Adam frowned at me. “What’s with the hand?”
I supposed it looked pretty suspicious, me keeping my hand buried in my jacket like that. I lowered my voice so that only Adam could hear me. “Broken finger, and I don’t want anyone splinting it, if you know what I mean.”
As long as no one knew it was broken, Lugh could fix it as soon as I got somewhere private and managed to lose consciousness. I’d have to put a splint or bandage on it so as not to let Der Jäger know I was possessed if—or, more likely, when—we met again, but I could do that after the break healed. More sirens approached. Adam regarded me with interest and speculation in his eyes. Frighteningly, I knew him well enough to guess what he was thinking.
“You turn me in to the EMTs, and I will feed you your balls.”
He grinned. “It might almost be worth it.” The grin faded. “But I don’t think our little chat can wait until after the emergency room is done with you.” He moved closer still, and I had to fight an urge to back away.
“Let’s see how bad it is,” he said.
I considered my options and realized there were none. Reluctantly, carefully, I extracted my hand from my pocket. Every movement brought a new wave of pain. I didn’t want to look at the damage, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself, even though seeing my finger bending that way made me want to pass out.
Apparently, I didn’t know Adam as well as I thought—either that, or I was too addled by the blow to the head to guess what was coming.
He moved with lightning quickness, grabbing me, turning me around, and hauling me up against his chest. One hand clapped over my mouth, his fingers biting into the bruises Der Jäger and my father had left on me.
“Hold still,” he hissed in my ear. “This’ll be over in a second.” Then, still covering my mouth, he reached for my injured hand. I tried to jerk away, but he was too much bigger and stronger than me. He pulled my arm up against my body, then used his other elbow to pin me there. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, knowing I would not win this battle.
A white light flashed behind my closed eyes like lightning when he straightened my finger, realigning the bone. I was glad he had his hand over my mouth, because despite my gritted teeth I would have screamed my lungs out if I could.
“There,” he said, still holding me against him. “Now no one has to know it’s broken.”
He let me go, but not before I noticed he had a hard-on. And no, not because he thought I was such a hot chick that he couldn’t help being turned on by the body contact. I wanted to tear into him, but at that moment another man in blue came into the room, and they started doing the cop-speak thing.
Adam pulled a lot of rank to hurry me out of there with only a cursory statement, which he “took down” himself. I was sure he’d fill me in later on what I supposedly told him. He extracted me from the crime scene, guiding me to his unmarked. I’d ridden in the backseat before, but apparently I’d gotten a promotion and now got to sit up front.
I looked back at the house as we were pulling away and saw EMTs swarming over something in the back. I remembered the scream I’d heard when Der Jäger escaped. I figured some poor guy had been covering the back door, having no idea that what came out of it wouldn’t be human.
“Is he dead?” I asked Adam, craning my neck to keep the house in sight.
“No,” Adam said brusquely, turning a corner. “Not yet, unfortunately.”
I shuddered. I didn’t really want to know, but I couldn’t help asking. “What happened to him?”
Adam glanced at me from the corner of his eye, then fixed his gaze on the road once more. “He spilled his guts. Literally. Of course, he had some help.”
My stomach roiled at the image, my face going first cold, then hot. “Stop the car!”
He didn’t ask any questions, just pulled over to the curb and idled. I shoved the door open and puked into the gutter. I’m sure the nearby pedestrians were just thrilled with the show, but I couldn’t help it. I heaved until there was nothing left in my stomach.
When I thought it was safe, I slumped back into the car and pulled the door shut. I was shaking and sweating, exhausted like I hadn’t slept in weeks. And let’s not forget the persistent, throbbing pain that pulsed in time to the beat of my heart.
Adam handed me a handkerchief. “Sorry I don’t have any water to rinse out your mouth.”
I closed my eyes and laid my head back against the seat. At the moment, I had absolutely nothing to say. I didn’t even have the good sense to ask Adam where he was taking me. I tried to relax through my misery, hoping I could drift off long enough for Lugh to patch me up, but no such luck.
I didn’t open my eyes again until Adam brought the car to a stop. I looked around and saw we were in a parking garage. I made the logical assumption that this was the garage for my apartment building, and I thought longingly of my bed.
But of course I still had to have my “conversation” with Adam.
“How did you end up showing up just in time to save the day?” I asked.
“A call came in about a possible burglary in progress. The caller said a six-foot, red-haired woman seemed to be casing the house, then snuck in when the occupants left. I recognized the address and made an educated guess who the six-foot woman was. I figured whatever you were up to, it wasn’t something the regular police needed to know about, so I thought I’d swing by.”
I guess I hadn’t been too subtle when I hung around that little grocery store. Not that subtlety had ever been one of my strong suits. “I’m only five-nine,” I commented, but Adam didn’t seem amused.
“What were you up to? And what went wrong?”
The cat was well and truly out of the bag, so I figured there was no point in keeping the information to myself. I told him everything—about my mysterious hospital stay, about the files, about the letter from Bradley Cooper, about the pile of ashes, and about Der Jäger. And I tried not to think about the scream I’d heard, the scream of a man having his guts torn out by a demon. I swallowed hard and thanked my lucky stars my stomach was already on empty.
Silence reigned when I was finished. I stared out the windshield at the gray concrete wall and concentrated on breathing. At least I tried, though the steady throbbing of my finger was something of a distraction. And I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Der Jäger’s parting shot. He and I had unfinished business. Oh, joy!
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this yesterday?” Adam asked. “We could have worked something out, gotten to those papers before your parents burned them.”
I turned my head to look at him. “Maybe I didn’t want to risk having my parents tortured to death if you weren’t satisfied with what you learned.”
“Ah,” he said, “this is still about Valerie.”
I reached for the handle of my door—with my left hand, of course—but Adam hit the locks.
“You’re never going to forgive me for that, are you?” he asked. “Even though you know I had no choice.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “My head knows you had no choice. My heart doesn’t give a shit.”
Would he figure he had no choice but to interrogate my parents now? And if he did, was there anything I could do to stop him?
I knew there wasn’t. God, how I hated feeling helpless! And I’d been feeling helpless far too often lately.
Once again, I reached for the door, hitting the unlock button. But before my hand got to the handle, the locks snicked shut again. If I wanted to get out, I’d have to use both hands simultaneously, and I couldn’t bear the thought of moving my right hand more than absolutely necessary. I glanced down at it and saw that while, thanks to Adam, the finger was straight, it was swelling up like the proverbial balloon.
“What are you planning to do now, Morgan?” Adam asked. “You can’t just go back to your apartment and resume life as normal. Not with Der Jäger still hunting you.”