of you.”
When Murhder took a pause to try to answer that in the best way possible, the Brother said, “Cell phones? Either of you? Because I know that people have tried to reach him so I’m thinking he’s either ignoring his own shellan, or he left his phone at home. She’s worried about him, but here you are, leading him on a death mission out here alone—”
A loud, piercing whistle brought their heads around. And as John Matthew got their attention, the male stamped his foot in the snow. Then he nodded at Tohr and gestured with his thumb that he was leaving.
“At least one of you is making sense,” the Brother muttered. “Son, please get yourself back to the clinic. You shouldn’t be out here and you know it.”
John nodded. And then stuck his palm out to Murhder.
As Tohr cursed, Murhder clasped what was offered. “It was a good time. Thanks for reminding me how much I used to love this job.”
But instead of letting go, John tugged at him.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Tohr said. “He’s not going back with you. As of right now, he is not allowed on Brotherhood property ever again.”
“What did the transition feel like?”
As soon as the question left Sarah’s mouth, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Nate. That’s invasive—”
“No, it’s okay. It’s just … I don’t remember a lot of my transition, to be honest.” The boy looked down at his now-long legs. “I’d felt off for a while beforehand. I mean, I had this weird craving for chocolate and bacon? I could get one or the other at the lab, but not both at a time. They fed me well, but I couldn’t put requests in. And anyway, I couldn’t eat much.”
Sarah’s stomach clenched at the idea of him in that cage. Alone. Suffering.
The experiments. The tests.
“By the time we came here from that house?” he continued. “I felt hot all over. But it was in my inside. Like a fever. And I just got hotter and hotter, until these waves went through me. I felt like every part of my body was blowing apart, and my blood was racing …”
Abruptly, Sarah’s attention split. Half of her kept listening to Nate talk, so that she nodded in the right places and made murmurs of support. Another part of her, however, retreated to the data she’d been reviewing.
Including John Matthew’s blood tests. Which showed that he had a normal level of white blood cells for a vampire—
“—wound healed up just fine.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking herself. “What was that?”
“My wound is healed.” Nate pulled back some of the blankets on his leg. “I tripped and fell in the cage, and cut myself. They bandaged it—but it kind of didn’t do well. Now, it’s all okay, though.”
Sarah winced at the further reminder of his captivity. Then she leaned down and looked at the smooth, hairless expanse of a very powerful leg. On the outside of the calf, there was a faded line, jagged and rather long.
“And you said it healed?” Sarah glanced up. “After the change.”
“Yes, but from what the doctor said, that’s the way things are. Vampires who are fed properly have incredible healing powers.”
Sarah sat back. “So I’ve heard. And I’m really glad you’re okay.”
“Me, too. I guess.” Nate pulled the sheeting back over himself. “The doctor here said that the healing thing is to make up for no longer being able to see sunlight. Not that I ever had the chance to.”
“You were never let outdoors?”
“No.”
Sarah closed her eyes and tried to imagine what his life had been like. What it was going to be like as he went through another kind of transition, one of captivity to freedom.
“Nate, I am so sorry about everything you’ve been through.”
“It is what it is. The question is … what now?”
“I get that one. Trust me.”
They sat in silence for a while, and it was … well, she wouldn’t say that it was necessarily good that the two of them were both at a loss for what the rest of their lives was going to look like. But it was nice to not be alone.
Disliking the direction of her thoughts, she refocused on that leg, now hidden.
“Did you heal because of the feeding or because you got through the change,” she said to herself.
Nate shrugged and then smiled. “Maybe it was the transition itself. You know, wiping clean all blemishes. Starting fresh—”
Sarah sat up so fast, she nearly knocked the chair over. In a