Cipher

Chapter Four

It took him far too long to find a suitable motel, because he couldn’t drive more than three miles without checking to make sure Kat wasn’t slipping into unconsciousness.

Andrew gripped the steering wheel until it groaned in protest as he pulled into the parking lot of a small, run-down motor inn. It was impossible to tell when it had last been painted, but the white blocks and bright aqua of the doors had faded to grimy beige and pale green.

He chose it because it wasn’t a chain, which meant they might get away without giving any real personal information—including credit cards—and because it was an utter dump, which meant they might not have to answer any questions.

Which brought him to another problem—what the hell to do with Kat while he paid and retrieved a key.

He thought about leaving her in the SUV. She could climb in the back and hide until he returned, but his instincts balked. She’d be alone and bleeding, and he couldn’t leave her like that.

He actually literally couldn’t.

Andrew parked and stripped off his jacket. “Sit up, sweetheart. Can you slip your arms into this without it hurting too much?”

She held up her injured arm and leaned toward him without unbuckling her seatbelt. The canvas snapped tight across her chest, and she frowned, glanced down and wrinkled her nose. “Seatbelt.”

Christ, she was completely out of it. Panic threatened again, and he swallowed it with fierce determination as he unbuckled her safety belt. “We’re going to put this on you, go inside and check in.

Everything’s fine, you just had a little too much to drink.”

“Got it. I’m a lush.” This time she lifted her arm more slowly, and the pain of easing it into his jacket showed on her face. By the time she’d gotten her other arm into the sleeve her eyes were too bright, and she had to blink away tears. “I’m a wuss. I’m sorry I’m such a wuss.”

“Quit it. You’re doing fine.”

She nodded and lifted her good hand. Her fingertips barely cleared the end of the sleeve, and the sight seemed to amuse her. “Sometimes I forget how huge you are.”

“Uh-huh. I’m a real mountain of a man, sweetheart.” He zipped the jacket and buckled the top for good measure. “Ready?”

A nod. A smile, sweet and unguarded in a way he hadn’t seen from her in a year or more. “I like it when you call me sweetheart.”

The smile hurt, more than he’d believed anything could. “Pull this off, and I’ll call you anything you want.” He hurried around to her door and opened it.

Kat was wobbly at first, but once she had both boots on the ground and one hand around his arm, she steadied. Enough to make it inside, and if she pressed a little close to his side, it looked more like affection than necessity.

They could pull this off.

When the bell above the door chimed, the clerk inside barely glanced up from the small television behind the desk. “Fill out a registration card. Room’s forty-three fifty a night.”

Kat kept her feet while he filled out the card and handed over the cash. Under the harsh lights she looked pale and worn, but her expression stayed blandly pleasant until he got her back out into the parking lot. “I’m starting to feel woozy.”

“I’ve got to get the first aid kit from the truck, and then we’re right here. Room number five.”

“Can we get my bag too? My computer?”

“Yeah, sure.” He propped her against the side of the SUV and grabbed the three bags, including the duffel he’d brought along, in one hand. “Just a little farther.”

“I can do it.” And she did, though it seemed like stubbornness might be the only thing that kept her moving. As soon as he got the door open, she crossed to the sagging bed and slumped on the mattress.

“Wow. It’s not even noon and I think I need a nap.”

“You need food first.” He locked the door and grabbed the takeout menu hanging on the back of the knob. “Can you look at this while I check out your arm?”

“After.” She tugged at the zipper, working it down in uneven jerks that made her wince. “I think you’re gonna have to help me get this off. And the T-shirt, too, if it needs to go.”

He pulled off the jacket and wished again that he had something to give her for the pain. The makeshift bandage around her upper arm was soaked through with blood, and the sight and the smell combined made him want to rage. “Good thing Carmen gave me a crash course in creative first aid.”

Her eyebrows came together. “I didn’t know you were taking lessons from her too.”

