Lover Avenged

Chapter 35~36

  Chapter THIRTY-FIVE

  John Matthew came awake with his H amp;K pointed at the opening door across Xhex's barren room. His heart rate was as calm as his steady palm, and even when the lights came on, he didn't blink. If he didn't like the looks of whoever had sprung the lock and twisted the knob, he was going to put a bullet right through whatever chest presented itself.

  "Easy," Xhex said as she came inside and shut them in together. "It's just me. "

  He put the safety back on and lowered the muzzle.

  "I'm impressed," she murmured as she leaned back against the jamb. "You wake up like a fighter. "

  Standing across the way, her powerful body relaxed, she was the most attractive female he had ever seen. Which meant that unless she wanted what he wanted, he had to go. Fantasies were fine, but flesh was better, and he didn't think he could keep himself away from her.

  John waited. And waited. Neither of them moved.

  Right. Time to leave before he made an ass out of himself.

  He started to shift his legs off her bed, but she shook her head. "No, stay where you are. "

  Okaaaay. But that meant he needed some camo.

  Reaching for his coat, he dragged the leather across his lap, because his gun wasn't the only thing ready for use. As usual, he had a hard-on, which was standard-issue for the wakey-wakey shit-as well as a problem whenever he was within range of her.

  "I'll be right out," she said, dropping her black jacket and heading for the bathroom.

  The door shut and his mouth slacked open.

  Could this be. . . it?

  He smoothed down his hair, tucked in his shirt, and quickly shifted around his cock. Which was now not just hard, but throbbing. Looking down at the length straining against the fly of his A amp;F jeans, he tried to point out to the thing that she might be staying, but that didn't necessarily mean she had any interest in using his hips for buck-off practice.

  Xhex came back out a little later and paused by the light switch. "You have anything against the dark?"

  He shook his head slowly.

  The room plunged into black and he heard her moving toward the bed.

  Heart pounding, cock on fire, John quickly hustled over, leaving her plenty of room. As she lay down, he felt every nuance of the mattress shifting, heard the soft brush of her hair as it hit the pillow, knew the scent of her deep in his nose.

  He couldn't breathe.

  Even as she sighed in relaxation.

  "You're not afraid of me," she said quietly.

  He shook his head even though she couldn't see him.

  "You're hard. "

  Oh, God, he thought. Yes, he was.

  Momentary panic flared, a jackal jumping out of the bush and snarling at him. Fuck him, but it was hard to decide what would be worse: Xhex reaching for him and him losing his erection-like he had with the Chosen Layla on the night of his transition. Or Xhex not reaching for him at all.

  She settled the coin toss by turning toward him and putting her hand on his chest.

  "Easy," she said as he jumped.

  After he settled, her touch moved down his stomach, and when she cupped his cock through his jeans, he arched up off the bed, mouth opening to release a silent groan.

  There was no preamble, but he didn't want any at all. She undid the fly, sprang his arousal, and then there was shifting and the sound of her leathers hitting the floor.

  She mounted him, planting her palms on his pecs, pushing him down into the mattress. As something warm and soft and wet rubbed against him, he didn't worry at all about going limp. His body was raging to get inside of her, nothing of the past coming through his mating instincts.

  Xhex rose onto her knees, took him in her hand, and stood him up. When she sat down, he felt a delicious, tight pressure along the sides of his cock, the electric compression kicking off an orgasm that had him punching his hips up. Without thinking whether it was okay, he grabbed onto her thighs-

  He froze as he felt metal, but then he was too far gone. All he could do was squeeze with his hands as he shuddered again and again, losing his virginity over and over.

  It was the most amazing thing he'd ever felt. He knew from hand jobs. Had worked himself out a thousand times since his transition. But this blew all of what he'd done out of the park. Xhex was indescribable.

  And that was before she started to move.

