A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2) (5 page)

"All right, I'm back," Jamie said, tossing
his stuff in the back seat. Ethan had a nice truck.

Ethan was glaring at him. "Yes, thanks for
taking the time to get your shit while I'm sitting here
bleeding."

Jamie tried to not let it show how much that
bothered him. "Whatever, you said you were fine."

If Ethan was fine enough not to need a real
doctor, then he was fine to wait two minutes while Jamie grabbed
the last of his worldly possessions.

He still felt like a dick, though. Ethan was
all pale again, and that thin sheen of sweat on his face wasn’t
going away. Ethan looked more sick than injured.

Ethan just stared at him, and a whole lot of
defensive anger bubbled up inside of Jamie's chest.

“
You said you were all
right.”

“
I’m still in
pain.”

“
So am I! I used up the
last of my energy fighting off those psychos for you!”

Ethan retorted with an angry snarl that
sucked all the fight out of Jamie like a vacuum. “You didn’t get
your skin pulled on until it ripped open, which only happened
because you left me helpless under a net. Don’t compare your pain
to mine.”

Jamie shut his mouth and turned away. He put
his hands on the steering wheel and gripped it tight, needing
something to clench until his hands hurt.

Why did his throat close at those words? It
wasn’t Jamie’s fault and he knew that logically, but now his eyes
burned and he could hardly breathe, all because Ethan was being a
little mean to him.

“
It wasn’t like that. I
came back for you,” Jamie said. After hearing Ethan screaming, he
couldn’t stay away. It had been physically impossible for him to
turn his back on Ethan.

When he saw Ethan being
tortured, Jamie didn't even realize how much raw energy was left
inside of him until it burst free, and he'd used it to save Ethan.
Not to save himself, like he should have, but to save
Ethan
.

Ethan wouldn't even be in this position if
he hadn't tried hunting down Jamie and caging him like a dog.

Ethan sighed and let his head fall back
against his seat. The move exposed his throat, long and pale, and
still lovely to see. “I know. I’m not trying to pick on you, but
I’ve been roughed up pretty bad and—“

“
You don’t have to
explain. I said I was going to get you some help and I meant it,"
Jamie said, courage filling him up. "Just shut up and try not to
die. The last thing I want is to be accused of killing a
hunter."

"I'm not dying, so relax. The sooner we get
out of here the sooner I can put some bandage on."

Jamie thought they should do it here, but
then someone could drive by and see both vehicles on the road. A
cop could pass by and stop to try and help. That was the last thing
they needed.

"Are you going to go, or what?" Ethan said
as he leaned against the door, staring right at him. Jamie grumbled
as he started the truck and drove off the rocky side of the two
lane highway. He picked up his speed when he was on the road again,
moving away from the city and not closer to it, like he probably
should have.

No. Actually, it was
a
certainty
that
he should be going back to the city. Wasn't that what any decent
human being would do? What the hell did that make him since he
wasn't turning around and driving Ethan to a hospital? Ethan might
not want to take the risk of Jamie getting turned in because he
“owed him” or whatever, but Jamie could still dump him off at the
front doors and be out of there before anyone thought to question
him.

"Where are my weapons?" Ethan asked after
about five minutes of driving. They were still not headed towards
the city.

Jamie was
not
worried about how low
and tired Ethan sounded. Not at all.

Well, maybe a little.

"I don't know. Most of them were still on
you when I put the net over you. I should've taken them. I guess
those three assholes did before I chased them off."

Ethan made a noise in the back of his
throat, as if he didn't quite believe what Jamie had told him.
Jamie didn't care. He so didn't care.

They drove for another twenty minutes. Jamie
made sure to keep to the speed limit exactly, and he was stunned
when he wasn't pulled over anyway because of the guilty vibe he was
giving off. Something as powerful as that had to be tickling the
ears of every highway traffic cop for a hundred miles, but no
sirens sounded and no one chased after them. Hell, there weren’t
even any other cars on the road.

