Page 33 of Hero & Villain
I said, “Set the chopper on the street next to my car. You can’t miss it.”
“Your pink thing got old a long time ago. Do you want to tell me about it? We’ve got a few minutes before we land. And then get shot at.”
It was barely dawn, and the desert sky was turning gold and purple around the edges. “You aren’t my therapist.”
“But I could be, or do you think that you don’t have any issues?”
I shook my head. Of course I had issues. What young man with a family like mine wouldn’t have issues? “My parents have the perfect marriage.”
“How nice for them. I suppose they had the perfect children as well, one strapping son, one darling daughter, both groomed to embody the perfect Prescott name.”
“Mm, something like that.”
“But somehow you didn’t want to play the perfect game, so you started getting into fights. The trouble was that you liked it. You liked all of it, from the pain to the punishment. You could breathe a little easier after you’d disappointed them and forced their expectations to lower.”
“Do you do all the talking for your patients?”
“Probably. Go on. You were going to tell me about pink, unless you’d like me to talk about your parent’s expectations about your sexual orientation.”
I sighed heavily. I didn’t want to talk about anything, but Horse was notoriously good at getting people to open up, to start the healing. After my clashes with Daniela, I wanted to be healed so I could help her. I shrugged. “Susan, my sister, her favorite color was garish, Barbie hot pink. You wouldn’t think that it would be a big deal, but it flipped something in my mother, the ‘white trash’ cue, and she absolutely forbade it.”
He raised a brow, almost surprised that I’d opened up. Not really, though. He could read people unnaturally well. Supernaturally, probably. “You wear it in memory of your sister.”
“And as a ‘screw you’ to my mother. If she hated hot pink on her, you can imagine how she feels about me wearing it. Mostly it’s in memory of my sister. Also, in strictest confidence, I don’t hate the color.” I winked at him, feeling something ease in my chest.
He laughed, flashing that eighty-watt smile at me like he was on for show. “Interesting. Do you want me to tell you what that tells me about the deepest inner workings of your psyche? No, you don’t, because you’re a rugged, manly type who doesn’t need to be understood. Even by yourself.”
“Do you think you could fly a little faster?”
“As a matter of fact, I could.”
When we got to Jezebel’s street, Horse had me jump four feet to the pavement in spite of bragging about his bulletproof glass. Jezebel’s house was like a South American drug-lord’s compound. It wouldn’t surprise either of us to find her in possession of something she’d been given from one of her international admirers that would do more than crack the glass.
My car battery was dead, but Tom would be there in a minute with the charger. If Jezebel would let me plug into her house… No, better not risk it. She’d dump me in the desert naked next time.
A big black truck pulled up next to my car. The window slowly rolled down, and then Nix looked at me over the top of his sunglasses while he revved the engine.
“Someone needed a jump?”
I gave his truck a once-over. The Dodge T-Rex was ridiculously overpowered for the quiet neighborhood. “I thought Tom was coming.”
“Yeah, well I thought I’d check in on the recruit. Nice outfit. Is that Kevlar?”
I glanced down at the black reinforced suit. “It’s something I’m still working on. It needs more spice.”
“It’s weaponized?” He turned off the truck and got out, interest piqued.
“Lemon pepper, maybe chili powder, whatever goes with scorpion. I’m open to suggestions.”
He frowned. “What happened to your face? Did Jezebel do that? No, she wouldn’t. She knows that you’re in tonight’s fight and it’s not as good a show if the contender starts out looking like crap. I’ll have to switch you out.”
“It was an accident, and not Jezebel’s fault for once.”
He raised an eyebrow. “An accident? Noses don’t get broken like that by accident.” He smiled slowly. “The new girl doesn’t know about our fight schedule. Maybe we should put her in the lineup. What do you think about her? Will she be an asset or a headache?”
I rubbed my temple, where it throbbed from the literal headache she’d given me, and had a brilliant idea that would both punish her and keep her from becoming candy to feed thelecherous gaze of the masses. “I heard that she’s surprisingly good with paperwork.”
His eyes lit up. “And here I thought there would be no good news today. All right, let’s get you up and running so we can get things started.”
