As she stepped into the elevator and pressed the round button for the garage, she leaned on the handrail and fought the hatred welling deep in her gut.
Fought the urge to see Artem Casteel slaughtered at her command.
She was a white witch. A good witch. A kind, forgiving witch.
Maybe if she said that a few thousand more times, she’d keep from landing in handcuffs and chains herself.
* * * *
“So how are you today, Nina?”
“Feeling like you owe me a swanky dinner and a beer for all the money I’m dishing out here. How are you, Doc Malone?”
“Feeling like you’ve got dinner covered and you don’t need any help from me.” January pointed to the KFC bag in Nina’s lap.
Nina snorted before she tucked into a fried chicken drumstick. “I got plenty. You want? I’ll share. It’s extra-crispy,” she enticed.
“I already had lunch, but thank you for the offer.”
Sitting back, Nina slumped, her posture sagging. “Jesus. This is like Groundhog Day. Didn’t we just do all this polite bullshit yesterday?”
January folded her hands atop her desk and gave her a tight smile. She was a nervous damn wreck today. “We did.”
“So what’s on the agenda today, Doc?” Nina asked. But she already knew what the plan was for today. They’d discussed it at length last night as they’d finalized the arrangements to get Teddy and Ingrid into that party Artem was having Saturday tonight.
Nina was going to blow a gasket. A big, ugly, screaming gasket—just like Artem wanted. Because keeping him off her back was crucial to keeping him from even getting a whiff of what they were about to do.
Tomorrow was the day they’d infiltrate the enemy camp, and January was about as frazzled as she’d ever been. On the outside, she fought for calm. She’d applied makeup to cover the signs of a sleepless night. She’d dressed professionally, and grabbed a bagel and coffee at the shop downstairs just like always.
She’d practiced goading Nina into a fit of rage in her head to keep things as real as possible—just like the girls had instructed. And now here they were. It was D-Day and if her nerves didn’t eat her alive, she’d collapse from sheer exhaustion.
“On today’s agenda, we have the source of all your rage. What makes you angry?”
“Well-done steak and parsley for garnish. Who the fuck cares if the damn food is pretty?”
January made a face at her and looked down at the file on her desk with a scoff. “Oh, c’mon, Nina. That doesn’t make you angry. Not angry enough to threaten lives.”
“The hell it doesn’t. Ever try to eat a well-done steak? It’s bullshit.”
“Wanna play a game?”
“Only if it’s Twister. I’m a flexible bitch. I’ll cream your tiny ass,” she said then chuckled.
“Not a board game, Nina. Let’s role-play.”
Nina dropped the cleaned chicken drumstick into the bag and gave her a saucy smile. “You into that kinky crap? Fine by me, but only if I get to be Olaf, the big Swedish masseur. I’m not gonna play Heidi from The Hills, the innocent, virginal sheep herder’s daughter. I fucking hate braids.”
January barked a laugh she couldn’t contain, the tension between her shoulder blades easing a bit. God. Nina was so good at this, even as January was coming apart at the seams.
“I don’t mean that kind of role-playing either. I mean, how about I be you, and you be someone who’s made you angry?”
“Everybody makes me angry, Doc. Isn’t that why I’m here? We only have so much time before you bleed my bank account dry at seven hundred bucks an hour, ya know. We could spend years playing that game.”
“I thought you said you were rich. Is money an object?”
“Nope. But it becomes one when it’s leaving my account and going into yours. You get richer, but I’m still the same old bent-out-of-shape Nina. Except I’m broke.”
“Okay, so tell me who’s made you the angriest you’ve ever been.”
Nina sighed, rolling the top of the bag and pretending to finally give in. “You mean like a client? A case?”
January shrugged. “Whatever. Just pick a target.”
She scrunched her face up as if she were trying to recollect. “Well, shit. Lemme think. There was the dude who tried to kill my half-sister and my stepsister. Complete damn maniac. I also kinda hated the bananapants bitch scientist who wanted to create an army of super-paranormals. So whacked, I can’t even tell you. But I think the chick who fucked with Marty’s SIL comes really close to the person who’s made me the most pissed I’ve ever been.”
