Infected: Freefall (21 page)

Roan didn’t even remember anything coherent after arriving at the church. His memory was like a broken mirror, something so completely shattered and disconnected it was hard to imagine that it had ever been one whole piece. “The cops will know who it was.” And they would, too. What they would do about it was another story.

“They’d have to prove it. And I caught up with you before you reached the church, so we have no idea who the fuck that could have been.”

Just like that; an easy lie, casually delivered, so reflexive it almost sounded like a natural truth. Roan looked at him curiously, but Holden was watching the road. His face flashed in and out as it was illuminated briefly by passing lights and plunged back into darkness again. Roan hadn’t even noticed when he started the car. “Why are you helping me?”

“It’s called friendship. Look it up.” Holden glanced at him, then shot him a brief, almost feral smile, all teeth and confidence. “C’mon, Roan, you were always good to me and my boys. Consider this good karma coming back at you.”

And the more cynical side of him knew that Holden liked to collect favors and people who might turn out to be good to know at some point in time, and he may have just fallen into that category. Was he going to protest it right now, though? No. He leaned his head against the cool glass of the passenger window, which felt inordinately good right now. He watched the road slip by like a fast-running river and wondered how long he would feel this empty. “Am I going crazy?”

“No, you’re just self-destructing. I’ve seen it happen to a lot of people. Most people do it one drink at a time, but you just had to go and prove to everyone you were gay by being flamboyant about it.” He scoffed in mock disgust. “Okay, we get it, you’re dying inside. Do you have to make a big deal out of it, cocksucker?”

Roan wasn’t sure if trying to make a joke out of it was helpful. Well, it was laugh or cry, wasn’t it? “Are you saying you’ve never self-destructed?”

“Oh, fuck no. I love myself too much to do that. That’s the key—be a conceited fuck, and you’ll never want to implode.” He winked at him as they passed beneath the halo of a streetlight.

It almost made Roan laugh. Not quite, but the fact that he nearly wanted to seemed remarkable. He thought about Connor for a moment and realized it didn’t hurt quite like it used to. Would he get there with Paris one of these days? Maybe. Not just now, though. “Are you still bucking for an assistant job?”

“After tonight, I better damn well have it.”

“I’m on the verge of making you partner,” he admitted, and to his surprise, Holden chuckled at that.

Maybe he wasn’t too far gone if he made someone else laugh. It gave Roan hope.

17

Ghosts

H
OLDEN
actually ended up taking him to Holden’s apartment, arguing that no one would think to look for him there. Roan had to admit that was true, and besides, he was too tired to actually protest.

As it was, Roan didn’t think he’d have to worry about Holden hitting on him, because once you saw a guy come within a few shattered bones of turning into a lion, could you actually be attracted to him? Well, perhaps if you were the kinky sort, into transformation porn, or if you had a cat fetish of some kind. There were quite a few people like that, especially on the Internet, but Holden had never been one. He’d have been pretty up front if that was his fetish.

They’d barely been there five minutes, and Roan had said he was sleeping on the sofa, when Holden’s cell phone went off. It was his special phone, the one only his clients knew about. He answered it with an amused expression on his face, and Roan tried not to listen as he helped himself to a drink from Holden’s fridge. He could only hear Holden’s side of the conversation, but from what he could tell, Holden was surprised to hear from this client, whom he didn’t think was in town, and the client was both a little drunk and a little horny. Holden agreed to visit him at his hotel for double rate, since it was “off hours” and he was on a night off. The client apparently agreed to the double rate and requested something, because Holden said he’d bring “it” (he had no idea what “it” was, and he absolutely didn’t want to know under any circumstances).

As soon as Holden closed his phone, he grimaced in embarrassment and said, “You’d never guess who that was.”

He wasn’t actually offering to tell him. Holden kept his client confidentiality better than most private investigators and lawyers Roan knew. Oh sure, he’d talk about them, but with obviously phony names, and he never gave any identifying details. Sure, he’d tell you this one guy likes to get the shit beat out of him, but he never gave you details that could help identify him on the street. They were all vague, sad people, the ones you’d be scared of if you didn’t pity them. “A televangelist or a Republican senator,” Roan guessed.

