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Before sleep clutched me in a suffocating hold, I mumbled, “I thought I wanted a cat. But you’re so much better.”
Chapter 11
Brrrriiiing.
I woke to the ear-splitting screech. I lurched toward my phone, twisting off the bed with a loud thump!
Groaning, I felt for the phone and brought it to my ear. “Liam here.” I rubbed my head and sat up, peeling off the blankets that’d twisted around me.
“Dude, it’s midday. Are you still asleep?”
A pulse throbbed in my head as I stood up. “Midday?” No, it couldn’t have been more than eight—
A glance at my alarm-clock radio confirmed Hunter’s announcement. I closed my eyes and shook my head. So much for my plan to be at the office wrapping up a first draft. Seemed like I might need one of my disgusting hangover remedies first.
Hunter cackled down the line. “Damn. Sounds like you had quite the night. So do you know the news already?”
“What news?” I flung my blankets over the bed and semi-straightened them.
“It’s all over Twitter, Facebook, and I caught the gossip on Tumblr: our vigilante made an appearance again.”
I swapped the phone to my other ear and sat at the end of my bed, running my heel down the corner leg to satisfy an itch. “He did? What happened? When? Where?”
“That’s the thing, it happened just a few blocks from the mansion. Our guy might have been there the whole night, right under our noses.”
“Who got attacked?”
“No one knows. The victim isn’t coming forward.”
“So how does everyone know about it?”
“That’s the thing.” Hunter paused and I stiffened, waiting for the response. Somehow, I was nervous for our vigilante.
“The attacker got hurt. The vigilante broke his collarbone throwing him to the ground. He had to go to hospital. Now he’s telling everyone the assault came out of the blue, that he wasn’t hurting anyone.”
“What?”
“It’s a lie, of course. But if the victim doesn’t speak up, it’s looking really bad for The Raven.”
Grabbing my notebook and pen, I asked, “Do we have any idea what time this happened?”
“Around two in the morning.”
I’d been comatose by then. “What’s the name of this guy?”
“It’s ridiculous. He’s calling himself The Night Warrior.”
The Night Warrior? What did the guy think he was, a comic book hero?
“Look,” Hunter continued, “I have a feeling this is going to cause some bad press for our vigilante. If we could find the victim and convince him to tell his side of the story, we might be able to derail the activists that want to make him pay for all the black eyes and bloody noses he’s doled out.”
“I can slip a public plea for information onto the opinions page.”
We wrapped up the conversation quickly. Hunter needed to get to his basketball game, and my bladder felt as if it would burst.
I dashed to the bathroom, relieved myself, took a shower, and popped a couple of painkillers. With my towel wrapped round my waist, I darted back to my room.
Quinn sat on the straightened bedcovers. A tray holding a plate of omelet, toast, and what looked like freshly-squeezed orange juice rested on his lap.
He blinked, shifted quickly, and hurriedly refocused on the food. “Thought you’d be too hungover to get up.”
“It smells delicious,” I said. With Quinn’s back to me, I made quick work of dropping the towel and slipping into my boxers and a clean but crumpled shirt.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Quinn asked tentatively.
I scrambled over the bed to my pillows and motioned for the tray. “Can I?”
“Sure.” He passed it to me and watched me stuff a buttered piece of toast into my mouth.
I chased it with orange juice and, once I’d swallowed, spoke. “I can honestly say I’ve felt better.”
Quinn smirked. “Was last night worth it?”
I recalled scraps of the night before. I remembered the punch. Dancing. Jack and Jill laughing. Quinn shoving Jill. And then Quinn carrying me into the apartment. “Yes. Just seeing Jill thrown to the ground was worth every stab of headache I’ll have today.” Thankfully, my painkillers seemed to be working effectively.
Quinn nabbed a piece of my toast and scooped some of the egg onto it. “Trust me, he deserved it.”
“I don’t remember it all. What else happened last night?”
That made Quinn grin, his ears rising slightly. With a teasing lilt to his voice, he ripped the crust of my toast off and said, “You wanted to kiss me.”
I chewed the bit of toast in my mouth and swallowed. “Did I kiss you?”
He shook his head and waved the crust at me like he was waggling a finger. “No. But you really wanted to.”
I leaned forward and bit the crust to just before his fingertip. With my mouth full, I said, “Quite obviously that was a drunken anomaly.”
Quinn stared at the remaining pinch of crust between his fingers. “You’re kidding, right?”
