Pocket Apocalypse
Page 39
“What about your own wounds?” Shelby asked.
“I wasn’t bleeding that badly, and I was afraid I’d make things worse,” I said. “Cooper was out cold, he couldn’t help me take care of myself. I figured it was better to stop his bleeding and get the tincture mixed up—we’ve both been exposed, Shelby. He’s dead, but I could still be infected. You should get away from me.” It would be weeks before I was capable of passing the infection on, but at that moment, rational thought was taking a backseat to the instinctive need to protect her.
“Not too likely, but thanks for trying to shove me out as soon as things went sour,” she said amiably. She looked back to her father. “Can we call Mum, get some reinforcements and a cleanup crew out here?”
“A lot of people are going to find it suspicious that Cooper died as soon as we left him alone with your American,” said Riley. “You should be prepared for that.”
“And I would’ve found it suspicious if Alex had died when he was left alone with Cooper, except for the part where no, Daddy, that’s not how this works,” Shelby said, all traces of amiableness gone. She glared daggers at her father. “We’re doing a dangerous job, in a dangerous place, and you want to stand there looking at a man with this sort of wound in his arm, implying foul play? If there was foul play, it’s on us. We’re the ones who left them here.”
Riley stood there for a moment, expression not changing. Finally, he said, “I’ll call your mother,” and left the station.
The room lightened as the sun was allowed to flood back in. “You know, I’m starting to get the feeling your father doesn’t like me,” I said. Something brushed against my leg. I looked down. Jett was leaning against me, her ears pressed flat and her tail tucked between her legs. “Poor little thing. She doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“She’ll be taken care of,” said Shelby. “We’re good about taking care of our own. Now come and lean against the counter, I want to get a look at your arm.”
“Not if there’s even the slightest infection risk, I’m not—”
“The risk is minimal for me, but it’s getting higher for you with every minute that passes without cleaning this thing out. Don’t argue with me, Alex. Please.” Her tone made me wince. It was agonized, full of longing and dismay and six different flavors of misery.
“Hey.” I raised my right hand and peeled off my glove before touching her cheek gently with the back of my fingers. “This isn’t your fault, you know. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”
Shelby looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. “You wouldn’t be in Australia if not for me insisting that we needed help. You’d be safe at home, playing with the things that want to turn you into stone. Take off your coat.”
I shrugged out of my jacket, only wincing a little as the shreds of fabric that had been driven into my wounds by the werewolf’s teeth pulled free. My shirt was going to hurt a lot more to remove. “And I wouldn’t be playing with the things that want to turn me into stone if my parents hadn’t raised me to be fascinated by the fringes of the scientific world. We can play the blame game as long as you want. It’s not going to change anything.”
“It never does,” said Shelby bitterly. She leaned closer, studying the tears in my shirt. “This is ruined. Can I cut off the sleeve?”
“Scissors are on the table.”
She nodded curtly and turned away. While I couldn’t see her face, she said, “My dad doesn’t like you. He’s not going to, either. Apart from the whole ‘I’m supposed to have been back in Australia by now’ nonsense, I told him about your family when I was still trying to save you from them.”
“Ah.” Understanding suddenly dawned, no less painful for being so clear.
The human side of my family was known throughout the cryptozoological world for being defectors from the Covenant of St. George. That made us potentially untrustworthy, since we’d already proven that we’d betray our allies if we ceased agreeing with them. It also made us useful. But the cryptid side of my family consisted partially of cuckoos. Like werewolves, they weren’t native to Australia. The Thirty-Six Society had never been forced to learn to cope with them. Which was why, a few years before Shelby and I met, a group of cuckoos had been able to infiltrate the Society and start killing people.
I still didn’t have all the details—I might never have them, given Shelby’s reluctance to discuss what had happened—but I knew that a lot of people had died, and that one of them had been Shelby’s older brother, Jack.
“He knows I’m human, right?” It was an indelicate question, and even needing to ask it made me feel faintly speciesist. Why was human better than any of the other options? My grandparents and my cousins are wonderful people, and their various species of origin had never done anything to impact my opinions of them. But Shelby was a human girl, from a human family, and no matter how much some people try to say that species doesn’t matter, it does. It always does.
“Makes you worse in his eyes.” She started gingerly cutting away my shirtsleeve, moving with the sort of exaggerated care that she usually brought to working with her cats. “Now you’re not driven by instinct or different neural programming. You’re a human. You should be siding with your own species against the world, not coddling the sort of folks who think exploding other people’s brains is fun.”
“It sounds like he would have fit in well with the Covenant.” I gritted my teeth as her tugging separated the shirt from my skin. She was only tugging on the edges of the wound, not working at the places where the fabric had been driven well and truly into the surface of the musculature, and the pain was already bad enough to make me feel nauseous.
“Let’s talk about this later, yeah?” The question was forcedly light. “Alex, this is pretty bad under here. I’m going to need to dig a bunch of bits out of your skin before I can really see the wound. Are you . . . are you all right for that?”
“It’s going to hurt like hell, and I may pass out, but I’m okay,” I said, bracing myself against the counter. “If I throw up, I’ll try not to throw up on you.”
