At a loss for words, I continued the conversation the only way I knew how. “How do you mean?”
He looked up at me. “Winter would have killed Viktor back there. Hell, he would have killed Viktor the second he heard anyone got hit with a black truck.”
“There’s more than one black truck in this town.”
“You don’t know Viktor.” Lucas shook his head. “But that’s not the point. The point is I don’t want to lead. I’m not like him. I don’t even want to be like him.”
“Is anyone else in line?”
“Fenris Jr. But that’ll be a few years. The pack can’t function without a leader for that long.”
“Winter’s not dead yet.”
“Yet,” Lucas repeated dourly. “Helen has access to all the group accounts—she got them when Fenris Sr. died. But any time without a leader is too long for creatures accustomed to having one. Long enough for people to get ideas. If he doesn’t heal, then I’ll have to take over on the next full moon night.” He inhaled deeply. “I shouldn’t be telling you all this.”
“Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping secrets.” Like the fact that I had Winter’s blood in my pocket right now.
Lucas stared at me with his light brown eyes. They were rimmed in a darker brown, almost red. I felt guilt flush my face. “Thank you.”
* * *
The rest of the night was uneventful. Gina and I gave report to the same crew that’d had him yesterday, and went to the locker rooms together. I wanted to ask her privately about why she’d taken an extra shift, but by the time I’d slipped the test strip into my going-home scrubs’ pocket and double-washed my hands, she’d already gone.
As I exited the Winter family was arriving. Helen, whom I assumed was the matriarch now, was dressed all in black with Fenris Jr. in tow.
“This place—” She drew up short and worry furrowed her brow. “It smells like Viktor. Was he here? Did he come here last night?”
I looked to Lucas, who stood exhaustedly behind her, for guidance.
“He was, but I sent him away,” Lucas answered. “I knew it was what you would have wanted.”
“Good.” She turned toward me and reached for me like she knew me, her in her Sunday best and me in scrubs. I was startled into hugging her back. She ran her cheek against my own, breathing in my hair as she held tight. “Don’t let that awful man see my father. Don’t let him come down here. Ever.”
Just what I wanted, to be the local were-guest bouncer. “You’re going to see the social worker—you should tell him that,” I told her.
She smiled up at me weakly. “Okay. I will.” And then she clung to me again, as though she needed my support. “Thank you so much for all you do.”
“You’re … welcome?” I said, and looked to Lucas for help. He reached for Helen and gently pulled her away from me.
“You’ll keep him alive for us, won’t you?” she asked me from Lucas’s arms.
I didn’t want to make any promises I couldn’t keep. Plus, I wasn’t even in charge of his care. But trapped there, with Junior looking hopefully on—my unwise mouth began to form the word Okay. Only our social worker’s arrival saved me from myself. He waved the Winter family toward a meeting room down the hall. Jorgen was the last to go in. He paused and sniffed at me.
“Wash your hands, girl. You’re not even fit to smell like him,” he said as he passed. I grabbed my purse tighter and left, gritting the truth behind my teeth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The story of Nurse Edie and the Very Long Shift was almost through, thank goodness. I wove through the visitors in the lobby, sleeping on the couches set up like pews. In inclement weather, homeless people sometimes set up shop there, claiming they were waiting for friends. It would be hard to differentiate between them and the family members who really were waiting. This morning was no different.
On my way out I saw Luz sound asleep at the end of a couch, arms crossed, leaning against a column. I wanted to go over to wake her and ask how Javier was—but she’d been out here for eight hours, she wouldn’t know. I was off shift, I needed to stay that way. I needed to get home.
I drove home that morning in the dark. Dren wasn’t lurking in the lobby, underneath the awning, near my car, under my car, inside my car—I even checked in the trunk. I’d watched too many horror movies to not look.
By the time I got home you could tell that it was daytime, and I figured I was safe. Twelve hours is a long time to be at work, even if you’re not on your feet every minute of it. I unlocked my front door, already dreaming of the shower I was about to take.
Grandfather started ranting. I stopped in my entryway.
“What’s going on?” My keys were still in my hand—I slid the longest one between my fingers, so I could punch at someone with it if I had to. There was a groan in response, from inside my house.
Leaving the door wide open behind me, I took another step in. “Hello?”
