Lynn stifled a groan. “Great.” She licked her lips and tasted blood. Yuck. “Um, and what happens after dinner? To me?”
Dani’s hands faltered before she resumed working. “I don’t know, Wilder. Wrong person to ask. I’m just here to keep an eye on you. Kate or Cody will figure out what to do with you for the night.” Her tone had turned gruff again. “Just cut and you’ll get dinner.”
A mixture of annoyance and fear pumped through Lynn’s veins. She gritted her teeth and forced the blade through the meat. “Yes, ma’am.” At least now I know where your place is in the group.
CHAPTER 3
REN STOOD BY THE TABLE, cutting bits of flesh away from large globs of fatty tissue.
Lynn halted just short of the threshold. “Ren?”
The redhead looked up from her work and gave her the once-over. “What can I do for you, Lynn?” She looked tired, but she tried to hide it behind a smile.
Lynn took a small step forward, into the kitchen. “Dani told me to come see you for a checkup now we’re done with the meat.”
Ren sighed, but nodded. “Sure.” She wiped her hands thoroughly clean on a rag. “Take a seat.”
She did.
Ren placed a bowl of water in front of Lynn and handed her a few large handfuls of soft wool. “Wash up.”
Lynn began the careful and painful scrubbing. She watched the water turn redder and redder as coagulated blood softened and was absorbed into the wool, then squeezed out into the bowl with the water. How much of the blood was hers, and how much of it belonged to the elephant?
Ren inspected her out of the corner of her eye as she cleared, then cleaned the table. She tossed a bloody rag into a barrel in the corner, then pulled a clean one from a cupboard. She wetted it and returned to scrubbing. Again, the rag ended up in the barrel.
Lynn dropped the wool into the water and watched the wad disappear into the swirling red.
“Are you done?” Ren pulled up a chair and sat.
Lynn nodded.
“Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Ren took a soft hold of her jaw and tipped her face toward her as she ran her gaze appraisingly over Lynn’s skin.
Ren had the greenest eyes Lynn had ever seen—including her own. She looked away from them, to a charcoal drawing of a flower on the wall. She didn’t like to be touched—really didn’t like to be touched—but when Ren’s cool and calloused fingers touched her stinging skin, she forced herself not to flinch away.
“How did you end up here today?” Ren’s voice was soft.
“You guys made me come.”
Ren didn’t take it as a joke, which was good, because Lynn hadn’t intended it as one. “I meant in New York City. Are you local?”
Lynn considered the harm in telling Ren and found none but her own discomfort. “No, I spent last winter up north, in a camp near what used to be Ottawa. Nearly froze my ass off. When everyone dispersed in the spring, I decided that I was going to be somewhere warm next winter. So that’s why I’m heading south.”
“All alone?”
Lynn tensed. Then she realized Ren’s tone wasn’t interrogatory but concerned. “Yeah.” She had to force herself to share more. “I’m usually on my own.” It was a vague response, but even that small addition dredged up a lot of memories. She instinctively pulled the layers of armor a little tighter around herself.
“That’s hard on a person.” Ren’s voice was void of judgment. Her fingers slid lower, to Lynn’s throat.
Lynn shrugged, then tilted her head at Ren’s gentle guidance. “Practical, I would say.”
“Practical?”
When Ren’s fingers probed especially sensitive skin, Lynn hissed.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Lynn licked her lips.
“You said it was practical to stay alone?”
The touch hurt, and she felt very vulnerable letting Ren inspect her neck, so she allowed herself to talk, hoping to distract them both. “When you’re alone, at least you have nothing to lose.”
Ren’s gaze drifted to Lynn’s eyes before she continued the inspection. “Perhaps. But you miss out on a lot that way—people to rely on, to love.”
Here was an opening she wasn’t going to pass up. “Like you and Cody and Eduardo?” She kept her voice carefully neutral.
“Like us.” She tugged at Lynn’s chin until her head turned to the side.
Lynn’s view of the flower was replaced with the dark of the outside world. When Ren didn’t volunteer more, Lynn asked, “How long have you been together?”
Ren’s gaze lifted to hers and held it.
A shiver of warning slid up her spine. Damn, did I push it too far? Ren spoke before she could backtrack.
“Cody and I have been together for years, almost seventeen now. Eduardo joined us eleven years ago.” Ren’s voice was pitched to a chipper lilt that didn’t resonate with the guardedness in her eyes.
Lynn inspected her. You don’t like sharing either, do you?
Ren looked away so she could pick up a clean bit of wool, wet it, and apply it to Lynn’s temple.
It stung, and Lynn hissed. There was definitely something there. A cut or a bruise?
Ren leaned back, then wiped her hands on her pants and stood. “You have a shallow cut on your temple, a split lip, and your eye is swollen and bruised. I don’t think anything is broken, but even if it was, there is nothing we can do.” Ren strode to one of the mounted cupboards and opened a door.
Lynn touched her right eye and winced. Definitely swollen. Definitely bruised. The taut skin felt alien under her fingers.
“Your throat is bruised as well, but I don’t think there will be permanent damage.”
Lynn huffed. “That’s something, at least.”
Ren took something from the cupboard and closed the door. “I know you’re angry—”
“Yeah, I am.” Lynn set her jaw, then unclenched it as pain shot up the right side of her face. “He could have strangled me.”
“He didn’t.”
“Maybe not, but he tenderized the side of my face pretty well.”
Ren sighed as she sat down next to her again and unscrewed the cap of the Old-World tin container. Once, it had probably been blue with strong, white lettering, but the colors had mostly faded now. “We were all in shock, I guess.”
Lynn dragged her gaze back up from the tin. “Is that supposed to be an apology?”
Ren reached up and tilted Lynn’s head to the side. “That depends.”
Whatever was in the tin stung when Ren applied it to her cut. She flinched. “On what?”
“On if you really didn’t kill Richard.”
Lynn jerked her face free so she could glare at her. “I didn’t. I told you.”
A few seconds passed as Ren examined her eyes. “People say a lot of things.”
Lynn set her jaw and broke the staring contest.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened, hm? Maybe more details will convince me.” Ren renewed her hold on her chin and continued to rub the stinging concoction onto the worst of the cuts and bruises.
“Not much to tell. I needed a place to sleep, so I went into this Old-World shop for cars. One of the doors inside was locked. As soon as I tried to open it, I heard barking. I wanted to head out then, but if there was a guard dog, maybe there was something to guard, you know?”
“You were looking to steal someone else’s things?” Ren’s voice was neutral.
Lynn tensed. “Only if there was something useful.”
“Right.”
Lynn tried to turn her head to gauge Ren’s mood, but her grip was too strong. She decided to just push on. I’ll be out of here soon anyway. Who cares what she thinks. “Anyway, I was going to let the dog grab my arm, then kill him, but he didn’t attack me. He stood over—” A second passed as she fumbled for the dead man’s name. “Richard’s body and threatened to attack, but he didn’t come closer. He just growled at me. He was definitely not rabid, so I figured it might be worth it to see if he could be handled.”