“HEY… MIRI. CAN I borrow you a minute?”

I turned, looking towards the conference room door.

I stood around a flat-screen television in the main conference room of Black’s offices, surrounded by about fifteen of the young natives from New Mexico.

In just the last few minutes, a few seers and a number of Black’s ex-military types had joined us as well––most of them carrying bags of food, since it was around noon. Now Kiko leaned on the edge of the table next to me, not far from Mika, Jem, Jax, Yarli, Manny, Easton, and Frank, who’d all pulled chairs over from around the high-tech conference table.

The younger natives, including Magic and a number of her friends, Dog and Devin among them, sat on the floor. I was the only one who stood entirely, maybe because I kept telling myself I would leave soon, that I would stop watching the news.

Somehow, I never did stop watching, though.

On the monitor, twenty-four-hour cable news reported on the riots in Texas.

Copycat riots had started in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Virginia, Chicago, and Philadelphia now, too.

Tearing my eyes off the image of two vampires tearing out the throats of soldiers firing assault rifles, wearing full riot gear, I looked towards the familiar voice.

Black stood in the door of the conference room.

He wore his usual work uniform of black pants, a black T-shirt and boots, and his military watch. I couldn’t help noticing he was wearing his wedding ring too, the one from the set he’d commissioned from that artist in New York.

If he’d seen me glance at his ring finger, his face didn’t show it. His expression was grim, and he looked distracted. Taking in what little I could feel off his light, I looked from him back to the monitor, grimacing at the video now playing in the inset behind the reporter.

It showed a tall, red-haired male vampire with its fangs sunk into the throat of a woman who looked maybe twenty years old––so probably from one of the colleges. According to the news reports, several universities in the South, notably in Texas and Louisiana, had been targeted by groups of vampires. There’d been a lot of murmured conversations in our group about what was really going on. So far, I agreed the most with Kiko and Yarli’s assessment, that Charles had his people staging these riots for his own reasons.

Yarli figured Charles might have even targeted the universities specifically. According to her, he’d want control over the institutions of higher learning, perhaps as an excuse to put them directly under the umbrella of the federal government, and thus his own people.

Charles also clearly wanted more control over the borders.

Yarli explained to us how they’d had racial checkpoints at all borders on Old Earth, even between some states in her version of the U.S.A.

She suspected Charles was aiming to create something like that here too, only for vampires, not for seers. He’d want the universities, she explained, so he could start funneling resources into research and tech he needed to control the vampire population––and likely the human population as well.

The longer she talked, the more I found myself seeing the outlines of the world my uncle was designing, and the more I realized we wouldn’t be able to stand on the sidelines for much longer. It also made me wonder what the hell the vampires would do once Charles started making his power grabs for real.

There was no doubt the riots were also meant to scare the hell out of the humans in regard to vampires, as well.

I stared at the college student’s face as the red-haired vampire consumed her, and it hit me that her parents could be watching this. Eyes glazed, head thrown back, the young woman looked on the verge of death. The vampire’s face was calm. A look of utter contentment lived in his expression as he drained her, one hand wrapped around the front of her body, squeezing her breast through the sweatshirt she wore.

She wasn’t a woman, whatever her age.

She was a girl.

Watching the life drain out of her, I couldn’t help but think of Zoe, my sister. She was about the same age when a vampire killed her.

My eyes returned to Black, that grimace still twisting my expression.

“Sure,” I said. “No problem.”

Realizing how long I’d been standing in there, watching the news with the young Natives, all of whom had a lot better excuse for being in there than I did, I felt a flicker of guilt. I wondered if I was growing addicted to watching the horror show my uncle was unfolding on the world stage, starting with my own country.

More to the point, I was neglecting my work.

Black asked me to start going through the files on the seer refugees days ago, a job I’d been putting off since we got back from Europe, mostly because I still spent most of my time combing news and police reports, looking for signs of Nick.

Kiko gave me a smile and a quirked eyebrow as I walked around her and her Tupperware container of wakame, rice and grilled salmon, which she was mostly eating with her fingers, probably so she didn’t have to bother dragging a chair around from another part of the table.

