Bruno was about to ask where her
car was parked when she shoved him sharply to one side, and
thunk, a baton thwacked
down on her shoulder instead of his skull. Lily’s leg whipped right
up in a quick front kick. The guy swerved to evade it, snagged her
leg. Her shoe flew off. She was yanked off her feet. Went down
flailing.
Three attackers. Bruno blocked a
punch, a kick, snagged an arm that held another baton, wrenching
the attacker sideways with an arm twist. Had to let go, stumble
back, block rapid-fire blows to his head and neck from the other
guy. He got in a kick to the knee, spun to block the baton slashing
toward his face from the other direction, but it caught him, a
stinging blow that glanced off his temple. He caught the club,
twirled, twisted, seized the arm. Pitched the guy forward and
accompanied him in his short, hard flight, right into the brick
wall.
A wet, nasty crunch, and he lay
still.
The other guy was on top of Lily. The
baton flashed down. She blocked with her elbow and fought madly,
pale bare legs flailing wildly in the air. He dropped his guard to
lure the third guy closer in, swerving to avoid a kick. Launched
himself and put the first two knuckles of his right hand right
through the guy’s larynx. Turned before the prick even hit the
ground to lunge for the guy on Lily. Got his arm around the
bastard’s neck, whipping his own face to the side to avoid getting
popped. Wrench and twist. Crack. The man went limp.
Bruno flung him off Lily. The guy
landed with a limp, heavy flop. Face toward them, mouth slack. Eyes
empty.
Lily stared up, mouth wide, dragging
in squeaking gasps. Her eyes glittered with terror. Her face was
spattered with blood, which gave him a gut-wrenching scare until he
moved and sprayed another shower all over her pale coat. His blood,
not hers. He was leaking. His forehead.
He thudded down onto his knees, then
onto his ass, legs splayed awkwardly beneath him.
Trembln>
Holy fuck. He looked at the
throat-smashed guy. At the guy he’d flung into the wall. Skull
caved in, wide-open eyes full of blood.
Three dead guys. He had killed them in
little over a minute. The shaking deepened, spread. Someone’s
bowels had opened. It stank.
He was a good fighter. Kev had seen to
that. Lethal, many people had said, and he’d gotten off on the
description, swaggering butthead that he was. Like it was a
compliment. Lethal. How cool, right? Sexy.
Hah. He’d never considered the real
meaning of the word. The description was literal now. It didn’t
feel cool or sexy. Holy. Fuck.
He’d never killed before. Or maybe he
had, in that fire fight at Aaro’s lair on the day of the zombie
masters massacre. But spraying bullets from an Uzi into the woods
was different than feeling bones crunch beneath your
hands.
Self-defense. Not just his own. They would
have killed Lily. Or would they? Strange, that they’d used clubs.
Guns or knives would have been quicker. If the attackers had meant
to kill them.
It hit him, full force. Oh, shit,
no. He lurched away from
Lily, lost the contents of his stomach. Coffee, rice pudding,
banana cream pie, spattering all over a couple of fresh corpses.
The heaves went on and on.
“. . . have to go! Now!” Lily shook
his shoulder. “Bruno!”
He spat the foul taste out of his
mouth as best he could, wiped his shaking mouth on his jacket
sleeve. He looked up at her, blank. Her words made no sense. “What?
Go where?”
“Anywhere!” She grabbed his shoulder,
shook it. “Come on!”
He hung on to himself, struggling for
clarity. “Lily,” he said, slowly and carefully. “Those guys are
dead.”
“Yeah! And we’re not! So come
on!”
He lifted his hand. “There are dead
guys lying in the alley,” he said. “I killed them. Killing people
is frowned upon. It needs to be carefully explained. It’s a crime,
remember? Punishable by years in prison, at the very least? You
with me here?”
“But it’s not your fault! You were
attacked! So let’s—”
“The police will not know that unless
I tell them,” he went on grimly. “And you’re going to have to tell
them, too. Multiple times, until our brains are fried. And the
forensics techs who analyze the scene will tell them. And our teams
of lawyers will tell them. It’s a long, tedious process, and it
takes months, if not years, but there’s no shortcut.”
