“It’s been less than an hour,” Kismet said, pivoting to face me again. “It might be a while before we hear anything from the surgeon.” Her point was clear.
“Think anyone will mind that I’m discharging myself?” I checked my reflection in the shiny surface of an instrument tray. No marks left on my face, just a few soot smudges. I wiped them away with the back of my hand.
“Not when your chart disappears.” She was smiling when I looked at her again. “Want Tybalt to go with you?”
“I’ll go with her.” Phin’s voice came out of nowhere, close enough that I thought he was right behind me. I pivoted in a complete circle but didn’t see him until he stepped around the edge of the curtain, hands folded in front of him, vivid eyes fixed on me. A cocky, semi-apologetic smile played on his lips, one of which sported the evidence of my earlier loss of temper. “Sorry if I startled you,” he added.
“What? No car-smashing entrance this time?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I make it a point to never smash more than one car a week.”
“Good to know, but I don’t need you to tag along, Phin. Go sit on Aurora and Joseph while I do my job.”
“They’re quite safe in your apartment, Evangeline.” He gave Kismet a sideways look before his attention returned to me. “It’s easier to protect what’s by your side.”
“Not if what’s by my side is putting my ass in danger in the first place.”
He stilled, smile fading. Replaced by a pained frown, sadness that seemed to dim the shining light of his eyes. “It was never my intention to deceive you about any of this.”
“Intention or not, you got what you wanted, didn’t you?”
“And if you’re successful, you’ll get what you want, too. Time isn’t on your side, and I have contacts and resources within the Clans far beyond the reach of the Triads.”
I scowled, annoyed that he had a good point. Regardless, after his stunt in the waiting room, I just didn’t trust him.
“I have no personal hatred for Rufus St. James,” Phin said. “I don’t know him, but he represents what destroyed my people. Hand me another target, and I’ll direct the complete power of my rage upon them, and I’ll never look crosswise at Mr. St. James again.” He cocked his head to the left, a jerky movement so much like a curious parrot. “Let me help you.”
I stared him down, hoping to find some truth in the blue depths of his eyes. A glimmer of emotion or hint of his true intentions. All I did see was color, alive and beautiful. Color to get lost in.
“For God’s sake, Stone,” Kismet said, “take him with you. If nothing else, I’ll feel better knowing you’re not off on your own, wreaking havoc on the city.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I growled.
“Then what about a partner?” Phin asked.
“I had two partners. I got them both killed.”
His eyebrows arched into identical slim slopes. “How about Annoying Tagalong Kid Brother?”
As humans went, he looked my age or a bit older.
But weres age differently than humans, so he could have been ten, for all I knew. Few weres ever live longer than twenty years, and I’d never heard of one older than twenty-five—which meant I could very well be older than Joseph. That was … disconcerting.
“Fine, you can come with me,” I said, tired of arguing the point, when both he and Kismet seemed determined that he be my shadow.
“Still have your phone?” Kismet asked.
“Yes.”
“Keep it on. I’ll call when I have news.”
“Ditto.”
“Car?”
I snickered. “Check the rubble heap downstairs for the keys.”
“I have a car,” Phin said.
“Really?”
“I don’t fly everywhere I go, you know. I used to maintain the appearance of living a normal life, with a day job and everything.”
“As what? An underwear model?”
Twin roses of color darkened his cheeks, and I realized what I’d said.
I brushed past him, tossed off a terse “Keep in touch” to Kismet, and made my way toward the far side of the Emergency Room. Phin caught up halfway there, his presence felt rather than seen. He moved silently all the time —a trick I both admired and detested.
No one shouted for me to stop. None of the rent-a-cops milling around the E.R. and its entrance paid us much attention. Instead of turning for the bank of elevators, I beelined straight for the exterior doors. Ready and eager to get the hell outside of the hospital.
“Where are you parked anyway?” I asked, once my feet were on the sidewalk and the sun was beating down on my head. The odor of oil mixed with the nearby scent of the river created a nauseating contrast of sweetness and muck.
“This way,” he replied.
He led me past the hospital’s main entrance, toward an alley that ran between the side of the hospital and the rusted iron fence that protected walkers from the river’s sheer twenty-foot drop. The alley was lined with public parking spaces, most of them filled at the midday hour. Dog walkers, joggers, and couples out for a lunchtime stroll kept the riverside sidewalk full.
We stuck to the narrower pathway that butted up to the brick wall of the hospital—less traveled and better for private conversation.
“Do you have a destination in mind?” Phin asked.
I walked on his left, half a step behind, keenly aware of every person within eyesight. “The gremlins have helped us in the past,” I said. Halfway down the block, a skinny man turned the corner toward us, led by a massive German shepherd on a chain leash. “What sort of bribe do you think is fair for asking them to hack into the Police Department’s intranet system?”
“Four-tiered wedding cake?” he said.
“Really?”
He turned his head a few degrees, giving me more of his angular profile. “I was joking, Evangeline.”
“Evy.”
“Evy,” he corrected. “What did you take the last time?”
“Cherry-topped cheesecake.”
“The favor?”
“Erasing Chalice Frost from the system and providing hard copies, which are now mixed together with the ash remains of Rufus’s apartment.” Good thing we’d read as much as we had last night, or I’d be shit out of luck in finding tidbits about Chalice’s past.
Phin turned his head directly forward. His hands had clenched. I cataloged the reaction—tension. The fire. The osprey I’d seen flying above the building just after. I lagged behind him a full stride, too close to the body of a very talented manipulator. I didn’t have to ask if he was responsible for the apartment fire that had killed Nadia Stanislavski, a fellow Hunter, and seriously injured Rufus.
I didn’t ask, because I knew. And I no longer trusted him.
The man and his shepherd crossed the alley a few yards before we would have passed, the strong animal yanking his weaker owner toward a woman walking some mixed-breed mess with patchy white fur and no tail. I watched them go and walked right into Phin’s back. Felt that queer mix of strength and softness.
“Sorry,” I said, backing off quickly.
He cast a curious glance my way while waving his hand at a parked car. It was a late-model Honda, two-door hatchback. “This is it.”
I eyed the faded blue exterior. “So your secret identity is what? Struggling high school dropout?”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “Would you believe mild-mannered reporter?”
“No.” I stepped off the sidewalk, headed for the passenger door.
