Page 47 of License to Kill

“You should sharpen their knives since you’ve been helping them out in the kitchen.”

“No,” Jake’s father growled.

Jake’s mother stepped into the room, and she had several bloody towels draped over her arm. “What’s this I hear about helping out in the kitchen?”

“Karma was suggesting to our son he should help in the kitchen with an electric knife sharpener.”

His mother’s eyes widened. “Don’t even think about it, James.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t mauled her so she needed stitches, I wouldn’t be thinking about it.”

The two growled at each other, and with a resigned sigh, I held my arm out to Jake’s father. “Just get it over with already. And no, I do not need a transfusion or a trip to the hospital.”

“How about some painkillers?”

“Only if you have Demerol.”

Jake sighed. “I can’t even say we don’t deserve it.”

“Well, it’s nice to know some things will never change. She’s still mean, son.”

While Jake’s father offered morphine, I stubbornly refused it, regretting it the instant he went to work stitching Pauline’s bites closed. I yelped at the first jab, and Jake tensed beneath me, and he growled with his every breath. While I got through it without crying, I ended up screaming curses at all of them, detailing their sins to keep the tears from falling.

By the end of it, Dr. Howards had shown up, and he watched Sebastian finish with interest. “While I’m willing to accept progress in any form, torture is illegal within the United States. I could hear the screaming from the front door. Were you aware there are a rather high number of concerned individuals crammed into your living room? They called me, informing me they were afraid a new World War was in progress.”

Jake’s father cleaned my arm while I panted to catch my breath. “The bitch bit me. The son of a bitch seems to think he’s a chair. The bitch’s face stealing chew toy wouldn’t give me Demerol.”

“You experience complete psychosis when you’re on Demerol with exceptionally violent tendencies. Also, if the evidence in front of me is to be believed, you’re the one who got chewed on.”

Jake’s father sighed. “I don’t steal faces. He steals faces.”

My shrink nodded. “I believe the ‘son of a bitch’ in this situation is the one who actually stole the face, as he’s the son.”

Why did everyone insist on annoying me? “I saw the son of a bitch first.”

“I see. Would one of you care to explain why my patient seems to have lost a great deal of her blood and required stitches?”

Jake chuckled, keeping his arms wrapped around my waist. “For some reason neither has cared to explain, Karma and my mother shifted and got into a brawl.”

“You don’t seem very concerned, Mr. Thomas.”

“She’s on my lap and hasn’t tried to kill me yet.”

“Right. Fenerec male idiot. I should have known better than to ask you. Pauline?”

“We were resolving some of our differences.”

“Did you forget she does not heal as well as Fenerec do? Did you also forget she is the equivalent of a puppy? I believe we had a discussion about unfair advantages over compromised individuals once already. I left you alone for three hours.”

Pauline scowled. “So you’re saying I should have just let her rip my fur out?”

“Yes.”

I found a new respect for the psychologist. “I got mad.”

“So you decided to shift and start a fight.”

“She was in my space.”