Pieces of Autumn

by Mara Black

  But he couldn't hear anything.

  I lay there, shaking and crying, staring at the empty train. No passengers to stare at me, faces pressed against the window, wondering what the hell happened. Birdy must have arranged that too.

  When Tate came back, his face was grim. I knew Birdy had gotten away. I knew, without having to shout the question over the ringing in my ears. He knelt down beside me, swiftly, pulling off his tie and wrapping it tightly around my leg, just above the break. I allowed myself another brief glance before my head started to swim again.

  So much blood.

  He slipped his arms under me, mouthing something I thought I understood: This will hurt.

  Then, he lifted me up.

  He was right. The pain in my leg was jagged and sharp, increasing with every step he took. As he carried me up the stairs, I screamed and cried until my throat was raw. By the time we reached the huge black car idling on the sidewalk, I could almost hear myself again.

  Tate placed me in the back seat as gently as he could, laying my injured leg out on the seat. In the driver's seat, Joshua twisted around, hands still on the steering wheel. I couldn't spare the energy to wonder why the fuck he was there.

  "Jesus," he said, tightly, glancing at me.

  Tate handed me a bottle of water and two small pills. I swallowed them without hesitation.

  Then, I said the only thing that came into my mind. My voice sounded faint and far away.

  "Am I going to die?"

  Tate looked at me. "Not today," he said.

  And I believed him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Broken Things

  The pain in my leg had faded to a heavy throb at the edge of my consciousness. When Tate pulled me out of the car, I realized I was smiling at him.

  "What did you give me?" I wondered aloud.

  He almost looked amused. "Codeine," he said. "Have you never taken painkillers before?"

  I blinked a few times, noticing the warm feeling in the center of my chest. "No," I said. "Saw what they did to people. Didn't want any part of it."

  Joshua was opening a door on the side of Tate's house, leading us into a room that I'd never been to. There was another vicious stab of pain when he set me down on a cot in the middle, and then it ebbed.

  It was like a very small, makeshift doctor's office. Instead of sterile gauze, there were plastic bags full of bandages. Rotgut instead of rubbing alcohol - I recognized the label from one of the many illegal distilleries that ran in the outskirts of the city. There was an antique stethoscope hanging on the wall, and absolutely nothing in the way of modern conveniences. Unless you counted the small, stainless-steel sink and the unmarked dispenser sitting next to it.

  Working silently, Tate first rolled his sleeves up, washing his hands and forearms in steaming water.

  "What is that?" I asked him, when he pumped some of the contents of the dispenser into his palm. Apparently, painkillers made me curious.

  "Antibacterial soap," he said.

  I frowned. "Where the hell did you get that?"

  "I made it." He reached into one of the bags, and dried his hands on a scrap of fabric before dropping it into a huge metal pot on the floor. I frowned. It looked like something my parents would have cooked lobsters in, a long time ago. "The secret is essential oils. I know someone who distills them. I always get as much as I need. Clove, cinnamon, eucalyptus and rosemary. That combination will kill almost anything that can make you sick."

  He glanced at me.

  "I was going to be a doctor," he said, by way of explanation. But that wasn't what surprised me. It was the lightness of his tone, the way he almost seemed like he enjoyed talking about this. Maybe that was why. This was going to be his life, back before everything went wrong.

  "They call it Thieves' Oil," he said, selecting an old glass syringe from another one of the bags, and drawing from a small bottle of something I couldn't quite read. "The story goes that fourteenth century criminals developed the blend, because they were tired of catching the Black Death from robbing corpses." He depressed the plunger slightly and flicked the side of the syringe. "Somehow, probably through blind luck, they discovered that a blend of certain herbs seemed to protect them."

  Dabbing some of the alcohol onto another rag, he carefully wiped a spot clean on my leg, then plunged the needle in. I winced, even though I hardly felt it.

  A wonderful, tingling numbness began to spread. I was smiling again - I couldn't help it.

  "This isn't as bad as it looks," said Tate. "Believe it or not."

