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I wondered if the potential clients had anything to do with Penny’s case. I suspected they might, if only because everything seemed to be aligning in an effort to force these people and me together on this investigation.
“And they left after I’d been darted?”
“Yes.”
“Meaning,” I muttered, “they’re probably back in Central telling anyone who’ll listen that there’s a real, live déchet running around. Who cares if its the truth or not?”
“I doubt it,” Jonas said. “Those particular shifters have no desire to get involved with Central’s authorities. If they’re going to do anything, it’ll be investigating the disappearances themselves. Besides, they won’t find you in Chaos, and given Penny never mentioned this place in their presence, it’s unlikely they’d find you even if they did search.”
“I hope you’re right, ranger, because the ghosts and I quite like our current situation.”
“It is certainly more peaceful here than in either Chaos or Central,” he agreed. “Who was that man you met there?”
I raised my eyebrows. “What business is it of yours who I meet?”
“Nothing, except for the fact that you led me on a merry dance almost immediately after meeting him, and yet up until that point showed no awareness of even being followed.”
“Given I wasn’t aware of your presence, it was hardly a deliberate attempt to lose you,” I replied evenly. “We simply used a VTOL.”
“I gathered.” His expression was back to disbelief and anger, but I supposed that wasn’t unexpected given we’d deliberately lost him and we both knew it.
I finished the last of my coffee, then tossed the cup in the nearby recycling slot and rose. “As lovely as this little chat has been, ranger, I need to sleep. You are welcome to claim whatever bench or bunk takes your fancy.”
His eyebrows rose. “You trust me to roam around your sanctuary alone?”
“You are never alone. Not in this place.” I gave him another humorless smile. “The ghosts will tell me if you attempt anything that endangers our home.”
“Warning heeded.” A slight trace of amusement warmed his lips and his eyes. “Enjoy your sleep.”
“And you your investigations.” I hesitated, remembering my conversation with the adult déchet earlier. “But I would avoid the ninth level if you value your life. That is where the bulk of déchet bones lie, and they will not allow a shifter anywhere near them.”
With that, I walked out and headed for the secondary medical center. The soft foam on the mediscan beds was comfortable, and there was no other bedding on this floor, as most of it had once been the training and teaching grounds for pubescent déchet. Some of the ghosts came with me—mostly the younger ones, as well as Bear and Cat. The rest remained to keep an eye on—and gossip about—Jonas.
Once in the medical center, I switched off all the monitors, then climbed into the bed the farthest from the door and closest to the wall. In very little time, I was asleep . . . and, rather annoyingly, dreaming of a shifter with a body of a warrior and fury for a heart rather than the lover I’d only just been reunited with.
• • •
Ghostly chattering woke me many hours later. I didn’t immediately move or open my eyes, but simply let the small noises of the place envelop me. Beyond the ghosts’ excited whispers about their adventures following Jonas last night, there was the soft sound of breathing. The ranger, in a nearby bed. His crisp, sharp scent spun around me, reminding me of the evening storms that came after a long, hot summer day. It even had the same sense of darkness and violence lying underneath it. Beyond Jonas, little else seemed to have changed. Silence stretched through the bunker’s corridors, though the air was touched by the stench of the vampire I’d burned last night. Outside our bunker, dawn had stirred across the skies and, if the electricity in the air was anything to go by, it was going to be an unpleasant day.
I opened my eyes and met Jonas’s bright gaze. He’d been watching me sleep, and the thought stirred through me enticingly. “Enjoy your investigations last night, ranger?”
“I did.” His voice was a pleasant rumble, the anger within it briefly absent. “This place is vast.”
“It was.” I swung my feet off the bed and rose. “But much of it is now either unusable, inaccessible, or under concrete.”
“Indeed.” He sat up. “I didn’t find much in the way of bathroom facilities in this place. Where do you shower?”
In the main bunk rooms, that’s where. But given I couldn’t admit I had access to that area, I simply raised an eyebrow and said, “Why? Are in interested in sharing one?”
His gaze slipped down my body and a smile briefly teased his lips. “Not when you wear that form. Your true self is much more pleasant.”
“Pleasant” was such a nonword when it came to compliments. “How do you know the form you saw was my real one, and not this?”
“It’s something of a talent.” He shrugged. “What are your plans today?”
“Why are you asking?”
His smile lost its humor, and the warmth fled his bright eyes. “Because if you plan to go back to Carleen and investigate those other rifts, I very much intend to go with you.”
