Josh awoke, not quite refreshed, but clear headed at the very least. His arm still raw as though he’d peeled back a blister across the length of his entire limb. But it didn’t hurt as badly as he had expected. The aloe helped, and the bandages had prevented him from getting blood all over the bedding in the guest room. The gauze needed to be changed. Josh could see blotches of dark brown that had spread through the cotton fibers, and the whole limb seemed to be scratchy from a crust of dried blood that made it uncomfortable to move the whole thing. Sleep had been good though.

How Josh had ended up on the actual bed that he’d said he would take was a mystery. To him at least. It was an interesting thing to go unconscious in one location and wake up in another. Startling, almost. Disorienting, definitely. But the surroundings of the guest bedroom in the penthouse were not strange to him and the familiarity helped to calm him down as he shifted incrementally back into full consciousness.

For once, Josh knew what day it was. It felt like it had been weeks since he had been certain of the time. But he hadn’t slept for that long. It was Sunday morning, and his meeting with Gul was imminent. With that thought in mind, Josh carefully swung his feet down to the floor and put weight on them for the first time in what felt like days. They weren’t eager for the effort, but they cooperated; which was a relief. Staring out the day by needing help to get out of bed would have tainted the rest of the day to be sure. Still, Josh couldn’t help but feel a gnawing sense anxiety as he thought about what lay ahead of him.

As Josh walked out to the open common area of the apartment, he realized that for once he was the first one awake. Or appeared to be. No one else was making noise in the apartment. Bedroom doors were closed, the study space and kitchen were empty, and Margot—who had fallen asleep on the couch—wasn’t reacting to his presence in the living room area. So, as Josh made his way to the kitchen, he did so quietly. He needed three things, the aloe from the night before, the gauze, and whatever tape he could find—Josh didn’t feel confident that he could tie off the gauze as cleanly as Margot had without tape.

All three items were acquired and Josh tip toed back to the guest bedroom for his overnight bag. At least, he assumed it was there. Josh couldn’t’ quite remember where he’d placed it when he and Connor had arrived at the apartment. In fact, there were several things he couldn’t remember about the night before. The bag was there by the door to the bedroom, on the floor where it was clearly visible, though it seemed to have a new weight to it now that Josh couldn’t only haul it with one arm.

“I guess I get the shower first…” Josh mumbled to himself.

The bathroom was empty, no one else was up, and Josh could smell himself now. That was a bad sign.

Peeling off the gauze was the worst part. The skin had healed enough that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but the gauze still stuck to the dried blood and came off with a familiar peeling sensation that made Josh gag. What didn’t peel off with the gauze cracked as Josh bent his arm to test it’s recovery. If he’d been smart he would have taken a plastic bag into the bathroom so that he could cover his arm while he showered and then clean it off on its own. That isn’t to imply that Josh was stupid. Just clueless when it came to matters of physical injury; he’d never broken a bone, had a cut deep enough to scar, or ever needed to go to the ER for any reason. And while it was stupid to let his oozing arm soak, it felt good while it lasted. And it was nice to be clean.

It wasn’t until Josh attempted to dry off that he realized that he’d made a terrible mistake. Even patting his arm dry was excruciating, and it was incredibly difficult to dry his right arm without moving his left around around. And the soap had not been kind to his left arm once it had begun to dry. The already sore skin was drying out and cracking. Even when he’d gotten aloe over his arm, Josh still felt the dry ache of skin ready to split.

But that was just the worst part. Once his arm was wrapped in gauze again it felt like Josh was being held together and the soft pressure was soothing. The covering of his arm also eased the pain and allowed Josh to relax his body, undoing a problem he hadn’t even realized he was experiencing. His shoulders and back had been tensed in anticipation of pain, but felt the relief of dropping a weight. And with his body relaxed, Josh began to hear the sounds of life outside of the bathroom.

“I’m glad you’re doing better.”

Sara was waiting outside the bathroom door with a smile, looking a little frumpy from sleep and with a bundle of fresh clothes in her arms.

“Me too. Arm’s a bit wrecked still, but I think I’m doing much better.” Josh couldn’t help but smile. IT was like hearing that someone else cared about him was the final signal of relief that he needed to truly relax.

Something Josh had set made Sara cringe, but there was still a smile buried in her expression. “About that… your arm… Connor… you should probably just go talk to Connor. He tends to eat before he gets cleaned up for the day.”

Unclear of what exactly Sara was talking about, Josh turned to the open half of the apartment to find Connor about where he expected. At the kitchen counter. But between Josh and Connor, like an odd road block, was Margot. The supposedly older woman was situated in the middle of the apartment, performing some kind of levitating stretch that kept most of her mass hovering just off the ground. It took Josh a moment to realize that her fists were planted on the ground, knuckle down, and she was essentially just doing over-complicated push-ups.

“Glad to see you up and moving.” Margot grunted as Josh walked by. “If your arms wasn’t as bad as it is, I’d have you doing some light exercise and some basic self-defense training. You can never be too careful when you’re going out to meet new people.”