Jamie was continually glancing to the side,
getting a look at how much worse Ethan was becoming. His color had
turned from a pale, nearly white, to a sickly green. Whatever tiny
bit of recovery Ethan had gained was now gone.

The green especially freaked him out. Jamie
couldn’t decide if it was better or worse than being pale and pasty
like chalk.

Jamie couldn’t do this. “We've got to
stop."

"Keep going. Not far enough away from the
city yet."

"I should've taken you back to the city!"
Jamie snapped. As much as he didn't care about Ethan, and in spite
of Ethan insisting that he wasn't dying, Jamie wasn't entirely
convinced that he didn’t need medical help. What if Ethan was wrong
and he did die? What if Ethan keeled over right beside Jamie
because he hadn't brought him to the hospital like he should have?
"There's fucking hospitals all over the place! Christ, what the
hell are we doing all the way out here?"

Jamie was losing it. He didn't like that
helpless feeling that came with a panic attack, and this was
totally a panic attack. His heart raced like he was running beside
this truck instead of driving it. He felt like he couldn't suck
back a proper breath of air and it put a sharp pain in his ribs
that he could hardly contain. He should probably pull over since
that didn't make for safe driving, but Ethan was still bleeding and
he was clearly getting worse. The fear that he was dying was worse
than the fear of being in an accident.

"I put you on the radar," Ethan said,
sounding more and more breathless. "If you try and take me to a
hospital, and a camera catches sight of you, or even if we get
pulled over by a cop, then you're done. You won’t be able to sneak
away or lie your way out of it.”

Fuck
. ”So what do we do?" Jamie asked. "Pull up in some shitty
motel that'll take cash and no ID and hide out until you're
better?"

Ethan didn't answer him.

“
Ethan?”

Jamie briefly took his eyes off the road to
look over at the man, and Ethan's head was lolled against the
window. His eyes were shut and pale lips lightly parted.

"Ethan?" Jamie asked again, and high-voltage
terror nearly paralyzed him. "You'd better be resting your eyes.
Ethan!"

Still no answer. Jamie's panic flared. "You
fucking asshole. Don't you dare die on me!" Jamie snapped, and he
stepped on the gas, wanting to get anywhere safe that he could look
the man over and make sure he was still breathing.

Chapter Four

The immediate stinging pain was the first
thing he was aware of. Ethan groaned as he woke up. He wanted to
fall back into that sleeping state where his brain didn’t know how
uncomfortable and agonizingly painful his legs and chest were. His
entire body was cold and itched like he was infested with crabs,
fleas and ticks all at the same time. There were patches on his
chest and legs that especially tingled, but it was mostly on his
back and on the backs of his legs where he itched. His chest and
the front of his body was mostly chilled, like his sister had put
her hand on his shoulder and forgot to turn down the ice.

Someone walked around him. He could hear the
swift footsteps getting closer, and he knew who it was before a
word was spoken.

"Holy God. You fricken' jerk. You
unbelievable asshole."

Jaime was as eloquent as ever. Ethan had
missed hearing that mouth saying dirty things to him. Too bad the
man wasn't in bed with him.

Still, he couldn’t help but smile. “Hi
Jamie," Ethan was so damned drained that it took him a second to
open his eyes even after he woke up.

When he did open his eyes, Jamie was sitting
beside him in a chair that had been placed next to the bed that
Ethan was lying on.

For a split second, his heart stalled as he
thought Jamie had actually brought him to a hospital, but then he
realized that the faded and flaky floral wallpaper, along with the
dirty burgundy carpet, meant that he was definitely not in a
sterilized room.

"Did you actually get us a motel room?"
Ethan asked. Even with a stiff neck he managed to look around the
small space, and smile at how ridiculous the situation was.

All they needed now was for Jessica to get
here and whip them up a snow storm. They would be trapped inside
and forced to work out their feelings like in a romance novel.

Fucking was also a romance novel staple,
wasn’t it? He hoped so, especially if it would be the kinky shit
women were reading nowadays too.

