NINETEEN
“I stand alone”
I kick up into freeze-frame without even thinking. I don’t lock one thing down on my mental grid. I hope I do a lot of damage, break everything I hit and just don’t knock myself out, because I have a feeling if I do, I’ll wake up strapped down to a rack with an insane ex-Highlander about to do seriously fecked-up things to me.
If he can sift, I’m dead meat.
I make it to the door but he’s there in front of me, arms spread, crouched low, looking like he’s about to bum-rush me and take me off my feet. His face is contorted with anger, kaleidoscopic tattoos rush beneath his skin. His eyes are full black. Only thing that’s missing to complete the Unseelie prince picture is a radioactive torque and huge black wings spreading, getting ready to crush me in a deadly embrace. I backpedal frantically and he lunges.
Then I’m on the floor and he’s on top of me, and I know the second he hits me that Christian is so much stronger than me that I don’t stand a chance of taking him. I can’t believe the strength I feel in his body! The Unseelie part of him has kicked in with a vengeance. It’s not just power oozing off him. He’s turning into pure sex just like the rest of them. I shake my head, trying to keep it clear. I think about horrible things like the dead woman stuffed into the space between his bed and the wall, and how I don’t want to end up like her.
I’m flat on my back and he’s got my wrists and he’s stretching my hands above my head. I curse and struggle and kick but it’s like fighting a concrete wall. Nothing, and dude, I do mean nothing, seems to have any impact on him. I head-butt him. He laughs and drops his face into my shoulder, and sniffs me!
I bite his ear, try to tear it off his head. Blood fills my mouth, gagging me, and I let go.
“Dani, Dani, Dani,” he says like he doesn’t even feel it. “Don’t fight me. You don’t need to fight me. I’ll never hurt you. Not you. You’re my brightest shining star.”
I ain’t nobody’s bright shiny nothing! He’s a certifiable lunatic! “Get off me!” Up close the death-by-sex Fae part of him is doing wicked bad things to me. Things I don’t like feeling. My mouth is dry and I’m seeing those graphic images plastered inside my skull. Christian. Naked. Doing the things I seen Ryodan doing. And I want to watch and I don’t want to watch and I have to get the feck out of here now! “Can you even feel? Or are you as dead inside as that woman? Why did you even bother saving me? So you could kill me slower?”
“It’s not like that. Would you hold still and listen to me for a second?”
“There’s nothing you can say that matters!”
“It’s hard to talk to you when I’m touching you.”
“Dude, quit sniffing me! That’s just rude. Get off me!”
“I can’t. You’ll run.”
“If you really didn’t kill her, you’ll let me go. You’ll trust me to come around. Give me room to breathe.”
“If I let you go, will you sit down and hear me out, lass?”
He’s relaxed since we’re kind of negotiating but he’s a lie detector and I know I can’t answer that last question, so I take my best shot and knee him in the balls with everything I’ve got. There’s no such thing as a dirty fight when you’re fighting to win.
He roars so loud my head just about blows apart. Then he’s off me and curled in a ball, howling. I’ve kneed a few dudes before. Got to out there on the streets sometimes. Never seen one react so bad. I wonder if it’s because he was hard as a rock when I hit him, so I had to twist really hard to get to his balls and I came up on them from underneath and probably mashed his … uh, yeah, Mega, now’s a good time to run.
I blow out the door so hard I blast it off the hinges.
This morning when I left Chester’s after almost dying and coming back to life—I think it was this morning, I spend so much time unconscious lately that I’m never sure if I’ve been out for a few hours or a couple of days—I was trying to decide what to do with the rarity of a whole day of free time. But then I nearly got killed again, this time by exploding frozen people, then Jayne took my sword, then I passed out from blood loss, got cleaned up by an Unseelie prince and drank his blood, found a dead woman practically in bed with me, and now I’m out on the streets again and feck if it’s not time for me to report to work again!
I can’t decide which of those things is the worst.
Dude, sucky day. Free time, my ass. I barely survived it.
I bounce from bare foot to bare foot, freeze-framing with all I’ve got, skinning up my heels something fierce, waiting for Christian to sift into the spot in front of me. Knowing if he does, I’m going so fast I’ll knock myself out cold on him and probably wake up dead. Knowing I don’t have the one weapon that would protect me from him because Jayne took it.
Mac has one, though.
Bet I could take her.
Way I see things, I got three options.
