Reflected (Silver Series) (31 page)

Tom stumbled forward, clearly meaning to rejoin the fight, and his movement behind Felicia provided the distraction Enrique needed. Enrique yanked her to the side using her grip on the whip. She let go too late. He moved his grip down the handle, reversing it, and smashed Tom’s temple with the weighted end. This time, when Tom’s head cracked against the pillar, he slumped slowly down and didn’t get up.

Felicia wanted to sob, but satisfaction made Enrique’s grip looser and she darted in and yanked the whip away. They wrestled over it and he almost got her with the knife, but his aim was poor with his off hand. She smashed the whip’s weighted end into his jaw. He stumbled back far enough for her to coil up the rest of the whip. It was entirely in her power now. She slashed at Enrique before he could gather himself.

Enrique took the score across his forearm and pressed forward, slashing his knife almost at random. Felicia had to back up to keep him within the correct range for the whip. Another two blows in quick succession halted his forward movement. Dimly, Felicia remembered she should make sure Silver wasn’t in the line of any of her backstrokes, but she didn’t hear any cries of pain, so she trusted the woman to stay out of the way.

Enrique got close enough that she had to block his knife stroke with the whip handle. She smacked into a pillar with her back, sidestepped quickly to give herself more space, and dealt him a blow that opened his cheek. The blood gushed rather than seeped this time. She kept her following strokes light, kissing his skin, the whip there and gone before he could catch it. It would take longer to wear him down, but that was all right. She started to count each as it landed, balancing them against the ones Tom had received. She didn’t know the conversion between those heavy strokes and these light ones, but she’d make sure Enrique got plenty.

Ten. Eleven. Blood spattered the gray concrete of walls and pillars, blended into the dark dirt on the floor. Small splatters, bigger splashes here and there, and Felicia was gaining ground. Twenty. As long as she stayed far enough from Enrique, she could bleed him cut by cut until he had no healing left and started to stumble. Thirty. She had a few lines of blood along her own skin from miscalculated strokes, but they were small enough to heal almost immediately.

Enrique began to gasp as Tom had and Felicia reveled in the sound. Yes. It was right he should suffer too. A wild satisfaction washed into her and swept away the anger and the memory of the betrayal in Tom’s voice. The air was thick with Enrique’s blood; she could practically taste it in each breath. Yes.

Enrique’s heel caught in a depression in the uneven pavement and he fell back onto his ass. Felicia let her whip hand drop and strode up to him. She grabbed a chunk of his collar, but his shirt was in tatters and the fabric tore. He flopped onto his back. Felicia dropped down and straddled his chest.

She placed the base of the whip against his throat and leaned. He choked and bucked with what little strength he had left as she cut off his air.

Yes. She could see his face as he died, and he could see who was killing him. He would remember why. He was unworthy. He’d hurt her pack. Hurt her family. “Lady-fucking shotgun hunter,” she hissed under her breath.

Someone’s hand closed on her shoulder. Felicia leaned harder. She had to hurry.

“Felicia!” Silver’s voice. Felicia had thought the woman too injured to be interfering. Surprise made her let up enough for Enrique to wheeze a single breath before she pressed down again. Silver’s feet came around to Enrique’s shoulder. When Felicia didn’t look up, Silver crouched and lifted her chin. “Look at me, puppy. This is not a path to walk unconsidered. I have seen its mark on your father. I know he would not wish it for you.”

Silver’s shirt stuck to her side with a large red stain, and her hand on Felicia’s chin was sticky, but no more blood seemed to be flowing. Felicia met Silver’s gaze and drew a great sobbing breath, feeling like she’d just remembered she needed to breathe herself. “Silver, I’m sorry … he…”

Silver slid a hand under the whip’s base beside hers and gently lifted. “I know. You think he deserves to be killed, but you deserve to be someone who hasn’t killed.”

Felicia finally saw Enrique properly. He looked worse than Tom had, because they’d been fighting longer. Gashes crisscrossed his body and blood caked his black hair. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and a flap of skin over his cheek hung down sickeningly. She’d done that. Enrique had done it to Tom, and she’d done it to him.

And that made her the same as Enrique.

