The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,98

off, and crawled onto the couch. He lay there with Scipio squeezing into the curve of his body as a narrow ray of sunlight crossed the room, thinned, and vanished.

28

Jem woke to darkness, and a paw on his ear, and the sound of a key in the lock. Then Scipio thrashed with excitement, managing to smack Jem in the face several times before getting off the couch. The door opened, and a ribbon of light fell in from the doorway. Jem blinked. Then Tean hit the switches, and Jem had to squeeze his eyes shut.

“Didn’t you get my messages? Hi, hello, Skip. Yes, I saw, you were being very good as his nap buddy.” When Tean spoke again, his voice had changed. “Are you sick? You really don’t look good.”

Jem shook his head.

Footsteps crossed the room, and then a cool hand touched Jem’s face. He flinched, but another hand cupped the back of his head, and then Tean touched his face again. “I don’t think you have a fever, but I’ll get a thermometer.”

“Rectal, please,” Jem croaked.

“Open your eyes.”

After a few blinking attempts, Jem managed to comply.

As always, when it came to moments like this, Tean’s normal hesitancy and discomfort evaporated, and he seemed calm and in control. His bushy eyebrows were drawn together, and his hair looked like the Bride of Frankenstein had tried to get a chop.

“Have you been throwing up?”

“Just twenty times. Don’t worry. It was mostly blood.”

“Are you in pain?”

Jem found the doc’s hand. He guided it to his elbow and marked a spot with Tean’s index finger.

“That’s where it hurts?” Tean asked.

“No, that’s the only part that doesn’t hurt.”

“Jem, what happened?”

“I played in the trash.” Jem sat up slowly. His head was throbbing, his eyes were itchy and grainy, and he ached all over. “What messages?”

“I left you—never mind, it doesn’t matter. You need to take some Tylenol, eat something light, and go to bed. I’ll make you some chicken soup.”

“No,” Jem said. “Uh, I mean, you don’t need to do that. I’m fine. Really. I’ll just go vomit some more blood and I’ll be right as rain.”

“Are you really vomiting blood?” Tean asked. “Because if you are—”

Jem stumbled into the bathroom and shut the door before Tean could finish. He leaned on the sink. Then he opened the mirrored cabinet and shook out one of the doc’s generic Xanax. He held it under his tongue and watched himself in the mirror until the world took a couple of steps back. Just for kicks, he put a second Xanax under his tongue. It was like the air got a little thicker. The light gelled. Try getting through that, motherfucker.

When he went back to the living room, Tean was coming back in from outside, Scipio pulling on his harness.

“He barely stayed down there long enough to go the bathroom,” Tean said, undoing the harness while the Lab pranced in place. “He was desperate to get back up here.”

“Maybe he wants dinner.”

“Oh,” Tean said, looking at the clock. It was half past seven. “I thought you’d fed him.”

“Sorry. I was asleep.”

“Are you—”

“Why were you at work so late?”

“I had to catch up on some stuff, and then I was waiting for a call.”

“About what?”

Tean hesitated. “Let’s just get you something to eat. I’ll go grab you a Big Mac.” He offered a scraped-bare smile. “I won’t even try to cook.”

“I’m not sick,” Jem said. “I just fell asleep.” He pulled out his phone and looked at the messages from Tean. “You found where they’re doing a celebration of life for Joy. That was the call you were waiting for?”

“I did something dumb. I talked to Zalie earlier, just trying to see if I could find any of Joy’s friends, and she said she’d call me back. I told her to call the office. Then I was stuck waiting because I hadn’t thought far enough ahead and I couldn’t get through to her. When she finally called, she told me about the celebration of life and gave me the details.”

“Not dumb. You got us a good lead. Let’s go see who shows up to Joy’s celebration of life.”

“I really think—”

But Jem was already grabbing his windbreaker and heading toward the door. “Better give him his dinner.”

Tean sighed behind him, and then Jem was out of the apartment, the sound of kibble hitting the bowl following him down the stairs.

He was waiting by the truck when Tean finally came down, and they drove east. The sunset was fading, the