“We don’t have time for that!” she
wailed. She sank to her knees beside him. “Please, Bruno! We have
to run.”
“I’ve got no reason to run.” He dug
into his pocket, was almost surprised to find his cell still
inside. He started punching numbers.
Lily grabbed his arm. “What are you
doing?”
“Calling the cops, of
course.”
Lily grabbed his phone, hurled it
against the brick wall. It shattered, plastic and metal exploding
and joining with the rest of the debris. He stared, mouth agape.
“What the fuck . . . ?”
“You can’t call the cops! They are
listening to you through that thing! They probably listened to what
we just did, upstairs! That’s how they found me! By watching
you!”
“Who found you?” Even through the
shock, he felt something inside him closing down in flat misery.
“Oh, shit. I knew itI fucking knew it, and I did you
anyway.”
“Knew what?” she yelled.
He waved his hands wildly. “That this
was too good to be true!”
“This?” She gestured at the sprawled
bodies. “You call this good?”
“No! Not them! You!” he shouted. “I
might have known it! You’re a black hole! You’re a fucking head
case!”
Lily clenched her hands into bloodied,
shaking fists. Her hair was a wind-tossed lion’s mane, makeup
streaked to her chin. She was a fearsome sight, yet so fucking
beautiful, she shone like a floodlight.
“I’m not crazy.” She forced the words
out, careful and clipped, as if her precision and self-control
would prove her claim. “I’m not a black hole, either. I’m just
unlucky, I guess you’d call it. I’ve been on the run. For about six
weeks. From, ah . . .” She pointed at the bodies.
“Them.”
He struggled to his feet. “Ah,” he
said. “I see.” Although he didn’t.
“That guy, right there.” She pointed
at the one whose neck he had broken. “He tried to stab me in New
York.” She pulled up her sleeve, showed him an ugly scar slanting
in an angry curve over her forearm.
“And you’ve been on the run since
then?” he said.
Her throat bobbed as she tried to
speak. She nodded.
Bruno pressed his bleeding forehead,
felt blood drip through his fingers. “Did it occur to you to warn
me that a squad of hit men were after your ass? You know, like, a
gesture of common courtesy?”
Her face tightened. “Talk about a
conversation stopper. What a turn-on, huh? Great banana cream pie,
and by the way, I’m running for my life from a pack of cold-blooded
killers. Way to chat a guy up.”
“Chat me up?” He felt steam start to
rise. “Are you for real? On the run for your life is not the best
time to pick up a strange man off the street and fuck his brains
out! Or is this how you handle stress?”
“No!” She pressed her hand against her
mouth. “It wasn’t about picking up any man. It was about picking up
you. Specifically you.”
Every moment they’d passed together
reshuffled as he sought connections, explanations. “Lily,” he said.
“Do I know you?”
She shook her head. “No, but we have
something in common.”
“Yeah? What?”
She gestured at the bodies. “Them. For
starters.”
Bruno’s teeth ground. “I’ll tell you
something about me,” he said. “I’m a straight arrow. I make my
money fair and square, I pay my taxes on time, contribute to
homeless shelters, soup kitchens, the World Wildlife Fund. I do not
lie, steal, or cheat. So whatever these guys were pissed about, it
has nothing to do with me!”
“But I . . . but they—”
“I do not like this crap!” he roared.
“I don’t like getting punched, or jumped, or clubbed! It makes me
tense! I do not like killing people before six A.M., even if they’re hit men! I make a
conscious, deliberate effort to steer clear of this kind of
bullshit! You get me?”
“Don’t yell. Please.” She looked
around, eyes darting nervously.
“Give me a good reason not to, Lily,
because I’m not in a good place, and you’re not
helping!”
“I think . . . ah . . .” Her voice
tightened. “I think it had to do with yr mother.”
The blood drained right out of Bruno’s
head.
