She stepped back—
—fire burned through me, hot enough I froze, every inch of me screaming in agony—
I leaned forward, gently, slowly.
It wasn’t so much like a boot being pulled off as it was like being skinned alive.
It was too much. Pain filled all of me. Consciousness was a speck out there, glinting in the distance. I was losing hold, shaking apart.
Then it was done.
I fell to my knees, panting, sweat dripping off me like that Fae-born rainstorm. The world swayed and my stomach squirmed.
I barfed, and even though I didn’t eat, the energy that fueled me came up in a putrid, steaming puddle.
I hung my head and breathed through my mouth, not wanting to smell my own sick.
“That wasn’t so bad.” Stella’s voice was more distant, as if she’d stepped into another room, closed all the doors and windows, and was shouting just to be heard through the thick layers. “Just like pulling off a boot—easy.”
I groaned, because I was pretty sure the boot didn’t think so.
Chapter Seven
“Three days, tops.” Sunshine wiped his hands on a clean cloth, leaving greasy streaks behind.
Lu nodded, her eyes focused on the truck parked in the closest slot in the bay, the hood up and blocks behind its wheels.
“How much?”
“We’ll have to figure in time, but just the part for a blown radiator is gonna come in around two hundred. Timing chain’s that at least. Then labor and there’s a few other things I’d recommend we do while we’ve got it.”
“He’s gonna try to rip you off.” I was leaning on a tool box, facing both of them. That way I could stare over Lu’s shoulder through the window that showed the hall, and just enough of the doorway to the office I could see Jo, working on her laptop.
She glanced up, took a nice long stare at Sunshine’s back and shoulders, then shook her head as if trying to talk herself out of something.
I was curious.
“I’m thinking new transmission fluid would be good, and oil and air filter.” He held up a donut-shaped part, angling it so she could see the dirt and crud clogging it. “A front end alignment if you have the budget for it. Other than that, I don’t see any immediate trouble.”
“Nothing?” Lu asked.
I pushed off the tool box and moved straight on through the walls separating the work space and the office.
“You’ll need to be thinking about tires soon,” I heard Sunshine say. “And you need a spare. I’ve got a couple out back we can set you up with. Nothing fancy, but I’ll throw it in for free. Struts aren’t great, but they’ll do you for a few months.”
“And how much will that put me back?”
I didn’t hear the answer because I was through the hall and in the office.
Jo had the music playing low, some sweet-voiced woman singing about going down to the river. The window air conditioner was doing the work to knock the early afternoon heat right in the teeth, and the bottle of soda on the desk sweated on top of a short stack of napkins.
Jo muttered to herself, chewing on her lip, then letting go and clacking the stud in her tongue against the back of her teeth.
“What is wrong with you?” she muttered. “I’ve run the diagnostics. Wireless is here. It just keeps cutting out. Why? There’s nothing out here to block the signal. Is it the building?” She glanced up at the walls and back to the router that sat on the desk, a pile of paper on each side. “Crappy wiring? Someone hacking in to get their share without the boss man knowing?”
She leaned back a bit and her gaze clicked right out the office door to the bay where Sunshine stood, one hand in his back pocket, thumb and pinky spread over that cheek, his other hand gesturing with the rag toward the truck.
“Not that Fisher would allow crappy workmanship around here,” she scoffed. “I mean, look at him.”