He couldn’t tell Kat the truth—that he’d done it for himself, but he’d been thinking of her. Shapeshifters healed quickly, but the most important person in his world wasn’t a shifter at all. “Pays to know how to patch people up.”

“Guess so.” She closed her eyes, and some of her earlier giddiness seemed to have vanished under tense lines of pain. “So how bad is it?”

“Could be way worse.” He probed at her arm. The angry furrow angling up the outside of her biceps was bleeding but sluggishly, and it looked shallow. “I don’t think it hit anything important. Doesn’t look like anything I can sew up, though. Maybe just some butterfly bandages.”

“Oh, good. That suturing shit looks hot in the movies, but I think I’d probably puke on your boots. I’m not exactly Lara Croft.”

He had to find some way to put her at ease, or she might puke on him anyway. “Your pop culture references are getting dated. What the hell have you been doing with yourself?”

“Getting a PhD and becoming a psychic ninja.” She trembled under his touch. One hand rested in her lap and the other fisted around the covers so tightly her knuckles were white. But she kept talking, kept trying, even when her voice shook as hard as her body. “Oh, and letting Zola and Walker kick me around their dojo five days a week. My PlayStation has cobwebs.”

“Okay, so you’ve been busy.” He dug a bottle of antiseptic and some gauze pads out of the first aid kit.

“Mmm.” She listed to the side, and he gently righted her. “Had to. Busy’s better than brooding.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Busy’s better than missing you.”

No amount of activity had kept him from missing her. “I know what you mean.”

Kat laughed, though it broke off when he dabbed the antiseptic on her wound. “We both kept so busy to keep from missing each other, and now the people we were missing are gone.”

“I haven’t changed that much,” he lied.

“Don’t need empathy when the lie’s that stupid.”

It hurt to acknowledge the truth, so he’d forced himself to do it a long time ago. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would do the same. “All right, those people are gone. No laid-back architects or happy-go-lucky programmers here.”

“No.” The pain in her voice cut deep. “But you found a new place. You’re on the Southeast council and you’re changing the world and I’m—I’m practically unemployed and stuck on shit that happened before I was born.”

And if the stuff about her mother hadn’t been kept from her, maybe she would have already dealt with it. “You had more to work through than me.”

“Yeah. And it got me shot. It could have gotten you shot.” She flinched as he fixed the first bandage in place. “And all because I don’t want to be Alec’s pet hacker for the rest of my life.”

“Who would want to be? The man’s a terror to work with.”

“He wants me to be nineteen still. But I’m not nineteen.”

“If you were, he’d still have a reason to protect you.”

She choked on a hysterical laugh. “Guess I just proved I need it. Way to go, Kat.”

“Quit it,” he ordered. “You can’t blame yourself for a fucking sniper.”

“It’s not about blame. It’s about—” She hissed in a sudden breath, her hand opening and closing helplessly on the thin coverlet. “Okay, I really am going to puke on you. Are you almost done?”

He placed the last strip and sat back. “Yeah. It wouldn’t heal pretty, but it’ll hold you together until we can do better.”

She said nothing for a long time, her gaze fixed ahead and her jaw tight with pain. Then she unclenched her hand and lifted it to swipe at a stray tear. “That’s all I really need.”

Don’t do it— Andrew slipped his arm around her and bent to put his mouth close to her ear. “You’re all right. You think you’re not, but you are.”

Another tear slipped down her cheek, a salty sharpness undercutting the scent of her vanilla lotion and the spicy cinnamon of her favorite shampoo. “Maybe. Or maybe crazy really does run in my family.

Maybe I can spend ten hours a day with the world’s best empath and it won’t matter, because I’m a ticking time bomb. Aren’t you even a little afraid?”

He was, but only of himself and what would happen if he had to walk away from her again. “I’ll never be scared of you, Kat.”

“You would be if you could remember.”

“Remember what? The attack?” He urged her chin up so she had to look at him. “I do.”

Her blue eyes were chips of ice. “Alec’s scared of me. Alec. The crazy fucker that shapeshifter moms tell stories about to terrify their kids. They all try to hide it. They try to make me a hapless stupid kid so they can pretend it’s not there. But I feel it, Andrew. Every damn day.”

