Page 42 of Brother's Keeper

Rolling onto my stomach, starved for air, my coughs turned into gut-wrenching gags that purged the fluid filling me so completely I could have been floating in it.

Someone crowded in as a smear of color in myperipheral. Hands grazed over me, but I swatted them away, pushing onto all fours and retching.

Gradually, space opened up. Water left in heaves and sputtering hacks, rushing through the holey rubber mats toward the floor drain.

Fingers brushed my face, and this time I had enough presence of mind to recognize the touch. I didn’t move toward the man who knelt beside me, instead shuddering and spitting liquid until my whole body was wrung out.

Finally, I slumped aside, sagging against Nash’s chest to find him shaking as well. His fingers quivered as they raked my hair back, and his other arm looped around my chest in an awkward embrace. I lay there, limp and aching, with my head tucked against his shoulder as I drew precarious breaths.

Down the counter, Pippa burst through the double swinging doors that allowed entrance to the back side of the bar. “What the hell was that?” she exclaimed.

I peeled one eye open to look over at her while she stared at me like I was a soggy sewer rat in Nash’s lap. Her attention went next to the ceiling as though expecting my arrival to have opened a hole to the second level. I checked, too, for good measure.

When neither of us found anything out of place, she voiced the obvious question. “Fitch, why are you wet?”

Upstairs in the livingarea, the wall shelves were stocked with the contents of Nash’s library. Aged spell books and grimoires passed down through his family line crowded in alongside the bottles and vials present in every room of the house. On the opposite wall, a glass cabinet had been converted into a small greenhouse, brimming with plants and flowers for use in potions, poisons, and perfumes.

Leather furniture filled the center of the space, with a long couch on which I now sat, wrapped in a towel and holding a mug of coffee. Nash was in full mother hen mode, sidling close while tugging a throw blanket across my lap as though I’d survived an internal blizzard instead of a tsunami.

“Sorry I don’t have any wounds for you to bandage, Florence,” I said. “The only thing that’s really hurt is my pride.”

“I don’t know. That eye lookspretty gnarly.” He reached toward my face, and I flinched away.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “You got anything for it?”

He bent to retrieve his own coffee from the low table in front of us. “For blunt force trauma?” He raised the cup to his lips. “No.” Taking a sip and swallowing, he continued, “How’d it happen, anyway?”

“I took a fist to the face.”

Nash rolled his eyes, and I shrugged in response.

“Ask dumb questions, get dumb answers,” I said.

“Fine.” He scooted back into the corner of the sofa and kicked one leg over the other. “Explain the water, then.”

“Aquamancer,” I grunted.

“No friend of yours, I take it?” The curve of Nash’s mouth was half amused. It was nice to see him lightening up, even at my expense.

“I may have been torturing him for information,” I admitted.

“On what?”

“Ripley,” I said with a sigh. “They have him locked up somewhere. Gunning for his Hex mark. Mine, too. And Donnie’s.” My gaze fell to my tattooed hand, the symbol of the beginning of my life’s troubles and likely to bring about the end of it.

“Shit. Rip’s still alive, though?”

“He was. But they may have changed their minds about that now.” I let my head loll onto the back of the couch and stared at the wallpapered ceiling. I’d been tired hours ago after my hungover day at work. Now, it was past midnight, and the near drowning had sapped the last of my energy. My eyelids fluttered, losing a battle againstthe need for sleep.

“Who’s ‘they?’” Nash asked.

A long breath eased out of me, finding a bit of dampness in the very bottom of my lungs and making me cough. “The waterboy and his rock ‘em sock ‘em friend texted Donnie earlier, pretending to be Rip. Told me to meet them at Lazy Daze. So, I did.”

“What happened to everyone else?” Scrutiny edged into Nash’s voice. I didn’t need to see his face to know his expression was equally suspicious. “Wasthere anyone else?”

“I went alone.”

“Why?”

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