of Night and make a call to Venice," she said firmly. Then her gaze went to his arm and the wing held limp in stained bandages behind it. "You're hurting pretty bad, huh?"
He gave a short nod.
"Okay, well, are ya done eatin'?"
He nodded again.
She swallowed hard, remembering the shared pain of bandaging that broken wing before. "I need to go find the medical supplies. Sadly, they'll probably be in that security office I sent the dorky guard to,
which means I'm gonna have to zap his little pea brain again."
"You could sense his brain was small?"
"Did ya see how high-waisted his pants were? No one under the age of eighty with a big brain wears grandpa pants pulled all the way to their underarms. Pea brain, I'm just sayin'."
Then, surprising both of them, Rephaim laughed.
I like the sound of his laughter. And before her own brain could clue her mouth in to being quiet, she smiled, and said, "You should laugh more. It's nice."
Rephaim didn't say anything, but Stevie Rae couldn't decipher the odd look he gave her. Feeling kinda uncomfortable, she hopped down from her kitchen stool, and said, "Well, I'm gonna go get the first-aid stuff, fix up your wing as best I can, get food and things together for you, and then go back and start making some super long-distance calls. Hang here. I'll be right back."
"I'd prefer to come with you," he said, standing carefully while he held his arm against his side.
"It'd probably be easier on you if you just stayed here," she said.
"Yes, but I'd prefer to be with you," he said quietly.
Stevie Rae felt a weird little jolt deep inside her at his words, but she shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, and said, " 'Kay, suit yourself. But don't whine if it hurts you to walk around."
"I do not whine!" The look he gave her was so filled with guy pride that it was her turn to laugh as they left the kitchen, side by side.
Stevie Rae
Driving home, Stevie Rae should have been thinking about Zoey and devising her next plan of attack.
But that was easy. She'd call Aphrodite. No matter what tragedies were going on in the world, Aphrodite would have her pointy little nose in the middle of everything, especially since it had to do with Zoey.
So Stevie Rae's next step in her Save Z Plan was already figured out, leaving her mind wide open to think about Rephaim.
Resetting that dang wing had been awful. She still felt the phantom ache of it all through her right shoulder and her back. Even after she'd found the jar of numbing lidocaine and spread that all down his wing and his messed-up arm, she could still feel the deep, sick pain of its brokenness. Rephaim hadn't said one word during the entire ordeal. He'd turned his head away from her, and right before she touched his wing, he'd said, "Would you do that talking thing you do while you bandage it?"
"Just exactly what talkin' thing do you mean?" she'd asked.
He'd glanced over his shoulder, and she could have sworn there was a smile in his eyes. "You talk. A lot. So go ahead and do it. It'll give me something more annoying to think about than the pain."
She'd harrumphed at him, but he'd made her smile. And she did talk to him the entire time she'd cleaned, bandaged, and reset his badly broken wing. Actually, she'd babbled in big bursts of verbal diarrhea, saying nothing and everything as she rode the tide of pain with him. When she was finally done, he'd followed her, slowly, silently, back to the abandoned mansion, and she'd tried to make the closet more comfortable by stuffing in blankets she'd grabbed from the museum's staff lounge.
"You need to go. Don't worry about this." He'd taken the last blanket from her and then practically collapsed into the closet.
"Look, I put the sack of food right here. It's stuff that won't go bad. And remember to drink lots of the water and juice. Hydrating's good," she'd said, feeling suddenly worried about leaving him looking so weak and tired.
"I will. Go."
"Fine. Yeah. I'm going. I'll try to get back here tomorrow, though."
He'd nodded wearily.
"All right. 'Kay. I'm outta here."
She'd turned to go when he said, "You should talk to your mother."
She'd stopped like she'd run into a John Deere. "Why in the world would you say somethin' 'bout my mama?"
He'd blinked at her a couple times like she'd confused him, paused, and finally