Another Kind of Dead

Chapter Eighteen

An hour-long soak in the tub has relieved the majority of my aches and pains. My own stupidity brought them on, and, for once, they aren’t the result of a fistfight or brawl with bloodthirsty Dregs. Our Triad isn’t even on rotation again until tomorrow evening. Nope, the bruises and scrapes on my back and shoulders are my own fucking fault.

No pun intended, however apropos.

I watch the bathwater swirl down the drain in a mini-cyclone of bubbles and soap, and hope Ash is still having a good time. I hated ditching her at the club but was in no mood to continue our usual barhopping extravaganza. The cab driver I flagged down took one look at me, muttered something that sounded like “hooker,” and drove me home.

Bastard didn’t get a tip. He was lucky I didn’t plant my heel in the back of his head.

After I’m thoroughly towel-dried, I check the scrapes in the bathroom mirror. A few along my shoulder blades are still oozing clear liquid. Most are surface abrasions—they’ll itch like crazy later. The backs of my thighs have smatterings of blue bruises, perfectly oval and fingertip-size. They’ll keep darkening, I bet. Good thing I prefer jeans.

In my line of work, dating is out of the question, but I’m a woman with needs, dammit, which is why Ash and I troll the bars on our nights off. Once in a while, one of us will find someone to hook up with for a little … activity. Location is rarely important, as long as I get my itch scratched.

Only tonight’s selection had been a little rougher than usual, and doing it up against a brick wall, in a storage room at the club, hadn’t been exactly comfortable. Oh, I got off all right, but my back regrets it with a vengeance.

I slip into clean sweats and pad into the kitchen for a snack. It’s been a week since I shook off a horrid bout of the flu, and my appetite has finally returned. I settle on a bologna sandwich with mustard and steal one of Jesse’s lagers. He likes the dark brown sludge that tastes like rat piss, but it’s that or water.

We need to go shopping.

Sandwich and beer in hand, I retreat to the living room and curl up on the sofa. A gentle ache between my legs reminds me my back isn’t the only thing regretting tonight’s interlude. What was it Wyatt used to tell me? Sometimes I don’t have the good sense God gave goats. I shoulda said no.

I didn’t, though.

The apartment phone’s shrill chime makes me jump. We keep the landline for emergencies and in case “real people” need to contact us; everything else is handled over our Triad-issued cells. I stare at the telephone, an old rotary Ash picked up at a yard sale eons ago, and debate answering it. On the fifth ring, I do.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, this is the super,” a deep baritone says, not happy about making this call. “One of your neighbors called and complained about a drunk man sitting in front of your door.”

“I—What?” I sit up straighter and peer at the metal door, as if I can see right through it.

“Drunk man in front of your door. People are tripping over him. If he’s a friend, take him inside. If he’s a vagrant, call the cops. I just don’t want no more of these damned calls at three A.M.” With that, he slams his phone down.

Okaaay.

On the way to the door, I snag one of my favorite serrated knives from the weapons trunk behind the couch, just in case. I press one ear to the door and listen—nothing. Try the peephole. All I see are a pair of black sneakers sticking out from jeans-clad legs that disappear beneath my line of sight. Confident in my ability to subdue a regular human male if the need arises, I turn the various door locks, grasp the knob, and pull.

Wyatt tumbles through the open door and lands on his back, cracking his head on the cement floor. He blinks up at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes. He hasn’t shaved recently, and a black beard creeps along his jaw and chin, spilling down his neck. A brown paper bag is clutched in one hand, obscuring my view of the bottle’s label.

“What the fuck, Truman?” I toss my knife on a nearby side table and glare down at him. “Don’t you have a home?”

“Sure,” he says. “Few blocks from here. Why?”

Oh boy, he’s three sheets to the fucking wind. In the four years I’ve worked for Wyatt Truman, I’ve seen him run the gamut from cool and collected to wholly enraged, but I’ve never before seen him utterly shitfaced.

“Because you’re loitering in front of my home instead of sleeping this off in yours,” I finally say. Lame.

“My apartment’s empty.” His tone is solemn, as if the statement alone explained everything. It’s also sort of loud, and the hall door is still open. The last thing I want is another call from the building super.

“Think you can crawl to the couch?”

He frowns, which looks like a smile upside down. “Nope. Can walk.”

