TWENTY-ONE

An hour after Trez took the tray back down to the kitchen, Rehv’s stomach was in full revolt. Man, if oatmeal was no longer a viable food afterward, what was he left with? Bananas? White rice?

Fucking Gerber baby gruel?

And it wasn’t just his digestive tract that was screwed up. If he’d been able to feel anything, he was pretty sure he had a headache along with the tossing nausea. Anytime there was a light source, like when Trez came in to check on him, Rehv’s eyes went on autoblink, flickering up and down in an uncoordinated, ocular version of the Safety Dance; then he’d start to salivate and swallow compulsively. So he had to be nauseated.

As his phone went off, he put his hand on it and brought it to his ear without turning his head. There was a lot going on at ZeroSum tonight, and he needed to keep tabs. “Yeah.”

“Hi…you called me?”

Rehv’s eyes shot to the bathroom door, which had a soft light glowing around the jambs.

Oh, God, he hadn’t had a shower yet.

He was still covered with the sex he’d had.

Even though Ehlena was about a three-hour drive away and he wasn’t on a Web cam, he felt absolutely nasty just talking to her.

“Hey,” he said in a rough voice.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” Which was a total fucking lie, and the gravel in his voice made that obvious.

“Well, I, ah…I saw that you’d called me-” As a strangled sound came out of his mouth, Ehlena stopped. “You’re sick.”

“No-”

“For God’s sake, please come to the clinic-”

“I can’t. I’m…” God, he couldn’t bear to speak to her. “I’m not in town. I’m upstate.”

There was a long pause. “I’ll bring the antibiotics to you.”

“No.” She couldn’t see him like this. Shit, she couldn’t see him ever again. He was filthy. A filthy, dirty whore who let someone he hated touch him and suck on him and use him, and force him to do the same to her.

The princess was right. He was a fucking dildo.

“Rehv? Let me come to you-”

“No.”

“Goddamn it, don’t you do this to yourself!”

“You can’t save me!” he shouted.

In the aftermath of his explosion, he thought, Jesus…where had that come from? “I’m sorry…it’s been a bad night for me.”

When Ehlena finally spoke, her voice was a thin whisper. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me see you in the morgue. Don’t do that to me.”

Rehv squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m not doing anything to you.”

“The hell you aren’t.” Her voice cracked on a sob.

“Ehlena…”

Her moan of despair came through the phone all too clearly. “Oh…Christ. Whatever. Kill yourself, fine.”

She hung up on him.

“Fuck.” He rubbed his face. “Fuck!”

Rehv sat up and fired the cell phone at the bedroom door. And just as it ricocheted off the panels and went flying, he realized he’d busted the only thing he had with her number in it.

With a roar and a messy scramble, he launched his body off the bed, quilts landing everywhere. Not a great move on his part. As his numb feet hit the throw rug, he went Frisbee, finding air briefly before landing on his face. On impact, a sound like a bomb had gone off rumbled through the floorboards, and he crawled for the phone, tracking the light that still glowed from its screen.

Please, oh, fucking please, if there is a God…

He was almost in range when the door swung open, narrowly missing his head and clipping the phone-which shot like a hockey puck in the opposite direction. As Rehv wheeled around and lunged for thing, he shouted at Trez.

“Don’t shoot me!”

Trez was in full fighting stance, gun up and pointed at the window, then the closet, then the bed. “What the fuck was that.”

Rehv sprawled out flat to reach the phone, which was spinning under the bed. When he caught it, he closed his eyes and brought it close to his face.

“Rehv?”

“Please…”

“What? Please…what?”

He opened his eyes. The screen was flickering, and he pressed the buttons fast. Calls received…calls received…calls r-

“Rehv, what the hell is going on?”

There it was. The number. He stared at the seven digits after the area code as if they were the combination to his own safe, trying to get them all.

The screen went dark and he let his head fall down on his arm.

Trez crouched beside him. “You okay?”

Rehv pushed himself out from under the bed and sat up, the room spinning like a merry-go-round. “Oh…fuck me.”

Trez holstered his gun. “What happened?”

“I dropped my phone.”

“Right. Of course. Because it weighs enough to make that kind of-Hey, easy, there.” Trez caught him as he tried to get up. “Now where are you going?”

“I need a shower. I need…”

More pictures of him with the princess hammered into his brain. He saw her back arched, that red mesh split free of her ass, him buried deep in her sex, pumping until that barb of his locked him inside of her so that his release would get way up into her.

