"Wow." She leaned in toward the screen. There were countless replies waiting. "Unless you're all declines, that is."
For godsakes, there were easily a hundred unread messages, and as she started at the top, she found . . . all yeses.
We accept with pleasure your kind invitation. . . .
But of course, both my hellren and I shall . . .
With great anticipation, we do humbly accept. . . .
Before she got too far into it, she opened a side drawer and took out a yellow legal pad. With a blue ink pen, she created a table with Name, Reply, and Number at the top. Going between the computer list and the paper, she marked the names and replies, and she was about halfway down the former when she got to her brother's name.
Double-clicking the bolded entry, she held her breath. And then exhaled.
He was not coming. With three polite sentences, he indicated that he would need to be at the clinic, but he certainly appreciated being included.
Funny, it was both a relief and strangely deflating. She'd expected him to come, especially after that initial female had mentioned that Havers had been the one to recommend her as event chair.
Sitting back, she thought about her whole confront-the-past goal. Wrath had long ago apologized to her, and the way he had so freely and warmly embraced Butch and their mating had meant so much. She'd never really dwelled on what had happened between her and the King, but as she considered their doomed betrothal, and then everything that had come afterward, she found that she had fully forgiven him. She bore him only love--and knew that he would speak with her if she wanted or needed him to. She truly was at peace with him, however.
The glymera, on the other hand? She remained incensed to the point of rage about them and their standards, but it wasn't like she could line up that judgmental bunch of bullshit artists and yell at them. Living independently from all that had been a far more healthy and successful strategy.
And as for Havers? She had been planning on talking to her brother at the ball--but that would not have been a good plan, really. Talk about needing privacy--and maybe notecards. She wasn't even sure what she would say to him.
This was the problem with resolutions. You couldn't force something until you were ready for it. And her emotions were still so volatile.
Yes, she thought. Him not attending was actually going to make her life easier. And less of a spectacle for the glymera peanut gallery.
The answer for speaking with him was probably a little more time and maybe . . . shoot, maybe she would sit down with him and Mary--if he'd be willing? Who knew.
Butch was her main problem. And that female who had been killed, of course.
Refocusing, she finished her tallying, closed out of the account and made an estimate of the numbers. If this nearly one-hundred-percent acceptance rate kept up, they were going to have four hundred people at Abalone's. Which was twice what she'd assumed when she'd run the food and booze costs--something that, of course, as head of the event, she was expected to cover.
Guess she'd underestimated how much they wanted to see and be seen.
Sitting back, she rechecked her watch. At least she'd blown through a good thirty minutes.
Antsy, twitchy, nervous, crampy, she fussed around with the mouse, watching the little white arrow go in circles on the screen.
Man, she was still pretty angry at Butch. Even though she'd calmed down a lot, she remained hurt and--
She frowned and stopped her arrow from wandering.
At the bottom of the line-up of icons, there was a tiny picture, a little representation of what seemed like . . . the back of her hellren's head?
But that couldn't be right.
Double-clicking on the image, a sign-in popped up. The username slot was already filled in with BUTCH DHES, and the password was blank.
There was no title anywhere, nothing to let her know what kind of file it was. And it made her sad, but given where they were at, she was suspicious of whatever it was.
Then again, when you kept certain things from your mate, the other party was likely to start questioning pretty much everything.
Putting her fingertips back to the keyboard, she entered the password he usually used: 1MARISSA1!
Sure enough, it got her into . . .
It was a video image, frozen and ready to be played, of Butch sitting at the desk, with the camera behind his head.
Hitting the play arrow, she triggered the mechanism and watched as her mate stared at that black key with the red tassel. There was no sound, so she couldn't hear anything, but she imagined the plopping noise the thing made every time it dropped on the blotter.
A young male came in the room.
Had to be one of the trainees.
And the pair of them started talking. Clearly, this had to be an interview with regard to the program--and it was not going well, if the other male's face was anything to go by.
