Not that it mattered to Luchas. Still, old family habits died hard, even when they weren’t necessary anymore.
Knocking with his knuckles, he then pushed his way in. “Luchas, my man, how are—”
Qhuinn paused. No one was in the patient room. But at least the wheelchair was parked in the corner. So the male was using his cane as he’d been told to.
“Good,” Qhuinn murmured. Then louder, “Luchas, you in the loo?”
The door over there was closed, but there was no shower running. No sink, either. Content to wait, Qhuinn sat down in his brother’s reading chair and chilled, taking out his phone. After checking his email, he looked to the bathroom.
“Luchas? You okay in there?”
Getting to his feet, he put his phone away and walked to the door. Leaning into the panel, he listened. “Luchas?”
When he knocked and there was no answer, his throat closed up. “I’m coming in, Luchas—”
As he pushed his way inside, the motion-activated lights came on. No one was there, either: The bathtub was dry. The towels were folded precisely on the rods. The toothbrush, toothpaste, and shaving accoutrements were all orderly around the sink. A surge of paranoia made him open the shower stall’s frosted door. Just in case. But there was no blood from a cracked-open head. No body, either.
Just as he started to worry, he exhaled in relief and felt like a fucking fool.
Heading back out into the corridor, he pushed his hands into his track bottoms and whistled a tune as he backtracked his route. Rhage was still doing chin-ups as he went by the weight room, and he said hi to Manny as the surgeon came in through the office.
The pool was Luchas’s favorite place to go. Made sense. Given the extent of his physical issues, the buoyancy must feel nice, and the way he could move in water was no doubt so much easier than anything for him on land. The amputation of part of his leg had been necessary to save his life, but the prosthesis had been a tough adjustment. He was doing better, though.
Thank fuck.
Stepping into the swimming area’s ante hall, Qhuinn sneezed at all the chlorine and stretched his arms over his head. Maybe he’d get in, too—
As he emerged from the second set of doors, he looked at all the still water, the empty benches, the absolute silence in the floor-to-ceiling tiled space.
Hurrying over to the bathrooms, he ripped open the door to the males’ side. “Luchas?”
There were two stalls, and he shoved both their metal panels open. Nothing.
Back out at the pool, he went over to the edge of the water, heart in his throat. But there was nothing at the bottom, no twisted body that had sunk after drowning.
There was a logical explanation for where his brother was. There had to be—
“Shit, you dummy,” he muttered to himself as he went back out into the corridor.
Luchas was welcome anywhere in the mansion’s complex, free to come and go as he pleased, and Qhuinn kept hoping that part of that “coming” would include showing up for First or Last Meal in the dining room up at the big house. He’d offered to come get the male, to save him a seat, even to provide menus in advance if it would help entice him. So far, it was a no-go, but Qhuinn was going to keep making the invitation.
Hard sell, though. Luchas was a loner by nature now, very different from who he’d been before. Still, from a physical standpoint at least, he was getting better every night, and he had every medical advantage from not only the species, but the human side, too. Havers was even available for consults.
So it was going to be fine. Eventually.
As Qhuinn headed for the classroom section of things, he had to laugh. Reading, writing, and ’rithmetic were not what had been taught here. Try bombs and detonators, poisons and gases, fighting, shooting, defensive driving techniques. He and Blay and John Matthew had been in the first class of trainees, and then a second group had gone through. There would be a third, sometime in the near future.
Once they figured out exactly what they were fighting now.
The trainees’ break room was just what its name described, a place for the students, or the brothers and clinic patients, to chill out in, watch a little tube, have a bite to eat. It was also where Luchas ate all his meals.
Given the time, Qhuinn should have checked there first, but whatever. Pushing his way in, he was totally relieved that—
No one. Not at the tables. Not by the soda machines or the buffet or the fridges. Not in the armchairs by the TV.
Qhuinn told himself not to panic.
But he couldn’t stop his heart from going on a sprint inside his rib cage.