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"We will get some food in you," I said. "Some coffee. You'll feel better."
"Until you inject me again," she whimpered, rocking back and forth, trying to comfort herself.
"I won't do it again."
"Right. Because you're so trustworthy."
I couldn't expect her to trust me. If there was one thing I'd noticed about humans the past fifty years or so, it was that they didn't trust anyone. Even if the other person hadn't given them a reason to be so distrustful.
Meanwhile, I'd kidnapped her, held her hostage, manipulated her physically, and now I'd drugged her.
Her anger was understandable, if inconvenient.
We didn't plan on any stops aside from fueling up.
Getting Red home was of the utmost importance.
The other guys would be several days behind us, not having the option of shift driving, but they would hit up a couple MC chapters along the way, friends we'd made over time, and secure more supplies we might need for Red going forward.
We needed to get back as soon as possible.
But it wouldn't do us much good if the nurse overdosed on the way back.
"Alright. Lenore and I will take her to the bathroom to clean up," I said, nodding toward the detached bathroom at the rest stop. "You go get her some food and coffee," I told Minos, the one of us who knew most about feeding the humans since he'd been in charge of feeding all the witches when they came to us as sacrifices over the years.
"Got it," he agreed as we parked, leaving Ly with the SUV and Red as we all went off on our separate ways.
Lenore was in the bathroom with the nurse for fifteen minutes before they emerged again, Josephine leaning heavily on Lenore.
"She's dizzy," Lenore supplied. "And a little confused," she added as I took her other arm.
"Confused how?"
"She asked me who I was twice."
"Alright. Can you get in the back with Red for a while?" I asked. "She needs someone to keep an eye on her. You know more than the rest of us."
"Okay," she agreed, letting me help Josephine into the backseat where she groaned, her hand pressing to her stomach, then leaned over into my shoulder, resting her head against me.
"I'm spinning."
"You're not," I clarified, grabbing her arm to ground her. I couldn't count how many times I'd seen people get shitfaced at one of our parties, leaving them laying flat on the floor to shake off the overheated sensation, arms and legs thrown out to touch walls or tables, trying to assure themselves that they weren't, in fact, spinning.
"I am," she objected, letting out a whining noise as she pressed her head harder against me.
She was so short that her feet dangled just above the ground, making me grab her legs, draping them over mine to make her feel more stable.
"You're nice," she declared, snuggling closer.
"I'm not," I told her. "I'm really not," I added as I saw Minos making his way out of the fast food place.
It never really occurred to me to give a shit if I was decent or not. That wasn't exactly my nature, was it? But I'd been finding that the longer we were all trapped here, the more we became aware and even concerned by our lack of humanity. It appeared in small ways sometimes even years apart, so it got easy to forget it was a growing problem.
The last time I remembered giving a shit about humans was when the guys and I were on a run to a biker meetup in Florida and we happened by a fresh car wreck.
Everything in our nature should have told us to keep going. It wasn't our problem. We weren't supposed to give a shit if there were humans screaming for help inside of their totaled cars that had caught fire in the engine.
Yet we'd all stopped in unison. We'd worked to free them. We'd waited until the paramedics showed up. And only then were we off again.
Before that, I remembered a kid being taken from its mother while she was looking away. I'd stepped in then as well.
And before that, shit, I didn't even know.
But none of it, according to our nature, should have ever happened.
There was no denying that as time went on, we adopted human ways as our own in many ways. It was changing how we reacted to certain situations, to the humans themselves.
I knew, as a leader, as the oldest, that it was dangerous. It could impact our small, but important role on this plane. Bringing the humans' innate evilness to the surface so they acted on it more readily. If we cared too much about them, could we continue to do that? If we somehow felt like we couldn't, what did that say about us, as creatures of hell? Were we no longer as evil? Would we not be able to go back home, to take over our old jobs, our only reason for existence?
