She was alone. Ray had known she would be. He hadn’t heard anyone else.
“Ah, Detective Del Mar.” Meyers probably smelled of relief, which still would have been better to Ray’s nose than disinfectant, plastic, and various sanitizers. Penn reeked of hospital ventilation instead of fresh air, which meant she hadn’t left the hospital grounds in her time away. “You’ll keep an eye on him, won’t you? Make sure he listens to those who know best and sticks to his rest days?”
Penn flicked a look to Ray, then smiled without showing teeth. “Were you on your way to some bigwig’s event? How thoughtful of you to stop in.”
Meyers nodded quickly. “We were sure he’d pull through. Remarkably tough. He will doubtless recover in no time at all.”
“Doubtless,” Penn echoed with the veneer of politeness that Meyers must have wanted. He nodded again, reached over as if to pat Ray on the arm, then drew his arm back and nodded one more time before leaving the room.
Ray wouldn’t have said Meyershurried, but he did not move slowly. Nonetheless, he paused a few yards down the hall to talk with the officers gathered there. Ray didn’t know any of those officers by name, and they must not know him, or they would have better guessed Ray’s range of hearing.
“What was that?” Penn brought Ray’s attention back into the room.
Ray shifted enough to use his claws to slice through the plastic hospital bracelet at his wrist, then dropped the bracelet into a wastebasket. “I don’t know. Did this make the evening news?” It was the only reason he could think of for that kind of visit; someone worried about what to say to the press.
“Sort of. Nothing specific. Your name wasn’t even mentioned, which is a miracle of some kind, I’m sure.” Penn handed over the bottle of water. “Drink. Headache any better?”
Ray shrugged as he accepted the bottle. He drank its contents in a few swallows, then put that in the trash as well since there was no recycle bin. On his own, in a somewhat quiet room, the pain was no longer as overwhelming, but he could still feel it, and he was still tired.
“I will translate that shrug as ‘I don’t feel great, but at least I’m not vomiting anymore.’” Penn narrowed her eyes, but handed over one of the packets next. Plain potato chips. Ray ate them without tasting much more than salt. When he finished the first tiny bag, Penn handed him the second, which he also finished in moments. The last meal he could remember eating had been that morning with her. Penn didn’t seem satisfied until Ray had finished every crumb, and even then, she was worried. “Well, food might help at least.” She sighed and glanced over the room before crossing her arms. “What did the captain say?”
“I wasn’t listening,” Ray lied, and wondered if it showed in his colors, and if colors were like what Penn saw. “They’re worried,” he added, more honestly.
He didn’t know what to make of Penn’s small pause. “About you?”
Most humans weren’t even sure that weres felt pain. Ray neatly disposed of the rest of his trash. “I’m fine.”
“Hmm.” Penn didn’t add anything else.
Ray met her eyes. “They could have killed me in that alley, whoever it was. I was unconscious, I think. I don’t know for how long. They could have, and they didn’t.” Callalily’s suspicions were clear in his mind as well. “The others outside think beings did this. They think it could have been aimed at any one of them.” But beings had their own magic, and, as far as Ray knew, did not need to use the kind of spells humans did, if they even could. All the weres Ray knew of tended to avoid it. Human magic smelledoff. Undefinable.Itchy.
Penn showed real surprise. “Is that what Meyers said?”
“No. ‘The Department is behind me,’” Ray quoted blandly.
“I’d rather they were in front of you.” Penn clucked her tongue. “You still look pale. I’ll get you some more food while you finish getting dressed. Not that I don’t love to see you shirtless, Ray.”
“Penn.” Ray stopped her with her hand on the door. He cleared his throat. “Can you tell me why Murphy left?” He lowered his voice, though no one but another were could have heard them in this room. “I don’t seem to remember.”
Several things went through Penn’s expression, alarm and worry and then confusion or anger. “Mostly because of his health.” Thatmostlyseemed to be hiding something else. But Penn finally smiled. “Get dressed. I’ll be right back.”
Ray took a deep breath once the door had shut behind her. The disinfectant made his stomach turn, or perhaps that was because he was alone for the first time in hours and there was nothing to prevent him from the realization that he had been attacked. He should have been dead, and he wasn’t. Instead, he wassick, or at least weak, and sometimes, for no reason he could name, he found a blank space in his mind instead of knowledge.
He looked down at the hair on the backs of his hands, human in appearance, ordinary, dark against pale skin. Yet he didn’t know what his eyes were doing.
Ray did not lose control in front of humans. Not that he could remember, anyway.
There were consequences for seeming too wild around humans. Rules that were bullshit but necessary, at least to live in a city, to do what Ray did.
Sometimes I think you do what you do because….
Callalily had not finished the thought, had probably forgotten it within seconds.
Callalily. Cal, to Benny, to Penn. Callalily was the name he had given to Ray.
Faithfulness, Ray recalled again, just that scrap of information of nothing else. Not even how a real calla lily might smell.
Meyers had not mentioned Callalily. Ray frowned as he reached for his undershirt. Ray had given a statement at the station, bare bones but accurate to the best of his awareness. He had woken up on the ground in an alley, compromised and unwell, and had been discovered by two associates of the department. The officer taking his statement had known Benny and Callalily; he’d fidgeted at their names. They all must have known who Callalily claimed to be, what Penn seemed to think he was, what Ray’s senses wanted him to be.
