Page 35 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

35

Indy

I could have gone to the trailer park, but Loren would look for me there. At least, he would if he got his dander up enough to face me. I had the feeling his request for me to talk had not gone the way he’d expected. Seeing him cowed on the floor of the storage unit put a damper on my righteous indignation. His shock and sorrow were barbs of their own, biting at me while he stayed maddeningly quiet.

I’d wanted to yell. Throw things. Break shit.

If I’d had a knife, I would have cut through the canvases that stirred such mixed feelings in me. They were almost like the drugs, lighting bits of memory like tiny explosions in my brain. But they didn’t last.

And Loren just sat there. He explained a lot but not nearly enough. It should have been harder to believe than it was. Phoenixes, hellhounds and, apparently, a witch. The witch I was currently on my way to see, hoping she would fill the blanks in Loren’s summation of my life.

After the taxi dropped me off outside the Urban Easel gallery, I barged inside. I didn’t want to cause a scene during business hours, but this couldn’t wait. It had already been waiting for months and, if I tamped down the questions and the confusion for even one more day, I was convinced I would turn into a volcano and erupt.

There were no customers in sight as I wove between partition walls hung with framed canvases. All had been put back to normal since Joss Foster’s exhibition, and Sully must have been up till the wee hours rearranging. It was dizzying to think about how much had changed in such a short time, both inside and outside of the art gallery.

I found Sully in the back, enjoying a belated breakfast of wine and leftover hors d’oeuvres. After watching Loren make half-assed charcuterie while detailing information about my life, this encounter already seemed similar and equally casual.

I didn’t feel casual at all.

Sully turned toward my approach. She wore a sage green romper and had a coordinating bandana tied around her dreads. Her brown leather sandals showed toes adorned with gold rings.

I wondered what a toe ring would look like on me, then brushed the thought aside as I snatched the plate from her hands and announced, “Loren’s been lying to me.”

Sully paused with a cooked shrimp hovering near her mouth. Swallowing, she set the uneaten food on the plate I now held, then wiped her hand on her romper.

“I think his crime is more one of omission than anything.” Her expression relaxed into one of quiet knowing, like she’d been expecting this, and that riled me up even more. “What did he say?” she asked.

“What didn’t he say?” I fired back.

Chuckling, she folded her arms over the strands of beads hanging down her chest. “Oh no,” she shook her head, “I know entrapment when I see it. Lore asked me to stay out of this, and I’m not trying to piss him off.”

I frowned. “Are you scared of him or something?”

While Sully’s earlier laugh had been subdued, this one found a full voice. “No,” she replied. “No, not in the least. And you shouldn’t be, either.”

I wasn’t. Not even when he said he was a hellhound, which should have been a terrifying admission. He could have been a shapeshifter for all I knew, equipped with teeth and claws and ready to rage out at the next full moon. His comings and goings from “work” could have been excuses to go on the prowl, searching for people he could chew up for fun. But those thoughts were more musings than legitimate concerns. From what I’d seen, Loren was more of a fraidy cat than any kind of canine.

Sully cocked her head. “What makes you think he’s lying to you?”

“He admitted it!” I exclaimed, and she kept smiling.

“That’s a big step for him.”

“It’s the first step,” I grumbled the worn-out rehab rhetoric.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I felt awkward holding her breakfast, so I offered it back. She took the plate, then waved for me to follow her to an old metal tanker desk in the corner with a pair of wooden chairs positioned across from it.

I sighed as I sank into one of the chairs, and Sully took her position behind the desk. She set down the wine glass and food while I squirmed to find a comfortable position in the hard wooden seat.

After a few seconds of shuffling, I grumbled, “What’s his problem, anyway?”

Sully maintained a sly smile while she cast her gaze toward the front of the shop. “Lore is… stubborn.” Her brow furrowed. “No, that’s not right. Rigid, maybe?”

She looked at me like I should know, but I only shrugged.

“He likes things the way they are,” she continued. “Or the way they used to be.”

