Save Yourself (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

** Kester **

The next few days were surprisingly quiet. Brogan called into work sick. Though after what he’d said about fearing losing his job, I’d told him he didn’t need to, that I’d be perfectly fine on my own because I was a big girl. As usual, he refused to listen to me.

So we ended up spending the days watching crappy zombie movies that he liked and making out, and spending the nights swapping songs and arguing about music choices. He liked Metallica; I liked Slipknot. Then we made out some more. We groped, and teased constantly, but we didn’t have sex. Brogan seemed spooked every time I brought the subject up. I knew he was still afraid of hurting me, so I didn’t push, even though it was driving me crazy. Half the time, it was all I could think about.

I’d never thought of myself as sex-crazed, not the way Evie was. However, being so close to him all the time, and with the flat to our ourselves most of the time, since Jet was still working, it was hard to find anything to distract me. Even watching zombies with rotting flesh and missing limbs stumbling about chewing on people, couldn’t turn me off, and I knew Brogan could sense it. I think it was driving him a little crazy too, and my constant Lust-output had to be making it harder for him, but I couldn’t help it. Once or twice, he actually got up off the sofa, halfway through a movie, to go and take a cold shower.

So, I wasn’t surprised when, as soon as Jet came home from his day job as a bartender to get ready for his night job as a bouncer at Grimshade, Brogan sprang off the sofa as if someone had lit a fire under his ass and disappeared into the bathroom.

Jet frowned in confusion until he heard the shower running, and then he shot me a wry smile and shook his head. “You know, if he doesn’t start putting out soon, you can always come to me for some relief,” he said, winking at me.

I’d gotten used to Jet flirting with me over the last few days. He only did it when Brogan wasn’t around to hear because he got a little jealous and defensive. I just smiled back at Jet and said jokingly, “I might just take you up on that.”

It still seemed a little weird joking about my sex life with his roommate with a Norse demi-demi-god, but Jet was so laid back and easy to get along with. Sometimes, I wondered if he was the great-grandchild of the Norse god of mellowness—if there was such a thing. In fact, I didn’t actually know who he was the great-grandchild of, didn’t think even Brogan knew, but I was curious.

“Hey, Jet?” I asked cautiously as he grabbed a can of Pepsi from the fridge and cracked it open.

He glanced at me. “Yeah?”

“Which Norse god is it you’re related to?”

He smiled thinly. “I wondered how long it would take you to ask. Brogan never has, and I’ve always wondered if it was because he was afraid of the answer, or if he was afraid of my reaction. But unlike him, I don’t have a temper that rests on a hair trigger, and I’m not bothered by personal questions.” He took a sip of his Pepsi, watching me over the rim of the can with rich blue eyes. Then he sighed. “In answer to your question, I’m the great-great-grandchild of a god called Forseti. He is the Norse god of justice.”

I blinked. “Wow.” I’d never heard of Forseti.

Jet smirked. “I think Brogan believes I’m the grandson of Thor or Odin or one of the big guys like that.”

Thor and Odin I’d heard of, and Loki too. And Freyja. That was about the extent of my knowledge of Norse mythology. Well, that and Loki’s son, Jormungandr, the giant serpent who was said to encircle the world, biting his own tail, and if he ever let go, the world would end, bringing around Ragnarok—the Norse version of the apocalypse. Jormungandr was an ouroboros, and I knew that because I had it tattooed around my ankle. I’d had it done because I liked the idea of a snake being responsible for the beginning and the end of the world. Plus, it made a hell of an ice-breaker.

“So, do you ever, you know, get to see Forseti?” I asked Jet casually.

He shook his head. “Nah. Apparently the travel from Asgard to Earth is a real bitch.”

I blinked hard. He cracked a grin. “I’m joking. I have actually met him…once. When I came into my powers at thirteen. He basically told me I was his great-great-grandson, and as such, I’d better not embarrass him, and that I had a responsibility to uphold peace and justice…blah, blah. I think he wants me to be a cop.” He shrugged. “That’s not going to happen. At least, not while I’m living with Brogan. The other officers might not take it well that I’m living with a criminal.”

