Infected: Lesser Evils (20 page)

“A separate discussion. You just want to fight.”

He felt like denying it, but that seemed pointless. He always liked to fight, and Dylan knew that as much as Roan did. “Actually, I want to know what the hell he’s thinking. He could be risking his career by letting Parker stay here.”

“Fine, I accept that. But why don’t you tell me what’s really going on with you. You’ve got your macho shield up, which tells me how upset you are. It was the incident at the college, wasn’t it?”

Again, denial was his first response, but then he had to turn away as that lacuna of shame seemed to widen in his chest, and suddenly the drugs weren’t enough to numb it. “I’m killing my own kind,” he admitted, his back to Dylan, arms crossed tightly over his chest. “I agreed to work with the cops so the cat squad wouldn’t just kill transformed infecteds. But now I’m doing it.”

Dylan wrapped his arms around him, pressing up against his back, and tears burned in Roan’s eyes. His throat felt clogged, choked up with solid sorrow. “Oh honey, it’s not your fault,” Dylan said softly, resting his head in the crook of Roan’s neck.

Roan didn’t want to cry, but maybe the drugs or the weariness had weakened his resolve, because a sob escaped him anyways, and his struggle to stop it, to hold it back, was futile. He knew they were dead; ingesting the tainted burn and triggering a premature transformation was only the first act of a staggered, messy death. But he kept remembering the feel of that leopard’s skull just bursting beneath his fist, his hand plunging into warm, gelatinous brain matter. That was the point, wasn’t it? That was the point when he realized he was more virus than Human, that the downslide of his humanity had begun in earnest.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t killed before, because of course he had, but this was, for some reason, the last straw.

He loathed himself for the self-pity, for crying so hard it felt like he was being punched in the stomach from the inside out, but he couldn’t stop, and felt like he was going to collapse. Dylan held him, murmuring comforting things that could never be real.

He was a monster, more now than ever, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

D
YLAN
was no stranger to breakdowns. He’d had one—well, more or less—and his brother Tom was, sadly, schizophrenic, a mental illness far beyond his control and beyond a one-time breakdown, but often exacerbated by his refusal to take his medication. But his experience with them was measured somehow, inevitable, not quiet but relatively bloodless, something you could see coming long before the explosion.

This was horrible. Roan was cracking, and part of it was simply the current crisis, the tainted burn and the cats freaking out almost as much as people and the authorities were. But it was only part, and maybe that was the worst part of it. Eventually the use of burn would go down, the infected would catch on and stop. But would it happen before Roan cracked under the strain? He didn’t know.

Dylan left Roan sleeping fitfully under the quilt he’d hastily pulled over him. Finally exhaustion and the sheer ton of drugs he must have taken had weighed him down, and Roan had fallen asleep between pained sobs. Dylan had to change his shirt, since it was soaked with tears and snot, but oddly enough he felt numb. What could he do? Nothing. Just sit back and watch as Roan crumbled from the strain. He was angry, but also defeated. There was nothing Dylan could do; nothing he could do would help. He felt impotent and useless. He couldn’t stop the world from hurting Roan any more than he could stop Roan from hurting himself. What was he doing here if he was such a nothing?

Roan’s phone buzzed like an angry hornet, and he retrieved it from his coat pocket to let whoever was calling him know that Roan was fucking out for the day and wouldn’t be available for a while. But it wasn’t the cops or the media, so that was a sort of relief. Even though it was another chore, at least it gave him something to do beyond feeling superfluous.

He grabbed his coat and the car keys and headed out, quietly shutting the door behind him. Kevin met him at the top of the stairs.

“Look,” he began nervously. “I’m sorry. I really did forget.”

“That’s okay.” It wasn’t—Eric was his friend, and yes, maybe Parker was set up and never intended him harm, but Eric was still dead, still another murder statistic, and there was never any way he was feeling good about that—but he was also too tired to argue the point. “Roan’s asleep right now, he’s exhausted, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t disturb him.”

Kevin nodded almost spasmodically. “Sure, yeah. Umm, dinner’s done, if you wanna join us. Homemade cheese ravioli. Give me some credit for remembering you’re a vegetarian.”

Dylan tried to smile, but it probably didn’t work. “Thanks. Maybe you could save some for me? Holden called, he needs someone to pick him up from the hospital.”

