How to Kill Yourself in a Small Town (12 page)

My
fan was one of those pedestal fans and I had it aimed at the bed, so it didn’t
move the air around the floor much, but the beer and the frozen berries kept me
from sweating to death. I turned onto my good side so I could lay the bag
across my broken rib and not have to hold it in place with my beer-drinking hand.

“Tough?”
In the light from the window, I could see Desty move so that she was looking
over the side of the bed at me. “Your family is the one that tried to get the
fallen angels out of Halo?”

Tried.
Talk about a nice way to say “fucked up and failed.” It made me kind of sick to
my stomach to think that, while I was hunting down that dumbass Jason Gudehaus,
Mikal had stopped the last one of us still fighting.

I
offered Desty the other beer, but she shook her head.

“No,
thanks.”

I
had about half the can left, but I finished it off and opened the beer Desty
had turned down.

“I
went on the Dark Mansion tour yesterday,” she said. “I saw your brother. He’s
still with Mikal.”

For
a second the little-kid-me busted through, like when you take a picture of a
vamp and their real age shows up, only in reverse and with some kind of
retarded hero-worship complex. Colt had been kamikaze during the war, kicking
ass like nothing could kill him. And after the war, not even Ryder would try to
start shit with Colt. And Sissy—probably the smartest person who’d ever
lived—used to ask Colt for help with strategy. This was probably just another
one of his crazy-elaborate plans. If anybody could outlast Mikal—

Nobody
can outlast Mikal, dipshit. She’s immortal. And if Colt was so fucking smart,
then what was he doing killing her familiars? Would’ve been smarter to paint a
target on his back and start yelling, “Come get me, bitch.”

Desty
leaned her cheek on the edge of the bed.

I
got the rest of the second beer down before she said anything else.

“When
you look at someone like Tempie—someone who wanted to be a familiar—you must
really… Is ‘contempt’ a strong enough word?”

She
could call it whatever she wanted. The point was Tempie had volunteered to put
her brain in the wood chipper, probably because she thought fallen angels were
hot. It seemed like someone related to Desty should’ve been smarter than that.

Desty
turned onto her back. I burped a really long, loud beer burp that made my
throat feel better but popped my side.

“The
way she was dressed tonight… If Tempie was calling the shots, she would’ve
picked something a lot less classy, a lot more trashy. And she wouldn’t be some
sycophant twee-girl—not to anybody. You should’ve met her before, back when she
was all hunting-fishing-pink-camo.” Then Desty laughed and looked over the edge
of the bed at me. “Did I just nail your type, Tough?”

I
snorted and gave her one of those exaggerated
Noooo
s. That got her
laughing again.

It
was too dark to tell if her eyes were on me, but there was just enough light
coming through the window to watch her smile fade away. She took a deep breath
and blew it out.

“Do
you think about Colt all the time?” she asked.

I
tried to shake my head, but it wouldn’t move.

“How
do you…? Like, when you…”

I
reached behind the nightstand. The Southern Comfort Hundred Proof was right
where I’d dropped it. I spun the cap off and handed the bottle to Desty. She
looked at it for a second, then back at me.

“Thinking
medicine,” she said.

I
pointed at her.
Thinking medicine.

Desty

When
I clawed my way out of the blood dream, I couldn’t remember where I was. At
first I thought back in Tucson because that was the last place I had slept on a
mattress, but this house wasn’t vacant. Beer cans propped the window open,
clothes were piled up next to a laundry basket, and a guitar case stood in the
corner.

The
guitar case was what brought it back—this was Tough’s room, I was wearing his
t-shirt—and the empty bottle of SoCo on the nightstand explained the nausea and
the boozy spinning inside my head every time I shut my eyes. That bottle had
been half-full the night before. There wasn’t any way I could’ve drunk that
much by myself without throwing up. I reached my hand over the side of the
mattress to see if Tough was still asleep on the floor. Nothing.

I
closed my eyes and put the pillow over my face so my brain would know I wasn’t
actually spinning.

Did
I really almost have sex with him last night because he was going to let me
stay here?
Tempie would’ve laughed in my face for thinking
I was so much better than her. And now Tough thought I was a homeless slut.

I
groaned and I crossed my arms over the pillow, wishing I could smother myself.
The pillow crackled. After a couple of seconds I realized what that meant. I
took the pillow and the piece of notebook paper off my face.

Went to take care of some NP
bullshit. Stay as long as you like. Bathroom is down the hall, food downstairs.
Ask Harper or Jax if you need anything. You look great without pants on. See
you later.

-Tough

I
pushed myself up and looked down the bed.

Sometime
last night I’d kicked off the sheet, leaving my legs and underwear exposed. Low-rise
briefs covered with some manga character. That pack had been the only one on
clearance in my size at the last Wal-Mart I’d been to. A far cry from lingerie,
but thank God they looked clean. I wondered if the underwear were included in
the “you look great” or if Tough was just messing around.

