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"Saved your ass. That's how I found you."
So that had been the why of it. "Well, then, fly me some of that hand."
Still, as V put the glowing thing close, Butch winced. "Relax, cop. This isn't going to hurt."
"I've seen you toast a house with that bastard."
"Point taken. But the Firestarter routine isn't going down here."
V hovered his tattooed, glowing hand over the wound, and Butch let out a ragged groan of relief. It was as if warm, fresh water was pouring into the wound, then flowing over him, through him. Cleaning him out.
Butch's eyes rolled back in his head. "Oh... God... that feels good."
He went limp, and then he was floating, free of the pain, sliding into some kind of dream state. He let his body go, let himself go.
He could actually feel the healing, as if his body's regenerative processes had kicked into high gear. As seconds passed, as minutes went by, as time drifted into the infinite, he felt like whole days of rest and eating well and being at peace were coming and going, leapfrogging him from the battered state he was in back to the -miraculous gift of health.
Marissa tilted her head back and stood right under the showerhead, letting the water fall down her body. She felt shaken loose and thin-skinned, especially after watching Vishous carry Butch to the bed. The two of them were so close, the mutual bond clear in the way their eyes met and held.
After a long while, she got out, toweled herself off roughly, then blew her hair dry. As she reached for a fresh set of undergarments, she looked at the corset and thought, the hell she was putting that on. She shoved it back into a bag, unable to bear having that iron grip around her rib cage right now.
As she put her peach gown on over her naked br**sts, it felt strange, but she'd had it with being uncomfortable. At least for a little while. Besides, who would know?
She folded up the pale blue Rodriguez and put it into a bio-hazard bag along with her old underwear. Then she braced herself and opened the door out into the patient room.
Butch was sprawled on the bed, the hospital gown pushed up onto his chest, the sheets down around his hips. Vishous's glowing hand was resting about three inches above the blackened wound.
In the silence between the two males, she was an intruder. With nowhere to go.
"He's asleep," V grunted.
She cleared her throat, but couldn't think of anything to say. After a long silence, she finally murmured, "Tell me... does his family know what's happened?"
"Yeah. The Brotherhood all know."
"No, I mean... his human family."
"They are irrelevant."
"But shouldn't they be - "
V looked up with impatience, his diamond eyes hard and a little mean. For some reason, it occurred to her now just how fully armed he was with his black daggers crossing his thick chest.
Then again, his sharp expression went with the weapon.
"Butch's 'family' doesn't want him." V's voice was strident, as if the explanation were none of her business and he was elaborating just to shut her up. "So they are irrelevant. Now come over here. He needs you to be close to him."
The contradiction between the Brother's face and his command to come closer tangled her up. So did the reality that that hand was the biggest help.
"He most certainly does not need me or want me here," she murmured. And wondered once again why the hell he'd called her three nights ago.
"He's worried about you. That's why he wants you to go."
She flushed. "Wrong, warrior."
"I'm never wrong." With a quick flash, those navy-rimmed white irises flipped up to her face. They were so frigid that she stepped back, but Vishous shook his head. "Come on, touch him. Let him feel you. He needs to know you're here."
She frowned, thinking the Brother was crazy. But she walked to the far side of the bed and reached out to stroke Butch's hair. The instant she made contact, he turned his face toward her.
"See?" Vishous went back to staring at the wound. "He craves you."
I wish he did, she thought.
"Do you really?"
She stiffened. "Please don't read my mind. It's rude."
"I didn't. You spoke out loud."
Her hand faltered on Butch's hair. "Oh. Sorry."
They grew quiet, both focused on Butch. Then Vishous said in a hard tone, "Why'd you shut him down, Marissa? When he came to see you back in the fall, why'd you turn him away?"
She frowned. "He never came to see me."
"Yeah, he did."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard what I said."
As they locked eyes, it occurred to her that although Vishous was scary as all get out, he was not a liar. "When? When did he come to me?"
"He waited for a couple weeks after Wrath was shot. Then he went to your house. When he got back, he said you wouldn't even come down in person. Man, that was a cold move, female. You knew he was feeling you, but you turned him away through a servant. Nice."
"No... I never did that... He didn't come, he... No one told me he - "
"Oh, please."
"Do not take that tone with me, warrior." As Vishous's eyes shot to her face, she was too pissed off to care who or what he was. "At the end of last summer I was flat on my back with the flu, thanks to feeding Wrath too much and then working in the clinic. When I didn't hear from Butch, I assumed he'd had second thoughts about us. As I... haven't had a lot of luck with males, it took me a while to work up the nerve to approach him. When I did, three months ago here in the clinic, he made it clear he didn't want to see me. So do me the favor of not blaming me for something I did not do."
There was a long silence and then Vishous surprised the hell out of her.
He actually smiled at her a little. "Well, what do you know."
Flustered, she looked down at Butch and resumed stroking his hair. "I swear to you, if I had known it was him, I would have dragged myself out of bed to answer that door myself."
In a low voice Vishous murmured, "Good deal, female. Good... deal."
In the silence that followed, she thought about the events of the previous summer. The convalescence she'd taken hadn't been just about the flu. She'd been overwhelmed by her brother's attempt on Wrath's life - by the fact that Havers, ever the calm, even-tempered healer, had gone so far as to betray the king's location to a lesser. Sure, Havers had done it to ahvenge her because of the way she had been cast aside for the queen, but that in no way excused the actions.
Dear Virgin the Fade, Butch had tried to see her, but why hadn't she been told?
"I never knew you came," she murmured, smoothing his hair back.
Vishous removed his hand, and yanked up the sheet. "Close your eyes, Marissa. It's your turn."
She looked up. "I didn't know."
"I believe you. Now close."
After he had healed her, V walked over to the door, his big shoulders rolling with his gait.
At the air lock, he looked back over his shoulder. "Don't think I was the only reason he healed. You're his light, Marissa. Don't ever forget that." The Brother's eyes narrowed. "But here's something to keep in mind. You ever hurt him on purpose and I will consider you my enemy."
John Matthew sat in a classroom that was right out of Caldwell High School. There were seven long tables facing the blackboard, and all but one had a pair of trainees plugged into them.
John was alone in the back. Which was also just as it had been at CHS.
The difference between this class and the stuff he'd taken in school, though, was that now he took careful notes and stared up front like the chalkboard was running a Die Hard marathon.
Then again, geometry wasn't ever the subject on deck around here.
This afternoon, Zsadist was at the head of the class, pacing back and forth, talking about the chemical composition of C4 plastic explosives. The Brother was wearing one of his trademark black turtlenecks and a pair of loose nylon track pants. With that scar down his face, he looked exactly like he'd done what people said he had: killed females, desecrated lessers, attacked even his Brothers without provocation.
But the strange thing was, he was a helluva teacher.
"Now for detonators," he said. "Personally, I prefer the remote variety."
As John turned over a fresh page in his notebook, Z sketched a 3-D mechanism on the board, some kind of box with wiring circuits. Whenever the Brother drew, what he put up was so detailed and realistic you could almost reach out and touch the thing.