Kiko rarely just sat and chilled, though.

She always seemed to be on the move, or soon to be on the move, whenever I saw her.

Black motioned for me with his head when I glanced at him again, and I sped my steps, walking through the door in front of him when he held it open.

He brought me back to his office.

Once again, he held the door for me to walk in front of him, nudging me with his light towards the conference table at one end of the long room. I glanced around at the smoky, etched-glass front wall, and realized I didn’t come in here all that much.

“You eaten yet?” he said, as he closed the door.

I looked at him, blinked.

Then I thought about his question.

“I had a yogurt?” I said, doubtful.

“At six in the morning,” he grunted. “So that would be a no.” He motioned me a second time towards the chairs around the conference table at the corner of his office. “Sit. I’m ordering us food. I need to talk to you.”

Faintly wary now, I followed the motion of his hand, taking a seat in the corner out of habit, where the window switched from smoky to clear to provide a view out over the city. I just sat there, looking out, listening with only part of my mind as he spoke on the phone with one of his people about bringing us food.

I didn’t really pay attention to what he ordered; I was too busy looking at the skyline, then at his face, and his hand with the wedding ring.

I hadn’t looked at either of our rings since I threw mine at him in New York.

I’d asked him for mine back.

I wondered now why he hadn’t given it to me.

Both rings of the rings he’d had made were gorgeous.

I found myself a little blown away by how beautiful his looked now. I could see the curved, organic pattern of the etched orca in the black gold even from where I sat, along with the three stars, which he’d told me were colored green and gold diamonds, meant to approximate the hazel of my eyes.

The design was similar to the Native American pendant I wore around my neck, but more fluid somehow, more evocative of Art Nouveau. My grandfather made the pendant I wore, and it symbolized human and seer––my parents’ marriage, but also me and my sister, Zoe.

The ring version evoked the original, while still having a style of its own.

I wanted mine back.

Chuckling, Black hung up the phone, glancing at me.

“You do, do you?” he said, smiling.

“Yes,” I said, folding my arms. “Are you holding onto it for any particular reason?”

“Why would I be doing that?” he said innocently.

“Ransom?” I said. “To screw with me? Maybe you need the extra cash for another helicopter? Or a new motorcycle?”

He smiled, clicking at me softly, even as he pretended to be thinking about my words.

“Well, it’s a good question, really,” he said, leaning back on his desk.

I frowned. “What’s a good question?”

“What’s in it for me?” He quirked his eyebrow as he folded his arms, adjusting his butt against the edge of his desk. “After all, you gave it back to me once. Threw it at me, really. I figure I should get something out of the deal, if I’m going to return it.”

“How about sex… with me ever again?”

He grunted. “You’d last a week. Less, probably.”

I frowned.

He wasn’t really wrong.

Was he serious? Did he actually want something for the ring?

“What did you have in mind with your dastardly wedding ring blackmail scheme?” I said. “An endless supply of back rubs? More three a.m. marathons to get waffles?” I snorted at the smile growing on his face. “Or are you just hoping to get me to finally finish those psych evals and skill assessments on the new seers?”

“No,” he said, clicking. He spread his legs, still leaning on the desk. “I plan to get all of those things regardless.”

I snorted a real laugh that time. “Do you?”

He smiled, not answering.

Damn that smile.

“What do you want?” I said, faintly wary now.

Still smiling, he took his weight off the desk. He was already walking to the door when someone knocked. I followed him with my eyes. I hadn’t even felt the person on the other side of the glass, but then, Black had that kind of gravity with me a lot of the time.

I had a tendency to miss things when I focused on him.

Now I knew it was one of the security guys from downstairs.

He didn’t come in.

Rather, Black took two bags from him without leaving the doorway, then the guy who brought them shut the door and Black brought the bags over to the small conference table.

“How did you possibly get food that quickly?” I said.

“There’s a whole bunch downstairs,” Black said. “I had them pull us together some takeaway from the buffet on the third floor. We’re feeding a veritable village, remember? Most of those seers aren’t making any money yet.”