Holden chuckled. “Oh, you think they’re all closet queens, do you?”

“Self-loathing closet queens. If I were you, I’d secretly tape them and post it all over the Internet. Which, I’ve been led to believe, is a series of tubes.”

Holden shook his head and smirked. “You’re such a cynic.”

“Says the guy who sells his body for a living.”

“Hey, I’m tapering off of that.”

“And going into porn.”

“It’s a better deal.”

“I’m sure it is. That’s the scary part.”

Holden smiled like he was suppressing a laugh and said, “Help yourself to anything, my casa is your casa and whatnot, although I’d appreciate you not going through my porn stash. I should be back in a couple of hours, tops.”

Roan nodded, holding onto his can of soda like it was a lifeline. He wasn’t sure why. It stung like a son of a bitch going down. Carbonation and recent stomach pumping didn’t seem to mix. “Thanks.” Such a weak word, and yet he meant it sincerely, for everything.

Holden seemed to understand the weight and breadth of it all, because his expression sobered. “It’s okay. You’re better than this, Roan. You don’t have to go this way.”

Roan almost said that Holden didn’t either, but held it in. Holden probably knew that, and there was no point in stating the obvious. While he disappeared into his bedroom to get ready, Roan collapsed on Holden’s couch and was glad it was comfortable enough to sleep on. He felt like he was drifting off right now, going away to a happy place where he hadn’t come within two or three minutes of a full transformation, and where he didn’t accidentally overdose on painkillers in a hospital. And it
was
accidental, right? The scary thing was, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure himself. He was pretty sure if he was going to kill himself he’d just tuck his gun barrel underneath his chin at a slight angle, certain to blow the back of his skull out, and then pull the trigger, which would guarantee both success and the fact that he’d be dead before he even heard the shot. Only then did it occur to him that he should probably be worried that he had a planned suicide route.

When Holden appeared again, it was with a folded blanket and a pillow he put on the arm of the couch. “Get some sleep, you look like hell.”

“Let’s see you look perky after getting your stomach pumped.” He then noticed what Holden was wearing and added, “Well, maybe you could.”

“Hey, he’s into bad boys,” Holden said, not so much defensively as in simple explanation. He was wearing a white T-shirt so tight that Roan could clearly see he was wearing a nipple ring on the right side. His jeans were almost as skintight and ripped in strategic places, while he put on a black leather jacket with lots of extraneous chains, zippers, and chrome accents than was ever necessary. He jingled when he walked. “Slightly stereotypical, Hollywood-style clean bad boys.”

“Again, couldn’t you do something better for money?”

He shrugged. “Prob’ly. But I’m getting twenty-five hundred for one hour’s work. Where else am I gonna make that kinda money?”

Roan stared at him in disbelief. “He’s paying you two thousand dollars?”

“And I’m getting room service on top of that.” He grinned with a strange sort of savage pride. “He’s probably so drunk he’ll pass out before I have to fuck him, so it’ll be the easiest money I’ve made since Doug.”

“I’m not even gonna ask.”

Holden went to the door, but before he opened it, he said, “He’s a congressman, whose wife has the scariest hair helmet this side of the 700 Club.”

“I knew it. You should really expose these hypocrites.”

“Well, no one likes a tattletale. Besides, if it wasn’t for these self-loathing freaks, I’d have to get an honest job, and who wants to see that? Not me, sweetheart.” He waved at him from the door. “Ciao, baby.”

Could he have picked a stranger sidekick if he tried? No, probably not. Roan figured he’d have to work pretty damn hard and would definitely have to visit every sideshow he came across.

He was so exhausted he slept hard and, thankfully, dreamlessly. He never even heard when Holden came back, but when Roan cut through his bedroom to use the bathroom, he saw Holden was asleep on his bed, almost completely lost in a pile of comforters.

In his bathroom, Roan looked into the medicine chest out of habit and found two amber prescription bottles. Both were for other people, but they were fake labels: the bottle for Peter Wang was supposedly for Xanax, but he looked inside and saw little blue pills—aka Viagra. The bottle for Amanda Dear was supposedly for tetracycline, but contained pills of unclear intent. Either way, it didn’t smell at all like something from the antibiotic family. (And he knew that smell quite well, because all antibiotics stung his nose.) He was tempted to ask Holden about this, but that would have meant admitting he’d opened the bottles and looked inside, which was just too creepy and needy, basic junkie behavior.