“Holden? You mean Fox? Why’s he at the hospital?”

“You don’t know? Some guys jumped him, beat the shit out of him.”

“What? No! I thought he was a tough bastard.”

Dylan could only shrug. “Even tough guys have a limit.” He was talking about Roan as well, and he thought Kevin, big bear of a vice cop that he was, got that.

Kevin moved out of the way and headed down the stairs, but Kevin said hesitantly, “Umm, about my relationship with Parker—”

Dylan turned, shaking his head emphatically. “It’s none of my business, Kevin, and I honestly don’t care one way or another. But the thing Roan hates more than anything is someone lying to him, so just be honest, and he won’t get on your case about it.”

He might as well have taken a poke at him. Kevin flinched, backing up a step. “What? What are you implying?”

“Nothing. You’ve known Roan longer than I have, so you know even better than I do his hunches have a tendency to pan out more than average. And he’s worried about you, not anything else. Keep that in mind.” He left Kevin to figure out what he was going to say to Roan, if anything at all. He knew better than to get between Roan and his friends.

Speaking of which, he drove to the hospital to pick up Holden, numb to his fingertips, turning the radio up loud just to fill his head with noise. It was better than thinking right now.

Holden was loitering outside the hospital, and he seemed surprised to see him. “Roan isn’t with you?” Dylan had told him, somewhat disingenuously, that he’d pass on the message to Roan. He didn’t add that he’d pass it on when he woke up, which could be sometime late tomorrow.

“He’s asleep. He had a hard day.”

Holden was still bruised, he still had all the hallmarks of a badly beaten person, with a purplish-red discolored eye, red lines of scars and scrapes giving a roughness to his face, a bit of a knot still visible near the hinge of his jaw. It was weird, but it made Holden look almost more dangerous, his eyes bright and sly beneath the bruises. “There was supposedly some infected attack somewhere. Roan was in that, wasn’t he?”

“Who else do they turn to when there’re big cats running around?”

He nodded, as if he should have known better. “Is he okay?”

“Depends on your version of okay.” Dylan walked back to the car so he didn’t have to explain further.

As it was, he didn’t have to. Holden got into the passenger seat, and waited until he shut the door before asking, “Hospital hospital or psychiatric hospital?”

“Neither, for the moment. But I think I should probably notify Western State and get them to save him a bed.”

He sighed sympathetically. “Should it be so hard to be a superhero? I thought it was all spandex and endorsement deals.”

“Maybe that only applies to straight guys. And for the record, Roan seems to have some moral objection to spandex.”

“I don’t blame him. Vinyl is sexier.”

Dylan looked at him, wondering if he was serious, and wondering if it should bother him if he was, but he decided to let it go. Holden was a bizarre creature he would never pretend to understand, like reality show contestants or Glenn Beck, but not as dedicated to evil as either of those. Dylan simply started the car and made his way out of the hospital lot, double-checking Holden’s address, as he didn’t really know it.

After an awkward pause, Holden asked, “How you holding up?”

“I want to hit something. I’m no good to him, I might as well not be here. He’s in so much pain, and I can mouth platitudes all I want, but they do fuck all.”

“Well, just—”

“And please don’t say just being there for him is enough, because no, it isn’t.” It was starting to rain, a mist-like drizzle starting to spit tiny beads of moisture on the windshield, but not enough to trigger the wipers. Traffic was iffy, but right now he didn’t care. He didn’t care about much at the moment.

No one ever had to tell Dylan life wasn’t fair. Being both mixed race and gay gave him a marvelous ringside seat on how fucking unfair life was. But sometimes it seemed like life was more unfair to certain people than others. He was unable to determine if it was more unfair to Roan, to him, or to both of them.

Holden thought for a long moment, scratching the stitches on his scalp. “Then let’s do something.”

“What?”

“He’s told you of the leads he has on the whole tainted burn thing, right? Let’s follow them. Take some of the burden off him by looking at things for ourselves.”

Here was Holden surprising him again. “We’re not detectives.”

“Well, I’m an assistant investigator. And if there’s anything Roan’s taught me, it’s that being a detective isn’t really that hard, it just takes lots of patience. You have to find the pieces, and try to put them all together. We’re capable of finding pieces.”

