Dirty Angel-BarbaraElsborg (7 page)

Shit.

“Get a good night’s sleep,” Henrik said.

Brody nodded and after a closed door was between him and his boss, he sagged. Even after nine months, he still worried Henrik would ask him out, and how his boss would respond when he said no. Henrik was tall, blond, and good-looking, but not Brody’s type. He wished he could go for kind and gentle and decent, but he couldn’t. Things would go wrong—fast—and then Brody would have to look for work elsewhere. He’d had a suspicion at his interview that Henrik had been interested in more than giving him a job, but he’d tried to ignore it.

He took his keys from his pocket and headed to his car. He was on call tonight, but hopefully wouldn’t be needed. Not that he had an exciting evening planned. He had chili in the fridge and bed tempted.
How fucking boring am I?
It would have been nice to have someone to come home to, but Brody knew that would never happen for him. Not unless Matt…
Shut up. Don’t think about him. I don’t want him back. I can’t be that suicidal.
His plan to find a therapist had gone to the bottom of the list of things to do, because speaking to a therapist would open up what happened last night and Brody needed to forget that.

The motorway wasn’t a traffic jam for a change and it didn’t take him long to get to Caterham. He drove through the town and up Church Hill too fast, slowed only by the steepness of the gradient. The rain was still torrential. Maybe he ought to think about being a vet in another country. A place where the sun occasionally shone. If he hadn’t been so impressed by Henrik and his pioneering procedures, he might have moved abroad. Henrik had a reputation for saving the unsaveable and Brody wondered if working for the guy could be his salvation.

He took the sharp turn onto Stanstead Road slightly too fast and manoeuvred around the parked cars. The street lights petered out as the number of dwellings decreased until he was traveling along a dark country lane.

Matt had once taken him down a lane like this, an hour’s drive from his home, and pulled into a car park that in the day was used by those wanting to walk their dogs around the local reservoir. Brody had been sixteen years old. He’d never heard of dogging and piking, but he’d had an introduction to it that night. Fucked on the bonnet of the car by a masked Matt while people watched, men and women. Matt had hurt him, pulled out chunks of his hair as he’d fucked him, and Brody had cried out in pain, his hips bruised on the car with every thrust.
And I still fucking wanted him.

He brushed a tear from his eye as he rounded a bend. For a split second he saw something dark right in front of him. As he slammed on the brakes, whatever he’d hit slid up the windscreen and over the roof.
What the fuck was that? A deer?
He flicked on his hazard warning lights and leapt from the vehicle. When he saw a man lying in the road behind the car, his knees almost buckled.

“God, no! What have…? Fuck! Fuck!”

He rushed back and crouched down. The guy wasn’t moving. He lay still, like a broken mannequin, his leg bent awkwardly, the rain splashing on his pale face. Brody felt for a pulse at his neck and couldn’t find one.

“Noooooo.” He tipped his head back and howled in anguish.

“Arrgh.”

The grunt of pain jerked him back to the man whose eyes were open and blinking.

“Thank Christ,” Brody gasped. “Don’t move. I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No,” the man grunted.

Brody watched as the guy twisted his leg round so it lay straight like the other one. It had looked broken. How had he managed that?

“I’m okay,” the man said. “Really. I just need to get up.”

“No, no. Stop moving. You could have internal bleeding. Keep still. What the fuck were you doing walking in the middle of the road? You flew over the top of my car.”
Yeah, blame him when I know I was distracted.

As the injured guy struggled to get up, Brody tried to stop him.

“I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance.”

“Please keep still. You don’t know what damage you’re doing.” He stood up, pulled out his phone and pressed 9-9-9. “I want to report an accident.”

Brody gave his details and described where he was. He walked back to his car to get a coat to cover the guy and when he turned, the road was empty.

“Shit!”

Brody was still searching when the police and paramedics pulled up. He’d climbed into the fields either side, fallen, got covered in mud, but found no trace of the man in the driving rain.

“He’s wandered off,” Brody said. “He kept saying he was okay but he can’t have been. He must have hit his head. There’s blood on the road.” There had been
.
The rain was washing it away.

