Bullet Page 0,96

moved up through the guards. I heard myself say, “It’s okay, Lillian, you don’t have to do anything for him.”

“He’s more badly hurt than Claudia. I need to stabilize him,” she said.

“Will he live?” I asked.

“I think so.”

“No,” I said.

Lillian looked up at me, and I saw something in her face, her eyes. “Anita, you don’t have to do this.”

I nodded. “Yes, I do.”

She tried to stop me, and I said, “Get her out of here. Let her save someone else.”

Hands pulled her away. Haven looked up at me, his eyes terribly, amazingly blue against the blood on his lower mouth. Fresh blood poured out of his mouth as he tried to say something.

I aimed the .357 at his face. He stared up at me with those eyes. His voice was thick with things that shouldn’t be in a living person’s throat. He coughed, spraying blood, and said, “I’ll heal.”

I shook my head. “No, you won’t.”

“Did I kill your leopard?” he asked.

“Did you aim for him?” I asked.

He smiled, his teeth red with his own blood. “Yes.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you love them all more than you love me.” He coughed so hard that something thick and meaty fell onto the floor as if he’d coughed up some lung. Anyone who could heal from this much silver damage was so very powerful.

“Good-bye, Haven.”

He snarled up at me and started to shapeshift. His power washed over my skin in a wash of electric heat. My lioness snarled. His blue eyes filled with lion amber. I pulled the trigger. The amber slid away and I pulled the trigger the second time, staring into the same blue eyes I’d watched in bed above me more than once. The second shot made it impossible to look into his eyes. I dropped to my knees and put the barrel against his face for the third shot. At such close range, it blew the back of his head out. Like Noel, just like Noel. I was left blinking blood and thicker things out of my eyes. Too close. Blowback, it was blowback.

I dry-fired twice before I realized the revolver was empty. I got to my feet and let the empty gun fall to the floor. Without bullets it was just a heavy rock, and that wouldn’t help me against anyone in this room.

Everyone moved out of my way. No one tried to touch me, or comfort me, or talk to me. They just moved and watched me. I walked back to Nathaniel. Micah was there now, holding his hand. Nathaniel smiled up at me. I smiled back.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” I said.

Micah took my hand, but I shook my head and got to my feet. I told him, “Stay with Nathaniel.”

“He didn’t leave you a choice,” Micah said.

I nodded. “I know.” Then I started walking back toward the hallway. I just kept walking. I had a vague idea I needed to clean up again. I kept walking. Jason was in the hallway with J.J. She stared at me with wide eyes. Jason tried to get her back in his bedroom, away from all the blood and death.

I walked until I found the new showers that Jean-Claude had put in when we realized just how many people were living in the underground of the Circus. It was a big open shower like at a gym. I turned on the nearest shower head and stepped under it. I hadn’t taken off any clothes, that seemed wrong, but I just grabbed for the soap in the wall dispensers. I washed Nathaniel’s blood off my hands. I washed Haven’s blood out of my hair and off my face. Noel’s blood had soaked into my jeans from the knee down and was all over my shoes. I couldn’t get it out. I took off the jogging shoes and threw them across the room. I took off the pants and tried to scrub the knees clean.

“Anita, Anita.”

I kept scrubbing at my jeans. “I can’t get it out. I can’t get the blood out.”

“Anita!” Richard grabbed my arms, turned me to look at him while the water poured down my face and onto the front of his body. He was tall enough that the water didn’t touch higher than his chest. His brown eyes held pity, sorrow, things I couldn’t decipher.

I held the jeans up to him. “I can’t get the blood out.”

He took the jeans out of my hands. “It’s okay,” he said.

I shook my head. “It’s not.”

He drew