He looks me over. “Looks like. You saved my life.”
I don’t correct him. I mean, I guess technically I did save him, but I didn’t jump at that guy out of the goodness of my heart.
No. Part of me honestly thought it was my turn tonight. My turn to die.
And then I realize Lucifer isn’t standing the way he is to mirror my body language and build empathy or some shit. He’s leaning up against the wall because he’s really fucking hurt. He was already down when I found him, and now he’s taken them all on in round two, and he’s not a superhero.
I mean, I assume he’s not a superhero. I look closer at his face. He’s death’s-head white.
“We need to get out of here,” he says. “Now.”
The sirens are getting ever-closer.
I really wish I were stone-cold sober right now. I take a deep breath and pull my shit together. He doesn’t complain when I get my shoulder under his armpit and pull him into me. He’s taller than me but lanky, so he’s not heavy. We begin to help each other forward, down the alley, and the guy buries his face in my neck as we come to the exit .
I give an involuntary shiver, wondering if he’s actually still into me despite having just shot someone—who wouldn’t be into this fine ass, after all?—but then I see the real reason for his sudden display of affection.
There’s a camera near the end of the alleyway.
As soon as we’re out of its range, Lucifer lifts his head again.
Looks like no one this side of the block heard the shot, but someone must have around the back, because those sirens are getting closer and closer.
There’s a line of taxi cabs starting to form on the other side of the street; it’s about that time of night when inebriated and high young gays sally forth from the club with their choice of lay for the night. I pull the guy towards one of the taxis.
“No,” he mumbles, but it’s taking all his concentration to stay conscious for now, and there are no more arguments when we reach the cab.
“He’s really drunk,” I say with a wide smile at the driver. “Sorry.” And I bundle the guy into the car. The driver just grunts and throws a paper bag at us.
“He pukes, you pay triple.”
“Where…” the guy mumbles as I gets into the back seat beside him.
“The Grand on Fifth,” I tell the driver. “My hotel,” I say into the guy’s ear. “Don’t fucking pass out, or I’ll dump you at the hospital instead.”
I’m starting to sweat now, clammy and unpleasant. It’s hitting me: I could have died.
I should have died.
But I still haven’t died.
The hotel isn’t far, and I pay for the cab. No one in the hotel looks at me straight when I go in, but they give sidelong glances, thinking their bourgeois petty thoughts about the rich guy picking up street trash for the night. I don’t give a fuck. I’m concentrating hard on placing one foot in front of the other, pulling Lucifer along.
“Where are you taking—” he begins.
“There’s a camera at the elevators,” I say, and he puts his head down. He follows me, follows my feet, one after the other to the elevators.
My suite is exclusive enough that the elevator needs the card swiped before it will even accept the floor destination. When we finally get into my suite, I pull my houseguest into the lounge and dump him on the sofa. “You wait there,” I say. “I gotta—”
I don’t make it any further than that. I turn to the nearest vase and puke my fucking guts into it, and it all sprays out of me like poison. I heave and hurl until there’s nothing left, and then I stagger away from the vase and grab a bottle of water from the minibar.
After I’ve downed it in one go, I feel about a thousand times better. But Lucifer’s slumped on the sofa and there’s red smeared on the white leather. His breath is shallow, pained.
He might legit be dying or something.
I wonder if Death is here in this suite, chuckling as he chooses yet another over me.
“Always the bridesmaid,” I mutter, and turn back to the minibar.
This situation calls for booze, and lots of it.
It takes some time to persuade Lucifer that he needs medical attention, and it’s a blunt Hell, no, on going to any hospitals. “You need stitches,” I point out.
“You a doctor?”
“No, I’m a sensible human being. Fine, if you won’t go to the hospital, I’ll fucking stitch it. I’ll dunk the needle in vodka. It’s totally sterile. Well, kinda sterile. Better than a spit-and-shine, anyway.” I say all this as a way to get him to go to an actual goddamn medical practitioner, but he calls my bluff.
“Fine.”
“Wow. For serious? Okay. Hey, this could be fun!”
With a sigh and another look at the wide gash in his upper arm, he submits to my drunken arts and crafts. We go into the bathroom and I seat him on the edge of the spa bath.
“Take that hideous thing off,” I say, gesturing to his turtleneck sweater. He gives me an icy glare from under thick black lashes, but he starts to pull it up. He waves off my help with that, but does let me wash his arm down to clear the blood. It’s not a wide cut, but it is pretty deep.
I slosh his arm with a mini-vodka, ignoring his growl.
Then I grab the handy button-sewing kit provided with the hotel’s crest on it, and a pair of plastic gloves from one of my hair-dye boxes. I do my own hair, because I’m totally punk rock; bleach it and then color it with whatever I feel like at the time. Currently it’s bright flamingo pink.
Every time I color it I ruin all the towels and stain the marble around the sink, but the next day the cleaning crew have it
