Morrison put his hand on my shoulder. Confusion, anger, concern all flared in the touch, tainting the purples and blues of his aura. I felt it all the way through me, the same bright agonizing definition of things around me that I’d experienced when he’d picked up my drum and played it.
Under the circumstances, it was an unforgivable intimacy.
I turned around and threw a punch, catching him in the chest with a meaty thwock. My keys, folded into my fist, cut into my fingers, and that, like the knot in my thigh and crashing into the door, was better than the hurt that squeezed my chest until I couldn’t breathe. Morrison staggered back, more from surprise than the power of the blow, and I dropped my keys to grab his shirt in both fists.
“Do you just not get it, Morrison? Are you just totally failing to comprehend that I’m trying to protect you? Do you think sheer blind arrogance and ignoring what’s going on is going to get you through it unscathed?” I let him go with a shove, taking the step with him so I could stay right in his face. “Let me tell you that I’ve learned the hard way that it doesn’t work. I know you don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe it, but goddamn it, Morrison, you’ve got to be smarter than I am, and even I’m finally listening.”
My grip on the second sight slid off somewhere in my outrage, so the only way I could tell Morrison was building up a head of steam was the way his face darkened into a dangerous shade of red, instead of watching his aura do the same. I jerked my hand at his throat as if I’d cut his words off before he spoke, and it seemed to work. He inhaled, but didn’t yell.
Maybe that was because I wasn’t giving him a chance to get a word in edgewise. I’d backed him up another several steps, until he hit a row of hedges. Once he did, he didn’t lean away from me or move forward, just stood his ground while I shouted. “This sickness is killing people, Morrison! It killed Coyote!” I slapped my palm against his chest, not quite the outright punch I’d thrown before, but enough to cause a sharp crack of sound and a sting in my hand. “You think you’re special? I promise you, you’re not! That goddamned piece of stone is supposed to keep you safe while I try to figure out how to fix all the crap I’ve fucked up. I need you to have that rock, Morrison, because how am I supposed to do my job if I’m worrying about you? Sure, great, you gave the fucking thing to a beautiful woman, guess that makes you a real hero, doesn’t it? Just like you’re supposed to be, the handsome cop saving the girl. Good for goddamned you, Morrison, but what the hell am I supposed to do if something happens to you? I’m trying to protect you, Morrison, because I don’t know what—”
I finally broke off, my anger going cold and lonely as the rest of that sentence finished itself in my head. Morrison was florid, his jaw set and eyes blazing with fury. At least a couple dozen people from the restaurant had come out to watch me berate my boss, including Mark and Barbara. Barb had her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with distress, and Mark stood with his gaze cast down, as if he couldn’t watch or look away, either. A bunch of others looked delighted, the thrill-seeking sons of bitches. Some of them were clearly embarrassed for the people causing the commotion, and a little of that started to sink through my stomach-churning emotion.
“Are you done?” Morrison asked, so softly I was surprised I could even hear it, for all I was only standing three inches away. I turned my head to the side and pressed my lips together, embarrassment and anger welling up in equal parts. After a couple of seconds I nodded and Morrison took one abrupt step forward that sent me back a couple of steps.
“I’m going to cut you some slack, Walker, because a friend of yours just died.” The quiet rage in my boss’s voice was about a thousand times worse than the shouting I’d gotten used to. “But if you ever. So much as think. About throwing another punch my way, I will have you up on assault charges so fast your head will spin, and I am goddamned good and certain that your bag of tricks doesn’t hold a get-out-of-jail-free card. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Officer Walker?”
Blood curdled in my face, so thick and painful I wanted to cry just from the weight of the blush. I nodded twice, stiff motions, then forced, “Yes, sir,” through still-compressed lips.
Morrison didn’t say anything else. He just turned away from me and went back to Barbara and Mark. I heard him making apologies to them, to the restaurant staff, to everyone, while I stood there like an unstrung marionette, my heart beating so hard in my throat I thought I would be sick. Mark broke away from the others and approached me. I shook my head before he got close enough to speak, and then did it again, lifting my palm to ward him away. It was a nice gesture on his part. I could almost feel sympathy and unhappiness coming off him. I just didn’t want to even try explaining myself just then. After a few seconds I saw his shoulders slump, and he turned away, joining the breaking crowd in returning to the restaurant.
Only when I was more or less alone in the parking lot did I wet cracked lips and whisper, “Because I don’t know what I’d do without you,” to the empty pavement.
My skin had gone numb, sometime between my breaking off and Morrison dressing me down. My head was hollow and my ears were ringing, eyes too dry and mouth sticky. I knew myself well enough to feel like I ought to have some witty rejoinders, a way to blow off what I’d just admitted to myself with a sarcastic comment or two. Instead I stood there staring at the pavement. I had the idea that finding a sword to fall on was probably the appropriate thing to do. It was what I’d do if I were the heroine of a Chinese film, having just confessed to the unreachable hero that I was in lo—
My own self-censorship wouldn’t even let me finish that thought. I supposed the only small thing preventing me from having to throw myself on a sword was the fact I hadn’t actually made an idiot of myself in front of Morrison.
Boy. Some things sure were relative. I hadn’t made an idiot of myself over that particular topic in front of Morrison, to be somewhat more accurate. Besides, seppuku was for people with moral resolve, not windshield-shattered police mechanics whose mystical backgrounds were catching up to them. I wondered how long I might’ve gone on, able to deny to myself what was obvious, if Coyote hadn’t interfered with what would have been an otherwise very dramatic death seven months earlier.
There was a flaw in that thought process, but I didn’t want anybody pointing it out to me, not even me.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t known what was going on behind Melinda or Gary’s sideways smiles when my tongue got tangled up over Morrison, but hunching up and looking away had worked as a denial method. Besides, there were half a million good reasons to not think about it, starting with the screamingly obvious one: he was my boss.
He also didn’t like me very much, didn’t like my gifts at all and knew nothing about cars. In no way was it a match made in heaven, or even by a canny matchmaker planning to rake in her profit for arranging an unlikely marriage. Kate and Petruchio, comparatively, were a sure thing.
I could almost feel thoughts whirling around in my head, like I was deliberately trying to keep them on the surface, nice and superficial. It seemed like a very me thing to do, which in and of itself made me uncomfortable. I didn’t particularly like being aware of my emotional status. I especially didn’t like being aware and suspecting it was equivalent to the maturity level of your average turnip.
“Siobhán.”
No one but Morrison knew to call me that name, and he had already left. The voice wasn’t his, anyway, and it repeated “Siobhán” after a few moments’ delay.