a taste last night. Didn’t seem to like it too much, apparently. Scared the hell out of him, as a matter of fact.
Wesley really wanted to hit John.
Instead, he’d wearily agreed to be on his guard, and instead of listening from his room (“I swear, I could hear a mouse creeping down the hall even with Rush Hour 2 at full blast on the telly! Promise!”), he was stationed in the foyer by the front door at the desk with the mail baskets. He’d taken a couple paperbacks and his laptop to keep busy, but he wasn’t having a good time, and couldn’t concentrate on anything for very long, what with the regular donors going in and out to get to work or go shopping or visit family, the maintenance and human security staff wandering through, contractors going in and out to fix the window upstairs, and some of Royce’s lawyers and financial advisors stopping by.
He wanted to go back to bed. Instead, he sat there with his cup of coffee, watching the passersby, and tried to focus on the paperback in his hand.
* * *
Ashi needed to escape.
To do this he figured he’d need water, clothes, Christoph, and a map of the area. Water was easy to obtain. Analie could get him clothes and a map. Convincing Christoph without the aid of beer would be difficult, but Ashi was confident he would come.
Christoph’s knee was no handicap to the plan. In fact, Ashi was relying on it. Christoph needed to break down, attracting any pursuers so that Ashi had a better chance of escaping.
Convincing Analie to get him clothes, good shoes, and a map, would most likely be harder. She didn’t see him as dominant anymore, even acted as if she was dominant. That really got to him. She was supposed to be cowering before him, not slamming him against walls.
The escape would have to happen during the day. Ashi didn’t have Were strength, but he had been very athletic before he was turned. He had to treat this like a sprint and then a marathon. If he got far enough away, then found a secure location to stay for the night, he could make it.
Ashi slowly crawled out of the closet and stood, cracking his back. Sleeping while smashed into a tiny ball was not workable. Still, it was more appealing than sleeping on the bed. Maybe under it?
His stomach growled. Ashi tiptoed to the bedroom door, opening it a crack. No one in the living room. He scurried to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Box of Chinese, chopsticks poking out, no mold. He grabbed it and sprinted back to his room. He devoured the box in the bathroom, unwilling to stay in a wide open space.
* * *
Analie coughed. “Isabelle?”
“Yes?”
“Geometry is lame. Just thought you should know.”
“Thank you for your opinion. Work.”
Analie jotted down a few answers before looking up at her tutor and coughing again. “If I finish ten problem sets, can I get literature for homework again?”
“Nice try. You’re behind on math. You know that and you know why.” Isabelle raised an eyebrow.
Analie ducked her head, scribbling away on her scrap paper. “Too much reading.”
“I am thrilled that you’re devouring every modern and classical writer in the world, but you’ve set everything else aside. Not good.”
“I would like to see one mathematician humanize a quadratic equation,” Analie grumbled.
“And I would like to see you get through page 40,” Isabelle returned, giving Analie a look that the young Goliath interpreted as high-rank-about-to-go-all-high-rank-on-your-sorry-behind.
She quickly nodded. “Page 40 sounds awesome.”
As their banter came to a close, Mouse wandered into the living room. She didn’t seem to notice or care that Isabelle, a werewolf tutor for Analie on loan from the Moonwalker pack, leaned away when Mouse paused to look over the papers on the table. After a long, drawn out pause, Mouse blinked wearily and continued on to the kitchen, where she got herself a cup of water.
Isabelle watched in wary fascination as the elder vampire drank the entire glass in one go, refilled it, and started shambling back toward her room. She didn’t usually make appearances during the day, but she’d come out three times already, each time going for glasses of water. She looked tired and worn, but otherwise not terribly out of sorts considering she was up while the sun was still shining. Analie had been interested at first, not realizing vampires could be up and about during the day either, but was currently