Page 85 of Wilde's End
WILDE
Fucking Lynx. I should have known he was going to pull something like this. My injuries are burning against my rain-cooled skin, and it’s almost a relief that it’s all I can focus on and not Hudson’s unwavering attention.
The whole time I drive, his eyes are on me, and I knew cutting my beard was a stupid fucking choice. I can’t tell if my hands are clammy from the attention or still wet from the rain.
“Stop looking at me,” I give in and say.
“Sorry. Still trying to process that a human lived under all that hair.”
I want to let it drop, but his eyes are needling at my consciousness in a way that makes sitting still uncomfortable. “I told you to stop looking at me.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Hudson turn to look out his window. Not that he can see a whole lot. It’s mid-afternoon, and the sudden storm has darkened everything to a point that I needmy headlights on as we rumble through the trees. These storms sweep in often and usually sweep out again just as quickly.
“You know,” Hudson says, voice fogging up the glass he’s leaning against, “if you weren’t so hot, I wouldn’t keep looking at you.”
I huff, trying to play it off like that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, while my face warms. I’m not deluded. I know I’m not hot, and I’m okay with that. I’m a grumpy, damaged shell of a human who focuses on nothing but the town so that I don’t need to think about anything else. Twenty long years I’ve built myself into exactly that type of person, and it was going well.
Hudson’s the worst thing that’s happened to me since I moved here.
Because Hudson makes me think.
Makes me remember that maybe a human lives under all this deflection.
I pull up beside the chop shop, and before I’ve even cut the engine, Hudson jumps out into the rain and rounds the front of the truck. His figure cuts through the headlights, brightening momentarily and giving me this weird moment of … he’shere. This man with bright eyes and a big personality. Someone who could be anyone.
Worry lines his forehead as he pulls my door open.
I snap out of my … whatever … and switch the truck off.
“What are you doing?” I eye him suspiciously as I climb out, and he hovers.
“Didn’t know if you needed help. I can carry you like you carried me if you want?”
Like he could get me off the ground. I don’t even bother pointing that out as I wait for him to move and let me past. Hudson doesn’t get the hint.
“Move.”
He studies my face for a moment. “Thanks. I know it was lucky timing, but if you didn’t step in when you did … I dunno. He gives me the creeps.”
“Lynx has that effect on people. He’s a necessary evil. Keeps the bears and mountain lions away, farms the crops we use to feed the town. We’d be in trouble without him here. But he’s … his own version of law and order.”
“And his cat?”
I reach for the bite at my neck, still feeling the way those teeth shredded through flesh. “It showed up one day and hasn’t left his side since. He’s waiting for the day it turns on him, but given how overprotective it is of Lynx, I don’t see that happening.”
Hudson’s lips part and close again. “A bobcatadoptedhim?”
“That’s the story.”
He finally steps back and gives me some room. “Does that hurt?”
“Would you like to be bitten by a wild animal?”
“I saw that thing once. A few days ago, when I was looking for you, it cut off my path and scared the shit out of me.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t know I had to.” Hudson’s ankle is obviously feeling better because he bounds ahead of me and knocks on the side of the chop shop. Normally, Booker hears anyone coming and is out the front waiting, but the storm must have covered our approach.