  When he was finished with that first phantasmagasm, she gave him a minute to catch his breath, then started to roll her hips up and back. He gasped. The muscles inside of her gripped and released his cock, the alternating pressure getting his balls tight and ready once again.

  He so totally and completely understood Qhuinn's drive to get naked now. This was incredible, especially when John let his body follow hers and they moved together. Even as the rhythm grew faster and faster, becoming urgent, he knew exactly what was happening and where every part of both of them was, from her palms on his chest to the weight of her on top of him to the friction of the sex to the way his breath was tearing in and out of his throat.

  His body went rigid from head to toe as he came again, her name leaving his lips as it had when he fantasized about her-only more urgent.

  And then it was done.

  Xhex lifted herself free of him and his cock fell down onto his belly. Compared to the hot cocoon of her body, the soft cotton of the shirt he was wearing was like sandpaper, and the air temperature was freezing cold. The bed moved as she lay down beside him, and he turned to face her in the dark. He was breathing hard, but he yearned to kiss her in the break before they did that again.

  John reached out and felt her stiffen as his palm landed on the far side of her neck, but she didn't pull away. God, her skin was soft. . . oh, so soft. Although the muscles that ran up from her shoulders were like steel, what covered them was satin smooth.

  John was slow as he lifted his upper body off the bed and leaned over her, slipping his touch up to her cheek, cradling her face gently, finding her lips with his thumb.

  He didn't want to fuck this up. She had done most of the work, and done it spectacularly. More than that, she had given him the gift of sex and had shown him that in spite of what had been done to him, he was still male, still capable of enjoying what his body had been born to do. If he was going to be the one making their first kiss happen, he was determined to get it right.

  Dropping his head-

  "That's not what this is about. " Xhex pushed him back, got off the bed, and went into the bathroom.

  The door shut, and John's cock shriveled up on his shirt as he heard water come on: She was washing him off her, getting rid of what his body had given her. With hands that shook, he stuffed himself back into his jeans, trying to ignore the wetness and the erotic scent.

  When Xhex came out, she got her jacket, and went over to open the door. As light from the hall streamed in, she was a black shadow standing tall and strong.

  "It's daylight outside, in case you haven't checked your watch. " She paused. "And I appreciate your being discreet about my. . . situation. "

  The door closed behind her silently.

  So that was the why behind the hookup. She'd given him the sex to thank him for keeping her secret.

  Christ, how could he have thought it was more?

  Fully clothed. No kissing. And he was pretty sure he was the only one who came: Her breathing hadn't changed, she hadn't cried out, there had been no sagging relief for her after it was done. Not that he knew anything about females and orgasms, but that was what happened to him when he had the release.

  Not a pity fuck. A gratitude one.

  John rubbed his face. He was so stupid. Thinking that it meant anything.

  So very, very stupid.

  Tohr woke up with a stomach that had been spray-painted in the color pain. The agony was so bad that in his dead-to-the-world, postfeeding sleep, he'd wrapped his arms
around his belly and hunched into himself.

  Unfurling from the tuck and shiver, he wondered if there had been something wrong with the blood-

  The grumble that rose up was loud enough to rival a garbage disposal.

  The pain. . . was hunger? He looked down at the concave pit between his hips. Rubbed at the hard, flat surface. Listened to another roar.

  His body was demanding food, massive quantities of sustenance.

  He glanced at the clock. Ten a. m. John hadn't come by with Last Meal.

  Tohr sat up without using his arms and made it into the bathroom on legs that felt curiously steady. He used the toilet, but not to throw up, then washed his face, and realized he had no clothes to wear.

  Slipping a terry-cloth robe on, he left his bedroom for the first time since he'd walked into it.

  The lights along the hall of statues made him blink like he'd been spotlit on a stage, and he needed a minute to adjust to. . . everything.

