Читать книгу Inside Out - Amy Lee Burgess - Страница 6

Chapter 2

I’d been under Pack house arrest for less than a week, so I couldn’t understand the serious sense of liberation and outright joy I felt as Paddy and I walked the sidewalks of downtown Hartford.

At first we stayed near the river, but then we ventured away, lured by the promising scents of coffee and food at lunchtime as workers escaped their urban office buildings and filled the streets with their small talk, cologne and jostling elbows.

Paddy and I bought corned beef sandwiches on rye at a small deli. He took one bite of his dill pickle and grimaced, so I snatched it away and ate it before he could toss it into the trash. We sat at a small, rickety table set out on the sidewalk. The table even boasted an umbrella with most of the fringe still intact.

We ate quickly, mindful of the lunch crowd which turned tables into highly desired objects, and continued our stroll.

When we found ourselves outside a small, upscale shoe store with a wicked pair of Jimmy Choo pumps in the window, I couldn’t resist.

Paddy stoically endured the half hour it took me to try on six different pairs of shoes. He checked for messages on his cellphone and grew increasingly impatient each time he saw the sales clerk head for the store room for yet another pair of shoes.

I admit the more agitated he became, the more interest I suddenly developed in a new pair. I had fun. Not as much fun as I had when I shoe shopped with Murphy because he liked it and gave me honest opinions when I paraded around the store in a pair of potential new shoes, but I enjoyed myself.

I had narrowed down my choices between a pair of Stuart Weitzman ivory crochet espadrilles and a pair of Vera Wang Lavender leopard print ballet flats when Paddy’s phone rang. He’d been in the middle of another hopeless search for new text messages, and the noise startled him so he nearly dropped the damn thing. He caught it before it escaped and, with a grateful smile, pressed talk.

I didn’t pay attention to the call because I had a serious decision to make. Just as I was about to definitely settle on the espadrilles—perfect for summer even if they were twice as expensive as the ballet flats—Paddy snapped his phone shut.

“Stanzie, we need to go.” Something in his voice was off and all thoughts of shoes fled my mind.

With a mumbled apology to the sales clerk, I hastily retied my Chucks and followed Paddy out to the sidewalk.

A cab idled at the curb and Paddy hailed it. Some people have taxi magic, others, like me, don’t.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as the cab pulled into midday traffic and headed for the river.

Beside me, Paddy looked extremely tense. “I’d rather wait and explain at the hotel. Liam needs to hear this too and I don’t want to do it twice.”

That made sense, but it also made for an uncomfortably silent ride. Luckily, it was a short one.

* * * *

Murphy was still in bed when Paddy and I entered the hotel room, but he was awake. He turned his face toward the door as we walked in. He’d obviously heard us in the hall. Although he didn’t bother to hide his tired expression, he appeared a lot more rested than he had the day before.

One look at Paddy’s grim face and Murphy knew something was wrong. He sat up in bed, the covers pooled around his waist. He was naked—Murphy preferred to sleep naked unless it was freezing cold outside—but he was completely unselfconscious about it.

So was Paddy. He moved to the edge of the bed and had me sit by Murphy. I’d had some time to think about it in the cab ride and figured I knew what Paddy had to say.

Councilor Jason Allerton’s bond mate had died. Allerton had left her on her deathbed to come to the last day of the tribunal and he’d told me it was simply a matter of days, maybe hours, before she passed away.

“I’ve afraid I’ve got some bad news.” Paddy’s voice was hushed as he prepared us for the blow. I braced myself and felt Murphy’s breath on the back of my neck. It was unexpectedly comforting.

“Bethany Dillon died this morning,” Paddy told us and even though I was prepared to hear about death, it was not hers I’d expected.

* * * *

Reflexively, I spit out a mouthful of something foul. For a moment I am dazed, not knowing what I look at but then it comes to me. Shredded skin. I am staring at shredded skin.

Vomit chokes my throat then sprays in liquid chunks against the dirt wall. It smells of blood and bacon and I puke again. When I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, it comes away bloody but I am not hurt. It is not my blood.

Bethany is very quiet—I recall she is there and after that I remember where we are. I can hear her hammering heart almost as loudly as I can hear my own.

The stink of blood and terror is overpowering, but underneath it all lurks something worse. Death.

I am in a corner behind the metal hospital gurney. I use it as a support so I can stand because my legs are weak and unresponsive.

A figure sprawls in the dirt by the ladder. A man’s body dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that is now more red than white. Face up with throat torn away in ragged chunks. Sightless eyes stare up at absolutely nothing. A mouth contorts in a silent scream of both terror and rage. Nate is dead and my wolf has killed him.

