Infected: Shift Read online

  That was actually an in joke. Since he periodically stopped by Panic to see Dylan, he was now referred to as security by the staff. He wasn’t—certainly no one paid him—but apparently management liked having him around. It suddenly occurred to Roan, as Matteo waved him on inside, letting him skip the cover, that maybe this was what Grey meant by calling him an enforcer. That’s how the people at Panic saw him, as a tough guy who could take care of any problems for them. If things got ugly, they had their own ugly guy to take care of it.

  Roan was strangely numb to the electronic music that washed over him, and while neon-hued colors predominantly lit up the club, he could see a couple of queens staring at him and talking to each other. He could lip-read if he wanted to, but he didn’t. They were either saying “That’s the infected freak” or “That’s the infected freak who let that other infected freak get away” (Grant Kim). Either way, he didn’t need to know.

  He found an open space at the bar and leaned in, and he was spotted instantly by Rodrigo. He was, as de rigueur for Panic’s bartenders, shirtless, but he was also wearing a leather vest, suggesting he was cold. “Toby!” he shouted. “The cops want to see you!”

  Rodrigo was teasing, but since Murphy had probably chewed his ear off earlier, it wouldn’t be appreciated. Dylan looked down the bar, alarmed, but visibly relaxed when he saw it was just Roan. “Thank God,” he said, coming down to Roan’s end of the bar. “I thought something had happened to you.” He leaned over the bar and gave Roan a quick peck on the cheek.

  “No, I was just catching up on paperwork, and I turned off my phone so I wouldn’t have an excuse not to do it. I desperately wanted an excuse not to do it.”

  “I know, sweetie. You’re okay, right?”

  “Hey, if I give you a big tip, can I get a kiss?” A drunk guy a couple of feet away asked.

  Roan was about to tell him what he could do with that suggestion when Rodrigo came over and said, “He is not for sale. But I’m negotiable.”

  As Rodrigo flirted with the drunk boy, Dylan leaned in and said, “Murphy sounded really pissed at you.”

  “Yeah, well, they found Michael Brand dead this afternoon. It looks like suicide, but they think it might be homicide. She thinks I did it.”

  “Did you?” he asked, and then looked horrified. “Oh shit, no. Ro, I didn’t mean—”

  “Yeah, you did, and it’s okay. I killed Switzer, so why wouldn’t I kill Brand? Make it a twofer.”

  “You killed somebody?” the guy standing next to him asked. He was a soft-looking man—ten to one he worked on a computer all day, or at the very least behind a desk—and he was giving him a look of wide-eyed horror.

  Roan stared at him, dead eyed. “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” He paused briefly. “It was kind of disappointing. Boring, actually.”

  Still openly terrified, the man grabbed his beer and retreated deeper into the club, out of sight. “Did he actually believe me?” Roan asked Dylan, slightly mystified.

  “It looked like it, didn’t it?”

  “It’s Johnny Cash! I don’t even listen to Johnny Cash, and I know it’s Johnny Cash!”

  “Hon, sometimes you’re too hip for the room.”

  “You think I don’t know when I’m being pat—”

  “Holy shit,” a guy shouted, stumbling in the entryway. “There’s a fucking leopard out there!”

  “What?” Someone shouted.

  “I think it’s attacking someone across the street.”

  “Roan—” Dylan exclaimed, but Roan was already running for the door.

  The guy who reported the cat said, “Dude, don’t—” but Roan ignored him too as he burst out the door. Mighty Mouse was still out front, but the boys had scattered. “What the fuck do I do?” Mouse asked him.

  “Get inside,” he said, scanning the street, scenting the wind. There it was, across the street, growling and attempting to burrow under the lid of a closed Dumpster. Was someone hiding in there?

  The guy was also wrong. It wasn’t a leopard, it was a panther, but with a dark muddy-brown color that looked faintly reddish in the dim glow of the streetlight. A fellow redhead?