  "Okay," I said, trying not to sound skeptical. "So...how did it end up being Thieves' Oil and not Plague Doctor's Oil?"

  "One can only assume, because plague doctors were idiots." He poured some more alcohol onto a rag and began cleaning my whole leg around the break, carefully avoiding the torn flesh. "Although, they did put cloves in their masks. Maybe they were on the right track."

  My head was swimming, from the pills, from the blood loss, from the knowledge that Tate had saved my life and I still didn't understand why. I watched him loosen the tie that was still tight below my knee, and his face relaxed slightly when he saw the blood had slowed to a trickle.

  Judiciously, he poured a quantity of the alcohol directly onto my wound, I winced at the sight, but I couldn't actually feel it.

  "I have to set the bone," he said. "This will hurt."

  I swallowed. "Okay," I said.

  He'd been understating things slightly. The agony was almost as bad as when it broke, worse, maybe - I hardly recognized the hoarse yell that came out of my throat. I kept my eyes closed for a while. The cracking sound had left me with a distinct feeling of nausea.

  When I dared to look again, he was stitching my skin together with a needle and thread. It was a peculiar sight, but somehow it didn't bother me as much. At least I looked a little bit less mangled, now. After he bandaged the area with some gauze and tape from packages that appeared to be covered in Korean script, he went to rummage through one of the larger cabinets in the room.

  He came back with some kind of leather splint. I would have guessed Civil War era, if it was any more decrepit-looking.

  "This is the best I can do for now," he said, glancing up at me as he wrapped it tightly around my leg. "It'll keep things stable until the wound is healed. Then I can make a proper cast."

  Something was wrong. I was a little foggy, a little euphoric, but while he fastened the straps I kept thinking that this didn't make sense. What was I forgetting? What was I missing?

  I watched him frown as he fiddled with a buckle, and I remembered.

  He and I go way back.

  In fact, he sold you out.

  "Birdy said -"

  Tate looked up at me, sharply.

  "You need to rest," he said, his voice carrying the full weight of his authority. "Talking about it is only going to upset you."

  He didn't. He couldn't have. Why would he have gone to all the trouble of saving me, unless he was even more of a sadist than Birdy was? Just trying to break down the last of my resistance? Prove to me that I was lost without him?

  No, you did a pretty damn good job proving that on your own. You walked right into a trap. Tate had nothing to do with it.

  "Birdy said that you and he go way back."

  Tate shot me a look. "I meant what I said, Autumn. We can talk about this another time. It's very dangerous for your blood pressure to be elevated with an injury like this."

  His tone was so businesslike, so brisk. I imagined that he would have sounded exactly like that, with his patients, had he ever gone into practice.

  I was staring at him, balefully.

  He sighed with resignation.

  "We've met," he said, finally. "We do business, still, indirectly. It's hard not to. He's got his fingers in almost every desirable commodity. But we haven't spoken in many years. Does that satisfy your curiosity, pet? Will you go to bed now?"

  Could I believe him? Did I dare?

&nb
sp; I had no choice. I was hobbled, stuck under his care for months and months while I healed.

  "I don't feel like sleeping," I said, stubbornly. And maybe it was the fact that I was literally trapped, but Tate didn't seem too bothered by my attitude.

  "At least lie down." He helped me to my feet, supporting most of my weight as we went into the main part of the house. I felt dizzy. I couldn't gather the presence of mind to worry as much as I should have been worried - but it didn't matter.

  "Shower first," I insisted.

  "Are you insane?" He eyed me, sidelong. "You can't take a shower like this."

  After everything I'd been through, I suddenly felt hideously grimy. "So I'll sponge off," I said. "Just take me upstairs. Please."

  "No," he said, firmly. "I'll wash you."

  Well, fuck.

  My skin tingled all over, just at the thought of it. I hoped I'd be able to stay awake to enjoy it.

  He carried me upstairs so carefully, I felt like I was floating. While he ran the bath, I watched him, remembering the last time he'd done this for me. I suspected it wouldn't end in quite the same way.

