Page 14 of Forget Me Not

Penn didn’t ask what they’d said, or which ‘he’ Ray meant. She tilted her head toward Ray, waiting.

“And I let them?”

Penn snorted, then gave Ray a chiding look. “There are more of them downstairs,” she said a moment later, offering a reason for her silence and telling Ray to be patient. “Hang on. You’re almost there.”

“Almost where?” Ray raised his head, but the doors chimed and then swept open, and they were on the ground floor, where the hospital ventilation mingled with the fresh air coming in through the entrances. Ray stepped out before Penn could, giving her room, and scanned the area, ignoring the people around him who were startled by, or appreciative of, his size.

The hour was late, regular hospital services were closed or closing. The information desk was empty of staff. The smell of dusty pills and more antiseptic—a pharmacy—was down another hallway that was still full of people.

Ray turned his head, distracted by artfully arranged greenery in an atrium and then the sweet scents coming from an abandoned coffee cup on one of the seats nearby. A wave of fresh, much cooler air hit him, bringing with it apples and jellybeans and old-fashioned vanilla cream wafers.

He stopped. Penn kept walking, shooting him an amused look. After another moment, he followed.

There were more voices up ahead, near the source of the fresh air. Not shouting, but not the low-voiced conversation Ray expected in the non-emergency parts of a hospital. The words bounced off the walls and the shiny floors.

“Your little glamour finally wear off or…”

A distant ambulance siren drowned out the rest of the sneering words, yet Callalily’s reply was crisp and clear.

“There you go saying I’d need a glamour when you are standing there right now choking for fairy sparkle. Gagging really.”

Penn started to walk a bit faster.

“What did you just say?” The first speaker was no longer sneering.

“You guysloveto pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Callalily sounded bored. Ray very much doubted he was. “And yet, you get a glimpse of me or Ray—or meandRay—and you light up like neon signs that spell out ‘horny for beings.’ Ooh, wait, Benny, go back to that last cat video.”

Ray and Penn turned a corner into the main lobby in time to see several uniforms and plain-clothes detectives looming over Callalily and Benny, who were standing close together by the automatic doors, peering at each other’s phones.

One of the detectives took a step toward Callalily and Penn coughed loudly, drawing everyone’s attention to her and then to Ray behind her.

Callalily jerked his head up and met Ray’s stare. His eyes widened.

“What’s going on?” Ray growled it and then took a breath that did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest. That only went away when the sneering detective fell back and several of the other officers scattered to different parts of the lobby, suddenly occupied with different matters.

If Ray or Cal were human, and in particular, if Callalily were a humanwife, they would have been sitting with him, bringing him tea or coffee. Ray had seen them do that many times.

He didn’t look at their expressions for more than a second. One or two of them dared to look betrayed by Ray’s brief show of temper, though Murphy would have behaved worse when he’d had heartburn and been unable to drink coffee.

Ray stopped at the edge of the no-slip carpet leading to the doors.

Callalily appeared to be untouched. Perhaps there was enough human in him to make pretending easier. He still hadn’t put on a shirt although the air coming in through the doors was cold. He watched Ray study him, then leaned his head slightly to the side, in the direction of some of the detectives.

“I’ve been dealing with this shit my whole life. You guys never say anything new.” His wings were beating fast. He onlyseemedindifferent. He was on alert as much as Benny was. A fairy shouldn’t have to learn how to hide that. Neither of them should have had to learn that, or been so alarmed in the first place.

“Anyway,” Callalily added, louder, “you’re all pretty anxious, so you’d think you’d want to talk to the big man himself.”

Raywasbig. He felt bigger, almost a giant, when so many of them turned to him. They hadn’t meant him to hear their earlier conversation. They hadn’t expected him to growl.

“I’m fine,” he said anyway, addressing the room and Callalily’s wide eyes. “Magic can’t stop a were.”

Penn made an unhappy noise in her throat. Ray’s stomach turned again.

“Damn straight,” one of the detectives, Ballard, agreed. “We’re tougher than that.”

“He’stougher than that,” Benny murmured into his hand, perfectly audible to Ray. “You’rewearing body armor in a hospital.”

“Right?” Callalily whispered back to his friend. “Spend a million bucks on ballistic vests but learning how to counter spells or even wearing a little safety charm would be toobeing, or something. Tsk. Anyway.” Callalily looked straight at Ray again. “Magiccanstop a were, just, apparently, not one in macho mode. Posturing asshole,” Callalily added, this time for everyone. “He could be bleeding out and he’d just get more stoic.”

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