“Where are we going now?” I muttered, eyeing the backseat. It looked so comfortable. Nice to lie down on.
“My place.” He put his hand on my head and guided me into the car. Like a cop arresting a suspect. So nice he didn’t want me to bop my head.
Still, his place sounded like a bad idea. “They know where you live, dummy.”
“I have a new place, dummy.” He slammed the door shut.
I settled into the backseat, tempted to stretch out and take a long nap. My entire borrowed body felt numb, worn to the bone. My head thumped against the seat as Wyatt peeled onto the road. I closed my eyes, appreciating the new position.
“Evy?” Wyatt asked, his voice distant. Muffled. “Stay awake, you hear me?”
“Wanna sleep,” I said. At least, I thought so.
Even as the rumble of the car rocked me to slumber land, I felt the lancing pain in my forearm and thigh turn to an intense itch and hoped it was a good sign.
Chapter 6
58:01
The warm, pungent aroma of frying bacon roused me from darkness. I peeled apart sticky eyelids and took quick stock of my new—and exceedingly unfamiliar—surroundings. I was on a bed in one corner of a studio apartment. At the foot, an open door peeked into a tiny bathroom. Beyond it was the living space. A small sofa shared room with a fridge, stove, and a freestanding cabinet. The front door was directly opposite the bed, secured with two dead bolts and a chain.
Wyatt hovered over the stove—the source of the bacon smell. He’d changed clothes again, this time into black jeans and a black T-shirt, and seemed oblivious to my presence. Two things felt immediately out of place: the stink of the hound’s blood was missing, and I no longer felt funky and damp. In fact, I felt downright clean.
My left arm was still blessedly numb, wrapped up in white gauze and medical tape. I flexed the muscles in my left thigh and felt the familiar twinge of healing flesh. My hair was damp, as was the pillow behind my head. A green sheet came up to my waist, covering the lower half of my body. I was dressed in a large T-shirt. I clenched my right hand around the top sheet that covered me. Annoyance flushed through my chest, heating my cheeks. Not only had Wyatt undressed me, he had apparently bathed me, as well.
Son of a goblin’s bitch!
I sat up, squeaking the bedsprings, and was struck by a wave of dizziness. My vision grayed out. It passed, and I blinked into a pair of familiar, coal-black eyes.
I lashed out by instinct, whacking my open palm across Wyatt’s cheek. His head snapped sideways, and he stumbled back from the bed, his hand rising to his face.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“For seeing me naked.” Considering everything he’d done for me, it was a ridiculous thing to say. He could have dumped me in the tub fully clothed, turned on the shower, and left me there to wake up and do it myself.
“It wasn’t exactly an erotic experience for me, Evy. You are damned hard to carry up six flights of stairs when you’re covered in slimy goo, you know. I could have left you in the car.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve had worse from a girl than a slap on the face.” A half smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “And if it helps, I’ll swear on my life that I didn’t cop a feel while you were unconscious. You’re healing on your own now.” Back to the stove and the crisping bacon. “The arm should be good as new in a few hours. It’s pretty amazing, actually.”
I swung my legs off the side of the bed. The oversized T-shirt barely hung to mid thigh, but it was modest enough. And it wasn’t like Wyatt would care if I started skipping around the apartment in my underwear, since the sight of my naked flesh didn’t seem to trigger anything in him but his inner medic. I stood up, sans dizziness this time, and put weight on my left leg. The bandaged cuts twinged, but did not pull or scream.
“Well, I guess this means one bit of good news,” I said.
“What’s that?” He forked slices of the bacon and put them on a paper plate.
“I can’t be permanently wounded until my seventy-two hours are up.” I observed the room, but didn’t see a clock. Or windows. “What time is it anyway?”
He turned his wrist and consulted his watch. “A little after six.”
“At night?”
“In the morning.”
Hell, I’d been unconscious for almost twelve hours. A good chunk of time down the drain.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I’ve got breakfast ready. We have a lot of work to do today.”
“No kidding.” I plopped down at the small, plastic dinette set against the wall by the front door. The chair was hard and the table’s surface covered in scratch marks, but it was clean. No signs of ants or roaches. The wall behind me had a rectangle the size of a movie poster tacked to it, something I’d earlier mistaken for bad artwork. Close up, I identified thin rows of heavy rope, frayed over time. Bits of it were scattered on the floor. It looked like a scratching post.
Chalice’s cross necklace lay next to my fork. I put it back on, unsure why I wanted to keep it close.
“So whose place is this?” I asked.
Two slices of bread popped out of a toaster. Wyatt added those to his plate of food. “A were-cat who owed me a favor. Do you want me to butter your toast?”
I blinked, realizing too late that it was a real question, not some clever double entendre. “Um, no, I can do it.”
He started bringing things over to the table—a tub of whipped butter and a knife, a glass of milk, and finally the plate of bacon, toast, and sliced apples. I was amazed at how domestic the scene felt. And out of place. I rarely saw this side of Wyatt—the side that nurtured, that showed small cracks in his professional veneer. I was used to his sarcasm and teasing.
“Aren’t you eating?” I asked when he sat down without a plate of his own.
“I already did.”
I took him at his word and started buttering a slice of toast. The food smelled wonderful, and my stomach grumbled in anticipation of being fed. “So roughly fourteen hours of my afterlife are gone,” I said, folding a few slices of bacon in the buttery toast. “Any ideas on how to spend the remaining fifty-eight?”
“A few.”
Butter and grease dribbled down my chin. The flavors of the bread and bacon burst against my tongue. I chewed slowly, savoring each morsel.
“Care to share?” I asked, delving into bite number two.
He made a face—probably of disgust, but I was enjoying my breakfast too much to give it any thought—and threw a paper napkin at me.
I snatched it off the table and wiped my chin. “So? Ideas?”
“That depends. You remember anything new?”
I stopped, an apple slice halfway to my mouth. A dark void still loomed over part of my memory. I didn’t remember anything new. I don’t think I even dreamed last night. “No.”
“Really?”
“It’s memory loss, Wyatt. It’s not like flipping a switch.”
“Never is with women.”
I threw a piece of apple at him, which he easily deflected. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“And yet somehow untrue?”
“No, but it’s still a shitty thing to say.”
“We’re under the wire here, Evy. I don’t have the time or patience to be polite.”
“Then be helpful. This is my life—afterlife, whatever. I’m the one who will be dead again in two and a half days, not you.”
