It’s you she’s after.
I limped over to the body still lying sprawled in the alley, vision wavering as I placed weight on the leg Regan had stabbed. I slid down the grimy wall to drop next to the woman. Of course she was still there. Regan didn’t care about her, the mortal had served her purpose, and it was more tortuous to leave the body for me to deal with.
My nose felt lopsided, and I didn’t bother wiping away the blood yet. My eyes, probably both blackened, watered as I popped my nose back into place, but ten more minutes alone and no one would ever know. At least my extensions had held, I thought, feeling the top of my head. Yay for bonding glue and hairspray.
And then I began to cry.
Shit. Regan was right. I had to start taking responsibility for what I’d done, and now I’d killed a mortal. And what about what I was allowing to happen to Ben, and possibly to this entire mortal plane?
What the fuck was I doing? I thought, gazing through the tears at the woman’s body.
At the involuntary twitch of her thumb. My sniffles died in my throat and I was next to her in a millisecond, belly on the ground, cheek over her mouth, but otherwise entirely still. The softest breath, like a baby bird’s first, warmed my ear.
“Oh my God.” Alive. Alive.
And to keep her that way I had to get to the hospital quick. Not one of ours; Micah was tucked in the sanctuary until dawn, and she couldn’t wait that long. So one of the mortal hospitals, then, I thought, lifting her. But I’d have to drop her at the emergency entrance, unable to risk the paperwork, the questions about my involvement and appearance, the certain leaks of both of those to the Shadow side…leaks Olivia Archer couldn’t risk.
But this mortal would live. She had to. And after I saw her safe, I would get cleaned up, find a replacement conduit for the one I’d lost, and retire to someplace safe until I could cross to the sanctuary at dawn.
And there was only one place to do all that. Unfortunately it wasn’t until after I’d left my fragile package beneath the spotlight of a streetlamp at the city’s trauma unit, until after I heard cries of surprise and yells for assistance, and until well after I’d entered the shell of the warehouse and its arsenal of silent, hidden alarms that I thought about what exactly it meant to be alone with Hunter Lorenzo. In the depths of night and in a building only he could arm and secure. It really hit me when he swung open the side steel door and I found myself face-to-face with those muscles rounding beneath his white wife-beater, his fresh sweat so heady my nipples contracted. He looked great, yes. But, more, he looked safe.
If Hunter noticed the hitch in my breath he didn’t say. Instead his eyes widened as he took in my face.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, yanking me inside.
“Haven’t I healed yet?” I asked, patting at my face.
There was nothing seductive about his touch as he dragged me to the center of the warehouse, positioning me on a high metal stool next to his drawing table to assess the damage. But he wasn’t looking at my face. He’d scented my blood the moment he saw me, and had torn the seam of my slacks aside to reveal the wound above my right knee. It looked like a splash of red paint against a flawless ivory canvas.
“It’s nothing,” I told him, swallowing hard at the sight. One more scar to hide, I thought. Olivia would be appalled at the way I was treating her body. “Just a scratch.”
“From a conduit,” he said, his concern not lessening. “I wouldn’t call that nothing. Whose?”
“Guess,” I said wryly, as he yanked open a drawer on a cabinet-length toolbox to reveal emergency medical supplies. You had to hand it to the guy. He was prepared.
He whipped his gaze up to mine. “Again?”
“Don’t look at me that way!” I bristled, stood, and bristled again when he pushed me back onto the stool. “I’m not seeking her out, I’m not losing control of my emotions, I’m not even going near Ben. She’s like a poisonous mushroom. She keeps popping up whenever the conditions are right.”
“You mean when you’re alone and vulnerable and not suspecting her attack.”
I flipped my hair back and focused on the alone part. “Hey, it’s not like I’m trying to keep Chandra from accompanying me-”
“Anymore,” he added quickly, but I ignored that too, gritting my teeth as he swabbed the cool, stinging alcohol over my knee.
“Besides, it doesn’t seem to matter where I go or who I’m with. She’s locating me almost at will. I can’t figure it out.” I scratched at my chest, and Hunter gently pulled my hand away so he could reach my forearm. I hadn’t even realized it’d been nicked.
“Tell me what you were doing when she found you,” he said, pushing up the long sleeve.
“She didn’t,” I said, swallowing hard. “I found her.”
I told him about the woman in the alley, what I’d done, where I’d left her, and felt his eyes on me when my voice broke, his work slowing. Without looking at him, I quickly moved on to the Tulpa’s decree that I not be killed, though he stopped bandaging my arm altogether when I said I’d lost my conduit. It was a moment longer before I could look him directly in the eye, but when I finally managed it, I found none of the disgust or anger I expected…or that I felt for myself.
“Oh, Joanna,” he said softly.
“Don’t,” I said, tearing up. “You’ll make me cry. And I can’t cry.” I scratched at my other arm and wished for my room in the barracks.
“Okay,” he said, drawing the word out as he rewrapped a length of gauze. “So you said you think the Shadow changeling told Regan where you were going?”
I nodded. “I know it. Douglas heard my conversation with the other kids. They wanted me to kill Jasmine, if you can believe that. They said it’d been done before by a guy named Jaden Jacks…”
I started to rise to grab the manual the boys at Master Comics had given me, thankful for something to do, but Hunter stilled me with a palm on my thigh. “And did it actually look like Regan in the alley?”
“God, yes! You think I would’ve struck her otherwise? But it was dark and she’d marked the mortal with her own scent, I’d know it anywhere, and I tried to pull back but it was too late and-”
“Shh.” Hunter’s hands stilled my own, which were moving faster and faster in the air with the telling, and I took a deep breath, realizing I was close to hyperventilating. We both waited until I was calm enough, and then my gaze met his. His voice matched it in softness. “So if you know Regan so well, how can you not see she’s been planning this forever? That woman’s injury wasn’t your doing.”
“It was,” I argued. “It’s because I know her so well that I should have seen it coming.”
“So now you’re responsible for all the evil in this world as well?”
Take some fucking responsibility…
I shook my head, loosening Regan’s words, but unable to keep from recalling how soundly my elbow had cracked against that woman’s flesh. I scratched my chest absently, tears threatening again. “All I know is Regan possesses knowledge of my old identity and my new. She has my past, my conduit…my number. And she can find me at will. I just don’t know why.”
Hunter straightened, eyeing me narrowly, and I froze in mid-scratch. “What?”
“What are you doing?” His voice was low, modulated, and suspicious.
“Playing patient to your bossy-ass doctor act,” I said, scratching again as I indignantly pushed off the stool. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
He pushed me back down. “Allowing your skin to breathe.”