Quirking an eyebrow at me meaningfully, he added,

“I can’t employ them myself yet. I don’t know what salary to pay them, doc, or where to put them, when I have absolutely no idea of what they can do––”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, exhaling. “Skill assessments. Got it. Message received.”

I flushed a little, though.

He was right.

I hadn’t considered the fact that I was costing him money.

“I’ll start right after this,” I told him. “Promise. Cross my heart.”

He chuckled, bending over one of the bags and unfurling the top. As soon as he opened it, a rush of warm garlic and spices filled his office. He started pulling out clear containers with lids, covering the surface of the table between me and him.

They were all different colors, but all of them looked vaguely soupy.

“Indian,” he said. “I hope that’s okay. I thought it would be easier to share.”

My creased brow smoothed. “That’s perfect.”

He pulled out a basket covered in a cloth towel, placing it in the center of all the colorful containers. It turned out to be full of buttered naan. Another basket had garlic naan, which might have been what I smelled when he first opened the bag. Out of the second bag his security guy had handed him, Black retrieved two water bottles, two beers, and some lemon ginger tea.

He cracked open one of the beers, and plopped down on the seat across from me.

“So?” I said, opening the first container, a dark orange one that happened to be nearest to me. “Are you going to tell me what you want for the ring? Or not?”

“How about a wedding ceremony, doc?” he said mildly.

I froze, glancing up from where I’d been prying the lid off another container, one filled with what looked and smelled like some kind of vegetable korma.

“A… wedding ceremony?” I blinked at him, bewildered. “Why?”

His eyes stayed on mine. I watched him shrug carefully, tilting his jaw back to take a long pull off the beer he’d opened.

“PR,” he said, after he lowered the bottle. Seeing the blank look in my eyes, he clarified, “Public relations. I want it public. Our marriage. And it wouldn’t hurt, in terms of smoothing over some of the stuff that happened when the Colonel died.”

I let out a half-incredulous laugh.

“You want to get married as a PR stunt?” I said. “As a way to rehabilitate your image after the murder of one of your oldest friends?”

His jaw hardened faintly, but he only shrugged.

“When you say it like that––”

“I make you sound like a sociopath?” I said, quirking an eyebrow at him.

Remembering then, who’d initially believed Black was a sociopath, if not an out-and-out psychopath, I swallowed, losing some of my humor.

Black seemed to feel my change in mood. Leaning over the table, he watched my eyes, the beer still clutched in one hand.

“I want to do it, Miri.” His voice lowered. “Maybe the PR shit is an excuse. Maybe I want to do it, and I’m looking for reasons it’s a good idea, instead of just a way to piss all over you in a fit of public, highly decadent, hyper-possessive control-freakish abuse of my wealth and ability to garner media attention.”

I smiled at that, in spite of myself, clicking at him softly.

“Don’t click like that,” he murmured. “It’s making me want to fuck.”

I glanced around his office, giving him an innocent look. “Isn’t that why you brought me in here? To get me stuffed on Indian food, blackmail me into marriage, then have garlic breath sex on your desk afterwards?”

That time, he grunted a laugh.

Leaning back, he took a few swallows of beer.

As he sat there, though, the humor leeched out of his eyes.

His expression flattened, then turned into that grim, far-seeing stare I’d seen on his face in the doorway of the industrial conference room.

“No,” he said. “I wish that was it. I wish that’s all we needed to talk about… but no.”

It was my turn to frown. “Then what?”

Looking up, he hesitated, a near nervousness in his eyes as he looked at me. I saw his eyes flicker over me, over my limbs, almost like he was afraid of me.

“Black,” I said, impatient. “For crying out loud, just tell me what––”

“Brick called.”

My whole body stiffened.

I didn’t speak. I sat there, still as a stone, a piece of naan gripped in my fingers, half-poised over the tub of vegetable korma. I didn’t move, I just waited for him to go on.

“He wants to meet,” Black said. “He’s coming here. To San Francisco.”

Heat built in my chest.

It happened so swiftly and intensely, it made me light-headed.

“Nick?” My voice came out guttural. It sounded harsh, cold. “Did you ask him about Nick, Black?”

