Working solely by muscle memory, I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand it and stepped inside. Stinging drops of water pelted me, turning rusty brown as they ran down my body and disappeared into the drain. I stood there for a long time; one arm braced against the wall.
Eventually, I roused myself enough to scrub at my hair and body, trying to physically remove the last few days with the power of shampoo and body wash.
Maybe it worked. At least, I felt marginally more like a human being by the time I emerged. My pale skin had been scrubbed pink and raw. Reluctantly, I swiped a towel across the mirror, clearing the steamy condensation. I still looked worse than Knox, andhe’djust walked out of the hospital a few hours ago.
On autopilot, I pulled a tube of ointment out of the medicine cabinet and dabbed it over the scratch marks that still looked inflamed. My beard needed a trim. My fingernails were broken and ragged. I couldn’t deal with either of those things.
Knox had come in at some point and deposited a pile of clothing next to the sink. I put it on, hating the fact that I could feel Jez calming down under Gage’s care.
You should be taking care of her. Not him, said the little voice. My headache started to throb more insistently. I put the ointment away and grabbed three ibuprofen pills from the bottle on the bottom shelf, swallowing them dry.
For a long moment, I leaned against the vanity with my head hanging and my eyes squeezed shut. Then I pushed upright, squared my shoulders, and stepped back into the bedroom.
Knox was waiting for me, sprawled in a chair across from the bed. He looked exhausted.
“That’s better,” he greeted. “Now, which are we talking about first—Jez, or the kidnapping?”
My mind shied away from the subject of Jez like a nervous horse.
“The kidnapping,” I said.
He nodded. “Okay. Tell me everything you remember. I need names, if you have them.”
I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, and started from the beginning.
TWENTY-NINE
Tony
AFTER DROPPING KNOXoff at the pack house and storming off afterward, I drove aimlessly around the city. I was wasting gas I couldn’t afford to waste, and probably risking an accident since only a fraction of my attention was on the road.
Heath and Jez were mated.
Even worse, the fact that Heath and Jez were mated was really none of my goddamned business. Because having a one-night stand with someone didn’t exactly give you a say over their future relationships.
Not that Heath and Jez had arelationship. That was the most fucked up part of this whole thing. They’d both been captured, drugged, and now they were tied together psychically for the rest of their lives.
From the little I’d seen, they hated each other’s guts. And, I mean... they had reason. All of which made my own reaction even stupider.
I spent longer than I’d have liked to admit thinking about how easy it would be to get on Interstate 55 and drive back to St. Louis. Well... except for the fact that I only had a third of a tank of gas, forty bucks in cash, and all of my stuff was back at my apartment.
Also, my mother still lived in St. Louis. As far as I knew, anyway.
That was the thing that finally sent me slinking back to my apartment. I didn’t think I was physically capable of looking her in the eye, knowing what had happened to her ‘missing’ husband.
