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His grin was so perfect it hurt me to look right at him. I used to think he had the kind of face that was only handsome when he was serious. Seeing him now, smiling, I knew how wrong I’d been.
I touched his cheek, tracing the fading scars where I’d hurt him in the blast from the hotel explosion. “Bet you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into when you agreed to come on this little trip.” Every word hurt more than the last, reminding me why I was in this room to begin with.
“I had a pretty good idea that you and I might stir up some trouble.”
Speaking of trouble... “Where’s Le—”
I coughed trying to say his name, which turned into more coughing, and I doubled over in the bed, tears blurring my vision as I tried to get my breath back, but it seemed like it was always just escaping me.
Cade vanished from my side, and I wanted to call to him, but I couldn’t make the words come out.
He returned moments later with a doctor and nurse in tow. Their uniforms bore the symbol of Asclepius, a snake wrapped around a rod. Asclepius was one of the rare gods who did not have a chosen earthly representative. People chose to serve him and wore his mark willingly. It made me trust doctors and nurses all the more for it, because they weren’t forced to help people, they chose to. Asclepius must have been quite the benevolent deity to inspire such worship.
Of course, he was one of the few that handed the power of life and death directly to his followers.
The nurse was a middle-aged Asian woman with streaks of silver hair trailing into her ponytail. She was all business, straightening me out in bed and rattling off some information to the doctor as she checked the tubes in my arms to make sure I hadn’t pulled anything loose.
The doctor, leaving my immediate well-being in the capable hands of the nurse—her nametag said Rosemary—came to stand next to me. He was handsome in an authority-figure way, serious and businesslike. His red hair was wavy, and he wore dark-framed glasses that loaned his youngish face a bit more gravitas. The stitching on his lab coat above Asclepius’s mark said Dr. Shea.
“I believe you promised to keep her from getting too excited, Mr. Melpomene,” he chided Cade. The priest lingered by the door, a guilt-stricken expression on his face.
Again, I tried to speak, but when I opened my mouth, I continued to cough.
“Lay still, Miss Corentine. I’m going to need you to calm yourself.”
Rosemary injected a clear liquid into one of the tubes running to my arm, and I felt a brief sensation of coolness under the skin, then a woozy heaviness all through my body. Everything started to move in slow motion. Darkness stole over me and once again I was pulled under.
I woke up alone.
The pain in my chest was still present but had lessened slightly, enough that I felt comfortable trying to prop myself up on my elbows. Someone had turned off the overhead lights—Seth bless them—and outside the sun appeared blotted out by a layer of thick clouds. It was bright enough I could assume it was daytime, but a storm, she was abrewing.
People passed by my room in both directions, always moving like they were in a hurry to get somewhere, but none of them stopping to look in on me. I was grateful for the momentary reprieve, because it gave me a much-needed opportunity to collect my thoughts.
This was bad.
Mormo knew where Leo was, which meant we were out of time to keep Seth’s son hidden from Manea. I’d missed my window to deliver him safely. Once we tried to leave the sanctuary of the hospital, we’d be lucky to make it ten feet before Manea’s goons swooped in and finished what Mormo started in the apartment.
This whole situation was fucked seven ways from Sunday, and I honestly didn’t know what to do next. I had a little time to work it out, though, since it was unlikely they’d let me out of this hospital bed any time soon.
Since I was alone I took
a moment to peek down the front of my paper-thin gown to investigate the place Mormo had stabbed me. Bandages encircled my waist, with a large pad stuck down over the area where the blade had entered. I took a few test breaths and found I could breathe okay without coughing, but the deeper I inhaled the more the wound hurt, like my lungs were pushing against it from the inside and the hole was widening with each breath.
Maybe no marathons for awhile.
Cade’s military-cut jacket was draped over the back of the chair beside me, so he couldn’t have gone far. A garbage can near the room’s entrance had several empty coffee cups in it.
I wonder how long it had been since he slept.
How long had I been here?
Where was Leo?
A million different questions swirled through my head, and with each new one a half dozen more popped up. All I knew for sure was that nothing was going to get finished if I was stuck in a hospital.
I was about to rip out my IV when Dr. Shea came into the room, turning the lights on as he entered. He stared at me carefully as I froze. It was obvious what I’d been trying to do, but neither of us spoke. I let the line drop and sat back against my pillow.
“Hello.” I smiled. Fake casual, pretending like nothing had happened.