“Of course I fucking asked him about Nick,” Black said, his voice faintly exasperated, but holding that worry, too. “Christ, Miri. It was the first thing out of my mouth––”

“And what did he say?”

Black’s jaw hardened.

He avoided my gaze briefly, then took a breath, meeting my eyes.

“He said Nick’s dead.”

Pain hit me. It hit so intensely, I couldn’t even grasp what it was until it already stole my breath. It hit before my mind caught up with his words, before I could process any of it in any logical or conscious way.

I don’t think I moved.

When my eyes refocused across the table, Black was watching me, worry in his eyes. He gripped my hand from across the table, the same hand holding the piece of naan.

“Hey,” he said, soft. “Hey… honey.”

I extricated my hand carefully from his fingers.

“Just tell me.” I cleared my throat, wiping my eyes, which I hadn’t realized were silently leaking tears. My voice sounded deadened. “Just fucking tell me the rest of it, Black.”

He continued to watch me, his gold eyes worried.

Exhaling when I didn’t return his gaze, he leaned back slightly, taking another long drink of beer. He watched me when I reached across the table, grabbing the second beer he’d had brought up, twisting off the lid, even though I knew he’d ordered it for himself.

“Here.”

He took the beer out of my fingers before I could bring it to my lips.

Setting it back on the table, he rose to his feet.

Walking over and behind the desk, he opened a cabinet below my visual range, part of the built-in wall unit that covered most of the space behind his desk. Rising gracefully to his feet an instant later, he was holding two rocks glasses and a bottle of bourbon.

He brought all three over to the table and plunked the glasses down.

Unscrewing the top of the bourbon, he poured me a few fingers-full first, sliding the glass over to my side of the table. He poured himself some while I fingered the glass.

“Just tell me, Black,” I said.

He finished pouring, then set down the bottle, not bothering to replace the cap.

Sinking back to his leather chair, he took a few swallows of the bourbon. I watched as he leaned back in his chair, pouring himself more from the bottle as he went on in a voice that was flatter, closer to a military report.

“Brick claims Nick died on the way from Thailand to Europe. On the plane.” Black took another drink, holding the bourbon briefly in his mouth before swallowing it that time. “He wasn’t specific as to how. He didn’t answer me when I asked him why they’d been taking him to Europe in the first place. He said he’d explain all of that when he saw us.”

“And when the fuck will that be?”

“Saturday,” Black said at once. “In three days.”

I felt my jaw harden more.

Staring down at the glass with the amber fluid, I picked it up, almost without thinking about it, and drained it.

Gasping a little, I set down the glass, then motioned to Black to refill it.

He didn’t hesitate.

Tilting the bottle back over my glass, he filled it fuller that time.

“What else?” I said. “Why is he coming out of hiding now?”

Black set down the bottle, shrugging faintly. Folding his arms, he leaned back in his leather chair, frowning. “Why else?” he said. “Charles. He’s worried about what Charles is doing. He wants to discuss some kind of alliance.”

For a moment, I only stared at him.

Then, unable to help myself, I let out a disbelieving laugh, gripping the new glass of bourbon in my hand. It was hard not to crack the glass into pieces between my fingers. I looked at Black directly that time, my voice cold.

“He kills my best friend, doesn’t tell us for months… and now he wants to talk about a goddamned alliance? What exactly does he think he has to bargain with at this point? And what makes him think we wouldn’t hunt down his fucking murdering tribe right alongside Charles?” Grunting, I took a sip of the bourbon. “Hell. I might get my own flamethrower.”

Black studied my face, his own inscrutable.

“He thinks these riots are the prelude to a military coup,” he said.

I blinked.

Black’s words didn’t dispel any of my anger, but they diverted it somewhat, forcing me to think about Brick differently, as well as his possible motives.

It also forced me to think about Charles, about what Black and I both knew was happening at the southern border.

“If he wanted an alliance with us, he shouldn’t have killed one of my best fucking friends,” I snapped. “Did you tell him that?”

“I told him unless he had a damned convincing story about what happened to Nick… one that absolved him and his kind of blame, a story we believed… he wouldn’t leave this building alive,” Black said mildly. He met my gaze, his gold eyes like sunlit glass. “He said he’s coming anyway.”

