“And I’m angry that I still want him so badly I can barely breathe.”
Nara nods. “That’s also fair.”
“Do you have him listed here or not?”
“No. I checked. Try municipal trauma near West Market. Police might have taken injured from the flood there.”
I go.
The second hospital is cleaner, colder, and less helpful. No Kauss. The intake clerk looks alarmed when I describe him, which would be funny on a better day. The third clinic has two tunnel residents but no Vakutan. The municipal police desk claims no one matching his description is in custody, then adds “currently” in a tone that makes me want to vault the counter.
By late afternoon, my boots are soaked, my hair is plastered to my cheeks, and my nerves feel stripped raw.
Halo looks emptied of color under the storm.
I stand under a flickering transit shelter, rain blowing sideways across my coat, and finally call Kauss.
The line rings.
And rings.
And rings.
No answer.
I almost throw the compad into the street.
Instead, I call again.
Nothing.
When I return toward Sweet Tooth, I take the long way past the upper edge of downtown because some awful instinct pulls me there. La Reina Azul sits two streets over, elegant and goldand smug against the rain. I do not intend to go there. I only intend to look.
That is when I see him.
Kauss steps out of a black vehicle near the restaurant’s side entrance wearing an expensive dark suit.
For half a second, relief detonates so violently inside me that I almost run into traffic.
Alive.
He is alive.
Then I see the men around him.
Not police. Not medics. Not friends.
Savio Lenrog’s people.
Men in black coats and tailored suits. Arturo with his smooth threat-face. Two guards from the restaurant. A woman with silver hair pulled into a severe knot, carrying a case that looks like it might hold documents, weapons, or both. They move around Kauss not like captors but like associates.
And Kauss lets them.
His suit fits perfectly, which means someone bought it for him. Someone measured him. Someone dressed him like he belongs in their dark little world. His face is set, cold, distant, nothing like the man who drinks coffee at my counter and blushes when I call him handsome. He looks like a weapon returned to proper storage.
My heart drops through the wet pavement.
He sees me.
