"I didn't mean to touch her," he wheezed through a swollen and bleeding mouth. His nose dripped blood, too, but didn't look broken.
I could fix that for him.
"Hatfield knocked me down so hard my head bounced off the floor," he rushed to continue, his words tumbling over each other as if he could see his impending death in my eyes.
"And so you attacked Tess?"
"No!"
Mike put a hand on my shoulder. "Nobody attacked Tess. Cletus got his bell rung but good, so he was dizzy and reached out for someone to help pull him up. Just wrong place, wrong time that Tess was the one standing there. I'm pretty sure she saw … something."
Oh.
Oh.
Tess must have seen a vision of Cletus's death, and it had to have been a violent one. She hadn't fainted from a vision for a long time, unless it involved a violent or grisly death.
I swore long and fluently under my breath, using some choice words of ancient Atlantean my friends had taught me so as not to shock the folks at Beau's.
"I need to get her home." I stood with Tess in my arms and made my way to the door, barely noticing how fast everybody moved to get out of my way. But this was Dead End, and people cared enough about Tess to stifle any fear they had of an enraged tiger shifter, so a lot of well-wishes followed us. A few even dared to pat my arm or shoulder as I passed them, including Lorraine, who'd never been afraid of anything in her life.
Mike made it to the door first and held it open. "Do you want me to drive your truck so you can sit with her in the back?"
I nodded, unable to speak, cradling Tess close. She was so pale she was nearly transparent beneath the honey-gold tan she'd picked up on the beaches of Atlantis. Her breathing was too shallow, her pulse was too fast, and I wanted so very much to turn around and beat the living crap out of Cletus McKee and whoever that other guy was who'd clearly been part of the problem.
When we got on the road, I met Mike's gaze in the rearview mirror. "Tell me."
He filled me in on the fight, Skeeter Hatfield, and his own part in it. Both of us ignored the calls and texts buzzing furiously on our phones.
"Nice job," I said, when he told me about knocking Hatfield out.
"Ruby won't see it that way." He hunched his shoulders a little. "Wouldn’t surprise me if she sends the sheriff out to arrest me for assault."
Despite my worry and anger, I had to grin. "Rough being married to the mayor, I guess."
He sighed. "You have no idea."
At home, I tucked Tess into bed and gave her uncle a glass of whiskey, even though it was not yet two in the afternoon, because he looked like he needed it. I also got him some ice for his hand, and we sat at the kitchen table, mostly in silence.
"Bruised my knuckles on his face," he said mildly, turning his phone off when it rang again. "Want to take odds on how long it takes her to show up here?"
"The mayor or the sheriff?"
"Yes."
But Tess surprised us by waking up and wandering out to the kitchen before either Susan or Ruby arrived. She'd changed out of her Dead End Pawn shirt and jeans into a blue sundress, and she was so beautiful it made my chest ache.
I jumped up and pulled her into my arms. "Hey. How are you?"
She clung to me for a long moment and then pulled back to look up at me. "Headache. It was a rough one."
"What happened?"
She glanced at Uncle Mike, and I immediately understood.
Tess believed she owed a certain level of confidentiality to the people whose deaths she saw in her visions. She'd told me that how people died was none of her business, and the curse or gift or power she had didn’t change that. She felt guilty enough just knowing it herself, so she definitely wouldn't tell anybody else.
Not even the person whose death she'd seen, if they didn’t want to know.
