Page 29 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

Finished with her inspection, Sully faced me directly. “An angel gave you paint to get high?”

I nodded, testing the tether of my neck that felt as limp as a cooked noodle. “Evander. He was at the trash art show. Do you know him, too?”

Sully sighed. “I don’t think so.”

Stepping around me, she bent and began collecting book pages from the floor. She draped them over one arm, all out of order and striped or misted with paint.

I crowded in behind her, talking to her back as she worked. “Loren doesn’t like him,” I said, then amended, “Loren doesn’t like many people. Or angels.” I frowned. “Do angels count as people?”

Sully lifted a pair of pages that were stuck together and peeled them gingerly apart. “I’m not sure,” she replied.

Pausing in my pursuit, I consulted the canvas. Not too shabby for a first attempt, but it could use a few more stars…

I raised the aerosol can, targeting the blank spot in need of speckles.

“Evander paints like this,” I said. “In Central Park. People love it.” The hissing sound as I pressed the nozzle caused Sully to jerk upright.

She spun on me with ire in her eyes.

“Do you have a lighter?” I asked.

“What for?”

“There’s this cool flamethrower trick…”

Her hand flew out and snatched the can of white paint. “No,” she snapped.

Tucking the can in the nest of papers, she went for the other colors next, collecting them all in an awkward armload. When she headed into the kitchen, I followed.

“Evander, though,” I continued. “I told him about Moira and Whitney, and he called the hellhounds beasts. That’s racist. Classist? Speciesist?” I shook my head, and a rogue curl brushed the bridge of my nose. “And he said he‘allowed’Loren to be around me. What the fuck is that? He doesn’t make the rules. He’s not my dad. Or my daddy.”

Giggling, I stopped in place while Sully piled the paint and pages on the counter. She went to the under-sink cabinet next and rooted around to produce a roll of trash bags and tear one off.

“I called Loren that once,” I said as she shook air into the bag. “You should’ve seen his face. Grossed the fuck out. He’s so literal, I swear. Like that time I begged him to breed me, and he sat me down and proceeded to have this entire conversation about how he’s dead, and we’re both dudes, so he can’t get me pregnant.”

I snickered again at the memory of sitting naked in bed and enduring a damn near scientific explanation about how there was a lot of otherworldly shit going on in our lives, but butt sex babies were not one of them.

“I mean thank god, right?” I asked through a wide grin. “Pregnancy would be hell on my figure.”

With a single sweeping stroke, Sully pushed every book page and can of paint into the garbage bag.

My gaze dropped to where the bottom of the sack bulged, then tracked back up to Sully’s face.

“Is this really what you want?” she asked. “Huffing paint and stinking up my apartment while you ramble about angels and your breeding kink? Who knows what you’re doing to your brain.” When she hefted the bag into the air, the metal cans clattered inside. “Is it what you want?” she repeated. “Or can you just not help yourself?”

The knife of reality sliced through my euphoric cloud, and my lips pursed in a sour look of my own. “Iwantmy fucking boyfriend back, Sully.”

I wanted the paint back, too, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. Let her take it to the dumpster. I could dig it out. Maybe I could tag the alley wall while I was at it. Graffiti was art, too.

“This isn’t even about Loren, and you need to stop using him as an excuse for your behavior.” Sully’s locs swung as she knotted off the trash bag and dropped it on the floor. She straightened and aimed an accusatory finger at me. “This is aboutyou. Your life and how you want to spend it.”

“My short ass life,” I snipped, tasting the bitterness that had been on a slow drip for days. Minutes ago, I’d been savoring the rainbow, but now everything was black.

“No one is guaranteed anything,” Sully replied. “Not a day, certainly not forever.”

“How about a forever of short ass lives?” I folded my arms again and set my feet to stop myself from swaying.

Sully rounded on me with her shoulders back and feet planted much more firmly than mine were.

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