“And why’s that? What did she do that was different than, say, the bananapants scientist?”
“Kids. It involved kids. Nothing makes me wanna choke somebody out more than somebody who fucks with kids—and animals. Oh, and old people.”
“Because they’re defenseless, vulnerable?”
“Damn straight. I don’t pick on anyone who doesn’t pick first, but when you mess with a kid, I’ll kill you. Call that a Superman complex or whatever it is you shrinks call it, but that’s where I draw the line. She put those kids in some cold, dark cave and was going to let them die if we didn’t figure out the clues to her batshit treasure hunt.”
“So did you kill the person who did this to Marty’s sister-in-law?”
“Her name’s Mara, by the way. Marty’s sister-in-law. A werewolf, if it matters. You might want to write that down for future reference. And nah. I didn’t kill her, but I remember wishing I had.”
“Have you killed before, Nina?”
Nina’s head popped up. “Have you?”
“I’m not the one here for therapy.”
“I don’t want to be here for therapy.”
“Established.”
“Okay. So we’re deadlocked. Next?”
January struggled with what she was about to do, knowing she was going to trigger Nina. But Nina had insisted if Artem wanted a show, she’d give him one. Still, she was growing fonder of Nina by the day, and hurting her was the last thing January wanted to participate in—even for the sake of this ruse.
“How do you feel about me trying a technique I learned way back in college when I was getting my degree?”
Nina rolled her tongue in her cheek before she asked, “What kind of technique would that be, Doc?”
Twirling a pen between her fingers, January stared at Nina, conveying her apologies in silence. “Well, if I told you the technique, it wouldn’t come as a surprise, would it? But it does involve your trust. You game?”
Nina wiped her mouth with a napkin. “As long as you’re not hooking me up to some crazy-ass electroshock shit, I’m good. So go. Do your best.”
“Tell me about your mother, Nina,” January asked, her tone purposely sharp.
Nina’s eyes met hers, brilliant and glittering—she knew it was game on, and she was ready. “What the fuck about her?”
Leaning on the desk, she eyeballed the ex-vampire. “She was a drug abuser, right? Drugs, alcohol, prostitution.”
Her jaw tightened and her fist clenched. “How the fuck would you know what my mother was?”
“It’s my job to know who the fuck your mother was, Nina. I know all about your past abuse. So tell me about her. What was it like growing up with a prostitute? A drunk?” January asked glibly, but her stomach rolled with bitter acid. So much so, she had to take a sip of the bottled water to wash the sour taste from her mouth.
“How do you think it was, Head Shrinker? Most of the time it fucking sucked.”
“What about your father? Where was he while your mother was drinking and drugging?”
Nina’s chest rose and fell and her nostrils flared. As per Nina’s instructions, they hadn’t rehearsed this. She’d said it should be a method-acting experience, where she was as surprised as an audience would be at her reactions to January’s questions.
“He was an over-the-road truck driver. He wasn’t home a lot,” she mumbled, glancing to h
er left at the big windows overlooking the city.
“Did your father know your mother was sleeping around and substance-abusing while you were in her care and he was off just trying to earn a paycheck?”
Licking her lips, Nina sat up straight, and January had to wonder in hindsight if the ex-vampire had really given this as much thought as she’d claimed. These were sore, sore subjects for her. They still hurt—even though she’d been the one to suggest using them. She hadn’t given any direction on how to use them; just to really give it to her good, surprise her so it looked as real as possible for Artem.
Nina shrugged, but her shoulders were stiff and her feet were tightly tucked beneath the chair. “I don’t know if he knew the full story until it was over. He was always picking up the pieces of her fucked-up life. Then he’d be gone again—always thinking everything would get better. Like by some miracle she’d find Jesus or whoever and they’d fix her. Then he’d come back home and see everything was still the fucking same as when he’d left. A flipping shithole of a mess. Is that what you want to hear?”
Now, January drove deeper, harder. “How’d you feel about that? I mean, what kind of father leaves his most precious asset with a woman who sleeps around and spends his hard-earned money on heroin?”