He had to make her understand. “Are you scared of me, Kat? I could kill you right now, in a heartbeat.

Crack your neck before you had a chance to think about liquefying my brain or whatever. Does that mean you’re pretending I can’t just to get through the day?”

Kat fisted her good hand in his shirt. Her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched. “You’ve never been afraid of hurting me?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying there’s a lot of scary going around, and if you’re going to condemn yourself for being dangerous, move over. There are a lot of us who belong on that bench with you.”

“But I couldn’t—” Her teeth dug into her lower lip. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I was scared, and I was mad, and I snapped, and I could have melted your brain too.”

And so she’d gotten help, the best to be had, and Callum had spent six months teaching her to harness that power. To control it, instead of letting it control her. “A year ago, you never could have done what you did this morning.”

For the first time, the anger and fear in her eyes wavered. “No. No, I couldn’t have. Of course, if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be trapped in a crappy motel room with a burned-out empath who’s kinda high and has the munchies.”

It was enough—for now. Andrew released her and snagged the takeout menu. “Screw the munchies.

Ever had steak delivered to a shitty motel room?”

She made a face at him. “Crappy. If it were shitty, there’d be an hourly rate.”

“Oh, is that how we judge these things?”

“Uh-huh. Trust me, those places are sketchy.”

He didn’t bother holding back his groan, though his playful words would hopefully hide his tension.

“Where the hell has that Mendoza kid been taking you?”

Her cheeks turned pink, and she busied herself with the laces on her Doc Martens. “Miguel took me wherever I wanted him to.”

Julio had been reluctant to discuss anything having to do with Kat and his brother, but the supernatural community in New Orleans wasn’t big enough for Andrew not to have heard things. “Good for him.” He almost meant it too.

She jerked one boot off. “I keep trying to hook him up with Sera, but neither of them will take the bait.”

He snorted. “If you think that slick little Casanova is what Sera wants, you haven’t been paying attention.”

“Hey.” She struggled with the other boot, tugging at the laces with one hand. “Be nice. He might be a tiny bit of a man whore, but he’s still my friend. If I can be nice about Anna when she was screwing the love of—” Her teeth snapped together. “Are you ordering steak or not?”

He wrapped his hand around her arm and held her still. “Look at me.”

She didn’t. “I’m wasted. I can’t even untie my damn boot. Just feed me and let me sleep it off.”

He released her and dragged her foot into his lap to unravel the knotted laces. “You’re not nice about Anna. You might not hate her or wish she’d die a horrible death, but you’re not nice. You don’t like her and you never will and that—” The heavy boot hit the floor, and Andrew sighed. “That’s how I feel about Miguel.”

Kat finally looked at him, her face lost to bewilderment. “You really think it’s the same thing, don’t you?”

“I guess you don’t.”

Uncomfortable silence filled the space between them before she looked away. “I need to eat, or I’ll be sick.”

He snatched the menu off the bed. “I’ll order a bunch of stuff. In the meantime, there’s an energy bar in my bag. Grab it, okay?”

She obeyed without a word, and her stubborn silence continued until the food arrived. She ate with the same quiet determination, every movement mechanical. Methodical. All her attention seemed turned inward, even when she pushed away from the rickety table with a quiet sigh. “Thanks, Andrew. I’m just hurt and tired and need some sleep.”

“How bad’s the pain? I don’t have anything too strong, but there’s some over-the-counter stuff in my bag.”

“Maybe tomorrow.” She smiled wanly and crawled onto the bed. “I’m about to be unconscious whether I take drugs or not. Don’t be worried unless I sleep more than twenty-four hours.”

“Got it.”

He stared at the remains of his sandwich until her breathing deepened and steadied. Then he retrieved his phone and slipped out the front door.

He’d need to tell Sera, at least, that they weren’t coming back right away. As Kat’s roommate, she would be the first person to raise the alarm, and he didn’t know if they could afford that right now.