  Stretching up and down the corridor, the marble males in their various poses were just as he remembered them, so strong and graceful and static, and for no good reason, he remembered Darius buying them one by one, building up the collection. Back when D had been in acquisition mode, he'd sent Fritz to auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's in New York, and when each of the masterpieces had been delivered in its crate with all the shredded stuffing and those cloth wraps, the brother had had an unveiling party.

  D had loved art.

  Tohr frowned. Wellsie and his unborn child would always be his first and foremost loss. But he had more dead to avenge, didn't he. The lessers had taken not only his family, but his best friend.

  Anger stirred deep in his gut. . . triggering another hunger. For war.

  With a focus and determination that was both foreign and familiar, Tohr headed down toward the grand staircase and paused as he got to the mostly closed doors of the study. He sensed Wrath behind them, but he didn't really want to interact with anyone.

  At least, he didn't think so.

  Why then hadn't he just called down to the kitchen for an order of food?

  Tohr peered in through the slit that was between the doors.

  Wrath was asleep at his desk, his long, glossy black hair fanning out over paperwork, one forearm curled under his head as a pillow. In his free hand, he still gripped the magnifying glass he had to use if he wanted to try to read anything.

  Tohr stepped into the room. Looking around, he saw the mantelpiece over the fireplace and could just picture Zsadist lounging against it, his scarred face serious, his eyes flashing black. Phury had always been close to him, usually parking it in the pale blue chaise by the window. V and Butch had tended to take that spindly-ass couch. Rhage chose different locales depending on his mood. . .

  Tohr frowned as what was next to Wrath's desk registered.

  The ugly, ratty, avocado green armchair, with patches worn on its leather cushions. . . was Tohr's chair. The one his Wellsie had insisted be thrown out because it was a mess. The one he'd put in the office down in the training center.

  "We moved it here so John would come back to the mansion. "

  Tohr's head whipped around. Wrath was lifting himself off his arm, his voice as groggy as his face appeared.

  The king spoke slowly, as if he didn't want to spook his visitor. "After. . . what happened, John wouldn't leave the office. He refused to sleep anywhere but that chair. What a mess. . . He was acting out in training. Getting into fights. Eventually, I put my foot down, moved that stinker in here, and things got better. " Wrath turned to the chair. "He used to like to sit there and watch me work. After his transition and the raids over the summer, he's been out fighting at night and crashing during the day, so he hasn't been here as much. I kind of miss him. "

  Tohr winced. He'd done such a head job on that poor kid. Sure, he'd been incapable of doing anything else, but John had suffered a lot.

  Suffered still.

  Tohr was ashamed of himself as he thought of his waking up in that bed each morning and every afternoon, John bringing that tray in and sitting while the food was eaten-then staying, as if the kid knew that he was throwing up most of whatever had been served as soon as he was alone.

  John had had to deal with Wellsie's death by himself. Go through his transition by himself. Cross however many first times by himself.

  Tohr sat down on V and Butch's couch. The thing felt surprisingly sturdy, more so than he remembered. Putting his palms on the cushions, he pushed.

  "It was reinforced while you were gone," Wrath said quietly.

  There was a long period of quiet, the question Wrath wanted to ask hovering in the air as loud as the echo of clanging bells in a private chapel.

  Tohr cleared his throat. The only person he could have talked to about what was on his mind was Darius, but the brother was dead and gone. Wrath was the next person he was closest to though. . .

  "It was. . . " Tohr crossed his arms over his chest. "It went okay. She stood behind me. "

  Wrath nodded slowly. "Good idea. "

  "Hers. "

  "Selena's tight. Kind. "

  "I'm not sure how long it's going to take," Tohr said, not wanting to even talk about the female. "You know, until I'm ready to fight. I'm going to have to spar some. Hit the shooting range. Physically? No clue how my body's going to rebound. "

  "Don't worry about time. Just get yourself healthy. "

  Tohr looked down at his hands and curled up a pair of fists. There was no meat on the bones at all, so his knuckles poked through the skin like a relief map of the Adirondacks, nothing but jagged peaks and hollow valleys.