I frowned.

When the silence stretched, I downed the rest of the second glass of bourbon. The liquid burned a trail from my mouth down my throat, all the way down my chest and into my belly. It didn’t help, though.

I honestly couldn’t tell if the alcohol was even affecting me really.

Setting down the empty glass, I fought to think. The longer I turned over Black’s words, fighting to understand them in relation to Brick, and what he might be up to now, the harder I clenched my jaw.

“What do you think?” I said. “Why would he risk coming here, given that?”

Black’s sculpted lips pressed together, tilting in a subtle, complicated expression that came closest to a frown.

That time, I didn’t ask him for a refill of the bourbon. I reached over the table, grabbing the bottle by the neck myself. I poured another few fingers of the bourbon into the bottom of my glass, then held the bottle over his, offering him more.

He waved me off, reaching for his beer.

He watched me down my third double-shot, his brows creased faintly with worry.

His voice was flat, however, pure business, when he answered my question.

“I suspect Brick is coming here because he thinks, whatever he has to say, or whatever he has to offer… it will convince us to cooperate with what he wants,” he said. “I suspect Brick waited to tell us about Nick because he didn’t have any leverage before. Now he thinks he has something to offer us. Something he believes we’ll have a hard time refusing.”

Still frowning faintly, he stared at the frosted glass walls without seeing them.

Pursing his lips, he made a vague gesture with one hand.

“He thinks, whatever it is, it will be enough. Not just to keep me from killing him. Enough to force us to cooperate with him.”

“Force us?” I set down my empty glass with a grimace. “That’s pretty fucking cocky, wouldn’t you say? Or does he really have no idea how many seers we have here now? Is he planning on bringing a fucking army here to meet with us?”

Black’s lips lifted in a wry smile.

I saw no humor in it.

“Persuasion isn’t really Brick’s strong suit,” he said. “Not in something like this. So yes, whatever he’s bringing with him, he thinks it will compel us to cooperate with him. He wouldn’t risk persuasion, or my good will… or even my practicality. Not for this.”

Frowning, Black took a drink of the beer, his lips pursed in thought as he leaned back in the office chair, making it emit a faint squeak.

“I truly think Brick believes his race’s entire future is at stake, Miriam,” he added seriously. “Brick sees Charles as a species-level threat. He thinks Charles is a genocidal maniac.”

“Is he wrong?” I grunted.

Black turned, giving me a flat look.

“No,” he said. “He’s not wrong. Charles will exterminate every last one of them, given half a chance. I didn’t realize how much of that mentality I witnessed in Paris while I was there, but I recognize it now, when I look back at those memories. Charles has been actively indoctrinating his core followers on this seer superiority shit for decades. He’s got the numbers now. And he’s weaponizing the humans.”

Pausing, he added, blunt,

“I agree with Brick. Charles is getting ready to make a real move. He won’t wait. He can’t wait. He needs his new government in place so he can start culling vampires for real before Brick and his people mount a defense.”

Taking another sip of beer, he added,

“Charles’ window is short, but his timing is good. The vampire clans have been a disorganized mess since Konstantin died. Brick being held in custody by the Feds, so shortly after he ascended to power, didn’t help. I’m relatively certain Brick was still in the process of consolidating power when that happened. It’s actually a testimony to the bastard’s craftiness that he’s managed to hold onto the throne at all, given that.”

“And Dorian,” I reminded him coldly. “It’s a testimony to Dorian, as well.”

Black nodded, acknowledging my words with a flicker of his fingers.

“Definitely,” he said.

Taking another drink of beer, he leaned back to set the empty bottle in the trash. Returning to the table, he paused to rip a piece of naan in half, then used it to scoop up a generous portion of what looked like dal makhani. I watched him take a big bite and chew vigorously. He scooped up more of the dal even as he swallowed.

Chewing that second mouthful, he shrugged.

“Charles knows Brick will be in process of pulling his people together,” he added.

He slid the container of biryani closer to him, eyeing the aloo gobi before he dug into the biryani instead.

