Zero Day Exploit (Bayou’s End #1.5) (17 page)

Maybe she could afford to be a
few
minutes late.

E
VAN LINGERED OUTSIDE THE OFFICE
, watching the snow fall in the deepening night and asking himself what the hell he thought he was doing. Zero had texted him telling him she’d be working a little late. He should have gone back to his hotel. Hell, even gone back to her place and waited for her there.

Instead here he was, hanging on like a little lost puppy, just waiting to lick her hand and beg for another scrap of the affection that had become his drug from the first time she’d smiled at him like she might actually, honestly be able to like him.

He would be the first to admit he’d royally fucked himself. After the past few days he didn’t know how he’d go back to jetting from city to city, contract to contract, living life out of empty hotel rooms and salving the ache with equally empty flings. The very idea left him restless and homesick for a place that wasn’t even home.

God, if he kept going like this he was going to end up playing sleepy suburbanite desk jockey. With a
minivan
.

The glass doors of the building slid open and Zero stepped out, her pretty heeled knee-high boots clattering softly, her town coat bundled over a soft knit turtleneck, clinging skirt, and tights. She looked so different from the scruffy little punk he’d seen that night in the bar. Still beautiful, still that same wild light and wicked intelligence in those dark blue eyes, but he found himself missing her colors and her brightness.

“Hey,” she said, tugging on her gloves and looking up at him with a smile. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose pinkened rapidly in the deepening evening cold. “Sorry I took so long.”

“Putting in overtime?”

“Making up for coming in late.”

“What was that about? I thought you were doing the apple-polisher thing.”

She shrugged. “Had something else to do this morning. One sec.”

With a quick smile she dug into her satchel, rummaging around inside until she extracted something small and pale: a stitched cotton doll, no larger than his palm. A soft felt plush with pale green skin, wearing a suit made of ragged, torn scraps of dark blue fabric. The doll had green button eyes and a painted-on skullcap of hair the same dark brown as its crooked beard. Stitched Xs made up a smile—a smile smeared in red paint. Little red splotches of painted-on blood and bruises and dirt dotted the doll, along with tiny cross-hatched scar marks. Evan stared at the macabre, bizarrely cute little thing.

“What is this? Is this…?”

“Zombie Evan.” Zero grinned sheepishly and wiggled it a bit, hopping it around in a little dance and chirping in a high, squeaky falsetto. “‘
I’m thinkin’ ‘bout her, thinkin’ bout me, thinkin’ ‘bout us, what we gonna be
…’” Her grin widened, bright with pure devilry, as she offered him the doll. “See? He sings. Your favorite musical.”

“It’s a
movie
,” he growled. His brows knit as he turned the little thing over. Had she
made
this? “Is this your way of reminding me you’re still thinking about killing me?”

“No. Well, maybe.” She bit her lip and fidgeted with her gloves, tugging the fingertips. “Look, I can’t afford to buy you nice things or take you out to fancy dinners or anything like that. But you gave me something nice. And I don’t just mean the clothes, okay? So…” Her mouth twisted up as she looked fixedly at the wall. “I wanted to give you something back.”

“So you gave me a toy.”

Her shoulders went rigid. “Look, throw it away if it’s that stupid.”

“It’s not. It’s not stupid at all.”

Evan shook his head and caught her hand, pulling her closer. He couldn’t stand having her so far away, stiff and waiting for him to hurt her again when all he wanted was to hold her. God, she was the quirkiest, strangest little thing, yet he wouldn’t have her any other way. He could picture her sitting on the barstool at her counter, bent over the little doll with a paintbrush, making herself late for work just because she’d wanted to make him smile. Heat flushed down his neck, as if trying to crawl its way down to meet with the ache in his gut.

“This is the difference between you and me,” he said. “When I want to fix something or give something to someone, I throw money at them. Cold, impersonal money. You—you put yourself into it. You make it real. Warm. Personal. And maybe a little weird.” With a smile, he tapped the doll to the tip of her nose. “It’s like you bring that feeling of home wherever you touch.”

She stared up at him, her eyes wide and confused. “Home?”

