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Yep, I’d definitely have to burn the damn coat now. I liked that coat.
Doc’s face reappeared. “Need a hand getting out?” he asked.
“No,” I muttered, making my way over to the side. Doc stepped away, and I put my hands on the edge, giving myself a bit of a jump so I could press my chest high enough to sling a leg over.
I didn’t miss the nose wrinkle Doc made.
“Yeah, well little-miss-daisy-fresh, I could’ve asked you to jump in there.”
“Much appreciated that you didn’t,” came the good-natured response.
I swear to fucking God, Doc doesn’t have a single raw nerve when it comes to anything that isn’t Ward.
But, fair warning, don’t push him on that or he’ll rip you a new one so fucking fast it isn’t even funny. I once made the mistake of making some dumbass comment about how Ward needed to get his shit together at a crime scene—it was stupid, and I knew I’d crossed the line the second it was out of my fool mouth, but I’m not so great at filtering on a good day, and that hadn’t been one.
Piece of advice. Donotpiss off an orc.
He’d had my back up against a brick wall so goddamn fast I saw stars, and not from the impact of my skull against brick, although that had hurt, too. It was also the first—and, so far, the last—time I’d ever experienced or seen someone lifted off their feet by the throat.
About six cops had pulled their guns on him, and he didn’t even blink.
I’d gone limp as a fucking dead fish and just let him yell at me, and then he’d put me down with a goddamnapology.We’d all managed somehow to walk away from that one, although I’d been hopped up on adrenaline for a good week solid. I’d also been too fucking ashamed to call Ward in for a month. I think I would rather Doc had literally ripped my arm off, that’s how much of a goddamn master he is at making you feel like the worst sort of ground-under-the-heel dog turd.
I’d actually sent Ward flowers, which, by the way, is the first and last time I have ever sent flowers toanyone, my mother included.
But at the moment, despite the carnage around us of both the shifter and trash variety, Doc was perfectly calm and collected, simply waiting for whatever I was going to ask him to do next. Ward was still making soothing noises at the dog, which was half-curled on his lap, wrapped in my coat. Looking at Ward and the dog that didn’t really fit with him in the chair, I realized that the dog was actually pretty big. That probably shouldn’t have been surprising, since shifters tended to be extra large versions of their animal selves, but the damn thing had just looked so scrawny.
While Doc and Ward were fresh as could be and the dog was sporting my coat like a cape, I was an absolute mess, covered in blood, trash-juice, and fuck-all knew what else. I looked down at my hands, which were starting to ache from the wet and cold.
I didn’t want to know what half the grime on them even was.
I hoped to fuck the CSI team had some wipes. Or paper towels. Or turpentine and a flamethrower.
A big blond guy came loping across the pavement, and I watched his eyebrows go up as he took in the miserable state of me. Even though we were outside, Mays—unlike most of the rest of the people working the scene—was still wearing his mask. Of course, he and a couple of the other CSIs were in and out of their van, so he was more likely to end up next to someone else in confined spaces.
“Detective.”
“Mays.”
“Nice dog.”
“The dog is—”
“Injured,” Doc said, interrupting me as smooth as could be.
I blinked. One thing I’ve learned over the past couple years is to trust Doc’s instincts—and for some reason he didn’t want me to share that the dog was not, precisely speaking, a dog. Mays was a good guy, so I was a little confused by that, but okay. I’d play along, at least for now.
“Aw, poor thing.” Mays went over to where Ward sat with the dog, crouching down to hold out his hand for the dog to sniff.
The dog permitted its fuzzy head to be scratched, blinking up at Mays with giant, pleading, mismatched eyes. The damn thing was so weird looking it was almost cute.
Mays continued to coo over the dog, and I shot Doc a look that asked him what the fuck was going on.
A thinning of his lips around his protruding canines and a small shake of his head was the only response I got. That was Doc-speak forIt’s complicated, I’ll explain later.I got an explanation about seventy percent of the time.
I let it go.
“You need a vet?” Mays asked. “I know a good one, works late.” It was starting to get dark, which, given that it was still early January, meant that it a little before five. Since there was very little chance I was getting out of here in the next several hours, much less minutes, I obviously wasn’t going to make the usual nine-to-five window for a vet visit.
