Devil's Kitchen by Candice Fox

Author:Candice Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

ANDY

She woke on Ben’s couch, and the dark curtains of the nightmare dropped around her, a man looming up instead, silhouetted against the blue-lit ceiling. Andy reached up and grabbed Ben’s shoulders, recognized the feel of his big hands on hers. She didn’t even realize she was crying until she tried to speak and all that came out was hard sobs.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Ben gathered her into his chest. “It’s me. It’s me!”

Humiliation washed over her, heavy and prickling. She had drenched herself and the couch in sweat. Pants wet with what she hoped wasn’t piss. She pushed him away, all her limbs aching like they had that night as she sprinted into the vastness of the desert toward nothing and away from her waking hell.

“Are you okay? What was that about?” Ben asked.

She waved at him, turned away, trying to swallow or squeeze out the sobs. She had control of her breathing in under a minute. It was her mind that she had trouble reeling in. It was out there, floating in the past, a battered kite caught in a storm. Loop by loop, she had to pull it in. Remember the apartment. The assignment. The man she was with, and not the people she had lost.

“Did you just get in?”

“I’ve been here a few minutes,” Ben said. “I saw you were sleeping, so…”

She nodded, wiped the tears away.

“‘Important,’” she said.

“Huh?”

“‘Important re: Luna.’ What did you actually want to tell me?”

“Are you o—”

“I’m not talking about it,” Andy said. His silhouette on the end of the couch was upright, rigid, alert. “You caught me in … in a private moment, Ben. It was a nightmare. It was no big deal. Let’s move on now so you can tell me what you wanted to tell me.”

His voice was careful. Quiet. “My brother Kenny turned up here this morning.”

He told her about the email from Luna. Andy wound her kite all the way in, hand over hand, so grateful that they weren’t talking about the storm anymore.

“You think she was making amends,” Andy said. “Saying her goodbyes.”

“Maybe.”

“What happened between those two?”

Ben gave a short, sad laugh. “It’s so stupid.”

Andy watched him lean back against the couch.

“He’s always wanted to pay me back,” Ben said. “For putting him through college. For taking him on. But he just can’t figure out how. He gets the guilts sometimes and gives it a try, but he’s always wrong. Like he bought me a Porsche once. What the hell am I gonna do with a Porsche? He’ll turn up with an expensive coffee machine. Or a lead into a job I’d rather kill myself than do.”

“Okay.”

“He invited me out to lunch, and I brought Luna and Gabe along without telling him. We’ve never really talked about that kind of stuff. Girls. Relationships. This was going to be the first woman I’d introduced him to, really. But it was a mistake to bring them without checking first. Because Kenny had a little surprise of his own. He was trying to set me up.

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