He breathed in. It was still warm from her body heat and smelled like whatever body wash she’d used when she’d taken a shower. He put it on. This was better than bringing it to his face, he was surrounded by her smell.
The strength of his reaction shocked him. This was too fast for creatures like them. They moved at a snail’s pace when they had generations to make decisions. He was glad of the barriers between him and his brothers. Maybe Ra and Horus were right. Maybe they should leave.
“Bye, Rose,” he said.
She smiled, but it was tight. “It was nice to meet you,” she said to Horus.
He nodded and suddenly strode out of the room. The door closed hard behind him.
“Thanks again, Ra,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he replied. Ra stood straight and tall, and looked more like a statue than the ones that had been sculpted in his image along the Nile.
He glanced at Seti. “We need to go. Now.”
Seti dipped his head and left.
15
Rose
The door closed behind the brothers, and she blinked hard. She felt like she’d just lost something.
“Do you have any allergies?” Hudson’s voice startled her.
“No,” she replied. Forcing herself to forget about the brothers and the way they’d left without a backward glance, she turned her attention back to the doctors. “No allergies.”
“You didn’t finish your story,” Briar said.
Hudson drew a chair closer to her after she sat and went about the business of preparing her skin for a blood draw.
“So I was bitten by the crawlers, and after that, I’ve always sort of…” Her breath caught as a wave of pain hit her hard and fast. “Shit.”
She pushed against her sternum with the heel of her hand like she could locate the warmth the brothers took when they left. Letting out a breath, she tried to get herself under control.
“You’re in pain?” Briar asked.
“Yes,” she replied. Damn it. The pain had tripled with the loss of the comfort the brothers brought.
“Does it typically escalate so quickly?” Briar asked. “When you first arrived, you seemed relatively relaxed. Is there a difference from the pain when you arrived, and now?”
“Dr. Stone asks the same thing.” She sucked in a breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. She concentrated on that, working to manage it using skills she hadn’t needed in the last few days. “This sucks,” she said to herself and then to them. “No pain when I arrived. Now a five.”
“Chronic pain scales are different,” Marcus said. “Has your doctor ever shown it to you?”
She shook her head. “Just the smiley faces one.”
“Scales for chronic pain have more to do with quality of life than pain. Here.” At some point she’d shut her eyes and now she opened them to accept a piece of paper. She read through it. The scale started at a one: stay in bed. Feel hopeless and helpless and went to a ten: go to work. Be social. Be active.
If she woke up feeling this way, would she be able to work through it? Yeah, probably. It wasn’t stay-in-bed bad. “None of these are really right. I’d go to work, do as much as I could, then go home and go to bed.”
“I’d probably put you at six then, since you don’t want to do anything else but work. But I’m confused about what made it so intense.”
“Ready Rose?” Hudson asked, interrupting them. He had on gloves and held the needle in his right hand.
Yuck. “Yeah.”
He slid the needle through her skin with no problem. It barely pinched. Rose wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain rebound or if he was just really skilled at drawing blood from people.
The vial filled with blood, but her skin immediately began to heal, knitting around the needle.
“Do you—?” Briar started to ask, staring at the crease of her elbow.
“Yes,” Marcus answered.
He stood quickly and went into another office, returning with a syringe. Hudson finished filling the vial and Marcus handed him the syringe.
“This will feel like mosquito bites.” Hudson made tiny pricks around the needle, carefully depositing fluid in each spot. “This should numb you in a moment.” Using his gloved hand, he pushed on her skin to withdraw the needle.
It hurt, and she sucked in a breath at the pain.
“Didn’t work?” Briar asked.
No. Not that anyone had ever tried it before. “But thank you for trying.”
“Dr. Stone doesn’t numb the area before he withdraws the needle?” Hudson asked.
“No,” she replied. “He’s quick, getting it in my vein, like you were, but he usually just pulls it out. I don’t remember him ever trying to numb it, but maybe he did, and I just don’t remember.”
“Anything in her medical records?” Hudson asked Marcus.
He opened the laptop. “No,” he replied. “Biopsies, though.”
“How did he take those?” Hudson asked.
Rose thought he was asking her, so she answered. “He has this little green tool. He calls it a punch.”
“No anesthesia noted,” Marcus added.
Those hurt like a mother fucker. Dr. Stone was quick. He took his sample, and she healed, but for that second… Rose hated the skin biopsies.
Hudson’s skin pulled tight against his face, like he was biting the inside of his cheek or grinding his teeth together. He wouldn’t look at her but continued to study her skin. “It’s healed.”
If they were worried about her, they didn’t need to be. “Broken bones, depending on how they break, heal in minutes. I’m pretty sure I got a concussion today, and I was as good as new in no time.”
“How’d you get a concussion?” Briar asked.
She needed a mouth to brain filter. This little nugget could get the brothers in trouble. And maybe even Valen, though he’d done nothing wrong as far as Rose was concerned.
But then again, maybe Lindy would need to talk about what she’d seen. Briar, as her mother, should know, right?