Uh-huh.

He ends up half crawling ten feet to the stained, beaten sofa, and curls up on one end, head on the armrest. He still hasn’t let go of that bottle, but the smell hints at whiskey. Yuck. I relock the door, then move to stand in front of him, arms crossed over my chest. He swigs from the neck of the bottle and winces as he swallows.

“Where’s everyone?” he asks.

“Out.”

“Duh.”

I can’t help smiling. I think it’s quite possibly the first time in our entire history he’s ever said that. “Jesse’s up north, picking up a new ax from that blacksmith friend of his,” I say. “Ash is still out having a good time.”

“Why didn’t you go?” he asks my midsection.

“I did. Now I’m home.”

He manages to raise his gaze so our eyes meet. Something like confusion or concern flickers there but is beaten back by liquor. He struggles to sit up straighter. I make it easier on him by sitting down on the opposite end of the sofa. He squirms until he can face me, half his body braced on the back of the couch.

“Didn’t have a good time?” he asks.

I lift one shoulder. “Ended on a sore note.”

He frowns. “Sour note?”

“No, sore note.”

More of that indeterminate emotion creeps into his eyes. What the hell? He gets drunk and suddenly gives two shits about my social life? I’m off duty and off Triad rotation, which means I can do whatever the fuck I want as long as it doesn’t draw attention to us.

“So what’s got you out at three a.m., drinking straight from the bottle on a school night?”

“Celebrating.”

“Yeah? You look like you’re about to celebrate yourself right into alcohol poisoning.”

He snorts, then hiccups. I lean across the sofa and snatch the bottle from him. He reacts several seconds too late, which only shows me how gone he is. I swig from the bottle, and the bourbon sears down my throat to settle hot in my belly. My eyes water. Coughing, I hand it back. He stares at the bag-covered bottle as though he isn’t sure what he is holding.

“So what are we celebrating?” I ask.

“Anniversary.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and the one-word answers are getting boring. I search my memory for anything important about today, or April in general. I was assigned to him in July, and even though I admit to being a pain in the ass, I’m not worth a drunk like this one. Must be personal.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the personal things I know about Wyatt. If he discusses his personal life with anyone else, it’s when I’m not around. He and Ash have been together for almost eight years, so she makes sense as a confidante. Jesse has the male camaraderie thing going.

Wyatt’s so sloshed it would take only a few well-formed questions to learn everything I want to know. But I’m not sure if he’s a blackout drunk, and the last thing I need is him sobering up tomorrow and getting pissed because he remembers everything. No, it’s safer to let it lie. Especially since he’s been riding me so hard this last month or so.

He’s watching me intently, if a little unfocused … no, a little too focused.

“So why’d you bring your anniversary party here?” I ask.

“My apartment’s empty.”

“Yeah, that happens when you leave it and stumble across town to someone else’s.”

“Didn’t want to be alone.”

Okay, this is definitely a personal anniversary. I know the Triads kicked off roughly ten years ago. Could this be it? If so, why the drunken stupor? He should be proud of what he’s accomplished, not pickling his liver like he’s ashamed to be in the same room with himself.

His stare is making me uncomfortable.

“Want a bologna sandwich?” I ask.

“Mustard?”

I hand him my uneaten sandwich, then get up to fetch a bottle of water and two aspirin. He probably deserves to stew in hangover hell tomorrow for how hard he’s been on me lately, but I can’t bring myself to let him suffer.

He pops the aspirin with a swig of bourbon, which makes me chuckle. I settle back down and channel surf while he eats. All I really want now is to go to bed, but my internal clock is set for nocturnal hours—the curse of a Hunter whose prey mostly comes out after dark.

His plate and abandoned liquor bottle both end up on the coffee table, and he nurses the water for a few minutes. I flip channels to some historical movie in which a cowboy is struggling to undo the many buttons and ribbons of his ladylove’s fancy dress. He finally gets the frilly thing off and makes contact with skin. The scene changes and they wake in each other’s arms, still tangled up in bed together.

I snort. “You know what I hate about basic cable? They cut out all the good stuff. Especially the nookie scenes.”

He makes an indeterminate sound. “Thought you had sex already tonight.”

“I did, but doesn’t mean I don’t like to watch.”

“That movie sucks anyway.”

