Free Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

difference would allow. I was perilously close to touching him, and hadn’t realized it. I was angry, that fine burning anger that made the tips of my fingers tingle. It was disproportionate to the situation.
    I took a step back, took a few deep even breaths, and said, “I need some air.”
    “You’re outside,” he said.
    “I need away from you, then,” I said, and I walked away. Why was I this angry? And down low in my body, lower than a gut, deeper than anything a surgeon would ever reach with a scalpel, I felt something stir. My beasts, the animals I carried inside me, were moving, responding to my rage. I couldn’t afford to lose control of myself like that. I didn’t actually shift form, but I still carried the beasts inside me, and they could still try to tear their way out of the prison of my body. I had almost gotten to the point where it didn’t happen, but now I felt the beginnings of it, and realized I’d skipped everything but coffee. Feeding the physical body helped control all the hungers, the beasts, the ardeur , and the anger, because I’d learned to feed off that, too. It was something Jean-Claude, my supposed master, couldn’t do. I needed to eat something, and soon.
    Edward caught up to me. “Why’d he get to you like that?”
    “I forgot to eat real food. I need protein and I need it now.”
    “Beasts?”
    “Yes.”
    “We’ll get breakfast,” he said. He walked toward the car we were sharing, and I followed him. We’d have to make it quick and unhealthy, going through some kind of drive-up, but anything would help.

9
     
    I WAS EATING my Egg McMuffin as Edward drove. He’d gotten the breakfast burrito, which always puzzled me, but hey, it wasn’t my stomach. He’d eaten his before he put the car in gear. He still had that guy and cop ability to inhale food because you might not get to finish it otherwise. I’d never mastered it. If I’d been a regular cop I’d have starved by now.
    “I know the food helps,” he said, as he watched the road and drove carefully, precisely, as he did most things, “but you need to feed the ardeur soon, or am I wrong?”
    “You’re not wrong,” I said, between bites.
    “You could go into any bar in the city and find someone.”
    “No,” I said.
    “You complicate your life, Anita,” he said, as he turned onto the street that the motel was on.
    “I just can’t do casual. I don’t think I ever will.”
    “I thought the ardeur wiped out all that, and you just had sex.”
    “It can, but it can also be addictive, and some people are more susceptible than others.”
    “You mean like drugs—some people get addicted quicker than others.”
    “Exactly. I’d hate to pick some stranger and he turns out to be one of those. He’d be addicted to something he might never be able to find again, and I’d feel guilty, and have to take him home with me like a stray puppy.”
    “You would, too,” Edward said, like he found it a character flaw.
    “You wouldn’t feel guilty, would you?”
    “You mean could I fuck someone, addict them to the ardeur , and just walk away?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “You’re one of my closest friends, but I totally don’t understand that.”
    “I know.” He pulled into the parking lot with all the other police cars.
    I finished the last bite of my breakfast and took another sip of Coke, because coffee tasted bad with Egg McMuffin. I wiped my hands on napkins.
    He turned off the engine but didn’t get out. I waited.
    “You’re not as ruthless as I am, but you kill as easily as I do.”
    “Thanks,” I said, because I knew it was a compliment.
    He gave me a small smile, I think to acknowledge that I was one of the few people on the planet who would have known it was a compliment.
    “But if anything goes wrong, I know you’ll see Donna and the kids right.”
    “You know I will, but it’s not like you to be this morbid, Edward. You have a premonition?” I asked, and I was serious,