Beneath the Skin Page 17

  headlights of the other cars on the freeway.

  I shrugged. “Not much, but yeah.”

  “You’re good with people, you know that?” Murphy gave me a sideways glance and I

  flushed. “That little girl opened right up to you like a flower and you helped her mother. You got her to a place where her pack could reach her. That was a good thing you did. Stanzie.”

  My nickname on his lips sent a small shiver down my spine. It made me want something more than I knew he could give me.

  “Maybe I make up in this form what I lack in wolf form.” He heard the bitterness in my voice and winced.

  “No, what you are in wolf form is very much like what you are in this one,” he argued softly. “You open people and wolves up. We drop our defenses around you, Constance.”

  I shrugged, not entirely convinced this was true.

  “They aren’t telling that little girl what she really is until she’s sixteen. I don’t like that idea, Murphy. A lot of packs are doing it this way now and I don’t understand.”

  “Protection,” Murphy said, but he was playing devil’s advocate. I didn’t think he much liked the idea, either. “They want their children to go to public schools, to make friends with Others. To not be so isolated and apart. It helps, they say, to build networks and resources so the children grow up and get good jobs and bring money and good things into the pack. Little kids talk. They would tell their friends about what we are.”

  “And how can it be proved even if they did?” I scoffed. “Nobody in the pack would

  obligingly corroborate the story. They’d pass it off as vivid imagination.”

  “Is that what your pack did with you?” he wondered and I flushed again.

  “I was home schooled,” I muttered, shifting around in my seat. “I don’t have Others for friends.”

  “Do you have any friends, Constance?” He looked at me across the dashboard lights and I shrugged again. I was hurt but not surprised he didn’t include himself as a friend. Only he was.

  He ought to have known that from when we shifted. Of course maybe he didn’t want to be a friend.

  “Your bite is bleeding again,” I said to fill the strange silence. It was. I could smell the blood beneath the bandages. He’d worn a long-sleeved shirt to cover the bandage and it was dark so I couldn’t see if the blood had seeped into the fabric.

  He rotated his shoulder with a grimace.

  “The grandmother in Paris wanted to give me stitches, but I wouldn’t let her.”

  I blinked at him.

  “You’ll scar.” I was horrified. “You’ll scar and everyone will know that I bit you. I said I was sorry.” I could not believe he would humiliate me like this. How could my wolf be so wrong about him?

  “I wanted the reminder,” he remarked. “It has nothing to do with humiliating you,

  Constance. Jesus, why do you take everything so damn personally?”

  “Suffer then. Bleed all over the place. Whatever.” I pressed my flushed face to the window and wished like hell I wasn’t trapped in a car with him.

  We remained huffily silent as we hurtled down the freeway.

  “Reminder of what?” I asked when I couldn’t take it any longer.

  At first I wasn’t sure if he were going to answer, but then he said, “Remind me that my way isn’t the only way, and that I need to always try to see it from the other side, so I won’t forget that there is one.”

  I bit my lip and took a deep breath. I could smell the air-conditioning, the ghost of a McDonald’s meal past, fake new car smell and Murphy’s blood. Among other things.

  “Murphy? Are we friends?” I watched the big truck next to us flash by, going at least eighty miles an hour. Tiny red running lights winked and flashed, the noise of the engine deafening until it was past.

  “Yeah, Constance,” he answered in a voice so soft I had to strain to hear him. “I meant other people. I thought I was a given.”

  “Oh,” I said, swallowing. It was hard because something blocked my throat. “Then, no.

  No, I don’t have any friends.”

  That admission was difficult to make, because it made me sound pathetic, but at least I knew my wolf wasn’t wrong, after all.

  His gaze was fixed on the road ahead of us, but his fingers got very tight around the wheel. “I’m going to find us a pack. When this is all over, I’m going to find us a pack, Constance, and you’re going to have lots of friends. Believe me?”

  I nodded because I did.

  “Will I have to shift with them at first? I mean, can I wait until you teach me what I need to know?” My heart hammered uncomfortably in my chest. “I’m afraid to shift with anybody but you, Murphy.”