The world expanded around him, vast
and solitary. A wind-whipped wasteland. Lily still stood before
him, eyes desperate, lips moving, but he could not hear her. Just
cold wind, whistling in the void. The thrum of his heart hurt
against his ribs.
That same old fucking pain. Completely
intact and fresh, exactly as it had been in the bad old days. Like
it had never really gone away, but had just hidden in the dark,
waiting for its chance to leap out at him.
She grabbed his wrist, and the weird
bubble popped. “. . . got to listen to me! My father was in
the—”
He jerked back, sending her stumbling.
“Don’t touch me.”
She shrank away. Bruno forced his numb
lips to form words again. “Don’t mention her again,” he said
hoarsely. “She’s offlimits. Forever.”
“Um, yes. But I—”
“Do not fuck with me,” he said. “I’m
right on the edge.”
She twisted her hands together. “I’m
not fucking with you,” she whispered. “Please, understand. These
people killed my father. The same ones who killed your, um . . .”
Her courage failed her, and her voice trailed off.
He fought to keep his voice even. “My
mother was killed by her asshole boyfriend. Decades ago. These guys
would have been just kids.”
She shook her head. “These guys are
just hired muscle.” Her gaze flicked over to the bodies. “Were, I
mean.”
This was great. Just great. A lifetime
of struggle to create and maintain that precarious sense of
normalcy after what had happened to Mamma, and this crazy girl
blasted it to rubble with a few words.
“Listen, lady,” he said. “I don’t know
what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in. If you owe those guys
money, if you’re trying to get free of your pimp, if this is a drug
thing, I do not fucking know or care. But you are bugfuck nuts, and
I am having no part of it.” He grabbed her arm and strode toward
the diner, hauling her along behind him.
She struggled. “Hey! Where are you
taking me?”
“To use the phone at the diner to call
the cops,” he said. “Since you killed my smartphone.”
“No!” She twisted like an eel, but his
grip was implacable. “Listen to me! Bruno, please, just stop one
second and listen!”
He cursed himself for being a fucking
fool, and stopped. “Make it quick.”
“I have done nothing wrong! I’m not a
prostitute, I don’t sell or do drugs, and I’ve never borrowed money
in my life except for college!”
The outrage in her voice almost made
him smile. He channeled stone-faced Tony. “You could be
lying.”
“I don’t lie!” she yelled
back.
“No? You sure suck when it comes to
omission of relevant truths. Like letting me know you’ve got a
contract out on your life before throwing me down and fucking me
blind, for instance?”
“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “I
understand that you’d rather stay on the right side of the law. So
would I, if I was given the luxury. But if you call the cops now,
I’m going to die. And probably you will, too.”
He snorted. “That’s
crazy.”
“No, that’s a mathematical certainty.
The only way to stay alive is to fall off the map. That’s where
I’ve been for the last six weeks!”
He looked pointedly at the bodies
strewn behind them. “You weren’t quite as far off that map as you
thought you were.”
“I guess not,” she said. “They must
have been watching you. Waiting for me to make contact with you.
Maybe they bugged your cell. Was it on you when you served me
dessert?”
“Oh. So you’ve got this all figured
out? A big conspiracy theory?”
Her eyes widened. “Does this look like
a conspiracy theory?” She pointed at the bodies, finger shaking.
“Those guys were not theoretical!”
“Maybe not, but when you start
dragging me and my dead mamma, God rest her soul, into your
personal problems with the criminal underworld, I call it a goddamn
conspiracy theory!”
As if in answer, they were blinded by
headlights as the SUV came to life, roaring toward them, front
grill gleaming like a hideous metal grin. Bruno sent Lily flying
and leaped. The SUV bounced over the bodies, glancing against the
brick wall where they had been standing. Metal screeched, sparks
flew. The SUV righted itself, cut the curb, jouncing and rattling.
The taillights disappeared around the corner. He hadn’t gotten the
plates. Too dark, too fast. Too rattled.
