The machinery and monitors shrieked in protest of being cut off from power. Patients waiting to be seen shouted at the nurses behind the registration desk. Those already being seen moaned and groaned and carried on like they were all dying. A baby next to Riddick wailed in his ear.
He glanced over at the mother, who quickly apologized and shifted the baby to her other hip. “He has a double ear infection. The doctor says he probably feels like someone’s sticking an icepick in his eardrum.”
Riddick could relate. The noise in the place was assaulting his eardrums pretty good, too.
“Hey! Harpy! Over here.”
Harper raised her head off Riddick’s shoulder and glanced over to where Romeo was waving like a madman from his place on a gurney outside one of the exam rooms. Riddick set her on her feet and she made her way over to him on visibly shaky legs.
Riddick wasn’t sure if Romeo had tears in his eyes, or if their glistening appearance was a trick of the candlelight. He gestured to Romeo’s left leg and its open, jagged-edged bullet wound. “Clean shot?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I probably won’t even need stitches. Docs just want to clean it out and give me a dose of antibiotics.”
“Where is she?” Harper asked, voice thick and raspy.
“Room six over there.”
Harper stood for a moment, watching the door to room six, as if gearing herself up for what she’d find on the other side. Riddick laid a steadying hand on her shoulder and glanced back at Romeo. “How bad was it?”
Romeo swallowed hard. “Two bullets passed right through Hunter into her. She took one in the chest and one in the…uh…neck.”
Harper’s eyes fluttered shut and Riddick cursed under his breath.
“They’re doing everything they can,” Romeo said, “but without any kind of equipment like respirators and scanners and shit, they’re struggling. It’s battlefield conditions in here, man.”
Riddick watched as Harper tipped her chin up, squared her shoulders, and visibly gathered her strength. For about the hundredth time that night, he thought, God, what an amazing woman.
He couldn’t imagine they were welcome in the room, but that didn’t stop her. She marched right inside.
In the dim light cast by several votive candles, Hunter hovered over Mischa’s prone body. What Riddick could see of her skin was a roadmap of streaked blood, dirt, and open, jagged wounds. She looked like she’d been mauled by a fucking bear, he thought.
Hunter was chanting something under his breath in a language Riddick had never heard. When he looked up at Harper, she gasped and reared back as if he’d slapped her.
Riddick understood her reaction. Jesus, he’d never forget the look in Hunter’s eyes. Haunted, tormented, distraught…none of those words seemed right. He was well beyond that.
That’s when Riddick noticed the thin trail of blood that had apparently dripped from his lower lip down to his chin. The implications of that blood trail felt like a physical presence in the room with them.
Shit.
“What did you do?” Harper whispered.
Hunter opened his mouth to answer—or to scream, maybe—but no sound came out. He ran a shaking, blood-stained hand through his hair and shook his head, tears filling his eyes.
Harper pushed past him and crawled into the bed with Mischa. She shoved one arm under her friend’s limp body and hugged her tight. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s fine. You’re fine.”
Even to Riddick the words sounded hollow. He turned to Hunter. “Was she…” he trailed off, not sure he wanted to say the word dead in front of Harper.
Hunter was staring at Mischa as Harper rocked her back and forth gently, like she was a sick child. After a pause so long Riddick had wondered if he was too far gone to even understand the question, he said, “The doctor said there was nothing he could do. That she would be…” he swallowed hard. “He left to check on another patient and said I should say my goodbyes. He basically said she’d be dead soon.”
As Riddick imagined, at the word dead, Harper’s body jolted as if she’d taken a bullet.
“When he was gone, I…panicked. I couldn’t imagine her…” he trailed off, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge even the thought. “I changed her. I couldn’t not change her.”
Riddick pinched the bridge of his nose. “When the doctor comes back and finds out you’ve turned her without her written consent, he’ll call the cops.”
He didn’t answer. Just continued staring at Mischa.
“You’ll go to jail, man,” Riddick added gently. “You need to run. Go now. We’ll say you were gone by the time we got here.”
His eyes shot to Riddick’s. “I can’t leave. I need to be here when she rises. I need to…explain.”
Riddick looked to Harper for help convincing Hunter to run, and quickly found she was in no condition to provide anything. Tears streamed down her checks, dripped off her chin, and landed on Mischa, silently making clean trails through the blood stains on her friend’s face. His heart broke for her. For both of them.
Riddick settled himself into a bedside chair and sighed. Shit. A devastated fiancée, a newly turned vampire, and a barely coherent Hunter.
Harper had assured him their life together would get beautifully boring after they made it out of the Arena.
He should’ve known better. Nothing about Harper Hall’s life was ever going to be boring.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mischa’s doctor was beyond horrified at what Hunter had done to save her. He fled the room like his ass was on fire and—as Riddick predicted—called the cops immediately.
A vampire containment unit arrived shortly thereafter. Hunter was silent when they read him his rights, but when they asked him to step away from Mischa, he bared his teeth and hissed at them.
The two humans from the vampire containment unit wore fatigues and full riot gear, which Harper thought was completely ridiculous, given the fact that they were there to take one vampire into custody. But they obviously took their assignment very seriously, so she managed to avoid rolling her eyes at them. But just barely.