  Roan whistled sharply, stepping out into the street. “Pick on someone your own size.”

  “Man, what are you doing?” Mighty Mouse squeaked.

  “Get inside!” he shouted, as the panther charged toward him, snarling.

  Roan roared in response, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise, and the panther did an almost comical stumble midway across the street, not scared but perplexed. It lifted its head, sniffing the air, still snarling, but Roan was growling too as he approached it. Luckily they were working on the neighboring road (a huge sinkhole had opened up during the last torrential downpour), and traffic was sporadic at best.

  The panther got over its shock and started to lunge again, but Roan sensed it coming and roared once more with the force akin to a scream, feeling his throat grow raw and bloody as a result. It was loud and angry enough that the cat’s ears swiveled back, its lips skinned over its snaggled ivory teeth. When he could talk, he growled, “I’m the alpha here. Get down.”

  The cat continued growling at him and stalked forward cautiously. “I said get down,” Roan snarled, his fingers wanting desperately to curl into claws, his muscles starting to twitch in his arms and back. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and he felt a sharp pain bracketing his jaw as he started tasting blood in his mouth. Roan was dimly aware that there were people watching from Panic, idiots who wanted to gawk at the loose big cat.

  He knew the stupid thing was going to jump before it actually did, so he got his arm up and let the panther sink its teeth into his forearm, and Roan, feeling rather out of control of himself, reflexively bit the panther on its shoulder. He stopped as soon as he tasted blood, and as the cat loosened its bite to squall in pain, he snapped his arm and sent the panther flying. It slammed into the facade of the closed antique store across the street and hit it hard enough you could hear the dense, meaty thud over the hiss of tires on asphalt farther down the way.

  “Stay down!” Roan roared, the words almost lost in the noise. He could feel the slick warmth of blood running down his arm, but bizarrely, it didn’t hurt, not at the moment. Maybe later, after the adrenaline wore off. He turned his head and spit out blood that was half his and half the panther’s.

  The cat wasn’t dead; they were amazingly resilient to damage, a bit more than their Human forms. But it was clearly dazed as it got on its feet, wavering slightly, shaking its head like it had a bee in its ear. It was growling, but it was an automatic response—there was no force behind it at all.

  He approached it slowly, still growling, and when he was nearly close enough to reach out and smack it, he snarled, “I’m the alpha. Submit.”

  The cat looked up at him with glazed amber eyes, growling weakly, but it seemed to understand that there was no winning this battle. It settled on the sidewalk, resting its head on its paws, its growl dying in its throat. Roan stood over it, still growling, jaw still hurting, the urge to rip out its throat not quite dying. He clenched his hands at his sides and felt the muscles shifting in his fingers. He struggled to keep the change from going any further, and repressing it was almost painful. It nearly hurt worse than his jaw.

  The thing had fucking bit him. He should rip it in half.

  He heard the noise of an engine and tires, and headlights blindsided his peripheral vision as it came up, slowly enough to let him know it would stop before it ran him over. He looked away, blinking afterimages from his eyes, and heard a car door open. It was funny, but from the scent of the exhaust he knew that it was a cop car. How weird was that? Exhaust really didn’t vary all that much.

  “Roan, you got it under control?” a familiar voice asked. It was Seb, which was definitely a good thing for him.

  Roan realized he was still growling deep in his throat, and he actually had to remember how to speak. He was sliding down. “Yeah.”

/>   He heard the pneumatic hiss of a drug gun, and assumed the panther had been drugged. Would they shoot him next? he wondered.

  “What the fuck’s this guy?” A male voice he didn’t recognize asked. It had the hard authority of a cop.

  “Stand down. He works for the department,” Seb replied in an equally firm manner. So he had a replacement partner while Gordo was on leave. Guy sounded like a prick. “Roan, you okay?”