He hadn’t checked the vehicle. Christ,
what a sloppy, pinheaded, cretinous asshole he was. He didn’t
deserve to still be alive. He ran to Lily, who was hunched,
trembling on the ground. She’d acquired even more bloody scrapes on
her legs. “You OK?” he asked.
She lifted her face, blinking,
swallowing. “I think so.”
Bullshit. She was terrified.
Traumatized. No matter what she might have done to unleash this
hell upon herself, he was still furious at the assholes who had
done this to her. “I should call an ambulance for you,” he said.
“You need to be checked out. Here, let me—”
“No!” She pushed him, lost her
balance, flopped back onto her knees. “The emergency room would be
even worse than the cops. And I can’t pay for it anyway. Those
places are expensive. I understand if you can’t believe me. But
just let me go. Let me run as best I can.”
Run? She couldn’t even fucking walk.
He stared down at the tangled fuzz of golden red curls on the top
of her head. “I can’t do that,” he said helplessly. “How could I
possibly do that?”
She looked up. Her face crumpled.
Mascara tears tracked down her cheeks. “The cops can’t save me from
these people, whoever they are,” she quavered. “I just want to keep
on living. That’s all.”
“But you’re all beat up! You need the
cops! That’s what they’re for!”
“If you don’t believe me, then it’s
not your problem,” she said. “Just let me disappear.” She tried
again and struggled to her feet.
“Aw, fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck, fuck,
fuck.” He kicked one of
the swollen garbage bags, which split open, spilling out a foul,
fermented slop. He stared up at the orange-tinted sky, releasing a
stream of expletives in Calabrese that would have made Uncle Tony
proud.
“Why, Lily?” he demanded. “Why is this
happening to you?”
She scanned the street behind him,
nervously. “Not here. I’ll tell you everything I know, which isn’t
much, but not here. They’ll be back.”
Bruno felt trapped. The zombie masters
massacre had shown him how unpleasant it was to be on the wrong
side of the law, even for a short time. It had taken a while for
the powers that be to sort out who had slaughtered whom.n the
meantime, he and Kev and the rest of them had been locked down and
examined from all sides. He remembered the stifled feel of it. Like
a hand pressing down on his throat.
Jail would suck. He saw why Tony had
run away from the life, many decades ago. Tony had used to work for
his cousin, Don Gaetano Ranieri, a mafia boss back in Jersey. Tony
had been his right-hand man. The protracted bloodbath of Vietnam
had been preferable to that.
“If I go with you, I’m fleeing a crime
scene,” Bruno said. “One that has my blood and vomit spattered all
over it. Their first assumption will be that I murdered them, I
guess. Since I’m not around to dispute it.”
The cold wind blew her hair back from
her ravaged, streaked but beautiful face. “But you’ll be alive,”
she said. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
He grunted. He was being jerked around
by a girl because she was pretty, and she was desperate, and he’d
fucked her, so now of course he felt responsible. But Christ. Three
big guys. One unarmed girl. Dickheads. He couldn’t help it,
pussy-whipped sucker that he was.
“I tell you what,” he said. “I will
get you some fresh clothes and get you someplace safe where you can
rest. You take it from there. Then I go to the cops and I tell them
absolutely everything. Understand?”
She gave him a tremulous smile.
“Deal.”
“Wait.” He scuffed through the garbage
scattered around the alley. Found the trashed remains of his
smartphone and pried out the memory chip.
“Hey,” she protested. “What are you
doing? That thing—”
“Just the memory chip.” He shoved it
in his pocket. “It’s mine. I want it.” God knows, he intended for
life to go back to what passed for normal as soon as possible. No
way was he going to waste time scrounging all his contacts together
again, sending out a new number. Hell with that.
He kept rummaging, kicking. There was
her computer bag. He snagged it. There was one red shoe beside the
Dumpster. The other was wedged between sacks of trash, next to one
of the corpses. He retrieved them, knelt in front of her, placed
her blood-smeared hand on his shoulder. Then he lifted one foot at
a time to slip those pumps onto her clammy little feet. “Stupid
shoes for a fugitive,” he bitched. “You can’t run in them. My car’s
parked up on—”
“No. Not your car.”
