Page 59 of Chaos

“Frankie!” I thump my head against the door again.

A second later, I hear her voice, thick and sleepy and a little scared. “Yorke?”

The door opens so fast, I stumble, but catch myself with my good arm against the door jamb before I topple over, and take Frankie down too.

It’s dark in here, just the same thin moonlight from earlier.

Even though my shoulder is screaming in pain, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to vomit, the smell of the suite settles something deep inside me.

It’s not a clear smell.

Nothing I can put my finger on. It’s all of it. The kids, the dog. Home.

I don’t think it really settled in until now.

It wasn’t home without her, but now she’s back.

I’ve killed a lot of men before, but somehow tonight was the first one that felt like murder. And I got shot.

“And all I want is you,” I murmur into her hair, which is pulled back into a fat coconut of a bun. “I love your hair.”

“Yorke?” Cool hands touch my cheeks. “Are you drunk? What’s wrong with you?”

A light goes on, and Frankie bristles when she sees Misty, her arm around my waist.

Shane appears in the living area, copper hair in spikes.

Beast barks in manic circles.

Auden comes out rubbing his eyes like a comic-book kid, whole fists scrubbing at them.

Misty says something.

Frankie ignores her. Her hands slide up my blood-stained coat to the sodden wad that was once Rey’s coat which I’m still holding pressed against my shoulder. “Is this your blood?”

“Not as bad as it looks,” I mutter, stepping heavily into the doorway. “I got shot.”

“Holy shit,” Shane whispers.

One of them shuts the door in Misty’s face, and I find my ass in a chair, the same chair I sat in and ate beet taco soup.

Frankie tips my face up, standing over me. Her fingertips touch my cheekbones. “Be honest. Do we need to wake Sheila?”

“No. Just muscle, but I think the bullet’s stuck. You’ll need to dig it out.”

“It’s so much blood.”

I rest my face against her breasts and close my eyes. “It always looks like so much blood.”

“We’re not taking risks with bullets. Shane, can you go get Sheila? She’ll just have to wake up, and, Auden, grab the sewing kits, will you?”

Stuff blurs after that, Frankie strips away my clothes, and swabs me down with iodine—and then Sheila’s there.

She drops a blood-covered bullet into my hand, lumpy and bulbous just like Wendell’s.

When I flip it over and ask Shane to shine a flashlight on it, it’s got a headstamp.

I pull the other bullet and Frankie’s golden chain, the scorpion and the archer from my pocket, line them up.