Page 44 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

44

Loren

The confrontation with the hellhounds left us both out of sorts. My head was light, and my heart beat sluggishly. Indy alternated between swaying on his feet, almost dazed, and vibrating with energy. His pupils were dilated, and he was chattier than usual, talking about anything and everything as we climbed into the trailer.

“I have wings .” He glanced over each shoulder as though expecting them to be visible. “Does that mean I can fly?”

“You could,” I replied.

“Can?”

“ Could .”

He shimmied past into the kitchen and filled a cup from the sink. After guzzling the water, he set the glass aside.

“And fire… fingers?” He waggled his hands as though entranced. “I don’t know where it came from. It just came.”

I nodded, maneuvering carefully to sit on the couch. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest .

“And I killed those people.” Indy turned a circle in the galley area of the kitchen. “Have I killed people before?”

He seemed oddly unfazed by the murders, and I worried the gravity of his actions would catch up to him as soon as the adrenaline wore off.

“They weren’t people,” I corrected.

Indy spun again like a pirouetting ballerino. When he faced me, his expression pinched. “They looked like people.”

“They used to be people.”

Indy may have had a point about me not driving, at least until we mitigated the amount of blood leaking from my body. It was seeping into the sofa cushions, staining the fabric with splotches of ebony.

“You look like a horror movie survivor,” Indy quipped. “And by survivor, I mean barely.”

I shot him a narrow look. Whatever sympathy he’d had for my condition in the automotive shop must have worn off. He whirled round once more, letting his head loll back so his curls fanned around his face.

He was excited. Rather, elated, which didn’t seem an appropriate mood for a man on the run for his life and who just used his previously unknown powers to incinerate four people.

We needed to talk about that, but we could discuss it on the road, and I couldn’t get behind the wheel looking like a spook house monster. People would notice and call the police, and getting pulled over so a cop could ask intrusive questions would only slow us down.

Indy came to a stop, snickering from having no doubt dizzied himself. His golden eyes were wide, dilated, when they fixed on me, then his expression went somber again.

“Your blood is black?” he asked.

I looked at the oozing gash that split my jeans down the length of my thigh and sighed.

“Why’s it black?” Indy leaned closer, almost off-kilter, and his head rocked from side to side.

“I’m not human, either,” I replied gruffly. “Not people.”

The trailer was stuffy without the air flowing, and the sun beamed around the drawn curtains. I felt both warm and chilled, and clammy with sweat while my head grew so light I thought it might lift off my shoulders.

“We need Band-Aids.” Indy propped his hands on his hips and regarded me with a frown. “Really big Band-Aids. Do we have a first aid kit?”

Grimacing, I pushed off the couch. “I’ll get it.”

As I started toward the bathroom, Indy tagged along, protesting.

“Just tell me where—”

“I know where it is,” I said. And I would be faster. The longer we sat parked, the more time Abigail had to race back to Hell and gather reinforcements.

Shuffling toward the bathroom, I stepped inside, then slid the pocket door closed. I would have benefitted from a shower but that, again, took time we didn’t have, so a wipe down would have to do.

I yanked a towel off the wall hook and wadded it in the sink, then turned the faucet on to soak it. Indy’s requested Band-Aids would be too small to cover the gaping claw marks on my arms and chest, but butterfly bandages, tape, and gauze might help .

My ruined shirt was pasted to my skin. I peeled it off gingerly, then dropped it onto the floor.

The sink was pooling with water, so I cranked the faucet off, then retrieved the towel and wrung it into the drain. I daubed the terrycloth over my face, masking hisses of pain with heavy sighs. Scratches raked down the side of my skull, matting my hair to my scalp. One even tore through my lip beneath the mess they’d made of my nose.

I wondered if there would come a time when Indy would find me more gruesome than pretty. More beast than man. The thought made me frown, which made my battered face ache, which made me even more frustrated. I flung the towel onto the counter, where it knocked over half a dozen of Indy’s beauty products and sent a few clattering into the sink basin.

“Everything all right?” Indy called from outside.

“Yeah,” I muttered without being sure if he would hear.

