I scooted a few feet away from the vomit puddle and settled down on the curb to wait for the cab. My insides still churned. Just...goddammit. For a minute there, I’d really thought that Dashiell was going to kill me. And he probably knew about Jack, and maybe Eli, and who knows what else.
Besides, it wasn’t just the confrontation with Dashiell. I had always been comfortable in LA, because from a supernatural standpoint, it was so small—I didn’t have to work too hard or think too much. Now, in the space of two days, I’d been unable to make it to a job, I’d seen the city’s worst crime scene in generations, and my life had been given a short countdown by a very scary guy.
This was not working with my lifestyle at all.
My cell phone rang while I was still calming down. I held it up to see the caller ID—Jack again. I frowned. What the hell? For a brief, dreadful moment I pictured him lying in a hospital bed, dying or in need of a kidney. Jack and I don’t talk, but he’s the only real family I have left, and the image of something happening to him...I couldn’t deal with it just then. I hit Ignore. If Jack needed something, he could leave a message. And if I lived through the next thirty hours, I could call him back.
When the cab pulled up, I scrubbed at my mouth with my shirtsleeve one more time and stood up to meet it. The driver was a little Armenian man with surprisingly perfect English. I gave him the address of Artie’s studio and leaned back, hoping he wouldn’t be too chatty. I hate chatty cabdrivers. He was fairly quiet, though, and I began to organize my plan of attack. First, rescue Eli. Then back to the house to drop him off and call Cruz. I had the vampires’ identities now. We could figure out who their human servants were and interview them or whatever. Maybe that could get us somewhere with the investigation. I frowned to myself. Something else was tugging at me, something about the smaller of Dashiell’s henchmen. Albert. I’d seen him somewhere before, but where? And did it have any relevancy to the murders? Maybe it was the adrenaline or the stress, but I couldn’t place him.
When we were a mile from the studio, I pulled my wallet out of my front pocket. Eyeing the meter through the cab’s bulletproof glass, I counted up the cash I had left. I would have just enough to make the fare, although my tip would not be stellar. When the driver stopped in front of Artie’s gate, I threw the cash through the slot and ran full-out around the building.
Eli was right where I’d left him, collapsed on the pavement behind my van, only now he wasn’t moving. I had a flare of panic. How fast does silver poisoning work? Skin contact isn’t as bad as contact with his blood, so it couldn’t possibly have killed him this quickly, could it? I pounded across the blacktop, calling Eli’s name. I felt it when he hit my radius, and he felt...wrong. Twisted and sick.
I dropped down by his side, looking him over. All the blood had drained from his tanned face, and there were raw, oozing wounds where the silver touched his skin. He had ripped away strips of his shirt, probably trying to get it between his skin and the silver, but had lost consciousness before it could help him. I pulled helplessly at the handcuffs, hearing an anguished sound coming out of my throat. By taking away the werewolf magic, I could make the damage stop, but I couldn’t heal anything.
“Eli?” I gently shook his shoulder, but got no response. I scooted a little closer, touching his cheek, and his eyelids fluttered. His hands, still cuffed, moved up to encase mine, and I almost cried with relief.
“Hey,” he said wonderingly. “You came back.” Slowly, leaning on the van for support, he sat up.
“Of course I came back. Why wouldn’t I come back?” I cried, a little too loudly. I cleared my throat.
“I was afraid they’d killed you.” He laughed suddenly, with an edge of hysteria, and for a second, I thought the silver had gotten into his brain. “Sorry,” he said, seeing my face, “it just...It hurt so much, and then it was gone so fast, like turning off a switch. Thank you.”
With no warning, he took my face in his hands and pulled me toward him. Without thinking, I let him kiss me, and then suddenly, I wasn’t just letting him, I was participating. And then more than participating. His lips were so warm—it’s true that werewolves run hotter than most people—and his long fingers tangled in my hair where it had fallen out of the elastic band. For just a moment, I let go, and the day’s frustration and terror dimmed to a background hum. There was only the kiss. We broke just long enough for him to put his handcuffed arms over my head and around me, and then he pulled me into his lap, settling me against his solid chest. My fingers went into his hair, and the kiss went on as we tumbled backward onto the pavement. If it hurt his back, he didn’t seem to notice.
This is how it always is between Eli and me—natural and explosive at the same time. When I finally pulled away, we were both breathing hard, and I struggled to put words together in some sort of coherent string. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which is more or less how I roll anyway.
“Hey,” I panted, “do I smell?”
He gave me a surprised, bewildered grin. “You’re a space in the smell. Everything smells but you.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said. I ducked under his arms and untangled myself, feeling suddenly awkward. I stood up. “Um, I think I might have something for those handcuffs.” I didn’t look at him as I opened the back door of the van, climbing in and rummaging around until I found my enormous bolt cutters. When I emerged, he was leaning against the bumper, grinning at me. He still looked pale and worn-out, but miles better than a few minutes ago.
“Why, Scarlett, you’re red,” he teased.
“Just shut up,” I said roughly. “Hold out your arms.”