Infected: Shift (26 page)

“Fuck you.”

“Take it as a compliment. Now what’s wrong?”

Roan wasn’t going to tell him, but was he really going to be mad at Holden for accusing him of being on pills? He
was
on pills! He supposed Holden should get points for being observant. “I think my life is slipping out of control.” Why on Earth did he say that?

Holden gave him a look suggesting he was thinking much the same thing. Then he sighed and scratched his head, making his IV line wiggle. “Wow, I expect that from clients, not from you. Three things spring to mind: One, you’ve finally noticed? Two, you didn’t use the past tense, suggesting some further illumination is necessary. Three, do you want a hit from my IV?”

“Are you done?”

“I think so. No, wait… yeah, I’m done.”

“Good, ’cause I think I have to go to the office. I have things to do.”

“Like what? Slip further out of control?”

“See if I ever tell you anything again.” He got up but was too tired to feign anger. He was a little annoyed, but not angry. Maybe because all Holden’s hits were painfully on target.

“You’ll have to. I’m your assistant investigator.”

“Then you’d best learn pig Latin.”

Holden shook his head and gave him a strangely weary, affectionate look he was more accustomed to seeing from Dylan. “Thanks for the stuff. And maybe you need to take a break, step back, and decide what you want in life.”

“What I want? That’s easy. To pay my bills on time.”

A nurse showed up then, and Holden hid the burger wrappers as Roan kept her momentarily distracted by asking what the time was. He was shooed out, but Holden had successfully stowed away the evidence.

Even though he’d told Fiona to take the day off, Roan went back to the office and cleaned up some paperwork, as well as running a background check he’d put off, along with a skip trace. All painfully boring, which might have been why he fell asleep at some point. Presumably, the Vicodin and the adrenaline crash didn’t help either.

He woke up to find it had become night on him. Already? That was quick. He’d also drooled a bit on his desk, but on papers that didn’t matter. He had several messages waiting for him on his cell, but he didn’t bother to check them. He wasn’t ready to face anyone just yet.

Still, he closed up the office and stopped in the first fast-food place along the way (a Jack In The Box) and scarfed down a breakfast burrito and a shake, as he was utterly famished. He hadn't partially transformed during the sparring match—at least not to his knowledge—but his body was behaving like it had. Which was fine, it always kind of did its own thing anyways. He looked out the windows at the traffic driving by, eating in his car so he didn’t have to listen to that fucking pop music everybody pumped everywhere nowadays (he missed the days when stores were quiet—good lord, how old was he?), and wondered what he wanted from life beyond paying bills. He wasn’t sure anymore. Probably not a good thing.

He checked his phone. A couple of messages were from Murphy, and he wasn’t sure he could take her yet; one was from Grey, and again, not ready; the last one was from Dylan, and he listened to it. “Where are you?” he asked, sounding equally worried and annoyed. “I hope you’re okay. I was expecting you back by now. Murphy’s called, she says you’re not answering your cell… she doesn’t sound happy. So if you’re ducking her, I understand, but… oh shit. I’ll see you after work, I hope.”

Dylan was worrying about him again. He hated that. He also hated that Murphy calling in high dudgeon probably made it worse. He called Dylan, but got his message, and checking the time, Roan knew that was because he was at work and away from his phone. So he decided to pay him a visit instead.

Since it was midweek, he found a place close to Panic to park and was mildly surprised to see a few people waiting to get in. Mighty Mouse—the huge bouncer with the tiny voice—saw him and waved him in, bypassing the line, which made the crowd complain. “He’s security,” Mighty Mouse told them, quieting them down.

That was actually an in joke. Since he periodically stopped by Panic to see Dylan, he was now referred to as security by the staff. He wasn’t—certainly no one paid him—but apparently management liked having him around. It suddenly occurred to Roan, as Matteo waved him on inside, letting him skip the cover, that maybe this was what Grey meant by calling him an enforcer. That’s how the people at Panic saw him, as a tough guy who could take care of any problems for them. If things got ugly, they had their own ugly guy to take care of it.

Roan was strangely numb to the electronic music that washed over him, and while neon-hued colors predominantly lit up the club, he could see a couple of queens staring at him and talking to each other. He could lip-read if he wanted to, but he didn’t. They were either saying “That’s the infected freak” or “That’s the infected freak who let that other infected freak get away”
(Grant Kim). Either way, he didn’t need to know.

He found an open space at the bar and leaned in, and he was spotted instantly by Rodrigo. He was, as de rigueur for Panic’s bartenders, shirtless, but he was also wearing a leather vest, suggesting he was cold. “Toby!” he shouted. “The cops want to see you!”

Rodrigo was teasing, but since Murphy had probably chewed his ear off earlier, it wouldn’t be appreciated. Dylan looked down the bar, alarmed, but visibly relaxed when he saw it was just Roan. “Thank God,” he said, coming down to Roan’s end of the bar. “I thought something had happened to you.” He leaned over the bar and gave Roan a quick peck on the cheek.