“Yeah.” Words caught in his throat, but he made himself say them. He’d likely never have another chance, after tomorrow. “Every time I come back to you, you make me feel like home. Even when you’re ready to claw my eyes out.” Chuckling, he looked down at the grisly little toy in his hand. “I’ll just have to take Zombie Evan with me everywhere. Take photos with it like people do with those garden gnomes. Just to give those hotel rooms that personal touch of home.”

With a shy little laugh, she pushed him gently. “And that stylish hint of the undead.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, when it wasn’t really what he wanted to say. Not when a thousand other words built up inside him, and even if he’d never have the chance to say them again he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he didn’t want the damned doll for his constant companion. He wanted her. He wanted to take photos with her and drag her around the country just so they could come back to the quiet relief and comfort of home—her home, her cozy little wood-toned apartment that always smelled of the smoke of green apple incense and always seemed just large enough for the two of them. Together.

But he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t
do
that, and Zombie Evan was just another reminder that he’d be leaving tomorrow, with nothing to remember her by but this little scrap of cloth and the taste of her kiss.

Zero looked down, scuffing the toe of her boot against the sidewalk. “You’re staring at me.”

“Was I?” Evan shook himself, smiled, and tucked the plushie into the pocket of his coat for safekeeping. “Dress code check. You passed.”

“Funny.”

“I try.” He offered his arm. “You want to go catch a movie or something?”

“Sure.” She slid her hand into the crook of his arm. “Zombie flick?”

“Not on your life.”

She laughed and leaned against him. And when he closed his eyes…when he closed his eyes he could almost pretend that this was his life, this moment just another captured from millions just like it, instead of a single cutaway scene in an endless film reel of days empty of warmth, of meaning, of her.

*     *     *

A dozen holiday family films, an award-winning cop drama, more romantic comedies than he could shake a stick at, and he’d let her talk him into a horror movie. A
gory
horror movie. Evan was starting to wonder if he’d ever eat anything red again.

He was also starting to wonder if he should sleep with one eye open, and check her apartment for anything larger than a penknife.

They strolled down the sidewalk toward the transit center, hand in hand, quiet amidst the bustle and flow of the city street. New York never ceased to amaze him: lit up bright even near midnight, restless life awake and moving, swift and unstoppable. He’d been to a hundred cities and never seen anything like it.

Which only made this moment of stillness all the more rare and precious, that he could find such comfortable silence with her in the midst of this riot of noise.

Zero drifted to a halt and tilted her head back, looking up at the sky. Snowflakes swirled down to speckle on her lashes; she half-closed her eyes. “It’s snowing again.”

He bumped her arm with his. “Tends to happen in winter.”

“Smartass.” She chuckled, leaning into him in that way that made his heart skip and tightened the pit of his stomach with that unsettling longing he couldn’t seem to shake. “I like the first few moments when it snows. Here you never get to see just clean white snow piled up for long. People walk all over it and get it dirty and grind it into slush. The street sweepers shove it aside and salt it. But for a few minutes when it first starts, it’s just white and clean and quiet.”

“And cold.”

Bright laughter lit her face. “And cold,” she said, then gave him a little push, heading down the street again.

Once more silence fell between them. Yet it was a silence he could not endure, for it only made the thing inside him that much louder. The words he wanted to say, but couldn’t. What was the point? What could he possibly hope to offer her, except a few cold and sterile nights when work happened to bring him to the New York area? He couldn’t even ask her to wait for him, when he didn’t know what he’d be asking her to wait
for
.

He licked his lips and glanced at her, then away, then back again. God damn it, when had he turned into such a chickenshit?

“You’re staring at me again,” she murmured, a sly little smile tugging at her lips.

“Was I? Damn. Caught me again.” He let out a nervous little laugh, then cleared his throat when his voice cracked. “Um. I guess I was just thinking.”

“About…?”

“Uh…”
Spit it out, man
. “Well, uh. These past few days have been fun.”

She didn’t look up. Her smile didn’t fade. Her stride didn’t falter. But a subtle tension went through her nonetheless, a stiffness as if she was hardening herself in anticipation of a blow. “But it’s over, right?”

