Shortly after that conversation, Jackson left, a gust of sand blowing in the door before he slammed it shut behind him. She cleared away the takeout containers.
The wind had picked up until it sounded an unending, mournful howl. The trailer was warm but the floor seemed chilly to her, so she collected one of the old cotton blankets she had found and shook it out over the dog’s prone figure. She checked on the container that held the pot roast dinner. The meal had been too hot before, but it had since cooled to a comfortable level.
The dog had been dozing, but his eyes opened when she sat down on the floor beside him with the container and a couple of dinner rolls. Her guess had been right, the floor was chilly. She tucked a corner of the blanket over her legs. She tore off a piece of the roll, soaked it in gravy, and held it out to him. He looked at the morsel of food but didn’t move.
“It must be really painful for you to swallow right now,” she said. “But try a few pieces. Please. You’ll get your strength back more quickly if you can eat.”
He took the food with obvious reluctance. She looked away from his struggle to swallow as she prepared a second bite. She added a sliver of meat to it.
“I think we have something of a simple binary situation,” she said. “Either/or, yes or no. Only this time, it’s a matter of can’t or won’t.”
She offered him the bite. He accepted it, watching her with wary, drug-glazed eyes.
“I’m not sure if you can’t or won’t shape-shift,” she said. “My guess is you can’t because you’re too hurt. I could see how you might pretend to be a mundane dog, except that pretending won’t get you anything. If word hasn’t gotten out already that you lived, it will. Rodriguez knows that you survived the trip to the vet, and your reaction earlier told me that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
She offered him a piece of potato. He just looked at it. She dropped it back into the stew and held out a piece of meat. He took it carefully from her fingers and worked to swallow it.
“I’m not surprised about Rodriguez,” she continued. “I could tell he was walking some kind of line earlier. He made each ethical decision as he came to it. Should he pull the gun and shoot you? How much did it matter that I was a witness? Could—or would—he really go so far as to kill me too? I don’t think it was a coincidence he pulled me over just after I found you. I think he was looking for you. Maybe he’s the one who tried to kill you. But that doesn’t feel right.” She didn’t think Rodriguez would have left the dog alive beside the highway. The sheriff looked like the kind of man who also knew the impact of a well-placed bullet.
She sounded out another idea. “Maybe somebody was supposed to kill you and fucked up. Someone dumb and mean might be capable of that. Then Rodriguez was sent to make sure the job got done properly, only I found you first. That sounds plausible. But what are you doing in Nevada and why would somebody want to kill you? Logic won’t tell me those things. Only you can and you won’t talk. Won’t, not can’t, because you could tell me telepathically if you wanted to.”
She held out another sliver of meat. He closed his eyes. He looked utterly exhausted, the skin around his eyes sunken. Emotion twisted in her gut. She closed the container and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Okay,” she said gently. “You get a free pass tonight. I won’t push.”
He was a dual-natured creature, one of the Elder Races. It was probably patronizing and even insulting to pet him as if he were a mundane dog. She struggled, but then gave in to the impulse and stroked his well-shaped head again. He responded with a deep sigh and seemed to relax a bit, as if her touch comforted him.
She supposed he could always tell her to stop. That would be one way to force him into speech. She could pet him into talking. Stroking his soft ear, she looked across the floor, at her legs crossed at the ankles, and the long length of his body.
“Precious, you are one big son of a bitch,” she said with a ghost of a chuckle. “I’m sorry you don’t feel like you can even tell me your name.”
She was tired of hearing the sound of her own voice. It was a strain to talk so much after having been silent for days on the road. She fell quiet and listened to the wind.
That was when the strange voice came into her head.
Telepathy was a funny thing. Even though it was an entirely mental experience, the mind attributed different voices with the same kind of characteristics as it would physical ones.
The voice Claudia heard was deep and male, with a touch of an accent.
My name is Luis.
She paused in petting him, as she absorbed that. Hearing his name, even though she had already known he was Wyr, seemed to cause some kind of intangible but very important shift.
“Thank you, Luis,” she said quietly. “You’re going to be all right. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”