The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,75

that needle and the horrified expression on Marin’s face when she’d arrived.

“It’s me, Kit,” the voice said, and her name settled her spinning mind.

“Dennis.”

“It was just a warning,” he repeated, palms warm on the sides of her head. His jaw clenched as he studied her face.

“Yes,” Kit said mechanically. It was a terrible one.

“Where is Grif?” he asked, voice strained.

Kit looked around at all the officers, at the paramedics, at Marin, then back at Dennis. She finally shook her head. “I don’t know.”

All she knew was he hadn’t been where he said he’d be.

Chapter Seventeen

Grif strode down the hospital corridor for the second time that day, though this time there was an urgency to his step that had been lacking before, one that had the few people he did pass at this late hour stepping quickly to the side. The pocket phone Kit had given him, the damned thing he never bothered to check, had been blinking for he didn’t know how long. And though the message had sat there for hours, the elapsed time did nothing to erase the urgency in Kit’s voice.

Marin’s been attacked. Come as soon as you can.

By the time he found his girl slumped on a cold plastic chair at the end of a long, bright hallway, her urgency had obviously burned away . . . yet something else had burned away with it. She turned her head, saw Grif coming, and instead of standing to greet him, simply sighed and put her head back in her hands.

“It was a warning,” she said, before he could sit or even ask. “The Russians, in retaliation for the article that ran this morning. At least, that’s what they told Marin. She said before that they moved fast when wronged. I should have listened.”

He knelt before her, hands on her knees. “What did they do, Kit?”

“They left a note. It said, ‘This is for shooting off your mouth. Next try shooting this.’ ” Her gaze was watery when she opened her eyes. “They had her hooked up to a load of krokodil, Grif.”

The memory of decaying flesh on a living body revisited him, and Grif wavered in his crouch. “Did they . . . ?”

Kit shook her head hard, cutting him off. “The drug didn’t touch her.”

“It was in the syringe, though?” he asked, and she managed a nod as footsteps fell behind him. Grif turned, then stood when he saw Dennis coming down the hall, a cup of steaming joe in each hand. When the hell did he get here?

Accepting the coffee, Kit answered the unvoiced question. “Dennis brought me in. He was there when I found her.”

Grif’s jaw tightened so much it hurt. “Good. Thank you.”

“Of course,” Dennis said, then jerked his head at the door across from them. “I’m going in. See if she can tell us anything more.”

“Thank you. For everything.” Kit put a hand on his arm.

Very slowly, Grif followed the touch with his gaze, angling up to settle on the man’s face. Silent, seething, he kept it there until Dennis nodded and left. Then he shifted and sat, only to find Kit giving him an equally aggressive look.

“Where were you?” she asked softly.

Grif drew back. There was something thin and metallic—and somehow wedge-shaped—in her voice. It rose up between them and put a bump in his chest that had his own words speeding up. “I delivered Jeannie to incubation. She’s safe and clean and out of pain.”

“And then?” Kit asked, not looking at him.

Grif licked his lips. “I still had time . . . or so I thought. So I asked Sarge about the Third, about Scratch in particular—” He saw Kit’s jaw tighten and hurried on. “You gave it your tears, even after I told you not to—”

“This isn’t about me. Where were you?”

He hesitated. “Sarge, well, he mentioned Evie—”

Kit sighed.

“And it was the first time he ever brought it up himself, so—”

“So you thought you’d stick around.”

“It wasn’t long. Two minutes, more or less.”

“A lot can happen in two minutes.”

“Kit, I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t know.” She shook her head. “But you left me alone.”

“I was doing my job,” he defended himself. “I was watching after the dead!”

“Maybe you should care a little more about the living,” she said, then held up a hand as he drew away. She shook her head, and he could see she wanted to take it back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“You’re sore—”

“I’m not mad, Grif. I’m hurt and I’m scared. Marin was