“Huh?” He felt affronted. “What do you
mean, not my car?”
“Not your car, your home or any of
your places of employment, your phones, or your computers. Assume
that they’re all compromised.”
“Ah.” He was stymied. “So how are we
supposed to—”
“We’ll just have to be creative.” She
grabbed his hand and dragged him after her, deeper into the
alley.
He let himself be towed along. “Where
are we going?”
“I don’t know, but if we stay in the
alleyways, we’re less likely to be seen when they come back looking
for us. Can you hot-wire a car?”
He froze in his tracks. “Fuck, no!” he
snarled. “I do not do shit like that! Haven’t you been listening to
me?”
“It’s you who isn’t paying attention!
You know, about the mortal doom zooming toward you as we speak,
like a heat-seeking missile?”
“Wow, Lily. With your sunny attitude
and your sense of civic duty, I can see why you make so many
friends.”
Her eyes flashed. “Civic duty? Itms me
when my father gets slaughtered. It burns my ass when thugs jump me
and stab me and try to kill me! It’s tough to maintain that
glass-half-full vibe under those circumstances! So shoot me!” She
grabbed a boulder from a wood-chipped lawn and lifted the rock over
her head. “This one looks good,” she said, walking toward an aging
station wagon. “I like Volvos. They give me a sense of
security.”
He grabbed her shoulders. “What the
fuck do you think you’re—”
“Getting a car!” she yelled, lurching
toward the car. “Watch me!”
“No.” He jerked the rock away. “Let’s
think this through.”
Her face crumpled. “There’s no time,”
she said. “I’m out of ideas. I’m done. They’re winning, Bruno. I’m
fucked.”
She was losing it. Damn. He pulled her
into a hug. She wiggled in the confinement of his arms. “Let go of
me!”
He didn’t let go. “We’re not stealing
any cars,” he told her. “It’s stupid, and it’s rude, and it’s also
probably alarmed. And the cops will be looking for us soon enough
anyhow.”
She sniffed. “So what do you
propose?”
“What’s wrong with my car?” he asked,
plaintively. “It’s beautiful. Fast. Comfortable. And I have a key
to it. And the legal right to use it.”
“Your car is death,” she said.
“Sudden, certain death.”
“God, you’re harsh,” he complained. “A
cab, then?”
“They’ll be listening. There will be a
public record of where we went. They’ll be watching anyone you
know. Friends, family. Everyone.”
“They? Who the fuck is this
‘they’?”
Her mouth shook. “I don’t know. I
hoped to God you might have a clue, but you don’t. I drew attention
to you, and if they kill you now, it’ll be all my fault. It was all
a stupid . . . fucking . . . dead . . . end!”
“Hey!” He scowled. “Who you calling a
dead end? I resent that!”
Snorting giggles vibrated against his
chest. “Don’t make me laugh, or I’ll start to cry, and then you’ll
be in really deep shit.”
“I believe you.” Bruno stroked her
slender, trembling back. Amazed at how delicate she was. Running
for over six weeks from those goons, if what she said was true. And
still kicking.
“You know, you’re a pretty good
fighter,” he said.
She snorted. “Yeah? For a girl, you
mean?”
“I didn’t say that,” he said. “But
yeah. You’re strong and quick, and you have nerve. Do you have
martial arts training?”
“A little,” she said. “Years ago, in
college. Some of it stuck.”
Which reminded him of something. “Hey.
How’s your shoulder?”
“What about it?” she muttered,
soggily.
“You took a blow to the shoulder meant
for my head. Let me see.”
She flinched away as he reached for
her lapel. “No, those blows were meant for me. You were just in the
way. And you wouldn’t have been, if I hadn’t hunted you down and
pinned a target to your chest!”
“Let me see it,” he
persisted.
She shoved him away. “We don’t have
time for a fucking tender moment, Ranieri!”
He held up his hands. “Wow. You’re one
tough bitch.”
“Yeah!” she flung back. “That would be why I’m still
alive!”He pondered that. “Do you really know
how to hot-wire a car?”
