Stephanie Plum 14.5 - Plum Spooky
EIGHTEEN
I CAME AWAKE tired. Flat-?out exhausted to the point of being barely able to breathe. Too tired to open my eyes. Someone was talking to me, but it sounded like they were underwater.
“Just let me sleep,” I said.
“Steph!”
I opened my eyes and looked at Diesel.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
“No. I feel like death. Where am I?”
“In your apartment.”
“Oh yeah. I knew that.”
I was stretched out on my bed, Carl was watching from the dresser, and Diesel had his hand wrapped around my wrist.
“What are you doing?” I asked him. “My wrist burns.”
“I’ve got a cold pack on it,” Diesel said.
He took his hand away, and I saw he’d been holding a face cloth filled with crushed ice on my wrist. Under the face cloth was a red welt in the shape of a hand. Wulf’s hand.
“He burned me!”
Diesel put the ice pack back on my wrist. “It’s not a bad burn. It’ll fade in a couple weeks. Leave the ice on for a little while longer, and then rub some Bactine on the burn.”
“I think I missed a chunk of action. The last thing I remember, I was in my kitchen, and Wulf zapped me. I’m getting fed up with the zapping thing. That was the third time. How does he do it?”
“It’s not difficult. It’s a parlor trick. Like bending spoons.”
“Can you do it?”
“Yes. And you can, too, with a stun gun.”
“How long was I out?”
“Probably ten to fifteen minutes. He had you over his shoulder like a sack of flour when I pulled into the parking lot. He dropped you when he saw me, and he vanished behind a flash of light. I have to admit, I don’t know how he does the vanishing thing. It’s new. I think it’s a little over the top with the light and the smoke, but that’s Wulf. He’s always loved the dramatic.”
“He said Munch was moping around, thinking about me, and wasn’t productive, so he came to get me for Munch.”
“That makes my skin crawl. I don’t want you out of my sight until we resolve this.”
“Oh great.”
“You’re supposed to be relieved because big bad Diesel is going to protect you.”
“I appreciate the thought, but I like to think I can protect myself.”
Diesel pulled me to my feet. “Don’t get carried away with the strong female thing. Wulf isn’t normal. And I don’t know how to break this to you, but you have no self-?defense skills beyond kicking a guy in the nuts.”
I was standing, but I wasn’t feeling especially stable. “I can’t feel my legs,” I said to Diesel.
“You’ll come back faster if you walk around.”