Rehv pressed his fists into his eyes. “I need to…”

Oh, Jesus…He orgasmed when he was with his blackmailer. And not just once, usually three or four times. At least the whores in his club who hated what they did for the money could take solace in the fact that they didn’t enjoy it. But a male’s release said it all, didn’t it.

Rehv’s gag reflex tightened, and in a panic he Curly-shuffled into the bathroom. The oatmeal and the toast made a successful bid for liberation, and Trez was right there to hold him over the loo. Rehv couldn’t feel the retching, but he was damn sure that his esophagus was getting torn, because after a couple of minutes of coughing and trying to breathe and seeing stars, blood started to come up.

“Lie back,” Trez said.

“No, shower-”

“You’re in no shape-”

“I have to get her off me!” Rehv’s voice bellowed through not just his bedroom, but the whole house. “For fuck’s sake…I can’t stand her.”

There was a moment that positively smacked of holy crap: Rehv wasn’t the type to ask for a life jacket even if he were drowning, and he never bitched about the arrangement with the princess. He got through it and did what he had to and paid the consequences, because it was all worth it to him to keep his and Xhex’s secret.

And part of you likes it, an inner voice pointed out. You get to be you without apology when you’re in her.

Fuck off, he told himself.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said to his friend hoarsely.

“Nah, it’s cool. Don’t blame you.” Trez gently lifted him up from the tile and tried to reposition him on the sinks. “It’s about time.”

Rehv lurched for the shower.

“Nope,” Trez said, pushing him back. “Let me get the water warm.”

“I won’t feel it.”

“Your core temperature has enough problems already. Just stay there.”

As Trez leaned into the marble shower and turned on the water, Rehv stared down at his cock, which lay loose and long down his thigh. It seemed like the sex of someone else, and that was a good thing.

“You realize I could kill her for you,” Trez said. “I could make it look like an accident. No one would know.”

Rehv shook his head. “I don’t want you sucked into this shithole. We got enough people down it already.”

“The offer stands.”

“Duly noted.”

Trez reached in and put his hand under the spray. With his palm in the rushing water, his chocolate eyes drifted back and abruptly became white from anger. “Just so we’re clear. You die? I’m going to skin that bitch alive in the s’Hisbe tradition and send the strips back to your uncle. Then I’m going to spit-roast her carcass and chew the meat from her bones.”

Rehv smiled a little, thinking it wasn’t cannibalism, because on a genetic level Shadows had as much in common with sympaths as humans did with chickens.

“Hannibal Lecter motherfucker,” he murmured.

“You know how we do.” Trez shook the water off his hand. “Symphaths… it’s what’s for dinner.”

“You going to bust out the fava beans?”

“Nah, but I might have a nice Chianti with her, and some pommes frites. I gotta have some tater with my meat. Come on, let’s get you under the water and wash that bitch’s stank off.”

Trez walked over and got Rehv up off the counter.

“Thank you,” Rehv said quietly as they limped toward the shower.

Trez shrugged, knowing damn well they weren’t talking about the visit to the bathroom. “You’d do the same for me.”

“I would.”

Under the spray, Rehv worked the Dial over himself until his skin was red as a raspberry, and got out of the shower only after he’d done his three-times-over wash. When he stepped free of the water, Trez handed him a towel, and he dried off as fast as he could without losing his balance.

“Speaking of favors…” he said, “I need your phone. Your phone and some privacy.”

“Okay.” Trez helped him back to bed and covered him up. “Man, good thing this duvet didn’t land in the fire.”

“So can I have your phone?”

“You going to play soccer with it?”

“Not as long as you leave my door closed.”

Trez handed him a Nokia. “Take care of her. She’s brand-new.”

When he was alone, Rehv dialed carefully and hit send on a wing and a prayer, having no clue whether or not he got the number right.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Hello?”

“Ehlena, I’m so sorry-”

“Ehlena?” the female voice said. “Sorry, there isn’t any Ehlena at this number.”

Ehlena sat in the ambulance holding in her tears out of habit. It wasn’t like anyone could see her, but the anonymity didn’t matter. As her latte cooled in its double cup, double sleeve, and the heater ran intermittently, she kept herself together because that’s what she always did.

Until the CB radio went off with a squawk and scared her out of her numb colds.

“Base to four,” Catya said. “Come in, four.”

As Ehlena reached for the handset, she thought, See, this was exactly why she could never let her guard down. If she’d been a wilted mess and had to answer? Not where she needed to be.