One of the men moved toward Hunter with a silver collar attached to a collapsible pole. The collar was to weaken Hunter. The pole was to lead him out of the hospital like a stray dog.
“Jesus,” Harper muttered. “Is that really necessary?”
He blinked at her. “Just a precaution, ma’am.”
She glanced over at Hunter, who was now completely ignoring them. He’d gone back to chanting under his breath in some ancient language as he held Mischa’s limp hand against his heart.
Riddick was no help, either. He was asleep, splayed out in an uncomfortable-looking chair in the corner of the room. He was the picture of exhaustion: head tipped back against the wall, mouth open, fingers laced together and resting on his stomach. He’d been out for about an hour, which Harper thought was probably the most sleep he’d had in a month. She certainly wasn’t going to wake him.
As one of the officers took a cautious step toward Hunter, the collar and pole flew out of his hand, smacking into the wall on the opposite side of the room before clattering to the floor.
Harper glanced at Hunter, who had a hand held out in front of him and a downright crazed look in his eyes. The officers glanced at Hunter, then at the collar and pole, then back to Hunter.
That’s when Harper realized Hunter had knocked the collar and pole out of the guy’s hands without touching him.
Shit.
So, mind reading, mind control, and telekinesis were all talents Hunter had amassed over the past five-plus centuries.
It look Harper a moment or two to wrap her brain around that little tidbit.
One of the officers moved his hand to the butt of his gun, which, Harper was willing to bet, was loaded with silver bullets. That’s when Harper snapped out of her musings and moved to stand in front of Hunter.
She held out her hands in supplication. “Look,” she began, trying out her swee
test smile, “I know you have a job to do, and I’m happy to help you do it. But it’s been a really rough night. Hunter doesn’t want to go anywhere until Mischa wakes up. Would it really be that big of a deal to stick around for a few minutes? Then, he’ll go with you willingly, I promise. Right, Hunter?”
She threw back an elbow into his gut when he didn’t answer immediately.
He grunted. “Yeah. Sure.”
They looked less than reassured. Guess her charm wasn’t up to full speed after the night they’d had. “Hunter? Can you give them a little push?”
He sighed an extremely put-upon sigh and leveled them with a long look. After a moment or two, they both turned and shuffled out of the room, taking watch outside the door.
She started to thank him when Mischa groaned and tried to sit up. Even with Hunter’s vampire speed, he didn’t make it to Mischa’s side before Harper did.
Harper gave her a gentle push back down into the bed and smoothed the hair off her friend’s forehead. “Hey, there, Sleeping Beauty, we were starting to get worried about you.”
Mischa blinked up at her, confused. “I’m not…dead?”
Not quite ready to address that question, Harper asked, “How are you feeling?”
She swallowed hard a couple of times. “Thirsty. So thirsty.”
Harper glanced down at the IV the doctor had started. Instead of medicine, it was now pumping O-positive directly into Mischa’s veins. He’d said it would help to stave off the blood thirst.
But soon, even that wouldn’t help and Mischa would need to ingest blood—either bottled or straight from a source—in order to survive.
Mischa pulled a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes. “What’s happening to me?” she whispered.
Hunter grabbed her hand and dropped to his knees at her side. “It’s natural, love. Stay calm.”
Her eyes flew to his. “It’s natural that I can not only smell human blood in this place, but that I want to drink it?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said in a low, urgent tone.
“You changed me.”
It hadn’t been a question. Harper closed her eyes. Oh, boy. This wasn’t going to go well.
Hunter gave a short nod. “I did. I didn’t have a choice,” he repeated.
“There’s always a choice.”
Hunter’s chin hit his chest, and Harper thought he must not like the tone of Mischa’s voice any more than she did. It was…defeated. Beat down. Mischa was a fighter. This wasn’t like her at all.
“Mischa, honey, I know this is a lot to take in, but you were going to die,” Harper said. “Hunter did what he had to do.”
Mischa shook her head. “No. He didn’t have to do it. It was my choice, and he took it from me.”
His head shot up. “Would you have chosen to die?” he hissed.
Tears filled her eyes. “We’ll never know, will we?”
He looked like he’d taken a bullet to the gut as he watched her pull her hand away from his.
“Mischa,” Harper tried again. “He didn’t want you to die. You don’t really hold that against him, can you?”
“Oh, she does,” Hunter murmured. “A small part of her actually thinks I would’ve done this eventually, even if she wasn’t near death, and whether she wanted it or not.”
“You promised you’d stay out of my thoughts!”
His eyes narrowed. “Not when they’re as crazy as they are right now.”
Harper sucked in a harsh breath. Shit, crazy was not a word that settled well with any woman. He might as well tell her to calm down while he’s at it, she thought. “Why would you think that, Misch?”
Her chin came up defensively. “He asked me to change for him last night. He told me he couldn’t bear the thought of me being so fragile. So human. I told him I needed time, but this is always what he wanted.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Of course I wanted you to change! Do you think I was looking forward to watching you die? Even if you hadn’t been shot tonight, you would’ve eventually died. That’s what humans do. But no matter how much I wanted you to change, I never would have forced it on you. The choice would’ve been yours.”
