“Shame?” Cody asked. “Are you okay? You’re staring at me.”
“I’m not okay.”
“Can I—” he said.
“No. Nothing.” I glanced at Eleanor one last time. Didn’t know what I could do to fix what I’d done. Didn’t want to talk to Cody about it. “I need to take a leak.”
He pointed to the left. “Bathroom’s that way.”
“I know. This is my house, you idiot.” I pushed at the sheet. It resisted my attempts to move it.
Jesus, I was tired.
“I heard talking,” Dash said as he walked into the room. “Shame, why are you moving? You shouldn’t be moving. Dr. Fischer is on the way. Where do you think you’re going?”
“Bathroom,” I said. I’d pushed the sheet down to my waist and was working on sliding a leg over to the edge of the bed.
“Here.” Dash stepped to the side of the bed and half hauled, half supported me out of it. He didn’t say anything about me being naked and dead, and I was too naked and dead to care.
Got me to the bathroom. I tackled the problem of the toilet by propping one elbow on the towel rack and trying not to pass out.
Having managed that, I decided to go for the gold.
Turned toward the shower. Who in their right mind built a shower three miles away from the toilet? Didn’t care. I was going to wash this pain, blood, sweat, and hell off me, no matter how long it took for me to do it.
“. . . got it,” Dash said, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, his arm around my waist as he helped me toward the shower. “Almost there.”
“Dash,” I said as we crept ever closer and closer to the shower, which was already on and steaming up the room. Strange. No, Cody was over there, putting something in the shower. A plastic patio chair? What the hell?
“. . . sit,” Dash said, bending with me to fold me into the chair. “. . . dumb idea. If you die on us, Shame, I’m going to kick your ass, you understand?”
Whoa. Kind of harsh on a guy who’d just marched his naked ass halfway across the universe for a shower.
“Take it easy,” Cody said to him. “Why don’t you go make some coffee and check on Sunny? I’ll stay here and make sure he doesn’t drown.”
Maybe Dash said something; maybe he and Cody got in a fistfight, danced the tango, or took up skeet shooting. Didn’t care. There was water—warm, soft, life-filled water—pouring down over my body.
Eleanor hovered across the room, still as far from me as she could get. She refused to look at me.
“I’m . . . sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t stop it. I . . . El. I’ll fix this. I promise.”
She still wouldn’t turn.
It would have to wait. She would have to wait. I was too damn tired to do anything but sit and breathe. Everything else, the whole damn living world, would have to wait until I had my feet under me.
Lost some time again. When I woke up, it was dark out. The lamp in the corner of the room glowed softly. I was back in my bed, propped up with pillows so I was not quite sitting. Had a pair of boxers on. I moved a little and bandages scraped against the sheets. Bandages on my arms, my legs, my chest.
I felt like a piñata, the day after the party.
“Are you awake, Shame?” Sunny asked. I heard her shift in the lounger chair set in the corner of the room.
I tried to get moisture in my mouth. “Who do I have to blow for a drink of water?” I rasped.
More rustling; then she sat on the bed next to me. “You don’t have to blow,” she said. “Just suck it, Flynn.” She angled a straw into my mouth.
Funny. I sucked and the water hit my mouth with a shocking clean coolness full of flavor. Water had never tasted so good. I got a few mouthfuls of it down before Sunny took it away.
“You are a piece of work,” she said quietly as if she didn’t want to wake the other people in the house.
“What, this?” I said, trying a smile. God, that hurt. “It’s nothing.”
“Shame,” she said, “you’ve been dead. For a week.”
“Miss me?”
She didn’t say anything for a second or two. Then, “We can’t find Terric.”
Gut punch.
“What? What does that mean?”
“He’s not here in the house. He’s not anywhere else either. A lot of old blood on your kitchen floor, and we’re pretty sure not all of it is yours.
“I followed up on some leads on Davy. Think I have a pretty good idea where Davy’s being held. Then I came back to get you. To make you come with me and kill the bastards who are holding him. Only no one had seen you. For days. And no one had seen Terric. So Dash, Cody, and I looked everywhere. We finally came here. Don’t you ever lock your front door?”
“Why? What could go wrong?”
“Goddamn, Shame. This isn’t funny. This isn’t one of your play-it-loose-and-it-will-all-work-out schemes. People are dying here. Davy. Maybe Terric, if he’s still alive. And you, you jackass. I need you to get your head in this. I need you to . . .” She waved her hand at me.
“Be a weapon so you can save Davy?” I asked.
She gave me a long look. One thing I had to give the woman. She did not back down. Blood magic users. Tough as steel.
“Yes. I need you, and I need the Death magic you carry. You do still carry it, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you? Know? I need you to know, Shame. Because if you don’t have it, then I’m going to go after Davy without you. Tonight.”
“Where?”
“There’s a warehouse up in Washington. Outside Ephrata. I think he’s there.”
“You worked the Spokane lead?”
She nodded. “I think Eli’s there too.”
“Who else have you told?”
“Just a few Hounds. Well, and Dash and Cody.”
“Who has Dash told?”
“No one,” Dash said from the doorway. He looked a little rumpled in a T-shirt and jeans but had his boots on. He also had two mugs in his hand. I thought I smelled tea. “This is off the radar, Shame. We agreed we don’t want to drag anyone else into it if we go get Davy.”
“We?” I asked.
He walked in. “Sunny, Cody, and me. We didn’t want anyone else in the Authority involved, which is why I haven’t even told the boss man, Clyde. He’d just tell us not to do whatever it is we are going to do anyway. And we certainly didn’t want to worry Zay and Allie.”
Allie. The baby.
A memory scraped across all the raw and screaming in my head. Something about Allie. Something about her baby. “Is she? Did she have her daughter yet?”
Davy handed me one of the mugs. Half-full, black tea with honey and cream. I pulled it toward me and took a sip. Braced for the explosion of scent and flavor, lost myself to it for a minute or two.
This “living” was a heady thing.
“. . . girl?” Dash was saying. “Shame? Are you listening?”
“No. What’d I miss?”
“Did Allie tell you she was having a girl?”
I looked up at his cautious concern. Checked out Sunny, who was giving me the same look.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” I said, chasing memories. Someone had told me. Said she was having a girl. Told me more. That I had to save Terric, save the world. Kill Eli. Stop Krogher. No matter the cost.
“Has she had her? Or it? Has she had the baby?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Any day, though. Why?”
I took another swallow of tea, filling my whole mouth with it, shuddering through the glorious riot of flavor. It burned all the way down. “We need to go now.” I held the cup out for Davy, who took it. “Before the baby is born.”
Then I pushed the blankets off.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Dash said. “Dr. Fischer wanted you to rest. She said she’d be here in the morning to check on you.”