When Butch held up the key, it became obvious they were talking about it.
Time for sound, she thought, fumbling around with various buttons. Talk about nowhere fast. After all kinds of F-whatevers not doing the job, she discovered that the speakers themselves required a turn-on--and still she got nothing. It took her for-frickin'-ever before she discovered that someone had unplugged the speakers from the tower for some reason.
". . . what is it like?" the male asked.
Straightening, she focused on Butch's head, and he took a moment to answer the question. "Depends on how old it is and how it happened. The new stuff . . . especially if it was violent . . . can be messy."
"What are you talking about?" she said out loud.
"Body parts really don't like to be cut, stabbed or hacked into sections, and they express their anger by leaking all over the fuck. Jesus, we're, like, seventy percent water or something? And you learn that's so fucking true when you go to a fresh scene. Pools of it. Drips of it. Speckles of it. Then you got the stained clothes, rugs, bedsheets, walls, flooring--or if it's outside, the ground cover, the concrete, the asphalt. And then there's the smell . . ."
Dear . . . God, she thought as a wave of sadness overtook her.
Butch continued. "The older cases . . . the smell is worse than the mess. Water deaths, with the bloating, are just ugly-looking--and if that gas that's built up gets out? The stench will knock you on your ass. And I wasn't too crazy for the burn deaths, either." There was another pause. "You want to know what I always hated the most?" He motioned over his head. "The hair. The hair . . . God, the fucking hair, especially if it was a woman. Matted with blood, dirt, little rocks . . . tangled and twisted . . . laying on gray skin. When I can't sleep at night, that's what I see. I see the hair." He began to rub his hands together. "You always wore these gloves, you know . . . so you didn't get fingerprints on anything, didn't leave any of yourself behind. Early days they used to be latex--later they were nitrile. And sometimes, when I'd handle a body, the hair would get on the gloves . . . and it was like it wanted to get into me? Like . . . you could catch death by murder somehow." Butch shook his head. "Those gloves were so fucking thin. And they didn't work."
The trainee frowned. "Why did you have to wear them then?"
"No, no, they worked with fingerprints, you know. But I left something of myself behind in those dead bodies. Every one of them . . . has a piece of me in them."
Marissa turned off the sound. Stopped the video.
Put her head in her hands.
*
"You'll be good as new in the morning."
As Doc Jane handed over a mirror, Paradise braced herself for her reflection--but actually, it wasn't that bad. "How many stitches is that?"
"Twelve. But you'll heal with no scar whatsoever."
Reaching up, she touched just under the line of tiny black knots that was next to her eyebrow. "I bled so much, you would have sworn I needed a hundred."
Doc Jane put a little white bandage over her handi - work and then the snapping sound of examination gloves being taken of
f echoed in the tiled room. "That area has a high degree of vascularization. You might want to feed if it's been a while--it's not an emergency at all, but you did lose some blood and you guys are working awfully hard in there."
Or, in her case, losing her concentration and making an ass out of herself.
"You can wait for the bus to take you back, or if you don't want to hang around, I can have one of the doggen take you out to a secure place to dematerialize from."
Dropping the mirror, Paradise tried to imagine what her father would say if he saw her face. "Can I stay here for the day? I can't . . . I don't want to go home looking like this."
V's mate smiled, her forest-green eyes kind as she pushed a hand through her cropped blond hair. "I was thinking the same thing, actually--but I'm not about to make anyone stay here unless it is medically necessary. And in your case, it's not. It's just maybe . . . a little easier on your dad."
"Is it okay if I go call him on my cell?"
"Sure. If you can't get a signal--and some people cannot--there's a landline in the cafeteria you can use."
"Thank you so much," she said as she shifted her legs off the table. "I didn't feel a thing while you were putting the stitches in."
"You're doing great, Paradise. Everybody's so proud of you."
"Thanks."
