“I’ll bring the flatbed over,” Tohr said as he started for the other vehicle. “Let’s leave the bodies right where they are—you can dispose of them on the way home.”
Meanwhile, Blay could feel John pausing and looking across at the pair of them—something Qhuinn didn’t seem to care about, naturally.
With a curse, Blay solved the problem by jogging over to the tow truck and walking alongside as Tohr backed the thing up toward the Hummer’s collapsed hood. Going for the winch, Blay unclipped the claw and started to free the cable.
He had a feeling he knew what was on Qhuinn’s mind, and if he was right, the guy had better stay quiet and stay the fuck back.
He did not want to hear it.
FIVE
As Qhuinn stood in the stiff wind and watched Blay hook up the Hummer, loose snow blew up over his boots, the quiet, soft weight gradually obscuring the steel-toed tops. Glancing down, he had the vague thought that if he stayed where he was long enough, he would be completely covered by it, from head to toe.
Weird goddamn thing to come into his brain.
The roaring of the flatbed’s engine brought his head back up, his eyes shifting over as the winch began to drag his ruined ride off the snowpack.
Blay was the one working the pull, the male standing to the side, carefully monitoring and controlling the speed of the draw so that no undue stress was put on the various mechanical components of this automotive Good Samaritan production.
So careful. So controlled.
In order to seem casual, Qhuinn went over by Tohr and pretended that he, like the Brother, was just monitoring the progress of the lift. Not. It was all about Blay, of course.
It had always been about Blay.
Trying to add to all the nonchalance, he crossed his arms over his chest—but had to drop them down again as his bruised shoulder hollered. “Lesson learned,” he said to make conversation.
Tohr murmured something back, but damned if he heard it. And damned if he could see anything but Blay. Not for a blink. For a breath. For a beat of the heart.
Staring across the swirling snow, he marveled at how someone you knew everything about, who lived down the hall, who ate with you and worked with you and slept at the same time you did…could become a stranger.
Then again, and as usual, that was about the emotional distance, not the same job, under-the-same-roof shit.
The thing was, Qhuinn felt like he wanted to explain things. Unfortunately, and unlike his slut cousin, Saxton the Cocksucker, he had no gift with words, and the complicated stuff in the center of his chest was making that mute tendency worse.
After a final grind, the Hummer was up off the ground on the bed, and Blay started running chain in and out of the undercarriage.
“Okay, you three take this piece of junk back,” Tohr said as flurries started to fall again.
Blay froze and looked at the Brother. “We go in pairs. So I need to leave with you.”
Like he was beyond ready to bounce.
“Have you looked at what we got here? An incapacitated hunk of junk with two dead humans in it. You think this is a play-it-loose situation?”
“They can handle it,” Blay said under his breath. “The two of them are tight.”
“And with you they’re even stronger. I’m just going to dematerialize home.”
In the stretch of silence that followed, the straight line that ran from Blay’s ass up to the base of his skull was the equivalent of a middle finger. Not to the Brother, though.
Qhuinn knew exactly who it was for.
Things moved fast from then on, the SUV getting secured, Tohr departing, and John hopping behind the wheel of the flatbed. Meanwhile, Qhuinn went around to the truck’s passenger-side door, cranked it open, and stood to the side, waiting.
Like a gentlemale might, he supposed.
Blay came over, stalking through the snow. His face was like the landscape: cold, shut down, inhospitable.
“After you,” the guy muttered, taking out a pack of cigarettes and an elegant gold lighter.
Qhuinn ducked his head briefly in a nod, then shuffled inside, sliding over the bench seat until his shoulder brushed John’s.
Blay got in last, slammed the door, and cracked the window, putting the lit end of his coffin nail right at the opening to keep the smell down.
The flatbed did all of the talking for a good five miles or so.
Sitting in between what used to be his two best friends, Qhuinn stared out the windshield and counted the seconds between the intermittent swipes of the wipers…three, two…one…up-and-down. And…three, two…one…up-and-down.
There was barely enough snow loose in the air to require the effort—
“I’m sorry,” he blurted.
Silence. Except for the growl of the engine in front of them and the occasional clang of a chain in back when they hit a bump.
Qhuinn glanced over, and what do you know, Blay looked like he was chewing on metal.
“Are you talking to me?” the guy said gruffly.
“Yeah. I am.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” Blay stabbed the cigarette out in the dashboard’s ashtray. And lit another. “Will you please stop staring at me.”
“I just…” Qhuinn put a hand through his hair and gave the shit a yank. “I don’t…I…I don’t know what to say about Layla—”
Blay’s head snapped around. “What you do with your life has nothing to do with me—”
“That’s not true,” Qhuinn said quietly. “I—”
“Not true?”
“Blay, listen, Layla and I—”
“What makes you think I want to hear one word about you and her?”
“I just thought that you might need some…I don’t know, context or something.”
Blay simply stared at him for a moment. “And why exactly do you think I’d want ‘context.’”
“Because…I thought you might find it…like, upsetting. Or something.”
“And why would that be?”
Qhuinn couldn’t believe the guy wanted him to say it out loud. Much less in front of someone else, even John. “Well, because of, you know.”
Blay leaned in, his upper lip peeling back from his fangs. “Just so we’re clear, your cousin is giving me what I need. All day long. Every day. You and me?” He motioned back and forth between them with the cigarette. “We work together. That’s it. So I want you to do us both a favor before you think I ‘need’ to know something. Ask yourself, ‘If I were flipping burgers at McDonald’s, would I be telling the fucking fry guy this?’ If the answer is no, then shut the hell up.”
Qhuinn refocused on the windshield. And considered putting his face through it. “John, pull over.”
The fighter glanced across. Then started shaking his head.
“John, pull the fuck over. Or I’ll do it for you.”
Qhuinn was vaguely aware that his chest was pumping up and down and that his hands had become fists.
“Pull the fuck over!” he roared as he punched the dashboard hard enough to send one of the vents flying.
The flatbed shot to the side of the road and the brakes squealed as their velocity slowed. But Qhuinn was already out of there. Dematerializing, he escaped through that crack in the window, along with Blay’s frustrated exhale.
Almost immediately, he re-formed at the side of the road, unable to keep himself in his molecular state because his emotions were running way too high for that. Putting one shitkicker in front of the other, he trudged through the snow, his need to ambulate drowning out everything, including the ringing pain in both sets of knuckles.
In the back of his head, something about the stretch of road registered, but there was too much noise in his skull for specifics to break through.
No idea where he was going.
Man, it was cold.
Sitting in the flatbed, Blay focused on the lit end of his cigarette, the little orange glow going back and forth like a guitar string.
Guess his hand was shaking.
The whistle that went off next to him was John’s way of trying to get his attention, but he ignored it. Which got him slapped in the arm.
This is a really bad stretch for him, John signed.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Blay muttered. “You’re absolutely fucking kidding me. He’s always wanted a conventional mating, and he’s knocked up a Chosen—I’d say this is a great—”