  It was going to be a long trip back, he thought. And even once he was physically strong, his mental deck of cards was still missing all of its aces. No matter how much he weighed or how well he fought, nothing was going to change that.

  There was a sharp knock and he shut his eyes, praying it wasn't one of his brothers. He didn't want to make a big deal out of returning to the land of living.

  Yay. Rah. Whoo. Hoo.

  "What's doing, Qhuinn?" the king asked.

  "We found John. Kinda. "

  Tohr's lids popped wide and he shifted around, frowning up at the kid in the doorway. Before Wrath could speak, Tohr said, "Was he missing?"

  Qhuinn seemed surprised to see him up and about, but the guy gathered himself quickly as Wrath demanded, "Why wasn't I told he was gone?"

  "I didn't know he was. " Qhuinn came in, and the redhead from the training classes, Blay, was with him. "He told both of us he was off rotation and going to crash out. We took him at his word, and before you fist my balls, I stayed in my room the entire time because I thought he was in his. As soon as I realized he wasn't there, we went in search of him. "

  Wrath cursed under his breath, then cut off Qhuinn's apology. "Nah, it's cool, son. You didn't know. Nothing you could do. Where the fuck is he?"

  Tohr didn't hear the answer for the roar in his head. John out in Caldwell alone? Gone without telling anyone? What if something had happened?

  He cut through the conversation. "Wait, where is he?"

  Qhuinn held up his phone. "He won't say. His text is just that he's safe, wherever he is, and he'll meet us out tomorrow night. "

  "When's he coming home?" Tohr demanded.

  "I guess"-Qhuinn shrugged-"he's not. "

  Chapter THIRTY-SIX

  Rehvenge's mother passed unto the Fade at eleven eleven a. m.

  She was surrounded by her son and her daughter and her sleeping granddaughter and her fierce son-in-law and attended by her beloved doggen.

  It was a good death. A very good death. She closed her eyes, and an hour later she gasped twice and let out one long exhale, as if her body were sighing in relief as her soul flew free of its corporeal cage. And it was strange. . . Nalla woke up at that moment and the young focused not on her granhmen, but above the bed. Her little chubby hands
reached high, and she smiled and cooed as if someone had just stroked her cheek.

  Rehv stared down at the body. His mother had always believed she would be reborn unto the Fade, the roots of her faith planted in the rich soil of her Chosen upbringing. He hoped that was true. He wanted to believe she lived on somewhere.

  It was the only thing that eased the pain in his chest even slightly.

  As the doggen began crying softly, Bella embraced her daughter and Zsadist. Rehv stayed apart from them, sitting alone on the foot of the bed and watching the color drain out of their mother's face.

  When a tingle bloomed in his hands and feet, he was reminded that his father's legacy, like his mother's, was ever with him.

  He stood up, bowed to them all, and excused himself. In the bathroom off the room he stayed in, he looked under the sink and thanked the Virgin Scribe that he'd been smart enough to tuck a couple of vials of dopamine in the back. Turning the heat light in the ceiling on, he took off his sable duster and stripped his Gucci jacket from his shoulders. When the red glow from up above freaked his shit out, because he thought the stress of the death was bringing out his bad side, he shut the thing off, cranked the shower on, and waited until the steam rose up before continuing.

  He swallowed another two penicillin pills as he tapped his loafer.

  When he could stand it, he rolled up his shirtsleeve and studiously ignored his reflection in the mirror. After he filled a syringe, he used his LV belt to loop around his biceps, pulling the black leather over and holding it against his ribs.

  The steel needle slipped into one of his infected veins and he hit the plunger-

  "What are you doing?"

  His sister's voice jacked his head up. In the mirror, she was staring at the needle in his arm and his red, rancid veins.

  His first thought was to bark at her to get the fuck out. He didn't want her to see this, and not just because it meant more lying. It was private.

