“What’s the verdict, doctor?” Roni looked hopefully at Bridget.

“The verdict is that you don’t need to stay here. You’re still sick, but your symptoms are milder. If Ingrid can find you an apartment, you can move to a more comfortable setting. No exercise and no other strenuous activity for at least two weeks.”

Bridget glanced at the contraption William’s students had built for him. She’d pushed it aside to conduct her examination, and it was now blocking the entrance to the room. “Take this thing with you. I know you’ll not listen to me and rest, so the best next thing is working from bed the same as you did here.”

“Thanks. What if Ingrid, whoever she is, can’t find me an apartment? Can I stay here?” He’d kind of gotten used to the hospital bed which he could adjust for maximum comfort with the remote, programming into its memory his two favorite positions, one for working and the other one for resting.

A regular one was never going to be as comfortable. One could only do so much with pillows.

Fuck, would there be pillows? And blankets? And the other things he’d always taken for granted?

And who was going to feed him?

Andrew’s wife had been kind enough to send down meals, and the nurses pampered him with sandwiches and other things from nearby restaurants. He had no money, and if he did, he was pretty sure he couldn’t leave the building to go shopping. Sylvia would have to buy him groceries until he figured shit out. The problem was that he’d never cooked anything in his life, and as far as he knew neither had Sylvia.

“Don’t worry. She’ll find you a place.”

Yeah, don’t worry, right. He was on the verge of panicking.

“Will the apartment come with pillows and blankets and towels and all of that shit? Because I don’t have money and I don’t know where and how to get things. I’ve never been on my own.”

Bridget patted his shoulder. “Everything you need will be there, and if anything is missing, you can call Ingrid, and she will get it delivered.”

Roni exhaled a relieved breath. “That’s one less thing to worry about. What about the transition, though? When should I attempt it again?” Not anytime soon, that was for sure. He was so weak that a walk to the bathroom was a strain. Getting on the mat with an immortal was a no-go if he couldn’t even stay upright without aid.

“You need to wait at least a month, maybe longer, and not before I give my okay. If you want it to work, you need to let your body get back into peak condition first. You might have been carrying this virus with no symptoms for weeks, and that could be the reason you didn’t transition.”

Having a plausible explanation for not transitioning was comforting and made his outlook way more optimistic. But waiting so long to try again was going to be a bitch.

“I hate waiting.”

“Patience, Roni.” Bridget patted his arm again. “I’m going to call Ingrid.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Now that he was about to get discharged, Roni needed to figure out some basic logistics before he could leave. First of all, he needed clothes. With the state he’d been in when snatched from the human hospital, Roni hadn’t noticed if anyone had bothered to collect the clothes he’d arrived in. Or if Jerome or Kevin had had the presence of mind to bring his wallet to the hospital.

Fuck. He could probably say goodbye to all the money he had saved up in his bank account. He of all people should know he could never touch it again without giving the feds a way to find him. Money left a trail no matter how careful it was hidden.

Andrew might have an idea of what was going on, but he was still avoiding contact with Roni. He wouldn’t come without a hazmat suit, and Roni doubted the clan kept those on hand.

Or they could talk on the phone.

Reaching for the one next to his bed, Roni pressed zero for the operator. Bridget had told him the line went straight to the keep’s security office and nowhere else, but they could connect him with Andrew.

“What can I do for you, Roni?” an unfamiliar male voice answered.

“Do I know you?”

The guy chuckled. “No. But your name is programmed as the occupant of the room you’re calling from.”

“Obviously.” The fever must’ve destroyed a good number of his brain cells for him to ask a dumb question like that. “Can you connect me to Andrew Spivak?”

“Sure. Let me check if he is home. I’m going to put you on hold.”

“No problem.”

A few moments later Andrew picked up. “What’s up, kid? How are you feeling?”

“Better. Bridget is letting me out of here.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

“Yeah. How are things at work? Anyone talking about my disappearance?”

Andrew chuckled. “It is assumed that you hacked your way out of the hospital.”

Sylvia had been questioned by Barty the day after Roni’s escape, even though Yamanu made sure the staff remembered her leaving shortly after the agent and his wife. According to her, she’d been very convincing, crying about what a jerk Roni was for leaving her without a word.

“Did any of you get my clothes? Or my wallet?”

“Sylvia has them. But what do you need your wallet for?”

“I have a few bucks in there. The money saved up in my bank account is probably gone. I don’t want to hack into it because I know they booby-trapped it to hell and back. If they release it to my parents, and providing the bastards will cooperate and not snitch on me, I can then hack into their accounts and take it out.”

“How much do you have in there?”

“Close to a hundred thousand. I spent almost none of my pay.”

Andrew whistled. “Yeah, that sucks. But I wouldn’t touch it anytime soon even if they transferred it to your parents. They will be watching for that. Besides, you can probably make it back in no time.”

“If I were free, I could. But I’m not.”

“I’m sure some kind of an arrangement could be made.”

“I want to talk to the head honcho, Kian. Can you arrange a meeting? I hate not knowing what to expect. And by the way, Dr. Bridget says I need to wait at least a month until I attempt transition again. She says I might have been carrying the virus for weeks without showing symptoms and that’s why it didn’t work.”

“That would explain it. You’re the best candidate for transition the clan ever had. Better than I was, that’s for sure. I was raking my brain trying to figure a plausible explanation for your grandmother’s picture on those driver’s licenses other than her being an immortal. But I couldn’t find one.”

“Yeah, same here. So are you going to talk to the boss for me?”

“Not yet. I think you need to get settled first. If I were you, I would want to be healthy enough not to look like the living dead when I meet him. Well-dressed too. You want to leave a good first impression.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s like a job interview.”

“The most important one you’ll ever have.”

“Right.”