  He sighed. I kept my head bowed, gaze fixed on my hands locked together in my lap.

  “You see, this is exactly why I need a reminder. Because now you’re scared you’re not good enough, and I never wanted that. Didn’t you say shifting brought you the most joy you ever felt anywhere, anytime?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I’ve taken that away. I’m sorry, Stanzie. Please forgive me. I had no right.”

  “You’re just trying to help me, Murphy. Ever since we met that’s what you’ve been

  doing. I’m sorry if I’ve been a bitch about it.”

  “You’re as good as any damn member of Mac Tíre, or any pack anywhere. You tell me

  you understand that. Please tell me you do.”

  I half-smiled and wished I could. Something was wrong with me, or I wouldn’t be the outcast I’d become. Murphy would help me and I wouldn’t stay an outcast. I just needed to work hard and I could fix my shortcomings. I wouldn’t be leaving a part of me behind as much as I would be evolving into the next stage. My wolf would still be my wolf, even when she could think in full sentences and knew how to follow and behave. There would still be joy left. My wolf was strong and not as easily bruised as I was. I had faith in her and Murphy.

  I wanted tactile contact with him, but he always shied away from my touches. He needed to reach out first. I understood that even as I wished it were different.

  In bed at the hotel, he curled up behind me, his arm around my waist. I felt his breath on my shoulder and I smiled as I closed my eyes.

  Even though we hadn’t gone to bed until nearly two in the morning, I was wide awake at four AM. Murphy was sound asleep beside me, breathing deeply, his arm still around me.

  I didn’t want to disturb him, so I forced my eyes shut and managed to fall back to sleep.

  But at seven AM it was no use. I could not sleep anymore.

  Murphy was like a log and didn’t even flutter his eyelids when I carefully dislodged his arm and got up to take a shower.

  He opened one groggy eye as I put on my shoes--a pair of incredible brown suede ankle boots with zips up the back. One of my Paris purchases.

  “You want to order room service for breakfast or go out?” I wondered, hoping for the latter. I felt cooped up and confined. My wolf was fading out fast, but there was still the whisper of her inside me, and I thought if I could get out into fresh air, she might blow away and go silent.

  “Neither. I want to sleep. I’m wiped out, Constance. Goddamn jet lag.” Murphy groaned.

  Sleep intensified his Irish brogue so I had to concentrate to understand him. The fact he talked into his pillow didn’t help, either. “Take the car and go shopping, why don’t you? I’ll be up when you get back. Try to stay out for at least four hours.”

  I wanted to throw a pillow at his head, but when I turned around he was already asleep.

  “I don’t drive cars,” I announced, but of course he didn’t hear.

  The desk clerk told me if I wanted to shop I needed to go to the Galleria, and he found me a cab and told the driver where I wanted to go.

  The cab was a mini-van with the middle seats taken out. It was something of an ordeal to climb inside. The cab smelled of cheap pine air freshener with deeper undertones of underarm odor, as t
he driver obviously did not believe in deodorant. He spent most of the ride talking on his cellphone in a different language. Nigerian maybe? I couldn’t tell. He drove like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic, and barely kept one let alone both hands on the wheel.

  I bounced and lurched around on the backseat, grabbing for handholds more than once, but I steadfastly refused to fasten my seatbelt. Murphy would have strangled me, but since I wanted to strangle him for not coming out with me, I figured we were even.

  The cab screeched to a halt next to what looked like the entrance to an underground parking garage, and the driver took an inordinate amount of time hunting for his credit card machine. He asked me at least five times if I didn’t want to pay in cash, and at least five times I told him I would love to do just that only there was one little problem--I didn’t have any.

  Murphy had exchanged money at the airport, but I hadn’t thought to take cash out of an ATM

  thanks to Mr. Jet Lag. I did have plastic and the signs plastered in the cab windows declared the driver took Visa, Mastercard and Discover, so I really could not see what the problem was.