“
Nice,” he said without
meaning to, thinking on how awesome it would be if he could get
Jamie a little closer.

"Not as nice as the one we used when we
first met, but the kid at the front was young enough that I was
able to bribe him to give us a room without ID or credit cards,”
Jamie replied, not knowing what Ethan had really been talking
about.

"Uh huh, how much did you bribe him
with?"

"Most of what was in your wallet," Jamie
answered.

It shouldn't have been funny, but it was. It
was so damned funny that Ethan started to laugh. The instant pain
that shocked through him and pulled at his wounds wasn't enough to
stop him either.

Jamie frowned at him in that wide-eyed way
people pulled off when they were looking at someone who was insane.
"That wasn't a joke, you know. I stole pretty much all of your cash
to get us this room.”

"I know," Ethan said, and he kept on
laughing. The laughter wasn't as strong anymore, but he still had
trouble catching his breath.

His laugh must have been infectious because
soon enough Jamie joined in with him, shaking his head. “Idiot,” he
muttered.

It was so normal and familiar that it took
Ethan a couple of seconds to realize why this was odd. They were
laughing together, as if they were back at their favorite bar and
had just shared a joke. It felt great, but all things considered,
probably not what they should've been doing.

The situation was serious. They were on the
run and Jamie was now in the system. There wasn't anything funny
about this.

The laughter came to a sudden and abrupt
halt, as if both of them realized that very same thing at the same
time. They both just looked at each other.

The silence was thick. Yeah, there wasn't
anything remotely awkward about this at all. Ethan sure as hell
didn't know what to say, and if the tiny flush of pink on Jamie's
neck and cheeks was anything to go by as he looked away, neither
did he.

Jamie had a cute shy look. It had been one
of the things that had attracted Ethan to him, especially since
Jamie’s throat and face turned that same shade of pink whenever
Ethan had been inside of him.

Ethan shifted, reaching out to him, but then
groaned as he was reminded of his pain when a sharp sword stabbed
him in the gut.

"Fuck!" Every wound on him flared and burned
hot now that he'd just finished shaking with laughter. He didn't
feel like laughing anymore, and the dour situation had nothing to
do with it.

Jamie stood up in an instant. “Are you
okay?”

“
I think so. Just shocked
myself.”

Gingerly, Ethan lifted the thin, tough
blanket to have a look at himself.

He was naked with the exception of his black
boxers, which explained the itch if most of his skin was touching
this scratchy blanket, and there were bandages all over him. They
wrapped around him in all the places where he'd been ripped open by
that psycho girl. The crazy look in her eyes gave away that she had
liked doing that to him. Who knew how many people she’d done it to
before getting caught. An ability that wasn’t exactly like a
vampire or a werewolf; it wasn’t obvious to the people around her
unless she used it out in the open.

Ethan thought of Jamie just then, imagining
him in Allison's place. Jamie as the torturer, letting currents of
high-powered electricity shock through his victim like a taser.
Ethan pictured Jamie with that same desperate need for revenge.
Abuse happened in the labs, but it wasn't common. The paranormals
were fed and clothed even as they were studied. They were kept safe
from themselves and everyone else.

But if Jamie had ever been made to feel as
Allison had, would he have been driven to the same kind of
reaction? Ethan tried to picture it, and even when he got the
visual, it didn't feel like something Jamie could do. It didn’t
fit. Jamie wouldn’t torture another person.

But he had still sucked the power out of
several city blocks, even if—according to Jamie—that had been a
complete accident. Could he then accidentally hurt someone?

Jamie had apparently gotten tired of Ethan’s
silence. “So, you’re fine? Is there blood coming through your
bandages?”

The man leaned in to have a look. Ethan
pulled the covers back as fast as a shy virgin, before he could see
anything.

“
Fine. I’m fine,” Ethan
said, clearing his throat.

Jamie gave him a look.

“
I’m seriously fine,”
Ethan said, pleased with how controlled he kept his voice this
time.