Blood and Fire Read Free

softer, until it disappeared.
    Then Kev stretched out with a blanket and slept on the floor. And when Bruno had the nightmare, Kev woke him and did it again. Every night, for months. And bit by bit, it started to work. A night would go by, no dream. Then another. Bruno stopped freaking out in school, for the most part. He’d stopped getting straight D’s and F’s. He’d never gotten particularly good at sleep, being hyper by nature, but it was better. And finally, the dreams stopped altogether. He was cured.
    Or so he thought, until a couple of months ago.
    He could make a recording similar to Kev’s mesmerizing monologue, and hypnotize himself, as Kev had hypnotized him. Problem was, he suspected it was the force of Kev’s will that made the technique work. Kev had been a bulwark by his bed. No one messed with Kev.
    But Rudy knew damn well he could mess with Bruno. No lame guided visualization with waves crashing and birds chirping was going to change that. But what could he do? Call Kev, bleating for him to come home, tuck Bruno into bed? Whining to be rescued, like the zinged-out twelve-year-old dingbat he’d been when Kev met him?
    No. Grow up. Get a spine transplant. Get the fuck over it.
    He muscled himself into the shower and slumped against the tiles for support. Let the water beat down against his closed eyelids.
    Move your pansy ass, Ranieri. They ain’t payin’ you by the hour. He almost laughed. Tony, again. Made him nostalgic to channel the old guy’s brusque rudeness. Aw, hell with sleep. Kev would be back soon, for the wedding that Edie’s terrifying aunt was planning for Kev and Edie in a few weeks. He could talk to Kev between tux fittings, wedding rehearsals, dinners, showers and all that standard nuptial fluff.
    In the meantime, he’d face his monsters like a man.
    Brave words, dude. Brave words, an inner voice commented.
    So? he shot back. Shut the fuck up, or say something useful.
    He listened in the silence for more as he got ready, but surprise, surprise . . . the little voice said nothing further.

2
     
    L ily Parr stared into her laptop. The taxi’s swerving on the bends in the highway was making her queasy, but she powered on. Nausea was nasty, but if she shut the laptop and closed her eyes, she’d have to think about what she was about to do. And the way it made her feel.
    She’d rather cram psych texts into her brain until there was no room for so much as a fleeting thought. After all, she had six years worth of studying to do in four short days for the grad thesis she was writing. A steep learning curve, but the guy who’d hired her to write it for him had forked over the 50 percent in cash she asked for up front this very morning, thank God, soed was committed. With that, plus the other fees she’d scraped together, letting utility bills slide and paying the minimum on her maxed-out credit cards, she’d covered the monthly fee for Aingle Cliff House, Howard’s private clinic. Assuming she didn’t need to buy anything frivolous, like subway fare or groceries, until some fresh fees trickled in. But once they did, she’d already be budgeting for next month’s check. She wasn’t sure what was left in the dark corners of the pantry, but she was going to get friendly with it this week. And who needed subway fare? She lived in Manhattan. She could walk. Her thighs could use the workout.
    She muscled her mind back to the screen. The trick was to keep her mind constantly applied, like a pen that did not dare leave the paper. If only she could forget she had a body. Just be a vaporous cloud. Things would be simpler. Talk about saving on the grocery bill. Her inconvenient body was the medium through which feelings made themselves known. She hadn’t been able to afford feelings since she was ten, but they never figured out that they weren’t welcome. Clueless.
    Ironic, to be writing a thesis in psychology. A crash course in the inner workings of the human brain, yay. That stuff