Page 37 of Rarely Pure and Never Simple
"—so we're staying to help him."
Damien got up, hands in his coat pockets, his eyes already on some vista that didn't include the little laurel grove. "We all reach that point. Variants. When we decide how to live in the world. And with ourselves."
That seemed to be the end of the interview, as Damien wandered off toward the slope behind them, back straight, shoulders twitching now and then.
"Did we piss him off or something?" Hawkwind asked in a brittle tone.
"He's thinking. Doesn't always bother with please and thank you and stuff when he gets like that."
Shudder rose, dusting off his hands. "I'll go after him. Make sure he doesn't fall in a sinkhole."
"No!" Blaze surged up, immediately regretting his vehemence when Shudder turned that damn I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself smile on him. "No. Shuds, he's got serious twitches. Not just little ones like we do. You come up behind him, you approach him the wrong way, he'll black out and turn on you."
"You think I can't defend myself against your little locator? Really?"
"He's killed. Bigger men than you." Not necessarily true. Blaze had no idea how big the uncle had been, and the guy on the plateau had been about Shudder's size. "I'll go after him."
Shudder's smile turned down a few watts, and his voice lost its cheerful, snarky edge. "Why won't he hurt you?"
"I don't know. It's different with me for some weird reason. He called me a buffer."
"Interesting man, your Damien."
Blaze's scalp prickled at Shudder's too-blank, too-careful expression as he watched Damien walk away. "He's not my anything."
The growl was too harsh, the reaction, again, too sharp, but it had hurt to say those words for some bizarre reason. He stalked off as fast as his unhappy lung would allow.
He didn't catch up to Damien until they had topped a short rise, looking out over craggy dips and rises of foothills. Damien stood still a moment, searching the landscape. Then he turned to Blaze, shrugged out of his coat, and yanked off his shirt.
"Hold these, please. I have to search a bit."
Oh. "Need me to move back?"
"No. Stay there."
Great. Blaze Emerson: tracker, personal security, and coatrack.
Damien spread his arms, fingers parted, as he had when he searched out the trails at the school. He tipped his head back and let out a slow breath as his eyes slid shut. Where he went, what he felt, Blaze couldn't imagine. He couldn't tell people what it felt like to call the fire to his fingertips. He could get close, but it was like trying to describe music by only using words about color.
A hard shudder wracked Damien's body. He swayed, and just when Blaze was getting ready to yank him back, afraid he would collapse and tumble down the steep hillside, Damien's eyes snapped open. He steadied, shivering in the chill evening breeze.
Blaze handed his shirt back. "Anything?"
"We have to backtrack."
"Backtrack."
"Yes." Damien's forehead crinkled as he rubbed at his temples. "I need to pick up a specific trail."
"Tara Hernandez."
"Right. But this is just a terminus. I need to go back to where we were last night."
Blaze draped Damien's coat over his shoulders and received a little nod of thanks. The dark circles under his eyes were worse, the trembling along his muscles probably more than simple chill. "Maybe not tonight. You look like hell."
You're already on a ragged edge,Dr. Parma had told Damien. Worrisome, the signs of fatigue that would further chip away at Damien's precarious emotional state.
"You don't look your best, either."
