“This is all kinds of hilarious, if you ignore the mortal danger and almost dying.”
“Yeah, absolute laugh riot without that stuff.” With both my boots now on, he got up from the chair and collected our jackets. I took the opportunity to stare at his arms as he moved, now that he wouldn’t catch me looking. The bright splashes of color that traced their way up into his sleeves. I wanted to know what they all meant, wanted to learn the dark history of every single mark.
For the first time in my life I hoped someone else would share their pain with me. I yearned to know him, all the unpleasant, secret parts of him that made him who he was. This man had followed me to the brink of death and hadn’t flinched. That was the kind of person you kept around, rules be damned.
He caught me watching him and paused, draping our jackets over his arm and obscuring my view of his tattoos. “What?”
“I kind of like you, Cade Melpomene.”
The faintest hint of a smile tugged his lips up before he schooled his features back into their usual stern countenance. “Well good. If you stay alive long enough, maybe I’ll ask you to dinner.”
“You paying?”
“No. I’ve seen how much you eat.”
My stomach growled in response. “First let’s cheat death. Then I’ll take you for dinner.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hospitals were neutral territory.
Each one was technically a temple for Asclepius, so the work of other gods was forbidden on site. These rules were inflexible, and no one would dare to break them, which was the only reason I hadn’t freaked out at Cade for leaving Leo on his own.
There was one loophole in the system that Manea had certainly thought of and was biding her time for the right moment to use. Sometimes the work of other gods had to bring them into a hospital, and special allowances were made in those instances.
That was how Cade managed to make his way in to bring bad luck to families, or how Prescott was able to come in and take lives. Manea was allowed inside, she only needed to wait until someone’s natural expiration date had come.
It was only a matter of time, and then we’d be stuck in here, outside the protection of any other forces, and she could do what she wanted.
If death was going to come for me, I’d like to be outside where I could do something about it. I also didn’t want any innocent lives coming into the crossfire. No, if I had any say in the matter, when shit hit the fan, we’d deal with it away from the realm of human collateral damage.
Unless you counted me and Cade, which I doubted anyone did.
Just like Cade had said, we found Leo at the nurses’ station on the third floor, talking to a pretty redhead. He was toying with a thin bracelet on her wrist, and her attention was rapt on him, like she’d never seen a man before.
Truth was she’d never seen a man quite like him before, and I couldn’t blame her for her deer-in-headlights fixation. Leo was beautiful, arresting in a way no fully human man could be. Even under the unflattering fluorescent lights his skin looked smooth and flawless, and he radiated a kind of inhuman glow that drew people in like moths.
The bracelet was gone when she picked up a chart and told him she had to do her rounds. He waved goodbye with one hand, while the other let the slim silver chain drop down his sleeve.
I waited until the nurse was gone then cuffed him upside the head.
He grimaced. “Ow. Nice to see you too, psycho.”
Giving him a stern look that brooked no opposition, I said, “You’re going to leave that at the desk so she thinks it just fell off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Leo. These people saved my life.”
“I saved your life.”
Cade, who was standing next to me, one arm looped around my waist to keep me from falling over, cleared his throat. “You’re better off doing what she says.”
“This is ridiculous.” Leo pulled the chain out of his sleeve, along with a nice-looking watch. He left the bracelet on the desk as requested but pocketed the watch. I didn’t argue. One small victory was better than none.
Reflexively, I checked to see if my bracelet—the one from Badb—was still on. The doctors evidently didn’t have any reason to remove it, because it was encircling my wrist exactly where I’d left it. Cade touched the metal gently, and I realized then he might have played a part in it still being on.
It occurred to me I hadn’t yet asked how he’d found us at the hospital. “Did you tell him I was here?” I asked Leo.