Her stomach contracted, ready to retch, but Felicia told it sternly to behave and got unsteadily to her feet. Silver watched her with an expression so gentle, so forgiving, that it was all Felicia could do to not fling herself at her and hold tight like a child. But Silver and Tom were hurt and she was the only one left, so she needed to … what? Felicia pushed herself to keep going and not fall apart. She needed to tie up Enrique and clean up before any humans arrived.

The pack car, up several levels, had towels in the trunk for when you got muddy out hunting. And Felicia thought she remembered seeing zip ties in the in-case-of-breakdown toolbox. And her phone. Her phone was up there too. She could call the pack and … explain all this. Somehow.

No one could get here immediately, anyway. Felicia guided Silver’s hand back to her side and curled her fingers down. Even if the blood wasn’t flowing now, better safe than sorry. “Stay here, I’ll go and get…” She gestured up the ramp.

“All right.” Silver’s lips quirked and she removed her hand from her side. She crossed to where the knife had tumbled from Enrique’s hand, picked it up, and stood over him. Felicia gave a ragged laugh and started running upstairs.

She was almost to the car when she heard voices. She pressed herself behind a pillar, cheek against the dirty concrete, and tried not to pant harshly. She couldn’t let herself be seen like this, covered with splatters of Enrique’s blood.

“You check the office, I’ll see if their car’s still here.” Her father’s voice.

“Papa?”
Felicia’s knees tried to collapse, but she needed them to work, needed them to run up the last ramp to where he and John had stopped by their car in surprise.

She threw herself against her father and clung to his solidity as she sobbed.
“Papa, I did everything wrong…”
She pressed her cheek against his chest. John’s footsteps receded as he ran down the ramp, following her trail.

Her father smoothed her hair, movement hitched every so often when he hit a sticky spot of flung blood. “All right, puppy. We’re here now. We’ll figure it out.”

Felicia drew in a shuddering breath and a few thoughts drifted back in. “How did you get here so fast…?” It hardly seemed real, now Felicia thought about it. There hadn’t been enough time for them to have driven home to find Silver gone before coming here.

“Silver doesn’t call me Andrew. Only Selene does. And I knew if she was hiding it, something was wrong. We got the address from Susan and came straight here.”

Felicia nodded and tried to use the heel of her hand to wipe away some of the mess blood and tears and snot had made of her face. “He’s—Enrique’s out right now, but we should still go tie him up soon.”

Her father exhaled in a low laugh and helped her wipe with the side of his thumb. “Enrique? Were you the one to take him down? Good job.”

The praise made Felicia feel even worse. She wouldn’t have had to do a good job fighting Enrique if she hadn’t screwed up in the first place. She shook her head wildly. Her father cut off whatever he’d been going to say and pulled her into another hug. Felicia pressed her face into his chest again, like maybe the world would go away for a while and leave her alone. She knew it would all be there, angry and betrayed, when she got back, but for now she wanted to let her father hold her and pretend otherwise.

21

Silver wished she could do more to help her cousin, and then Dare when he returned with his daughter, but she couldn’t
see
anything properly. Mist caressed the surrounding world with clammy tendrils, like it wanted her to be jealous that it could touch those things and she could not. At least the people stood out: Felicia bright, hard to look at with the draining flush of her anger; Dare warm and familiar and so comforting if she had let herself run to him; and the young roamer, a twisted mess of pain and the arrogance that had led him to make threats, to hurt Tom.

She didn’t run to Dare, because Felicia needed her father more than she did at the moment. So angry, too angry, and wobbling at the edge of incorporating that into her core and her voice for good. That was not a way to live. “I wonder if Dare sees his reflection in her,” she murmured, low, to Death, who had only recently returned from prowling around and around the young man as Felicia hurt him. Was that how Dare had once been? Had his anger burned so bright?

Death yawned, and his intent focus on the roamer vanished as if it had never been. His teeth still looked wickedly sharp, however. “I don’t see how he can fail to. If he’s smart.” He whuffed, like he rather doubted that last part. “He’s ignoring you.”