I clap a hand to my mouth not sure if I am going to puke, laugh or scream. If not for the gurney, I would collapse to the ground.

I told you not to kill him. Inside my head my voice is mournful. Wolf-on-human violence could have been excused in this situation, but there is no defense for deliberate murder. My wolf hadn’t even hesitated. I remember everything with a vivid suddenness that makes me cry out, my voice muffled by my hand.

He deserved it. He fucking deserved it. My voice is loud in my ears even though I don’t speak aloud. Loud as if to drown out the very treachery of the thought itself. He. Deserved. It.

“Stuh—Stanzie?” Bethany sounds very young and scared, but also hopeful. If she can see Nate’s ravaged body, it doesn’t freak her out the way it does me. “You shifted back. Can you get me free? Please?”

For the first time I can see her. When I do, I start to cry. Her body is a mass of bruises and burn marks. The wrist and ankle restraints have chafed so badly she’s bled and her wounds are infected. I can both smell that and see the swollen red streaks that ooze a puslike liquid. Her hair might have been blond, but now it is a matted, greasy mop of indeterminate brown. Blue, feverish eyes lock to mine pleadingly.

“Hang on,” I force myself to say past tears that clog my throat. There is no time for crying. I have to look for the keys in Nate’s pockets. That means I have to go near him and face what I’ve done to him up close.

* * * *

Someone made a sound like an injured animal and a split second after I heard it, I realized it had been me.

Murphy leaned his forehead against the back of my skull. The spot where I’d hit it when Nate had knocked me into the woodpile in the shed was still sore. Every morning for a week, I’d woken with the sick residue of a headache. Murphy avoided the sore spot with his forehead, but his lips were a millimeter from it. I wondered if he knew it was there. If he remembered it was there. He’d found it the night I’d gotten it, but he’d been gone for the next three days so maybe he’d forgotten.

“How?” I didn’t even recognize my own voice, twisted as it was with anguish and bewildered anger. We’d gotten her out of that root cellar alive. How could she be dead now?

“Infection,” Paddy watched me closely. “She had a miscarriage while she was...in the root cellar and although they did a D-and-C, it was too late. Infection had already set in.”

“From the beer bottle. From being raped by a beer bottle,” I snarled. Paddy winced, his face pale. I sucked in my breath as the whole world narrowed to a small pinhole while black spots performed a macabre dance across the tiny expanse that was left.

I wasn’t even aware I’d gotten up until I was halfway across the room. I had nowhere to go and no idea what to do, so I stopped, my shoulders hunched.

“He won,” I whispered. “That bastard won.”

“No!” Paddy’s eyes blazed as he turned to stare at me. “He did not win.”

“She’s dead, Paddy.”

“She died in the company of her family, her pack,” he argued. “I’m not telling you she wasn’t in pain or scared, but she wasn’t in that fucking root cellar with a madman’s laughter the last thing she heard. You did that for her and nobody else.”

“But she’s still dead.” I wasn’t comforted at all. Every time I closed my eyes I could see her bruised and battered face, and the pain and terror stamped across it.

“I want my mom,” she’d told me and Vaughn when it was all over as we tried to get the damn wrist and ankle shackles off of her. “I want my mom.”

My own mother’s face flashed before my eyes and I saw her walk behind my father across the conference room floor after he’d renounced me as their daughter in front of the tribunal. She hadn’t looked back.

I burst into tears.

Both Murphy and Paddy moved toward me, but it was Paddy I went to. He’d been there in the conference room when I’d had to recount the hellish hours I’d spent chained up with Bethany in Grandmother Emma’s root cellar. He’d been there when my parents had ripped me to shreds in front of the New England Regional Council and three members of the Great Council.

He enfolded me in his arms and rocked me while he crooned something comforting in my ear. He smoothed my hair, careful to avoid the sore spot. He remembered it was there.

* * * *

Paddy rummaged in the mini fridge while I sat on the peach-colored chair and blew my nose into a tissue he’d pressed into my hand as he’d settled me gently. Beyond in the bathroom, the sound of running water as Murphy showered, provided a strange counterpoint to the soft jingle of small glass bottles.

“Gin, vodka or tequila?” Paddy held three nipper bottles in front of me and I shuddered.

“Is there orange juice? If there is, I’ll take the vodka. Isn’t there any wine?”

“Not strong enough.” He returned to the fridge and rummaged around for a can of juice.