Brody wanted to search again with them, but was told to stay with his vehicle. He should have sat inside it, and instead he stood in the rain, horrified he might have killed someone. Even if he wasn’t dead, Brody had been negligent in letting him wander off.
I should have been more careful.
The guy had been confused.
God, what if he’s dead?
One policeman drove down the road, the other took a torch into a field.

By the time they came back Brody was frantic. When he discovered they had no one with them, he thought he was going to throw up. The ambulance crew left on another call and the two police officers stood with Brody. He could see they didn’t believe him.

“Maybe you hit a deer,” one said.

“I hit a man. He was tall, slim, in his mid-twenties. He had dark hair and he was wearing a dark coat and jeans. He talked to me.”

The policemen glanced at each other.

“We’d like you to take a breath test, sir,” one said.

Brody seethed. “Fine. I’m not drunk. I’m just driving home from work.”

“Where do you work?”

“Christiansen Veterinary Practice. I’m a vet.”

The breath test was negative as Brody knew it would be.

The police left and Brody searched again but after mucking around in muddy fields in worsening conditions, he was finally too cold to keep looking and drove home. Brody wished he
had
imagined it, but he hadn’t. The face of the man he’d hit filled his head. He’d looked dead.

Aden suspected he’d died—again—when the car hit him. His head slammed into the road, white lights exploded behind his eyes, and he’d felt and heard a snap as his leg broke. Everything hurt and he’d hoped that wet feeling under his thigh was from the bottle of water and not blood. He had a vision in his head of Raphael rolling his eyes, Dante smirking at his side.

Used a chance up, did I? My chances are lives?
Aden knew he should have been more careful, walked at the side of the road, listened for vehicles. Anyone would think he’d been trying to get knocked down just to see if he really was dead. Yeah, well now he knew. Dying hurt. Though he’d forgotten the pain when he’d opened his eyes to find a cute dark-haired guy leaning over him. Except he looked freaked out.

For a brief moment Aden wondered if the accident might offer him a way of landing a bed for the night, but when the man called the police, Aden had no choice but to run. Well, limp off into a field. He had no means of identifying himself, no means of explaining what he was doing walking along a country road in the dark. The police had no cause to arrest him, but he was sure they could come up with something. Forget the month, he’d have cocked up inside one day just as Dante predicted.

He could hear the driver calling him. If the positions had been reversed, and he’d been behind the wheel and hit someone, what would he have done?

Driven on.

No, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t
that
much of a shit. But how long would he have looked—if at all? He wanted to believe he’d have wandered around in the pouring rain, searching like this guy was doing.
But I wouldn’t.
He put his hands to his aching head. It felt like he had two people arguing in there.

Maybe I do.
He bristled. That wasn’t fair. How was he supposed to be doing the right thing if he had Dante trying to persuade him not to?

After he’d taken advantage of the driver’s inattention and slipped away, Aden had registered he was going to be knee deep in mud if he stayed in a field, and so had circled back to the road knowing he had a window of opportunity to get some distance from the car before either the police arrived or the guy drove on.

When he eventually heard a vehicle coming up behind him, he slid into the trees and waited until the car had passed. The flashing lights told him it was the police. He stayed where he was until they returned, then carried on, his limp gone. A short while later, he heard another vehicle and hid again. This time it was the car that had hit him. Aden thought about stepping into the road and flagging the guy down, but he was going to be pissed off. Aden’s disappearing act had made him waste police time with that unnecessary emergency call.

The tail lights faded into the distance, and Aden set off once more. This wasn’t being the good guy Raphael wanted him to be. But the police would have insisted he went to hospital and he didn’t know what doctors would find when they examined him. The stumps of wings in his back? If he refused to give his name—what would they have done?