The air was growing thicker by the second, and while that was good for Artem, it wasn’t good for Nina.
When she didn’t speak, but the signal her eyes gave said keep going, January put her hands in her lap under the desk and clenched them. “Well, Nina? How do you feel about your father essentially abandoning you with a cracked-out alcoholic? Didn’t he care that she might hurt you while he was gone? Maybe even kill you because she loved her drugs more than you?”
Nina’s eyes glittered, but it wasn’t just with anger, there were tears. “She didn’t love them more than me. She did love me. She was just fucked up, an addict. She didn’t know what she was doing half the fucking time, okay? If anybody should know about an addict and a needle, it should be you, Doc.”
“So you’re making excuses for her? As I read through some of your middle school transcripts, it says someone once called your mother a whore and you rammed his head into a locker so hard, you broke his nose and the bones in his right cheek. Is that true?”
Cracking her knuckles, she asked, “That I beat the fuck up for mouthing off?”
“No, that she was a whore. It says that,” January tapped the fake file with a fingernail, “right here, in fact. He called her a whore and you beat him up because of it. Did she sleep with men for money?”
“She wasn’t a goddamn whore, you idiot!” Nina growled, leaning forward in the chair. “She was sick, for fuck’s sake. She couldn’t help herself.”
“Isn’t that what all crackheads say, Nina?” January demanded. “How could your father even consider leaving you alone with her? It’s unconscionable. Despicable!”
Her eyes narrowed, zeroing in on January, who, if not for some incredibly good deodorant, would be sweating bullets. “He didn’t leave me alone with her,” she seethed. “Didn’t you find that out while you were doing all that fucking research? He left me with my grandmother, moron. She took good care of me in the best damn way she knew how.”
“Oh, Nina. Come on!” January baited, her words dripping sarcasm as she jumped up and slammed her palms down on her desk. “He did nothing to help your mother, Nina. He dumped it all in your grandmother Lou’s lap, didn’t he? In fact, didn’t he cheat on your mother? Your poor, substance-abusing mother, while he was out on a quote-unquote run? Says here you have a half-sister and a stepsister because he was cheating. Because he was so concerned about you, he went off and got another family! Just up and dumped you and your mother and forgot all about you—”
Nina was on her feet so quickly, so insanely swift, with her hand around January’s throat in no time flat, she had to wonder what her speed had been like as a vampire.
Literally, she was on the desk between them in mere seconds, wrapping her hands around January’s throat and dragging her across the surface until she had her on the floor and was on top of her.
Her eyes were hot with rage, her face so contorted it was almost as if she wasn’t even the same person. January went limp rather than tightening up, even though she wasn’t sure Nina was acting anymore.
But it wasn’t easy. What she wanted to do was soothe Nina, remind her with words she would always be safe with the people she loved the most in the world. But that wouldn’t look good for the camera.
Gathering her up, Nina jerked her close to her face so they were at eye level, with January sprawled helplessly beneath her. “Shut the fuck up!” she screamed, spit flying from her mouth as she shook January like a ragdoll. “You don’t know anything about us but what those asshole counselors and clan members and whothefuckeverelse wrote in some fucking report! I’m not a bunch of half-assed paragraphs with meaningless words! So shut up or I swear to Christ, I’ll kill you right here! Hear me, Dr. Malone? You know nothing about me and my family!”
She was about to wave the white flag, because wow, this non-vampire was pretty strong and a crushed windpipe was not the goal here. But then Nina leaned in even closer, the curtain of her hair creating a cocoon, blocking them from the cameras discreetly placed behind books amongst the shelves on her wall, and whispered with urgency, “Do it! Just do it! Finish it and make it fucking good!”
So January clawed at Nina’s hands, trying to tear them from her throat as she yelled back, her voice hoarse from the pressure of Nina’s hands. “That’s not true! I know everything about you, Nina! Everything! I know your father abandoned you—your mother abandoned you! Why does everyone abandon poor pissed-off Nina? What is it about you that makes everyone you love leave?”
