Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(17)
No, we didn’t. There are life-changing events and life-ruining events and sometimes there is something that falls between. Twelve years since it had happened and we still didn’t talk about it. For two entirely different but equally valid reasons, but the result was the same. I blamed the disorientation of having a fairly decent sex dream interrupted by a monster who’d tried to skin me, was impervious to hollow-point rounds, and so fast as to be almost invisible for having let the comment slip at all. Nik was right.
We definitely did not talk about it.
“He was right on top of me, the son of a bitch, and I hardly saw him,” I said, changing the subject. “I shot him. There was no way I could miss, and nothing. He didn’t flinch. I didn’t even see him when he hit you. It was just . . . shadows of something already gone. Shadows and knives. He was that goddamn fast.”
Niko had already injected the area with lidocaine and was using a probe to see how deep the incision actually was. He looked up at me, face somber. “I’m sorry.”
“No big deal. I’m not feeling a thing.” Probing the cut wasn’t why he was apologizing. We both knew it and we both let it go. I didn’t want to talk about it either. The past was the past. Neither one of us wanted to dig up that mental childhood grave. It was ancient history and it was best to stay that way, especially for Nik.
If not for the reasons he thought.
He gave a faint but thankful curve of his lips, then went back to work. “It’s barely half an inch deep. If it wasn’t so long, I wouldn’t bother with stitches. But with your . . . energetic lifestyle”—kicking ass any chance I got—“you’ll constantly be ripping it open if I don’t.” He applied more Betadine. “Whatever he is, you were correct, he wasn’t serious. Not this time. He was simply playing.” He began stitching. “The ones that like to play are never the easy kills. Still numb?”
“Yes, Mom. Still numb,” I snorted. “And I’m not sure it was play. He looked at my blood. Just, hell, looked at it and said basically I wasn’t his to take. I don’t know if I wasn’t good enough a specimen. Too many scars to make a nice rug or if it’s because I’m not human.”
Niko gave me the look, the one I’d lived with my whole life. I changed it up a bit. “Not completely human. Ishiah did say it was only killing humans and Edward Scissorhands said I wasn’t a sheep. But playing or not playing, bullets, knife, sword, and neither of us touched him. He could’ve had us on a silver platter with a frigging caviar garnish if he’d wanted.” Hard to say if it was for real or just a dry run. I gave in to the inevitable. “I never thought I’d say this with your giant brain, but you might need help with the research. The next time he comes back and is serious he’ll have his choice of which of us he wants to wear as his summer jacket and which his winter coat. We need the info on this thing now. Or preferably a half hour ago.”
“My cell is on the table beside you. Call Goodfellow.” Robin Goodfellow was our go-to guy on all things paien. What he didn’t know, chances were you didn’t want to know. Niko kept stitching while I called. He’d trained for this when we lost our last healer back to the home country. Niko could go to the hospital if worse came to worst. He was human inside and out. I wasn’t. One scan, one blood test, and that was something else not worth talking or thinking about. Nik had been taught by the best healing spirit around. He could handle most serious trauma. If it was critical . . . with ventilators, heart-lung bypass machines, lacerated livers, kidneys, a nicked heart—then, hey, nobody lived forever.
By the time Goodfellow arrived Niko had finished with me and had rubbed ointment on his neck. The burn looked painful, but not serious. That had me in a slightly better mood when Robin picked our lock, walked in, and dumped a Styrofoam container on the sand-colored kitchen counter. Nice kitchen, big apartment, flat-screen TV, and all the weapons money could buy. We’d moved up in the world since the bad old days. “As requested,” he said. “Why such a request, I don’t want to know.”
I lifted the lid immediately and grinned. He had brought me a smiley face pancake. “That puts you one up on Nik.” Hell, it even had “Cal” incised across the happy, syrup-drenched forehead.
“He’s an actual adult?” the puck asked Nik with a large helping of disbelief in his snake-oil smooth voice. “You’re quite sure about that?” It was five in the morning, but as always Goodfellow was dressed like he was heading for a photo shoot at GQ.
In sweats of his own, although considerably newer and less bleach stained than mine, Niko shrugged. “Some jump developmental hurdles. Some scale them slowly but with determination and success. And then some, like Cal, are laziness incarnate and run around them. I consider it a miracle he doesn’t eat with his hands.” All this was said at the same time he set a bottle of Tylenol on the counter by me and tapped it meaningfully. Lidocaine doesn’t numb forever and he knew it would be wearing off about now.
I took a closer look at the pancake and scowled. “What exactly is that hanging from the bottom? Right under the smile?”
“Sausage link,” Robin answered promptly. “Smallest they had for authenticity. I toothpicked it there myself. You can thank me at any time.” I would’ve thanked him by throwing it at his head, but I was hungry. Sometimes pride takes a backseat to an empty stomach.