Early to Death, Early to Rise - Kim Harrison [64]
“What?” I asked, seeing that everyone was staring at me.
Nakita glanced at Barnabas, then said softly, “I’ve never seen you eat…like that.”
My reach for another fry slowed, and I ate it in two bites instead of one. It was late, and the diner was empty but for us, the waitress counting money in the till, and the cook glowering at us through the hole in the wall, clearly wanting to go home. “I’m starving,” I said, taking a tiny sip of pop when what I wanted to do was gulp it. “And tired.” But no heartbeat. None at all.
Beside me, Barnabas leaned back in the bench seat, casual as he stirred the ice in his untouched drink. “It’s kind of gross, Madison.”
I eyed him, reading a soft envy in his carefully relaxed pose. “Jealous?” I asked tartly.
“Sort of,” he muttered, looking up and away to where Grace and her new friend were chatting on the light fixture, their wings making them into softball-size globes of light only I and my reapers could see.
Eating another fry, I grimaced when a splotch of ketchup hit my lab coat. “I think it’s from the flash forward,” I said as I dabbed at it. “I was alive again, or at least it felt like I was when I was in Ace.” I looked at him, feeling my face twist up in distaste. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
The guy sneered at me, and, wadding up my napkin, I stifled a yawn. “My mind must have remembered what it’s like to be hungry. And tired. What time is it?”
Not looking, Barnabas said, “Midnight.”
“Mmmm.” I crumpled the napkin up and dropped it on the fries. I was still hungry, but I didn’t want to look like a pig. “I gotta get home.” It wasn’t too late yet to call my mom as I had promised, school night or not. She kept hours like a vampire.
My gaze went back to Ace, scrunched up and silent in the corner of the booth. He hadn’t said anything much since waking up in his truck. As it stood, there was not going to be any problem at the hospital come six the next morning. No one would ever know. What would happen to Ace now was anyone’s guess.
Shoe, on the other hand…I smiled at him as he carefully felt his jaw, which was now turning an ugly purple. “You going to be okay?” I asked him, and he winced.
“I’m going to catch hell for trashing the school’s computers,” he said, glancing at Ace. “But I knew that before I did it. It’s staying out to midnight on a school night that I wasn’t planning on. But at this point, I don’t care.”
We all looked at Ace, who flipped us off. The waitress must have seen, because she cleared her throat loudly and went to talk to the cook in the kitchen.
I looked at the plate of fries, then ate one, feeling guilty for no reason that I could fathom. “Barnabas, maybe we can stop at Shoe’s house on the way home and make his mom and dad think he’s been tucked into bed,” I suggested.
Barnabas nodded, looking a bit too casual for my comfort. Sneaky, almost.
“That’d be great,” Shoe said nervously, edging away from Nakita as she started to mutter about wanting to just scythe the lot of them. But Shoe’s discomfort seemed to be stemming from Barnabas’s sly demeanor, not from Nakita, and I wondered if he was worried that I was going to go back on my word and change his memories as well.
Throwing his wad of damp napkins down, Ace sat straighter. “You all suck,” he said loudly. “You’re going to fix it so that no one remembers he’s even been out?”
“Quiet!” Nakita hissed, leaning across the table. “You should be dead.”
“You shut up!” he exclaimed, his brow furrowed. “Crazy chick!”
“Don’t call me that!” she said, starting to rise, but when the guardian angel set her wings to humming, Nakita sat back down with a huff. “You’re lucky, human,” she muttered. “Lucky.”
Lucky wasn’t the word I’d like to apply to Ace, but he was. He’d tried to make a name for himself by killing people and blaming Shoe for it,