Roadkill (33 page)

I hit my head harder. This time I wanted the pain. I deserved it. Having that thought about the only family I had, the only one who’d given a damn about me for most of my life, I deserved pain. Being crazy was no excuse. Going Auphe was no excuse. There was no goddamn excuse for it. It was
Nik
.

Rafferty should’ve killed me.

But he hadn’t, and I had to deal. Niko had done everything possible to save me. I’d let him down once—shit, more times than I could count. But right now, I was going to step up to the plate. Be a fucking man, even if genetically I didn’t come close. I heard Robin move in the front seat to lay one on the back of my neck. It felt like ice through my sweat-soaked hair. My chest hurt too, my heart beating so fast I was surprised it hadn’t torn its way through my chest. Yeah, good old rock bottom. Wasn’t one of the twelve steps to recovery accepting a higher power? I didn’t believe in a higher power. I wished I did so I could hope one day to kick its ass for this.

“It’s all right, kid. It’ll pass.” He was probably guessing, but I appreciated Goodfellow’s effort. He’d been my friend for a while now, as hard as it had been to admit I could have friends—that I could trust someone besides my brother. But Robin was a friend, and a friend would lie to you when the truth wasn’t worth hearing.

“This is it,” Rafferty said quietly, words raw from a throat he felt didn’t deserve to be healed, else he would’ve done it. No bedside manner, but he’d been better off with a great bedside manner and a little less conscience. “It’s called serotonin syndrome. A little serotonin makes you feel good—like you did before—but a whole lot of it will kill you. Every time you travel, this is what you get—a shitload of serotonin your body isn’t meant to handle. The headache is from your blood pressure skyrocketing. A human might stroke out, but your human-Auphe brain can take it. The chest pain is from the tachycardia, your heart working triple time. Your body temperature will go up too, hundred two, hundred three. That’s from one jump. You make another one, you get another serotonin dump, and the blood pressure goes even higher, which your brain may
not
be able to handle. Your heart beats faster; your temperature goes up to one oh four or six. All of that has a good chance of killing you. A third jump . . .” He stopped before completing that sentence. Complete it he did though, sounding anything but proud. “A third jump means no more Cal.”

And that meant no more Auphe.

Okay then—problem solved. I couldn’t travel enough again to remotely think black and bloody Auphe thoughts about killing my brother. I’d die first, and that was fucking peachy by me. I stopped beating my head against the seat, though, and suffered through the headache. Goodfellow’s hand disappeared from my neck and I heard the gurgle of water. A moment later a bottle of water was slowly poured over my head and neck. It felt good, better than good, as my skin cooled beneath it. Taking a breath and shoving the pain down, I straightened, and what did I face?

The mirror again.

Things hadn’t changed. No, that wasn’t entirely true. The gray was still shot here and there with dark scarlet. The tiny flecks weren’t the blazing fire glow of Auphe eyes, though, but they didn’t belong in your ordinary human eyes either. Yeah, this was good. Before, there were some that could smell the monster on me. Now everyone in the supernatural world could
see
it. “What the hell,” I muttered, wringing my hair out as I eased back against the seat behind me. I covered my eyes with my other hand. “Great opportunity to get a few pairs of dark sunglasses. Expensive. People will think I work for the government or the Sunglass Hut.” I felt in my jacket pocket for my old pair. Nothing. Naturally. No sunglasses. No cheerful Cal. No anything. Auphe blood had made me a happy guy for a while, a short while, but it had felt nice. I should’ve known that was way too good to be true. No nice for Cal Leandros. It didn’t mean I didn’t miss the feeling—lie that it had been. But it didn’t mean I was going to let myself dwell on it either.

Dwelling on what I’d thought about doing to Nik was a different story. Getting me to open another gate was going to take one goddamn compelling reason or an act of God, and since I didn’t believe in the latter . . .

It wasn’t worth the risk, a Rafferty-engineered bomb in my brain or not.

“No bother, Niko,” Robin said. “I have several.” Before my brother could pass me his, I felt a pair folded into my hand. “Not quite a thousand dollars, so bang them up all you wish. I probably have twenty in my glove compartment.”