“Now that Brick’s out of that prison, I’d imagine that’s what he’s spending the vast majority of his time doing,” Black added. “…meeting with clan heads, organizing them into military units, strategizing around how to keep Charles from taking over the United States for real. It makes sense he’d be coming back here now, and that he’d want to talk to us. There’s already talk of closing the borders… and racial checkpoints. If Brick is going to make a move here, he’ll need to do it soon.”

Giving me a grim look, Black added,

“So will we, doc. Brick knows that, too.”

Taking a bite of the biryani, he scooped up some of the aloo gobi as he chewed it.

I felt his mind and light, warm in mine as he nudged me to eat.

“Please, honey,” he murmured, watching my face.

Swallowing, I felt my jaw harden.

I made myself nod, though.

He was right. Being drunk on an empty stomach at noon wasn’t exactly a promising way to start the rest of my day. The least I could do is eat.

Picking up the piece of naan I’d let go at some point, leaving it on my napkin by my hand, I dug it into the nearest container, not paying much attention to what it was.

It turned out to be palak paneer.

I chewed without tasting it, still watching Black.

He relaxed slightly when he saw me eating.

Pausing to pull two bowls and spoons out of the second paper bag, he filled one with jasmine rice and ladled butter chicken on top of it, handing it over to me without a word. I took it, setting it down in front of me, and watched him make a second bowl for himself. Picking up a fork, I started to pull apart the chicken in my bowl and felt him relax even more, propping his elbows on the table as he chewed more of the naan and biryani.

I still felt him watching me though, that worry furrowing his brow.

“Charles will want to move before Brick can finish pulling the clans together,” he said after another pause. “He’ll want them as off-balance and disorganized as possible. So when it happens, it’ll happen fast. I suspect these riots are Charles laying the groundwork for whatever story he intends to feed the human media. He’ll want the human population scared enough to go along with whatever crazy shit he has coming next.”

“Like what?” I said, swallowing some of the chicken and rice. “What do you think he has coming next?”

Black met my gaze. “I suspect he’ll declare war on vampires officially pretty soon. Possibly couched in this whole ‘purity’ doctrine he’s been pushing at the riots. I would expect him to start suspending civil rights, and likely, closing the borders to deal with the infestation. He’s already floating language to that effect.”

Swallowing some of the butter chicken and rice, I nodded.

“What about us?” I said. “Do we want to be here when that happens? Inside the United States, I mean?”

Black hesitated. I saw him watching me eat. He seemed to be monitoring everything about me, including my hands, fingers and facial expressions, with his gold eyes.

“I think we should stay,” he said finally. “What do you think, doc?”

Reaching across the table, I grabbed the bottle of bourbon again, pouring myself another few fingers, but less than I had the last time.

Again, I silently offered to refill Black’s glass.

He waved me off, picking up the beer by his elbow and leaning back in his chair. He watched me down my fourth glass of the amber liquid as he took a few more swallows of beer.

He didn’t prod me again, but I felt him waiting for my answer to his question.

“I think we should stay, too,” I said, lowering my empty rocks glass back to the table. “I don’t think we should just hand the country over to Charles. He won’t stop here. We need to find a way to at least slow down what he’s doing. Without both of us ending up in a military prison… and all of the refugee seers and your human employees ending up in some kind of ‘reeducation’ camp.”

Black grunted, nodding in agreement.

His brow remained furrowed, but I could feel his relief that I agreed with him. Even so, he didn’t comment at first, not out loud.

For a few minutes, both of us just ate.

Black’s light was coiling into mine, especially those lower, denser structures. It felt almost like he was pulling me deeper into the earth, along with pulling me deeper into that part of him. When I closed my eyes, my world tilted. I knew some of that was the bourbon. Some of it was Black, and that dense heat that lived under his feet.

Like in Thailand, I still saw it as lava and stars.

I saw it as dark ocean, pulling on me, lulling me back and forth.

“You are so beautiful.”

I looked up, startled when it hit me that I’d heard the words aloud.

I stared at Black’s face, saw his gold eyes watching mine, softer than maybe I’d ever seen them. Blinking, I realized I’d closed my eyes while I let myself fall into his light. I realized in the same moment that tears were running down my cheeks.

