///
Dr. Hudson's jaw set in a stubborn line, but he said, "Yes."
"You don't approach them. You don't contact them. You don't even look in their direction without written permission. And if you do, I will use every person in Dick Cheney's contacts list to make sure you spend the rest of your unnaturally long life scrubbing out expired blood-storage units at the Red Cross. Get me?"
Dr. Hudson nodded. Hell, I knew I would have agreed to anything Jane asked me to do. I'd never heard her sound so scary.
"I need verbal confirmation that you understand completely, Dr. Hudson," Jane barked in the scariest, most authoritative voice I'd heard her use yet.
Dr. Hudson seethed. "Yes."
Jane's smile was downright frosty. "Excellent." She turned to Ben and me. "Come on, kids, let's get you home. Gabriel's making dinner, which means it's safe to drink." She hooked an arm around each of us and gently pushed us out of the lab. She looked over her shoulder. "You are skating on very thin ice, Dr. Hudson."
The moment we cleared the door, she nodded silently-but very emphatically-toward the elevator. Then she popped her head back into the lab and said, "And for God's sake, clean up Gennaro and get some blood in him. He's smelling up this whole level."
Ben held the elevator door open until Jane was safely inside. She slapped the button for the ground level and waited for the doors to slide closed, then threw her arms around Ben. "Are you OK?"
He nodded, relaxing into her arms a little, like he'd finally dropped his fight-or-flight response. "I won't lie. It was scary as hell. But we're OK. Meagan managed to get a few good shots in. I was basically useless, which is humiliating."
"Not true," I began, letting loose a surprised "Oof" when Jane let Ben go and wrapped me in the tightest embrace I'd had in years. I froze, my arms sticking out at weird Frankenstein angles. It was like I'd temporarily forgotten how hugs worked. It took an embarrassing number of seconds for my brain to communicate to my arms to unclench them and let them drape around Jane's back. And then I did this strange, awkward little pat thing, because I honestly didn't know what else to do.
"Ben did just fine. I mean, we both need vampire self-defense lessons something awful, because our fight skills are embarrassing. But he did get blood into me when I was burned. He showed quick thinking."
I decided not to mention the whole "I had the stake, but you snatched it out of my hand" thing. It seemed like a dick move. And behind Jane's back, Ben gave me a surprised, warm smile that made my knees go all wobbly.
"I'm sure you were both appropriately badass."
"This is above my pay grade, I'm sure, but can I make some sort of formal suggestion that you fire Dr. Hudson?" I asked. "I think he's crossed the line from scientist to full-on lulu. I don't like the idea of coming to work every day and knowing he's in the building."
"He's got a pretty ironclad contract with the Council. I can't fire him unless he disobeys my direct orders, which is why I was so careful with my wording just now." Jane finally stepped back, examining my arms and my still-slightly-bloody chin. "I can't believe he did this. I thought my introductory ‘I'm your new boss' memo made my stance on living and/or undead experimentation pretty clear when I took over the job."
"Must have been one hell of a memo," Ben muttered.
"It was twenty-three pages long," Jane said, preening just a little bit, as the elevator dinged and opened on the lobby level. Gigi was waiting there with my purse and Ben's messenger bag. And of course, she did not look like she'd just gotten into a bloody wrestling match with evil nerds. Wearing a super-cute combination of skinny jeans and a boyfriend jacket, she looked like she'd just stepped out of Girls Who Would Make a Better Girlfriend Than You Magazine.
"Hey, Jane, why did you need-? Oh. My. God. What happened to you?" Gigi's perfectly glossed mouth dropped open in shock. "Meagan, are you OK?"
"No, no, I am not," I told her, in a voice I meant to be much friendlier, but I was pretty much done with everything at this point.
What I did not expect was for Gigi to step into the elevator, hit the emergency stop button, and wrap her arms around me. Was it Ninja-Hug Meagan in the Elevator Day? Did I miss a note on Jane's calendar? I couldn't quite relax the Frankenstein arms, but I did give her a sort of flipper pat on her shoulder.
"Whatever it was, don't let it scare you away, OK?" she said, leveling those big blue eyes at me. "We need more nonpsychos working in this office."