I shrug and change channels again.

“Do you want me to leave?” Wyatt asks.

“Did I say I did?”

“No.”

“Well?” He doesn’t reply. “Besides, if you leave now, in this state, you’ll probably end up hit by a car or at the wrong end of a goblin’s hunger pang. I won’t be responsible for your death, Truman.”

“We’re all responsible for someone’s death.” He says it so quietly I almost miss the grief layering each word. He studies the water’s generic label, stuck on his own responsibility for something.

It’s nearly impossible to stay quiet, and I battle my instinct to ask whose death he’s responsible for. I’ll question his orders, smart-mouth him when he’s not listening, provoke him into fits of anger, and even go against his wishes when the mood suits me. I just can’t breach this last line—this invisible barrier of personal information that keeps our roles as Hunter and Handler so perfectly defined.

“God, I’m tired,” he says. Three words with a greater weight than just tonight’s physical exhaustion. There’s a fatigue in him about life in general that makes me sad. He looks beat down, ready to lie there and be trampled. Wyatt’s our Handler. He’s the boss, the guy in charge who has all the answers. He’s always on top of things. He isn’t supposed to be like this.

Ash would know what to say.

My gaze flickers to the door, as though she might spontaneously appear. But no such luck.

I slide across the worn sofa to the center cushion, knowing full well offering comfort just isn’t my thing. I tend to unwittingly err on the side of pity, which most people hate. If I do this wrong, he’s going to get fucking pissed, and I don’t know how he’ll react if he gets pissed while plastered.

He’s slouching with his left leg tucked beneath him, which puts his knee at the closest point to me. I give his thigh a gentle squeeze just above the kneecap. When I look up to offer a friendly smile, I’m startled by the intensity of his stare. His eyes burn with something that takes my breath away and squeezes my heart tight. I can’t even pin a name on the emotion.

“I’m glad you were home,” he says.

It takes me a minute to find my voice. “I almost wasn’t. Guess you have good timing, huh?” Every note of humor falls flat.

“Was it worth it?”

Okay, now he’s really not making sense. “Was what worth it?”

He points his water bottle at me, then gestures all around us. “You. It. Going out. Sore note.”

It takes a supreme effort not to roll my eyes at his patronizing tone. “Why do you care, Wyatt? Jealous?” His silence sends a niggle of worry worming through my guts. I yank my hand off his leg, embarrassed that I left it there. He’s probably just feeling some Handler-produced overprotective instinct because I was so sick last week. Sick enough for him to sit by my bed and nurse me through the worst of the fever. Surely I can nurse him through this.

Or at least make it so he doesn’t hurt himself until he’s over it. “Look, why don’t you go sleep it off in my room?”

I offer only because I have the private, closet-sized bedroom. Ash and Jesse share the cramped apartment’s other room. Triads live together, always within close proximity to their Handlers and assigned hunting grounds. Makes life easier. Except on nights like this when your drunk Handler shows up at your doorstep acting completely out of character, and you have to battle the urge to drop-kick his plastered ass to the curb.

My question finally seems to penetrate the fog in his brain. He nods, then sucks down the remaining water in his bottle. It misses the coffee table when he tries to put it down, and the bottle skitters to the floor. We reach for it at the same time. Our heads actually collide with a dull crack that sends white lightning between my eyes.

I give up and let Wyatt snag the bottle. He takes great care to balance it this time, then slithers to the edge of the couch cushion. I scoot closer and drape his arm across my shoulders. “Come on, drunkie. Let’s go.” I wrap my right arm around his waist. This close, I smell the whiskey on his breath and the faint hint of cinnamon on his skin and, beneath it, something sharper. More masculine.

The oddest thought strikes me: Wyatt smells good.

I bat it away and promise to beat the thought to a bloody pulp later. We get a good swing going, and Wyatt finally lurches to his feet. He’s several inches taller than me and a good thirty pounds heavier, but I’m trained to kill goblins and half-Blood vampires in large numbers, and to potentially haul around wounded partners. Supporting him isn’t too much trouble.

His feet drag across the floor as if he’s not quite in control of them. We get through the bedroom door, and then he stops. Just ceases all forward motion, and I feel the tension creeping into his body and shoulders.

“What?” I ask.

