The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,141

again. This time, the lights went off for longer. When Tean came back, Leroy was waiting. He was holding the bloody knife. The tattoo of Bo the Goldendoodle was stretched over the straining cords in his neck. He was screaming something, Tean realized, although the volume inside his head was all the way down. It took a moment for Tean to understand the two words being repeated: “Say it! Say it! Say it!”

Tean popped him in the mouth. It was a nothing blow; he was pinned on the ground, without the ability to generate any serious force behind the punch. But it snapped Leroy’s head back for a moment. Then Leroy looked down again, and the knife stabbed toward Tean.

It never reached him.

Leroy jerked backward and then glanced around, the expression on his face comically surprised. He put one hand to the side of his head and then waved the other, still holding the knife, as though warding off a horsefly. He jerked again, and this time, Tean saw it: the flash of metal before a hex nut cracked against the side of Leroy’s head. It opened a bloody gash in his scalp, judging by the way Leroy flinched and then screamed, Jem had put a serious amount of force behind the blow. Leroy swung himself off Tean, turning toward Jem, who had come up behind him. That was as far as he got. A tube sock full of something heavy cracked against the side of his head, and Leroy went down.

Jem dropped onto his knees and released the tube sock. Cradling his injured arm, he crabbed toward Tean. His face was shiny, almost translucent, like waxed paper. In his eyes, Tean could see that he was on the brink of falling off into a horrible place.

“Did you at least put a can of Tab inside that sock?”

After a moment, Jem shook his head, and a tiny sob that was also kind of a laugh slipped free. Tean managed to sit up, and he put his arm around Jem, pulled his head down to his shoulder.

“Aquarium gravel,” Jem finally managed to whisper. “He had a whole bag of it.”

“Mine was better,” Tean said.

He didn’t start breathing again until he heard another of those broken laughs.

38

For Jem, things got better by stages. First and most important was that Tean was safe. Then the police taking away Leroy and Roger. When the ambulance finally arrived, the paramedic was a tiny girl with a mound of curly hair, and she gave him a shot and made him lie down. Then, at the hospital, they gave him something even better while they worked on his arm. It crashed over him, dead dark waters like the Salt Lake, until he came up screaming because the dog was back, the dog was going at his arm again. Then they gave him something else, and when he woke, he was in Tean’s bed.

It took him a while to understand where he was. The light coming through the window meant early morning, the mountains just a blue haze, as though they might smoke away in the dawn. The smell of Gain on the sheets. And the faint dustiness of range grass, the hint of crushed resin. Through the open window came the sounds of a city getting started: tires, brakes, a distant horn.

Snapping jaws.

Teeth.

Worst was the sound, the snarl building in its throat.

On the nightstand was a vial of Valium, and Jem shook out two and held them under his tongue. He considered the closed door. Tean would be on the other side with Scipio, and for a moment, Jem had to rest his head in his hands. It wasn’t until then that he noticed the flash of pain, and his forearm swathed in bandages. But he couldn’t stay in here forever, and the Valium was coming down on him like a snowdrift, so he made his way to the door and opened it.

No Scipio. No Tean.

Jem went into the bathroom. He peed. He used a washcloth and soap to give himself a cat bath at the sink—he didn’t feel up to wrapping his arm in a bag and showering. He fixed his hair. Then he opened the mirrored cabinet and saw that the Xanax were gone.

When he came out of the bathroom, he smelled the food first: definitely a McGriddle, maybe a biscuit too. The paper sack rustled in the kitchen. The footsteps of someone trying to be quiet. The clink of glass. Jem stood in the