TWENTY-ONE

The following afternoon—was it afternoon? The arms on the wall clock said two and change, and it felt like afternoon—Sola stepped out of Assail’s room so that Ehlena and that other nurse, the one with the long robe, could remove his catheter.

He had been sleeping in chunks of two or three hours, and Sola had been doing the same, thanks to a cot that had been brought in for her. With him in restraints still, it wasn’t possible for them to lie together, but it was good to be stretched out and off her feet, right by him.

Ehric had been really diligent about sending her texts on the phone he’d given her about her vovó. Pictures, too, the snaps of the old woman at the stove, at the cutting board, pointing at Evale as if she were ordering him around, making Sola smile with happiness and relief. During the last month in Miami, she’d worried her vovó was slowing down, but maybe it was because she’d needed more mouths to feed, a bigger house to organize, a schedule punctuated by more than just church.

Ehlena stepped out of the room. “I think he wants a shower.”

Sola jumped to attention. “Really? I mean, yay! Are the restraints off?”

“Yes.” The other woman made slow-down motions. “Now, we really don’t know how he’s going to be. I don’t want to alarm you, but his mental status could change quickly and without warning. So please be careful.”

“I can handle myself,” Sola said grimly. “I would hate to have to with him…but I can take care of things if that’s the way it goes.”

Ehlena reached out with a reassuring hand. “Hopefully it won’t be necessary. And you know how to call us.”

“So he can have a shower? I can help him with that?”

“Yes, Dr. Manello has cleared him. There’s a chair in the stall for him to sit on and also a call button mounted on the wall, you’ll see it. I’m just one room over if you need me.”

The other nurse came out of the room, the one with the long robe, and her arm was in that same position, tucked against her torso as if she were hiding something or it hurt. But she was pleasant enough, offering that bow-thing she did and some murmured words of respect.

Sola was pleasant in response, but she didn’t waste time, flashing back into that room because she had a hunch that—yup, Assail was sitting on the edge of the bed like he was about to jump onto his feet, break off a piece of his Kit Kat bar to a disco track—and probably fall flat on his face and break all of his teeth because he was too weak to be doing anything other than giving sheets a job.

“Let me help you,” she said as she ran forward.

“I got it—”

“You don’t got shit—”

Except he did. He stood up and didn’t wobble, his body solid on those thin legs, his breath hitching only a little, his hands splaying out as he balanced on his own.

“Look at you.” Sola smiled, and had to blink back tears. “Next thing you know, you’ll be doing laps.”

“May I have your arm?”

“I was hoping you’d ask.”

Sola let him set the pace, and although he shuffled like a little old lady, she didn’t care. The idea that there was progress, any sort of forward motion—natch—out of the death throes he’d been in the night before was good enough for her. Yes, she realized he was still terminal, and she was going to have to keep facing that reality…but for as long as she could, she was going to stay in this present. Anything else was just too hard to think about.

“Okay, so I’m going to start the water,” she informed him as they entered the loo. “And you’re going to park it on this nice toilet right here—let’s put the seat cover down. Excellent. Good work. Now let me get the shower going.”

As he sat where she told him to, Sola extended an arm into the tiled stall and cranked the stainless-steel handle most of the way to the engraved “H” at the top of the fixture. Then she turned back around—

Assail was no longer sitting down. And he was not by the toilet.

He had moved to the sink and was staring at himself in the mirror.

With a shaking hand, he reached out to the glass and touched the reflection of his hollowed cheek, his too-prominent brow, his lips that were loose.

“The water’s almost warm,” she whispered. Even though it wasn’t. “Come on, let’s get you under the spray.”

But Assail just stood there, staring at the image of what was clearly a dying man.

When his knees started to go, she caught him by throwing an arm around his frail body. He weighed far too little, but she didn’t allow herself to dwell on that.

“Sit,” she said as she helped him back down onto the closed toilet seat.

Then she kneeled in front of him. As his eyes welled with tears, she felt so powerless.

“It’s all right,” she murmured as she snapped a hand towel off a rod. “Just let it all out.”

Folding the terrycloth in half again, she pressed the softness to his face—and then somehow, he was in her arms, leaning on her for strength, his body collapsed onto her.

In slow circles, she moved her palm around the prominent bones of his back and rib cage. “I’ve got you,” she whispered in his ear. “Cry it out, you’ll feel better—”

A knock on the door stiffened him and he lifted his head in alarm as if he were terrified that anyone but her would see him as vulnerable as he was.

“We’re fine,” Sola said sharply as she urged his head back down and protected him. “Do not come in.”

Ehlena’s voice was muffled through the closed door. “Just checking. I’ll give you guys privacy.”

“Thank you.”

After a while, Assail lifted his head as if it weighed a thousand pounds. And before he could speak, she wiped his face. “Let’s do the shower later—”

“I never thought…” He cleared his throat. “I never thought I would come back. I thought I had lost me forever. I’m so scared, Marisol. What if I…I don’t want to be lost again.”

She would have given the world to be able to tell him he didn’t have to worry about that. But she was not going to lie to him.

“I’m not leaving you. However much time you have, I’ll be here.”

With trembling fingers, he touched her hair, her cheek, the curve of her jaw. And then he lingered at her mouth, running a feather-light stroke across her lower lip.

She knew exactly what he was asking.

“Yes,” she said. “As soon as you’re able.”

