"I'm so glad you're OK!" I cried.
He tucked his face into my neck, cradling my head in his hands. "I was so scared."
"I love you," I told him. "I love you. I'm so sorry I had that realization in the middle of the team murder-timeline meeting. But I do, and I didn't know how to tell you, and I'm basically an emotional wreck, and you should be prepared to deal with that for a while."
His whole face lit up. "I can handle that."
And we were kissing again, which totally took the focus off the burning in my wrists.
I heard Jane clear her throat. "Hey, kids, I'm thrilled about this show of emotional maturity, but if I could have your attention for a moment?"
"Sorry," I told Jane, wiping at my mouth with the back of my hand.
Despite the backhand to the face, Dr. Fortescue was just crazy enough to smile at the approaching vampires.
"Mrs. Jameson-Nightengale!" he cried, shaking her hand vigorously. "I'm so delighted to finally meet you! And young Mr. Overby, too. What a coup. I was so hoping we would meet. You will, of course, join Miss Keene in my collection of specimens."
"Is he for real?" Ben asked.
"Oh, yeah, he waved bye-bye to rational thought a long time ago," I muttered out of the side of my mouth.
"As you can see, Jane-may I call you Jane?-my formula, the formula I attempted to discuss with you several times, is a complete success. Mr. Overby and Miss Keene are perfect specimens, examples of what vampires could be with scientific intervention. I would think, after the appropriate trials, you would want to start introducing the inoculations to the populace within two years."
"OK, you totally misinterpreted that dramatic bursting-into-the-room thing," Jane said. "We're here to arrest you. Also, you shot my dog. So I'm inclined to rip your head off when you least expect it and use it for bowling. But I'm going to do one worse. I'm going to let those two"-she paused to point at Ophelia and Georgie-"come up with your punishment."
The Lambert sisters' shared grin was so terrifying it was almost enough to keep me from walking across the warehouse and punching Dr. Fortescue in the gut. But not quite. So I did.
"You thought I didn't have a family. I have the most screwed-up, dysfunctional, awesome family in the world. So suck it."
"Was that necessary?" Jane asked.
"Yes, it was."
"OK, take the lulus into custody." Jane sighed. "Put them in the SUV, and I'll drive them to the Council office."
"Use these, and make them extra tight." With a pair of tongs, I tossed two pairs of the silver-plastic cuffs at Jane. She slipped on a pair of latex gloves and looped the plastic around Tina's and Fortescue's wrists. Cal and Nik dragged them toward the door.
"Glad you're OK, beda," Nik said, ruffling my hair as he passed.
"What did he call me?" I asked Gigi.
" ‘Trouble' in Russian, so you know he meant it affectionately," Gigi said, her lips twitching in an attempt to stifle her smile.
"It's fitting," Andrea said. "And probably going to be much nicer than any nickname Dick gives you."
///
Dick shrugged. "True."
Dr. Fortescue thrashed against Cal's hold as he dragged him out. Tina just wailed.
"But my research! My contributions! My accolades! They belong to me!" the doctor screamed.
"Yeah, good luck with all that," I muttered as Jane threw her arms around me in a bear hug.
"I know this is not your fault and you were the victim of misdirection and bad circumstances, but please don't do that to me again," she whispered into my hair.
"I will do my best not to get abducted by a mad scientist a third time," I promised.
"See that you don't," she said, blinking away tears and pushing my hair back from my face.
"By the way, you couldn't have told me you'd put an explosive device in my phone?" I asked Dick. "What if I'd been holding it near my head when it went off?"
"I told you to get ten feet away!" he exclaimed. "What did you think that meant?"
"A high-pitched alarm? A smoke bomb? Not a regular bomb!"
"Well, we didn't know you were going to set it off as we jumped in!"
"Georgie was giving me a countdown!"
"Yes, the countdown to when they were jumping through the windows, not the countdown to set off the bomb I didn't even know about!" Georgie cried.
"Oh, yeah, that makes more sense," I agreed. "By the way, why did you all jump through the windows instead of the highly trained UERT guys?"