“No, I was just catching up on paperwork, and I turned off my phone so I wouldn’t have an excuse not to do it. I desperately wanted an excuse not to do it.”

“I know, sweetie. You’re okay, right?”

“Hey, if I give you a big tip, can I get a kiss?” A drunk guy a couple of feet away asked.

Roan was about to tell him what he could do with that suggestion when Rodrigo came over and said, “He is not for sale. But I’m negotiable.”

As Rodrigo flirted with the drunk boy, Dylan leaned in and said, “Murphy sounded really pissed at you.”

“Yeah, well, they found Michael Brand dead this afternoon. It looks like suicide, but they think it might be homicide. She thinks I did it.”

“Did you?” he asked, and then looked horrified. “Oh shit, no. Ro, I didn’t mean—”

“Yeah, you did, and it’s okay. I killed Switzer, so why wouldn’t I kill Brand? Make it a twofer.”

“You killed somebody?” the guy standing next to him asked. He was a soft-looking man—ten to one he worked on a computer all day, or at the very least behind a desk—and he was giving him a look of wide-eyed horror.

Roan stared at him, dead eyed. “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” He paused briefly. “It was kind of disappointing. Boring, actually.”

Still openly terrified, the man grabbed his beer and retreated deeper into the club, out of sight. “Did he actually believe me?” Roan asked Dylan, slightly mystified.

“It looked like it, didn’t it?”

“It’s Johnny Cash! I don’t even listen to Johnny Cash, and I know it’s Johnny Cash!”

“Hon, sometimes you’re too hip for the room.”

“You think I don’t know when I’m being pat—”

“Holy shit,” a guy shouted, stumbling in the entryway. “There’s a fucking leopard out there!”

“What?” Someone shouted.

“I think it’s attacking someone across the street.”

“Roan—” Dylan exclaimed, but Roan was already running for the door.

The guy who reported the cat said, “Dude, don’t—” but Roan ignored him too as he burst out the door. Mighty Mouse was still out front, but the boys had scattered. “What the fuck do I do?” Mouse asked him.

“Get inside,” he said, scanning the street, scenting the wind. There it was, across the street, growling and attempting to burrow under the lid of a closed Dumpster. Was someone hiding in there?

The guy was also wrong. It wasn’t a leopard, it was a panther, but with a dark muddy-brown color that looked faintly reddish in the dim glow of the streetlight. A fellow redhead?

Roan whistled sharply, stepping out into the street. “Pick on someone your own size.”

“Man, what are you doing?” Mighty Mouse squeaked.

“Get inside!” he shouted, as the panther charged toward him, snarling.

Roan roared in response, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise, and the panther did an almost comical stumble midway across the street, not scared but perplexed. It lifted its head, sniffing the air, still snarling, but Roan was growling too as he approached it. Luckily they were working on the neighboring road (a huge sinkhole had opened up during the last torrential downpour), and traffic was sporadic at best.

The panther got over its shock and started to lunge again, but Roan sensed it coming and roared once more with the force akin to a scream, feeling his throat grow raw and bloody as a result. It was loud and angry enough that the cat’s ears swiveled back, its lips skinned over its snaggled ivory teeth. When he could talk, he growled, “I’m the alpha here. Get down.”

The cat continued growling at him and stalked forward cautiously. “I said get down,” Roan snarled, his fingers wanting desperately to curl into claws, his muscles starting to twitch in his arms and back. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and he felt a sharp pain bracketing his jaw as he started tasting blood in his mouth. Roan was dimly aware that there were people watching from Panic, idiots who wanted to gawk at the loose big cat.

He knew the stupid thing was going to jump before it actually did, so he got his arm up and let the panther sink its teeth into his forearm, and Roan, feeling rather out of control of himself, reflexively bit the panther on its shoulder. He stopped as soon as he tasted blood, and as the cat loosened its bite to squall in pain, he snapped his arm and sent the panther flying. It slammed into the facade of the closed antique store across the street and hit it hard enough you could hear the dense, meaty thud over the hiss of tires on asphalt farther down the way.

“Stay down!” Roan roared, the words almost lost in the noise. He could feel the slick warmth of blood running down his arm, but bizarrely, it didn’t hurt, not at the moment. Maybe later, after the adrenaline wore off. He turned his head and spit out blood that was half his and half the panther’s.

The cat wasn’t dead; they were amazingly resilient to damage, a bit more than their Human forms. But it was clearly dazed as it got on its feet, wavering slightly, shaking its head like it had a bee in its ear. It was growling, but it was an automatic response—there was no force behind it at all.

He approached it slowly, still growling, and when he was nearly close enough to reach out and smack it, he snarled, “I’m the alpha. Submit.”

The cat looked up at him with glazed amber eyes, growling weakly, but it seemed to understand that there was no winning this battle. It settled on the sidewalk, resting its head on its paws, its growl dying in its throat. Roan stood over it, still growling, jaw still hurting, the urge to rip out its throat not quite dying. He clenched his hands at his sides and felt the muscles shifting in his fingers. He struggled to keep the change from going any further, and repressing it was almost painful. It nearly hurt worse than his jaw.