Cipher by Moira Rogers Read Free Book Online

the cash. Under the harsh lights she looked pale and worn, but her expression stayed blandly pleasant until he got her back out into the parking lot. “I’m starting to feel woozy.”
    “I’ve got to get the first aid kit from the truck, and then we’re right here. Room number five.”
    “Can we get my bag too? My computer?”
    “Yeah, sure.” He propped her against the side of the SUV and grabbed the three bags, including the duffel he’d brought along, in one hand. “Just a little farther.”
    “I can do it.” And she did, though it seemed like stubbornness might be the only thing that kept her moving. As soon as he got the door open, she crossed to the sagging bed and slumped on the mattress. “Wow. It’s not even noon and I think I need a nap.”
    “You need food first.” He locked the door and grabbed the takeout menu hanging on the back of the knob. “Can you look at this while I check out your arm?”
    “After.” She tugged at the zipper, working it down in uneven jerks that made her wince. “I think you’re gonna have to help me get this off. And the T-shirt, too, if it needs to go.”
    He pulled off the jacket and wished again that he had something to give her for the pain. The makeshift bandage around her upper arm was soaked through with blood, and the sight and the smell combined made him want to rage . “Good thing Carmen gave me a crash course in creative first aid.”
    Her eyebrows came together. “I didn’t know you were taking lessons from her too.”
    He couldn’t tell Kat the truth—that he’d done it for himself, but he’d been thinking of her. Shapeshifters healed quickly, but the most important person in his world wasn’t a shifter at all. “Pays to know how to patch people up.”
    “Guess so.” She closed her eyes, and some of her earlier giddiness seemed to have vanished under tense lines of pain. “So how bad is it?”
    “Could be way worse.” He probed at her arm. The angry furrow angling up the outside of her biceps was bleeding but sluggishly, and it looked shallow. “I don’t think it hit anything important. Doesn’t look like anything I can sew up, though. Maybe just some butterfly bandages.”
    “Oh, good. That suturing shit looks hot in the movies, but I think I’d probably puke on your boots. I’m not exactly Lara Croft.”
    He had to find some way to put her at ease, or she might puke on him anyway. “Your pop culture references are getting dated. What the hell have you been doing with yourself?”
    “Getting a PhD and becoming a psychic ninja.” She trembled under his touch. One hand rested in her lap and the other fisted around the covers so tightly her knuckles were white. But she kept talking, kept trying , even when her voice shook as hard as her body. “Oh, and letting Zola and Walker kick me around their dojo five days a week. My PlayStation has cobwebs.”
    “Okay, so you’ve been busy.” He dug a bottle of antiseptic and some gauze pads out of the first aid kit.
    “Mmm.” She listed to the side, and he gently righted her. “Had to. Busy’s better than brooding.”
    “So I’ve been told.”
    Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Busy’s better than missing you.”
    No amount of activity had kept him from missing her. “I know what you mean.”
    Kat laughed, though it broke off when he dabbed the antiseptic on her wound. “We both kept so busy to keep from missing each other, and now the people we were missing are gone.”
    “I haven’t changed that much,” he lied.
    “Don’t need empathy when the lie’s that stupid.”
    It hurt to acknowledge the truth, so he’d forced himself to do it a long time ago. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would do the same. “All right, those people are gone. No laid-back architects or happy-go-lucky programmers here.”
    “No.” The pain in her voice cut deep. “But you found a new place. You’re on the Southeast council and you’re changing the world and I’m—I’m practically