Prey (44 page)

He looked exhausted, with dark crescents beneath his eyes and a sort of ashen undertone to his otherwise brown skin. He was in civilian clothes—

a bronze shirt, olive drab pants, and a red leather jacket that was stylish and yet helpfully announced to everyone that he couldn’t possibly be gayer—and Paris assumed he’d been working all night and was just getting off shift. He had Roan’s coat, the one he’d been wearing when he was shot. Ro was adamant about keeping it, and Diego hung on to it, even though, as he pointed out, those bloodstains would never come out. Paris took it and thanked him for it, and Diego put a friendly hand on his arm as he told him, “I never thought I’d be jealous of Roan, you know, but… he’s lucky to have you. Don’t let him forget it.”

He must have known he’d spent the night. He was tempted to say it was a kind of penance for fucking up so badly earlier on, but who was he 274

Andrea

Speed

to deny himself an ego stroking? “I never do,” he told him, flashing a brief, brilliant smile. His arm was still a bit numb from having slept on it wrong, but he could live with it. After all, he’d had a lot worse. For instance, waking up after a transformation, feeling like his skin was full of broken glass. And when he actually deigned to move, it was even worse.

To think he used to be afraid of going to the dentist. Pain really became a relative thing when your whole body was broken down, remade, and then broken down again, all in the course of a night. It also gave him a new appreciation of powerful painkillers.

When he got up to Roan’s room, his bed was empty, and the IV tubes had been tied together like a couple of balloon ribbons and balanced on top of one of the bags. There was a small trail of blood leading to the bathroom, the door of which was closed. “I got some clothes for you,”

Paris announced loudly. “But I’m not giving them to you if you’re just going to bleed on them.”

The door opened, and Roan came out, looking not only frighteningly awake but much better than before; he looked like his normal self. “Thank you. I didn’t think I could take wearing paper much longer.”

Paris visually scanned him before handing him the pile of clothes.

His arm wasn’t bleeding; there was still fresh blood on it, but no wounds, no marks that showed where the needles had been in his arms and yanked out. He suddenly had a sneaking suspicion about what Roan had done in his absence. “Did you…?”

Roan took the clothes and tossed them on the bed as he shucked off his paper gown and started getting dressed, quickly stepping into his boxer shorts. “Hurt myself? Yeah, finally. I’m ready to go home.”

He allowed himself a moment to enjoy Roan’s torso before noticing the bandage still on his upper chest. He’d noticed lately that his arms were getting more toned, his abdomen more solid, but Paris had never thought that this was some result of Ro attempting partial transformations to develop his own musculature. It seemed dangerous somehow, although he wasn’t sure why. “This is all a bit… weird, you know.”

Roan nodded, but Paris noticed he wasn’t meeting his eyes. “I know.

I’m sorry I just sprung it on you. I just… it’s not easy to talk about.”

“Or do, I imagine.” Before Ro could put his shirt on, he reached out and touched the bandage on his chest. Ro finally met his eyes, and at Infected: Prey

275

Paris’s unspoken question, he nodded an assent. He grabbed the edge of the gauze and yanked it off in one quick motion, revealing that the wound that should have been there was completely gone. His skin was unblemished, unmarked—there wasn’t even a scar.

Roan winced, and let out a delayed yelp of pain, grabbing his chest.

“Jesus! I should have just ripped the bandage off.”

Paris smirked, about to accuse him of being a wimp when he looked at the bandage—there was still some old blood on it—and noticed the chest hairs clinging to the tape. “Oh, ouch. At least you’re not a bear. That really would have hurt.”

“It’s bad enough as it is.” He rubbed the red spot on his skin, which faded away quickly enough.

If Paris had seen the bullet wound, the ragged hole torn in his chest, he supposed he would have been really freaked out, but since he’d never actually seen it, there was a distance in the fact that Ro was uninjured. But the needle marks… wouldn’t there have still been holes from the intravenous tubes? How come there weren’t? That was skin, not muscle.

He healed that as a side effect, huh? A minor scratch compared to the torn fibers of his sinew.

The thought still struck him as surreal, and he started catching Roan up on what he’d missed, just to distract himself from the thought that the lion was insinuating itself into Ro more and more. Would there be a point when the two were inseparable, a hybrid entity, neither cat nor human?