Go to Chester’s, use Ryodan as a shield against Christian while making him help me get my sword back.
Go straight after Jayne myself, knowing Christian is hot on my heels.
Go after Mac and take the spear. Barrons might be in the way. Who am I kidding? Barrons would definitely be in the way, and even if he wasn’t and I took her spear, he’d come after me. Then I’d have Christian hunting me, Ryodan pissed at me for missing work, and Barrons breathing down my neck.
A day in the life of me. The stuff I have to put up with.
I’m always thinking things are as bad as they can get and they get worse. I nearly crash into something in the street, one of those fecking variables that move off my predicted grid, like people, animals, and Fae.
“Stay out of my way, human!” it hisses.
I want to drop out of freeze-frame and kick this monster’s ass all the way to dead. I haven’t seen her since the night Mac saved me from her, and forced her to give me back my good looks. I almost died that night, too. I almost die a lot. Superheroes do.
“You stay out of mine, you ugly old bitch!” I hiss back at the Gray Woman.
Then she’s gone on her way and me on mine. She’s off to hunt and kill and I’ve got an itch I can’t scratch. My hand closes on nothing at my waist.
I need my sword like I need to breathe.
I detour into a sporting goods store, jam shoes on my feet, grab an oversized fleece pullover to pull on over my sweater because its fecking cold for May, and dash off again, heading for my best shot at success. Trying to take on Jayne and his men with Christian trying to kill me is a weak shot. I don’t have any idea where he’s taken my sword. There are times, like Ryodan said, when Batman needs Robin. Well, I don’t need Ryodan, but he sure will make it easier. He can watch my back like Mac used to. I’ve got no time for pride. I want results and I know how to get them. He’s always telling me to ask. Tonight I’m asking.
I feel naked without my sword.
I feel exposed. It’s throwing me all kinds of off balance like I don’t even know who I am anymore without it.
When I blast into Ryodan’s office, I’m going a million miles a minute, feet and mouth. Every one of his dudes scowls at me on the way in, even Lor, and I have no idea why. Guess Ryodan told them to be pissy to me or something. You never know what’s coming next with him.
I blurt out what happened with the frozen car and Jayne and tell him how we have to go get my sword back like right now, like this very instant.
“Drop down, kid,” he says without raising his head from his stupid paperwork. “You’re messing up my office.” Papers are flying around his head.
I drop down from hypermode and he looks up. He’s looking at me weird. Takes me a sec to figure it out. It’s like he’s looking at a stranger. One he doesn’t like and is thinking about killing. Why the feck is he mad at me?
“You reek of Highlander. The whole club can smell him on you. You’re wearing his clothes.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk so soft. “Dude, who cares? Didn’t you hear anything I said? Inspector Jayne took my sword!”
“Explain why you’re wearing his clothes.”
Softer still. If I wasn’t so hot with temper I’d get a chill. I don’t understand him. What does what I’m wearing have to do with anything that’s actually, like, relevant? How could it possibly matter? I don’t even understand why it registers! But I can tell by the look on his face he’s not budging until I explain, and if I don’t get my sword back soon, I’m going to go crazy. I also know if I tell him Christian killed some woman and I was next, he won’t pay any attention to the problem of my sword, he’ll go after Christian, when I need him to go after Jayne. I’m not sure he can take Christian. Not with what he’s turning into. But with my sword, I know I can.
“The explosion cut up my clothes. He gave me some of his.”
“You were together at the explosion.”
“He found me after.”
“And you changed in the street.”
“Huh?” Stymied is me. This isn’t where I expect the conversation to go at all.
“Elucidate upon where you changed.”
“What the feck does that have to do with anything?”
“Answer me.”
“I ducked into a convenience store. That’s why they call them that. So they can be, like, convenient.”
His gaze shivers up and down me. “If ice splinters tore up your clothes so badly that you needed to change, I’d think your injuries would be greater.”
I gape at him, baffled. Somebody took my sword and he wants to talk about what I’m wearing and where I got dressed, and that he doesn’t think I look hurt bad enough!
“He healed me. I was bleeding a lot. Holy hurrying hurricane, how’d you get next to me so fast?” Ryodan isn’t behind his desk anymore. He’s standing practically on my toes. I didn’t even see him move. Or feel a breeze or anything! “Give me some personal space!”
He drops his head forward and smells me. “Healed you how?”
