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Dylan.
Her name bled through the fog of his mind like a balm. He looked up to find his unwilling guest sitting on the edge of the bed, something flat and rectangular resting on her lap. She set the object aside on the nightstand and rushed over to him in the instant before his knees gave out.
"Shower," he managed to croak.
"You can hardly stand up." She helped him over to the bed, where he gratefully collapsed. "You look like you need a doctor. Is there anyone here who can help you?"
"No," he rasped. "Shower..."
He was too far gone to use his Breed ability to mentally turn the water on, but he didn't need to try. Dylan was already running to the adjacent bathroom. He heard the sharp hiss of the shower coming on, then Dylan's soft footsteps on the carpet as she came back out to where he was slumped pathetically on his side toward the foot of the bed.
Vaguely he registered the slowing of her stride the closer she got to him. He hardly heard the quick, indrawn breath above him. But there was no mistaking the shaky exhale as she blew out a quiet, pitying oath.
"Jesus Christ." Too much silence followed her whispered curse. Then, "Rio...My God. What kind of hell have you been through?"
Using every last ounce of strength he had, Rio peeled his eyes open. Big mistake. The horror he saw in Dylan's gaze was undeniable. She was looking at the exposed left side of his body...at the chest and torso that had been shredded by shrapnel and nearly flayed off his bones by the flames of the explosion he'd barely survived.
"Did she..." Dylan's soft voice drifted off. "Did your wife have something to do with what happened to you, Rio?"
His pulse froze. The blood that had been beating like a drum in his ears turned to ice as he stared up blearily into Dylan's questioning, concerned face.
"Did she do this to you, Rio?"
He followed Dylan's outstretched hand as she reached toward the item she'd set down on the nightstand. It was a framed photograph. He didn't need to see the picture under the glass to know that it was a snapshot of Eva, from an evening walk they'd taken along the Charles River. Eva, smiling. Eva, telling him how much she loved him, while behind his back she conspired with the Order's enemy to fulfill her own selfish goals.
Rio snarled when he thought of his own stupidity. His own blindness.
"It doesn't concern you," he muttered, still adrift in the darkness that was rising up on him from within his broken mind. "You don't know anything about her."
"She was the one who led me to you. I saw her on the mountain in Jicin."
An irrational suspicion sharpened his anger to something deadly. "What do you mean, you saw her? You knew Eva?"
Dylan swallowed, gave a small shrug of her shoulder. She held the picture frame out toward him. "I saw her...her spirit was there. She was there on the mountain with you."
"Bullshit," he growled. "Don't talk to me about that female. She's dead, and that's where she belongs."
"She asked me to help you, Rio. She sought me out. She wanted me to save you - "
"I said that's bullshit!" he roared.
Fury brought his body up off the mattress like a viper lashing out to strike. He knocked the frame out of Dylan's hands, and his rage hurled it across the room in blinding speed. It crashed into the large mirror on the wall opposite the bed, splintering on impact and sending shards of polished glass exploding out like a hail of tiny razor blades.
He heard Dylan cry out, but it wasn't until he smelled the juniper-sweet scent of her blood that he realized what he'd done.
She held her hand up to her cheek, and when her fingers came away, they were stained scarlet from a small, bleeding gash just below her left eye.
It was the sight of that wound that snapped Rio out of his downward spiral. Like a bucket of cold water thrown over his head, seeing Dylan injured jolted him instantly sober.
"Ah, Cristo, " he hissed. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry."
He moved to touch her, to assess how badly he'd hurt her - and she backed away from him with wide, terrified eyes.
"Dylan...I didn't mean to - "
"Stay away from me."
He reached out, meaning only to reassure her that he meant no harm.
