I pulled the little test strip out of my purse. He inspected it before putting it into his mouth like a strip of gum.
“Interesting. Very interesting. ” He rolled it around inside his mouth like the first sip of fine wine. Then he spit it out on the ground.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“It says your brother gets to live. ” Dren gave me a faint smile, hiding the calculations occurring behind it.
“Anything else?”
“Nothing you need to know right now. ”
“Nothing about all of this?”
“Go home, Edith. ”
“Thanks for saving my life, I guess,” I said as ironically as possible.
Dren smiled cruelly, showing fangs. “You’re welcome. ”
* * *
I hopped into my car. I’d check on the dent later—nothing in the door was going to affect my power steering, which was all I needed to get home right now. Before the engine took, Dren was gone. I didn’t see where to—and as long as he wasn’t riding along on my car’s roof, I didn’t care. Pulling out of the parking lot, I called Sike and got her voice mail.
“Hey. Two things that were allergic to silver just tried to kill me in a parking lot. Thought you might want to know,” I said, and hung up.
My apartment complex’s parking lot was empty, and my door was locked. I was very pleased to see the inside of my apartment again, even if that still included an eyeless aberration sitting on my couch.
“Who wants lemon chicken?” I asked as I walked in, and Gideon turned toward me. I smiled bravely, even though he couldn’t see.
* * *
I wrapped up my finger and put on the abdominal binder I’d been sent home with after my stabbing. Its tension around my waist, a feeling that I’d chafed at while wearing it originally, felt comforting now, like a squeeze from a good friend. I didn’t think I’d done any damage, but I wanted to make sure.
After the ceremony of setting out the many towels, it took a while to feed Gideon, and he was a horrible conversationalist. But it gave me a way to keep busy, even if it couldn’t entirely still my thoughts.
Who were those ladies? And why were they after me? If Dren didn’t know what pack they were from … what did that mean?
Gideon missed more food than went in, making a huge mess with each bite. Feeding a grown adult took a lot of time and reminded me of my nursing school days. Seemed like half my time was spent sitting in the rooms of elderly patients, feeding one half spoon of applesauce or pudding at a time. Sometimes those little old ladies were so hungry, and they hadn’t been properly, patiently, fed in so long, it just made you want to cry. Once people lost the ability to feed themselves, that was the beginning of the end. But not fo
r Gideon, which made me want to cry a little, too.
I fed him until he didn’t want to eat anymore and I felt like a better person for it when I was done. At least one thing had gone right today, and for the past hour or so, no one had tried to kill me.
“Let’s find out what our fortunes are,” I said, like I did at the end of every Chinese meal, except most times I was talking to Minnie. I cracked open two cookies like walnuts and fished the slips of paper out of the cookie shards.
“Here’s yours, Gideon,” I said. “Now is not the time to circle mints. ”
Gideon tilted his head at me.
“I’m so not kidding. That’s what it says. We should take it back. ” I snorted and pulled out mine. “You will meet a tall, dark stranger? So original. Thanks, fortune cookie. ”
I’d prefer not to meet any more strangers right now, maybe forever. I crumpled the fortune up and tossed it aside. At least it hadn’t said anything about meeting them in an alley. Or with knives.
* * *
I set our dishes in the sink along with the ones I still needed to wash from Christmas, and tried to figure out how best to occupy my time. Gideon was a couch hog, and hanging out in my bedroom with Veronica only a closet door away didn’t sound like much fun.
I decided to suck it up, take the folding chair out of my closet, and hang in the corner on the Internet. Minnie came along to agree that this suited her just fine, if only I’d magically create more lap space for her. I’d just about negotiated balancing a laptop and a cat when my phone rang.
“Sorry, Minnie. ” I set her down, and put the laptop down beside her. Maybe it’d be Anna or Sike calling me back with some decent explanations. About time. I found my phone, and didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Edie, it’s Gina. ”
“Hey! What’s up?” I immediately thought of everything I could have done wrong last night, when I’d been briefly in charge of Winter. “Did I screw something up?”
“Nooooo, this isn’t one of those calls. ” Her voice was a little slurred. Then she was quiet.