He was going to head out to his car and then remembered Holden had driven him here. Fuck. He called a cab, and while waiting for it checked his messages.

He had several from Dee, almost all starting, “You motherfucker,” which didn’t encourage him to listen longer. He fast-forwarded through most of them. Chris had also called, just to see if he had anything new to report. Rainbow had called early in the morning, to say that there had been a “fracas” on church grounds last night, and David Harvey was now missing. No one knew what had happened to him. Rumors had it he (Roan) was to blame for all the violence last night, but for some reason no one wanted to pursue it with the police. “I don’t like that, Roan,” she said, sounding nervous. “If you did it, I don’t like it either, but them not pressing charges? Something’s going on there. It can’t be good for you.”

Her concern was touching. Did he have anything to worry about? Perhaps. It was hard to tell what a loony church would do next. But he hoped they had got the message that if they went after anything near and dear to him, they would pay, swiftly and bloodily.

Wow—that didn’t sound at all insane.

The last message was from one of the nicer nurses at the hospital, named Akembi. She let him know that Dylan was now conscious and asking for him. According to the time code on the message, she had called a little over an hour ago.

As soon as the cab arrived, he had it take him to the hospital. Never mind that he hadn’t showered or changed his clothes or eaten or even shaved off this beard he now had—he owed it to Dylan to see him. Also, selfishly, he had to make sure he was okay.

It was busy at the hospital when he arrived, but in a way that was good, as he was able to cut through the crowd and not gain the notice of anyone by the admissions desk.

When Roan ducked into Dylan’s room, he was sitting propped up in bed, talking to an intern in blue scrubs (thankfully not the intern Roan had collapsed in front of). Dylan looked tired and bruised, his face still swollen and one eye blackened to the point that his eyelid was barely open on the right side. Still, there was a brightness in his eyes upon seeing Roan. The intern, a petite Indian woman with a rather severe bob, told Dylan she’d come back later and gave Roan a polite nod as she left the room. Roan hugged Dylan—carefully—and kissed him on the unbruised side of his face. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Dylan wrapped an arm around his waist and gave him a weak but affectionate squeeze. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is. They attacked you because of me.”

“You didn’t kill them, did you?”

He wasn’t kidding. Dylan’s tone of voice was deadly serious. He was glad he didn’t have to lie to him. “No, I didn’t. The cops got them first.”

Dylan let out a deep sigh of relief. “Thank god. The first thing I thought was you were gonna kill them.”

“You know me too well.”

Dylan kissed his cheek affectionately. “I know. It scares me too.” He ran his hand over his beard and scowled. “I can’t have been out that long.”

“It’s a long story.” Roan rested his head on Dylan’s chest, not only so he could hear his heartbeat, but also so he didn’t have to look Dylan in the eye. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were mad at me.”

“Why the hell would I be mad at you? You didn’t make them hurt me. You have to expect the occasional psycho when you’re dating Batman.”

He groaned into his chest. “Please, don’t you start.”

“What, they can call you that down at the station, but I can’t?” Roan could hear the smile in his voice.

“You do, and there might be some Robin jokes headed your way.”

“Oh, please don’t. I don’t like tights. Also, that’s a bit creepy.”

“What, the Dark Knight and his little Boy Wonder?”

Dylan mock shuddered. “Eww. How did they ever get away with that?”

“I have no idea.” Dylan stroked his hair, and Roan just enjoyed it for a moment. Suddenly the lingering aches of last night didn’t seem so bad. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I have the worst hangover of my life. But I’m not sure if I got it before or after the truck hit me.”

Roan kissed him softly, on the throat and up his neck, his skin tasting like salt, stopping at a gentle kiss on the lips. As much as it pained him to look down into Dylan’s bruised face, he did, carefully stroking his hair back from his forehead, avoiding the stitches. “If I say I’m sorry again, will you hit me?”