Another groan. I made it to my living room and looked at my couch. It was currently occupied. Gideon waved a fingerless hand at me. My eyes slid up to his face, empty of eyes, ears, and lips, and I wanted to throw up, only I was too fucking tired.
“You have got to be kidding me. Hang on.” Without taking my eyes off him, I found my phone in my purse and dialed Sike. She picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hello, Edie!” She sounded pleased to hear from me, which meant she was in on this.
“Why is there a Cenobite sitting on my couch?”
“What’s a Cenobite?”
“Rent Hellraiser.” I walked backward without taking my eyes off him and closed my apartment door behind me. “Was this really the fucking plan?”
“You didn’t think they were coming home with me, did you?”
“They?” I sputtered, and looked down my short hall.
“In your closet.”
I went back to my bedroom. There was a lightproof sheet over my bedroom’s small window again. I’d kept it after the last time I needed it, for help hiding vampires. Being a night-shift nurse and all, lightproof curtains were a wonderful luxury. My bed was empty, but my shoes were cast out across my floor again. This didn’t bode well. I slid my closet open and peeked inside. “Goddammit, Sike. I hate you.” There was a woman inside my closet, on the floor. She wasn’t breathing, but I knew she wasn’t dead.
“Likewise, of course,” Sike said.
I squatted down, the phone still pressed to my ear. I put fingers to the prone woman’s wrist and felt no pulse, just flesh, soft and cool. “Who is this?”
“Veronica Lambridge. Gideon’s girlfriend, and former laboratory technician.”
She didn’t look like a Veronica—she had mousy brown hair, close-cropped, like a ten-year-old boy’s, and a smattering of freckles that made her look even younger. Her face was peaceful now, but who knew how she’d feel when she woke up.
“Anna changed her, after Gideon’s attack, for her own protection. But Anna’s not allowed to make new vampires yet, so we had to hide her.”
I slid the closet door closed again. “My house is safest why?”
“No other vampires have access to it. You haven’t been making more friends on the side, have you?”
“Of course not.”
“Well then, there you go. You’re the Ambassador of the Sun, they need a little baby-sitting, and your place is safer than ours till we figure out who did that to Gideon.”
I was silent on the line. “Anna trusts you. I don’t know why, but she trusts you,” Sike went on, her voice bitter, mocking—jealous. “You might be the only one she trusts.”
I pushed Veronica a little farther into my closet and slid the door closed. “How long will she be out?”
“Three days is the normal. We’ll pick her up between now and then.”
“Maybe you could call first?”
Sike laughed at me. “We’ll come by at night.” And then she hung up.
I stood in my bedroom, looking at my closed closet door. I was so tired. I was so scared. I was so tired of being scared.
But in my mind, I put all of my nurse armor on. I was going to do what needed doing. Again.
* * *
I went back out to living room, where Gideon sat, pantsless on my couch in a hospital gown.
“We’re going to have to make the best of things, okay?” He was mute, of course. “Look, you were here beforehand, right? Did you give yourself a tour?”
He shook his head.
“Well, the bathroom is down the hall. But.” I could not just have him sitting on my couch with no pants. I gave a slightly manic laugh at the thought, then breathed in deeply and went back to my bedroom.
Gideon was way taller than me. My old scrubs would be highwaters on him, but at least he’d be able to shimmy in and out of them, even without entire fingers. I silently blessed my new washable couch cover, which was keeping his boy parts from direct contact with my couch.
I brought the scrub pants out into my living room. “Okay, stand up. Right leg up. Left leg up.” I hitched the pants onto him and drew them up. After I tied the drawstring in a loose bow, I put my hand to his elbow and directed him down my short hallway.
“So there’s a bathroom over here, to your right.” My toilet was against the back wall, but I didn’t trust him to hit it in his state. I pulled him inside the small room. “There’s a shower here”—I knocked on the glass door so he could hear it—“and I’ll leave the door open. You can just pee in there. And if you have to do worse, just let me know. It won’t be the first time I’ve wiped someone’s ass, so don’t be shy, okay?”
He made a cross between a grunt and a groan. I decided to take it as a yes.
“Are you hungry?”
He nodded. Without lips, there was only so much he would be able to keep inside his mouth. Lips were one of those things that people didn’t appreciate till they were gone—although most times that was due to a stroke, and not internecine vampire warfare. Thank God they’d let him keep his teeth. I inhaled and exhaled, drawing on additional strength and sanity hidden deep inside.