  I faded in and out as he ran the water, bringing it to the right temperature, before carefully lowering me in. My bad leg draped outside of the tub, the bandage safe from the splashes. He hummed quietly as he ran the washcloth over my skin. It was another melody that I vaguely remembered from my childhood, singing as we marched to our cabins at scout camp. One Tin Soldier.

  "Where did you learn that song?" I asked him, softly.

  He stopped abruptly, his fingers buried in my hair. "My mother," he said, his voice very quiet. "It was one of her favorite lullabies."

  I had to smile. "It's a little bit dark for a lullaby, isn't it? War, and death..."

  "Yes, and Rock-a-Bye Baby is so terribly appropriate." I could hear him smiling back. "At least this is supposed to be about peace on earth."

  "It's about how we can't have peace on earth," I countered, staring at the backs of my eyelids. I wanted to open them, to see his face, but they felt so heavy. "And obviously, they were right."

  "Well, I always liked it." He scooped up some water and let it trickle down over my head. "I pictured one of my toy soldiers riding away into the sunset."

  It was puzzling, trying to picture Tate as a boy. Was he one of those preternaturally serious children, with a permanent frown, who organized all of his toy soldiers by name, rank and serial number? Or was he once just as carefree and innocent as I used to be?

  "Still awake?" his voice came through the fog, warm and delicious, like a mouthful of chocolate melting on the tongue.

  Oh, I was gone.

  "Just trying to picture you playing with toy soldiers," I giggled softly.

  "Yes, believe it or not, I was once a real live boy." He was smirking now. "Does that shock you?"

  "Of course not." I was clutching the edges of the tub, keeping me grounded in reality. "I assumed that you weren't born out of an unholy union between orcs and Goblin-men."

  "Is that from one of your books?" He still sounded amused.

  "Yes, Tate." I leaned my head back and sighed. "It's from a book."

  "It doesn't sound very flattering." His finger was trailing idly along my collarbone, very close to Stoker's brand. I breathed in deeply, feeling my chest expand, knowing he'd react to the way my breasts rose out of the water.

  "I said you weren't," I reminded him. "Don't get testy."

  "Oh, that's much better," he murmured.

  Things were quiet for a long time. I almost slipped into unconsciousness, but there was something else bothering me. Nagging at the back of my mind. Tate's fingers seemed like they were trying to memorize the shape of my shoulders, the hollow of my throat.

  "Joshua," I said finally. I felt Tate's hand still, withdrawing from me. "Why was he..."

  "He helped me find you." Tate's voice was terse.

  "Funny," I said. "You always struck me as the lone wolf type."

  He snorted. "Yes, well. Time was of the essence."

  "It sure was." I laid my head back, and a moment later, the blackness swallowed me up.

  "You're awake," came a voice, as my eyes fluttered open.

  I glanced over at Tate, slouched on the sofa next to me. I didn't feel bleary; I must not have slept long, even after everything I'd been through. I looked down at my body. I was dressed in something new, a deep red dress that hugged my body like a glove. But it felt - strange. There was something bunched-up and extra around my waist. I frowned, touching my stomach, before I realized. He'd dressed me properly, for once. I was wearing panties.

  I looked at Tate again. There was something odd about him. I squinted, trying to figure it out.

  His eyes were soft and unfocused, a smile playing on his lips.

  He's drunk.

  No - something else.

  Then I saw the empty pill bottle on the floor, and put the pieces together.

  A stab of panic went through my chest. "How many did you take?" I demanded, trying to reach forward and pull his eyelid up to get a better look at his pupils. I don't know what possessed me, other than sheer worry.

  He smacked my hand away, languidly. "Enough," he said. "I'm almost a doctor, remember? Stop fucking worrying about it."

  I just stared at him, disapproval written across my face.

  "Fucking Christ," he groaned, leaning his head back. "I've taken a fucking hundred in a fucking day before. Calm your tits, woman."

  I couldn't help the burst of laughter that came out of me. But the seriousness of the situation still gnawed at me. "You're either a fucking liar, or..."

  "A fucking addict," he finished for me. "Yes, Sherlock, you've cracked the case."

