The doors opened and I heard steps from Y4 behind me. I hit the elevator’s CLOSE button and held it. I didn’t want to hear it from anyone else on my floor. At the last moment, a jacketed hand jabbed between the closing doors, sending them open again.
“Hey—” It was the were from this morning, the one who’d been leaning on my car. He shouldered his way into the elevator. I ran to the rear, putting my back into the corner. “No—look,” he said, then saw me and stopped where he was. “This is pretty threatening, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” My hands were up, pushing him away, even though I knew there’d be no way I could win a fight with him. He backed up, keeping his hands spread wide to hold the doors open.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said. I stood straighter and put my hands down. “I just didn’t expect for anything to ever happen to my uncle.”
I had no idea if Winter’s status had changed—I hadn’t looked at any charts on my way out the door. “I’m afraid I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know that you know.” He gave me an exhausted smile. “Thanks for keeping him alive, last night.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, unsure precisely what I was taking credit for when Gina’d done most of the work. He stepped back, then doors of the elevator closed, and the elevator rose up to the ground floor.
How lovely it was to sound honorable when I was 99 percent I sure would be bleeding his uncle tonight.
* * *
I would have sat down in the elevator to think, if it didn’t stink of were-piss from all the visitors that’d marked their territory as they rode up and down. A curl of gauze rode with me, Gideon’s, from his exit. It was half covered in blood and stuck to the floor. I’d probably stepped on it on my way inside.
I had no doubt that Dren would make good on his promise to drain Jake if I didn’t comply. Vampires were only honor-bound where other vampires were concerned—humans and daytimers were replaceable, as Gideon had found out.
It wasn’t the getting blood, so much as the not knowing what it’d be used for. Winter probably had enough blood now to spare—I knew we’d tanked him up with transfusions, ever since he’d been hit. But what would Dren do with the blood once I gave it to him? Dren was a Husker, a kind of vampire bounty hunter, which gave him some mandate to go around messing with people’s lives. I spent the duration of the elevator ride up pondering what Winter’s blood could possibly mean to him.
In the end, I supposed it didn’t matter—because what it meant to me was that Jake would be all right. I’d saved Jake from himself too many times for me to let him down now.
* * *
I walked into trauma past the charge nurse’s desk.
“You’re late,” said the charge nurse. “Again.”
“Sorry.”
“Just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean you can break the rules,” she said. Are you stupid?
“Yeah.”
I made my way back to my assigned room. Luz saw me and glared. I sighed and proceeded to ignore her through my next assessment of Javier. He’d only lost a quarter of a centimeter of feeling this time. Maybe the swelling in his spine was going down. The dots down his side hadn’t always been regular up to this point. Who knew.
I bided my time until shift change. Luz tried to get the next nurse to let her spend the night, like I thought she would, and was refused, much to both their chagrin: my replacement’s, that Luz was still there to ask, and Luz’s because she hadn’t gotten her way.
I listened to their heated argument as I co-signed the chart. Tonight was going to be long for everyone.
* * *
The thought of holiday pay was no longer enough to sustain me as I walked back down to Y4. Between being tired, being hungry, and being disgusted with myself over Gideon, Dren, and Jake, I had no strength left to hold up my head.
I slouched into the locker room and changed my scrubs quickly, so I wouldn’t bring strange germs back down. As if anything I’d seen in trauma could be stranger than my job here.
Gina came in, all coats and cold from the outdoors. I was surprised to see her. “You do realize there’s no holiday pay after midnight?” I asked.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Um. So how was the thing with the thing?”
Gina hissed out air through pursed lips, hauling off her outdoor gear. “Spent Christmas with my folks. Avoided Brandon entirely. I got called into work, and here I am.”
“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were exhibiting classic avoidance behavior. Or oppositional defiance disorder. I always get those two confused.”