Free Brooding City: Brooding City Series Book 1 by Tom Shutt Page B

going at it.
    He turned back and ducked into the tiny bathroom that he never considered a full room. The shower worked, but irregularly, and even then it ran only cold water. Here, too, the wallpaper was folding in on itself. He washed his hands under the frigid tap in the sink and ran wet fingers through his untidy hair.
    His eyes were bright and blue—though he could have sworn they had always been dark gray—and shadows crept in beneath the lids. A messy rag of blond hair sat atop his head. Despite having eaten little for as long as he could remember, his cheeks held a youthful fullness that was unfamiliar to him. There was a gash on his temple, too, from some wound he didn’t remember. It oozed through the bandage he hadn’t felt before.
    Somebody was calling his name.
    His name. He remembered all of a sudden that he was Jeremy. Jeremy Scott. Blue eyes, light-blond hair, bleeding head. Bleeding head . There was something important about that.
    “Jay, hold still,” he heard a woman saying. Annabelle, his memory supplied.
    “Anna…”
    “Jeremy, sweetie, it’s going to be all right.”
    “What happened?” It was his brother—no—his uncle , Rick.
    “I don’t know. I was coming to get him for dinner and he was lying on the floor.”
    “How long was he like that?”
    “I don’t know, ” Annabelle said, an edge to her voice. “Here, help me get him up.”
    Jeremy felt himself being lifted up by strong arms and cradled against a solid chest, and a moment later he was back in his bed with a whumph . They covered him with a heavy comforter that smothered him and he felt like he was in a furnace, but lying on his bed again was like resting on a cloud. He stopped trying to keep his eyes open; it was just too difficult. He fell unconscious.

Chapter Thirteen
     
     
     
    The shuttle carried Brennan around the city rim to the far side of Odols.
    He disembarked a short distance from the pharmacy where Zachariah Nettle had worked. The store was a few blocks from Nettle’s apartment, still part of the same rough neighborhood. Unsavory types leaned against rundown buildings and eyed him suspiciously as he passed, but he walked with purpose and kept his head down, and he felt their attention wane and shift away. Brennan soon arrived at his destination, a brightly lit building with glass double doors.
    It was one of the chain convenience stores with a pharmacy in the rear corner. He entered and walked straight to the back, approaching the assistant at the counter.
    “What can I do for you, sir?”
    “Hey, I’m gonna need a patch of NicoClean.”
    “One patch?” the young pharmacist asked. “We only provide them in packs of fifteen and thirty.”
    “Fine,” Brennan said. “Give me a fifteen-pack.”
    “I’ll need your prescription first.”
    Brennan made a show of patting his pockets. “I don’t have one of those.” His hand slapped the wallet in his pocket and his eyes widened in mock surprise. He flipped it open and smacked it down on the counter, his silver badge showing prominently. “But hey, I’ve got this. Police business. Go get me a box.”
    “I—I don’t know if I can do that,” the pharmacist stammered.
    “I’m a detective,” Brennan said solemnly. “And you’re about to be brought in for obstructing a police investigation.”
    “We have generic brands that you—” He was silenced by Brennan’s glare. The young man gulped visibly, then turned and disappeared behind a shelf. A moment later, he returned with a box of NicoClean, one with thirty patches.
    “Here you go,” he said. “I’m not in any trouble, am I?”
    “Not if you keep your nose clean and your head down.” Brennan held his stare for a moment more, then retrieved his badge from the counter and stalked out of the pharmacy.
    Once he was outside again, he stepped under the light of a streetlamp and looked critically at the box. It was standard in every way, with a Surgeon General’s warning on the back. He broke the