Payne glanced over as far as she could toward the doorway. Vishous had returned and was baring his fangs like he was of half a mind to attack. Fortunately, by his side, a male stood tight upon him, rather like a leash with stout legs: If her twin were to lunge for it, that male with the dark hair was obviously poised to encompass Vishous bodily and drag him from the room.
This was good.
Payne refocused on her healer. "I understand."
The human's eyes narrowed. "Then tell me what I said."
"Whatever for?"
"This is your body. I want to make sure you know what I'm going to do to it, and I'm concerned about a language barrier."
"She knows what the f**k you're say - "
Her healer glared over his shoulder. "Are you still here?"
The dark-haired male beside her twin locked an arm around Vishous's chest and muttered something on a hiss. Then he addressed her healer, speaking with a slightly different accent. "You need to chill, my man. Or I'm going to let him turn you into beef jerky for taking that tone. Capisce?"
She had to approve of the way her healer met the aggression head-on: "You want me to operate, it's on my terms and in my way. So he's out in the hall or you're getting yourself another scalpel. What's it gonna be."
There was a lot of consternated arguing at that point, with Jane rushing over from where she had been at a window that played pictures upon its pane. She spoke softly at first until finally her voice was as loud as the rest of theirs were.
Payne cleared her throat. "Vishous. Vishous. Vishous!"
Getting nowhere, she put her two lips together and whistled loud enough to shatter glass.
As a flame would be snuffed out, so too were the lot of them, although the angry energy lingered about in the air like smoke from atop a wick.
"He shall treat me now," she said weakly, the tension in the room a form of fever that took o'er her body, making her even more lethargic. "He shall ... treat me. It is my wish." Her eyes went to her healer. "You shall endeavor to rebreak my fused spinal vertebrae, as you call them, and it is your hope that my spinal cord is not severed but merely injured. You state further that you cannot predict the outcome, but that when you are 'in there,' you may be able to assess the damage more clearly. Yes?"
Her healer looked at her in a powerful way. Deeply. Gravely. With an edge that she was confused about ... and yet not threatened by. Fates, hardly that - in fact, something in his eyes made her ... uncurl on the inside.
"Have I recalled it all correctly?" she prompted him.
Her healer cleared his throat. "Yes. You have."
"Then operate ... as you call it."
Over by the doorway, she heard the dark-haired man say something to her twin, and then Vishous lifted his arm and pointed his gloved finger at the human. "You will not live through this if she does not."
Cursing, Payne closed her eyes and wished anew that what she had sought for so long had not been gained. Better to have gone unto the Fade than cause the death of some innocent human - "
Deal."
Payne's lids popped open. Her healer stood unbowed before her twin's size and strength, accepting the burden laid upon his head.
"But you leave," the human said. "You need to get the f**k out of here and stay out. I'm not going to be distracted by your shit."
Her twin's massive body twitched in the shoulders and the chest, but then he inclined his head once. "Deal."
And then she was alone with her healer, except for Jane and the other nurse.
"One last test." Her healer leaned to the side and got a thin stick off one of the counters. "I'm going to run this pen up your foot. I want you to tell me if you feel anything."
When she nodded, he moved out of her range of sight and she closed her eyes to concentrate, straining for some kind of sensation to register. Anything.
Surely if there was a response, however dim, that was a good sign -
"I feel something," she said with a surge of energy. "On my left side."
There was a pause. "How about now."
She begged her legs for a similar reception and had to breathe deeply before she could answer. "No. Nothing."
The sound of the soft sheets being repositioned was the only confirmation she got that she was covered once again. But at least she had felt something.
Except instead of addressing her, her healer and her twin's mate conversed quietly, just out of earshot.
"Verily," Payne said, "mayhap you will include me in the discussion." The pair of them came over and it was curious that neither looked pleased. "It is good that I felt aught, no?"
Her healer came closer to her head, and she felt the warm strength of his palm take her own. As he stared at her, she was yet anew captivated: His lashes were very long. And across his strong jaw and his cheeks, a shadow of beard was showing. His thick, dark hair was shiny.
And she really liked the way he smelled.
But he hadn't replied to her, had he? "Is it not, healer?"
"I wasn't touching you on your left foot at that time."
Payne blinked through an unexpected upset. And yet, after all this time being immobile, she should be prepared for information like that, shouldn't she.
"So are you going to begin the now?" she asked.
"Not yet." Her healer glanced over at Jane, and then looked back. "We're going to have to move you for the operation."
"This hallway ain't far enough away, buddy."
As Butch's reasonable voice registered, V wanted to bite the guy's head off. And the urge got even stronger as the bastard continued. "How 'bout heading over to the Pit?"
Logical advice, true. And yet ... "You're starting to piss me off, cop."
"Like that's a news flash? And P.S., I don't care."
The door to the exam room opened and his Jane slipped out. As she looked at him, her forest green eyes were not happy.
"Now what," he barked, unsure whether he could handle any more bad news.
"He wants to move her."
After a moment of blinking like a cow, V shook his head, convinced he'd gotten his languages confused. "Excuse me?"
"To St. Francis."
"No. Fucking. Way - "
"Vishous - "
"That's a human hospital!"
"V - "
"Have you lost your mind - "
At that moment, the godforsaken human surgeon came out, and to his credit, or his insanity, he got right up into V's grille. "I can't work on her here. You want me to try it and paralyze her for good myself ? Use your goddamned head - I need an MRI, microscopes, equipment, and staff you don't have here. We're out of time, and she can't be transported far - besides, if you're the U.S. government, you can bury her records and make sure this doesn't get picked up by the press, so the exposure will be minimal with my help."
U.S. government? What the - Yeah, whatever with that. "She's not going to a human hospital. Period."
The guy frowned over the "human" thing, but then seemed to shake it off. "Then I'm not operating - "
V launched himself at the man.
It was a total blink-of-the-eye kind of thing. One minute, he was planted in his shitkickers; the next he was all fly-be-free - at least until he slammed into the good doctor and velvet-Elvised the bastard onto the corridor's concrete wall.
"Get in there and start cutting," V growled.
The human could barely draw a breath, but hypoxia didn't stop him from manning up. He met V right in the eyeball. Unable to speak, he mouthed, Won't. Do. It.
"Let him go, V. And let him take her where he needs to go."
As Wrath's voice cut through the drama, the urge to go pyrotechnic became nearly irresistible. Like they needed another kibitzer? And f**k-that on the command.
V squeezed the surgeon's collar trash-bag tight. "You are not taking her anywhere - "
The hand on V's shoulder was heavy, and Wrath's voice had an edge like a dagger. "And you're not in charge here. She's my responsibility, not yours."
Wrong thing to say. On so many levels.
"She is my blood," he snarled.
"And I'm the one who put her on that bed. Oh, and I'm also your cocksucking king, so you will do as I command, Vishous."
Just as he was about to say and do something he would later regret, Jane's sanity reached him. "V, at this moment, you are the problem. Not your twin's condition, or Manny's decision. You need to step back, get some clarity, and think, not react. I will be with her the whole time, and Butch will come with me, won't you."