Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [334]
I touched his face, and he looked at me, and his eyes held that sadness that he’d come to me with. That look that said he’d seen it all, done it all, and it had destroyed something inside him. I put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him gently. It helped chase some of that lostness away, but not all of it. Some of it clung around the edges.
Micah made a sound. “Anita, she’s your friend, but . . .”
I turned and found that Dallas the dancer was on the floor with Ronnie on top of him. She was still dressed from the waist down, but he wasn’t. Her shirt was unbuttoned, and if she’d started the night with a bra, it was gone now.
I’d had enough. Enough of strangers pawing my boyfriends. Enough of Ronnie dragging our asses down here. Enough of her self-destructive indulgence. I got enough of that kind of shit from Richard, I didn’t need it from her.
“Veronica Marie Simms,” I said.
She blinked up at the voice and the sound of all three of her names. “Who are you, my mother?”
I grabbed the belt of her jeans and lifted her bodily off of the man. It startled her, and me, because I didn’t have to fight to lift her. She was bigger than I was, taller, just bigger, and I lifted her like she weighed nothing. I got her stumbling to her feet.
Dallas said, “Hey, we weren’t finished.”
I showed him my badge. “Yeah, you were.” I kept the badge in my left hand and threw Ronnie over my shoulder. I had to bounce her once up in the air to get her settled better, then we were fine. I walked down the hallway, Nathaniel got the curtain and followed us, Micah brought up the rear.
She didn’t struggle, but she argued, “Anita, put me down!”
The creepy couple was not waiting for us in the little area in front of the rooms. I was glad. I had my badge out, but I’d have to throw Ronnie on the floor to go for my gun. I scanned the room as we entered it, and the couple was nowhere in sight. Even better.
“Anita, I am not a fucking child. Put me down!”
The bouncer came our way, and I flashed my badge at him. He held his hands up, as if to say, no trouble here. We kept walking for the door. The music was still blaring loud enough that it hurt my skull, but the people noise died down as they watched us pass. I don’t know if it was the badge, the fact that a girl was carrying a girl, the fact that Ronnie was probably flashing breast to the entire room, or everybody was mourning the fact that I was taking the two best looking men in the room with me. Whatever, we walked in a strange well of stillness, as everyone stopped dancing, stopped talking, stopped drinking, stopped and watched us.
I had to use my badge hand to help steady Ronnie as I went up the steps to the platform in front of the door, but we made it just fine. Nathaniel went ahead and got the door that led into the cloakroom. Micah went through the door and hurried in front of me to get the outside door. We went out into the cool autumn air. The door shut behind us, and the silence left my ears ringing.
“Put me the fuck down.” This time she struggled, not well, not like she could have, but I’d lost patience. She wanted down, I put her down. I dumped her on the gravel on her ass.
I think she might have yelled at me, but a funny look crossed her face, and she was suddenly scrambling to her feet and running, stumbling toward the grassy field that edged the parking area. She fell onto all fours and started to wretch.
“Shit,” I said, softly and with feeling. I started walking toward her, and the men came at my back. I motioned them to stay by the last line of cars, as I waded out into the grass to Ronnie. The dry autumn grass made that whish-whish sound against my jeans.
Ronnie was still on all fours. The sour sweet smell of vomit reached me before I reached her. She had to be my friend, because I went to her, and I swept her hair back from her face and held it like you do a child. Only true friendship would have kept me there while she threw up everything she’d drunk that night.
I was trying to think of something else, anything else, while I stood there.