  I shouldn't have been surprised. After alcohol became scarce, pain pill addition was the new vice de rigueur. For a while, in my teens, it was rare to run into anybody who didn't have rattling pockets. Easier to stockpile, easier to transport, and the pharmaceutical companies managed to keep their factories pumping long after most of the legal distilleries had shut down.

  But Tate didn't seem like the pill popping type. He must have been unlucky - hooked because he really needed them, like people used to be, back in the time I barely remembered.

  "That's what Birdy offered me, by the way," he said. "Fucking truckloads. Oxycontin. Codeine. Vicodin. He's got everything. Don't have to deal with the middlemen." Tate's eyes went dreamy for a moment.

  "For what?" I breathed, trying to scoot closer. I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear him admit it.

  "For you," said Tate, his eyes and his smile widening. "Of course. What else?"

  My pulse was thrumming. "You lied."

  "I lied." He shrugged. "Didn't think it was absolutely crucial for you to know."

  I swallowed thickly. "What did you tell him?"

  Tate's eyes narrowed. "'Girl? What girl?'"

  "Did he believe you?"

  "Course not. He's a rat bastard, but he's a clever one." Tate cleared his throat, lazily. "He knew you were here, and I knew that. It was just a matter of saying fuck you. Fuck off. You can't have her." His eyes glinted at me. "She's mine."

  For once, I didn't argue with him.

  "What if he comes after you?" I breathed. "Are you ready?"

  "I'm always ready," Tate snapped, then he abruptly shuddered and relaxed, moaning softly, his eyes falling closed. "Hmmm. Something tells me he won't want to see me again."

  I knew it was just from the drugs, but the little sounds of pleasure he made - fuck, they went straight to my core. I didn't want him to be high on opiates, I wanted him to be high on me.

  What the fuck is wrong with you?

  He opened one eye, fixed on me. "By the way, I was right to be angry with you, wasn't I? Not telling me you were hunted."

  I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Sir."

  "I wouldn't have told me, either. If I was you." His brow furrowed. "You know what I mean." He took a deep breath, like he was gearing up for something. "I was
right to be angry. But I shouldn't have hit you. Obviously."

  Of all the things to apologize for.

  "It's, uh..."

  "You don't have to tell me it's okay," he said. "I know it's not."

  Thoughts wandering again, his eyes drifted across my body, settling appreciatively between my legs. My skin suddenly felt very hot.

  "It's a shame your leg's broken," he said. "I can last for hours when I'm like this."

  Was he...flirting with me?

  I only felt bold enough to speak because he seemed so languid, like he couldn't actually make good on his lust. "You really give a shit about my leg?"

  "You think I'd ruin all my hard work?" He eyed the bandage, with slightly less hunger in his eyes. "That bone should have screws in it. Should've done a proper surgery. Should've, would've, could've...point being, no, treasure, no - when I fuck you, it won't be gentle. I won't hold back. You need to be whole."

  My whole body was flushed hot, and I felt like I couldn't get enough oxygen.

  Treasure.

  I hated and loved the sound of it on his tongue, the way he looked at me when he said it.

  "Good to know," I muttered, shifting in my seat. I hoped he wouldn't remember most of this, although a warning bell in the back of my mind told me that he wasn't that out of it. An addict, no matter how long he was clean, should be able to take a handful of pills and remain relatively lucid.

  "Sorry," he said, grinning slightly, his eyes only partway open. "I shouldn't tease you. It's not fair, is it, when I have no intention..."

  Clearing my throat, I looked at him with the clearest, most level-headed expression I could manage. "I hope you're not mistaking any of my discomfort for arousal, Sir."

  "Oh, no," he practically purred, laying his hand on my thigh. It was big and hot and firm, squeezing lightly. "No, not at all. Your discomfort is very fucking obviously discomfort."

  I froze as his hand travelled further, resting, ever-so-gently in my lap. Heat radiated from my core, and though I wanted to squeeze my thighs together and deny him access, I couldn't move quickly enough with the lower half of my other leg immobile. His fingers curled down, cupping me through my panties.