When my hand came into contact with his face, I covered his mouth and said, “Shhh.”
Cookie giggled.
“I’m sorry,” he said, taking my hand into his.
“I can’t see.”
“Here, I have a warm cloth.” Cookie wiped my eyes and face, at least the part that wasn’t bandaged, and I was finally able to pry my lids apart.
I blinked and tried to focus. Uncle Bob was on my right, and I reached up and felt his face again, his dark mustache tickling my palm. Cookie was on my left and had my other hand, but I couldn’t squeeze.
“Reyes,” I said, and she glanced at Uncle Bob.
“He’s fine, honey. Don’t worry about him.”
So I didn’t. I drifted off again, in and out for hours. People were there one minute only to be replaced by other people the next. When I finally awoke without feeling like a house had fallen on me — well, no, I still felt like a house had fallen on me, but I was able to stay awake for more than ten seconds — the room was dark with only a soft light glowing from the instrument panel beside me. And empty, save one. Reyes.
I felt him, his heat and energy. I pried open my eyes and spotted him instantly, balancing on the back of a chair in the corner, his robe sliding along the floor like a black fog, creeping up the walls and around the instruments. His hood was back as he watched me, his powerful gaze unwavering.
“Are you okay?” I asked, the cotton still in my mouth.
He jumped down, his robe swallowing in on itself. When it settled around him, he turned to look out the window at the lights of the city. Or the Dumpsters out back. Who knew?
“This is my fault.”
My brows slid together. “This wasn’t your fault.”
He glanced over a wide shoulder. “You really need to figure out what you’re capable of,” he said, scanning me from head to toe.
I was suddenly self-conscious. I had a huge gash in my face and an arm in dire need of therapy. Walker had actually cut the tendons in my arm and partially cut them in my leg. Speaking of Walker … “Where is he?” I asked.
“Walker?”
I nodded.
“He’s in this very hospital.”
Alarm leapt within me. I’d never been afraid of anyone in my life — well, besides Reyes — but I recoiled at the mere mention of Walker’s name. And because of it, I felt as though he had taken something very valuable away from me. An innocence. Or possibly an arrogance. Either way.
“He won’t be going anywhere or hurting anyone ever again.”
I was certain he was right, but for some reason, that didn’t help much. He stepped to me and ran his fingertips over the arm that I could feel healing already, my fingers moving ever so slightly.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Reyes—”
“I had no idea he would go to such lengths when he came after you.”
My thoughts screeched to a halt, and I took a mental step back. That was an odd thing to say. “What do you mean?”
“I knew he would try something,” he said, closing his eyes in regret, “but this. I just had no idea. And since I was bound—”
“What do you mean, when he came after me?” He lowered his gaze and like a baseball bat hitting me upside the head, realization dawned. “Oh, my god, I’m so slow sometimes, I astound myself.”
“Dutch, if I had known…”
“You set me up.”
He bowed his head, pulled away from me.
“I was bait. How amazingly slow can one person be?” I tried to sit up, but pain shot through my arm. And rib cage. And leg. And, oddly enough, my face. It was still too early, even for me.
“I didn’t know where he was or how to find him. You had bound me, remember? But I knew if we rattled enough cages, he’d come running. I planned on being with you when that happened. I followed you everywhere. Then I lost track of you.”
“Reyes, he threatened Cookie and Amber. He would have killed them.”
“Dutch—”
“This wasn’t just about me. Or you, for that matter.”
“Had I known … had I thought for a moment—”
“You didn’t think. That’s the problem.”
Anger spiked within him. “You bound me,” he argued.
“I bound you two weeks ago,” I said, the side of my face throbbing with the workout. “Why didn’t you go after him before that?”
“I didn’t know.” He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I thought he was dead, just like the rest of the world.”
“Then how did you find out otherwise?”
He seemed embarrassed. “The fact that I’d spent ten years of my human life behind bars for something I didn’t do was a source of great entertainment for the demons when they were torturing me. Until they told me, I had no idea. Then you bound me, and I couldn’t go after him.”
“So you set me up?”
“I set us up, Dutch. I was going to be with you every step, but your boyfriend was on your ass everywhere you went. If I’d just hung out with you, I would have been arrested.”
The irony of the situation was not lost on me. First my father, then Reyes. When would I learn? What would it take for me to see the true nature of a man? Me. The one person on the planet who could see into men’s souls. Who could feel their deepest fears and see the color of their worth.
“I just have one more question.”
“Okay.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me? Honestly, you’re as bad as my dad. What is it with men and their inability to just be open and tell the damned truth?”
He pressed his lips together before answering. “I didn’t trust you.”
“What?”
“You bound me, Dutch. And quite frankly, if you had the slightest inkling of what you are capable of, you could do a lot more than that. Which, by the way, you need to figure out.” He pierced me with a cold stare. “This war isn’t going anywhere.”
“What war?” I asked, appalled. “Your war? The one your old pals from the underworld started?” I shook my head as much as I dared. “I don’t want anything to do with that. I’m done. With you. With all of it.”
“Dutch, you’re all they want. They want the portal, and you’re it. And they’ve found a way to detect you. They have a way to find you.” He leaned over me, his brows drawn together in what could have been anger or pain. Or both. “You have to figure out what you’re capable of, really capable of, and you have to do it now. No more screwing around with these humans. You need to concentrate on your real job.”
“These humans are my real job.”
“Not for much longer,” he said, about half a second before he looked over me toward the door and disappeared. Just like a man. Utterly unable to stand up to a fight.
I scanned to the door as well to see a police officer standing there. Not really in the mood to give a statement, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.
“You’re awake,” the officer said.
“No, I’m not.” I opened my eyes and looked at him, but the light at his back made his features too dark to recognize. He stepped into the room, and the glow from the instrument panel illuminated the face of Owen Vaughn, my archenemy. He was most likely there because kicking a girl when she’s down was fun.
He picked up my chart. “You keep coming back,” he said, surprise evident in his voice. “You get knocked down again and again, and you keep coming back.”
“Are you here to finish me off?”
He leveled a startled expression on me, one that turned to resolve. “I guess I can see why you’d think that.”
After the day I’d had, making nice with the guy who tried to kill and/or horribly maim me in high school was super close to the bottom of my things-I’d-most-like-to-do list. In fact, he was right under shove bamboo shoots under my fingernails and right above get betrayed by someone I love. Again. Cleary, it was a long list.