  Instead, he calmly pulled the syringe free, capped it, and tossed it. As the shower hissed, he pulled his sleeve down, then put on his jacket and his sable coat.

  He turned off the water.

  "I'm diabetic," he said. Shit, he'd told Ehlena he had Parkinson's. Damn it.

  Well, it wasn't like the two were going to meet anytime soon.

  Bella lifted her hand to her mouth. "Since when? Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. " He forced a smile. "Are you okay?"

  "Wait, since when has this been going on?"

  "I've been injecting myself for about two years now. " At least that wasn't a lie. "I see Havers regularly. " Ding! Ding! Another truth. "I'm managing it well. "

  Bella looked at his arm. "Is that why you're always cold?"

  "Bad circulation. It's why I need the cane. Bad balance. "

  "I thought you said that was because of an injury?"

  "The diabetes compromises how I heal. "

  "Oh, right. " She nodded sadly. "I wish I'd known. "

  As she stared up at him with her big blue eyes, he hated lying to her, but all he had to do was think of his mother's peaceful face.

  Rehv put his arm around his sister and led her out of the bathroom. "It's no big deal. I'm on it. "

  The air was cooler in the bedroom, but he knew this only because Bella wrapped her arms around herself and hunkered in.

  "When should we do the ceremony?" she asked.

  "I'll call the clinic and have Havers come out here at nightfall and wrap her. Then we have to decide where to bury her. "

  "At the Brotherhood compound. That's where I want her. "

  "If Wrath will let the doggen and me come, that's fine. "

  "Of course. Z's on the phone with the king now. "

  "I don't think there's much of the glymera left in town who'd want to say good-bye. "

  "I'll get her address book from downstairs and put together an announcement. "

  Such a factual, practical conversation, illustrating that death was indeed part of living.

  When Bella let out a soft sob, Rehv pulled her against his chest. "Come here, sister mine. "

  As they stood together with her head on his chest, he thought of the number of times he'd tried to save her from the world. Life, however, had happened anyway.

  God, when she had been small, before her transition, he had been so certain he could protect her and take care of her. When she was hungry, he made sure she had food. When she needed clothes, he bought them for her. When she couldn't sleep, he stayed with her until her eyes closed. Now that she had grown up, though, he felt like his repertoire was restricted to nothing but placations. Although maybe that was the way it worked. When you were young, a good lullaby was all you needed to ease the stress of the day and make you feel safe.

  Holding her now, he wished there were such a quick fix for grown-ups.

  "I'm going to miss her," Bella said. "We weren't very much alike, but I always loved her. "

  "You were her great joy. Always. "

  Bella pulled back. "And you as well. "

  He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "Would you and your family like to have a rest here?"

  Bella nodded. "Where do you want us?"

  "Ask mahmen's doggen. "

  "Will do. " Bella gave his hand a squeeze that he couldn't feel and left his room.

  When he was alone, he went over to the bed and took out his cell phone. Ehlena never had texted him the night before, and as he retrieved the clinic's number from his address book, he tried not to worry. Maybe she had done the overday shift. God, he hoped she had.

  Chances were small something bad had happened. Very small.

  But he was calling her next.

  "Hello, clinic," came the voice in the Old Language.

  "This is Rehvenge, son of Rempoon. My mother has just passed, and I need to make arrangements for her body to be preserved. "

  The female on the other end gasped. None of the nurses liked him, but they had all adored his mother. Everyone did-

  Everyone had, that was.

  He rubbed his mohawk. "Is there any way Havers could come out to the house at nightfall?"

  "Yes, absolutely, and may I say on behalf of all of us, we are deeply aggrieved at her passing and wish her safe passage unto the Fade. "

  "Thank you. "

  "Hold a moment. " When the female came back on, she said, "The doctor will come immediately after sundown. With your permission, he will bring someone to assist-"

  "Who. " He wasn't sure how he'd feel about it being Ehlena. He didn't want her to have to deal with another body so soon, and the fact that it was his mother's might make it even harder on her. "Ehlena?"

