The Thief

So what to do. She was going to die without help.

Hell, she was going to die anyway in all likelihood—and V was hardly the Good Samaritan type. The problem? She would probably seek medical help when she collapsed—or end up in the back of an ambulance on a siren-run to St. Francis’s ER because someone else called 911 on her behalf.

Which would lead to medical tests that would show all kinds of anomalies, fuck them very much.

God, humans were such a fucking pain in the ass, and the only reason coexistence with them was possible was because they thought vampires were a myth. Hard evidence to the contrary was not a good thing. If the war with the Lessening Society had been a bitch? Going rounds in the ring with Homo sapiens was going to make that shit look like a cakewalk—

Down the hallway that led to the bedrooms, the door up from the underground tunnel swung open.

“—goddamn know-it-all—”

Jane entered like she was in a bare-knuckle argument with someone—except she was alone and talking to herself as she disappeared into their room.

Her room. His room. Whatever.

Vishous slowly stood up from behind his computers.

Sounds that suggested she was pulling things from out of drawers with the delicate touch of a professional wrestler were the background to more of that muttering. And then a couple minutes later, she came out with a duffel bag on her shoulder. She had changed from her scrubs into a pair of blue jeans and a Patagonia jacket, and she marched forward as if she had no idea he was there.

That changed quick. As she came up to the archway into the living room, she stopped dead and looked at him with a startle that had her jumping back.

He put his palms up. “Sorry. I’m here.”

Her eyes shot to the front door. Then she took a deep breath. “That’s fine. This is your house. It’s not a big deal.”

There was a long pause, and as he stared at her, he decided he’d never seen her so exhausted. Her blond hair was a mess, there were dark circles under her forest green eyes, and her shoulders were sloped. Given all of that, he was surprised she was wasting energy on being fully corporeal. Then again, she was clearly pissed off at something and probably wanted the satisfaction of stomping around.

Ghosts just hovered.

“How are you,” he said cautiously.

“Okay, and I’m going.”

Closing his eyes, he cursed. “Can we please talk?”

“We just have. See you later—wait, what is that?”

Vishous popped his lids. “What’s what?”

“On your arm. What the hell did you do to yourself?” She dropped her bag and clomped over to his computer desk. “That’s a nasty wound—it looks infected.”

He had no interest in anyone checking out his pretty new piece of body art—not even her. But if it served to keep them both under the same roof for a little longer? Fine. He’d play patient to her doctor.

Funny how all that anger he’d felt when they’d argued at the penthouse was gone. In its place, he felt hollow. Which made sense. She’d taken something of him with her when she’d announced she was out of his life.

Turning his shoulder toward her, he shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Jane bent in, her brows going tight. “When did this happen? A couple of nights ago?”

“No. It was more recent than that—”

As he hissed when she touched the wound’s tail end, she gave him a bored look. “I thought you said it didn’t hurt.”

“Maybe a little.”

“Come on. Into the bathroom.” When he just stood there, she grabbed his wrist and pulled at him. “Let’s go. I’m not leaving until this is taken care of.”

Fine, he thought as they went down the hall to their—his, hers, whatever—room. Hopefully they could talk while she—well, there wasn’t anything to clean. But maybe she had some ideas to reduce the swelling, though.

God, who in the hell would have thought that talking would be a goal of his with a female. Then again, Jane had always been different.

And because of that…she made him different.

EIGHTEEN

“Okay. Yup. I love you, too, Vovó.”

As Sola ended the call, she handed the cell phone back to Ehric and stretched her stiff shoulders. The two of them were outside Assail’s room, standing together in the corridor, and she was careful to keep her voice low. Assail had fallen asleep, and she didn’t want to disturb him.

Although that was assuming he was just asleep and not gone again. There were no alarms going off, however. And as long as she couldn’t hear that horrible, shrill beeping and medical staff wasn’t rushing down like police to a break-in, she had to believe everything was okay. For this moment in time.

“Thank you,” she said to Assail’s cousin. “I just wanted to make sure my grandmother was okay and knew the plan. And they took my phone away.”

She wasn’t going to bother to ask why he got to keep his. At this point, that kind of stuff was way down her list of things to worry about.

The man bowed low. “I will see to her myself as soon as I arrive home. And again, you are safe here, I promise you. I too would stay, but you are far better here with him than I.”

“I’m fine now that I’ve spoken to my grandmother. It sounds like she’s been cooking all night. Will you try and get her to go to sleep? I failed, but hey, maybe you could give it a shot.”

Ehric smiled. “I shall endeavor to be persuasive in that regard.”

The big blond man with the hostile name came out of a glass door and walked down to them. “We ready to go?”

“Thank you,” Sola said to Rhage. “For bringing me here.”

The guy unwrapped some kind of lollipop—a Tootsie Pop, yup that’s what that was—and put it in his mouth. “I’m glad you brought him around. Now keep him with us, you hear? We need him.”

Sola narrowed her eyes as she wondered, For what? Drugs?

Were these his dealers on the street? She didn’t think so. They didn’t seem the types to take orders from anybody—and besides, why would they be hanging around a hospital?

“I’ll do what I can,” she murmured.

As the two walked off, she watched them go, putting her hands in the pockets of her fleece and leaning back on her heels. Her brain was telling her that so much of this didn’t make sense, but in the end, Assail’s condition was the only thing she was prepared to get thought up about.

One thing she had learned from being on the wrong side of the law? Don’t make other people’s crap your own.

Pivoting around, she re-entered the room and immediately looked at the monitoring machines. Nothing was going off, and Assail was lying there peacefully. Her first impulse was to wake him up to see if he was still alive, as if he were an infant in a crib. Instead, she settled for watching his chest go up and down.

He had suffered so much, she thought as she looked at his bald head and too-thin body. Cancer was such a bitch, and the only thing worse than the disease was what the doctors did to you to try to get you to beat it.

A soft knock on the door brought her head up. “Come in?”

Ehlena, the nurse, leaned into the room. “Hi, there. I’m sorry to bother you, but if he’s able to feed, we’d like him to.”

Perfect excuse to wake him, she thought.

“He’s asleep right now, but—” Sola glanced at Assail and smiled. “Oh, wait, his eyes are opening.” She went around and took his hand. “Hey.”

As his stare locked on to hers, his mouth moved.

“You’re saying hello to me, aren’t you.” When he nodded, she smiled some more. “Yup. I can read you like a book.”

Ehlena came over. “Assail, we’d like you to have Ghisele come in so you can take her v—”

When he shook his head sharply, the nurse went quiet and Sola braced herself for another seizure. But then he just looked at Ehlena as if he were trying to communicate with her telepathically or something.

“Yes, well…” Ehlena cleared her throat. “Okay, anyway, Sola, we’d like to change his catheter and do some things that we’d prefer to offer him some privacy around. Do you think you could head down to the break room and have a bite to eat? We’ll need about twenty minutes. It’s the fourth door on the left.”