Was that even possible? And what would happen to him if that actually occurred? People wouldn’t accept it; they barely accepted him now.

Roan agreed with Murphy’s sentiment that the shooter was probably not the killer they were after, although he felt they were lower on the intelligence scale. He didn’t seem bothered by it, which bothered Paris, but he figured Ro would react like getting shot and nearly killed was no big deal at all. Paris waited until he was pulling his shirt on before telling him about going to the Humanity First meeting, and how Tim Barlow was emerging as the ringleader. He wasn’t pleased that he’d gone in on his own, but he was surprised about Tim, or as he called him “the Mormon middle manager.” (Actually, he did kind of look like that.) He wanted him to be careful going to any further meetings, and whatever he did—be it a phone call or an in face meeting—he wanted him miked up so they could record it all. That was such a good idea he didn’t know why he hadn’t 276

Andrea

Speed

thought of it last night, but then again, he had actually gone there prepared to kill or be killed. Not really something you wanted to save for the scrapbook.

Roan hugged him, slipping his arms around his back and resting his head in the crook of his neck. “You have to stop doing these things, you know,” he murmured. “I do the stupid shit around here, not you.”

“Nope, I’m an idiot too. Can’t stop me.”

He sighed, his breath warm against Paris’s throat. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Can I offer suggestions?”

He scoffed, but it was mild, and for a moment they just stood there, not moving. Paris slipped his hand under Roan’s shirt, just to feel his skin.

It seemed almost unnaturally warm, but he couldn’t quite tell.

Transformations played holy hell with everything: metabolism, blood pressure, balance, body temperature. Would even a “partial”

transformation have some effect on him? How could it not? Was he killing himself just a little bit every time he tried this stuff?

“I should be kicking you out for yesterday,” Roan finally said.

“Sorry about that. But you did need the sleep.”

He didn’t acknowledge that, he just let it go. It was a few seconds before he said, in a whisper, “Thank you.”

He didn’t think he was thanking him for making him sleep here; he was fairly certain he was thanking him for staying, Nurse Ratched be damned. “I love you. No matter what, don’t forget that.”

Roan looked up at him, almost smiling. “You know a statement like that usually prefaces something horrible.”

Paris tried on a lazy smile that had the added benefit of being genuine. “Since when am I a usual person?” He kissed him, glad that he was up and around and in one piece. If he didn’t think of the “why” of it, he was remarkably okay with it. Roan’s stubble felt like fine sandpaper against his skin, but so far it was at the almost erotic level. In a couple of hours, if he didn’t shave, it’d be at the truly painful stage. It was a thin line.

They were interrupted by the door to the room opening and a chirpy Infected: Prey

277

voice proclaiming, “Knock-knock! I know the food around here sucks so—okay, busy, be back.”

They broke away from the kiss to see the junior cruiser backing out the door, a paper coffee cup and a small brown paper bag in his hands.

Roan fixed him with a remarkably hard glare. “You’re still here?”

The junior cruiser—Matt—stopped, halfway in and halfway out the door. “Um, no. I mean, I just thought I’d drop by. Hey, why are you, like, out of bed?”

“Because I’m leaving. Is there something I can help you with?”

Matt came back in the room, looking slightly chastised but no worse for wear. He had changed the color of the streaks in his hair—they were now purple, matching his T-shirt, which also had a tribal pattern on it that seemed to mimic one of his arm tattoos. Now that was coordinating your outfit to a scary degree. “I, uh, brought you some breakfast.” He held up the coffee cup and bag. “I didn’t know what you liked, but I got you a mocha macchiato and a decent breakfast sandwich, deli as opposed to Mickey D’s.” Matt’s blue eyes shifted nervously between Roan and him, as if he knew he didn’t have a shot in hell at this, but he was far too committed to back out now. (Also known as the Iraq war strategy.) “Are you sure you’re cleared to go? ’Cause you weren’t looking good yesterday.”

