“Now,” Edward said, glaring from one to the other of us, “we’re going to meet Anita’s backup and go hunt bad guys, not each other.”
“I will need a side trip,” Olaf said.
“Why?” Edward asked.
Bernardo answered from near the door, where he’d moved, apparently, when Olaf and I started our dance. “Hospital emergency room. She broke his wrist.”
Edward and I both looked at Olaf, and at his wrist. It wasn’t at an odd angle, so it wasn’t a bad break, but he was holding it still, and a little stiff against his side.
“Is it broken?” Edward asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“How bad?” Edward asked.
“Not too bad.”
“Will you be able to use a gun?”
“It’s why we all practice left-handed, isn’t it?” Olaf said. Which meant no.
“Fuck,” I said.
“You didn’t mean to break his wrist, did you?” Edward asked, looking at me.
I shook my head.
“I saw in the woods how much faster you are. I think you’re stronger than you realize, too. I’d be careful how hard I hit people if I were you.” The look on his face was so not happy with me. I couldn’t blame him. I’d just crippled one of his backups, and one of our most dangerous marshals. And I hadn’t done it on purpose. I lived with, trained with, sparred with, hunted, and killed shapeshifters and vampires. When was the last time I’d worked out with someone who was human? I couldn’t remember. Shit.
“I’ll take him to the hospital,” Bernardo said, “but what do we put on the paperwork?”
“Tell them it was a lover’s quarrel,” Olaf said.
“Over my dead body,” I said.
“Eventually,” he said.
“Don’t be a sick fuck, Olaf,” I said.
“I know what I am, Anita,” he said. “It’s you who keeps fighting the truth.”
“What truth is that?” I asked.
“Don’t do this,” Edward said, and I wasn’t sure which of us he was talking to.
“You hunt and kill just like I do, like we all do. There is no one in this room who is not a murderer.”
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” and my voice showed the truth of it.
I had the satisfaction of Olaf looking surprised. “Then what makes you different from me?”
“I don’t enjoy killing; you do.”
“If that is the only difference between us, Anita, then we should date.”
I shook my head and stepped back. “Take him to the hospital, Bernardo; get him a cast, get him a pill, get him fixed, just get him out of here.”
Bernardo looked at Edward. He nodded and said, “Do it. Call me from the hospital and let me know how bad it is.”
Bernardo left, shaking his head. Olaf said, “I owe you for this, Anita.”
“Is that a threat?” I asked.
“Of course it is,” Edward said. “Now you get the fuck out of here. You”—he pointed at me—“stop talking to him.”
We did what Edward said. The question was, how long could I work with Olaf and not talk to him, and what would he see as payback for the wrist? Had I finally made him stop thinking of me as his girlfriend and just as a victim, or had some weird rivalry set in? Either choice was a bad one. Multiple choice should have at least one right answer, but some people only come with wrong answers. Some people are like rigged tests where you can only fail. One way or the other, I was going to fail with Olaf and one of us was going to die. Great; the Harlequin were trying to capture me, Mommie Darkest wanted to destroy my soul and take over my body, and now one of the people on our side wanted to either fuck me, kill me, or a combination of both. Could things get any worse? Wait, don’t answer that, I know the answer. The answer is always yes. It can always get worse. Right now the Harlequin hadn’t captured me, Mommie Darkest hadn’t possessed me, and Olaf and I were both still alive and hadn’t fucked each other; when I looked at it that way, it wasn’t a half bad day.
28
WE WERE ALL set to go hunt the bad guys our way, with muscle from home to back us, and then we both got phone calls. We were called into the office to explain ourselves. I’d never been called by any marshal brass to explain myself before. When I asked Edward if it was a first for him, too, he just nodded. We were actually going to ignore the calls, but some police officers in marked cars showed up with orders to escort us to the “meeting.”
“Who’d you piss off while I was unconscious?” I asked Edward.
“To my knowledge, I haven’t done anything to anyone.”