I wiped them brusquely with the back of my hand, caught somewhere between anger at myself and embarrassment.

I’d known Nick was dead. I’d known.

I couldn’t possibly have been in this much denial.

“I’d like you there, with me,” Black said, soft, reaching for my hand. “For the meeting with Brick.” He hesitated. “But I’d prefer it if you didn’t kill him, doc. At least not until we hear what he has to say. I suspect we might still need him.”

My jaw hardened.

I didn’t answer at first, not even with a nod.

“Can you do that?” he said, equally soft. “Can you be in a room with him, doc? Believe me, I would completely understand if you can’t be. If you don’t want to be there, I’ll handle it without you… or maybe we can do something remote, with you in my ear, on the other side of one-way glass. You don’t have to sit across a table with the son of a bitch. None of us would expect that of you, Miri. None of us. Certainly not me.”

That time, I nodded.

I felt a harder knot in my chest loosen somewhat, but the pain in my gut and throat only seemed to be getting worse.

I knew no amount of bourbon would smooth that away.

Anyway, I had to stop drinking.

I’d told Black I would do some actual work that afternoon.

I wondered if I’d already drank too much to be able to keep that promise.

Somewhere in the spaces where I’d been thinking the bourbon wasn’t affecting me and the two or six shots I’d done since that time, I’d tipped past cold sober and buzzed and now skirted the edges of full-blown drunk.

I was pretty sure the food wasn’t doing much to sober me up, not yet anyway. Maybe after a nap and some coffee, I could pull it together. I didn’t need to work during office hours. I could work into the evening.

I could get up early the next morning.

“You’re not working today,” Black said, his voice grim. “You’re not working tomorrow either, doc. I’m giving the assessments to Yarli for now.”

Frowning, I started to shake my head.

Black held up a hand.

“What would you do, doc?” he said. “If you had nothing else to do today. What would you do? Where would you go?”

Still frowning, I tried to think about his question.

My mind went to the ocean, to surfing with Nick.

That sickness in my chest worsened.

I thought about the last time we’d been out there, when I managed to brain myself with a rented surfboard, and Nick laughed so hard he choked.

My stomach turned so fast, I didn’t have any warning at all.

Luckily, Black must have seen it on my face.

“Whoa, whoa… doc…”

He had the garbage can in front of me even as my stomach heaved violently. He was on my side of the table before I’d even wrapped my head around what happened.

Then I was hanging off the table with one arm, Black holding back my hair as I threw up in the garbage can below my chair.

It felt like that went on forever.

I threw up all the butter chicken and rice. I threw up my few mouthfuls of naan and palak paneer, and vegetable korma. I threw up every drop of bourbon my body hadn’t yet absorbed into my bloodstream. I probably even threw up some of the yogurt I’d eaten that morning, and the coffee I drank after that.

Eventually, there was nothing left in me to throw up.

I heaved for a while longer anyway, until my eyes were watering, my throat and stomach burning from the painful, strangely-violent spasms.

Black knelt there with me, despite how bad it must have smelled.

He rubbed the small of my back, his light wrapped in mine as he murmured in my ear, kissing my neck and face when I paused between spasms.

At the end of it, he handed me a bottle of water. I chugged down half of it without taking a breath. I felt Black watching me worriedly as I did, probably afraid I’d throw that up, too.

I didn’t though.

On the negative side, I was also cold sober.

I also felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

“Yeah, no more drinking for you today, doc,” Black muttered.

He took the empty water bottle away from me once I’d finished it off, setting it on the table near the Indian food, which was difficult for me to even look at––much less smell––after what my stomach had just done to me. I looked at it anyway for some reason, staring across the spread of dishes, grimacing.

I was still doing that when Black caught hold of both of my hands.

He pulled me gently to my feet.

“Come on, doc,” he murmured, wrapping an arm around my waist. He began leading me towards the door. “We’re getting you out of here.”

I didn’t ask him what he meant.

I didn’t ask him where he was taking me.

I just followed the gentle tugs of his hands and arm.

Truthfully, I didn’t much care where we went. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. I wanted to run, and run, and never stop running until that feeling somehow left me.