“You’re so sweet,” she said.
“I wasn’t bleeding that badly, and I was afraid I’d make things worse,” I said. “Cooper was out cold, he couldn’t help me take care of myself. I figured it was better to stop his bleeding and get the tincture mixed up—we’ve both been exposed, Shelby. He’s dead, but I could still be infected. You should get away from me.” It would be weeks before I was capable of passing the infection on, but at that moment, rational thought was taking a backseat to the instinctive need to protect her.
“Not too likely, but thanks for trying to shove me out as soon as things went sour,” she said amiably. She looked back to her father. “Can we call Mum, get some reinforcements and a cleanup crew out here?”
“A lot of people are going to find it suspicious that Cooper died as soon as we left him alone with your American,” said Riley. “You should be prepared for that.”
“And I would’ve found it suspicious if Alex had died when he was left alone with Cooper, except for the part where no, Daddy, that’s not how this works,” Shelby said, all traces of amiableness gone. She glared daggers at her father. “We’re doing a dangerous job, in a dangerous place, and you want to stand there looking at a man with this sort of wound in his arm, implying foul play? If there was foul play, it’s on us. We’re the ones who left them here.”
Riley stood there for a moment, expression not changing. Finally, he said, “I’ll call your mother,” and left the station.
The room lightened as the sun was allowed to flood back in. “You know, I’m starting to get the feeling your father doesn’t like me,” I said. Something brushed against my leg. I looked down. Jett was leaning against me, her ears pressed flat and her tail tucked between her legs. “Poor little thing. She doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“She’ll be taken care of,” said Shelby. “We’re good about taking care of our own. Now come and lean against the counter, I want to get a look at your arm.”
“Not if there’s even the slightest infection risk, I’m not—”
“The risk is minimal for me, but it’s getting higher for you with every minute that passes without cleaning this thing out. Don’t argue with me, Alex. Please.” Her tone made me wince. It was agonized, full of longing and dismay and six different flavors of misery.
“Hey.” I raised my right hand and peeled off my glove before touching her cheek gently with the back of my fingers. “This isn’t your fault, you know. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.”
Shelby looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. “You wouldn’t be in Australia if not for me insisting that we needed help. You’d be safe at home, playing with the things that want to turn you into stone. Take off your coat.”
I shrugged out of my jacket, only wincing a little as the shreds of fabric that had been driven into my wounds by the werewolf’s teeth pulled free. My shirt was going to hurt a lot more to remove. “And I wouldn’t be playing with the things that want to turn me into stone if my parents hadn’t raised me to be fascinated by the fringes of the scientific world. We can play the blame game as long as you want. It’s not going to change anything.”
“It never does,” said Shelby bitterly. She leaned closer, studying the tears in my shirt. “This is ruined. Can I cut off the sleeve?”
“Scissors are on the table.”
She nodded curtly and turned away. While I couldn’t see her face, she said, “My dad doesn’t like you. He’s not going to, either. Apart from the whole ‘I’m supposed to have been back in Australia by now’ nonsense, I told him about your family when I was still trying to save you from them.”
“Ah.” Understanding suddenly dawned, no less painful for being so clear.
The human side of my family was known throughout the cryptozoological world for being defectors from the Covenant of St. George. That made us potentially untrustworthy, since we’d already proven that we’d betray our allies if we ceased agreeing with them. It also made us useful. But the cryptid side of my family consisted partially of cuckoos. Like werewolves, they weren’t native to Australia. The Thirty-Six Society had never been forced to learn to cope with them. Which was why, a few years before Shelby and I met, a group of cuckoos had been able to infiltrate the Society and start killing people.
I still didn’t have all the details—I might never have them, given Shelby’s reluctance to discuss what had happened—but I knew that a lot of people had died, and that one of them had been Shelby’s older brother, Jack.
“He knows I’m human, right?” It was an indelicate question, and even needing to ask it made me feel faintly speciesist. Why was human better than any of the other options? My grandparents and my cousins are wonderful people, and their various species of origin had never done anything to impact my opinions of them. But Shelby was a human girl, from a human family, and no matter how much some people try to say that species doesn’t matter, it does. It always does.
“Makes you worse in his eyes.” She started gingerly cutting away my shirtsleeve, moving with the sort of exaggerated care that she usually brought to working with her cats. “Now you’re not driven by instinct or different neural programming. You’re a human. You should be siding with your own species against the world, not coddling the sort of folks who think exploding other people’s brains is fun.”
“It sounds like he would have fit in well with the Covenant.” I gritted my teeth as her tugging separated the shirt from my skin. She was only tugging on the edges of the wound, not working at the places where the fabric had been driven well and truly into the surface of the musculature, and the pain was already bad enough to make me feel nauseous.
“Let’s talk about this later, yeah?” The question was forcedly light. “Alex, this is pretty bad under here. I’m going to need to dig a bunch of bits out of your skin before I can really see the wound. Are you . . . are you all right for that?”
“It’s going to hurt like hell, and I may pass out, but I’m okay,” I said, bracing myself against the counter. “If I throw up, I’ll try not to throw up on you.”
“You’re so sweet,” she said.
