Free Wrong Side Of Dead by Kelly Meding

again and rose one more time. Okay, so less “rose one more time” and more “didn’t actually die the second time.” Or if you count the factory fire from last month, it’s the third time … oh forget it. Trying to make sense of my second life is going to give me migraines.
    “Leah, Kyle,” Marcus says. “I want to show you something.”
    They wander back toward the Pit with Marcus. Knowing their names doesn’t make me trust them, even though Wyatt seems to, and I hate being left out of the conversation about Wolf Boy. Sooner or later, though, I expect Marcus will confirm my werewolf theory.
    “You went and got some new friends,” I say to Wyatt.
    “Well, I needed to keep busy after the brass fired me and forbade Gina, Adrian, and the rest of the Triads from helping me look for you.” He’s so matter-of-fact about something that shocks me. Not so much the part about the brass forbidding Kismet and Baylor from searching for me—it’s the fact that they wanted to look for me at all that trips me up.
    “Some of them looked anyway, when they could,” Tybalt says. “Milo and I went out when he wasn’t on patrol or sitting with Felix.”
    “I heard about Felix,” I say, oddly touched by Tybalt’s admission. It’s been so long since anyone except Jesse, Ash, and Wyatt cared if I lived or died that I don’t quite know how to accept the idea of new friendships. Or that others care. It’s equally odd to care so much that a Hunter who once tried to kill me is now permanently disabled and will probably never walk without serious pain again. “I’m sorry.”
    “Us, too.”
    “So how come you’re not dressed like you’re about to rob a high-security vault?”
    “I wasn’t invited. Conflict of interest.”
    A look is exchanged by Wyatt and Tybalt, and I don’t have the first clue how to interpret it. Amazing how much people and circumstances can change in three weeks. The thought makes me kind of dizzy. Everything feels ten degrees hotter. My arm seems twenty pounds heavier, the Wolf Boy bite on my arm throbbing and achy.
    “Which means what, exactly?” I ask.
    “Evangeline?” Phin’s voice is a welcome sound, and his attention flickers to my swollen arm as he approaches. “That’s newly acquired.”
    “What can I say? I collect injuries everywhere I go.” I curl my left hand into a fist and hide it behind my hip, not in the mood for more shock over my missing pinkie. The heat and humidity of the June morning are adding to my exhaustion, as is my painful forearm. A bead of sweat trickles down my forehead and into my eye—when did I start sweating so badly? “Oh, and sorry. I lost your gun in the Pit somewhere.”
    “We’ll find it.” He touches my shoulder, but his face is fuzzy and I’m not sure if he’s frowning or smiling. “Evy?”
    Vertigo hits. “I think I’m gonna pass out.”
    Someone catches me.
*  *  *
     
    Waking up in a nice, soft bed surrounded by air-conditioning and the wonderful scent of coffee is too much to hope for. It’s still damned hot, but at least I’m horizontal on something moderately comfortable. My head’s pounding, and I consider sleeping awhile longer. At least until the pounding goes away.
    Then someone screams and I jerk upright. Every muscle in my back aches, and the world fuzzes out for a few seconds as everything spins in circles. My stomach grumbles, demanding food. Or a gulp of water, at the very least. I try to recall where my weapons are as my vision clears.
    The interior of a high-tech-looking helicopter comes into focus. The sliding doors on both sides are open, allowing a moderate flow of air into the stuffy interior. It’s powered down on the lawn opposite the parking lot, where someone has erected a kind of tent to protect the wounded. Did one of them scream?
    Someone had wrapped my forearm in gauze. Faint spots of blood have oozed through the white, as well as a few pale streaks of yellow. It’s itchy, though, instead of achy, so