  After ten minutes of this bullshit, he swiped my card then I had to struggle with the damn van door, which slid closed but was extremely uncooperative.

  I made a mental note to try to find a bus route back to the hotel and looked around to find a street entrance to the mall so I didn’t have to descend into an underground parking lot and dodge traffic while trying to find my way inside.

  This accomplished, I discovered that while I did not like Houston’s cabs, I did like the Galleria. For one thing there were lots of shoe stores. Although I tried on about twenty different pairs, I didn’t buy any. I did get Murphy a shirt in the Armani store. He’d bled on the one he’d worn yesterday and it was mostly my fault, so I figured I owed him.

  One damn blue-and-white pin-striped shirt with a pocket cost me more than two hundred and fifty dollars. Decadent. Wicked. But then I thought of my eight hundred-euro Louboutins and forked over my credit card.

  There was a huge ice rink on the bottom floor of the mall. Little kids and their parents skated and I stood on the floor above, and leaned over the railing to watch them. One chubby little boy fell a grand total of six times in forty seconds, but would not let his father hold his hand. Little kids made me laugh. They wanted to do it themselves. I could get behind that.

  I wolfed down a chicken Caesar salad at La Madeleine and sucked down a bottle of

  Perrier. I people-watched while I ate and was disappointed, because I didn’t see even one man wearing a Stetson. I thought everyone wore them in Texas. I did see lots of ball caps and t-shirts with sports team logos, but that’s everywhere in America.

  Somewhat let down, I browsed through the Tiffany store where I nearly bought a silver charm bracelet but told myself not to go overboard and walked out with nothing.

  Half the time I was shopping I had to stop myself from turning to Murphy to share a joke or an observation. I wanted to see his sardonic smile and even his damn Red Wing boots.

  If I’d known his shoe size I would have bought him a pair of not Red Wing boots, but I didn’t so I had to content myself with the shirt. I guessed on that, but the salesman in the Armani store had the same height and basic build as Murphy and he’d told me his size, so I hoped it would fit. Besides, if it didn’t, it provided an excuse to get Murphy back here to exchange it.

  Then I could buy him some new damn shoes.

  Shopped out and dreading the idea of a cab, I tried to find a bus, but I had no idea what route I needed to take. In the end I found a cab that cruised by as I stood indecisively by the bus stop.

  This driver at least kept both hands on the wheel, but the cab was old and squeaky, and even the hint of a bump sent me flying in the air. I vowed I would never take another cab in Houston again.

  The lobby smelled like roses and floor polish when I walked in. The big-haired front desk clerk wore gray pants and a tailored white blouse, and she flashed me a white, toothy smile as I headed for the elevators. I could tell she wanted to ask me about Murphy--I suspected she had a crush on him--but luckily the elevator dinged and the door opened before she had the chance.

  The Do Not Disturb sign still hung off the knob of the door to our suite. I checked my watch and shook my head, because it was after two in the afternoon. Lazy bastard.

  But I cheered myself up with the thought that an afternoon “nap” didn’t sound half bad.

  There were definite perks to being bonded, that was for sure.

  I smelled it the moment I walked in. Sickness. Pain. A putrid scent of something gone very bad. The bag with Murphy’s Armani shirt slipped out of my fingers and onto the floor. I barely noticed.

  “Murphy?” My voice shook and I almost couldn’t walk across the rug to the bedroom

  door. It was still closed.

  When I opened the door and switched on the lights, the smell was twenty times worse. I could smell blood now and sweat, and faintly pulsing underneath it all--fear.

  “Murphy!”

  He was curled in a fetal position on the bed, shivering, yet his hair was drenched with sweat and the sheets beneath him were soaked.

  Adrenalin slammed into my body, rendering me paralyzed at first, but the paralysis broke and I flew to the bed.

  “Liam, talk to me!” I reached out to touch him. He was on fire he was so hot.

  “Constance?” His voice was so weak, yet it had the power to rob me of the ability to breathe. “I...I...don’t feel very well. C-c-can I have some water?” He slurred his words so I could barely understand him.

