Free Infected: Lesser Evils by Andrea Speed Page A

wasn’t going to put a gun barrel against his temple, he went downstairs and told Dylan that was too dangerous to ever attempt again, mainly because he was an infected and Dylan wasn’t, and having an open wound around an infected was a bad idea. Dylan, holding an ice cube wrapped in cheesecloth against his lip, said it wasn’t, because the only body fluid he was exposed to was saliva, and the virus had never been passed by saliva. Somehow it figured that Dylan would know that, because, being the guy he was, he had probably gone to infectedfacts.org when they started dating and read all about it. He told him he didn’t want him to be the first known case, so that was that. But Roan had a sneaking suspicion they would argue about this in the future.
    Roan called Doctor Rosenberg, but had to leave a message because she didn’t pick up her phone. She was probably getting some sleep. So Roan did some searching on his computer.
    The first result on “burn” as a drug turned up three months ago in someone’s Facebook post, and then it increased exponentially, although it still wasn’t widespread. If LexisNexis could be trusted, it had gone as far north as Vancouver and as far south as Eugene, but so far it had been limited to the West Coast… for now. These things never stayed regional.
    He then did a search of odd cat incidents in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, and it took hours to sort them out, but he flagged five. One was an article about the case in Bremerton that Seb had mentioned, but the others were new to him. At the last minute, he decided to add an article about a panther that had killed a horse in Cle Elum and mauled another (and got shot and killed for the trouble).
    The gallery opening to the public was at eight, but there was a “private” opening starting at six thirty, which was the one they were heading to, and while Dylan’s bottom lip was no longer swollen, it did have a bit of a scab on it. It looked like he’d been punched, and Roan was certain that Dylan’s friends, who already thought he was a fascist, would think he’d hit him. Considering he basically drank his blood during sex, hitting Dylan was actually the better option than the truth.
    They were supposed to dress up a bit but not get too fancy, so in honor of Dylan’s pretentious friend, Roan wore paint-splattered black jeans and a T-shirt that said in bold, fancy, framed letters, “I Hate Attention Seekers.” Dylan, for his part, wore saggy jeans and a T-shirt proclaiming “Where The White Women At?” (Dominik was a friend in a technical sense, but Dylan didn’t care for him much, and the more pretentious he became, the more Dylan agreed that pissing him off was the only way forward).
    They were the most dressed-down people to show up at a gallery so small Roan actually drove past it without seeing it the first time. They got a couple of evil looks from women so thin Roan felt like he should give them twenty bucks to go get a sandwich, and men so camp they couldn’t have been gayer if they were wearing outfits made of dildos. Still, Dylan knew a lot of people there and was greeted warmly by many. When Dylan turned to introduce him to people, Roan always held out his hand and smiled warmly while saying, “Hi, I’m his asshole husband, Roan. You may have seen me in Truncheon Beating Weekly .”
    Although there were a couple of awkward handshakes and uncertain looks, a small Asian woman named Clea burst out laughing, and a relatively good-looking emo guy named Keenan snickered and said he was more of a dickhead, but he was aspiring to be an asshole someday. Roan told Dylan he could invite Clea and Keenan over anytime.
    Dominik decided to be fashionably late to his own show, so they wandered around the small gallery, looking at his photos. Most were blown up to poster sizes, although a few were smaller, and they were following a theme: half-naked, scrawny guy with bleached hair and black roots (Dylan confirmed it was