I slipped them on before opening my eyes. “I’m sorry.” The apology was for Niko. He’d trusted me and I’d blown it. Massively. Or my genes had. It didn’t matter where the blame fell. It served me right that now I could see what I’d done each time I looked in a mirror. I used to have a mirror phobia not that long ago—with good reason. I wasn’t going to let myself get away with that this time. No, this time and from now on I faced all that potential Rafferty had labeled me with.

Something new, something old, and something entirely unlike anything on this earth, Rafferty had said.

That wasn’t a lonely feeling. Not at all.

“You not talk to your brother.”

The accident, the ambulances, the police cars, the fire trucks; it was all still keeping us from moving. Rafferty couldn’t knock out fifty-some people, so we could drive around and follow the now-petless Suyolak. Or he could have if it hadn’t been for the energy he’d expended on me—I didn’t know and I wasn’t going to ask. I’d contributed enough drama to the situation. I wasn’t looking to add any more by making Rafferty feel guilty if he had run low on juice.

I was sitting on the edge of the highway among dirt and tufts of dusty grass here and there. I had my knees up, my arms folded across them, as I looked across the highway at nothing. Figuratively. Literally. Both applied. Although Utah wasn’t the flat-ass empty state I’d imagined. It would’ve been more appropriate if it were, because I was feeling flat and empty myself.

Delilah sat beside me, careless of her white leathers. “You not talk to me either?” She could’ve gone around the mess, blocking both sides of the highway on her Harley, but cops would’ve chased her. They wouldn’t have caught her, but then if she caught up with Suyolak, there wasn’t much she could do but die.

It was that kind of day.

No, I wasn’t talking to Delilah either. I wasn’t talking to anyone. There wasn’t much point. I was accepting. Accepting took quiet time. Quiet time let you avoid thinking, if you were exceptional in that area, and I was. It wasn’t denial; it was layaway recognition. I’d think about it about the same time I paid off Niko’s Christmas present. I was comfortable with that. Five months was a good time frame . . . for presents and self-realization and thoughts of blowing away a chunk of your brother’s head.

Delilah didn’t cooperate with my plan and Christmas went out the window. “Why the sulk?” She slid her fingers through my drying hair. “Things are no different now. You are Cal as you’ve always been Cal.” She inhaled my scent before admitting, “Perhaps some different, but same ingredients.” She smiled at her own joke and tilted her head to kiss my neck.

The same ingredients. Yeah. Delilah was sharp and she wasn’t wrong. But someone had taken the cookbook and rewritten a few amounts. A cup here, a cup there. I’d always said I was monster; I’d always said I was half human, half Auphe. But deep down I’d always wished I were more human than Auphe. I’d known better, but I’d wished anyway. All that dominant crap Rafferty had been talking about; I hadn’t known about that. I only knew what I felt and what I hoped. It didn’t matter, though, the past, because it was the now that was important. Now I knew. I wasn’t human with some Auphe. I wasn’t even a half-and-half hybrid. I was Auphe. If you looked hard enough, you might find a trace of human, a thin ribbon raveling through me, but when it came right down to it, I was Auphe or one step away from it. Rafferty had said it. He hoped he’d stopped the progression. I wasn’t much on hope these days. Reality: It was the only way to fly.

I was Auphe now and I’d only be more Auphe as the years passed. Stick a party hat on me and celebrate the splendor of the homicidal in its larval stage. I turned to look at Delilah as her lips left my neck. I thought of how I’d considered eating her at the deer carcass when I’d been more outside my mind than in it. I wondered how long it would be before I had the same thought, but calmly, rationally? Not driven to it by running prey, the smell of blood, or the Auphe part of me fighting hard against Rafferty’s building that internal wall. Thinking of eating her just . . . hell, just because.

She reached up and took off my sunglasses. “Ah, I was wrong. You are different. But different, it is not so bad.”

“If I kill and eat you, you might think again,” I said without emotion. “Or eat, then kill. Either or.”

Her smile was both seductive and wistful as this time she kissed my neck again and then licked it. “Now you think like Kin. You should not fight it.”