“Is that why he doesn’t like me?” I wondered aloud. “Because I’m not how I used to be?”

Sully clucked her tongue. “Oh, sweetheart.” She leaned forward and laid her arms across the desk top. Her expression was all sugar and softness. “He doesn’t like you. He loves you. That man worships the ground you walk on. He thinks you hung the moon. All that sappy shit.”

I tucked my chin into my chest and grumbled again. “He has a weird way of showing it.”

“I think he’s trying not to.”

“Why?”

She lifted her shoulder in a one-sided shrug. “He’s hurt. Grieving.”

“Grieving me?”

Sully nodded slowly. “Many versions of you, I think.”

Snorting, I planted my feet on the floor and pushed back, sending the chair skidding across the carpet. “This is crazy. I feel like I did something wrong, but he messed up, too. He wiped my phone, and he ignored me for weeks. The whole time I was in rehab.”

She had, too, for that matter. Had Loren told her to stay away? And, if she was so beholden to him, was I right in coming here? Was she even on my side?

“Then last night, he walked out on me,” I continued, growing more fervent by the moment. “After the art show, we went back to my trailer, and I thought…”

We’d been so close. Sitting in Loren’s lap, holding him and being held, I felt whole. Like the emptiness of my room in rehab and the loneliness that plagued me every night in the trailer finally had a remedy. It was him.

“I thought we were getting close,” I concluded. “Then he left.”

Sully looked aside again, and her eyes widened with dawning realization. “ That’s why he was upset,” she said softly.

I spun to face her. “You talked to him?”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

“What did he say?”

“What didn’t he say?” She chuckled, then quickly sobered. “Honestly, I don’t think I was being a very good listener.”

I turned toward the gallery once more, glimpsing paintings with splashes of color that made my brain spark alive. I’d messed around with the art supplies in the trailer, and the feeling of a brush in my hand was almost second nature. I didn’t have to think about it, my hand moved like muscle memory. But those pieces in the storage unit didn’t feel like mine, just like the décor and knickknacks in the Airstream seemed to belong to a stranger, someone I would like to know, but didn’t .

I sighed. “I thought if I knew more, if I remembered, I would feel better. But so far, it’s kinda worse.”

Sully hummed a soft sound. “Indy…”

I glanced at her. “Yeah?”

“Did Loren tell you I’m a witch?”

“Yeah.”

It was no more incredible than anything else he’d said. Once you crossed the line into the existence of supernatural beings, everything was fair game. But I still would have balked if she told me she was a vampire hungry for my blood.

Sully scooted back and opened the top middle drawer of her desk. She reached inside and fished out a small paper box, then set it on the desk top between us. It felt as ominous as a live grenade.

Her lips twisted. “If you could get your memories back—”

“Yes!” I surged between the chairs, making a mad grab for the box.

Sully snatched it away and held up her other hand in rebuke. “There are risks,” she said.

Bent over the desk, I remained poised to snatch it from her grasp. “I don’t care.”

Her brows dipped. “Loren cares.”

“He knows about this?”

She gave a slow, deliberate nod. “I asked him about it, yes.”

I braced for the answer before I voiced the question. “What did he say?”

“He said no.”

It was another fact left out. A secret kept. An opportunity stolen. But I intended to take this one back.

“Fuck him.” I bit off the words, and Sully winced.

“Indy…”

“I want it.” I held out my hand.

She retreated, palming the box as though she could hide it from my piercing glare. “You don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”

“Something that’ll help me get my memories back.”

Her frown deepened. “It might ,” she allowed. “It also might make things worse.”

My fingers wrapped around the edge of the desk top, barely enough of a tether to keep me from lunging forward and robbing her of the mysterious box.

“Things already are worse, Sully.” I leaned forward until the cold metal pressed into my thighs, then I met her gaze squarely. “If you can make them better, I want you to. Please.”

She clutched the box, riddled with indecision that tempted me to beg again until she relented at last.

“You should probably be sitting down for this.”