“I was downstairs with Alexa.” She shrugged at me when I looked up. “I probably spend more time here than you do. It’s nice talking to elfin that don’t growl at you when you take more bacon. Now, tell me what you’ve got planned, and was Jonas still awake when you left the hospital?”
“Out like a light.” I gave Cari a quick rundown of Jonas’s injuries and how he fought to get released. “Spouses weren’t having it. He’s an asshole when he’s sick. They probably want the nurses to deal with him until he feels better. The Post’s picking up his medical bills, so that’s one less worry. They’ll probably give him stop-gap payments, because he won’t be able to do runs until that’s all checked out.”
“Oh, he’s going to be pleasant. You know how he gets.” Cari set one of the bottles down in front of Ryder, then picked at my leftovers, finding a pea I’d left behind. “So you two are all good?”
“We’ll talk more when he’s out,” I said, taking the bottle from Ryder after watching him struggle to open it. I popped off the cap and handed it back. “There wasn’t a lot of time in between Jonas trying to squeeze the air out of me with a hug and Gibbons trying to kill us. What about you and me? We good?”
“We’re always good.” Cari gave me a brilliant smile. “Especially since, with Jonas off the board, you’re stuck with me as your backup. What’s the plan? We going after whoever put the blacklist contract on you?”
“Sort of.” Sliding my plate over to Cari, I continued, “We’re going to go find Dempsey’s brother. He’s got an actual bounty on him, and Samms on his tail. I’ve just got to get to Kenny first. He’s got some stuff Dempsey gave him—things related to the original hit put on me—so I want to get that from him. Chances are, whoever put that first one up is the same someone who’s tagged me for this new one. I mean, I’ve pissed a lot of people off, but not the kind of people who can put up that much money to take me out.”
“Yeah, a contract on you doesn’t make sense. You’re not the kind of person someone would kill for a handful of coins,” Cari said with a chuckle. “Love you, but the contract doesn’t make sense. You’re a Stalker, for Bast’s sake, not some politician who steals candy from little kids.”
“Hey, if it’s the right candy.” I found another snow pea and slid it over to Ryder’s bowl, ignoring Cari’s playful warning hiss. “Tonight I’m going to go to sleep with a full belly, and first thing in the morning, begin rattling the trees for info on Kenny. He’s down here for something, and it sure as hell isn’t me. Someone’s got to be offering him someplace to squat until he can shake off the bounty on him. Either that or he’s got something worth selling. Either way, he’s going to be leaving a trace. We just need to find it.”
“What will you do with him when we find him?” Ryder asked, and Cari’s chopsticks stopped moving, a few grains of rice trembling on their tips.
“There’s no we in this, lordling,” I replied. “You’re not coming with us on this. We’ll be heading deep down into the understreets, and that’s not someplace for the likes of you.”
If the room had a nip in it before, it was positively frigid when Ryder’s gaze hardened and settled on me. I met his stare, waiting it out until Cari finally cleared her throat and began to stack the dishes together. Plucking the utensils out of Ryder’s fingers, she stood up and stretched. Newt mewed an objection to something or other from his place on the bed, probably annoyed the lights were still on, but he was going to have to take a number to rip skin off my back. Ryder’s shoulders were stiff, and he had on his politician face—the smooth façade of someone choosing his words more carefully than a mushroom picker selected from the fungi sprouting across a field of cow shit.
“Well, since it looks like you two are going to fight, I’m just going to take these down to the kitchen so you can get to it,” she remarked lightly, nudging Ryder’s leg until he moved out of her way. “Kai, drop me a line when you’re ready to go. I’m staying down at Alexa’s. Just give me enough notice so I can make sure I’ve got enough ammo. Ryder, do us both a favor and don’t forget about that purple salve the healers put in the bathroom. He’s less crotchety when he’s not as banged up.”
Cari gave me a wink as she went by, a saucy smirk more to remind me to play nice than to chew Ryder apart. I was tired, and now that I’d eaten, there were stretches of my skin and bones throbbing beneath the tank top I’d pulled on after my shower. She wasn’t wrong. I was getting grumpier by the minute, and as the night wore down, there was nothing more I wanted than to crawl under clean sheets and fall asleep while listening to the rain slap at the tower’s enormous glass panes. I didn’t have the energy to fight with Ryder. Hell, I didn’t even have the energy to argue with him when he came back from the bathroom with a small jar of glowing purplish sparkly goo and motioned for me to make my way over to the bed.
“Come here and take your shirt off. Cari’s right. The least I can do is try to soothe the bruising, but the healers and I are going to have a talk after this.” Ryder’s frown deepened when I let out a small audible groan as I stood up. “They’re… healers.”
“Yeah, well, technically so is my father,” I pointed out, padding over slowly. It was hard to get my arms back up, and I felt every twinge while trying to get my shirt off. Taking a deep breath was a mistake. It only hurt worse, and despite the satisfying warmth in my belly, my dinner threatened to come back up. “I don’t need you to—”
“Just… once… let someone take care of you,” Ryder growled at me. He sat in the middle of the bed, his bare feet tucked under his crossed legs. “Lie down and let me do this for you.”
“You just want me on my back so I can’t argue with you,” I muttered, swallowing the press of my stomach against my throat as I crawled onto the wide mattress. “Pele’s teeth, it feels like Gibbons cracked my spine.”
No matter how much I grumbled about the Sidhe and their spoiled ways, the damned Court sure as hell knew how to make a bed. The mattress cradled me, the linens I’d left rumpled slithering softly against my tortured skin, and it wasn’t a hardship to lift my head up to let Ryder put a pillow beneath me. Newt rumbled a soft mewl, jostled by my stretching out, but he quickly curled up over my bare ankle, resting his sharp fangs against one of my toes.
Ryder was too close, too warm and present for me to be comfortable, so I closed my eyes and let the sound of the rain drift over me. The shushing roll was quiet, a gentle patter compared to the storms we’d fled under during our desert run, and the scent of the water was different—greener and lush—and carried with it the sweet perfume of the maile vines growing along the balustrade. My shoulders began hurting again, forcing me to stop and think about why. I was tensed up, knotted in on myself, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when Ryder’s fingertips skimmed over my right side.
“Do you want to fight now or later?” he asked softly, his voice as deceptively sweet as the maile in the air. “Because I have a few good arguments about why I should accompany you. Or is this going to be another one of your… ‘my run, my rules’?”