A Shot in the Dark by K. A. Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

okay?”
    Slightly worried, I said, “Okay?”
    “If you don’t get out of this house for a few days, I’m going to do you grievous bodily harm.” She leaned down and kissed me once, then rolled over and turned off the bedside lamp.
    In the darkness, we curled up together, both of us knowing it was only a matter of time before I woke us both with my nightmares and spent the rest of the night on the couch. Mira’s fingers traced up and down my forearm where it rested across her waist, like she could memorize it just by touch.
    She was right. I was being a jerk. I’d been a jerk all summer, touchy and quick to anger. Part of it I could chalk up to frustration at being injured, but . . . not all of it. I mean, I’d been hurt before, and worse. I’d been blown up, stitched together, taped down, and stapled shut. I couldn’t blame it all on that.
    Deep down, I knew it was the fear of the unknown. It was the lingering mystery of who tried to run me off the road a few months ago, of where my last client had disappeared to after the tornado took us on our brief tour of Oz. It was the uncertainty, the inability to do anything. I was great with an enemy to fight. Just point me and I do the slice and dice thing. But with just doubts and what-ifs? Not so much.
    That’s where the dreams came from. Always the same one, with silver claws and red eyes materializing out of nothing, killing me again and again because I simply couldn’t see it in time to save myself. He was the Yeti, and the ugly scars down the left side of my rib cage were only a small part of what he’d left me.
    I’d tried to find something in my bushido texts, some snippet of wisdom or piece of advice to set me back on track. The Hagakure said that a samurai should never joke about being afraid, lest their true heart be revealed. Since humor was one of my chief defense mechanisms, I was pretty much screwed.
    Of course, it also said that in order to ease nervousness, you should rub spit on your ears and kick everything in your path. Hadn’t tried that yet. Maybe next week.
    “What did he really want?” Out of the darkness, Mira’s voice startled me, and I jumped a little. She sounded smaller somehow, and I held her tighter without really knowing why.
    “Who, Cam?”
    “No. Him. The . . . thing, yesterday.”
    “Ah.” She wouldn’t say a demon’s name, not even the mocking one I’d assigned to him. But I knew who she meant. Last night, we’d carefully avoided mentioning Axel and his party crashing, but I guess my reprieve was over. “I don’t know. Like I said, he was being weird, even for him.”
    “What did he say?”
    I frowned a little, though she couldn’t see it. “Not much. He seemed really excited that I was going on vacation. Enthusiastic, even.” Too enthusiastic. Yet another thing that had bothered me ever since.
    “How do you feel about that?” Her hand was still stroking up and down my arm, and it finally occurred to me that she was looking for goose bumps. I was and always would be the magic-less wonder, but my earlywarning system was finely tuned.
    “I don’t know. My first instinct is to do exactly the opposite of whatever makes him happy. But then I think, maybe that’s what he wants me to do, and I should go after all, and then I get all confused after that.” I nuzzled her ear a little, hoping to distract her. “Ignore him. He’s a douche.”
    She turned in my arms, facing me though neither of us could see in the darkened room. “You’d tell me, right? If you thought something was wrong, you’d tell me?” Her fingers stroked through my hair, combing the strands out straight over and over.
    I had to think long and seriously about that. Lying by omission had become all too easy for me of late, and I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t do it anymore—not to her. So, was something wrong?
    I really thought about it, bringing Axel’s face to the front of my mind, rolling the idea of the vacation trip through my head.