“Not until tomorrow.” He drew to a halt, looking down at her. “We have one more night, Z.”

“I know.” The soft sound of her boots slushing through the snow stopped. She looked down, staring at the sidewalk. Her fingers crushed so tight on his it almost hurt, but when she finally raised her gaze to his she only smiled, wistful and sweet. “Listen, it is what it is. We had our little enemies-to-lovers story and like you said, you don’t stick around.”

“Would you want me to stick around?” The words felt like they pulled everything inside him up to clog in his throat, fishhooks digging into him and pulling everything out of place. Those hooks only dug deeper when she remained silent, looking up at him with something like hopelessness. “Would you?”

“For what?” she asked, her eyes dark and hurting, her voice soft.

Those hooks dug deep enough to pierce his heart. But she was right. She was right, and he’d known it before he’d opened his big mouth. He could promise her the world if she just wanted him to stay, but he was afraid it would just be another damned lie.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated. But her lips remained parted as if she might say something else. Something that hovered against the softness of her mouth, waiting to be exhaled on her breath like a blown kiss. But she only shook her head, pulling her hand from his, backing away. “Let’s go home.”

She turned away from him, almost running from him, her steps quick and sharp as she stepped out onto the crosswalk. Stepped into a sudden blaze of headlights turning. Stepped in front of the silver gleam of a grille bearing down, and the world slowed for Evan as he lunged for her, as he grabbed at her, as his fingers stopped just short of her coat, too slow, too far, not enough.

“
Zoraya!
”

*     *     *

It was all his fault.

Evan paced the hospital waiting room, fingers dug tight into his pockets and clenched so hard his fists made lumps bulging against his jeans. If he hadn’t pressed her about their relationship, if he’d just been fast enough to pull her back out of the street, if he’d noticed the car in the turn lane…if if
if
. So many ifs, but no amount of
if
would change that Zoraya was in that examining room without him and it was all his fault.

He could have lost her. Just like he’d lost everyone else—it could have been over in an instant, there and gone, and he’d be left with just another hole in his heart where someone used to be. Never mind that she’d been fine. Barely bowled over before the car had stopped; the SUV had only been going about ten miles per hour, slowed into the turn, and Zero had insisted she was fine until she tried to push herself up and her arm had given out beneath her, leaving her tumbling into the snow while Evan reached for her, then drew back, afraid to touch her, afraid to leave her there, not knowing what to do until the driver had offered them a tense, silent ride to the hospital with its sounds of people coughing and stifling heat and the stink of his own fear-sweat in his nostrils.

If that SUV had been going just a little faster, it could have been a ride to the morgue.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He stalked up to the reception desk and curled his hands tight against the counter. “Any updates on Zoraya Blackwell?”

The admin nurse looked up from her screen, watching him with that sort of polite sympathy that said she saw this all the time. “Are you her…husband?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“It’s complicated.” Evan barely restrained himself from slamming his fists on the counter. “May I see her?”

“She’ll be out soon, sir.” She offered him a reassuring smile. “I’m sure she’ll be all right. It’s sweet of you to care so much.”

Sweet. More like the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life.

He flashed her a thin, polite smile and made himself turn away—but froze when the double doors leading to the exam rooms swung open and Zero walked out, poking and prodding at a bright blue short cast that wrapped her arm from elbow to knuckles.

“Zero.” He started forward, feeling like a seam had been cut open along his heart, then made himself stop. Just…stop. “You’re all right?”

She lifted her head, looking up at him in surprise. “Evan. Hey. I…didn’t think you’d still be here.”

He smiled weakly and gestured toward her messenger bag and coat, draped over one of the chairs. “Someone had to play guard dog, right?”

“Right.” Something flickered in her eyes, before she looked down again and curled her fingers around the wrist of her cast. “It’s just a hairline fracture. I shouldn’t type for a while, but it’ll be okay. Stupid of me to walk out without checking the light.” With a rueful smile, she shrugged. “Hey, at least this gets me out of the office for a few days.”