Best-case scenario, that sniper had been targeting the dead woman. Worst case, he was a lousy shot who only winged Kat…or missed Andrew entirely.

Both possibilities sucked.

Burnout dreams were the worst.

Kat struggled her way into consciousness, guided by the throbbing ache in her arm. Her dreams had always been vivid, but after a controlled burnout, the deepest, darkest corners of her psyche turned her brain into their playground.

She’d dreamed of pirates. The sexy, swashbuckling kind with ambiguous sexuality and a historically improbable lack of STDs. Miguel was their leader, and she’d been balanced on the precarious edge of a plank over the deep blue ocean, everything inside her screaming to close her eyes and jump.

Her psyche wasn’t subtle.

Neither was the pain, which her groggy mind identified as the delightful aftermath of being shot. Far less sexy than in the movies, where a few gunshot wounds never seemed to stop a determined heroine from dirty sex in a dingy motel room. Sticky blood had mostly dried on her T-shirt, and the fabric stuck to her skin as she rolled over. She was groggy, hungry, sore and distinctly sketchy. Sex had never seemed less appealing.

Then she sat up, and remembered what it felt like to want.

Andrew was doing pushups. Shirtless. The muscles in his shoulders and back flexed with every effortless movement, which made the tattoo on his back flex right along with them. Thick black ink cut across tanned skin in a style she recognized all too easily. One of the Ink Shrink’s creations, an intricate phoenix with a vaguely tribal feel, so large the bird’s wings spanned Andrew’s back and curled around his shoulders.

The Ink Shrink wasn’t always subtle, either.

“Almost done,” he said without looking up. Two more pushups and he rocked back on his knees, stretching his arms. “Feel better?”

He had a tattoo on his arm too, and finding it fascinating kept her from dwelling on his chest. “Uhm, I feel less drunk. More like I got shot.”

“Stiff and sore?”

Yeah. Those were two very important things to remember, especially if Andrew was going to stay half-naked. “Pretty much. And I should have taken my shirt off last night, I think. There’s blood on it. I could use a shower.”

“Bath,” he corrected. “And keep that arm dry.”

She hadn’t brought a change of clothes, and the bathtub looked so questionable she opted to do the best she could with a towel and some warm water. The grimy mirror reflected an unpleasant picture—pale skin, tangled hair, bruised-looking eyes. She did her best to avoid her own reflection as she washed, then dragged her fingers through her shaggy hair and gathered the mess up on top of her head.

Trying to rinse her shirt in the sink proved pointless, and the effort just made her left arm burn. She abandoned the garment in the garbage can and pulled on the closest thing to a shirt that she had—a black hoodie with the word meh emblazoned across the front in all its apathetic glory.

Meh pretty much covered it. She eased the sweatshirt on over her bra and zipped it up as she returned to the main room. “I really need to buy some clothes.”

He rose and passed her on his way to the small bathroom. “We’ll take care of that as soon as we figure out—” His words cut off in a curse.

Kat jumped and regretted it. “What?”

He backed out of the bathroom and turned, his eyes shadowed. “You left your stuff all over.”

“My T-shirt? Why would it…” Shit. Sera was addicted to one of the thousands of procedural crime shows that cluttered the airwaves every Wednesday, which made Kat a captive audience. “You mean I need to clean up the evidence?”

Andrew averted his gaze. “More like it’s a damn hard thing to look at.”

“Oh.” He’d been acting so restrained that she’d forgotten the main reason alpha shifters drove her insane—the stifling, oppressive protectiveness. Even Sera, the most submissive shifter Kat had ever met, got downright testy when she thought her human roommate was in danger. The fact that Andrew hadn’t dragged her into the bathroom to bathe her himself probably evidenced the kind of self-control people gave medals for.

Against her better judgment she reached out and touched Andrew’s shoulder. His skin was hot under her fingertips, and she traced the swooping whorl of one of the phoenix’s stylized feathers before she could stop herself. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Kat.” He tensed, and his voice dropped to a rasp.

