Don’t do it— Andrew slipped his arm around her and bent to put his mouth close to her ear. “You’re all right. You think you’re not, but you are.”
Another tear slipped down her cheek, a salty sharpness undercutting the scent of her vanilla lotion and the spicy cinnamon of her favorite shampoo. “Maybe. Or maybe crazy really does run in my family.
Maybe I can spend ten hours a day with the world’s best empath and it won’t matter, because I’m a ticking time bomb. Aren’t you even a little afraid?”
He was, but only of himself and what would happen if he had to walk away from her again. “I’ll never be scared of you, Kat.”
“You would be if you could remember.”
“Remember what? The attack?” He urged her chin up so she had to look at him. “I do.”
Her blue eyes were chips of ice. “Alec’s scared of me. Alec. The crazy fucker that shapeshifter moms tell stories about to terrify their kids. They all try to hide it. They try to make me a hapless stupid kid so they can pretend it’s not there. But I feel it, Andrew. Every damn day.”
He had to make her understand. “Are you scared of me, Kat? I could kill you right now, in a heartbeat.
Crack your neck before you had a chance to think about liquefying my brain or whatever. Does that mean you’re pretending I can’t just to get through the day?”
Kat fisted her good hand in his shirt. Her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched. “You’ve never been afraid of hurting me?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying there’s a lot of scary going around, and if you’re going to condemn yourself for being dangerous, move over. There are a lot of us who belong on that bench with you.”
“But I couldn’t—” Her teeth dug into her lower lip. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I was scared, and I was mad, and I snapped, and I could have melted your brain too.”
And so she’d gotten help, the best to be had, and Callum had spent six months teaching her to harness that power. To control it, instead of letting it control her. “A year ago, you never could have done what you did this morning.”
For the first time, the anger and fear in her eyes wavered. “No. No, I couldn’t have. Of course, if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be trapped in a crappy motel room with a burned-out empath who’s kinda high and has the munchies.”
It was enough—for now. Andrew released her and snagged the takeout menu. “Screw the munchies.
Ever had steak delivered to a shitty motel room?”
She made a face at him. “Crappy. If it were shitty, there’d be an hourly rate.”
“Oh, is that how we judge these things?”
“Uh-huh. Trust me, those places are sketchy.”
He didn’t bother holding back his groan, though his playful words would hopefully hide his tension.
“Where the hell has that Mendoza kid been taking you?”
Her cheeks turned pink, and she busied herself with the laces on her Doc Martens. “Miguel took me wherever I wanted him to.”
Julio had been reluctant to discuss anything having to do with Kat and his brother, but the supernatural community in New Orleans wasn’t big enough for Andrew not to have heard things. “Good for him.” He almost meant it too.
She jerked one boot off. “I keep trying to hook him up with Sera, but neither of them will take the bait.”
He snorted. “If you think that slick little Casanova is what Sera wants, you haven’t been paying attention.”
“Hey.” She struggled with the other boot, tugging at the laces with one hand. “Be nice. He might be a tiny bit of a man whore, but he’s still my friend. If I can be nice about Anna when she was screwing the love of—” Her teeth snapped together. “Are you ordering steak or not?”
He wrapped his hand around her arm and held her still. “Look at me.”
She didn’t. “I’m wasted. I can’t even untie my damn boot. Just feed me and let me sleep it off.”
He released her and dragged her foot into his lap to unravel the knotted laces. “You’re not nice about Anna. You might not hate her or wish she’d die a horrible death, but you’re not nice. You don’t like her and you never will and that—” The heavy boot hit the floor, and Andrew sighed. “That’s how I feel about Miguel.”
Kat finally looked at him, her face lost to bewilderment. “You really think it’s the same thing, don’t you?”
“I guess you don’t.”
Uncomfortable silence filled the space between them before she looked away. “I need to eat, or I’ll be sick.”
He snatched the menu off the bed. “I’ll order a bunch of stuff. In the meantime, there’s an energy bar in my bag. Grab it, okay?”
She obeyed without a word, and her stubborn silence continued until the food arrived. She ate with the same quiet determination, every movement mechanical. Methodical. All her attention seemed turned inward, even when she pushed away from the rickety table with a quiet sigh. “Thanks, Andrew. I’m just hurt and tired and need some sleep.”
“How bad’s the pain? I don’t have anything too strong, but there’s some over-the-counter stuff in my bag.”
“Maybe tomorrow.” She smiled wanly and crawled onto the bed. “I’m about to be unconscious whether I take drugs or not. Don’t be worried unless I sleep more than twenty-four hours.”
“Got it.”
He stared at the remains of his sandwich until her breathing deepened and steadied. Then he retrieved his phone and slipped out the front door.
He’d need to tell Sera, at least, that they weren’t coming back right away. As Kat’s roommate, she would be the first person to raise the alarm, and he didn’t know if they could afford that right now.
Best-case scenario, that sniper had been targeting the dead woman. Worst case, he was a lousy shot who only winged Kat…or missed Andrew entirely.
Both possibilities sucked.
Burnout dreams were the worst.
Kat struggled her way into consciousness, guided by the throbbing ache in her arm. Her dreams had always been vivid, but after a controlled burnout, the deepest, darkest corners of her psyche turned her brain into their playground.
She’d dreamed of pirates. The sexy, swashbuckling kind with ambiguous sexuality and a historically improbable lack of STDs. Miguel was their leader, and she’d been balanced on the precarious edge of a plank over the deep blue ocean, everything inside her screaming to close her eyes and jump.
Her psyche wasn’t subtle.
Neither was the pain, which her groggy mind identified as the delightful aftermath of being shot. Far less sexy than in the movies, where a few gunshot wounds never seemed to stop a determined heroine from dirty sex in a dingy motel room. Sticky blood had mostly dried on her T-shirt, and the fabric stuck to her skin as she rolled over. She was groggy, hungry, sore and distinctly sketchy. Sex had never seemed less appealing.
Then she sat up, and remembered what it felt like to want.
Andrew was doing pushups. Shirtless. The muscles in his shoulders and back flexed with every effortless movement, which made the tattoo on his back flex right along with them. Thick black ink cut across tanned skin in a style she recognized all too easily. One of the Ink Shrink’s creations, an intricate phoenix with a vaguely tribal feel, so large the bird’s wings spanned Andrew’s back and curled around his shoulders.
The Ink Shrink wasn’t always subtle, either.
“Almost done,” he said without looking up. Two more pushups and he rocked back on his knees, stretching his arms. “Feel better?”
He had a tattoo on his arm too, and finding it fascinating kept her from dwelling on his chest. “Uhm, I feel less drunk. More like I got shot.”