The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,94

The enormous ambulance was shiny as a penny, boxy as a LEGO, bigger than Qhuinn’s Hummer. Bigger, actually, than the human ones he’d seen out and about in Caldwell.

It was a goddamn RV.

“That is some serious shit,” he said.

“Yup. One of the things Manny and I have been worried about—”

The back doors of the vehicle burst open, and Doc Jane’s human partner hopped out. “Thought I heard voices.” The man grew grave as soon as he saw Trez. “Hey, man, how you holding up?”

The two shook and Trez nodded at the vehicle. “So this happened, huh.”

“Come see inside.”

Trez shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked around to the back. Through the open double doors, he saw … a large center aisle with two gurneys, one after the other, surrounded by all kinds of medical equipment stored in glass-fronted, locked cabinets that lined the side walls like bookshelves on steroids.

“It’s like a miniature operating room,” Trez murmured.

Manny nodded and jumped back in. “That’s the plan. We want to be able to treat serious, potentially mortal field injuries quickly. Sometimes, getting patients back here or to Havers’s is too risky.”

The doctor started opening up those cupboards and cabinets, showing an array of sterile dressings, sterile operating tools, even a microscope on an extending arm that could pivot around to either of the beds.

He patted the thing like it was a pet. “This baby is also a portable X-ray machine, and we have ultrasound technology. Oh, and as a bonus, the RV is bulletproof.”

“That was my husband’s contribution,” Doc Jane added in.

“And V also did the computer systems in here.”

“As he would say, true that.” Doc Jane glanced at her partner. “So listen, Trez is taking Selena out for a date tonight.”

“That’s a great idea. Where you two headed?”

Trez made a circular motion with his forefinger. “The thing in the sky. That goes around and around.”

“Oh, yeah, I know the one,” the guy said. “At the hospital we called it Engagement Central, ’cuz that’s where the doctors took their girlfriends when they were ready to put a ring on it. Very romantic.”

“Yeah.”

Trez stared at the expanse of the mobile OR, trying to decide whether it made him feel relieved or depressed as shit. The good news, he supposed, was that with the flashing lights over the cab of the vehicle and Manny’s legendary lead foot, they could make it to downtown in about ten minutes. Especially with there being little traffic.

But what if that wasn’t enough time? What if Selena needed—

“Trez?” the male doctor said.

He shook himself out of his ambiant panic. “Yeah?”

“How ’bout I go with you—no, not as your chauffeur,” he cut in as Trez recoiled. “I’ll park in the rear of the building and just hang out in case you need us. This thing has counterfeit badges on the doors and the hood and the back, and I’ve got all kinds of forged papers. No one will bother me, and I’ll bring a Brother with me in case I need to scrub any humans.”

Trez blinked. “God, I can’t ask you to do that—”

“You didn’t. I volunteered.”

Trez stared into the state-of-the-art ambulance. He couldn’t believe the guy was prepared to—

“Trez?” Manny said. “Hey, Trez, look at me.”

Trez swung his eyes back to the human. Manny was well built for a non-vampire, with an athlete’s body that he continued to keep up after mating V’s sister, Payne. But the strongest thing about him? His confidence. Trained in the human world, the former Chair of the Department of Surgery at St. Francis Hospital downtown radiated the kind of my-way-or-the-highway attitude that meant he fit right in with the Brothers.

“I got you,” the guy said gravely. “I got you and her.”

Manny extended his palm, and for a moment, all Trez could do was blink. But then he clasped that which had been offered him.

Trez’s voice cracked. “I don’t how I can repay you.”

“You just go and enjoy your woman. That’s all I care about.”

As Doc Jane put her hand on his shoulder, Trez was humbled by the support. And hopeful, too, that maybe Rehvenge would come up with something from the symphath side of things.

After thanking both of them again, he went back into the training center, Doc Jane staying behind with her partner as if she knew he needed a minute to get his shit together.

God, his head was spinning.

And it was funny, he had no impulse to drink away the angst. At all. He didn’t feel the need