What is the deal with everyone sniffing me? If Dancer starts doing it, too, I’m so out of here. “I drank his blood. Got a problem with that?”
“Three.”
“Huh?”
“I have three problems with that.”
“That was a rhetorical question. Maybe you can’t hear me talking or something so I’ll say it again: Jayne has my fecking sword. I’m in deep shit without it and need it back. You going to do something or not?”
Just like that he’s back behind his desk, head bent over his paperwork, all but ignoring me. “No.”
I’m incredulous. “What? Why? You know I’ll go after it myself! Is that what you want?”
“Jayne stopped by a few hours ago.”
“That took a fecking lot of nerve! He left me for dead. In the middle of a street. Wouldn’t even give me a fecking candy bar. Did he tell you how bad off I was? Why didn’t you come help me?”
“You look fine to me.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“He told me why he took the sword, and agreed not to kill any Fae within five blocks of my club. That’s more than you do.”
“Why would he agree to that? Jayne hates all the Fae!”
“He knew you’d come to me and ask me to help you get it back.”
“And you’re on his side?” How dare Jayne predict my moves and avert them while I’m busy dying and then being chased by a homicidal maniac! All of which was his fault to begin with!
“Truth is, kid, I prefer you without it.”
“Why?”
“You can’t kill my patrons. And now maybe you’ll start exercising caution. Or at least learn how to spell it.”
I glare at his bent head. “I’m asking for your help here, boss. You keep telling me to, and I’m asking.”
“I also said how you treat me is how I’ll treat you.”
“What am I doing wrong?”
“The answer is no.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I tap my foot hyperfast, hoping maybe I’ll crack his stupid floor.
He doesn’t say anything. Just keeps working on whatever it is he works on.
“You know what, dude? If you don’t help me get my sword back, you and me are through! You solve the ice mystery yourself,” I bluff, not about to give it up. “I’m not working for you. You don’t help me, I don’t help you.”
“Jo.” He doesn’t even raise his head. Just murmurs her name.
“I don’t care if you keep boinking her! Just get me my sword back! And don’t be making any more deals with folks about me behind my back!”
“That’s not our arrangement. You signed a contract. Jo’s life is only one of many prices should you renege. There are repercussions for your actions. You can’t walk away from me, Dani. Not tonight. Not ever. You’re not the one calling the shots. Sit down.” He’s standing again, and again I didn’t see him move. He kicks a chair at me. “Now.”
Sometimes I think everybody else in the world knows something I don’t know. Like they’re all in on some kind of conspiracy and if I just knew that one secret thing, too, the things adults do that baffle me would make perfect sense.
Other times I think I know something extra that the whole rest of the world doesn’t know and that’s why nothing they do makes sense. ’Cause they don’t know it and all their actions stem from flawed logic. Unlike mine.
I told Mac that once and she said it wasn’t something everyone else knew; the missing ingredient was that I didn’t yet understand my own emotions. They were new and I was just learning them for the first time. She said I was never factoring other people’s feelings into things, so of course everything grown-ups did seemed mysterious and weird.
I said, dude, you just said I don’t understand them, so how can I factor them in?
She said you can’t, so just accept that teenage years are a great big clusterf*ck of insecurity and confusion and hunger. Try to survive them without getting yourself killed.
A-fecking-men to that. Except for the insecurity part. Well, without my sword, plus the insecurity part.
As soon as I sit down, Ryodan says, “Get out of here.”
“Bipolar much?”
“Go take a shower and change your clothes.”
“I don’t smell that bad,” I say crossly.
He writes something, then turns the page in whatever-the-heck-stupid-thing he’s reading.
“Dude, where do you want me to go? I can’t go anywhere without my sword. I can’t outrun the sifters. Every Fae in your club has a hard-on for killing me. You want me dead? Just do it yourself and get it over with.”
He stabs a button on his desk. “Lor, get in here.”
Lor blows in like he was plastered to the other side of the door.
“Escort the kid to clean the f*ck up and get that stench off her.”
“Sure thing, boss.” He scowls at me.
I scowl right back.
Lor points through the glass floor. “See that blonde down there with the big tits? I was about to get laid.”
“One, I’m too young to hear that kind of stuff, and two, I don’t see you carrying a club to knock her over the head with, so how were you going to accomplish that?”
Behind me, Ryodan laughs.
“You’re ruining my night, kid.”
“Ditto. Ain’t life at Chester’s grand.”