“I’m standing, Tom isn’t, and there’s more than enough blood to go around. I’m not surprised he hasn’t noticed, and I’m not going to tell him until later.” Silver ruffled Death’s ears, because that seemed like a normal gesture and she was fast running out of things to focus on. She felt rather close to tears herself.

“Silver?” Her cousin left Tom after helping him sit up gingerly and joined her. He ran a hand along her back until he had the length of her shoulders encompassed under his steady arm. She shivered and leaned against him. “Are you all right?” She flinched when he resettled his hand at her side, and his scent flared with sharp worry. “That’s your blood, isn’t it?”

“It was never deep, and it’s not flowing any longer.” Silver bunched her good hand in his shirt when he would have left to tell Dare, held him there beside her. “His daughter needs him. One thing at a time.”

Her cousin growled his protest but stayed where he was. “What happened?”

“The roamer.” The name escaped her and Silver couldn’t muster the energy to begin to chase it. “He said he was from somewhere else, so I gave him permission to pass through. I could tell something had happened between him and Felicia, but then Portland and everyone and their omega were questioning my authority, and I didn’t pay as much attention as I should. Then Felicia was wearing tortured flowers and being disrespectful, and the cat…”

Her cousin’s silence was resounding for a moment before he laughed. “Explanations later.” He ushered her over to sit, frustrating the mist by barging right through it. It drew back in disgust and let Silver see a little again. Normally, she would have shrugged her cousin off by now, but this time she needed his touch. He stepped away only reluctantly. “Not enough room for all of us. Dare can take the three of you home, and I’ll stay and deal with the boy.”

Silver sat while her cousin went to get Tom. He could walk with help, that was good, at least. He moved painfully, however. Death settled on her bad side where they sat, which frustrated her, because she would have liked to bury a hand in his fur, but she saw why soon enough. When her cousin coaxed Tom in beside her, she put her hand on the young man’s knee. Her turn to give comfort, instead of being comforted.

“I’m fine.” His voice had the whine of a young one putting on a brave front who still hurt on the inside. “No thanks to
her.
” He pushed Silver’s hand away, so she tangled her fingers with his instead. He grumbled but allowed it.

“I think the circumstances were more complicated than that.” Silver hesitated.

“He won’t hear you,” Death said mockingly.

“She would have killed him for what he did to us. Especially to you,” Silver said anyway. True, he wouldn’t hear now, but maybe he’d remember the words later. When he was ready to hear them.

Tom turned away and drew deep into himself as Dare and Felicia joined them. Silver held herself tightly contained, and she and Dare could only share a look before they started home and he was distracted again. Lady, she would be grateful when they had a little time to themselves.

*   *   *

Felicia wished she could have stayed with John and whoever came to help him clean. Then again, Enrique remained at the parking garage too, trussed up with the zip ties and probably out cold for some time yet. Since she didn’t stay, in the car she had to listen to Tom’s labored breathing and imagine how he was glaring at her. Silver remained as calm and apparently forgiving as she had been at first, which was something, Felicia supposed, though she didn’t understand it. She’d hurt Silver the worst emotionally, even if Tom had taken the physical brunt.

They got home eventually. It was drizzling, which did nothing for the blood that remained speckled on Felicia’s clothes. She hung back, suddenly remembering that technically she was kicked out, but Silver jerked her head to the house as she passed Felicia. “That carcass is buried. Go inside,” she said, tone weary but kind. She disappeared inside herself before Felicia could figure out how to phrase her thanks.

Inside, she dropped Tom’s keys in the bowl with those of the other pack vehicles to tell everyone else she was officially back. Her father guided Tom to the kitchen, hand on his shoulder, but Felicia slipped away upstairs. She needed to shower more than she needed to eat right now, and she needed to avoid Tom more than both.

She took a long time in the shower, until no hint of red remained even in the droplets around the bottom of the tub. She left her clothes in a pile on the floor—she knew all the tricks for washing out blood, but they were torn in places and she didn’t know if she’d ever want to wear them again even clean—and went to her room to rummage for new ones.

When she arrived downstairs, she could smell that Enrique must be down in the basement. John was back and discussing something in low tones with her father in the kitchen. Felicia slipped past to the big platter of hot wings on the stove. Once those were gone, someone would start another batch of some high-protein finger food.