She looked down as she landed on her feet and grimaced. There were specks of blood on her Brooks--which was not a big deal as long as she didn't wear the sneakers around her father.
Yup, she definitely needed to crash here, she thought as she emerged into the corridor.
It wasn't until she'd gone down the hall and pushed open the door to the break room that she realized . . .
She and Craeg were going to be in the same facility.
For the entire day.
As her body did that math and came up with a totally buck-naked answer, she figured, What the hell, if she had to get put together with a needle and thread, she might as well take advantage of someone kissing her to make it feel better.
Mmmm.
Going over to where she'd left her satchel on the floor with some of the others' bags, she picked the thing up and put it on the nearest table. Unzipping the top, she rifled through, searching for her phone. She didn't find it.
With a frown, she turned the Bally over and dumped everything out. As she waded through Kleenex packets and her wallet and random mascara tubes and her Kindle and loose money and ChapStick and other stuff, she knew she had to get better organized. Okay, where was . . .
Her phone was not in there.
What the hell? Had she left the thing at home? She could have sworn she'd put it in with the rest of her junk.
Tilting the open mouth of the bag toward her, she fished around the empty belly, and then unzipped the front pocket just to see what other useless crap--
Her phone was in that flap.
Frowning, she looked around the empty room for no good reason. The problem was, she never put the damn thing in there--she was always in too much of a hurry to bother with the unzipping. Plus she had this paranoia that she'd forget to secure the pocket back up and she'd lose her cell.
Never once had she put the phone in there.
Had someone been through her stuff?
One by one, she sorted through the items on the table. Nothing was missing that she could see, although it wasn't like she kept a detailed mental list of her necessaries. And when she checked her wallet, her ID, credit cards and cash were all still in there.
Well, if anything had been taken, it wasn't worth more than two cents.
As she put her things back in, she swallowed a load of creeped-out, but what was she going to do? Go to the Brothers with an, "Oh, my phone moved to this other pocket here and . . ."
Yeah. Right.
With no bars showing on her reception, she went over to the landline that was mounted on the wall by the glass-fronted refrigerator filled with Gatorade, Coke, and juices of various sorts. When she picked the receiver off the cradle, the dial tone was just like it was at the audience house, so she hit 9 for an outside line and punched in her father's number.
Fedricah answered, and in a cheerful voice, she told the butler that she was going to spend the day at the training center because she was working on something for extra credit. She also assured him that she was going to be chaperoned.
And it was true. She wasn't going to be alone--not if she had any say in things.
Craeg was going to take care of her.
"Does it hurt?"
As she hung up, she looked over to the door. Craeg was standing in the jambs, his bare chest gleaming, his pecs and abs standing out in stark relief under the ceiling lights.
Dropping her lids, she ate up the sight of his body--and thought, actually, she did have an ache all of a sudden.
"Hello?" he demanded.
"I'm crashing here for the day."
As he went stock-still and narrowed his eyes, she held up her cell phone to him. "No bars. No service. Guess we're going to have to figure out another way to hook up at seven, won't we."
Chapter Thirty-five
Out in the training center's parking garage, Butch escorted the four trainees who were leaving to the door of the bus, making sure they all got on with their shit. Then he went back inside and walked the long corridor toward the office with a slow stride. He had no idea where Marissa was, but he was hoping, when he resurfaced up at the mansion, that she had called him back, texted him, something.
He'd left his phone on the dining room table up in the mansion by mistake. But maybe that was a good thing. He'd been driving himself crazy checking the device at First Meal.
Meandering down the empty hall toward the office, he became acutely aware that he was essentially alone in the facility: V and Tohr had already headed back to the house with Doc Jane, Manny, and Ehlena to get ready for Last Meal, and likewise, all doggen were working up in Fritz's big kitchen. And Paradise, Craeg and Axe were eating in the break room.
Dear Lord, what if Marissa had moved out of the Pit? he thought.
