Cipher (21 page)

She was saying the sorts of things that always made him uncomfortable, and Andrew fought not to fidget. “I’m doing what Alec asked me to do. It’s not exactly heroic.”

“Tell that to the people who have new clinics in their cities. Alec can only get his work done because no one dares screw with him while you’re watching his back.”

“Maybe, but all that makes me is good backup.” Which was just fine with him.

“Tell me again why Kat’s not in a bomb shelter somewhere?”

“Because I’m not letting her out of my sight. Try to keep up, Mac.”

She flipped him her middle finger with a cheerful grin. “Why aren’t
both
of you in a bomb shelter somewhere, smartass?”

No matter what, it kept circling around to that question, and you either got the answer or you didn’t. Until the night he’d almost died, he hadn’t. Now, he couldn’t imagine blowing off the responsibility, even if it meant sacrificing his own wants. He wasn’t the first, and he hoped he wouldn’t be the last.

The crowd at Mahalia’s was typical for a Wednesday night. Led Zeppelin spilled out of the jukebox, almost drowning out the drone of chatter and the clack of pool balls. Andrew scanned the room and spotted Julio and Anna by one of the pool tables. “Over there,” he said, low in Kat’s ear.

She pivoted, then relaxed when she saw Sera bending over the pool table to line up a shot while Miguel watched. “Everyone’s here,” she said, so relieved that she might as well have said,
Everyone’s safe.

He laid his hand on the small of her back. “Let’s go give them the heads-up.”

Sera completely missed her shot as they approached, sending the cue ball sailing past everything else on the table to slide neatly into a corner pocket. She straightened with a sigh that turned into Kat’s name. “I thought you guys were never going to get here.”

Kat jerked her head toward the bar, where Mackenzie had stopped to talk with the manager. “Jackson was doing his thing.”

“Took a while, but we got it done.” Jackson accepted the beers Anna offered and passed one to Mackenzie.

Kat shook her head when offered a beer and glanced at Julio. “Is Patrick in the back? We should probably talk.”

“He’s in the office,” Anna said, already heading toward the hall.

It was eerily quiet in the converted stock room behind the office. Magical soundproofing kept all the noise of the bar out, and would ensure the details of their conversation remained private.

Julio, for one, didn’t wait to start that conversation. “The thing’s dead, right? The collar?”

“As a doornail.” Kat leaned against the door, looking like she’d rather be out at the pool table with Miguel and Sera. Fractures had begun to appear in her icy calm almost as soon as Jackson laid the inert metal on his workbench, declaring it well and truly destroyed.

On the other side of the room, Patrick snapped his phone shut. “I put the word out on this cult as soon as Ben gave me the name, and he’s starting to get some intel back. Might as well find their nest and burn them out once and for all, right?”

“That’s it, then.” Anna hopped up to sit on the table along the wall. “We stay on our guard, just in case, and finish them off.”

“That’s it,” Jackson agreed.

Andrew stepped to the middle of the room. “I’ll call Alec in the morning. The cult members brought wolves with them, which means the Conclave might want their pound of flesh.”

“They can have it.” Kat closed her eyes. “The worst part is over, though. They can’t build their little psychic army any time soon.”

“Calls for a celebration, right?” Jackson drained half his beer and wrapped his arm around Mackenzie. “Keep your eyes peeled. If anything happens, raise the alarm.”

Julio filed out after them, and Anna followed suit. Patrick paused to squeeze Kat’s shoulder. “Chin up, Katherine. You did good.”

“Thanks, Patrick.” To someone who didn’t know her, the smile might have looked real. Patrick seemed to buy it, and he nodded to Andrew before slipping out of the room.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Kat tried to pull Andrew’s mouth down to hers. He stayed rigid and wrapped his hands around her wrists. “Not so fast, sweetheart. We need to talk.”

“You could have died out there. I could have died out there.” Her fingernails scraped against his neck. “I didn’t kiss you last time, and I regretted it for a year.”

“Kiss me all you want.
After
I make sure you’re not still spinning.”

“I’m always spinning, Andrew. I don’t know how to stop.” She tugged against his grip, trying to slide her hands toward the back of his neck. “You could make me stop. I wouldn’t be able to spin if you had control.”