“Hey!” Brogan said, emerging from the bathroom with a towel around his waist. “Ex-criminal! And I did my time in juvie.”

Jet snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause fleeing from the scene of a crime after beating up two known criminals, and stealing evidence from another crime scene is really the height of civil innocence.”

Brogan just curled his lip. “So I’m no saint. Bite me. But I haven’t been holding up liquor stores or beating up old grannies.”

Sighing, Jet waved him off. “Whatever. I’ve got to go to work. Unlike some people.” He glared pointedly at Brogan, who flipped him off casually. “You two kids behave while daddy’s out. No climbing on the furniture, and no beating up old ladies. Got me?”

“Fuck you,” Brogan and I snapped at exactly the same time.

Jet laughed, tossed his empty beer bottle in the bin, and strolled out of the flat.

I turned to Brogan, my mouth watering at the sight of him shirtless, damp and flushed from the hot water. Suddenly, I felt filthy. I snagged his hand and started dragging him back down the hallway.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Just where are we going?”

I tossed him a saucy smirk over my shoulder. “
I
am going for a shower because I’m a dirty, dirty girl, and
you
are going to help me get clean.”

His eyes darkened and a slow smile spread across his lips. “It would be my pleasure to…clean you.”

The bathroom door clicked shut behind us.

By the time we emerged, I was thoroughly “cleaned.”

I stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, my wet hair hanging down my back, and started toward Brogan’s bedroom where I’d left the bag of clothes I’d brought with me. I still slept in one of his t-shirts, but I’d found that if I didn’t sleep with panties on, Brogan tended to wake me up in the middle of the night with his hand between my legs, and although that was always fun, I really did need to sleep.

As I crossed the hallway, I heard a sound from the front room, a click like someone knocking a glass against the sink. Confused, I leaned back into the bathroom, where Brogan was replacing his eyebrow bar with a small, silver ring. He glanced at me in the foggy mirror.

“Yeah?”

“I was just going to say I think Jet’s home early.”

Instantly, Brogan straightened, going tense. “What?”

His reaction made me anxious. I murmured, “Um, I just heard someone in the kitchen and thought…”

He swore. I flinched.

“It’s not Jet, is it?” I whispered.

He shook his head, his expression hard.  “Jet works an extra hour on Thursdays because the place is packed with late-night shoppers looking for a drink. He wouldn’t get off early unless Grimshade burned to the ground, and I don’t hear any sirens.” He paused and then swore again. He looked at me with bright eyes. “Look, go to my room and lock the door. Don’t come out unless I tell you, okay? Promise me.”

With my heart jumping like a jackrabbit, all I could do was nod. Clutching my towel, I ran across the hall into his bedroom and shut the door as quietly as possible, but I hesitated before locking it. I remembered Brogan telling me about how his parents were killed. What if whoever was in the flat had a gun? Brogan was unarmed—his knife and gun were in the drawer of the nightstand. Hell, he was dressed in a towel for God’s sake.

Shit.

I ran to the nightstand and yanked open the drawer, my hands shaking as I snatched up the knife and the gun, pausing to pull on the oversized t-shirt of Brogan’s I slept in and a pair of panties—if I was going to die, I was not going to go commando to my own death. That would just be trashy. Plus, I couldn’t exactly fight if I had to clutch my towel to hold it up, could I?

Clutching the gun in one hand, and the knife in the other, I eased myself silently into the hallway. I could hear the sounds of a brutal fight, flesh hitting flesh, furniture being shoved and toppled. As I crept to the end of the hallway, I saw the man who’d invaded the flat—as tall as Jet, and just as muscular, with slicked-back hair and narrow, cold eyes. He had Brogan down on the floor, pressing a knife toward his throat, but Brogan was resisting, his free hand scrambling for a weapon, but there was nothing nearby. He was already cut, a gash along his forearm seeping blood onto the wooden flooring of the living room.

