I wasn’t worried now he’d found a friendly face among the new ones. Plus, I’d made eye contact with the shouting leader. He knew I’d remember him if anything happened to Max.
“Come on, Zoe,” Adam said. “We gotta get you cleaned up and to a meeting.”
“I have a meeting?” I looked at my torn scrubs, covered in rust, blood, and ash.
“We’re going to downtown Chicago before we go back to Boston.” Adam’s face was carefully unemotional. “I’m going to take you to meet my mother.”
Chapter Ten
We ended up in a bland office building in Chicago, in a suite of borrowed rooms. There was only time for a quick shower and change into a borrowed uniform, which was way too big for me. Still, it was a chance to catch up with Adam, even if for just a few minutes.
“Two minutes,” I said as I finished a sandwich, then tied the laces of my loaner boots. “You first.”
“After you . . . left Boston, it took us a while to realize that you weren’t coming back immediately, so we were really concerned about what had happened. Eventually, we figured out we’d better start the mopping up. It was looking grim until that . . .”
“Dragon,” I prompted.
Adam still didn’t seem to believe what he’d seen. “Yeah, dragon showed up. We had a lot more cooperation with our prisoners and many more surrenders because of . . . him?”
“Him, yes, Quarrel.”
“Since then, I’ve been helping look for the missing Fangborn and Normals.” Adam hugged me suddenly. “I was so glad when I got your text from Japan. That you were all right.”
His lips brushed mine and we used the last thirty seconds of his two minutes in a kiss that was warm and passionate. I was almost willing to bet that Adam’s kiss might be the antidote to the Order’s new brand of mace.
His watch alarm went off. “Time to go.” He paused. “Just so you know. I told my mother that you’re . . . important to me. That should help a little.”
“Help, why?”
“Because she’s still pissed about the trouble you got me into in Venice.”
Adam had once worked for Senator Knight. He hadn’t known the senator was a vampire, and that the senator had been using Adam to stop me from finding and opening Pandora’s Box.
“Well, you should tell her that’s all on Knight and that you were picking on a girl.”
As we hustled to a conference room, I was happy from the kiss and even happier to be feeling, well, clean. I was prepared to see Adam’s mother—Representative Nichols. I was not prepared to see my occasional enemy, the vampire Senator Knight, or Heck Murphey, who’d been organizing the Family in Boston.
Interesting. I knew the senator and congresswoman had once been friends. They were as far apart in the room as they could be. Apparently, the brutal use of his office for personal gain, even if he believed it was for the eventual good of the Fangborn, hadn’t sat well with her.
“Welcome home, Zoe.” The congresswoman was tall like Adam, and her hair was cut in a bob that was blond going to gray. She looked as though she’d just stepped out of a bandbox in her bright red suit. “I’m Elizabeth Nichols. Are you hurt? I’ve been learning since Boston that there are some things that will harm the Fangborn?”
She shook my hand firmly, but I saw trepidation in her eyes. Fair enough; she’d only just learned there were such things as vampires and werewolves in the world and I’d manifested a sudden and scary power. I felt the same way, only she’d actively achieved and cultivated her power, which made her scarier to me. She had the government on her side, and I wasn’t a fan of how my Family had been treated at their hands.
It didn’t help that I was nearly a foot shorter than her and that I was wearing fatigues that were too big for me.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Thank you. I’m getting over the effects of a particularly nasty new injection they gave me. Might want to have a vampire check my blood, find out what that is, see if we can counteract it.”
“Excellent. Now, if you’re up to a few questions?” She settled into a seat after indicating I should sit.
“Yes.”
“Tell me everything, starting with how you left Boston.”
I did, and then she surprised me by recapping them right back to me, to make sure she had it down pat. “So your