She sniffed.
“Theoretically.”
He looked dubious. “You do or you
don’t.”
“I’ve studied how to do it on the
Internet. I’ve seen diagrams. I know the principles. I’d figure it
out. Eventually. I’m quite bright.”
He was grinning, which clearly pissed
her off. “Eventually,” he repeated. “While the alarm squeals, and
the owner comes racing out with a baseball bat. Come on. There’s a
gas station a few blocks over. We can clean up. Use the pay
phone.”
“To call who?” she
demanded.
“If you want my help, you’re going to
have to trust me, OK?”
Trust him. What a
concept.
Lily wobbled along, ankles quivering
like rubber. She didn’t even know what trust felt like, but look at
her, trotting alongside this guy like his pet dog, not even looking
at the street signs. Was that trust?
No, she concluded. It was exhaustion.
Burnout. She had no executive energy, no ideas, nothing left. All
she could do was glom on to someone else’s strength and cling for
dear life.
She’d never had the luxury before, not
since Howard fell apart. If he was leading her to her doom, so be
it. She’d almost welcome it.
She’d never relied on anyone else’s
strength before. She’d never seen anyone so strong, either. So
quick on his feet and deadly with his hands. The way he fought was
practically superhuman, and she hadn’t even seen most of it, being
busy fighting for her own life.
She’d seen high-level martial arts
exhibitions, with Nina, back in their college roommate days, when
they’d entertained fantasies of becoming women warriors. They’d put
in a good bit of training in the dojo back then, and she’d loved
it, though she’d been forced to give it up years ago. Dojo fees
hadn’t fit into her post–Aingle Cliffs budget.
But if there was one thing she had
developed in her dojo training, it was an eye for the real deal.
She could see it and feel it when someone was manipulating energy.
Moving chi. Bruno was exploding with it.
Dawn had officially turned to daylight
by the time they reached the gas station, albeit a dreary one. Cars
streamed by as the workday geared up, and Lily felt horribly
exposed walking around without sunglasses or a hat.
Bruno led her around back of the gas
station to an unmarked door. The lock was broken, and when he
opened it, the stench that wafted out was so foul Bruno flinched
back, cursing. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Can you stand to come in here
for a couple minutes? I don’t want to lose sight of you for one
second. Hold your nose.”
Lily dragged in the deepest breath she
could and sidled into the foul little space. “This cannot be a
hygienic place to wash a wound.”
“I’m not going to wash the wound,” he
said, turning on the water. “I just want to splash off the blood
smeared all over my face. Best not to draw attention to ourselves,
right?”
“Something tells me that’s not your
biggest talent.”
Bruno looked up from his position,
bent over the small, filthy sink, and fixed on her eyes in the
mirror as he splashed his chin. Pinkish water drained down from his
cupped hands into the basin.
What the fuck kind of comment is
that?” he asked.
She silently kicked herself. “Not an
insult.”
“The hell it’s not.” He splashed
again, still gazing at her. “What would you know about my talents,
big or otherwise?”
A lot, after that incendiary half hour
in his late uncle’s apartment. She quelled the hysterical giggles
and feigned her usual fuck-you nonchalance. “It’s just an
observation,” she said. “A neutral one.”
“Neutral, my ass.” He wiped his chin.
His long black eyelashes were tangled and gleaming with water.
“Nothing about you is neutral, Lily. I bet you don’t even know the
meaning of the word.”
She couldn’t, in all honesty, deny
that. So she didn’t.
“So you’ve been observing me, then.
For how long?”
She gulped air to calm the fluttering.
Hands clenched, toes curled. Cool as a frozen mocha. “A few weeks,”
she admitted. “I checked you out online. And I’ve been tailing you
physically for about a week now, as best I could, with no vehicle.
You’re not hard to find. The nights working at the diner made it
easier.”
Bruno wiped the water off his face
with his hands. “That annoys the living shit out of me. That you’ve
been observing me. Like some entomologist, studying a fucking bug
under glass. Judging me.”