“Sorry.” She leaned into him, pressing her forehead to his shoulder as she snuck her good arm around him in an awkward hug. “Thank you. For not flipping out and getting neurotic bossy alpha on me. But if there’s something I can do that’ll make it easier, you can ask.”

He smoothed her hair. “Help me figure out what comes next.”

No commands. No plan, already outlined and fixed into place. She swallowed hard and held him tighter. “My technopathic friend lives in Birmingham. If we need to keep off the grid, he’s the guy to see. I think it’s farther than going back home, but he could probably figure out where this key belongs.”

“The harder we are to track without magic, the better. Hell, the harder we are to track with it.”

“I can email Ben before we leave. He could have IDs and credit cards for us by the time we got there.”

Which would mean a real hotel, with a bath she wasn’t afraid to climb into and sheets she’d let touch her body. “Ben will know the local magical community too.”

“Good. We might need that.”

Kat didn’t want to ask the next question, but she had to. “My life’s boring right now, but you have things to do. Important things. Do you need to—” Both his eyebrows shot up. “Are you about to say what I think you’re about to say?”

Stepping back gave her space. “Someone should say it.”

“Does someone also want her cousin to find out she got shot before she gets what she came here for?”

Not so reasonable after all, then. Kat could read between the lines. Andrew would let her pursue any leads she felt the need to, as long as he got to watch her back. “That’s a little bit like blackmail.”

“It’s a little bit like self-preservation,” he argued. “I don’t want Derek to murder me.”

Whatever the reason, she didn’t have to do it alone. “So we go to Birmingham?”

“We go to Birmingham.” He backed toward the bathroom. “I’ll clean up in here. You get on the line with what’s-his-name.”

“Ben.” Kat reached out and caught Andrew’s hand, and damnable butterflies fluttered to life in her stomach at the simple touch. “Thanks. Even if you’re only doing it for Derek.”

He looked down at her, his mouth set in a firm line. “I’m doing it for you. I’m just not above blaming Derek.”

She couldn’t look away. “It means a lot. More.”

He pulled away with a quick nod. “Shouldn’t take more than four hours or so to get there. We’ll hit 65 and head north.”

“Got it.” Kat checked her wrist out of instinct before she remembered she’d lent her watch to Sera twenty-four very long hours ago. She circled the bed on the way to her bag and caught a glimpse of the cheap bedside clock. Bright red numbers informed her it was just after six in the morning.

Way too early. If she knew Ben, he’d only fallen into bed a few hours ago. She’d never actually called him before—she’d never needed to, considering how much easier it was to use voice-chat—but his number was stored in her address book along with the numbers to every takeout restaurant within ten miles of her apartment.

She dug her phone out of her bag and plugged it in to charge before calling Ben. After four rings, she was directed to his voicemail.

Sorry, Ben. She left a brief message, then began the systematic process of annoying him awake with a series of text messages. The first was her phone number, followed by a string of abrupt notes typed as fast as she could manage.

Got shot.

Need papers.

Coming to town.

I thought you always answer text messages.

Even if your phone is on vibrate.

Or if you’re asleep.

Or drunk.

Wake up, lazy ass. Or I’ll stop using punctuation.

BTW, I’m stuck in a crappy motel room.

With Andrew.

She was seriously considering a few messages filled with creative obscenities—or offenses against the English language—when “The Ride of the Valkyries” filled the room. Kat jabbed at her phone to answer the call. “Ben?”

“You got shot? What the fuck?” Ben’s voice was groggy with sleep, but familiar enough from long hours of gaming to bring the stark absurdity of her present circumstances into sharp focus. The residual warmth from her quiet moment with Andrew faded, leaving her cold and scared as she outlined the story to Ben.

Just as well. A little fear was probably appropriate for her first foray into fake identities. And if she concentrated on that, she wouldn’t have to dwell on why she needed one, or who might be out to get her.

Or Andrew.