Mischa jackknifed up in bed and hurled a plastic dinner tray at him. “I wouldn’t have chosen this!” she shrieked. “Maybe I wanted to grow old. Maybe I wanted to have babies and grandbabies and a real family. Now I’ll never have that. You took my choice away.”
“You told me you loved me,” Hunter said, his voice shaky and thick. “You were with me. How did you plan on being with me and having babies and grandbabies? I could never give you children. You knew that going in.”
“It was never going to last. You and me…” she paused, shaking her head. “It was never going to work long-term. You would’ve pressured me to change. I would’ve left eventually.”
Harper wiped at her own suddenly wet cheeks. “You don’t know that, Mischa.”
Hunter’s jaw tightened. “She doesn’t know, but that’s what she’s thinking right now. And she’s working damn hard at convincing herself it’s true.”
“Stay out of my head!”
He started backing away, never breaking eye contact. “Gladly.”
The word was knife-point sharp, and even Harper winced at the sound of it. Mischa flinched visibly, but kept her chin high.
Harper and Mischa watched in silence as Hunter turned himself in to the containment cops. He even let them collar him and lead him away on that stick. When he was gone, Harper sat down on the end of Mischa’s bed.
“He loves you,” she said quietly. “When we got here…” she shook her head. “I’ve never seen anyone look that devastated. He really didn’t have a choice, Misch. He had to turn you. And you know what? I’m glad he did. If someone had asked me what to do at that point? I would’ve said to turn you. To bring you back, no matter what.”
Mischa dropped her head to her hands and her shoulders shook with silent tears. Harper gave her a moment to compose herself before asking, “Are you going to press charges?”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want him in jail. I just…I just need time. I need to figure this all out. I mean, the first time I let someone in and tried your whole ‘go with the flow’ thing, I wound up dead.”
Harper couldn’t hold back a little chuckle. “Yeah, maybe I should’ve clarified that going with the flow usually involves too many margaritas and a next-day walk of shame, carrying your panties in your purse. You just had to take it to the next level, huh?”
Mischa snorted. “Hey, you know me. I’ve never been one to half-ass anything.”
“Yep, you’re a full-ass kind of girl.”
She arched a brow. “Is that a fat joke?”
“If the ass fits.”
Before too long, they were sissy-fighting, trying to hold back fits of the kind of giggles they only got when emotions ran high and tense. The kind of hysterical giggles that kept them both from crying.
With a half-snore, half-snort, Riddick jerked awake, practically falling sideways out of his chair. He blinked at Harper sleepily. “What’d I miss?”
Harper and Mischa glanced at each other, then fell into a fit of laughter that had them leaning on each other for support and Harper gasping for breath.
As Harper knew it eventually would, Mischa’s laughter dissolved into gut-wrenching sobs. Harper just held her tighter and told her over and over again that everything would be fine.
It had to be.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
An hour or so later, Mischa was sleeping like…well, like the dead.
Harper was exhausted but couldn’t bring herself to drift off just yet. She was too busy enjoying a conversation with Riddick that didn’t involve high tensions and general angst—something she hadn’t had since their whole Vegas getaway dropped into a death spiral.
She was currently cuddled up in Riddick’s lap, which was way more comfortable than any piece of furniture she’d found in the hospital so f
ar. And fortunately, while the lights were off in Mischa’s room so that she could sleep, the rest of the hospital’s power—and presumably the city’s power—had been restored shortly after Hunter left the building.
Mischa had explained the probable cause of the blackout, and Harper was still processing the full extent of Hunter’s power. She wondered if Mischa had inherited any of his, um, gifts when he turned her.
But that certainly wasn’t a subject she wanted to broach with Mischa today. Not when her emotions were so raw.
In other news, Riddick had taken her explanation of his dhampyre status surprisingly well. Knowing he wasn’t a freak of nature, that he’d been created with a decidedly non-evil purpose in mind, seemed to give him at least some measure of peace.
He’d also been somewhat surprised to learn that his father had genuinely loved his mother. Loved her, in fact, with a kind of fanatical devotion that was probably the result of the experiments Sentry had put him through. Harper had seen as much when she laid hands on him. His grief when he lost his wife sent him into a depression that made him a fantastically shitty father, not to mention a completely self-destructive prick.
“I have to find my sister.”
The reverence in his tone when he said the word sister made Harper smile. And, since she’d known he’d feel that way, she already had Leon and Lucas checking out a few potential leads. “Then it’s a good thing you just happen to know the best paranormal PI in the business, mister. But it’ll cost ya.”
He rested his forehead against hers and smiled. “I don’t have much money. How will I pay you?”
She slipped her fingers up under his shirt and spread them out over his chest. “I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.”
They made out and groped like horny teenagers for a few minutes before Riddick pulled back. “Hey, wait a minute. Where’s Leon and your antidote?”
“I talked to him while you were sleeping. He should be on his way by now.”
Semi-Human (Harper Hall Investigations Book 2) Page 20