Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton Page B

cut, and the newer bite marks between the two. Those bites were still sort of pink, not white and shiny like the rest. Okay, the burn wasn’t white, darker actually, but . . . “Which one?” I asked, looking up at him.
    He smiled then. “The cross-shaped burn scar.”
    I shrugged. “I got captured by some Renfields—humans with a few bites—who belonged to a master vampire. The Renfields chained me up as a sort of snack for when their master rose for the night, but while we were waiting they decided to have some fun. The fun was heating up a cross-shaped branding iron and marking me.”
    â€œYou tell the story like it doesn’t mean anything to you.”
    I shrugged again. “It doesn’t. Not really. I mean it was scary and horrible, and hurt like hell. I try not to think about it. If I dwell too much on the things that could go wrong or have gone wrong in the past, I have trouble doing my job.”
    He looked at me, and he was angry. I didn’t know why. “How would you feel if I told my story the same way?”
    â€œTell your story any way you want, or don’t tell it, Micah. I’m not the one forcing us to play true confessions.”
    â€œFine,” he said. “I was eighteen, almost nineteen. It was the fall I went away to college. My cousin Richie had just gotten back from basic. We both came home so we could go hunting with our dads one last time. You know, one last boys’ weekend out.” His voice held anger, and I finally realized that he wasn’t angry at me.
    â€œAt the last minute, Dad couldn’t come with us. Some hunters had gone missing, and Dad thought one of his patrols had found them.”
    â€œYour dad was a cop?”
    He nodded. “County sheriff. The body they found turned out to be a homeless guy who got lost in the woods and died of exposure. Some animals got to him, but they hadn’t killed him.”
    His face had gone distant with remembering. I’dhad a lot of people tell me awful truths, and he told it like most of them did, no hysterics. No anything, really. No effect, as the therapists and the profilers would say. He looked empty as he told his story. Not matter-of-fact the way I told my story, but empty, as if part of him wasn’t really there. The only thing that showed the strain was that thread of anger in his voice.
    â€œWe were all armed, and Uncle Steve and Dad had taught Richie and me how to use a gun. I could shoot before I could ride a bike.” He set his silverware down on the table, and his fingers found the salt shaker. It was real glass, smooth and elegant for a salt shaker. He turned it around and around in his fingers, giving it all his eye contact.
    â€œWe knew it might be the last time the four of us got to hunt together, you know? College for me, the army for Richie—it was all changing. Dad was really upset that he didn’t get to come, and so was I. Uncle Steve offered to wait, but Dad told him to go ahead. We wouldn’t all get our deer in one day. He was going to drive up and join us the next day.”
    He paused again, this time for so long that I thought he’d stopped for good. I gave him the silence to decide. Stop, or go; tell or not.
    His voice when it came was emptier; no anger now, but the soft beginnings of something worse. “We’d gotten a doe. We always got two buck tags and two doe tags, so between the four of us, we could shoot what we found.” He frowned, then looked at me. “You don’t know what a deer tag is, do you?”
    â€œThe deer tag tells you what you can shoot, buck or doe. You don’t get a choice some years, because some years there are more does than bucks, so they give out more doe tags. Though usually it’s buck that’s more plentiful.”
    He looked surprised. “You’ve been deer hunting.”
    I nodded. “My dad used to take me.”
    He smiled. “Beth, my