  Seb had not gotten any closer, and his voice had a soothing quality, like he was trying to keep him from spooking, and he kept using his name, like the cop handbook said in dealing with volatile people. Use their name a lot, try and forge a connection, make them think they know you and can trust you. A brief surge of anger—he could rip Seb in half too, him and that dick partner of his, who was exuding testosterone like a cheap cologne—gave way to a sudden cascade of despair. Oh fuck, what was going on? Why had he even thought that?

  “’m fine,” he grumbled, turning completely away, dry washing his face with his hands so no one could see any lingering signs of transformation. But he felt the blood on his chin, and his fingers ached as if they’d all been broken. His arms burned and so, inexplicably, did his back, his heart beating out a staccato rhythm in his chest that seemed to vibrate through his entire body. Only now did he realize he had come closer to a full change than he realized.

  He heard a smash—something mostly plastic impacting the asphalt with force—followed closely by, “Hey man, what the fuck—”

  “No pictures!” A voice exclaimed angrily, and it took him a second to realize the man who said that was Dylan.

  Roan turned to look at the crowd, a hand on his face covering his mouth (and most of the blood, although he could feel a slick of it on his neck, growing cold in the chill night), and he caught Dylan’s eyes. He looked anguished, as if he had seen what Roan had only just realized, his chocolate-brown eyes shiny with unshed tears. Dylan turned away and quickly disappeared back inside Panic, followed by Rodrigo, who must have picked up on his despair, if not precisely the reason for it.

  Roan wanted to call after him but didn’t. He didn’t feel he had the right to do so anymore.

  16

  Airport Surroundings

  It took several minutes for Seb to question him about the incident, and someone found a bar towel for him, which he used to clean the blood off his face and then tie around the bite on his arm. Roan still hurt, still felt like he was full of broken glass, and he wanted desperately to get to his car and break into his Percocet stash. He also desperately wanted to go into Panic and find Dylan. He had no idea what he was going to say to him beyond “sorry,” but he felt it was paramount he find him as soon as possible.

  It turned out there was a man hiding in the Dumpster, a homeless guy who had been scratched up pretty badly but would undoubtedly survive. He’d lost a lot of blood, but he was so drunk he didn’t seem to notice. That was probably for the best. But at one point, his glazed eyes settled on Roan, and he pointed at him and said to the EMTs, “He’s a werecat. Did’ja know that? Shouldn’t he be locked up or somethin’?” If they answered him, Roan didn’t hear it.

  As soon as Seb wrapped the interview up, Roan stopped by his car, gulped the pills, and found himself confronted by staring men on his way back to Panic. “Wow,” one guy said. He had bleached-blond hair and smelled of that so-called “pheromone” cologne that Roan knew was complete bullshit. (He could smell pheromones, and while there were some in the mix, not enough to make any difference to anyone.) “That was… what did you do? Aren’t you hurt?”

  Roan cut through the men without saying anything. Yes, he was hurt, but he didn’t care. And what had he done? He'd nearly turned into a lion, and he'd freaked Dylan out. Why had he freaked Dylan out? He’d seen him half transformed before… right? Oh fuck, he couldn’t even remember anymore. Maybe Dylan was just upset because he thought his head was going to explode from an aneurysm or something. Roan was growing convinced that the longer it didn’t happen, the less likely it was to happen. His body had probably adapted to the new reality, like it adapted to most things. Would Dylan buy that?

  Once inside Panic, he found Rodrigo back behind the bar, trying to calm down customers who weren’t really freaked out, just vaguely excited that something violently odd had happened in their vicinity. But he couldn’t see Dylan. “Where is he?” he asked Rodrigo, aware that he would know the “he” he was referring to.

  Rodrigo shot him a sympathetic look. “He headed home. Look, what you did out there—”

  “Is what I do. There’s only room for one big cat around here.” He headed back out, and the crowd miraculously parted for him. Was this how Moses felt?

