I clamped it shut. Swallowed. I wasn’t used to being called to the mat, especially over my love life. But everything he’d said was true, and it also set my own wheels turning. Curiosity overcame shock.

  Phin and I had been friends for several months, and yet I knew very little about him. His Clan’s slaughter was still a sore subject, and I could never breach it without feeling guilty—not just for the painful reminder, but for my own role in so many deaths. Deaths of the people he loved.

  “May I ask you a personal que
stion?” I said.

  His face went blank, and his hands pressed deeper into his pockets—as if he could make himself smaller and that would somehow lessen the impact of whatever I was about to ask. “Yes.”

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  Blue fire danced in his eyes. His nostrils flared and, just for an instant, I swore he looked ready to attack. Then his expression softened, grief tempering the fury. “Yes, I have. I was very much in love with my wife, Jolene.”

  Jolene. Wife. My insides ached for him. Tears tightened my throat, wanting to spill for a woman I hadn’t known. I swallowed hard, grasping for my voice. “She loved you?”

  “Yes.” He smiled, but though his expression was gentle, a hint of ferocity still lingered. “I’m ten years old, Evy. I have lived half my lifetime and loved well for three of those years. You’re twice as old as I, and all you’ve experienced is heartache and betrayal. It grieves me to know this.”

  “I’ve experienced love.”

  “The love of your teammates, yes. The love of a man who moved Heaven and Earth to bring you back to life, certainly. But have you ever loved with your whole heart? Offered it to someone with no expectations in return, because you loved him so deeply you could do nothing less?”

  Tears blurred my vision, and I blinked them away. The answer to Phin’s question was so easy, and I hated him for asking. Hated myself just as much for the answer. “No. No, I haven’t.”

  I’d wanted to with Wyatt. Wanted him to be the one I gave my heart to, and I knew he’d have accepted me with compassion, desire, and love. Before Thackery broke me. Before I told Wyatt the whole truth about how Felix got away the night he was infected.

  It didn’t matter anymore. I’d lived my entire life tormented by the stupid, storybook notion of true love, and I’d be damned if I’d mourn something I didn’t need. “People like me don’t get that one true love, Phin,” I said with more conviction in my voice than in my heart. “We get a few flings along the way to an early grave.”