“Misunderstanding,” she said, but when Briar lifted an eyebrow, clearly not buying her story, she sighed. “I was showing off my rapid healing to the guys and cut my hand with a knife just as Valen walked in with Lindy.”
Briar sat back, gaze immediately going to Marcus.
“You’re lucky all you got was a concussion,” Hudson said, disapprovingly. He should have been a school principal, not a doctor.
“Lindy was fine.” Rose probably should have started the whole story off with that statement. “She’s a very sweet girl.”
“I’m going to give a quick call home,” Briar said, responding exactly as any mother would.
Rose watched her go. “I forgot to bring my bag in here, but…”
“Horus brought it,” Marcus said, gesturing toward the front of the lab.
Right. “I’ll leave my card so you can send me a bill for any damage to your bookshelves or furniture. I won’t be able to pay you everything all at once…” This was so embarrassing. “We cleaned it up, but I still broke some things on my way across the room.”
Marcus stared at her a moment as if visualizing her flight from one side of his house to the other. His gaze snapped up as Briar returned. “She’s fine,” she assured him.
“Well, you’re healed,” Hudson said. “But we still have the issue of your pain. You had no pain when you arrived, and now you’re at a five or six. Maybe more after the blood draw. I need you to explain what your pain feels like, is it sharp or aching? Where is it located? What makes it worse? And have you tried any drugs, legal or otherwise, to blunt it?”
What does my pain feel like? Her pain was alive. It moved beneath her skin, flowing like the ocean or a river of lava, but until the guys, it had never disappeared.
“It’s constant,” she said. She closed her eyes, picturing it now. “It’s beneath my skin, not like blood, but like… a layer or film. And it moves. I’ve always imagined it like water.�
�� She waved her hand in front of her body back and forth, a conductor of the pain orchestra. “But poisonous. Anything it touches, burns. Some days, it’s like static, a constant zap against my nerves, but other days, it’s fire, and I’m burning from the inside out.”
“Poisonous,” Hudson said. “What makes you use that word?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, opening her eyes. She held out her arms, examining them before she ran one hand down her shirt, smoothing the wrinkles. “It’s always what I imagined. I don’t know if my memory of my attack is accurate anymore, but it burned when the crawler bit me. It’s weird that the warmth would chase it away,” she said. “If anything, you’d think I’d feel icy, like I did when I came here, or saw the crawler in the Arboretum.”
“The crawler in the Arboretum.” Briar side-eyed Hudson. “I forgot to ask, what time of day was that?”
“Early,” Rose answered. “I’d just left the hospital, so before noon.”
“Before noon?” The three doctors exchanged worried looks.
“Yes.”
“Not at night?” Marcus asked.
It took all her self-control not to glare. She knew the difference between day and night. “Yeah. Not at night.”
“You’ve given us a lot to think about.” Hudson stood, the universal sign for dismissal. “And we’ve done all we can do for now. I wish we could give you something for the pain, but until we do blood work… We’ll let you know if we find anything interesting or if we have ideas for moving forward.”
Rose nodded, rolling down her—Briar’s—sleeve. She didn’t expect to hear from them. “You can tell from Dr. Stone’s notes that he never finds anything.”
“Dr. Stone may not have been looking for the right things,” Briar replied. “I’ll drive you home.”
“I got it,” she replied. Couple of stops on the T, and she’d be home. No need for another silent and awkward drive.
There was a pause as Rose dug through her bag for the card with her contact info.
“I insist,” Hudson said when she straightened.
“I’m good,” she said again and handed him the card.
He took it, glanced down, and frowned. All she wanted to do at this point was go home and lick her figurative wounds. She had nothing to show for all the effort it had taken to get through the last two days. For God’s sake, she even had to buy herself a new coat, which sucked because she really liked the one she’d ruined today.
“Are you sure?” Briar asked. “We don’t mind.”
“Positive.” With a wave over her shoulder, she exited, breathing a sigh of relief as the door closed behind her.
The hallway was busy. People were leaving their labs and locking up after her day. She didn’t get a second glance as she walked with them. With her camera bag, which was just a big black backpack, she looked like another Boston College student.
Rose smiled a little to herself. Her graduation hadn’t been long ago, but she liked being back on a campus. She’d always enjoyed school—from the art classes to academics. The crush of bodies made the building warm, and she was actually glad for her lack of coat, especially when she forewent the elevator for the stairs. The brisk breeze felt good on her heated skin, and she stood, face to the dark sky, and cooled off.
Then, tightening the straps on her camera bag, she headed to the bus stop, and home.
16
Rose
Almost a week passed.
Rose’s life was just as it had always been. She worked. She slept.
She tried to hold the pain at bay.
That should have been enough.
Rather than risk another day with no photos and her contract looming, she packed her lighting equipment along with her studio equipment and ordered a car to drive her back to the Arboretum. She got her photographs of the bonsai, uploaded the best, and sent them off.
Work was distraction, but it wasn’t enough to get her mind off Seti, Horus, and Ra. It could only do so much.