Anyway, it was academic because he didn’t need medical treatment. He needed somewhere warm and dry to sleep while he got his head around what had happened since he’d found himself standing in that mist. He needed to test stuff out.
What? Like dying?
Aden groaned. He was a selfish bastard because he could have killed the guy driving the car. He’d been about Aden’s age and good-looking, though his cheek was bruised and there were scratches on his face. Aden hoped they weren’t his fault. The guy’s hair was as dark as Aden’s, but messy. When Aden had opened his eyes and looked up at him, he’d felt a surge of interest. Talk about the wrong time and wrong place.

As soon as he saw a house or a farm, preferably a farm because there’d be outbuildings, he’d scout around for shelter. He was soaked and caked in mud from the knees down. The rain had gone all the way through his coat and shirt to his skin. His back ached. The leg he’d broken hurt. He wasn’t wearing socks and his feet were not only frozen but being rubbed raw by his boots. Seemed a bit mean-spirited that if he couldn’t be killed, he still had to cope with pain and discomfort.

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the water bottle, the plastic torn and the bottle empty as he’d expected. Aden tossed it into the verge, took three more steps, then turned and went back to get it.
See that? I’m not littering.
He stuffed the bottle back in his pocket. Though when he touched the feathers, he took those out and let the wind carry them away. A futile act of defiance but it made him feel better.

When he spotted a sign for Sanders Farm and Livery, he sighed with relief and turned off the road onto a rutted, muddy track. He was too exhausted to keep walking. All he had was that apple in his pocket—and—yep, the two fucking feathers were back. Neat trick if it had been food or money. He wished he was heading toward a hot meal and a warm bed, maybe even with someone in it, preferably that guy who’d knocked him down assuming he was gay, though Aden felt too tired to fuck anyone.

The closer he drew to the buildings, the more cautious he became. Farms had dogs. Dogs would hear him, smell him and start barking. People would come out. He’d be in trouble.

A dog began barking.

Shit.

He tried the door of the first building he came to, but it was locked. The next wasn’t and he slipped through to find himself inside a long stable block. It wasn’t completely dark. A small light shone at the far end and he could see stalls running the length of the building. Judging by the snuffles and snorts, they were occupied by horses. He remained motionless, apart from his violent shivers and chattering teeth, and after a while the dog stopped barking. Once he’d convinced himself there was no one around, he walked the length of the barn looking for an empty stall. It wasn’t warm in there, but at least it was dry.

Some of the horses popped their head over the half-doors as he passed. Aden knew nothing about horses. He’d never ridden one, never patted one, not even on a carousel. They made a variety of sounds as he walked by, quiet blows, whinnies, a few wet snorts and neighs. Maybe they were talking to each other, wondering who the hell he was, or more likely—had he brought food.
That apple’s mine.

He reached the end without finding an unoccupied stall, though he did spot a pile of blankets in a far corner. As he started toward them, he caught the sound of a door opening behind him and slipped into the closest stall. He curled up at the front so anyone looking over would be less likely to see him and pulled straw over his legs.

Of course, he hadn’t counted on the current occupant objecting to sharing his residence. The horse stamped its hoof. Close and hard. Aden cringed and tried to curl up even tighter. A hoof slammed down next to his thigh and he jumped.
Fuck.
The horse looked enormous. It snorted and stamped again.

“Shut up, you pest,” someone shouted.

The horse lowered his head and nudged Aden’s pocket.
The apple?
He took it out, bit off a piece and held it up. The horse snaffled it. Aden could hear someone walking toward him. He gave the horse another chunk of the fruit then pulled more straw over himself. Not much of a disguise, but better than nothing. The horse shifted to stand with his head over the door and blocked Aden from view. Had that been deliberate?
Oh yeah because a horse would do that, you twat.

“What was that about?” a gruff voice asked from inches away. “Still not eating? Hey, no biting.”

Biting?
Aden wasn’t sure he took another breath until he heard the footsteps receding and the door close. The horse nudged his pocket and Aden chomped off another piece of apple and stood up.

Christ. You’re big.
Aden was six two but was dwarfed by the horse. It was chestnut coloured with a white blaze down its face and long eyelashes. He risked a gentle pat at the side of the head and the horse reared up. Aden shifted out of the way just before the hooves slammed down where he’d been standing.