Page 10

Chapter

Ten

GRACE

B oney Boy’s arrival acted like a rock slide slamming into an already agitated pond. The ripples turned into waves that sent the water surging to the edges and slapping upward. It was like a storm hitting with the ionized air growing almost electric. Maybe I was imagining it, but the look Alphabet sent across the table toward Bones was downright hostile. Even Goblin picked up on it. He shifted his weight and then moved to lay so he was touching my feet with his hips and rested his chin on Alphabet’s feet.

Such a precious dog.

Hands wrapped around my coffee cup, I tried to chase the sudden icy chill out of my palms. Neither Voodoo nor Lunchbox said a word to Bones as they resumed their activities. When I glanced at him again, I found Bones studying me in turn. Like Voodoo, half of Bones’ face was littered in bruises and swelling. One corner of his mouth was definitely fatter than the other and his right eye was damn near closed.

I flicked a look from him to Voodoo and then back. Voodoo definitely had bruises but Bones looked a hell of a lot worse for the wear. I guess when Voodoo called it therapy, he meant more for him than for Bones. I took a deeper drink of the coffee and sighed at the bitter flavor with just the barest hint of hazelnut and chocolate underneath the rest. It was strong as hell.

Just what I needed.

“Good morning, Grace,” Bones said after what felt like a protracted silence. “I hope you’re feeling better today.”

The words weren’t quite flat, but his tone was. It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to make nice with me when they were definitely not feeling it. Perfunctory peace moves were common when you wanted to reduce the level of friction on a shoot. More often than not, it was basically an olive branch offered and accepted for that moment. After, we’d go our separate ways and it didn’t really matter what they thought of me or me of them.

This? This was different. I debated responding to him. I didn’t really have much nice to say where he was concerned. As much as I’d like to argue I could see all of this from his side—that would be a lie. Not only would it be a lie, I didn’t want to see things from his side of this. He’d treated me like an inconvenience since everything went wrong. As sorry as I was to be stuck with them, none of this was my fault.

None of it. Another swallow of coffee gave me a continued excuse to not answer him. Frankly, all I could think about was attacking him verbally. Or throwing something at him again. As much as none of this was my fault, it wasn’t totally their fault either. They’d come to my rescue. Mine and others. I’d seen them take everyone else home and they’d tried to take me home.

These were all facts that were important for me to remember. At the same time, it didn’t help his case or mine. I said his instead of their because as frustrated as I was about our current situation, Bones seemed to have taken an intense dislike to me from the beginning. He didn’t want me involved, but also didn’t seem willing to just let me leave. There was simply no evading the dark look in his eyes or the hard expression on his face.

Frankly, I didn’t want to focus on the coldness in his voice. Even as I ticked off the litany of various infractions from the past few days, I turned all of my attention to my coffee. Exhaustion draped me like a deadweight and it pushed my shoulders down. Even my face seemed too tired to try and manufacture a smile.

“Probably needs more caffeine,” Voodoo said. The sound of the milk being steamed and the grind of the coffee had all offered varying degrees of comfort. “Let me know how that first one is for you, I went with regular milk. But we’ll have oat in for you by this evening.”

The ease in which he delivered the declaration made it a fact, even if it hadn’t happened yet. I surrendered the coffee mug to him as I wrapped my hand around the tumbler. Oh, the flat white was so much warmer and it penetrated the icy shell of my fingers. Even better, the scent was heavenly.

A long swallow of the hot, smooth coffee was the jolt my system needed. “Thank you.”

Hot on his heels was Lunchbox with the omelet and that smelled divine too. “Here you go.”

I glanced up at him with a smile. It was a little easier to summon this time. “This is great, thank you.” Another swallow of the coffee had my system humming. As much as I hadn’t really felt hungry when we first got down here, my stomach growled in anticipation of the food.

The pair looked pleased with themselves and I made myself put the coffee down before claiming a fork. The omelet smelled even better when I cut into it. A wave of nausea swept through me as my mouth watered and my stomach tightened. Maybe I was too hungry. It definitely happened to me previously when I skipped too many meals and even minimized water because dehydration added to my ripped look.

Not that I was ripped at the moment, but I had been avoiding food. Closing my eyes, I forced myself to breathe through my mouth rather than my nose. Deep, slow breaths to settle my stomach’s objections. The last thing I wanted to do was throw up my coffee or this omelet.

After my third or fourth deep breath, I managed to take the bite without choking on it. Chewing it slowly didn’t help as much as I would have hoped. The omelet tasted good but it was so rich. My second bite was a lot smaller. It was like trying to swallow a stone, but I got it down. The water glass was there, so I grabbed it instead of the coffee. As good as the coffee sounded, I needed to get my stomach to stop protesting.

Movement across the table from me pulled my gaze up. Bones had taken the seat directly opposite me. “You’re fine,” he said, motioning with his bruised hand toward the food. “Slower bites and Lunchbox is bringing you toast.”

“I’m fine.” Arguing the point was going to become automatic soon enough. I didn’t want to rely on Bones for help or for him to notice anything.

“Yes, you are,” he said, without an ounce of irony or scorn. “We haven’t been feeding you well enough. So we’re going to help you get through this.”

“Bones is right,” Lunchbox said as he circled the table and set a plate of dry toast down next to the omelet. He set another omelet in front of Alphabet. Unlike mine, Alphabet’s looked like it had been piled high with everything—including peppers and salsa.