He drops his chin, head turning to gaze down at me with a question in his eyes. His mouth opens, and whatever profound thing he might have been about to say is lost in an eye-watering belch.

I can’t help it. I double over laughing, which leaves Wyatt without his crutch. He stumbles sideways until he hits the dresser. I drop to my knees, holding my stomach as deep belly laughs make my ribs ache. It isn’t that I’ve never heard Wyatt burp before, or that I harbor any illusion about his perfect manners. It’s seeing him down at my level—drunk, upset, and feeling the effects keenly—that’s doing me in.

By the time I sober up, my stomach hurts and my legs are cramping. I use the bed for leverage and manage to stand. Wyatt’s staring at me from his perch on top of the dresser—I can’t even fathom how he got up there without falling right back off—legs wide apart, with a peculiar expression on his face.

He realizes I’m staring back, and the embarrassment disappears, shut down and glossed over with perfect calm. Perfect calm seasoned with a dash of that same strange intensity.

“I always knew you had more than one Gift,” I say.

“What? To make an ass of myself?”

I blink. “Well, I was going to say a Magic Giggle-Inducing Burp, but okay.” So he has made a tiny bit of an ass of himself, but I do it on a regular basis. He’s due. And if he’s feeling it now, he’ll definitely be feeling it in the morning. That’s just what I need—us regressing to year one, when I couldn’t follow his orders for shit, and he threatened more than once to send me back to Boot Camp as a living example of what not to be. I finally found my footing with him, so what does he do? He crashes my place in the middle of the night, stone drunk, and then gets indignant about his own behavior.

“Look.” I cross the half-dozen paces to stand in front of him—and right between his parted legs. “Just go to bed, okay? Get pissy with me when we go back on rotation, but right now, I’m off the clock.”

Both eyebrows arch high. His lips part, and he moistens them with his tongue. Prepping an apology, perhaps? Or a simple agreement that, yes, it’s time for bed. I’m certainly ready to crash. Dealing with him lately has been exhausting. He keeps staring, not talking. I tilt my head and stick out my chin—something Ash calls my “Yeah? And?” face. Wyatt finally moves, and it’s to do something I don’t expect.

He kisses me full on the mouth. He has to lean out to reach me, which leaves him teetering on the edge of the dresser. There’s no insistence, no tongue, no touching anywhere except our mouths. A sweet press of his lips to mine, offering hints of whiskey and mustard. It’s nice. I haven’t had nice in … well, ever. Which is likely why I haven’t slapped him yet.

I don’t get nice. I don’t get sweet. I get fast and rough, in a storeroom with a stranger. It’s easier.

This is fucking complicated.

I pull away and take two steps back, his taste still lingering on my mouth. He blinks at me, owl-eyed, and I have nothing in my arsenal capable of comprehending the expression. So stupid me latches onto the first thing that presents itself—self-deprecating humor.

“I said go to bed, not join me in bed. What do you want sloppy seconds for anyway?”

A violent thundercloud darkens his expression. “You’re no one’s sloppy seconds.”

Danger alert. Kiss aside, this entire evening is teetering on the cusp of becoming a full-blown disaster. “I’m flattered,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “but you’ll still be my Handler in the morning—even if you can’t boss me around for two more days.”

He nods, blinking hard.

I lift one shoulder in a shrug, hopefully conveying more nonchalance than I feel. “Besides, we’re all someone’s sloppy seconds, Wyatt.” I’m done talking to him while he’s carrying around so much booze in his bloodstream. I jack my thumb at the bed. “Now, buster.”

Miraculously, he slides off the dresser and lands on his feet. I pull back the worn blanket and top sheet. He sits hard, and the mattress gives a few angry squeaks. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to unlace his own sneakers, I do it for him, aware of his eyes drilling metaphorical holes in my skull.

Task done, he draws up his legs and falls onto his back, the already-beaten pillow puffing air as it’s smashed even flatter. I toss the sheet and blanket across his chest—my version of tucking in.

Wyatt came here in some sort of pain, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask what’s got him so turned around. It was a mistake. The kiss was a mistake. It will be better for both of us if we wake up tomorrow and never mention tonight again.

At the door, I pause to hit the light. The door is nearly shut behind me when I hear him say, “I’m sorry.”

I don’t know if the apology is directed at me or his own disturbed memories, so I don’t reply.