Page 33 of King Among the Dead

When she met his gaze, she had the feeling that, yes, he was seeing her, but that he was seeing something else, too. Something in his mind that horrified him, and caused him to bare his teeth.

“Beck.” She could feel the bones shifting in her wrist where he held her, but she wasn’t afraid. Her pulse thumped, but she didn’t try to get away. “Beck, it’s okay. It’s me.”

“Rose. Rosie.”

“Yes, Rosie.”

“They have one,” he hissed, and all the fine hairs on the back of her neck lifted.

“Who has what?” she asked, aiming for calm. He was out of his head with fever, and one of them had to be in charge, here.

He was panting. He was crushing her wrist.

“Beck, it’s okay. Just calm down–”

“A conduit,” he said, and she stopped breathing. “Castor’s people – they have aconduit.”

Then he passed out.

~*~

He woke long enough the next morning to sit up against a stack of pillows and eat some of the oatmeal Kay brought, bleary-eyed, quiet, withdrawn, eating with slow, methodical bites that Rose thought had more to do with Kay’s stern orders to eat rather than actual hunger.

“You, too,” Kay said, and shoved a bowl at Rose.

It was buttered, and topped with brown sugar, and delicious, but each bite was an effort to get down. Still, she was shaking, and sleep-deprived, and she knew she needed the fuel.

Kay bustled about straightening the covers and clearing old glasses off the nightstand. She brought a fresh glass of water and shook out two Tylenol. “How’s the pain today?”

“Seven.” Beck swallowed with obvious effort.

“Better, then.”

When he’d eaten all he could, Rose took his bowl, and then helped Kay change his dressing; she’d grown used to the sight of his bared torso, all its fascinating contours. Had grown used to the ugliness of the black stitches crawling like a centipede along his side; the edges were a faint pink, now, less angry.

“It’s healing,” Kay said with approval.

When Beck had taken his meds, and drifted back to sleep, Kay caught Rose’s eyes and said, “Come with me.” An order this time, and one that expected to be obeyed.

Rose heaved herself up from the chair, all her muscles protesting, and followed.

“Go take a shower,” Kay said, when they were in the hall, the door closed behind them. “And then meet me downstairs. No arguing.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“Hmph. That’d be a first. Go on.”

The hot water felt so wonderful, when she stepped under the spray, that her eyes burned, and she thought she might cry. The heat soothed her aching muscles, loosened the tension she’d been carrying across every inch of her back, and it hit her all at once: a backlog of fear, and doubt, and anticipated grief held at bay by drugs, and vigils, and Kay’s deft hands on the surgical instruments.

Beck could have died, and it wasn’t the idea of being out on the street that left her throat clogged with tears, but the thought of Beck being gone. Of never seeing one of his strange little smiles again; never leaning over a book together and smelling the scent of cedar on his clothes, and smoke on his breath.

She’d never had anyone to miss before, and she would miss him terribly, awfully, devastatingly if she lost him.

She stood for long moments, hands shielding her face, letting the hot water wash her tears away. Then she finally cleaned up, shut off the taps, and went to dress.

She hesitated out in the hall, shooting a glance down at Beck’s closed door, listening. But there was no cry of distress, and she had no doubt Kay would come looking for her if she didn’t show, lecturing and muttering and calling her an idiot, too. With a sigh, she headed downstairs.

She found Kay in the butler’s pantry, where the washer and dryer were kept, folding fresh sheets at the long, butcher block counter.

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