Grabbing the towel, I tossed it onto the floor and started righting bottles and containers. I fished the items out of the sink and set them in the scarce empty space where I noticed a loose screw on the countertop. I pinched it between my fingers and raised it for inspection. My sight was blurry with both eyes blacked and swollen so I strained to study the thing that seemed so out of place.

I wasn’t sure what made me look up, but that was where I saw it. The hole the screw came out of. In the corner of the vent fan plate. When I’d removed it a week prior, I’d been careful to put it back the way I found it. That meant the screw had been removed recently by someone else .

Staring harder, I noticed the other three screws weren’t flush to the plate, only finger tight, and my stomach dropped.

I knew, I knew, I knew , but I checked anyway. I had to.

Removing the plastic cover was harder than it should have been while I prayed my intuition was wrong. When I lowered the plate and saw the clear baggie resting on top of it, I damn near threw the thing across the room. I snatched the bag and balled it in my fist, ready to crush the pills inside to powder.

Four Green Apple ecstasy pills, the usual fare, and I realized Indy’s jittery state wasn’t because of the hound attack. Was that what he’d been doing while I was in the automotive store? Sneaking away to get high?

I whirled toward the door and slung it aside to find Indy leaning against the wall outside. His swollen pupils fixed on me as I shoved the baggie at him.

“What the fuck is this?” I shouted, almost roared.

He flinched back and his eyes darted around, looking everywhere but at the pills being thrust into his line of sight.

“I…” He swallowed, then licked his lips, probably thirsty. Drugs dried him out. Then I remembered the water he’d drank so greedily, and I felt even more foolish.

Going to the club. Talking to Evander. Buying drugs. He’d been out of rehab less time than he’d been in it. Was it all for nothing?

“How did you find those?” he asked.

“You were clean,” I said. I was shaking.

His tongue snaked across his lips. Tweaking. So damn high.

“I’m not, not clean,” he hedged.

“Bullshit.”

I barged back into the bathroom where I fumbled with the zipper top of the bag until I settled to rip it instead. Flipping open the toilet lid, I dumped the pills into the pool of blue water, then flushed them down.

“Loren,” Indy whined. The mournful sound raised my hackles.

What was he more upset about? A wasted hundred bucks? Or the fact that he had managed to cut me deeper than any hellhound ever could?

I glanced back at where he stood in the hall looking awfully sorry for himself.

He’d told me why he took the drugs. That night at the lookout when he was fully himself for the first time ever. Then he’d apologized for being everything I didn’t like. For making me sad.

“You aren’t the reason I’m sad, Indy,” I said.

He cocked his head. This Indy didn’t remember that, didn’t know what I meant, but I needed to say it anyway.

“I’m sad because you choose this shit,” I stabbed a finger at the toilet, “instead of us. Instead of me. That’s what makes me sad. Sometimes I think it might kill me.” My voice almost broke, damn near cracked, and I clenched my fists as though they could hold onto my composure.

“You can’t die from sadness,” Indy said softly, repeating what he’d told me about his suicide. Accidental overdose.

I remembered what I’d said then, too .

Sometimes people die to make it stop.

I’d told Sully I didn’t always see the point in living. Death looked like peace to me. It meant release from Moira’s contract, from the cycle of love and loss, from brutally pervasive sadness.

Maybe that was why I was so inclined to lie down and surrender because I would have gladly died to make it all stop. Maybe I was as mad at Indy for abandoning me as I was that I couldn’t be the one to go instead.

“Get in the truck,” I said.

Indy’s brow furrowed. The concern was at odds with the giddy high that curved his lips and the glisten of tears in his eyes.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Not Nevada. Not Ohio.

“Somewhere else,” I replied.

He didn’t move, so I exited the bathroom and grabbed his arm to tug him toward the trailer door.

He stumbled after me, nearly tripping in his clunky shoes. “Loren, you’re hurt…”

Reaching the door, I flung it wide and held it. Indy stopped on the threshold, hesitating until I thrust him into the blinding sunshine. “We’ll talk when you’re sober.”