Page 28 of Lure

After my third or fourth deep breath, I managed to take the bite without choking on it. Chewing it slowly didn’t help as much as I would have hoped. The omelet tasted good but it was so rich. My second bite was a lot smaller. It was like trying to swallow a stone, but I got it down. The water glass was there, so I grabbed it instead of the coffee. As good as the coffee sounded, I needed to get my stomach to stop protesting.

Movement across the table from me pulled my gaze up. Bones had taken the seat directly opposite me. “You’re fine,” he said, motioning with his bruised hand toward the food. “Slower bites and Lunchbox is bringing you toast.”

“I’m fine.” Arguing the point was going to become automatic soon enough. I didn’t want to rely on Bones for help or for him to notice anything.

“Yes, you are,” he said, without an ounce of irony or scorn. “We haven’t been feeding you well enough. So we’re going to help you get through this.”

“Bones is right,” Lunchbox said as he circled the table and set a plate of dry toast down next to the omelet. He set another omelet in front of Alphabet. Unlike mine, Alphabet’s looked like it had been piled high with everything—including peppers and salsa.

My stomach flip-flopped unhappily. Right, don’t focus on that. “I really am okay,” I said on the heels of a long exhale. “I just didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“It’s okay,” Alphabet said and this time he brushed his fingers down my arm. “Take as much or as little time as you need. We’ve got plenty of stuff for an upset stomach if youneed it.” That was nice, and before he’d even finished Voodoo disappeared out of the kitchen. No doubt, he went to get me something for my stomach.

A chuckle worked its way through me. It shouldn’t be funny. In fact, itwasn’tfunny. As far as I knew, Voodoo wasn’t a doctor of any kind, but he handled most of my wound care. Or he had since we’d left that clinic. Bones still studied me from across the table. He didn’t remove his attention even as Lunchbox set a plate in front of him. Nor did he when Voodoo slid into the seat next to me with a stack of little pills.

I paused with the bite on its way to my mouth as I stared at the various and sundry pills he’d retrieved. “Got a little bit of everything,” he said. “Antacids, nausea, gas—pick your poison.”

The earlier laugh that I’d tried to smother bubbled up through me again. “Do I want to know why you have a medicine cabinet of upset stomach meds?”

Voodoo shrugged. “Nothing nefarious. At least not right now. We know how to trigger these reactions in people too. If you’re going to set someone up to be sick, it’s better to make sure you don’t take yourself out at the same time.”

“Hangovers are ass too,” Alphabet volunteered in between bites. “The last thing you want is to be puking when you need to rehydrate. So yeah, we got a little bit of everything.”

“I always thought hair of the dog that bit you worked pretty well.” At least when we had dawn shoots after being up dancing and drinking all night. Most of the time, I was still a little drunk when we showed up on set. “Sadly, this isn’t alcohol so much.” I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d gotten plastered. “I didn’t realize we hadn’t eaten that much.”

“We’ll make adjustments,” Bones said, another reminder that he was right there. When my gaze collided with his, he leaned back in his seat. “All of us will. No more missing mealsfor you. You’re already scrawny and don’t have enough meat on your bones to spare, much less go hungry.”

I frowned. Scrawny?

Bones gave a jerk and then glared at Voodoo. If we’d been anywhere else, I would have thought that Voodoo just kicked him under the table.

“It wasn’t an insult,” Bones argued.

“It wasn’t a compliment, either,” Voodoo countered. “You should go ahead and take one of these, Firecracker.”

“I was going to finish eating first.” If taking something upset my stomach more…

“Probably better to split the difference,” Bones suggested. “That way you can keep eating and not worry about fighting with the food after the fact.”

Fighting with it—oh yeah, okay. “You have a point.” One I was willing to concede. I chose a pair of pink pills. They would coat my stomach and let me eat. Easier to pick them since I had a solid idea of what they would do and how they would affect me. Once I’d downed them, I resumed my slow bites and washed the food down with coffee and water.

The guys had already decimated their meals but waited for me, without rushing or even prodding me. When I would pause to have a sip of water, they each seemed to be having some kind of private conversation with each other by exchanging looks and what I thought might be hand signals. Those ceased under my observation but since it kept resuming when I focused on the food again, clearly I wasn’t imagining it.

Still, when I finished the last of my toast and pushed away the final third of the omelet, I felt a little more human. I was also debating getting up to make myself another flat white.

“Thank you for giving me the time to eat,” I said, glancing at each of the guys one at a time until my gaze rested on Bones. “Are we going to actually settle all of this now? And talk? Or isthis going to end with another dismissive comment that cuts me off at the knees?”

It came out far more combative than I’d intended, but I didn’t regret the choice. Voodoo made it sound like he and Bones had fought and worked out some of this shit. The bruises on their faces were further evidence. Alphabet looked a little harried today, more than the day before or even after the drive and the…

The image of the vehicles catching fire and flipping as he shot out their tires and gas tanks played on repeat in my head. I hadn’t seen what happened to the guy in the barn, but based on the blood that had been all over Alphabet and the knife in his prosthetic, the guy was definitely no longer with us.

Hard to find myself caring about that part too. Except…

I sighed.

“Yes,” Bones said. “We are. I made some calls. We have some information. We’re going to debrief—all of us.”

I frowned.

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