Leaning back, Nina howled her fury. Her face beet red, her eyes wild, she raised a fist high in the air, ready to bring it down on January’s face.
And in that moment, even as January kept telling herself this was all an act, she saw something in Nina—she saw what terrified her the most.
Everyone leaving her.
Because she couldn’t be enough—couldn’t keep up—couldn’t do what everyone else could now that she was human. And though January was sure she knew the idea was irrational and born of paranoia, because no one loved her as much as Marty and Wanda and her family, Nina hadn’t entirely left her past in the past.
The irrational side of her, the frightened kid, the helpless victim of her mother’s substance abuse, had crept back to the surface and firmly planted itself within her heart of hearts, and she was doing everything in her power to prove to them she could fight the good fight right alongside them.
And it was exhausting her. Taking all of her energy and what little patience she possessed to keep all the balls she juggled in the air.
As the door to her office burst open and Marty and Wanda rushed in, yanking Nina from her and, as pre-planned, chastising her violent outburst, January had to fight tears and pretend outrage for Artem’s cameras.
But what she really wanted to do was pull Nina close and hug away her pain.
Chapter 9
When January saw Nina for the first time since that afternoon’s session, she lunged for the vampire. Throwing her arms around her neck and hanging there to beg forgiveness.
Each time she closed her eyes, she saw that one vulnerable moment Nina had exposed to her. That second where all of her was laid bare, and it broke January. Made her fight the impulse to call her up all day long and apologize profusely. But she was too afraid to take the risk that Artem would catch her.
So she’d waited an agonizing six hours since their session, counting the minutes until she could make things right.
“Doc, quit squeezin’ me, for fuck’s sake! Enough with the touchy-feely already,” Nina groused.
But that only made January cling tighter and bury her face in Nina’s shoulder. “I’m sorry! Oh God, I’m so, so sorry, Nina. I hated every second of that. Please, please forgive me. I would
never, as a doctor, ever use that technique. It’s awful and ugly and so cruel,” she sobbed.
“But GD efficient, huh? Got me from zero to a hundred in no time flat.”
January shook her head vehemently. “It’s invasive and brutal. I hate it.”
Untangling herself from January’s clingy claws, Nina set her away from her. “Some people say I’m invasive and brutal. Kinda like a colonoscopy. But you were just fightin’ fire with fire.”
“You listen to me, Nina. When this is over, if we…well, you know, if we’re successful, I want you to continue to see me—free of charge. No mortgages paid on your dime. Will you think about that? Please?”
Nina glanced away only briefly before she said, “Yeah. Whatever. I’ll think about it.”
A tall, unbelievably good-looking man strolled toward her. His hair dark and thick, his skin pale like Galen’s.
He slung an arm around Nina’s shoulders and pulled her to him. “She’ll definitely think about it. I’m Greg, by the way. The ex-vampire’s husband.” Then he held up a hand. “No, don’t apologize. I knew what I was getting into. Besides, I like ’em mouthy and saucy,” he joked, dropping a kiss on Nina’s forehead.
“It’s so nice to actually meet you. I’m sorry about all this…about involving you. I didn’t know what else to do…”
His clear eyes narrowed in obvious disgust. “As though you need to apologize for a madman? Don’t be ridiculous, Dr. Malone. I’ve known about Artem for a long time. I’ve suspected his motives for a long time, too. I just couldn’t prove them. Now, I’m happy to help prove the bastard shouldn’t be anywhere near another vampire, let alone running a clan. The hell he’ll get his hands on my wife and have her booted. And the hell I’ll let him create some kind of hate clan and infiltrate the rest of us with that hate. This is hardly your fault. No apology necessary. Besides, seeing you has been good for my lovely wife. She won’t admit it, but I will for her.”
January laughed, warmed by Greg’s words. “Ammunition is always a good thing to have in my therapy arsenal. I’ll be sure to remind her.” Then she squeezed Nina’s arm and gave her a warm smile. “And again, I’m sorry, Nina.”
How Nina Got Her Fang Back: Accidental Quickie (Accidentally Paranormal Series Book 13) Page 9