She hit the talk button with her thumb. “This is four.”

“Are you okay?”

“Ah, yes. I just needed…I’m coming back right now.”

“There’s no hurry. Take your time. I only wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Ehlena glanced at the clock. God, it was nearly two a.m. She’d been sitting out here, gassing herself by running the engine and the heater, for almost two hours.

“I’m so sorry, I had no idea what time it was. Do you need the ambulance for a pickup?”

“No, we were just worried about you. I know you assisted Havers on that body and-”

“I’m fine.” She rolled down the window to let some air in and put the ambulance in gear. “I’m coming back right away.”

“Don’t rush, and listen, why don’t you take the rest of the night off.”

“That’s okay-”

“It’s not a request. And I’ve switched the schedule around so you have tomorrow free as well. You need a break after tonight.”

Ehlena wanted to argue, but she knew that would just come across as defensive, and besides, with the decision made, there was nothing to fight for.

“All right.”

“Take your time coming back.”

“I will. Over and out.”

She hung up the handset and headed for the bridge that would take her across the river. Just as she was accelerating on the ramp, her phone went off.

So Rehv was calling her back, huh. Not a surprise.

She took out the phone only to confirm that it was him, not because she was intending to answer his call.

Unknown number?

She hit send and brought her cell to her ear. “Hello?”

“Is this you?”

Rehv’s deep voice still managed to shoot through her on a warm thrill, even though she was pissed off at him. And herself. Basically at the whole situation.

“Yes,” she said. “This isn’t your phone number, though.”

“No, it’s not. My cell had an accident.”

She rushed ahead before he got to any sorrys. “Look, it’s none of my business. Whatever’s going on with you. You’re right, I can’t save you-”

“Why do you even want to try?”

She frowned. If the question had been self-pitying or accusatory, she would have just ended the call and changed her number. But there was nothing but sincere confusion coming through in his voice. That and utter exhaustion.

“I just don’t understand…the why,” he murmured.

Her answer was simple and from the soul. “How can I not.”

“What if I don’t deserve it.”

She thought of Stephan lying on that stainless steel, his body cold and bruised. “Everyone with a beating heart deserves to be saved.”

“Is that why you got into nursing?”

“No. I got into nursing because I want to be a doctor someday. The saving thing is just the way I see the world.”

The silence between them lasted forever.

“Are you in a car?” he said eventually.

“An ambulance, actually. I’m going back to the clinic.”

“You’re out alone?” he growled.

“Yes, and you can cut the he-man crap. I’ve got a gun under the seat and I know how to use it.”

A subtle laugh came through the phone. “Okay, that’s a turn-on. I’m sorry, but it is.”

She had to smile a little. “You drive me nuts, you know that. Even though you’re all but a stranger to me, you drive me up the frickin’ wall.”

“And somehow I’m complimented.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry about earlier. I’ve had a bad night.”

“Yeah, well, me too. On both the sorry part and the bad night.”

“What happened?”

“It’s too much to go into. How about you?”

“Ditto.”

As he shifted, a sheet rustled. “Are you in bed again?”

“Yes. And yes, you still don’t want to know.”

She smiled widely. “You’re telling me I shouldn’t ask what you’re wearing again.”

“You got it.”

“We’re so falling into a rut, you know that?” She grew serious. “You sound really sick to me. Your voice is hoarse.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Look, I can bring you what you need. If you can’t make it to the clinic, I can bring the medicine to you.” The silence on the other end was so dense, and went on for so long, she said, “Hello? You there?”

“Tomorrow night…can you meet me?”

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Yes.”

“I’m on the top floor of the Commodore. Do you know the building.”

“I do.”

“Can you be there at midnight? East side.”

“Yes.”

His exhale seemed one of resignation. “I’ll be waiting for you. Drive safely, okay?”

“I will. And don’t throw your phone anymore.”

“How did you know?”

“Because if I’d had an open space in front of me instead of the dashboard of an ambulance, I would have done the same thing.”

His laugh made her smile, but she lost the expression as she hit end and put the phone back in her purse.

Even though she was driving at a steady sixty-five and the road ahead of her was straight and free of debris, she felt as if she were totally out of control, careening from guardrail to guardrail, leaving a trail of sparks as she ground off parts of the clinic’s vehicle.

Meeting him tomorrow night, being alone with him somewhere private, was exactly the wrong thing to do.

And she was going to do it anyway.