“I haven’t been judging you.” At
least, not in a bad way, she wanted to add, but the words were
pinned down by his accusing glare.
He opened his jacket and ripped off
the bottom strip of his T-shirt. It yielded him a long, limp strip
of fabric. He pressed against the still oozing wound at his
hairline, wincing.
She couldn’t help noticing, in the
unwholesome glare of the fluorescent bulb, how the shortened
T-shirt with its dangling threads showed off his tight abs, the
glossy dark hair arrowing into his low-slung jeans. He had an
innie. One of those taut, stretched ones like an eyelid, the kind
you mostly saw on ripped models for men’s health magazines. She’d
missed a lot of juicy little details in the dark.
He looked her over, seized his T-shirt
again, and ripped off still another strip, which left the garment
barely covering his ribcage. He moistened it under the faucet.
“Come here.”
She shrank back. “I’m all
right.”
“No, you’re not. You look like
something out of a splatter film.” He jerked her toward him and
started to swipe at her face with the rag.
Huh. It actually felt kind of good to
be groomed like a kitten.
“This is my blood, mostly,” he told
her. “But I’ve got no diseases.”
“Me, neither,” she offered. The wad in
his hand was pinkish gray from blood and makeup. A glance in the
mirror showed that she looked only shockingly bad, rather than like
out-and-out road-kill.
“And besides, you’re a fine one to
talk,” he said, still daubing.
She was so distracted by his scorching
male vibes, she’d lost the thread of the conversation. “Huh? Talk
about what?”
“Not drawing attention to yourself.”
He jerked her coat open, dabbing at the blood on her chest. “Look
at your outfit. Every man who looks at you will look again, and
then stare. Why the fuck not? You invited him to. And he will
remember every last detail of your face and body. I guarantee it.
If you don’t want attention, dress down! Go drab!”
“But I did want you to notice me,” she
blurted.
His hand stilled, and he stared at her
with a small, puzzled frown. “Yeah. Ah. About that. We need to talk
about—”
“No, we don’t. It’s not the time or
place,” she said hastily. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t
mean to pick a fight with you.”
He grunted. “Yeah, right. You’re
always on the offensive, Lily. Every damn thing that comes out of
your mouth is provocative.”
She kept her gaze locked on the ragged
edge of his T-shirt, staring at the threads dangling over his naked
belly. “I guess so,” she said. “I’m just made that way. That’s
probably why I’m single.”
“Ah. Could that have anything to do
with all these people who are trying to kill you, by any
chance?”
She jerked away from him, stung. “No!
It does not! I may be a mouthy bitch, but those scumbags have never
even given me a chance to insult them properly! I have no idea why
they’re doing this!”
“Calm down,” he said. “Don’t yell.
We’ll draw attention.”
She closed her scuffed, bloody coat
with a jerk, belting it with numb, trembling hands. “Look, I
understand your urge to scold me,” she said. “I get that a lot from
guys. But could we do it outside? I’d prefer a drive-by shooting at
this point than another noseful of this air.”
He got out of her way. “It’s not
necessary, you know.”
“What?” She pushed out the door and
inhaled the relatively sweet perfume of car exhaust and gasoline
gratefully. “What’s not necessary?”
“Being on the offensive,” he said,
following close behind. “You don’t have to be. Not with me. I’m
actually a pretty decent guy.”
“I noticed that,” she said tartly.
“Otherwise I wouldn’t have jumped your bones. I do have some
standards, you know.”
He stopped at the pay phone, dug in
his pocket. “That’s nice.”
“It’s just hard for me to switch out
of offense mode. So don’t take it personally. In fact, I might
never be able to switch out of it again, in this lifetime.” Not
that she expected to live that long.
“That’s a grim estimate,” he said,
counting quarters. “Good thing I got some tips tonight. I don’t
usually have this much change.”
Lily charged on. “I’m going to piss
you off again, probably soon,” she told him. “So I’ll just
apologize in advance, for the next, oh, say, five times. After
that, we’ll renegotiate. OK?”
