Page 18 of The Same Flesh
In the darkness of the kitchen, Amy’s breathing sounded wet.
“Jem,” Tean said softly.
“Sorry,” Jem said.“But you’ve got to keep things in perspective.Wait here while I check this out.”
Letting the paracord unspool from around his wrist, he stepped outside.The night was like a flash freeze, stealing his breath away, making his eyes sting.He jogged across the uneven pavers toward the two cars parked in the alley.When he reached them, he glanced up and down the alley in both directions.Winter-brown climbers rustled when the breeze shifted.A plastic bag caught on a chain fence puffed up with air and then sank back down again.Metal rattled against metal—
Fuck!
—and then something small scurried out from behind a line of trash cans.
Jem’s ragged breath was kind of a laugh.He clicked the flashlight on again and checked the interior of Amy’s car, then the Subaru.And then he whistled.
A moment later, the sunroom door made that scraping noise again, and then the clatter of the roller bags on the pavers broke the quiet.Tean came first, with Amy behind.When they reached the end of the lot, Jem took the bag from Amy and loaded it into her trunk.He took the second one from Tean and repeated the process.And then he shut the trunk and listened.
Still nothing.
Which was fan-fucking-tastic, because his skin was itching so bad he wanted to scratch it off.
“We’re going to follow you,” Jem told her.“Stay on the phone.If something happens—”
“Go to the police.”
“Yep.Otherwise, just be cool.”
She warbled something that might have passed for amusement and got in her car.A moment later, Tean and Jem were in the Subaru, and they were headed down the alley.
No headlights came on.
No one turned out to follow them.
They didn’t see another car until they reached the next major road, and it was a Toyota Avalon going ten miles under the speed limit.
“Is anyone following us?”Tean asked.
“If they are, they’re invisible.”Jem rubbed his eyes.As the adrenaline faded, exhaustion rolled in, but two things were making themselves annoyingly clear in spite of how tired he was: he needed to ice his hand, and his shoulder was killing him.
Amy lurched out into the street, accelerating so quickly that her tires screeched, and Tean pulled out after her.
“Like a bat out of hell,” Jem muttered.
He looked behind them.
A music store, closed for the night.
An insurance agency, windows dark.
Empty pavement.
They saw more cars as they drove through Salt Lake.Some were headed in the opposite direction.Others sped up behind and then passed them.Under the orange haze of the streetlights, there was something unreal about all of it.Nobody hung back and followed them, though.And he didn’t see the same license plate twice.
Amy had picked the Little America, which wasn’t a bad choice.The hotel was unadorned brick, and it looked like an apartment building than anything else.They found parking at the back of the lot, and as Jem unloaded the bags, Tean huddled in his coat and kept watch.
The lobby, in contrast to the exterior, was much fancier, with wood paneling and marble columns and all the furniture upholstered in the kind of velvety fabric Scipio would immediately fur up.Classical music played softly.The air was warm and smelled like pine trees.
A bored-looking young woman stood behind the check-in desk.In less than ten minutes, Amy had a room for the next three nights, and Jem and Tean lugged the bags up the elevator, down the hall, and to the room.It was silly at this point, but if you were going to do something, you might as well do it right, which Jem thought mostly applied to boinking and making nachos, but you could probably use it for other stuff too.He made Amy let him go first, but it was just your standard hotel room: bathroom, bed, tiny closet.
No wolves.
