Dee merely glared at her.
"Why didn't he fly?" Jo asked abruptly.
"What?" Dee asked with confusion.
"Why did he drive all the way here rather than fly? He could have saved himself a lot of time," she pointed out.
"He doesn't like flying," Dee said coldly, and then added almost reluctantly, "His father and brothers teased him about that, said it was another sign of his inferiority, that a no-fanger wouldn't be afraid of flying. But they're the ones who are inferior. They don't have fangs and have to cut to feed, and Basha has fangs and she's the smartest and strongest of all of them."
Jo was silent for a minute. The girl definitely had a hang-up about this Basha woman. Sighing, she leaned forward and tried again to reason with her, "You're fooling yourself if you think he's going to turn you, Dee. You aren't going to be like Basha. You're just as dead as I am when we get back there. Once we're there, he won't need you to drive anymore and he'll hand you off to his brothers to finish what they started on the first journey down south."
"Shut up," Dee snarled, her hand tightening on the gun and raising it just as a knock sounded at the door.
"The food's here," Jo murmured, eyeing Dee warily. The girl was obviously unstable after all she'd been through, which was to be expected. Unfortunately, Jo didn't think she was going to be able to help her see that there was no future for her with Ernie. At least not before it was too late. Dee seemed to be so grateful that he'd let her live and wasn't raping her that she saw his cold, heartless treatment of her as some sort of caring… and that was going to get her killed. The question was whether Jo would be there with her when it happened… or die here in this room, she thought as Dee stared at her, the gun pointed at her chest and quavering slightly.
"The food," Jo said again, her stomach beginning to churn with tension as she considered her death might be imminent after all.
Dee cursed under her breath and stood up, slipping the gun into the waistband at the back of her leather pants as she moved to the door. She then pulled a wad of cash out of her back pocket with one hand as she opened the door with the other. The moment Dee started to open it, the door crashed open, slamming into her and knocking her backward.
Jo sucked in a quick breath as Dee tumbled back over the chair, relief like she'd never known slamming through her as Nicholas stepped into the room. He wore the clothes she'd last seen him in, but now had a long jacket over them. She understood the reason for the long coat when he pulled a crossbow from under it as he took in the scene. His gaze found her, flickered with relief, then slid to Dee sitting up on the floor next to the table, peering at him blankly, and finally to Ernie rearing up on the bed. He aimed at Ernie and pulled the trigger.
Jo never saw the arrow hit Ernie, her gaze was already swinging to Dee as she released a cry of animal pain and pulled out the gun she'd tucked in her jeans.
Jo didn't think in that moment, she merely reacted. Her ankles were bound, her wrists tied behind her back, so she did the only thing she could do. Screaming "No," she did her best imitation of a dolphin leaping out of the water and threw herself out of the chair at Dee. She soared through the air to land on the other woman—and the gun—as it went off.
The impact of the shot was like a punch, and Jo gasped for air that suddenly seemed absent. She was vaguely aware of Nicholas shouting her name and then he was there, lifting her away from Dee. He gathered her in his arms, his face panicked as he peered over her.
"Jo. Jesus, you're hit," he muttered, standing to carry her to the bed.
"Dee," she gasped anxiously, afraid the girl would shoot him in the back.
Nicholas paused to whirl back, just in time for both of them to see the girl flee the room. Nicholas growled deep in his throat as she disappeared through the still-open door, but didn't try to stop her. Instead, he turned back to continue on to the bed.
"The gun," Jo breathed as he set her down next to the prone Ernie. "She could come back."
"The gun's empty," Nicholas growled, and she supposed he'd read that information from Dee's mind.
Jo glanced down as he jerked up her shirt to get a look at her wound, and silently echoed the voluble curse that he issued. It was bad. She was no doctor, but it was real bad. The hole itself wasn't that big on this side, but blood was gushing out of it like a water hose at half pressure. That didn't seem good to her.
"Hungry?" she asked with a forced smile.
The look Nicholas turned on her should have singed her eyebrows off.
"Sorry," Jo muttered, and then closed her eyes as he turned and rushed into the bathroom. She supposed it had been a poor attempt at humor, but really, she wasn't feeling well. Actually, that was kind of an understatement. She felt horrible. It was getting harder to breathe, and she was growing weak.