Then
I saw the towel on the foot of the mattress.

If
Tough was there, I would’ve kissed him. One of the things I had started missing
about home almost as soon as I left was feeling clean—forty-five-minute-shower,
burn-the-top-layer-of-skin-off clean. Washing up in a gas station sink can’t
even compare.

There
was a smaller note on the towel, a piece torn off the bottom of the no-pants
note.

Sorry, no clean towels. I’ll
wash some when I get back if you want to wait.

I
hugged the towel like a long-lost love, thinking a lot of things that were
probably inappropriate for someone to be thinking about a linen, including
sweet nothings about cherishing it for the rest of my life and intergalactic
hitchhiker promises to always know where it was, even when it wasn’t my towel
anymore.

*****

It’s
amazing what a hot shower with real shampoo and conditioner can do for a
hangover. Even being in a strange house with two people I had never met and my crippling
awkwardness felt like something I could handle after that. I put my backpack
back in Tough’s room and went downstairs.

In
the front room, a heavyset blonde-haired guy was on the couch playing a video
game. When I got to the bottom step, he pushed a button on the controller and
the game paused. He smiled at me like he was waiting for something.

“Uh,
hey,” I said. He probably wanted to know who the heck I was and why I was in
his house. I swallowed and tried to play it cool. “I’m Desty. McCormick. Desty
McCormick.”
Super-cool.
“Tough, um—”

“I
thought I heard someone with him last night,” the guy said, wiping his forehead
with the sweatband on his wrist. “My name’s Jax, but you probably know me
better as ‘Warrior.’ The goddess is at the store getting groceries.”

I
took a couple tentative steps into the room. “So, then, your girlfriend’s
Harper? That’s a pretty name.”

Jax
shrugged and turned his game back on.

“She’s
pretty, so it fits.” He jerked his chin at the doorway to my left. “If you’re too
hungry to wait for her to get back, there’s still a couple of things in the
kitchen to eat. Cracker behind the stove. Maybe some chili stuck to the wall in
the microwave.”

He
was joking. Right?

Of
course he was joking, but now it was too late to laugh. I was on a roll this
morning. I shifted my weight to my other foot and put my hands in my back
pockets.

“Do
you know when Tough will be back?” I asked.

Jax
shook his head, but didn’t look away from the werewolf pack he was gunning
down. “He had to talk to Rowdy and Dodge and then go to an appointment with the
Matchmaker, but that’s just on the square. If he doesn’t have anywhere else to
go, he’ll probably be back by three-thirty or quarter ‘til.”

“What
time is it now?” I asked, checking out the window. It looked like a
photographer had turned the saturation up way too high and the world was one
degree away from bursting into flame.

“Just
about three,” Jax said.

“Three?”

“Don’t
worry, it’s still Monday,” he said. “You weren’t even close to breaking the
record for longest uninterrupted sleep in the Carpenter-Ives-Whitney
household.”

I
smiled. It’s hard not to like someone who can just step right past your social
incompetence and make you feel like a normal person.

“What’s
the record?” I asked.

“The
bar’s pretty high on that one. When Tough first moved in, he slept for
forty-one hours. Harper thought maybe he was in a coma.”

“You
didn’t think so?”

“He
had normal REM cycles and his flexion was above average. Also, he woke up on
his own. Classic sign.” Jax used his elbow to point toward the couch cushion
beside him. “You can sit down.”

My
stomach picked that second to growl really loudly.

“Or
you can get something to eat,” he said. “There’s some of those blueberry
toaster pancakes in the freezer. They’re pretty good.”

“Thanks.”

I
went into the kitchen and started a couple, staring into the toaster slots
while they cooked to make sure they didn’t burn. I was looking for a plate or
paper towel when I heard the screen door bang and the rustle of grocery bags.

“What’d
you do, buy out the store?” Jax asked.

A
feminine laugh. Harper?

“They
had a two-for-one deal for the same orange juice that was on sale, so I got
four of them,” she said. I could hear her footsteps approaching the kitchen, so
I raked my bangs out of my eyes and turned to face the doorway. “It’s not like
I’m never going to drink them.”

I
wouldn’t say Halter-Top from the bar was the absolute last person I expected to
see, but I was definitely surprised. Maybe as surprised as she was to see me.

“What
are you doing here?” Halter-Top—Harper today, because she was wearing a black
tank top with a mockingbird airbrushed onto it that said her name in purple
letters—stopped in the doorway and put her hand on her hip, grocery bags and
all.

“That’s
Desty,” Jax called from the front room. “Tough brought her home last night.”

“Bullshit
he did,” Harper said.