  “Water,” I whispered, horrified. I didn’t want to leave him to find water, but I could see how dry his lips were. His eyes were dilated, even though the room was bright with the light of both bedside lamps. I got off the bed and couldn’t remember for a moment what he wanted or what I was supposed to be doing.

  “Please.” He groaned, galvanizing me into action.

  I ran to the mini refrigerator and got a cold bottle of water.

  I had to hold the bottle to his lips, because he couldn’t even sit up let alone hold it. He was disoriented and strangely apathetic. I supported him with my free arm and he was so hot and sweaty I didn’t know how he could stand it.

  I saw his eyes again and narrowed mine. My knowledge of herbs and home remedies

  awoke a deep suspicion--one that absolutely terrified me.

  “What did you take?” I demanded as water dribbled out of the corners of his mouth. I took the bottle away and he slumped against my arm, his eyes fluttering wildly. “Tell me what you took, Murphy. Some kind of narcotic, right? You took something. Your eyes are dilated, you’re slurring your words, come on, tell me, goddamnit!”

  “N-nothing.” He tried to focus on me but he couldn’t quite do it. “J-j-just what the gran-grandmother gave...me.”

  I went rigid.

  “What did she give you? Where’s the bottle? Is there anything left?” I shook him and he groaned again. I felt like shit for doing it but I had to know.

  “Duh-dresser.” He tried to point but couldn’t even lift his goddamn arm.

  I knocked half the shit on the dresser onto the floor before I found a bottle of aspirin, and when I opened it and shook the pills out onto my trembling hand, there was a homemade capsule in among the manufactured ones. I recognized it as of the same kind we’d used in the herbal class at the Great Gathering.

  I held my breath as I unscrewed the two halves and spilled the powder contained within into my palm. A tiny taste of it told me next to nothing. I scraped as much powder back into the capsule as I could and looked back at Murphy.

  He lay very still and white on the bed and I didn’t see his chest moving.

  “Oh my god,” I whimpered and I ran back to him.

  He was still breathing. When I touched him, he grabbed my hand with both of his and opened his eyes.

  “Stanzie,” he said, his eyes very wide, and in my head I saw G
rey and Rudi die, and I thought I was watching him die too.

  “Liam, no!” I burst into tears and he collapsed back against the pillows.

  “Gran-grandmother made a mistake?” he asked and my mouth dropped open as it all

  came clear to me. It was as if someone had given me a pair of glasses and the whole damn world had come sharply into focus. What was once blurry was now so clear.

  “You’re not going to do this, Murphy, you hear me.” I tore my hand from his and threw myself on the floor to retrieve his cellphone--one of the things I’d knocked off the dresser.

  I found Allerton’s contact information and hit talk.

  I listened to it ring, hoping like hell this was his private line and that he answered it not some goddamned lackey.

  Just when I thought it was going into voicemail, which would have been worse than a lackey, Allerton came on the line, and said, “Liam?”

  “No, it’s me. It’s Constance.” I sobbed. “Oh, you’ve got to help us. You’ve got to help him. I think he’s dying, Councilor, and they’ll blame me, I know they will, or the tox screen will be inconclusive only I’ve got one, I’ve got one of the pills, but I touched it and it has my fingerprints and they’ll say it was me, because I know herbology, only this isn’t an herb. It’s some kind of narcotic. Maybe a pain killer, but it’s way, way too much. He’s overdosed and it’s on purpose, because they don’t want us investigating. They don’t want us to know the truth!”

  “Constance!” Allerton’s voice was loud and commanding in my ear. “Stop talking now

  and listen to me. Where are you?”

  “At the Magnolia Hotel in Houston.” I choked. I looked back at Murphy on the bed and he wasn’t moving, but his eyes were open. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed on the floor with the phone stuck to my ear.

  “If someone is not at your door within ten minutes, you need to call nine-one-one. You need to call nine-one-one now if he’s not breathing. Is he breathing? Is he conscious?”

  Somehow I moved. Murphy was breathing, but barely. I touched his face and he took my hand and this time I didn’t pull it away.