---

Staring into Marisol’s face, Assail desperately wanted to be with his female. He wanted her naked and underneath him, his body sexed up and penetrating hers, the two of them orgasming at the same time.

Unfortunately, that seemed like a distant country, reachable only after a treacherous, exhausting trip. But he would get there. He had told the Chosen Ghisele to come back in another eight hours. She was feeding from the Brothers to keep her own strength up as she provided him with what he needed, and maybe after another feeding he would lose the paranoia he would backslide again.

Every time he took that Chosen’s vein, he progressed by leaps and bounds.

But ’lo, how he wished it could have been Marisol’s blood in him.

For a moment, Assail entertained that fantasy, except then he refocused. With his madness only so recently dissipating, he didn’t like to get too lost in memories or daydreams. In both cases, such vivid thoughts took him away from the touch-taste-see-hear of reality, and the dissociation terrified him.

He’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.

“Let’s go back to bed.”

“I want to be clean,” he countered. “I just want to feel…clean.”

As if a good shampoo and soaping would wash this nightmare away.

“All right,” Marisol said as she got to her feet. “Let’s do this.”

He absolutely despised the way she had to help him stand up, and he’d learned his lesson with the mirror over the sink: As she aided him with taking off his hospital johnny, he did not look down at himself.

No, thank you. He wasn’t going to like what he saw there any more than he’d enjoyed his face or bald skull.

And damn it, he wanted to stand on his own underneath the spray, like a grown male should, but with the heat swirling around because of the hot water, he could feel his blood pressure dropping. So the chair it was—

“Oh…” he sighed. “This is wonderful.”

“Too hot? Too cold?”

“Perfect.”

Leaning back and resting his bald head on the tile wall, he let the amazing rush cascade down his flesh.

“You want me to wash you?” Marisol asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Please. That would be most gracious of you.”

Embarrassed by how little he could do for himself, he fell back upon his aristocratic manners, as if politeness could somehow make up for his weakness. Yet Marisol didn’t seem to judge him at all—or hold him in lesser regard. In fact, she smiled and seemed to enjoy helping. And she was gentle with the washcloth on his hypersensitive skin.

It felt so good to have her hands upon him. He didn’t want it to end.

“All finished.”

“Brush my teeth?” he murmured drowsily.

“Absolutely.”

She came back with a toothbrush preloaded with paste, and that he did himself. Then the water was off, dripping loudly in the stall.

Marisol wrapped him in thick towels and together they got him back onto the bed. As he sagged against the pillows, he realized it was more exercise than he’d had since Dr. Manello had come and picked him up from his house to come here for his detoxing—

Assail took his female’s hand urgently and spoke in a strong voice. “No more drugs.”

She blinked. “Okay. I can tell the doctors you don’t want any more—”

“No. No more cocaine. Ever.” He shook his head emphatically. “I will never do it again. I should never have started using, and then it got away from me. It nearly killed me. That is an evil drug, and I am e’er rid of it.”

Sola leaned down and smiled. “That is good to hear.”

As she grew serious, he had a feeling she was thinking about his dealing. “And I’m getting out of the business, too,” he said. “It’s not for me anymore.”

“Wait…you’re going legitimate? As in, completely legitimate?”

Assail frowned as he considered his past pursuits. Ever since he had come to the New World, he had been hell-bent on making money—because that was what he had always done. And he preferred the black market because he hated paying corporate taxes, and moreover, he had enjoyed thwarting the human legal system. But unless the stock market had collapsed during the time he had been off the planet, he had more money than he could spend over the course of his centuries-and-centuries’ long lifetime.

There had never been a need, actually, only the drive.

A compulsion for winning.

Except, now, after what he had been through over the last—had it been weeks or months?—he found himself not wanting any part of such pursuits. Hell, he’d already shut down his drug business to get out of that messy problem of having dealt to the Fore-lesser. He’d had plans to import and sell guns and munitions, but really, what for?

“There will be no more of that for me, Marisol.”

As tears sprang to her eyes, he assumed they were from happiness. But then he wasn’t so sure.

“That’s good news to you,” he prompted. “Is it not?”

“Of course it is.” She seemed to collect herself. “It’s the news I’ve wanted to hear.”

“Lay with—”

As his thoughts abruptly stopped, and he had nothing but a blank space in his head, he panicked. This was how it had been going, however, these little hiccups in cognition creating the proverbial sound of crickets in his skull…and then resolving themselves.

Marisol was speaking unto him, and he tried not to become agitated when he couldn’t properly interpret her words—

“Lay with me,” he blurted. “Lay with me? I’m all right. I swear unto you. I just have these…little interruptions. They always take care of themselves, though.”

She stayed where she was, staring at him as if she were trying to diagnose him like a doctor. But something must have satisfied her, because she nodded and got up on the bed gently. As she stretched out beside him, he rolled in toward her. They both took a deep breath, and he would have willed the lights off if he’d had the strength.

“I will be better in the morning,” he mumbled. “I just need rest.”

“Of course. It will all…” She exhaled slowly. “In the morning, all will be well.”

Something in her voice wasn’t right, but as sleep strengthened its hold on him, he contented himself with dreams of a future where they were together. Here. Miami. The Old Country. It didn’t matter.

But yes, he was going to follow her lead and get out of the life.

Fates, why hadn’t he decided to retire sooner?