Six days.
Six days of thinking, thinking, thinking.
Six days of avoiding Dr. Stone’s phone calls and wishing for a call from the lab.
Push. Pull. She rejected one doctor and hoped for help from another.
She was on the cusp of something. Some big revelation that could change everything if she could only figure it out.
Why couldn’t she be smarter? Like Briar. Like Dr. Stone. She could have fixed herself. She should have been a doctor—should have cared more about school and healing herself instead of waiting and trusting other people to do it.
Day seven, she went to a coffee shop, drank coffee and worked on her website. She sat, and between staring out the window at the raindrops racing along the glass and adding photographs to her portfolio, she thought about the brothers.
Ra had told her to live. Why? What did it matter to him? Dozens and dozens of people had died during that time. No one rescued them.
What made her so special? Was it just dumb luck?
She cupped her chin in her hands. Busses passed by and splashed the sidewalk.
“Excuse me.” A woman she hadn’t heard approach stood next to her table. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I recognized you. You’re Rose, right?”
The air was sucked out of the room and a spotlight illuminated the crown of her head. Every head in the place swiveled toward her, staring. Judging.
She cleared her throat. “Do I know you?”
The woman pulled the seat opposite Rose and sat. “No. But I saw you and I have to… I just want to ask,” she said. “Have you seen any more? Since the Nightmare… are there more demons out there?” She had short curly hair, and beads of rain caught in it like tiny diamonds. Her fingers were moving, catching Rose’s attention. Between them, she held a rosary, slipping the beads between her fingers nervously.
“I’m sorry.” Rose snapped closed the top of her computer and slid it into her bag. “I have to go.” Picking up her umbrella, she jerked her bag over her shoulder. It stuck on the back of her chair, which clattered against the wood floor as she wrestled with it.
And all the while, the woman, and the rest of the coffee shop, watched her.
Attention wasn’t something she liked, it never led to anything good. In school, it made her a freak. In the wider world, it made her a liar and the personification of an event every person in the city wanted to forget.
Whispers filled her ears first, before, urged on by their fellow customers, people spoke aloud. Opinions. Doubts.
Liar.
Head down, she dashed outside and let out a breath. Her skin prickled in awareness that she was still visible through the window of the cafe. It made her want to pull her hat over her head, flip up her collar, and wrap her scarf to her nose.
Hide.
Without looking up, she strode down the street. Pain was at a four today, which was nice. In the day immediately following her visit to the lab, she’d been an eight. Curtains drawn. Sheets over her head. Ibuprofen popped like candy.
It sucked that everything had to come to a stop when she hurt. At twenty-two, she was supposed to be the embodiment of a Taylor Swift song—all unsuitable guys and bad decisions.
The rain came down harder. Shit. She’d forgotten her umbrella inside the cafe, but she sure as hell wasn’t going back. Making do, she pulled her hood over her head and hurried to the bus stop shelter.
The wind blew the rain sideways in her face, so she kept her gaze on the sidewalk, peering up only to make sure she wouldn’t crash into anyone.
Rain dripped down her face and neck, making a miserable experience even worse. She shivered, teeth chattering. This happened every year. She got to this season—the one between fall and winter—and second-guessed her decision to stay in New England.
She shoved her hands into her pockets, shivering a little harder as the rain came down faster and soaked through her coat. The temperature dropped, and at any moment, she expected to see snow.
The shelter was only a
few yards away, and she jogged the rest of the distance. Another person arrived at the same time as she did, but she dismissed them, focusing instead on clenching her teeth together. When she got home, she was going to make some hot cocoa. Maybe take a bath in the shallow bathtub but fill it with enough bombs that the bubbles came up to her armpits.
Leaning forward, she peered down the street. Where the frickity-frack is the fracking bus? Why was she saying frack? This day deserved all the swears. Where’s the fucking bus?
It was so cold.
“Hello.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she eyed the stranger. It was a man, tall and broad. At first glance, she thought it was Ra and almost smiled. His stare was the same. Piercing.
“Hello,” she returned, even though it was against her nature to talk to strangers. If he’d come from another direction, she would have thought he’d come from the cafe. People in Boston didn’t say hello to be friendly.
“Strange girl.” His gaze went from her head to her toes. Each place his gaze landed felt even colder, like an icy breath directed onto her wet skin. “What are you?”
A pit grew in her stomach. Danger. She didn’t like his question. Didn’t like the way he was watching her or the way he seemed to be moving closer without taking a step.
Every warning she had went off at Klaxon volume.
The cafe was two blocks away, but there was a small grocery store across the street.
She took off, darting toward the street but the man grabbed her arm. “Don’t go.” He frowned at her, elegant brows drawing down low over his eyes, so light a green they were almost yellow. His grip tightened, skin and muscle grinding across bone.
Did he think she would obey him? Not even with his hand on her arm, physically holding in her place, would she just do. She tried to wrench her arm away, but his nails were sharp and ripped the material.
But not her skin.
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