the code, and met Sarah halfway. “Help yourself—Murhder, can I talk to you?”
Frowning, he nodded and followed her back out into the hall. “What’s going on?”
“You see John anywhere down here?”
“No, but I’ve mostly been sitting with Nate in his room. I know that Sarah and the doctor met with your hellren a while ago, but they’ve been down the hall on the computers ever since, I think.”
“I don’t know where he is.” Xhex pushed a hand through her short hair. “After I talked to you, I went into his room and sat with him. I guess I fell asleep at some point. When I woke up about fifteen minutes ago, he was gone. I went up to the big house, figuring he would have gone there for First Meal, but no one’s seen him. I checked our bedroom and I just went through the gym and the weight room down here. He’s not anywhere.”
Murhder leaned back into the break room. “Sarah, when was the last time you saw John?”
She looked up from the phone in her hand. “It was about an hour ago, maybe longer. He said he was going to the big house, as he called it, to get a change of clothes?”
“Shit,” Xhex muttered.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked as she walked over.
“I think he’s gone.”
Sarah was worried as she handed the phone back to John’s mate, as they called their spouses. The woman—female, rather—took it and seemed to be checking for texts. Then she typed out a message and the swooshing sound of something being sent rose up from the device.
“What condition was he in?” Xhex asked.
“He was as he’d been.” Sarah shrugged. “I mean, the infection hasn’t improved, but he didn’t seem to be in any distress—certainly not medically speaking, at any rate. He did seem—well, it’s not like I know him, but he was distracted and with good reason.”
Xhex stared at her phone as if she were waiting for a text back. When one didn’t come, she put the phone away. “He’s off rotation. They won’t let him fight.”
“So the Brothers won’t be looking for him,” Murhder added.
“No, they won’t.” Xhex turned to walk away. “No one will be looking for him.”
As the female strode off, she moved with purpose, her boots pounding across the concrete floor. It was obvious what she was planning on doing. She was going to search for him herself.
Murhder stared after her, his arms down at his sides, his fists tightened, his jaw hard.
“Go,” Sarah told him softly. “I’ll be fine here.”
“It’s okay—”
“You want to go, and she needs the help. Plus I feel totally safe. Jane is supposed to be coming down again after she eats, and we’re going back to work.”
He looked over at her. Pulled a hand through his long hair. Shifted his weight back and forth.
“Go on.” She patted his chest. “I’m not leaving—hell, I don’t even know where I am, and no one’s looking for me, either. Xhex really needs a friend right now—and I don’t blame her for being concerned.”
Murhder started to shake his head. Then he cursed, dropped a hard kiss on her mouth, and said something really fast.
Before Sarah could decode the syllables, he ran down after the female. Xhex had made it quite a distance, so that when she paused as he came up to her, there was no hearing what they said.
As the two stood together, it was clear they had known each other for a long time: There was trust between the pair of them, even as they started to argue, arms being crossed, brows going down, faster words getting traded.
And then Xhex rolled her eyes and shrugged in a classic suit-yourself kind of way.
After which the two disappeared through a glass door.
Sarah went back into the break room and helped herself to a Snickers bar, a bag of Snyder’s of Hanover pretzels, and a Coke. She ate the calories systematically, and thought about all the times she and Gerry had wolfed down bad choices between classes and seminars and stints in university labs …
Back during their schooling years, he had been so young and full of ideals and ideas. So had she.
Now, she was alone in a subterranean, vampire-run clinical environment.
Having had the sex of her life with another species.
Over on that sofa. Like, right. Over. There.
As she glanced at the couch they’d made love on, it was impossible not to note that one arm and part of the back made things look as if it had been