My brows arched, and I sat back.
Niko nudged me. “Big shoes.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s how it goes.”
“Tell me something.”
“Sure.”
He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I understand what it means when something sucks. But why is it when something blows, it means the same thing? The words are opposite.”
I smiled. Niko was well-spoken and had a good grasp of the English language. Maybe he didn’t watch enough television to understand slang. “I don’t know, Niko.”
“Sometimes wordplay like that confuses me.”
“What brought that up?”
He moved to the bench across from me. “I heard conversations in the tunnels.”
I tucked my stringy hair behind my ears. “I never knew places like that existed.”
He laced his fingers together. “How are you feeling?”
My stomach churned. “Cristo was an evil man. Let’s just leave it at that.” When I noticed a conflicted look in his expression, I decided to let him off the hook. “Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to take out his light. It’ll go away once I sleep it off. It was different the last time; I was injured and couldn’t handle the additional stress.”
What I didn’t tell him was how dark light slithered like insects, devouring me from the inside out. I could taste it, smell it, and feel the evil deeds as if their ghosts were all around me. The adrenaline from running and jumping off the bridge had numbed me for a little while, but the sickness was quickly taking hold. Pulling Cristo’s core light had been my decision, so I needed to suck it up.
My heart flip-flopped when the back door suddenly opened. Viktor’s grey wolf leaped inside, his paws wet and dirt all over his coat. He smelled everyone—especially the baby.
Christian rocked the van when he jumped inside and sat next to me without a word.
Realizing we were a man short, my stomach knotted. “Where’s Shepherd?”
“Miss me already?” Shepherd said in a gravelly voice as he climbed in the van, his pants shredded and face spattered with blood. He tossed his leather coat on the bench, his shirt ripped down the front and hanging on him like a vest.
“Everyone thought you were dead,” Wyatt informed him.
Shepherd sat down across from us and wearily stretched out his legs. “If I were dead, I’d come back to haunt your ass.”
Wyatt put on his hat. “See? I told you guys.”
It didn’t take long for Niko to notice that Shepherd was hurt. “You need my help.”
“All I need is a cigarette.” Shepherd used his shirt to wipe the blood off his face, which continued dripping from the gash on his head.
Christian crossed his ankles. “Don’t trouble yourself, Niko. I’m sure Claude will give him a tongue bath when we get home.”
Shepherd flicked his gaze between them. “Fine. Just the gash on my head. It needs stitches, and I don’t trust any of you boneheads enough to thread a needle.”
The shakes came over me.
“Cold?” Christian asked.
While Niko began working his healing magic on Shepherd, Wyatt started up the van and headed home.
I wrung my hands. “No. It’s not that.”
“Can’t you force it out?”