  The nurse hesitated. "Ah, no, not Ehlena. "

  He frowned, his symphath instincts triggered by the female's tone. "Did Ehlena make it in last night?" Another pause. "Did she?"

  "I'm sorry, I cannot discuss-"

  His voice dropped to a growl. "Did she come in or not. Simple question. Did she. Or not. "

  The nurse became flustered. "Yes, yes, she came in-"

  "And?"

  "Nothing. She-"

  "So what's the problem?"

  "There isn't one. " The exasperation in that voice told him it was happy interactions like this that were part of what made them all dislike him so much.

  He tried to make his voice more even. "Clearly there is a problem, and you're going to tell me what's doing or I'm going to keep calling back until someone talks to me. And if no one will, I'm going to show up at your front desk and drive every single one of you insane until a member of the staff cracks and talks to me. "

  There was a pause that vibrated with you-are-such-an-asshole. "Fine. She doesn't work here anymore. "

  Rehv's breath sucked in on a hiss and his hand shot to the plastic Baggie full of penicillin he'd been keeping in his suit's breast pocket. "Why?"

  "That I will not disclose to you no matter what you do. "


  There was a click as she hung up on him.

  Ehlena sat upstairs at the crappy kitchen table, her father's manuscript in front of her. She'd read it twice at his desk, then put him to bed and come up here, where she'd gone through it again.

  The title was In the Rain Forest of the Monkey Mind.

  Dearest Virgin Scribe, if she'd thought she had sympathy for the male before, now she had empathy for him. The three hundred handwritten pages were a guided tour through his mental illness, a vivid, walk-a-mile-in-his-shoes study of when the disease had started and where it had taken him.

  She glanced over at the aluminum foil that covered the windows. The voices in his mind that tortured him came from a variety of sources, and one way was through radio waves beamed down from satellites orbiting the earth.

  She knew all this.

  But in the book, her father described the Reynolds Wrap as a tangible representation of the psychosis: Both the foil and the schizophrenia kept the real world away, both insulated him. . . and with both in place he was safer than if they weren't around. The truth was, he loved his illness as much as he feared it.

  Many, many years ago, after family had double-crossed him in business and ruined him in the eyes of the glymera, he no longer trusted his ability to read the intentions and motivations of others. He had put his faith in the wrong people and. . . it had cost him his shellan.

  The thing was, Ehlena had figured her mother's death wrong. Right after the great fall, her mother had turned to laudanum to help her cope, and the temporary relief had bloomed into a crutch as life as she'd known it had crumbled. . . money, position, homes, possessions leaving her like lovely doves scattering from a field, going somewhere safer.

  And then Ehlena's engagement had failed, the male distancing himself before publicly declaring that he was ending the relationship-because Ehlena had seduced him into her bed and taken advantage of him.

  That had been her mother's last straw.

  What had been a joint decision between Ehlena and the male had been spun into Ehlena's being a female without worth, a harlot hell-bent on corrupting a male who had had only the most honorable of intentions. With that known in the glymera, Ehlena would never marry, even if her family had had the station they'd lost.

  The night the scandal had broken, Ehlena's mother had gone into her bedroom and they'd found her dead hours later. Ehlena had always assumed it had been a laudanum overdose, but no. According to the manuscript, she had slit her wrists and bled out on the sheets.

  Her father had started hearing voices as soon as he saw his female deceased on their mated bed, her pale body framed by a halo of dark red spilled life.

  As his mental disease had progressed, he had retreated farther and farther into paranoia, but in a strange way he felt more secure there. Real life was fraught, in his mind, with people who might or might not betray him. The voices in his head, however, were all out to get him. With those crazy monkeys that flipped and tripped among the branches of the sickness's forest, raining sticks and hard nubs of fruit at him in the form of thoughts, he knew his enemies. He could see and feel and know them for what they were, and his weapons to combat them were a well-ordered refrigerator and tin over the windows and rituals of words and his writings.