As she always had in the past, I guessed, and probably more so when the Kin found out about us. Another thing I’d known, but denied . . . or pretended to deny—before and after the Kin. I’d told myself that every night I’d spent with her was a carnivorous toss of the coin, but it was worth it. She wanted me, she liked me, and therefore it was worth it. Remarkably I still thought it was worth it, although it did make me respect myself a little less, which I would’ve thought hard to accomplish at that point. But life loved nothing better than proving my ass wrong. I took back the glasses and replaced them. Hell, she was a predator. I was a predator. Genes. Who knew how long it would be before I started tossing that bright and shiny coin soon, too, and one day . . .

Deer weren’t the only ones who would run. How long it would be before I could stop myself from the chase was anyone’s guess.

“Go away.” I resumed staring at nothing. She snorted at what she considered my brooding. Killers killed; predators ate; both played with their food. Why question that? Better to be who you were and not to look back. Kin, they were something all right, but I was hardly going to be a hypocrite and point fingers. I didn’t have that right. As I sat unmoving, Delilah gave an exasperated sigh, then cupped my head and kissed me on the mouth this time. I tasted deer blood. I just didn’t know if it was from her or from me.

It tasted good.

“Mopey cub, cheer up.” She gained her feet in one graceful movement, trailed her fingers along my jaw, and disappeared in the milling people bitching about the delay and the sun and the dust. I was assuming it had to be hot. The lingering fever still left me feeling slightly chilled, enough so that when the fur-covered body leaned against my right side, I didn’t mind the warmth.

I hadn’t talked to Nik, Robin, or Rafferty after the change in me that had taken place had really hit me. I’d taken the sunglasses and gone quiet—the whole not-thinking thing that I was striving for. I’d only talked to Delilah to make her leave me alone, although I knew Niko would be back without a doubt. Catcher though—Catcher wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t try to tell me everything would be fine, which would remind me that, nope, it wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t be supportive when he should be punching me in the face for becoming an addicted asshole. He wouldn’t say I was still me—not that “me” had ever been that much to brag about to begin with. He would only sit there, a silent, wordless comfort.

The laptop dropped onto the ground in front of me.

Well, shit.

When I refused to drop my head and read the screen, teeth nipped me hard over the ribs. I hissed, glared at the wolf, and then read what was typed on the screen. He’d used the caps lock again, either to get his point across or because he didn’t believe much in my reading skills.

He rested his chin on my shoulder, sneezed at the dust, and waited.

“Yeah,” I commented after a long pause. “It does. Good Wolf or bad Auphe, it sucks to be the only one.” Great. First Delilah, then him. They both had me pulling shit out of layaway early.

This time he nipped my shoulder before retrieving from the dirt the ink pen he’d dropped to bite me. He typed:
ALL AUPHE WERE BORN BAD. YOU ARE NOT ALL AUPHE. YOU HAVE A CHOICE. YOU CAN BE GOOD.
He considered, then backspaced, deleting the
GOOD
and changing it to
NOT SO BAD.
At least he was honest, the fur ball.

Then he punctuated the sentence. Joy. “I didn’t know there was an emoticon for a dog humping another dog. Thanks for sharing.” I took off the glasses and rubbed my eyes.

There was more typing. I glanced at the screen. At least now that he was sure that he had my attention, he’d stopped with the capitalization. Cal smart monster. Cal can read. Good for me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned.

Knock knock
, he persisted, growling around the pen. “Okay, just to shut you up: Who’s there?” I gave in. Why not? At this point, it was almost ludicrous. An Auphe being counseled by a butt-sniffing pound reject.

“You son of a bitch,” I growled.

Knock knock
. This time he didn’t wait for the “Who’s there?”
Twenty cocker spaniels the Auphe is going to skin to make a pimp coat.

“Seriously, quit it or I will shoot your mangy ass.”

God, he was as relentless as Niko. “Last one,” I warned. “Last one or your ass is grass.” The threat didn’t hold much weight when it was followed with “Who’s there?” I went on, resigned.

He was smart and he was right, but my decision making had never been among the very best. Not as disastrous as the sinking of the
Titanic
was what I was usually shooting for in final outcomes, but I could try to do better. If Catcher could deal with being stuck being half of what he once was, I could deal with being more than I wanted to be. For a while. As long as my genes would let me. Next to Catcher, I’d be a complete jackass if I didn’t at least try to do that much.