  Dylan heading home without him—ahead of the end of his shift, in fact—was bad news. He drove home as fast as legally possible, an accident at another intersection holding him up for what seemed an unconscionable amount of time. It didn’t look too bad, it was mainly just broken glass and a ruined fender, so why the fucking holdup? Sometimes it seemed like the world conspired against you.

  He arrived home, relieved to find Dylan’s car still in the driveway, but where did he think he would go? The pills were kicking in, and the edges of the pain had dissolved, melted like ice cream in the sun. It was really nice; he could move his fingers without feeling a lightning bolt of pain sizzle down each nerve. His head felt hollow, but the throbbing at the temples had ceased.

  Once inside, he found that only the foyer light was on, and the rest of the house was dark save for a sliver of light in the upstairs hallway. “Dylan?” He charged upstairs and opened the door on the bedroom, the only lit room in the house. Dylan was standing at the end of the bed, zipping up a backpack. “Hon, what’re you—”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” Dylan said, his voice sounding congested. He wiped his face with his hand before shouldering the bag, but his face was still wet with tears, his eyes red rimmed, beads of saline collecting in the stubble dusting his upper lip. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll come back and get the rest of my stuff eventually, okay? I just can’t do this—”

  “Do what?” he exclaimed, astonished. Dylan was walking out on him? “Live with a freak?”

  “Fuck you!” Dylan snapped, with so much rage Roan reflexively took a step back. Dylan almost never got angry, so when he did, it was explosive and astonishing in its rawness. “You are not a freak to me, and you have never been a freak. Goddamn it, why don’t you treat yourself with more respect than that? Why do you hate yourself so much?”

  “I’m not dumping me, so I don’t think my hate is an issue.”

  “I am not—” Dylan paused and seemed to gather his thoughts. He was still crying; he had never actually stopped crying. “I love you, you stupid asshole, and I wish I didn’t. I can’t stand aside while you kill yourself a piece at a time. I can’t. I didn’t want to leave you because you could—I didn’t know what would happen, but I thought I could brazen it out, I thought you’d realize what you were doing or… God, I’m such a fucking idiot. I thought maybe you’d love me enough not to hurt me like this. But you don’t love me, and—”

  “What? Of course I love you. What the hell kind of thing is that to say?”

  “You like me, and maybe you’re used to me, but you don’t really love me. And please, no, don’t deny it, okay? I was good with that. I was willing to accept that ’cause that’s how much I loved you. You’re still in love with Paris, and I get that. I know you think the very idea is bullshit, but he was your soul mate, and I accepted that. I just can’t accept that you’d rather die than be with me.”

  “This is bullshit!” Maybe it was the drugs—perhaps four Percocets was one too many—but he felt like half this argument was just rushing past him. “I had to stop the fucking panther, Dyl. What would you have me do? Let it maul someone to death, let the cops kill it? I thought—”

  “It’s not about that! You’re giving it power—you want it to take over!”

  “What?” Now he really
was missing a piece of this argument. “What the fuck? You’re not making sense! When I’m around other cats, it—”

  “It is you! You are the lion, Roan! It’s a part of you, and you wouldn’t have to fight it so hard if you didn’t unconsciously want it to take over.”

  He was feeling a lot of things right now—comfortably numb, upset, sad—but now pissed off was letting its presence be known. “Don’t psychoanalyze me! You have no idea how hard it is to live with this!”

  “No, I don’t, and that’s why I let the drugs go! I don’t know the kind of pain you live with, and if it takes it away, fine! Drown yourself in fucking pills, Ro! But I can’t watch you kill yourself anymore!”

  “Fuck you! If I wanted to kill myself, I’d shoot myself in the head! Or slice my arms open like you did!” Even as he said it, he winced. Stupid, wrong, low, mean—why had he gone there?

  Dylan’s jaw tightened, and there was genuine pain in his eyes. He’d hurt him with that. That was a confidence he'd shared with him, his suicide attempt after the death of Jason, and to use it as a weapon was beyond the pale.