I cast the used tissue toward the wastepaper basket near the desk and missed spectacularly. My nose still ran, so I snatched another tissue from the box on the end table and blew.

Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the vertical blinds drawn across the window and fell in stripes across the bed. I could see the indentation of Murphy’s head in the pillow. His socks were on the floor beside his jeans and one of his Timberland boots. The other one was probably under the bed with his shirt and underwear.

The crack the orange juice can made as Paddy opened it competed with the sound of the shower for a moment. Even from half a room away I could smell the vodka.

“Is there ice?” I wondered and Paddy swore good-naturedly before he grabbed the ice bucket on the dresser and headed for the door.

“Be right back,” he promised and was gone.

The water shut off and the shower curtain rings chattered together as Murphy drew the curtain back. A moment later, the buzz of his electric razor filled the air. I blew my nose for the third time and leaned back against the chair, overwhelmed by a sudden dispirited lassitude that sucked all the vitality out of my bones and left me bereft and powerless.

I was crying again when Murphy walked into the room with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was wet but combed and the zig-zag pucker of the bullet scar on his right forearm was a vivid reminder Murphy’d come by that wound while protecting me. He’d covered me and exposed himself, and now he’d always have the scar to prove it.

He saw my tears right away but didn’t say anything. Instead he found a clean pair of briefs from his leather overnight case then pulled on his jeans.

The muscles of his back and neck were so tense they vibrated. He pulled a fresh tissue from the box and handed it to me. When I took it, our fingers brushed.

“I’m sorry, honey.” His voice was a low rasp. He sounded exhausted still, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Gin or tequila?” I asked him and he blinked at me. I gestured toward the mini fridge.

“Paddy’s making drinks. I called the vodka and that leaves gin or tequila.”

He grimaced. “What happened to beer?”

“Not strong enough,” Paddy said as he came through the door, a bucket of ice in hand.

“Gin,” Murphy said with the air of someone forced to do something totally against his principles.

“Please don’t tell me you want something exotic to go with it and make me go out and search again.” Paddy rolled his eyes.

“Ice is hardly exotic. And it’s not like you had to go to the Arctic to hand chip it.” I pointed out.

“You ever try finding ice machines in hotels?” Paddy asked me as he slipped three or four ice cubes into my drink.

“Is there tonic water?” Murphy knelt by the mini fridge to look.

“For about six dollars there might be a wee little mouthful.”

Murphy gave him a look. “I’ll pay.”

“Like hell, Liam Murphy.”

“You rich, Paddy?” I asked as I took a sip of the drink. It was strong but the can of orange juice was too far away to reach.

“I’m Alpha of Mac Tire,” he told me as if that explained everything.

“While he’s Alpha, he’s got access to the pack funds. They’re...” Murphy searched for a suitable word. “...considerable.”

“But when you’re not Alpha?”

“Ah, then I’ll have to subsist on my bond mate’s generosity.” Paddy’s sigh was mournful. “’Tis a terrible thing to have a bond mate with more money than you.”

Despite myself I laughed. In our duo, I was the one with the bond mate who had more money.

Paddy looked enormously pleased with himself because he’d made me laugh.

“You get the tequila,” Murphy reminded him as he poured a can of tonic water into his gin.

“I’m Alpha and I have to drink the tequila. What the hell is wrong with this picture?” Paddy said. He unscrewed the cap of the nipper bottle and held it aloft.

His face became serious. “To a brave girl who suffered more than she should have at the hands of a perverted and evil man. May she find herself in a better place surrounded by family and pack that passed before her.” He downed the contents of the bottle in two swallows.

Tears burned in my eyes again as I gulped at my screwdriver. Murphy’s face was solemn and shadowed and he clenched his glass tightly as he drank.

“The funeral’s tomorrow. They’ve asked us to go.” Paddy tossed the empty tequila bottle at the waste basket and scored.

I didn’t say anything. The cold glass in my hand became the center of my universe for a few seconds until Murphy said, “You don’t have to go, Stanzie.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I swoop in and rescue her and then don’t bother to show up at her funeral because she had the temerity to die on me. That’s great.”

“You don’t have to go.” Ice cubes shifted in his glass as he drained the rest of his drink and set it aside.

“You think I’m such a coward, don’t you?” I was angry and full of grief, and there was nothing to pin a target to except the first person who spoke. The same person who had conveniently skipped out on my tribunal and consequently had no idea what was going on in my head—he only thought he did, which was doubly infuriating.

“I think Maplefair has a lot of bloody nerve asking you back there after what you went through. That doesn’t mean you’re a coward if you don’t want to go.” Murphy found a navy blue t-shirt and put it on with angry, economical moves.

