calling you a few times to see if you could use anything from this guy, but you never answered so I just brought the whole thing home.”
The storeroom was illuminated by a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, making Paige’s hair look more like an inky mess, while giving her sweatshirt and jeans a dingy quality. Studying her carefully, Cole reached out for the other two light switches on the wall. When the rest of the bulbs came on, he said, “You look like hell.”
Paige not only kept her shotgun against her shoulder, but seemed ready to use it. “And you’re home a day early. Your date must have gone
Nodding at what seemed like a fair jab in response to his own comment, Cole said, “I scared her away, but it’s not the first time I’ve had that effect on a woman.”
“And it won’t be the last.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry I said you look like hell. We’re even.”
Paige shifted the shotgun to her left hand and let it hang at her side. Now that the bulky weapon was out of the way, Cole could see the paleness of her face. Her black hair didn’t just look like a greasy mess. It was a greasy mess. Normally, she tied it back or wore a Cubs cap to keep it in check, but now it seemed just as worn-out as the rest of her. His eyes were drawn to her right arm, which was wrapped up in bandages and held tight against her torso by a sling. Although she’d been able to grip the shotgun and put her finger on the trigger, her hand remained in that position, like a claw that slowly curled into a fist.
“How’s your arm?” he asked.
“Fucked up. Next question.”
She stormed into the kitchen and Cole followed. “Did Daniels take a look at it?”
“Yes, Cole.”
“Let me see it.”
“No.”
She’d led him through the kitchen and was on her way to her room. Before she could get there and shut her door, Cole ran ahead of her. “Let me see it,” he demanded.
Paige was easily more than a foot shorter, but glared at Cole as if she was about to squash him under her sneakered foot. Eventually she let out a terse breath and shifted so her right side was a little closer to him. Cole was genuinely surprised she’d caved in so quickly.
Reaching out tentatively, he placed one hand on the sling and slipped the other inside it. On the surface, Paige’s arm was smooth and finely toned. Her skin was on the cool side, but wasn’t as clammy as the rest of her body. Considering the heat of any given night in Chicago during the summer, clamminess wasn’t much of a shock. Since she hadn’t budged at his initial moves, he pressed his hand down a bit more.
“Does that hurt?”
“No,” she replied evenly.
Beneath the skin, her arm felt more petrified than stiff. It reminded him of the process that had turned a sapling into the lightweight, almost unbreakable spear that was his now first line of defense against anything supernatural. He gently ran his fingers along her arm, watching her face for any reaction. The source of her injury was a smeared, jagged line that looked as if it had been left by a felt-tip pen. The mass beneath it felt like a thick piece of wire embedded in her flesh.
“Can you move it?” he asked.
“You had your look, Cole. Just give it a rest.”
“You need to move it. And don’t look at me like that!” His fingers probed away from the line that had been tattooed into her skin and quickly found more grisly reminders of their time in Kansas City. The Full Blood’s claws and teeth had left scars that marred her flesh like a key would mar the paint on a car door.
“All right,” she said. “That’s enough.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No. I can barely feel anything.”
“Then move it.” When she tried to pull away, he tightened his grip on her wrist and said, “Can you just move your hand?”
She set her jaw into a firm line, pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a hiss. He could see the pain in her eyes, but didn’t bother asking her about it. Thanks to the healing serums she’d already mixed and administered, Paige could have recovered from wounds bad enough to make the toughest soldier scream in agony. But healing wasn’t enough. Skinners had to chew through regular pain and go in for seconds.
And thirds.
And possibly tenths.
The sheen on Paige’s brow grew into several trickles of sweat as she forced her arm to rise up from where it rested within its sling. Her shirt was already soaked, which told Cole she’d probably been working at this for some time before he arrived. When her arm was about an inch and a half above the bottom of the sling, she bared her teeth and extended her hand like a ponderous mechanism that had been forged from rusted steel and bent at joints dipped in cold glue. While letting out another breath, she lifted her arm some more and uncurled her middle finger.
“You flipped me off a little quicker this time,” Cole said.
After allowing her arm to drop back down, she swatted him away impatiently and headed for the fridge. “So your MEG girl didn’t pan out, huh?”
Cole sat on one of the two stools in the large room and slapped his hands on the stainless steel countertop. “Abby’s great, but I don’t think she was ready for the whole Chupacabra thing.”
“The package in the storeroom says that you handled it, though. Good job.”
Catching the can of pop she tossed to him, Cole said, “Thanks. It really tore after me too! Remember how long we had to shake the grass in Indiana before that little one came sniffing?”
“Chupes grow differently wherever they live. All it takes is one generation for them to sprout another ear to hear past loud farm equipment, or longer toes to grab onto a certain kind of tree. Did you know I saw one that literally had an eye in the back of its head? That’s what makes them so tough to track.” Opening her own can of fully caffeinated soda, Paige took a sip and sat down on the stool directly across the counter from him.
He couldn’t help noticing that they were in the same spots they’d been in during his very first visit to Rasa Hill. It was less than a year ago, but felt closer than his desk job and old apartment.
“I didn’t need to do much tracking with this one,” he told her.
“Chupes aren’t usually so aggressive. At least, not with humans. They tend to go for smaller game like dogs or something slow like a cow.”
“Or goats,” Cole pointed out. “Chupacabra means Goat Sucker.”
That got a smile from Paige that wasn’t tired and wasn’t forced. It went a long way in making her beautiful despite the run-down state she was in. “Or goats,” she conceded. “I think you just got lucky with that one and caught it when it was hungry or possibly defending something.”
“It ran me into a trap.”
Scrunching her eyebrows together, she asked, “Are you sure about that?”
Cole nodded and drank some more pop. “It dug a pit, put rocks at the bottom, and partially hid it with branches.”
“Could have just been a hole in the ground.”
“Nope. It ran right past it without a stumble like it knew it was there. If I would have fallen in without catching myself, I would have broken something or at least been too hurt to crawl right back out again. It circled back after I fell, and when I tossed it down the same hole, it knew right where to grab to keep from hitting those rocks.”
“That is strange,” she said. “Good thing you took it out. If a Chupe was getting that ballsy, it wouldn’t have been long before it started going after more people.”
“Thank you! Abby acted like I was a monster for putting that thing down.”
“There’s a reason why we only use MEG for communications,” Paige told him. “They’re watchers. They like to listen for noises and try to figure out what’s being said. Skinners listen for noises so they know which door to kick in. Every now and then someone from MEG wants to tag along and see everything we do. If this one was so squeamish, it’s good that you took the wind out of her sails. No offense.”
Cole rattled his pop can on the counter and watched the light bounce off the rounded edge. “It sucks that she had to be so nice. And cute. And fun.”
