I drove home that morning in the dark. Dren wasn’t lurking in the lobby, underneath the awning, near my car, under my car, inside my car—I even checked in the trunk. I’d watched too many horror movies to not look.
By the time I got home you could tell that it was daytime, and I figured I was safe. Twelve hours is a long time to be at work, even if you’re not on your feet every minute of it. I unlocked my front door, already dreaming of the shower I was about to take.
Grandfather started ranting. I stopped in my entryway.
“What’s going on?” My keys were still in my hand—I slid the longest one between my fingers, so I could punch at someone with it if I had to. There was a groan in response, from inside my house.
Leaving the door wide open behind me, I took another step in. “Hello?”
Another groan. I made it to my living room and looked at my couch. It was currently occupied. Gideon waved a fingerless hand at me. My eyes slid up to his face, empty of eyes, ears, and lips, and I wanted to throw up, only I was too fucking tired.
“You have got to be kidding me. Hang on.” Without taking my eyes off him, I found my phone in my purse and dialed Sike. She picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hello, Edie!” She sounded pleased to hear from me, which meant she was in on this.
“Why is there a Cenobite sitting on my couch?”
“What’s a Cenobite?”
“Rent Hellraiser.” I walked backward without taking my eyes off him and closed my apartment door behind me. “Was this really the fucking plan?”
“You didn’t think they were coming home with me, did you?”
“They?” I sputtered, and looked down my short hall.
“In your closet.”
I went back to my bedroom. There was a lightproof sheet over my bedroom’s small window again. I’d kept it after the last time I needed it, for help hiding vampires. Being a night-shift nurse and all, lightproof curtains were a wonderful luxury. My bed was empty, but my shoes were cast out across my floor again. This didn’t bode well. I slid my closet open and peeked inside. “Goddammit, Sike. I hate you.” There was a woman inside my closet, on the floor. She wasn’t breathing, but I knew she wasn’t dead.
“Likewise, of course,” Sike said.
I squatted down, the phone still pressed to my ear. I put fingers to the prone woman’s wrist and felt no pulse, just flesh, soft and cool. “Who is this?”
“Veronica Lambridge. Gideon’s girlfriend, and former laboratory technician.”
She didn’t look like a Veronica—she had mousy brown hair, close-cropped, like a ten-year-old boy’s, and a smattering of freckles that made her look even younger. Her face was peaceful now, but who knew how she’d feel when she woke up.
“Anna changed her, after Gideon’s attack, for her own protection. But Anna’s not allowed to make new vampires yet, so we had to hide her.”
I slid the closet door closed again. “My house is safest why?”
“No other vampires have access to it. You haven’t been making more friends on the side, have you?”
“Of course not.”
“Well then, there you go. You’re the Ambassador of the Sun, they need a little baby-sitting, and your place is safer than ours till we figure out who did that to Gideon.”
I was silent on the line. “Anna trusts you. I don’t know why, but she trusts you,” Sike went on, her voice bitter, mocking—jealous. “You might be the only one she trusts.”
I pushed Veronica a little farther into my closet and slid the door closed. “How long will she be out?”
“Three days is the normal. We’ll pick her up between now and then.”
“Maybe you could call first?”
Sike laughed at me. “We’ll come by at night.” And then she hung up.
I stood in my bedroom, looking at my closed closet door. I was so tired. I was so scared. I was so tired of being scared.
But in my mind, I put all of my nurse armor on. I was going to do what needed doing. Again.
* * *
I went back out to living room, where Gideon sat, pantsless on my couch in a hospital gown.
“We’re going to have to make the best of things, okay?” He was mute, of course. “Look, you were here beforehand, right? Did you give yourself a tour?”
He shook his head.
“Well, the bathroom is down the hall. But.” I could not just have him sitting on my couch with no pants. I gave a slightly manic laugh at the thought, then breathed in deeply and went back to my bedroom.
Gideon was way taller than me. My old scrubs would be highwaters on him, but at least he’d be able to shimmy in and out of them, even without entire fingers. I silently blessed my new washable couch cover, which was keeping his boy parts from direct contact with my couch.