His mouth twitched, wryly. “You are a
piece of work.”
“That’s why I—”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s why you’re still
alive, and all that doom and gloom shit. Now be quiet, and let me
make this call.”
“What call? To who?” she
demanded.
He rolled his eyes. “Remember what I
said about trusting me?”
“You’re not calling Zia Rosa, are you?
Or your employees at the diner? Or your toy business? Or Kev
McCloud, or his brothers?”
Bruno set the receiver back on the
hook, his face hardening. “How do you know about the
McClouds?”
She made an impatient sound. “Oh, come
on. Don’t be such an ingenue! They’re smeared all over your life.
All you have to do is look. And if I looked, you can damn well be
sure that they looked. It
was all out there, for anyone to see. And I’m not even that good at
it!se I wouldan>
He gave her such a grim look, she
started to twitch. “Stop it, Bruno,” she pleaded. “Don’t give me
that look.”
“What else do you know?” he asked.
“How’s the ratio of good to bad cholesterol on my last blood work?
Do you think my tax deductions last year were justifiable? Did you
read my text messages?”
She sighed. “You haven’t done a damn
thing to prevent me.”
“It never occurred to me that anyone
would be interested!”
“Come on,” Lily pleaded. “You can’t
stay mad.”
“Watch me.” His voice was
hard.
“I already apologized, remember? For
five future piss-offs?” she wheedled. “That leaves me four free
ones.”
“No way,” he said sourly. “Spying
counts for two. Maybe more.”
“That’s not fair! I wouldn’t have done
it if I hadn’t—”
He put his finger to her lips. “Shut
up. I have to concentrate hard to remember this number without the
use of my electronic brain extensions, and I can’t do it when I’m
pissed off. So zip it.”
“That’s sad,” she commented as soon as
he lifted his hand. “Brain atrophy, and so young, too. There are
things you can do for that, you know. Math problems, crossword
puzzles.”
He turned back to the phone. “You are
now down by four. I’m dialing. We’ll find someplace safe to
exchange verbal barbs after, OK?”
Police sirens wailed in the distance,
from the direction from which they had come. Bruno looked around,
staring toward the sound.
“Looks like they found our buddies,”
he said.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she
whispered.
“I’m working on it,” he grumbled.
“Stop bugging me.”
He turned to the phone. His back was
so broad, so graceful. She stared at the expanse of fine black
leather draped between his big powerful shoulders. Turning his back
on her was probably meant to be a snub, but in her current boggled
state, it felt like an invitation.
She leaned against his back. He
stiffened at the contact, but he didn’t pull away. It felt good.
She breathed in, leaning closer, pressing against his strength.
Sucking it in. Vampire girl, glomming on to him.
A thought took form in her head. She
should let it float away. She didn’t have the energy for data
processing, particularly emotional stuff. But she followed it,
letting it make connections, take on coherence.
About Bruno. It felt so right, the way
they bopped each other around, bitching and snarking. Being with
him was almost, well . . . fun.
How kinky was that. After that attack,
the near-death experience, the blood. “Fun” was not a word one
would usually associate with that type of adventure. She wondered
if it was a conscious strategy, on his part, to keep her from
falling to pieces. If he really was that smart, that intuitive, to
figure her out so quickly, manage her so smoothly.
Or if it was just a random
coincidence.
She huddled closer, not even bothering
to eavesdrop on his whispered phone conversation. She wouldn’t have
made any sense of it anyhow. Not in brainless clinging leech
mode.
She didn’t want an answer to her
half-formed question. Any answer would be disturbing, and she was
disturbed enough.
Bruno was not her ally, shoulder to
shoulder with her against the powers of darkness. No. He was
helping out the poor sad crazy girl because he felt sorry for her.
Pity did not an ally make. Neither did sex. Not even awesome,
earth-shattering, mindblowing sex.
She knew that. She really did. But
even so. She pressed her nose against his vibrant warmth and
inhaled. Mmmm. So nice.
What the hell. She was obscurely
comforted anyway.