Chapter Nine #2
This was exactly what he’d never been looking for.
Allhan was inexorable, though, appearing on the front stoop at Safe Place as an orphan abandoned, his parents having fucked him off, no money or clothes to his name—all of which would have been unfortunate, but not unusual and none of V’s fucking problem.
Except then the kid had proven to have a knack for computing, and that knack had been the gateway to a truly brilliant mind for programming and data analysis.
There were things Allhan could do faster and better than even Vishous.
And when was the last time that had happened.
“As long as Allhan and you are all right,” Jane concluded, “I can deal with almost anything.”
V had to agree with her, and hated it. He really did. He already had enough in his life to worry about, and adding some kid had never been on his list of things to do. But here he was. Here they were—
Knocking sounded out from the living area.
“Come on in,” Jane yelled. Then, in a quieter voice, “Beth and Wrath want to see you.”
“Gimme a hand-rolled,” he hissed. “Right now—”
“We’re down here,” she spoke toward the hall. “My patient is so happy you’re here!”
“The fuck I am.” He glanced toward the open door, making sure he kept shit quiet. “And I want a cigarette if I have to deal with the pair of—”
Jane dropped her volume, too. “No cigarette, and they won’t stay long—”
“They’re fucking fighting over the Whestmorel thing—”
“Shh—”
Rhage appeared at the head of the hallway, in the midst of unwrapping a fresh grape Tootsie Pop. “Annnnnd he’s cheerful as a Christmas card.”
Unlike the people in the front of the Suburban, everybody else had been unscathed, so Hollywood’s golden beauty and glowing, Bahamas-blue eyes were CoverGirl perfect.
But he was not his usual happy-go-lucky self.
Underneath the gloss and charm, the brother was locked in on V like he needed the reassurance that everything was, in fact, all right.
V exhaled, thinking it was hard to stay annoyed by the guy, it really was. “I’m fine, true.”
“That why there’s a bandage holding your brains in?” the brother said around the lollipop.
Ah, shit, he had to smile a little again. “Fuck off, Hollywood.”
The great Blind King stepped into the bedroom, taking up most of the space and all of the air, and even though V was functioning way below half-mast, he ran his eyes over the vampire like he was checking for stains on a pair of white kicks.
Wrath looked perfectly healthy, thank fuck, his waist-length black hair falling around his shoulders and adding to his bulk, his powerful legs planted into shitkickers, those black wraparounds making him seem like someone about to break into a bank using somebody else’s face.
“How we doin’?” the male asked.
Behind him, Beth, the Queen, stared over in the direction of the bed, and going by how pale she went, V figured he was looking worse than he felt. Or maybe he wasn’t a good judge of how he was actually feeling.
Oh, and hey, remember how pain always got him off? Not to- night.
“Welcome,” Jane said, without looking away from him. “Don’t you think he looks good.”
“Better’n Tohr,” Wrath remarked as he came across.
“You’re blind,” V pointed out. “So I know you’re lying.”
“Details, details.”
As Wrath put his hand forward, V clapped his palm against his King’s, and there was a moment where all kinds of things were said without words: I’m glad you’re all right, my brother. Man, that was another close call. When is this shit ever going to end.
After that, some kind of conversation happened. He didn’t track a lot of it. He was too busy measuring his shellan as she and Beth stood off to the side and talked between themselves. Both females were tense and unhappy, and he hated to see it. Knew also that the Brotherhood was the cause.
Well, the war and the aristocracy. But still.
The royal couple left a little while later—and took Hollywood with them, thank God. Yeah, he was glad his brother had bothered to stop by, but he didn’t have the strength for the banter right now.
“I’m okay, though,” he said. “For real.”
Who exactly was he talking to? Himself? His Jane? The four walls and a ceiling they were in?
His shellan returned to the bed. For a moment, she regarded him in that way medical professionals did, a kind of gut-check monitoring that had nothing to do with electrodes or scans or ultrasounds or stethoscopes, and everything to do with decades and decades of dealing with injured people.
“We’re just going to put this all behind us,” she said finally. “Tonight was a shit show, but it’s over now—”
The sound of a cell phone vibrating brought their attention to the bureau across the bedroom. When there was a beat of quiet and then the thing immediately danced again, they both cursed.
As a third round started up, Jane went to her Samsung. As she entered the date they first met to unlock the unit, she put the call on speakerphone.
“What’s up,” she answered briskly.
“Oh, nothing much,” a male voice said. “Just an update on the Allhan situation.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Her forest-green eyes shot over to him. “What Allhan situation—”
V sat up so fast he started to dry-heave. “What the fuck’s going on—”
They talked over each other as she strode back to him, and the voice coming out of the phone was one that V recognized—yet his mind couldn’t place it. And wasn’t that more good news about his injuries.
“Well,” the male continued, “the bodies have been removed from the scene, and now a bunch of us are going out to find the two who were abducted—”
V cut through the word salad he wasn’t tracking. “Is Allhan alive?”
There was a pause of confusion. “Um, yes?”
“Is he okay?”
“No offense, I think you’d be a better judge of that? I mean, he was pretty composed when we showed up in the alley, but shock’ll do that to a male. Haven’t you been getting the texts?”
“Would I be asking these fucking questions if I’d—”
Jane cut in smoothly. “No, we haven’t. We’ve been dealing with a situation on our end.”
“Okay, well, there was a lesser attack downtown, outside of Bathe. Allhan found the bodies.”
Closing his eyes, V thought it was funny how he still didn’t know who the fuck was talking. The cadence and tone registered as very familiar, but he couldn’t have identified who’d called if there was a gun to his head. But at least he could translate the words.
And Allhan was alive.
Vishous shuffled his legs so they hung off the mattress and Jane didn’t stop him.
Why the hell hadn’t Al called home?
“Where’s my phone,” he asked her.
“Your jacket.” She cursed. “Which is in the mobile surgery unit along with the clothes we cut off you.”
Fuck the phone, then. “Where’s he now?” he asked the caller.
There was another pause. And then the mystery male said, “He told us he was going home when he left? I thought… he was with you.”