“What I went through was bullshit compared to what Bethany did.” I wanted to throw the glass at his face but didn’t mostly because I was aware of Paddy as he watched us.

“Don’t underestimate the effects of what you went through, Constance. She may have been down there longer and tortured, but your wolf tore Nate’s throat out. That is not something you get over in a matter of a few days.”

“Oh, thank you for pointing out how fucked up I’m supposed to be over this, Murphy. Jesus, I wonder what I would do if you weren’t around to tell me these things? Oh, yeah. I’d do just fine on my own. Like I did for the whole tribunal.”

“Are you going to hold it over my frigging head for the rest of our lives that I wasn’t there for that goddamn tribunal?” Murphy’s eyes gleamed with a dangerous fury.

“Nice. Now you’re angry at me. You are angry at me. You can turn it around and play the martyr all you like, but the truth is you know you were wrong and not admitting it is not going to change anything.”

“I was not wrong.” Murphy stormed over to his boots and stuffed his feet into them without benefit of socks. “You’re too damn stubborn to acknowledge that I was trying to help you.”

“Save me, you mean.” My voice was savage. Paddy’s gaze went back and forth between us as if he watched a brutally competitive tennis match.

“What is the fucking difference?” Murphy demanded.

“That’s the biggest problem. You don’t know and you can’t tell the difference or see how insulting it is that you think I’m so fucking weak that I need you to save me because I’m not capable of doing it on my own. Go to hell, Liam Murphy!”

“You were on trial for your life!” Murphy’s voice shook he was so angry. “You could have been put to death. Can you set your damn ego aside for one minute and see it from my perspective? I had to do everything I could and finding that damned precedent was the one thing I knew for sure would save your life. It had nothing to do with whether I thought you incapable of saving yourself. You couldn’t search for the precedent, but I could. That’s why I did it.

“If saving your life is a crime, then I confess. I’m guilty as hell of at least trying my damndest to do it. Just because it ended up the tribunal set its own precedent, doesn’t invalidate my decision to search for one that already existed.

“I’d do the same thing over again, you know that? The same fucking thing.”

He glared at me, his mouth tense and tight before he slammed out the door.

Paddy watched it for a moment and abruptly headed across the room. His hand on the knob, he turned back. “Stay here.” The door banged behind him.

My hand shook as I set aside my half-drunk screwdriver, and curled up in the chair.

* * * *

Hours later Murphy and Paddy returned to the room. They smelled of wind and beer, as if they’d gone for a long walk after a visit to a bar. They were not in the slightest bit intoxicated, and Murphy’s anger had burned out. Paddy took one look at me, swore under his breath, and went into the bathroom. Water began to gush from the shower.

I hadn’t moved in the chair since they’d left. My legs, drawn up beneath me, had long since lost all feeling. My head hurt both because of the sore spot on the back of my skull and no dinner. Half a vodka and orange juice had not helped.

If my legs hadn’t been numb, I would have crawled into bed long ago but I was afraid to get up because I thought I would fall. So I sat with my head against the back of the chair, eyes open but not focused on anything in particular.

“Stanzie?” Murphy kept his voice low when he talked to me and came to stand close by the chair. If I wanted to see his face I had to turn my head. But I kept it still. He knew I heard him though, my body betrayed me as it always did when he was near.

“It’s late, honey. You want to go to bed? We’ll need to get up early tomorrow to drive to Vermont.”

“Did you eat anything?” My voice was hoarse, as if I’d shouted for hours on end when all I’d done was kept silent.

“We ate at a sports bar a few blocks from here. You hungry? I could order you something from room service if you like.” He sat on the foot stool and reached out a hand to touch me, but let it fall short of actual contact.

He said, “I should have been there with you, but I didn’t want to lose you and I had to do all I could.”

“I had people,” I said. “Paddy and Vaughn and Jossie. Kathy Manning.”

“But you wanted me,” he said. “I let you down.”

“I am scared to go to Maplefair,” I admitted painfully. “I am a coward.”

“No, you are not. You are one of the bravest people I know. If you had a fan club, I’d be the president.”

I opened my eyes and he had the same look of infatuation on his face he’d had a lot lately when he looked at me. I didn’t understand it. It couldn’t be infatuation because he loved Sorcha. He was fond of me, devoted even, but he would never love me the way I loved him. Every time he stared at me that way I wanted to cry because it was so hard to know all I’d ever be to him was a dear friend and companion. Someone to take care of and to save and keep him from mourning Sorcha’s loss.