Responsibility was one thing, but she was talking about the kind of control he’d never wanted. “That’s never been my thing. I didn’t know it was yours.”

She laughed shakily as her eyes fluttered shut. “You’re my thing. Wanting you is the only thing in my life that hasn’t changed.”

The cracks in her composure grew with every breath, and Andrew eased her away. “Kat, it’s been a shitty night. Just…sleep on it, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“No.” She took a step back, just one, then braced her feet. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t heal a little and then rip off more of the scab. I can’t live with all this shit hanging over my head.”

The words sliced at him. “I’m sorry about what happened tonight. I’m sorry you had to do it again.”

“Not tonight,” she grated out. “Fourteen months ago. You’re a wolf because I lost control. Because I was scared, and I panicked, and I made those bastards attacking us panic.”

“No.” The denial escaped without thought, but with more than a little panic. “You did what you had to do.”

“Later. Later, I did what I had to do.” Her fingers curled toward her palms. “At first, I was weak and scared and out of control. I screwed up. And if you won’t be
mad
at me for it, we’re never going to be anything but two people who lie about the worst day of their life.”

He couldn’t hear what she was saying. She had to stop and, for a heart-stopping second, he wanted to scream at her. So he shut it down and answered calmly. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“Stop being a damn coward, Andrew. Be mad at me. Hate me.” Her blue eyes were ice as she glared at him. “And if you can’t do either of those, just ’fess up and admit that you think I’m a stupid kid who shouldn’t be held responsible for anything she does.”

His careful, hard-won control didn’t snap. It split—right down the middle, like his heart. Like his
life
. “You want me to be mad? To hate you? Fine, I hate you.”

Her face split too. Relief, and pain, and when she spoke, her voice was tight with what could have been rage or tears. “I ruined your life. And then I ruined mine. Some days I don’t know which of us I hate more.”

“How could you not
know
?” The question had eaten him up inside, and it spilled out now. “Being around Alec and Derek, knowing how close to the edge they get sometimes… How could you not know that flipping your shit on a bunch of wolves was going to make them crazy?”

“I wasn’t thinking. He said—” Her jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t make a choice. I lost control, and I’m sorry.”

His anger faded as suddenly as it had formed, exhausted by her pain, leaving him tired and ashamed. “Are we finished taking care of what you need, Kat? What makes you feel better? Because I feel like ass.”

“Why?” Her voice broke. It broke, and she broke with it, shattering before his eyes. “Because I’m not like you and Anna and all the other badasses? Because I can’t take it if you treat me like an adult?”

The truth was far simpler—and a hell of a lot more damning. “Because all hating you will do is cost me everything else. Whatever I didn’t lose that night.”
You.

She choked on something lost between a laugh and a sob. “We lost each other anyway. And I can’t—” She lifted her hands and scrubbed at her eyes. “If this is what I needed, what do
you
need?”

It was impossible, literally. “I need for it not to have happened.”

Another helpless laugh. “We’re both fucked, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Anger bubbled up again, this time directed entirely at himself. His own selfishness was yet another thing he hadn’t been able to protect Kat from, and he really did hate her a little for making him admit it. “So what now?”

“Now…” She shrugged. “I guess we figure out if we can forgive each other, or we give up. We can’t build anything good on hating each other and being afraid to admit it.”

They had to be the only people anywhere, ever, who needed to despise each other, and it almost made him want to laugh. “I hate you, Kat,” he said again. “But I don’t want to, and not nearly as much as I hate myself.”

She wet her lips. “Do you hate yourself over me?”

He clenched his hands into helpless fists. “How could I not?”

“It’s recursive. That’s what I keep thinking. We just… We hurt each other and we hate ourselves, and we hurt ourselves and we hate each other. One of us has to…”

“To what?”

She swallowed, then reached for him, stretching up to frame his face. “It broke my heart when you pushed me away. But I forgive you.”

He caught her wrists again, but he didn’t pull her away. “Kat…”

“I forgive myself for killing those men, because it was all I could do. And some day, I’m going to forgive myself for not being able to be cold about it.”