My stomach flip-flopped unhappily. Right, don’t focus on that. “I really am okay,” I said on the heels of a long exhale. “I just didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“It’s okay,” Alphabet said and this time he brushed his fingers down my arm. “Take as much or as little time as you need. We’ve got plenty of stuff for an upset stomach if you need it.” That was nice, and before he’d even finished Voodoo disappeared out of the kitchen. No doubt, he went to get me something for my stomach.

A chuckle worked its way through me. It shouldn’t be funny. In fact, it wasn’t funny. As far as I knew, Voodoo wasn’t a doctor of any kind, but he handled most of my wound care. Or he had since we’d left that clinic. Bones still studied me from across the table. He didn’t remove his attention even as Lunchbox set a plate in front of him. Nor did he when Voodoo slid into the seat next to me with a stack of little pills.

I paused with the bite on its way to my mouth as I stared at the various and sundry pills he’d retrieved. “Got a little bit of everything,” he said. “Antacids, nausea, gas—pick your poison.”

The earlier laugh that I’d tried to smother bubbled up through me again. “Do I want to know why you have a medicine cabinet of upset stomach meds?”

Voodoo shrugged. “Nothing nefarious. At least not right now. We know how to trigger these reactions in people too. If you’re going to set someone up to be sick, it’s better to make sure you don’t take yourself out at the same time.”

“Hangovers are ass too,” Alphabet volunteered in between bites. “The last thing you want is to be puking when you need to rehydrate. So yeah, we got a little bit of everything.”

“I always thought hair of the dog that bit you worked pretty well.” At least when we had dawn shoots after being up dancing and drinking all night. Most of the time, I was still a little drunk when we showed up on set. “Sadly, this isn’t alcohol so much.” I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d gotten plastered. “I didn’t realize we hadn’t eaten that much.”

“We’ll make adjustments,” Bones said, another reminder that he was right there. When my gaze collided with his, he leaned back in his seat. “All of us will. No more missing meals for you. You’re already scrawny and don’t have enough meat on your bones to spare, much less go hungry.”

I frowned. Scrawny?

Bones gave a jerk and then glared at Voodoo. If we’d been anywhere else, I would have thought that Voodoo just kicked him under the table.

“It wasn’t an insult,” Bones argued.

“It wasn’t a compliment, either,” Voodoo countered. “You should go ahead and take one of these, Firecracker.”

“I was going to finish eating first.” If taking something upset my stomach more…

“Probably better to split the difference,” Bones suggested. “That way you can keep eating and not worry about fighting with the food after the fact.”

Fighting with it—oh yeah, okay. “You have a point.” One I was willing to concede. I chose a pair of pink pills. They would coat my stomach and let me eat. Easier to pick them since I had a solid idea of what they would do and how they would affect me. Once I’d downed them, I resumed my slow bites and washed the food down with coffee and water.

The guys had already decimated their meals but waited for me, without rushing or even prodding me. When I would pause to have a sip of water, they each seemed to be having some kind of private conversation with each other by exchanging looks and what I thought might be hand signals. Those ceased under my observation but since it kept resuming when I focused on the food again, clearly I wasn’t imagining it.

Still, when I finished the last of my toast and pushed away the final third of the omelet, I felt a little more human. I was also debating getting up to make myself another flat white.

“Thank you for giving me the time to eat,” I said, glancing at each of the guys one at a time until my gaze rested on Bones. “Are we going to actually settle all of this now? And talk? Or is this going to end with another dismissive comment that cuts me off at the knees?”

It came out far more combative than I’d intended, but I didn’t regret the choice. Voodoo made it sound like he and Bones had fought and worked out some of this shit. The bruises on their faces were further evidence. Alphabet looked a little harried today, more than the day before or even after the drive and the…

The image of the vehicles catching fire and flipping as he shot out their tires and gas tanks played on repeat in my head. I hadn’t seen what happened to the guy in the barn, but based on the blood that had been all over Alphabet and the knife in his prosthetic, the guy was definitely no longer with us.

Hard to find myself caring about that part too. Except…

I sighed.

“Yes,” Bones said. “We are. I made some calls. We have some information. We’re going to debrief—all of us.”

I frowned.

“You want answers,” Bones continued. “Are you up for the debriefing now or do you need more rest?”

“How is your stomach, Gracie?” Alphabet asked as though he were translating for them but I got it.

“I’ll live,” I said. “I would kill for another flat white though.”

“Got it,” Voodoo said. “Anyone else want coffee? Once we have that ready, we’ll relocate to one of the offices.”

Since no one else argued or even asked him why, I assumed that had to have been something they’d been discussing with hand signals and silent stares. Fine, I didn’t really care where we had this conversation as long as we had it.

“Thank you,” I said to the guys as they all rose and started tackling tasks from clearing the table to cleaning the kitchen. Not that they let me help. That was also fine, I took the time they were all moving to observe, particularly Bones. Something had shifted with him but I didn’t know what it was or if it would be beneficial or not.

When all was said and done, we adjourned to a different room. This one had an entire wall that doubled as a screen of sorts. As soon as we were inside and the door locked, Bones faced all of us—faced me.

“Let’s start with the one question you’ve asked repeatedly…”