Oh, fuck, what was he going to do if--
As he opened the glass door, he froze.
"Hi," his shellan said from behind the desk.
She was so beautiful, sitting there with her office clothes on and her blond hair down. Man, he loved those waves falling over her shoulders like something out of Game of Thrones, and that silk blouse with its slight hint of pink brought out her skin like she was in a magazine ad for Estee Lauder.
"I got your calls. Your texts," she said as she stared across at him.
Entering the office proper, he let the door close by itself and wasn't sure whether he should sit down in a chair. Pace. Fall to his knees and start apologizing.
"I'm sorry--"
"I'm sorry--"
They both shut up. And the silence that came next was a period of each of them waiting for the other to speak.
"Look, I should have told you about Xhex," he said, biting the bullet. "I didn't because I just . . . it was before you and I were together seriously. I met her one night at Rehv's club--it was just that night, and it wasn't anything on either side. I had no idea she was going to end up living with us, and by the time she was, it was just one more thing I was leaving behind, you know?"
"I know. I get it."
He waited for her to say more, but when all she did was look down at her hands, he frowned and sat in the chair opposite from her. "You sure about that."
"Yes."
Butch shook his head at the continued quiet. "I know I'm not perfect here, but if you honestly think I want her now over you, I'm going to get pretty fucking pissed off."
"No, I know you don't."
And still she said nothing further. In the vacuum, while he tried to convince himself not to jump out of his own skin, he thought of him and Xhex high-fiving each other and joking about how he owed her because she'd saved him in a fight in an alley with some slayers. "She's one of the guys, for fuck's sake."
"I know."
Bringing up a hand, he rubbed his twitching left eye. "Do you."
Jesus, what was wrong with them? Talking had always been so easy, like breathing. Now . . . all this silence.
"Just say it," he muttered. "Whatever it is, however much it will hurt me, say it--just don't leave me sitting here wondering what the fuck you're thinking. My head's going to explode."
"Why didn't you tell me about the hair?" she said in a rush.
Butch snapped his head up. "Excuse me?"
"I saw the interview. With that trainee." She pointed to the computer screen. "I watched part of it. The part where you were telling a perfect stranger something that you'd never shared with me."
"The interview--? Oh. That."
"Yes, that."
Butch resumed scrubbing his eye. "That wasn't anything important."
"Yeah, I guess I'm stuck wondering how many other things you've decided that about? I mean, what else don't I know about you? After this long together, I thought I knew everything. . . . I thought . . ." She got choked up a little, but was able to cast that aside. "What else don't I know, Butch."
As he looked across the desk into her eyes, a feeling of unease rippled down his spine. She was staring at him as if she didn't know him at all.
"Marissa--"
"Seeing that beaten girl on the couch in the living room of Safe Place completely ruined me. The whole . . . violent ugliness of it, the suffering, the up-close pain, the way she looked at me, pleaded at me with her eyes." Marissa's slender shoulders trembled. "I didn't tell you all that because I was afraid to trigger you about your sister. I didn't talk to you because I didn't want to upset you. There. I said it. It doesn't make me happy, and it really doesn't make me feel any better . . . but that's what I've been hiding from you. Oh, that, and seeing my brother again broke my heart in half, just crumbled me. It made me miss parts of my old life, and that made me feel like I was betraying you." She put her hands up. "That's what I got. So what have you been hiding."
When he went to open his mouth, she stopped him. "Before you speak, be very aware that I love you. I love you with everything I have and all that I am. But if you do not get real with me, I'm going to go back to the Pit, pack a bag, and move to Safe Place for a while." She held his stare with unwavering eyes. "You and I are not going to survive long term, regardless of love or bonding, if you keep airbrushing things. If I keep airbrushing things. It's not a good strategy for us--and if this makes you feel like you're on the spot? As if I'm giving you an ultimatum? I don't care. If anything gets in the way of our relationship, anything, I will mow that shit down--even if it is you."