“Stop.” He took a deep breath to ease the tightness in his chest. “I’m going to say it again, and you need to know that I mean it. You did what you had to do. It’s easy for me to blame you, but if you hadn’t unleashed on that strike team, I’d be dead anyway, and you’d be—” He couldn’t say it.

So she did. “He told me he was going to make me watch you die. And if that didn’t convince me to give them access to Alec’s files, they’d torture me.”

No matter what he wished for himself, he could never think she should have allowed that to happen. “You did the
right thing
.”

“But not on purpose.” She leaned her forehead against his chin and sighed. “Tonight I did it on purpose. That’s better for everyone else. Worse for me.”

He drew her into his arms. “You stopped him from getting the collar.”

“I know.” Her voice sounded small. “I did what I had to do, so shouldn’t it feel like it was worth it? Justified?”

“Some of us aren’t cut out for killing, sweetheart. No matter what.”

“Still makes me feel weak.”

“Because you’re not bloodthirsty?”

“Because I want to do what the rest of you are doing. I want to make our world better, and not be the girl who’s sitting on the sidelines, or back at the office fixing the computers.”

“You haven’t been paying attention.” He tucked her face against his neck and sat on the edge of the table. “Julio and I have been finishing work on the other lofts over at our building. Carmen and Alec have been organizing clinics. What is it exactly that you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” She slipped her arms around his waist and sighed. “I finished my PhD…but I can’t go back, Andrew. I can’t go live in the human world and get a job and be normal. I don’t fit there.”

“Kicking ass isn’t the only way to fit in my world, either.”

“I know.” Easing back, she finally met his eyes. She looked old and tired and oddly amused. “No one ever really feels like they fit anywhere, anyway. I know that. You’d think it’d make it easier to feel so lost.”

“You’re not lost, Kat,” he whispered. “It’s just…a rough spot. If you weren’t going to pull through it, you’d know by now. But you are.”

A nod. Perched on the table, he wasn’t that much taller than her, and she took advantage of it by leaning in to kiss his cheek, lips soft and tentative. “This is it. This is us facing the worst we’ve been. And I
am
spinning, but that won’t stop until I start fighting for what I want instead of obsessing over what I can’t change.”

He didn’t argue. “One step at a time.” It was all either of them could ask.

Chapter Thirteen

Dixie John didn’t serve breakfast to the public, but he had a habit of opening his doors when enough supernaturals wanted an early meal—especially if Sera smiled hopefully and promised to help out in the kitchen.

Her friend slipped into the back as Kat settled at one of the hastily pushed together tables in the center of the room. No one looked like they’d slept much, except for Patrick, who followed Sera and came back with a pot of coffee. “There’s more coming.”

Kat accepted the first mug. She needed it, since alcohol combined with a mere four hours of sleep had her blinking groggily at the world. Andrew, Julio and Miguel, on the other hand, mostly looked hungry.

At least Anna didn’t seem to be faring much better. Kat pushed the second cup of coffee toward her. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“Some.” She sniffed the brew and took a tentative sip. “Too much whiskey last night.”

It would take a lot of whiskey to leave a wolf
that
hung over. Kat’s celebration had been tinged with the knowledge that more enemies could be out there. Two beers had seemed like plenty, even spaced across the hours before Andrew drove her home. She didn’t think he’d rested any more soundly than she had, but at least they’d been together. Awkward and uncertain, but together, in all their celibate glory.

It was a start.

But an uneasy tension lay heavily in the room, belying the congenial atmosphere, and this time it wasn’t just her and Andrew. The others smiled and joked, but beneath the surface a thousand tiny gestures painted a complex and curious picture.

Callum had been the one to insist she pay attention. Empathy had made her lazy when it came to people. Leaky shields and pushy emotions meant she
always
knew what people were feeling. Callum had told her to watch, too, to understand body language. She could almost hear his voice, crisply enunciated and perpetually serious.
Not everyone has a Rosetta Stone for the human soul, Katherine. It’s a strength. Use it.

So she did, watching the people around her as small talk washed over her. Anna had claimed a seat as far away from Patrick as she could get, and Kat would have bet her next paycheck it was deliberate, though she wasn’t sure why until she noticed the way Patrick kept trying to catch Anna’s eye. On the rare occasions he succeeded, the look Anna shot back was more
fuck you
than
good morning
.