Adrenaline kicked my fight-or-flight instinct into gear, and seeing as I was holding two weapons, and Brogan was about to get sliced, I chose fight. I raised the gun, surprised by both how heavy it was and how comfortable it felt in my grip, and pointed it at the man pinning Brogan to the floor.

“Hey!” I yelled, and his head jerked up.

Brogan craned his neck to look at me, and his face went pale. “Kez, no!”

Slick saw me standing with the gun, and his narrow eyes became slits, a nasty grin crossing his mouth. “So this is the little piece of ass Joey told us about. She’s pretty, I’ll give you that. What’s your name, honey? Kelly, isn’t it?”

My stomach churned. I literally felt sick with rage. How dare he break into Brogan’s home and attack him? How dare he have the nerve to ask me my name while he held a knife to Brogan’s throat? My finger twitched on the trigger of the gun, and I snapped,

“My name is Fuck You. Now get away him before I shoot you in the fucking skull.” I’d never fired a gun in my life, but he didn’t know that, and I was willing to give it a try.

Slick gave me a calculating look as if he was deciding whether or not I knew how to use the weapon. He hadn’t spotted the knife in my other hand because I was hiding it slyly behind my back. While he was looking at me, I shot a glance at Brogan, who was watching me with a pained expression, as if he wanted to physically grab me and throw me back into his room where I’d be safer. But I wasn’t some damsel in distress, and I’d be damned if I started acting like it when my man needed my help.

I called, “Heads up,” and tossed the knife swiftly along the floor toward him, knowing that his reflexes were ten times faster than Slick’s.

Before Slick could even react, Brogan snatched the knife off the floor and stabbed it into Slick’s torso, shoving him to the side at the same time and rolling to his feet. Slick grabbed his wounded side, just below his ribs, and swore violently as blood pulsed out around his fingers, dotting the floor with crimson drops.

Brogan ran to my side, and grabbed my face in his hands, his eyes furious and frightened at once. “I told you to stay in my room! Why didn’t you listen to me, god dammit? You promised! Go! Go and lock yourself in! Give me that fucking gun and go!”

While he yelled at me, my eyes slid to the side, over his shoulder. I saw Slick pull something shiny and metal from his waistband with his free hand, and my heart seized. Before I could think, I reacted. I slapped Brogan’s hands away, pointed the gun, and squeezed the trigger. The sound of the bullet exploding out of the barrel was deafening, and the gun lurched in my hand, almost breaking my thumb, but I got a sick thrill of satisfaction when I heard Slick scream out in pain.

“You fucking bitch! You bitch, you shot me!”

I had. He was clutching a hole in his right shoulder, and he’d dropped his gun. I was trembling all over, my heart pumping so fast, it felt as if I had air in my veins, but a giddy smile stretched my lips.

“Yes, I did. Now shut the fuck up, or I’ll cut your tongue out.”

Brogan stared at me as if I’d grown a second head, completely ignoring the cursing criminal bleeding out on his living room floor. “Since when can you shoot?” he asked, incredulous.

Keeping my voice low, I answered, “Since I saw he was about to cut your head off.”

He shook his head. “You are fucking brilliant. Completely insane. But brilliant.”

I grinned. “I know. Now, are you going to do something about him? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure someone will have heard that gunshot. You probably shouldn’t have a corpse on your floor if the cops come digging around, and he will be a corpse in about five to twenty minutes, depending on whether you managed to stab his liver.”

He stared at me for three more seconds, then shook his head sharply, as if to clear it, and took the gun carefully from my fingers. I let him. He turned on his heel and pointed the gun at Slick’s forehead, his face hard and unforgiving. For a second, I really thought he was going to shoot. That he was going to kill a man right in front of me.

Instead, he took a deep breath and slowly lowered the gun. “No point in wasting a bullet. She’s right, without surgery, you’re going to die anyway. Maybe you can get to Red and one of his other guys can patch you up before you bleed out…but I doubt it. Now get the fuck out of my flat before I change my mind and end up cleaning your brains off the wall.”

Slick dragged himself to his feet, his face pale and strained with pain, and shot me a venomous glance. “You’ll get what’s coming to you, bitch. Count on it.”