"Yeah. I"m sorry."
Lucas leaned over the bed so that his face was over Winter"s. "You"re not supposed to die. Do you hear me? You"re not supposed to die."
There was a small cough from the room"s doorway. "Did I come at a bad time?"
Lucas and I both looked up. A man I hadn"t met yet stood in the doorway, shadowed by the light outside. Lucas"s hands clenched on the bed"s side rail, so hard the bed shook. "Viktor."
"I take it now"s a bad time?" The other man-were, I was guessing-stepped into the room.
It was my job as nurse to make them calm down-but this was the only window I"d have to get blood for Dren. I was torn for half a second, and then I jabbed the lancet into the edge of Winter"s intact palm.
"How did you do this, Viktor?" Lucas released the bed, making it rattle. He rounded toward the door. "You couldn"t just wait for him to keel over on his own?"
"Me? I know nothing." The visitor, Viktor, clutched an innocent hand to his chest. "I only just found out about the great one"s condition."
I squeezed Winter"s hand hard to milk blood out. I just needed one drop. One stinking drop- "He was my leader too," Viktor continued. "I have as much right to pay respects as you."
"Get out," Lucas said, his voice no more than a growl. "You did this. I don"t know how, but you orchestrated this somehow-"
I didn"t have to be supernatural to feel the tension filling the room, flowing out from whatever history the two weres shared. I could hit the CODE b.u.t.ton on the wall and summon twenty other medical personnel here, but then I wouldn"t get my blood- One thick drop welled out of the lancet-made hole. I swiped the test strip across it. It was all I needed-and it"d better be all Dren needed-to keep my brother safe.
I slid it into the glucometer and looked up at the two men. "Lucas-sir-you-"
"This is shameful! I have rights! I am a member of the pack!"
"You also own a black truck. I"m not stupid, Viktor," Lucas said. Lucas crouched to jump-when Charles appeared in the hallway holding a trank gun behind both of them.
"No transformations on hospital grounds!" he shouted with a low voice. "Don"t think for a second I won"t shoot you both." He waved the gun between them to prove his point.
Lucas slowly relaxed, coming back to standing. "Viktor here was leaving."
"As a pack member, I have every right to pay respects," Viktor complained.
I moved around the bed to be out of the way of Charles"s possible shots. Viktor was a young man-same age as Lucas, probably-but he dressed older, in a three-piece suit. He held a fedora over his chest, seemingly to calm his injured pride, and without the hat I could see one lock of white hair against the rest of his natural black.
"Family makes the rules here, not packs," Charles informed everyone, with the gun still held high.
Viktor sighed then and bowed elaborately-to Winter, not to Lucas, I realized-and reset his hat on his head. "Until full moon then?" he asked of Lucas.
"Oh yes," Lucas said, with a dangerous tone.
Viktor left, Charles stepping backward to follow him with the barrel of his gun. "You all right, Edie?" he called back to me.
"Yeah."
"Maybe your other friend in there better leave too," Charles said.
Lucas muttered something to himself. I wanted to stand up for his right to be there, but after their altercation I questioned the wisdom of it.
"Okay, now you, Edie," Charles said. I exited the room. It was just Charles and me in the hall. He set down the gun.
"That"s bigger than a flush, Charles-" I tried to tease. My voice was too high, too tense.
Charles shook his head. "Don"t do that again, Edie. I don"t care how safe they seem. Never be alone with one of them."
"Okay." After that little show, I had to agree. I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.
"Glad you"re good," Charles said, and clapped my arm. "What"s his blood sugar at?"
I hadn"t realized I was still carrying the glucometer around. I looked down at its screen. "Two eighty-three."
Charles and I changed the insulin drip together since it was a medication you needed a co-sign for, and when Gina returned I explained what had happened and took Lucas"s coffee in his stead. I wasn"t about to go find him. The test strip with Winter"s blood was safely in my pocket. That was all that mattered to me.
I had to go to the bathroom near shift change. I told Gina and waved at Meaty and Charles on my way out the door, and exited to find Lucas, sitting with his head between his knees outside in the hall.
I couldn"t exactly avoid him. The door to Y4 slammed shut behind me. He didn"t look up. He wasn"t asleep, was he?
"Pretend I"m not here," he suggested without looking up.
I snorted. He"d been so frightening in the room, but now he just looked depressed. Winter was my patient ... but that was the problem with visitors. Sometimes they needed nursing too. I walked over to him and knelt down. "Want to tell me what that was about?"
Lucas looked up at me, eyes full of sadness. "I"m next in line to lead the pack."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
"Oh." I didn"t know how to react. In my world, promotions were positive things.
"I never wanted this day to come." Lucas leaned forward and put his head back into his hands. "I"m not like Winter was."
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. h.e.l.l, 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed. 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. "h.e.l.lo?"
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 f.u.c.king 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.
"h.e.l.lo, Edie!" She sounded pleased to hear from me, which meant she was in on this.
"Why is there a Cen.o.bite sitting on my couch?"
"What"s a Cen.o.bite?"
"Rent h.e.l.lraiser." I walked backward without taking my eyes off him and closed my apartment door behind me. "Was this really the f.u.c.king 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. "G.o.ddammit, 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 p.r.o.ne 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 Amba.s.sador 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?"