My
voice came unstuck, but I said the wrong thing. “He just let me stay the night
because I didn’t have anywhere else to go and I’d have to stay at the Dark
Mansion if—”

“The
Dark Mansion?” Harper dropped the grocery bags and crossed the room. She was a
good five inches shorter than me, but she got up in my face the way some
redneck girls can when they’re mad. I backed up against the sink, and she
followed me, getting close enough that I could smell the shea butter on her
skin. “What are you, some kind of spy?”

“I’m
not—”

“Or
maybe you got a vampire fetish? Finn moved on to someone else so now you’re after
Tough because he used to be a vamp’s fuck-puppet? Is cold-by-proximity enough
for you or are you hoping he’ll put in a good word with someone who can make
you?”

Jax
popped into the kitchen. “Harper, what the hell? Leave her alone.”

“She
left Rowdy’s with Finn the other night,” Harper said, not backing down.

I
held deer-in-the-headlights still and tried not to breathe.

“So?”
Jax said.

“So
if Logan doesn’t trust Finn, I don’t either. He’s no one’s protector, he breaks
the rules, sucks off of tourists, has sex with anything warm—”

“I
didn’t have sex with Finn!” I said.

“Well,
I guess even he’s got standards,” Harper said, cocking her head to give me a
look like I was the one wearing the shirt too small for my boobs.

“I’m
not a spy or a vamp-groupie, either,” I said.

“Ever
been to Nashville?”

“No,
I—”

“Know
anyone named Jason Gudehaus?”

“The
Country Idol
guy?”

“Harper,
give her a break—”

Harper
turned on her boyfriend and I used my newfound freedom to put the kitchen table
between us. I didn’t feel like getting bitch-slapped less than twenty-four
hours after my sister had sucker punched me.

“Don’t
even get me started on you,” Harper said, jabbing a finger at Jax. “Every NP in
the whole freaking world is trying to screw Tough to the wall and you’re cool
with letting someone you don’t know wander around the house?”

“Tough’s
a big boy and he’s at the Matchmaker’s right now. He’ll probably come home with
a protector.” Jax grabbed Harper’s pointer finger and pulled her into his arms.
“And you were the one who said there’s a rule about not messing with someone
the Matchmaker’s got under contract. Besides, Desty’s okay.”

“You
don’t know that. She’s been hanging around Tough since the night before last.”
Harper’s shoulders were relaxing and it sounded like she was losing steam.
“Throwing herself at him and stuff.”

Jax
gave her a kiss and let her go.

“Scout
hangs around Tough all the time,” he said. “When was the last time I accused
Scout of having a vamp fetish or being a spy?”

“You
know Scout. And, anyway, Tough wouldn’t just bring some tourist home,” Harper
said. She gave me another you’re-a-dirty-skank look. “He’s easy, but he’s not
that easy.”

“Jeez,
I didn’t sleep with him,” I said. “And I’m not a tourist. I don’t give a crap
about the whole NP-run-town thing. I’m just in Halo to get my sister. Or
something like that.”

Jax
snorted. “You’re supposed to use specifics when you lie so people will believe
you.”

“Well,
she’s Kathan’s familiar and she hit me in the face when I tried to get her to
come home, so I’m sort of in the rethinking phase right now,” I said. For a
second, my mind tried to spin things as hopelessly out of hand. I rubbed my
eyes with my thumb and forefinger. “Also, Kathan mentioned having foot soldiers
in Hannibal looking for me, so going home probably isn’t the option it used to
be. At least, not yet.”

“Why’s
Kathan searching for you?” Jax asked.

When
I looked up, Harper was still glaring at me, but she didn’t say anything.

“Tempie
and I are identical twins and our mom and aunt are twins, and I guess that’s
one of the things that would make it possible for him to—”

“No
fucking way,” Jax said. He closed his eyes and his eyelids flickered like he
was dreaming. “There hasn’t been a commander since pre-human. Like, angels-falling-from-Heaven
pre-human.”

Harper
said, “A what?” at the same time as I said, “You know about that?”

“Yeah,
but I only have some of the info about it,” he said. He opened his eyes. “What I
need to do is go talk to the Witches’ Council. They’re going to want to hear
this.”

“Kathan
said all the books that have records of commanders were written by non-people,”
I said.

“That’s
why I don’t have much about it,” Jax said. “Bailey’s been working on some
translations of these really old texts, but so far she’s only had me input a
page of the one that mentions commanders.” He looked at me. “Want to come
with?”

I’m
such a big, giant, ridiculous nerd that the first thing I thought was how
exciting it would be to read something not written by humans.

Then
I saw the way Harper was trying to rip my face off with her eyes.

“I,
um—”

She
pushed past me to open the fridge. The door banged against the kitchen wall and
she started slamming orange juice cartons down so hard the shelves shook.

I
looked at Jax. He was trying not to laugh.

“I’ll
go get my boots on,” I said.

He
nodded.

I
was halfway up the stairs when I heard him say, “Hey, Goddess, you’re not
jealous of a mere mortal, are you?”