Page 20 of Red Rooster

Trina gave her an apologetic smile and headed for the door, Sasha trailing after her.

He caught up to her easily out on the sidewalk, falling into step alongside. “Are you going to tell her about Lanny?” he asked, curious rather than judgmental. She had a feeling Nikita would already be lecturing her.

“That wasn’t my original plan, no. But she’s one of the good ones. I don’t like lying to her.”

Sasha nodded sagely. “That’s what made Nikita such a terrible Chekist. The lying ate him up from the inside out.”

“Does it still?” She thought about a life spent more or less on the run, just the two of them keeping to themselves, forming no outside attachments, keeping their powers hidden away like contraband so as not to draw attention. In that scenario, the lying never really stopped – even if killing wasn’t in the job description anymore.

Sasha sent her a quick, sad smile. “That’s the problem, though. If you pretend to be something for long enough, it usually sticks.”

~*~

It was easier being indoors, Lanny realized as he and Nikita walked down the street. His senses were no less finely-tuned, but in a bar, or the apartment, he could sit still and catalogue the sights, the scents, the sounds; could ground himself and take the time to pick apart all the subtle differences and scent markers he’d never noticed before. When he was human.

(Thinking of himself asnot humanwasn’t going to start feeling normal anytime soon.)

But outside, moving, the hypersensitivity felt like an assault. He tried breathing through his mouth, but he couldtastescents too. And a blaring, air raid siren part of his brain was telling him he was surrounded by threats…and by prey. His body wanted blood, and it was all around him.

Sweat gathered at his temples, under his arms, in the small of his back. He could hear his breath rasping in and out of his mouth and knew he had to look like a drunk or a psycho; he swore he could feel his eyes pinging side to side as he scanned the sidewalk, the street, the windows up above.

“It gets easier,” Nikita said calmly beside him. “It’s normal after a while, and you can control yourself.”

“I can control myself,” Lanny said, without much heat because he was breathing too hard.

“Alright. What are you thinking about right now? What do you want to do?”

A simple question in theory. But he wanted somuch.

He wanted to go across the street and pick a fight with the douchebag in the ugly hat over there because aggression was like a living thing inside him, and that guy needed a good ass-beating, it looked like. He wanted to turn and deck Nikita just for being an asshole.

Wanted to find Trina and tell her that he was whole now, healed, that he wasn’t going to die, and then lay her out on the bed and shred her clothes with histeeth.

And deeper, more primal than those things, throbbing relentlessly inside him like a fresh bruise, was a hunger that had nothing to do with a full belly.

When he didn’t respond, Nikita said, almost kindly, “We’ll get some blood. Don’t worry.”

Lanny didn’t pay much attention to where they walked, simply juggling his own impulses and allowing Nikita to lead, so he was surprised when they turned down into a narrow alley which turned the corner into another. The smell hit him like a physical shove: blood. And lots of it.

Before, he might have said that blood had a faint tang to it, especially at those crime scenes where it had clotted and dried and begun to stink like death. But now it hung on the air like his mother’s marinara sauce. Copper and salt and meat and life, rich and fresh. It smelled cold – and he marveled that he could tell such a thing.

“Here,” Nikita said, catching him by the arm and pulling him to a halt in front of a door with peeling yellow paint and a rusty metal sign over the door that readChop-Chop. The sign, Lanny noted, was shaped like a pig.

Nikita pressed the bell, and knocked three times, and a moment later the door opened to reveal a gigantic man in a flannel shirt and a white apron, sporting a massive ginger beard.

“Oh, hey,” the guy said, grinning, wiping his hands down his apron and leaving greasy streaks behind. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal intricate sequences of tattoos on both arms; Lanny spotted rings and spacers in his ears. Not a lumberjack, then, but a hipster.

His hackles immediately lowered.

“Hello, David,” Nikita said in a voice that was probably supposed to be pleasant. “We’d like to buy two quarts, please.”

Lanny stared at him.

The man, David, nodded, grin widening, like Nikita’s request made perfect sense. “Aw yeah, man, perfect timing, the truck just came by this morning. Hold on and I’ll grab it. You need a bag?”

“Please.”

“Be right back.”