Roan sighed, and must have felt a bit bad for the kid, because his look softened. “I’m okay, really. I heal fast.” He went toward Matt, and Paris didn’t move his hand from his back, just let it fall away as Roan moved. Did he feel the slightest twinge of jealousy? It was funny, because he did, but in an odd way. He was jealous that Matt wasn’t crushing on him—he was so accustomed to men and women alike looking at him with lust that he came to expect it, and it stoked his ego nicely. But the funny thing about Roan’s admirers were they never settled for lust; they fell straight in love with him, and Paris felt he should know, since the exact same thing had happened to him. And Roan always seemed perfectly oblivious to it. For instance, he didn’t seem to realize that his friend Kevin, the vice cop, was so completely in love with him that it was insane, but Roan just didn’t see it. That was probably for the best, though, because he’d probably feel weird dealing with him, and it wasn’t like Kevin was ever going to come out of the closet and admit it anyway. Also, poor Kev didn’t have a shot with Roan—Ro just didn’t go for the closeted—which just added to the general tragedy of his situation.

278

Andrea

Speed

Roan took the bag and the coffee, and said, “Thanks, I appreciate it.

I’d appreciate it even more if you run interference for us so I can get out of here without being hassled.”

Matt seemed to brighten at this. He wanted to feel useful to his new object of obsession. “Sure, yeah. You leaving now?”

“In about five minutes. Think you can get us clear?”

“Oh, no prob. The staff is used to humoring me ’cause of my mom, and this one time when I was usin’ and I mixed some X with some meth and was really freakin’ out, y’know, they had to strap me down to a gurney. They thought my heart might, like, explode or something.” He must have noticed the look Roan was giving him, because he stopped his ramble with a visible effort. “Ya got five, then I’m gonna tie up the front desk.”

“Thanks, Matt.” He gave him a weak little smile, which Matt returned with a hundred times the intensity, and as soon as Matt was gone, Roan shook his head dismissively. “That kid is the most annoying person I’ve ever met. Yap yap yap.”

Paris chuckled knowingly. “But puppy has such a crush on you.”

He groaned in disgust. “That’s your job, Par. They’re supposed to crush on you and leave me the hell alone.”

“Ah, but I didn’t save him from a bullet yesterday and act all macho.”

“Is it too late to turn back time and take it back?”

“Yep. But next time he starts chewing your ear off, just tell him to give you a blow job. Either he’ll be offended and storm off, or he’ll give you one and at least that’ll make him shut up for a few minutes.”

“Why didn’t I think of that? You’re a genius.”

Paris tapped his temple with his index finger. “Sharp as a razor.”

Roan gulped the coffee and wolfed down the sandwich in four bites, proving that even a partial transformation could speed up your metabolism, and then they attempted to clean up the blood on the floor (it was the only polite thing to do). The rough paper towels in the bathroom were about as absorbent as cement blocks, but the napkins in the sandwich bag proved to be just the thing.

Infected: Prey

279

Matt did his job well; they left the hospital without even being noticed, and on the drive home, Roan dug a card out of his bloodstained coat. He found it at Ashley’s place, an appointment card for New Horizons, and that was the lead he was going to follow next. He thought Paris should try and get Tim on IM, and save all the IM messages from him. “Try and arrange a meeting, maybe agree to meet him at a bar after work,” Roan told him. “Go in wired. I’ll sit out in the car and listen in.”

“Set me up with an earpiece and you can feed me lines,” he suggested.

“And not make you crack up laughing? The temptation will be too great. Besides, you don’t need lines fed to you—you’re too good.”

“Wow, was that a compliment? I’m touched.”

Roan scooted over, putting his arm around his shoulders and leaning against his arm as Paris navigated the rainy, dreary streets. His weight was comforting and familiar, even if his skin did seem to have a little too much heat within it.

“I know I don’t say it a lot—well, seriously anyways—but I do love you, you know. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

For a long moment there was silence, just the rain beating a constant tattoo on the car and the windshield wipers slapping out a counterpoint, and Paris basked in the warmth of this admission. Oh, he knew Ro loved him; he’d let him into his life, which was a big thing. Roan seemed to be happy with the idea of being a hermit, a crotchety curmudgeon who viewed all of humanity’s weaknesses with distance and a jaundiced eye.

But after a minute of sappiness—which was probably a minute too long for Ro—he added, “But don’t let it get to your head.”

Paris laughed—he’d just been waiting for him to say something like that—and Ro laughed as well. They were probably the best-matched pair of weird fucks that life had ever coughed up. The fact that they managed to find each other was probably a minor miracle.