But he hadn’t replied to her, had he? “Is it not, healer?”
“I wasn’t touching you on your left foot at that time.”
Payne blinked through an unexpected upset. And yet, after all this time being immobile, she should be prepared for information like that, shouldn’t she.
“So are you going to begin the now?” she asked.
“Not yet.” Her healer glanced over at Jane, and then looked back. “We’re going to have to move you for the operation.”
“This hallway ain’t far enough away, buddy.”
As Butch’s reasonable voice registered, V wanted to bite the guy’s head off. And the urge got even stronger as the bastard continued. “How ’bout heading over to the Pit?”
Logical advice, true. And yet . . . “You’re starting to piss me off, cop.”
“Like that’s a news flash? And P.S., I don’t care.”
The door to the exam room opened and his Jane slipped out. As she looked at him, her forest green eyes were not happy.
“Now what,” he barked, unsure whether he could handle any more bad news.
“He wants to move her.”
After a moment of blinking like a cow, V shook his head, convinced he’d gotten his languages confused. “Excuse me?”
“To St. Francis.”
“No. Fucking. Way—”
“Vishous—”
“That’s a human hospital!”
“V—”
“Have you lost your mind—”
At that moment, the godforsaken human surgeon came out, and to his credit, or his insanity, he got right up into V’s grille. “I can’t work on her here. You want me to try it and paralyze her for good myself? Use your goddamned head—I need an MRI, microscopes, equipment, and staff you don’t have here. We’re out of time, and she can’t be transported far—besides, if you’re the U.S. government, you can bury her records and make sure this doesn’t get picked up by the press, so the exposure will be minimal with my help.”
U.S. government? What the—Yeah, whatever with that. “She’s not going to a human hospital. Period.”
The guy frowned over the “human” thing, but then seemed to shake it off. “Then I’m not operating—”
V launched himself at the man.
It was a total blink-of-the-eye kind of thing. One minute, he was planted in his shitkickers; the next he was all fly-be-free—at least until he slammed into the good doctor and velvet-Elvised the bastard onto the corridor’s concrete wall.
“Get in there and start cutting,” V growled.
The human could barely draw a breath, but hypoxia didn’t stop him from manning up. He met V right in the eyeball. Unable to speak, he mouthed, Won’t. Do. It.
“Let him go, V. And let him take her where he needs to go.”
As Wrath’s voice cut through the drama, the urge to go pyrotechnic became nearly irresistible. Like they needed another kibitzer? And fuck-that on the command.
V squeezed the surgeon’s collar trash-bag tight. “You are not taking her anywhere—”
The hand on V’s shoulder was heavy, and Wrath’s voice had an edge like a dagger. “And you’re not in charge here. She’s my responsibility, not yours.”
Wrong thing to say. On so many levels.
“She is my blood,” he snarled.
“And I’m the one who put her on that bed. Oh, and I’m also your cocksucking king, so you will do as I command, Vishous.”
Just as he was about to say and do something he would later regret, Jane’s sanity reached him. “V, at this moment, you are the problem. Not your twin’s condition, or Manny’s decision. You need to step back, get some clarity, and think, not react. I will be with her the whole time, and Butch will come with me, won’t you.”
“Abso,” the cop replied. “And I’ll get Rhage, too. She won’t be left alone for an instant.”
Dead silence. During which V’s rational side fought for his steering wheel . . . and that human refused to back down. In spite of the fact that he was one stab through the heart away from a coffin, that son of a bitch just kept glaring right back.
Christ, you could almost respect him for it.
Jane’s hand on V’s biceps was nothing like Wrath’s. Her touch was light, soothing, careful. “I spent years in that hospital. I’m familiar with all the rooms, all the people, all the equipment. There is not one square inch of that facility that I don’t know like the back of my hand. Manny and I will work together and make sure that she gets in and gets out fast—and that she’s protected. He’s got ultimate power there as chief of surgery, and I will be with her every step of the way . . .”
Jane continued talking but he heard nothing more, a sudden vision coming down through him like a signal received from some external transmitter: With crystal clarity, he saw his sister astride a horse, going at a gallop on the edge of a forest. There was no saddle, no bridle, and her hair was unfurled and streaming behind her in the moonlight.
She was laughing. With complete and utter joy.
She was free.
Throughout his life, he had always seen pictures of the future—so he knew this was not one of them. His visions were exclusively of deaths—those of his brothers and Wrath and their shellans and children. Knowing how those around him would pass was part of his reserve and all of his madness: He was privy only to the means, never the time, and therefore he couldn’t save them.
So what he saw now was not the future. This was what he wanted for the twin he had found far too late and was in danger of losing far too early.
V, at this moment, you are the problem.
Not trusting himself to speak to any of them, he dropped the doc like a dime and pulled back. As the human caught his breath, V didn’t look at anyone but Jane.
“I can’t lose her,” he said in a weak voice, even though there were witnesses.
“I know. I’ll be with her every step of the way. Trust me.”
V closed his eyes briefly. One of the things that he and his shellan had in common was that they were both very, very good at what they did. Devoted to their jobs, they existed in parallel universes of their own creation and focus: the fighting for him, the healing for her.
So this was the equivalent of him swearing he would kill someone for her.
“Okay,” he croaked. “All right. Gimme a minute with her, though.”
Pushing through the double doors, he approached his twin’s bed, and was very aware this could be the last time he spoke with her: Vampires, like humans, could die during operations. Did die.
She looked even worse than before, lying all too motionless, her eyes not just closed but squeezed shut as if she were in pain. Shit on a shingle, his shellan was right. He was the slow-up here. Not that f’n surgeon.
“Payne.”
Her lids lifted slowly, like they weighed as much as I beams. “Brother mine.”
“You’re going to a human hospital. Okay?” As she nodded, he hated that her skin was the color of the white bedsheet. “He’s going to operate on you there.”
When she nodded again, her lips parted and her breath hitched like she was having trouble breathing. “’Tis for the best.”
God . . . now what? Did he tell her he loved her? He guessed he did, in his own fucked-up way.
“Listen . . . you take care,” he mumbled.
Lame-ass. Fucking lame-ass little bitch. But it was all he could manage.
“You . . . too,” she groaned.
Of its own volition, his good hand reached out and slowly slid against hers. As he tightened his grip slightly, she didn’t move or respond, and he had a sudden panic that he’d missed his opportunity, that she was already gone.
“Payne.”
Her lids fluttered. “Yes?”
The door opened and Jane put her head in. “We have to get going.”
“Yeah. Okay.” V gave his sister’s palm a final squeeze; then he left the room in a hurry.
When he got out into the hall, Rhage had arrived, and so had Phury and Z. Which was good. Phury was especially proficient at hypnotizing humans—and he’d done it at St. Francis before.