  Out in the real world? He was helpless and lost, at the mercy of others, with no defenses to judge what was dangerous and what wasn't. The illness, on the other hand, was where he wanted to be, because he knew, as he put it, the confines of the forest and the trails around the trunks and the tribulations of the monkeys.

  There his compass held a true north.

  To Ehlena's surprise? It wasn't all suffering for him. Before he had fallen ill, he'd been a litigator in matters of the Old Law, a male well-known for his affection for debate and his lust for strong opponents. In his illness, he found just the kind of conflict he had enjoyed while sane. The voices in his own head, as he put it with self-actualized irony, were every bit as intelligent and facile at debate as he was. To him, his violent episodes were nothing more than the mental equivalent of a good boxing match, and since he always came out of them eventually, he always felt victorious.

  He was also aware he was never leaving the forest. It was, as he said in the final line of the book, his last address before he went unto the Fade. And his only regret was that there was room for just one inhabitant in there-that his sojourn among the monkeys meant he could not be with her, his daughter.

  He was saddened by the separation and the burden he was on her.

  He knew he was a lot to handle. He was aware of the sacrifices. He mourned her loneliness.

  It was everything she had wanted to hear him say, and as she held the pages, it didn't matter that it was all written and not voiced. If anything it was better this way because she could read it over and over again.

  Her father knew so much more than she thought.

  And he was far more content than she ever could have guessed.

  She smoothed her palm over the first page. The handwriting, which was in blue, because a properly trained attorney never wrote in black, was as neat and orderly as the recitation of the past, and as elegant and graceful as the larger conclusions he drew and the insights he offered.

  God. . . for so long, she had lived around him, but now she knew what he lived in.

  And all people were like him, weren't they. Each in their own rain forests, alone no matter how many folk walked beside them.

  Was mental health just a matter of having fewer monkeys? Maybe the same number, only nice ones?

  The muffled sound of a cell phone going off brought her head up. Reaching across to her coat, she took the thing out of her pocket and answered it.

  "Hello?" She knew in the silence who it was. "Rehvenge?"

  "You got fired. "

  Ehlena put her elbow on the table and covered her forehead with her hand. "I'm fine. About to go to sleep. And you?"

  "It was because of the pills you brought me, wasn't it. "

  "Dinner was really good. Cottage cheese and carrot sticks-"

  "Stop it," he barked.

  She dropped her arm and frowned. "I beg your pardon. "

  "Why did you do it, Ehlena? Why the hell-"

  "Okay, you're going to rethink your tone or this conversation's getting the end button. "

  "Ehlena, you need that job. "

  "Don't tell me what I need. "

  He cursed some. Cursed some more.

  "You know," she muttered, "if I add a sound track and some machine guns to this, we'd have a Die Hard movie. How did you find out, anyway?"

  "My mother passed. "

  Ehlena gasped. "Wha. . . ? Oh, my God, when? I mean, I'm sorry-"

  "About a half hour ago. "

  She slowly shook her head. "Rehvenge, I'm so sorry. "

  "I called the clinic to. . . make arrangements. " He exhaled with the kind of exhaustion she was feeling. "Anyway. . . yeah. You never texted me that you'd gotten to the clinic safely. So I asked, and there it was. "

  "Damn it, I meant to but. . . " Well, she was busy getting fired.

  "But that wasn't the only reason why I wanted to call now. "

  "No?"

  "I just. . . I needed to hear your voice. "

  Ehlena took a deep breath, her eyes locking on the lines of her father's handwriting. She thought of all she had learned, good and bad, in those pages.

  "Funny," she said, "I feel the same way tonight. "

  "Really? Like. . . for real?"

  "Absolutely, positively. . . yes. "