He disappeared. Claire waited, until she was certain, and got to her feet. Her leg felt—wonderful. No nagging ache, no stiffness. The euphoria of that carried her to the door, and died when she found it was locked. With no keyhole on her side of the latch.
*
“Claire—” Annie started to push herself up when her friend disappeared with that bastard. Pain roared across her hip, dropped her. “Damn it—”
“Annie!” The panicked cry snapped her head up. Hillary scrambled down the stairs, dark hair flying around her. “Annie, are you okay? Where’s Claire?”
“I’ve been better. Zach took her.”
“No—this is my fault—we have to—”
“Not your fault, honey. Claire would be the first to tell you not to blame yourself. Hey,” she took Hillary’s hand when she saw tears filling the girl’s eyes. “She’ll be okay.” Or I’ll kill the bastard myself. I don’t care what he is. “Look at my ring. It’s powerful protection, and lets me know when there’s trouble. See how it’s glowing? That means Claire’s okay. If it starts sparking, then we’ll have something to worry about. That, or I’m really mad.” She smiled. “It’s also my own personal mood ring.”
Laughter bubbled out of Hillary. “Seriously?”
“To my constant embarrassment. He can’t take Claire out of the house, because he can’t leave. We managed at least that much before he crashed the party.”
Wincing, she shifted up on her side, tried to assess the damage to her hip. “I can’t get to it—”
Regina knelt next to her. “I’ll do it. There will be pain.”
“Oh, I have no doubt.” She sucked in her breath as fingers touched her hip, told herself she wouldn’t scream.
“I’m sorry,” Regina said.
Annie grit her teeth. “Okay.”
“Do you prefer rip or peel?”
Annie glanced up at her. “What?”
“Which band aid method do you prefer—peel it off, or rip?”
She swallowed, closed her eyes briefly. “Rip.”
“Hil, can you get the aloe out of the bathroom? And a glass of water.” Regina touched Annie’s cheek. “It looks like a bad sunburn. How does it feel?”
“Like I backed into a stove.”
“Ouch. Thank you, honey.” Regina lifted Annie’s head enough for her to take a drink out of the glass. The water cooled her raw throat. “Now, I’m going to pour the rest of this over the burn, to help loosen the fabric, and we’ll see what we have.”
Hillary sat, pillowed Annie’s head in her lap. “Just relax. Mom’s really good at this.”
“Accident prone?”
Hillary smiled. “Yeah.”
“Me, too. Major—” She flinched as water slid over the burn, took in a shaky breath. “Major growth spurt at twelve equals clumsy teenage years. You grow out of it—oh, damn—”
“Sorry.” Regina held on to her leg as air hit bare skin. “I’m going to squeeze some aloe on it. I’m afraid after the cooling relief that it’s going to sting.”
Sting was an understatement. Only Hillary’s presence kept Annie from cursing more than she already had. But she knew from experience it would feel better once the raging burn settled.
“Hillary.” Annie flinched at her raw voice. Clearing her throat, she looked up at the girl. “When you first saw him, did you think he was a ghost?”
She bit her lip, shook her head, sneaking a glance at her mom. “I thought he was an angel.”
“Guardians are a giant step below angels. They were human once, and now they’re working their way into Heaven. So they have all our emotions, just enhanced—serious pride, a short fuse, and less compassion than you’d think, them being an angel now.”
“So, not the warm and fuzzy guardian angels of legend and lore,” Regina said.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“I never believed they were real.” Carefully, Regina laid the gorgeous silk scarf that was tucked into the neckline of her sweater on Annie’s hip. She cringed—more from the damage to the scarf than even that light weight on her burn. “I thought he was a ghost. I am so sorry I got you both into this mess.”
“Don’t blame—”
“I’ll take the blame when it’s due. So, what do we do next? I heard what he said.” She reached out to Hillary. “We both heard.”
“He can’t hurt you, Regina. Not without it doing the karma bounce straight back at him. On top of that, guardians have a low pain threshold, because they don’t get the joy of experiencing it very often.”