“Are we?”

“Oh ye of little faith. Yes, I think so. Now where do we start? Being hospitalized, I’m sure I’m behind on the narrative.”

When they reached a stoplight, Dylan looked over at him with a skeptical glare. “You want to start now?”

“Absolutely. I hated being cooped up, I need some action. I need to stop feeling like a victim of something.”

Which brought up a point that Dylan had wondered about. “You know, whoever did this to you, Roan got them.”

Holden betrayed no surprise, which was pretty much a confirmation. “Why do you say that?”

“’Cause he’d be obsessed with finding the guys who jumped you. He hasn’t been; he hasn’t mentioned it once. Meaning it’s because he got them already.”

He made a “hmm” noise, and finally said, “Interesting. See, you have the makings of a detective and you never realized it.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Holden gave him an innocent look that fit too well on his face to be genuine. “How would I know? I’ve been in the hospital all this time.”

Dylan frowned at him, giving him the evil eye, but he knew even as he was doing it that it wouldn’t work. You couldn’t shame the shameless. “Did you learn how to lie so smoothly, or was it inborn?”

Much like he suspected, Holden wasn’t offended. Again, shaming the shameless was damn near impossible. “Bit of both. My father was a preacher, after all, so you could argue nature versus nurture ’til the cows come home.” He paused briefly. “So where did Roan leave the investigation?”

Should he tell him? This was insane. They weren’t investigators; they were a male prostitute and an artist. It sounded like the setup to a really horrible comedy or porn film. But the idea of doing something, anything, rather than worrying about Roan was seductively appealing. “There was a message on Roan’s phone,” he began reluctantly. “A guy from the Church. Apparently he was returning a call that Roan must have made, saying he might have what he needs, but he needs him to meet him first. He seemed to be implying some kind of drug deal without ever saying it.”

“Are you sure that it isn’t Roan picking up some Vicodin?”

He shot him a weary glance. “He has different sources for that. When we—he talked to that dealer that called himself Hardy, he said there was someone dealing burn out of the Church. I think Roan found the guy.”

“The guy who returned the call.”

He nodded. “It would seem.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s stop by my place so I can change into some clothes that are less wrinkled, and we’ll go.”

“Are you serious? He’ll know we’re not Roan.”

Holden just shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal. “He may, he may not. Just let me do the talking.”

Oh, he intended to. Maybe he was nuts enough to try this, but he wasn’t crazy enough to think it would work.

Fame > Infamy

H
ONESTLY
, Holden felt sorry for Dylan.

Not that he’d ever admit that, it would probably piss him off (well, as much as a dedicated Buddhist could be pissed off at anyone). But he seemed too peace loving to be in Roan’s violent life, too dedicated to harmony to be attached to the bucket of chaos and crazy that was Roan. And he meant that as a compliment—good crazy was hard to find. Although sometimes you still needed a vacation from it.

And oh boy, did Dylan need a vacation. So did Roan, probably, but he couldn’t take a vacation from himself no matter how many pills he took, although that didn’t stop him from trying. Opposites did seem to attract sometimes, that was true, so that’s probably how Dylan and Roan had ended up together, Dylan being the peace Roan wanted to achieve, but it wouldn’t work. Roan was a romantic, despite how cynical he seemed (why else was he into serial monogamy?) and he would stick with this kid as long as he could, but he was going to burn him out. He wouldn’t mean to, he’d hate himself forever for hurting Dylan, but he would. It was impossible to stand on the sidelines of Roan’s car crash life and not get hit by flying debris. Dylan must have been something of a romantic himself, since he stayed with him, and must have known how bad Roan was for him. But Dylan struck him as the stubborn type; he wouldn’t give up so easily, even when he should. It was a fitting epitaph.

Although Holden understood Roan’s angst on one level, on another he didn’t. Being Human was overrated; Humans were selfish, venal, and generally horrible to one another. His advice to Roan would simply be become the lion and stop worrying about it so much. Surround himself with loyalists who would make sure he didn’t end up in a zoo, and embrace the big cat lifestyle. There wasn’t much to miss about humanity, or at least not as far as Holden could tell. He was pretty sure Roan would agree with him there. But….