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Trust him.What a concept.
Lily wobbled along, ankles quivering like rubber. She didn’t even know what trust felt like, but look at her, trotting alongside this guy like his pet dog, not even looking at the street signs. Was that trust?
No, she concluded. It was exhastion. Burnout. She had no executive energy, no ideas, nothing left. All she could do was glom onto someone else’s strength and cling for dear life.
She’d never had the luxury before, not since Howard fell apart. If he was leading her to her doom, so be it. She’d almost welcome it.
She’d never relied on anyone else’s strength before. She’d never seen anyone so strong, either. So quick on his feet and deadly with his hands. They way he fought was practically superhuman, and she hadn’t even seen most of it, being busy fighting for her own life.
She’d seen high level martial arts exhibitions, with Nina, back in their college roomate days, when they’d entertained fantasies of becoming women warriors. They’d put in a good bit of training in the dojo back then, and she’d loved it, though she’d been forced to give it up years ago. Dojo fees hadn’t fit into her budget, once she got her father settled at Aingle Cliffs. That ate up every last penny, and then some.
But if there was one thing she had developed in her dojo training, it was an eye for the real deal. She could see it and feel it when someone was moving energy. Bruno was exploding with it.
Dawn was officially day by the time they reached the gas station, albeit a dreary one. Cars streamed by as the work day geared up, and Lily felt horribly exposed walking around without sunglasses or hat.
Bruno led her around back of the gas station, to an unmarked door. The lock was broken, and when he opened it, the stench that wafted out was so foul, Bruno flinched back, cursing. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Can you stand to come in here for a couple minutes? I don’t want to lose sight of you for one second. Hold your nose.”
Lily dragged in the deepest breath she could, and sidled into the foul little space. “This cannot be a hygienic place to wash a wound.”
“I’m not going to wash the wound,” he said, turning on the water. “I just want to splash off the blood smeared all over my face. Best not to draw attention to ourselves, right?”
“Something tells me that’s not your biggest talent.”
Bruno looked up from his position, bent over the small, filthy sink, and fixed her eyes in the mirror as he splashed his chin. Pinkish water drained down from his cupped hands into the basin.
“What the fuck kind of comment is that?” he asked.
She silently kicked herself. “Not an insult.”
“The hell it’s not.” He splashed again, still gazing at her. “What would you know about my talents, big or otherwise?”
A lot, after that incendiary half-hour in his late uncle’s apartment. She quelled the hysterical giggles, and feigned her usual fuck-you nonchalance. “It’s just an observation,” she said. “A neutral one.”
“Neutral, my ass.” He wiped his chin. His long black eyelashes were tangled and gleaming with water. “Nothing about you is neutral, Lily. I bet you don’t even know the meaning of the word.”
She couldn’t, in all honesty, deny that. So she didn’t.
“So you’ve been observing me, then. For how long?”
She gulped air, to calm the fluttering. Hands clenched, toes curled. Cool as a frozen mocha. “A few weeks,” she admitted. “I checked you out online. And I’ve been tailing you physically for about a week, now, as best I could, with no vehicle. You’re not hard to find. The nights working at the diner made it easier.”
Bruno wiped the water off his face with his hands. “That annoys the living shit out of me. That you’ve been observing me. Like some entymologist, studying a fucking bug under glass. Judging me.”
“I haven’t been judging you.” At least, not in a bad way, she wanted to add, but the words were pinned down by his accusing glare.
He opened his jacket, and ripped off the bottom strip of his T-shirt. It yielded him a long, limp strip of fabric. He pressed against the still oozing wound at his hairline, wincing.
She couldn’t help noticing, in the unwholesome glare of the fluorescent bulb, how the shortened T-shirt with its dangling threads showed off his tight abs, the glossy dark hair arrowing into his low-slung jeans. He had an innie. One of those taut, stretched ones like an eyelid, the kind you mostly saw on ripped models for men’s health magazines. She’d missed a lot of juicy little details in the dark.
He looked her over, seized his t-shirt again and ripped off still another strip, which left the garment barely covering his ribcage. He moistened it under the faucet. “Come here.”
She shrank back. “I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not. You look like something out of a splatter film.” He jerked her towards him, and started to swipe at her face with the rag.
Huh. It actually felt kind of good, to be groomed like a kitten.
“This is my blood, mostly,” he told her. “But I’ve got no diseases.”
