Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(62)

Too bad about the armored SUV. She would have preferred to play it safe, but truly, it was probably overkill.

Tomorrow, she would complete the task he had assigned her. She would undo all the damage Reginald had done. She would be brilliant.

King would be so very pleased. And when he showed her what a full Level Ten reward sequence felt like, all thirty verses . . . oh, my.

She would be pleased, too. Oh, so very pleased.





Lily shifted on the chair by the stove. The tender moment up on the mountainside hadn’t lasted. Since his cell conversations on the bluff, which he’d taken great pains not to let her hear, Bruno had been stonily silent. She’d been appalled, on the mountain, to find out that the descent was even more excruciating than the ascent. A contradiction of natural laws. Physics reversed, just to insult her. Water flowing uphill. What was up with that? Her knees and ankles still shook like jelly.

But her life lately had been nothing but a series of contradictions of natural law. By the laws of emotional physics, it made no sense that a mild-mannered—well, maybe not so mild, but certainly relatively harmless—chick who wrote essays for a living should end up being the target of brutal assassins. If Bruno was right, and there really was no connection to Magda, then what the hell did they want with her? Like water, flowing uphill for no good reason. Why would water bother? Why expend the effort? It wasn’t like there was any money to be made in killing her. And yeah, she did tend to speak her mind, true, but she’d never been quite that bitchy to anybody. She was almost certain of it.

And Bruno, being silent. Wow, that felt like another contradiction of natural laws. At the cabin, he was a blur of activity, but scarily quiet the whole time. He built up the fire, cleaned and loaded three different handguns, made up the bed, restoked the fire. He cooked a delicious meal, which they ate in strangled silence. He washed dishes. He would not let her help with these activities. Evidently, her mental instability would be dangerously exacerbated by the stress of rinsing lettuce or tucking a sheet over a mattress. She’d tried to insist, but he’d turned her down so hard she’d ended up huddled in the chair, wishing she was small enough to slide under the door. The silence was deafening.

She tried to lose herself in the twisting, dancing flames while Bruno sloshed and clanked at the sink. Then, quiet.

Her neck prickled. She twisted around. He was holding a six-pack. He looked at the beer, he looked at her, and he put it back into the refrigerator. “Feel free,” she said. “It’s my own personal choice not to drink. I’d never judge anyone else for having a beer. It’s OK.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “Kev would kick my ass if he caught me drinking alcohol while stuff like this is happening. He’d say, ‘Lack of vigilance will get you killed.’ ” He shrugged. “He doesn’t say it so much now that he’s in love. Guess the world seems less dangerous now.”

“The bad guys aren’t here tonight. Go ahead,” she urged.

He sank down onto a stool near the fire. “Nah. I don’t know where they are, how many, what their resources are. Makes me f*cking tense.”

“I noticed,” she murmured.

“That bad, huh?”

“Terrible,” she informed him. “Like toxic waste.”

He laughed, but the sound petered out fast. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s OK,” she said. “I’m being a little more bitchy than usual, too.”

He slanted her an eyebrow-tilted glance. “Just a little?”

“Just a little,” she said resolutely. “Cannot tell a lie. I’m snarky and difficult even under normal circumstnces. Just so you know.”

His dimples flashed. “Good of you to warn me.”

She blew out a sharp breath. “I try to be good.”

They listened to the fire crackling for a while.

“Normal circumstances,” he echoed. “What are those, for you?”

“Huh?” His keen gaze scrambled her thoughts into mush. “What?”

“Your ‘normal.’ I have no idea what that is,” he said. “I met you in a really weird time in your life. So clue me in. What’s normal, for you?”

She hesitated for so long he started to look worried. Like she was going to confess to being an escort, or cooking meth in her basement.

Oh, hell. Out with it. “I write term papers,” she said.

His brows knitted together. “Yeah? For what? About what?”

“About anything. On any topic. For whoever can pay my fees.”

The puzzlement on his face was replaced by surprise. “Huh? Oh. You mean . . . for people who are cheating? In school?”

“Yeah.” She braced herself for the judgment that was coming.

But he just looked fascinated. He tilted his head to the side, studying her intently. “Who hires you? College kids?”

“Lots of different types,” she said. “Foreign students who can’t manage the English. Non-foreign students who can’t manage it, either. Rich kids who are too busy partying. They all keep me busy.”

“No shit,” he murmured. “So what’s your own degree in?”

She shook her head. “Don’t have one. Never made it all the way.”

He frowned. “But how . . . but if you’re so good at writing—”