I was as tired as I thought I’d be when I got up, and drove to work in a blur. Reaching the visitor lot, I got a spot close to the door—unsurprising, since it was still the holiday—and pulled in. For the rest of the world, it was still Christmas Day. For me, Christmas felt like yesterday, and today felt like it was everyone else’s tomorrow. Working night shifts did something awful to your sense of time if you didn’t try to fight it, and it was especially hard in winter, when it was cloudy and dark. Today was no exception. The sun was almost gone, just a dull pressing lightness, like the beginning of a migraine, hiding behind thick clouds.
I got out of my car, locked it from the inside, closed my door, and headed toward the lobby. Someone was outside on the small patch of lawn, retching their guts out into a garbage can. Nothing like the holidays for alcohol poisoning. I picked up my pace before they could recover for long enough to stop me for directions.
The bright lights of the lobby made a man standing inside the first set of automatic doors cast a long shadow. He wore a high-collared trench coat and a wide hat with a low brim. At my approach, his head tilted up and I saw his face.
Shit. Dren.
“Hello, Nurse.”
I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of unfairness, the earnest and befuddled kind that you usually only feel when you’re a child. This was my home—sometimes even more than my apartment was. How dare he come here, now, threatening me. My jaw clenched.
“Your brother sleeps at the Armory every night,” Dren informed me. “I suppose it’s better there than the cold ground outside, but what’s the matter, Nurse? Don’t you love him? Or is he why you’re here?” He looked back into the lobby beyond.
“Stay away from my family, Dren.”
“Why should I?” His eyes glittered with amusement at my discomfiture. “You still owe me.”
“I don’t know how you expect me to repay you when I don’t have anything to repay you with.”
“Ah, but you do, and you’ll pay the price I ask,” Dren began. He leered, and I could see his fangs, longer than his other teeth. “We hear King Winter himself is in repose on your floor. Get me royal werewolf blood, or I’ll drain your brother dry.”
I swallowed and took a step back. “But—you can’t—you’re not allowed.”
“Just because it’s not allowed doesn’t mean that anyone will stop me in time. Trust me, I can be quite fast.” He unholstered the sickle he wore and twirled its handle in his one good hand so the blade made a golden circle, spinning in the light. “I wonder if royal blood is really blue?” He rolled the r in royal with mocking condescension. “I’ve never eaten that high up the food chain before.”
“But—why?”
He stopped spinning the blade and tilted his head to look at me in an insectile fashion, far removed from any humanity I knew. “It’s that or your brother’s life. Does your curiosity matter?”
If Jake fell by himself again, I could maybe stomach that. I’d been instrumental in keeping him afloat for so long, no one could blame me for being tired. But if I had a part in his death because of something I could have done here? I would never forgive myself. There was pride in my work, and honor … and then there was family. “How much?” I heard myself ask, before I’d even fully thought it through.
“That’s my girl. Let’s say a fat drop.”
“Wet or dry?”
Dren laughed cruelly. “Surprise me.”
I had no idea how I was going to smuggle blood out of a room where I wasn’t the primary nurse—one that might, if Gina’s guess was right, have guards outside the door by now. “If I do this, are we done?”
“Oh, no. You’ll still owe me—but we can deal with those payments later.” He holstered his weapon.
I inhaled. “Dren—tell me why?”
“If I told you now, I’d have to kill you, girl, and that’s the truth.” He pondered for a moment, for show, flipping the collar of his coat up against the dregs of the evening sun. “I would say I wouldn’t enjoy it, but that would be a lie.”
He tugged his hat brim lower and walked out into the last of the day.
* * *
Fuck fuck fuck. I considered things on the elevator ride to Y4. Luckily, since I was coming in for the end of a P.M. shift, the locker room was empty. I checked the bathroom too, just in case, then made a furtive call.
“Daytimer central, here for all your nefarious deeds,” a woman’s voice answered me in a singsong.
“Sike? Is Anna there?” I said.
“She’s in seclusion,” Sike said. It sounded like she was packing in the background—drawers were being opened, and fabric rustled.