“Right. Maybe you can show me something in a bit.” Josh wasn’t entirely sure where to start asking questions with that small snippet of information and decided not to ask anything instead.

“Connor, Sara says you wanted to talk to me about my…”

Connor had looked up as son as Margot started talking, and Josh had noticed him move around the kitchen area to retrieve something. Before Josh could finish asking his question, Connor tossed a plastic gallon bag in his direction. The need to catch something being thrown at him stopped the question in its tracks, but the moment Josh realized what was in the bag he regretted even beginning to ask the question in the first place. For, as Josh quickly realized, inside the plastic bag was the preserved sleeve of skin that Josh had removed from his arm the night before.

“It’s disgusting.” Connor nodded in agreement with Josh’s unspoken disgust. “But it’s not decaying, not drying out, and if we throw that in the garbage and someone finds it there will probably be police involved.”

Josh nearly gagged. The combination of sheer gruesomeness and the psychological horror that had driven him to remove that part of his body were almost too much. “Well, what do ou expect me to do with it?”

“Bury it, burn it, keep it as a souvenir? Just don’t show it to anyone.”

“You think it would…” Josh couldn’t bring himself to actually stomach the idea of what he was insinuating. That the out of control mark he had removed could be seen and used by someone else.

Connor cringed but nodded. “I would imagine there are people that could and would use that for the wrong reasons. Not that anyone besides the four of us knows that it exists. Which, it should stay that way. This isn’t a secret to share with anyone else.”

“Except Gul. If they ask about it.” Margot interjected. “They already know a bit about your mark anyway, and they’ll want to either see it or hear what happened to it.”

“Have they decided on an exact time and place to meet?” Josh hazarded the question that he had been silently dreading all morning.

Margot let out a sigh as she nodded and explained. “They want to meet at precisely eleven fifteen, outside the front door to the Charming Cat Cafe. I’m familiar with the location but… for the life of me I have no idea why they want to meet there.”

Josh tilted his head as he tried to dredge his memory for a piece of information about the cafe. It sounded familiar. “Is that the place with the guy out front in cat ears that passes out fliers all day?”

“Yup.” Margot groaned.

“Well, I’m out.” Connor sighed. “I’m not setting foot in a place with cat hair all over it.”

“Really?” Josh turned to Connor, perplexed for some reason that the man who seemed to be allergic or intolerant to everything was also allergic to cats.

“Cats, horses, and long haired dogs.” Connor confirmed, a more humored expression on his face than when he explained his dietary restrictions. “Lucky for me, I don’t need to worry about eating them. Just the hair.”

“How are you even alive?” Josh joked, He felt bad about it almost immediately after.

Connor didn’t seem fazed by the inconsiderate jab. “I ask myself that question every day.”

Margot chuckled at the comment, as if agreeing for some yet unknown reason, before trying to bring the conversation back to a serious point. “I don’t think they would want us in the meeting anyway. If fact, they’ve probably rented out the entire cafe for your meeting. We’ll be waiting close by, of course, in case things… go sideways.”

“Hold on. You’ve kind of hinted at this sort of thing before. What do you mean by go sideways?” Josh hadn’t really been in a position to ask that question yet. He had wanted to, but the conversation had always been interrupted by something more urgent or relevant. “Are you saying that Gul’s going to attack me? Is that why you wanted to run me through a self defense lesson?”

“As… odd as Gul is, I don’t think they’ll attack you.” Margot hesitated before actually answering the question she had been asked. She clearly had been avoiding it for some time now. “But there are people that hunt marked individuals… actively. And Gul is something of a high value target for them. It’s not very safe for them… for Gul to spend a lot of time out in the open. I’m kind of at risk as well. It’s why I use burner phones and don’t stay in one place very often anymore. After my mark was activated, I hid in the military, but even then they found me and very nearly killed me. So you might get caught up in the crossfire if there is… well… a crossfire.”

“You’re saying I might get shot?”

Margot answered in a mumble of, “Not necessarily…”

“You might get stabbed or hit over the head with a rock.” Connor chuckled.

“And you’re laughing?”

“Yes. Because we’ll get killed first if anything happens.”

“We will be waiting outside the cafe,” Margot corrected. “So if something does happen, we will face any risk first. Which should be at least a mild reassurance.”

“And,” Sara chimed in as she leaned into the main room of the apartment, a towel wrapped around what was visible of her torso. “If we die, there’s not much point in carrying on with this whole thing, is there?”

Margot’s glare shifted from Connor to Sara as she let out a deep sigh. It was clear there was no getting around the information she had not wanted to introduce directly. Josh could see the conflicting desire to share more with him and the desire to gently walk him through everything he should know. But there was nothing she could truly say to ease his mind at that moment.

“Put some clothes on, girl.” Margot snapped. “And you, Connor Square up. You’re going to help me demonstrate some self defense maneuvers. Watch closely, Josh.”