Page 30 of Wolf Bane (Marked #3)
“With the way our lives go, I don’t think there’s ever gonna be a good time,” he admitted. “I was afraid to wait, afraid to ask too soon…”
I nodded, watching the way our hands were entwined, how different they looked from when we’d held hands as teenagers, how much they looked the same as when we held hands as teenagers. “So, is this you asking then? Officially?”
“It’s me asking you if I can ask you.”
My turn to laugh. “Well, when the time is right, I’ll answer you.”
We sat quietly for another few minutes, the steady ping of raindrops on the truck roof picking up in intensity until it was pouring and the dark beyond the windshield grew uneasy.
“You good to drive?” Ethan asked.
I nodded. “You good to talk?”
“Always.”
* * *
The drive back—the long way, on more traveled roads than the ones I’d been taken down to get to Lugaru—was longer than I’d have liked, but it gave us time to sort some shit out like keeping the blood samples temporarily at home instead of at the clinic.
“I'd feel better if I could keep eyes on them,” Ethan said, and I had to agree.
I had a small fridge that could keep the samples around four degrees Celsius for at least twelve hours, long enough to get them to the storage at the clinic and get Cullen to shake a leg.
And convince Justin to help.
“Supposing Justin doesn’t want to do this,” Ethan asked as we made the final turn towards Belmarais, off the main freeway and onto the old farm-to-market road that ran along the slough, “what then?”
“Then I swallow the tiny bit of pride I have and beg Cullen for help because those samples are only gonna last so long. I need help, Ethan. This isn’t on you,” I added before he could remind me of how his hands were tied.
“I know this is not something you can be involved in, and I’ll make sure to throw myself on that grenade, if and when the time comes. ”
Ethan was quiet again, fighting a yawn out of the corner of my eye.
Finally, he gave in to a real jaw-cracker that set me off, too.
Being in our own bed would be a relief, even if it was only a few hours before I had to get up and see if I could get antibiotics for my arm and set everything else into motion.
Ethan seemed to read my mind. He reached out and put his hand on my knee, giving me a small squeeze as I steered around the enormous chuck hole near the turn off for the old clan land past the river bend.
“At least a few hours,” he said, tempting me. “You can’t pour from an empty pot or whatever it was my dad used to say.”
“If I recall correctly, his favorite was what’s that fucking pipsqueak doin’ in my house,” I said, mimicking Mr. Stone’s gruff smoker’s voice. “And Ethan you keep that door open with that little fruitcake in there, you hear? ”
“Good times,” Ethan muttered, sinking down in the passenger side seat a little. “Good times.”
Belmarais, not even remotely what I’d call a city, was still a splotch of lights on the dark road, and like it always did, seemed to pop out of nowhere when I rounded another curve.
The old gas station was dark for the night and the sketchy signs promoting some fly by night diner that never did open still loomed in the dark by Miller Road Cut Off.
I exhaled, feeling safe for the first time in over a day as we crossed into the little town proper.
Giddings Plaza—the fancier of the three trailer parks and full of manufactured homes that were all a beige-gray and aspired to greatness—had a bright light out front to illuminate the ridiculously tall flagpole.
The glare sliced across the blacktop road, cutting the darkness in the truck.
Ethan, in the brief flare of light, was pale, eyes dark-ringed.
He looked older than usual. Tired. I noticed, just in that fleeting moment, a sparkle of silver in his five o’clock shadow. “Next?—”
“Don’t,” he cut me off with a faint smirk. “Don’t say anything about next week, month, year, decade being better. You’ll jinx us.”
I snorted softly, braking at the flashing red light for the four way stop before we hit the main drag.
Gotta love small town living.
Before I could get going again, the whine of a fire engine filled the quiet. One of the town’s two engines came around the curve we’d just cleared, lights flashing and sirens blaring as they shot past us. “Jesus,” I muttered. “Hell of a night all around.”
Ethan just grunted acknowledgment, his expression creasing into a frown. “Goddammit, I hate being out of the loop,” he muttered, watching as the second truck disappeared down the road ahead of us.
Turning took us away from any hint of the lights, but Ethan was still gnawing over it. “Can’t you just ask what’s his face? Nelvin? That’s who took over for you, right?”
Another grunt. “Nelvin’s out. Or he will be soon.” Cutting me a glance, he shrugged. “He’s a racist dick. There’s been at least a dozen complaints that I know of. And the weres are uneasy that we don’t have someone on the local force to have our backs.”
“They have someone in mind?”
He cut me a tired glance. “I couldn’t say.”
“Won’t.”
“It’s not as easy as that.” He sighed. “Clan politics, how they mesh in with the human world…” He trailed off. “Eh, fuck, you already know.”
I did. Didn’t mean it didn’t make me uneasy, wondering just how much manipulation Ethan had been privy to, getting weres in positions of power or at least protection, not just in Belmarais but further afield, too.
Another stop light. With the late (or early, really) hour, it was eerie to sit at the empty intersection, waiting for the light to turn.
I felt watched. A good portion of that was paranoia, I was certain, but knowing Garrow was out on the loose made me double down on that anxiety.
Ethan was staring out of the passenger side window, unconcerned, but I took that moment while we waited to look behind us with the rearview mirror and give a good hard stare into the dark beyond the light on either side.
An old dog—really a dog, not a were or a shifter—and the guy who ran the cell phone repair shop doing inventory with a single light over the counter illuminating his labors.
I took the next turn into the clinic parking lot and, shaking from exhaustion and more than a little paranoia, got out of the truck with Ethan on my heels.
He followed me inside and waited while I put the samples in our special fridge and locked the place up again.
Back in the truck, I let out a long, groaning sigh, unable to shake the sticky feeling of being watched from my skin.
Ethan raised a brow when I glanced back at him. “We good?”
I nodded. “Just paranoid. Garrow…”
“He’s not going to come down here,” Ethan said gruffly, firmly.
“You can’t promise me that.”
Neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive to our house.
The tires were loud on our gravel drive, making me glance worriedly at Mal’s house.
Was Mariska still improving? I didn’t want to wake them, not if he was finally able to get some rest. A single light shone over the front steps, and it looked like the light over the stove was on, but everything else was dark.
Our own house was darker still—I hadn’t thought to leave any lights on before being kidnapped.
More fool me. Ethan followed the direction of my gaze, and wordlessly reached out to lay his hand atop mine where it rested on the steering wheel.
And just like that, the weight of the day pressed down again, squeezing the life out of me.
“I want to lie down,” I muttered, closing my eyes. “I want to go to bed, and when I wake up, everything is all fixed up.”
Ethan laughed softly, quietly. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He helped me out of the car, going ahead of me to unlock the door.
The faint funk of food left out too long—since my aborted lunch attempt nearly eighteen hours before—hung in the air.
Traces of Mal, of Tyler, of someone else I belatedly realized was Justin—wove in and out of the familiar scents of the house, of Ethan and Me, and wood polish, and Pine-Sol, and laundry soap, and old wood and everything that you never notice till you come home after being away.
My own horrible odor crept in as Ethan half-led, half-carried me back to our room, helping me strip down for the shower.
“I got this on my own, big guy,” I yawned. “If you get in with me, I’ll want to do more than shower, but I’m so tired I’ll just end up disappointing everyone involved.”
Ethan kissed the top of my head, giving me a gentle nudge towards the shower. “As if you could ever.”