Consciousness was a relative term, however. Although he was arguably awake, he was utterly unplugged - and not just because of the alcohol/blood count he was sporting. He was out of gas on the inside in the most curious way.
Falling back on the mattress, he supposed now that the Payne situation had resolved itself it was time to start pulling his life back together - or at least give it a shot tomorrow morning, when his hangover woke him up. His mind was fine, so there was no reason he couldn't go back to work and make it his business to put distance between this f**ked-up interlude and the rest of his normal life.
As he stared at the ceiling, he was relieved when his vision got fuzzy.
Until he realized he was tearing up.
"Fucking pu**y."
Wiping his eyes, he was absolutely, positively not going there. Except he did - and he stayed. God, he missed her to the point of agony already.
"Fucking ... hell - "
Abruptly, his head shot up and his c**k swelled. Looking out through the sliding glass door onto his terrace, he searched the night with a desperation that made him feel like the mental crazies were back.
Payne ...
Payne ... ?
He struggled to get up off the bed, but his body refused to budge - like his brain was talking one language and his arms and legs couldn't translate. And then the hooch won, pulling a Ctrl-Alt-Del and shutting his program down.
No rebooting his ass, however.
After his lids crashed shut, it was lights-out, no matter how hard he fought the tide.
Outside on the terrace, Payne stood in the cold wind, her hair whipping around, her skin tingling from the chill.
She had disappeared from Manuel's sight. But she hadn't left him.
Even though he had proved capable of taking care of himself, she wasn't trusting his life to anyone or anything. Accordingly, she'd coated herself in mhis and stood on the lawn at the equine hospital, watching him speak with the police and the security guard. And then when he'd gotten in the car, she had followed, dematerializing from spot to spot, tracking him thanks to the small amount of blood he'd tasted of her.
His trip home had culminated in the depths of a city that was smaller than the one that she had seen from his car, but was still impressive, with its tall buildings and paved streets and beautiful, soaring bridges that spanned a broad river. Caldwell was indeed lovely at night.
Would that she had come for aught but an invisible good-bye.
When Manuel had pulled into some kind of underground facility for vehicles, she had let him go on his own. Her purpose had been served when he had safely reached this destination so she'd known she had to depart.
Alas, however, she had tarried down at street level, standing in her mhis, watching the cars go by and seeing pedestrians cross corner to corner. An hour had passed. And then some more time. And still she couldn't leave.
Giving in to her heart, she had gone up, up, up ... honing in on where Manuel was, taking form on this terrace outside his home ... and finding him in the midst of leaving the kitchen to walk through his living room. Clearly unsteady on his feet, he kept running into pieces of furniture - although likely not because the lights were off. 'Twas the drink in his hand, no doubt.
Or more accurately, all the drink he'd taken in addition to it.
In his bedroom, he didn't disrobe so much as dishevel himself out of his clothes, and then he was into the shower. When he emerged dripping wet, she wanted to cry. It seemed so very hard to comprehend that merely a day separated her and him from the time she had first witnessed him thus - although, indeed, she felt as if she could almost reach through time and touch those electric moments when they had been on the verge of ... not just a present, but a future.
No longer.
Over at the bed, he sat down ... then fell over onto the mattress.
When he went to wipe his eyes, her devastation was complete. And so was her need to go to him -
"Payne."
With a yelp, she spun about. Across the terrace, standing in the breeze ... was her twin. And the instant she laid eyes upon Vishous, she knew something had changed within him. Yes, his face was already healing up from the damage he'd inflicted upon it with the mirror - but that was not what had altered. The inside of him was different: Gone were the tension and the anger and the frightening coldness.
As the wind whipped her hair around, she quickly tried to compose herself, swiping clear the tears that had glossed over her eyes. "How did you know ... I was ..."
With his gloved hand, he pointed upward. "I have a place here. On the top of the building. Jane and I were just leaving when I sensed you were down here."
She should have known. Just as she could sense his mhis ... he could feel and find hers.
And how she wished he had just kept going. The last thing she needed was another round of a male figure of "authority" telling her what she had to do. Besides, the king had already laid down the law. It wasn't as if Wrath's decree needed buttressing from the likes of her brother.
She put her hand up to stop him before he said one word about Manuel. "I am not interested in your telling me what our king already has. And I was just leaving."
"Is he scrubbed."
She kicked up her chin. "No, he is not. He took me out and there was an ... incident - "
The snarl her brother released was louder than the wind. "What did he do to - "
"Not him. Fates, will you just ... stop hating him." As she rubbed her temples, she wondered if anyone's head had actually ever exploded - or whether everybody on earth just felt that way from time to time. "We were attacked by a human and in the process of disarming him - "
"The human?"
"Yes - in the process of that, I hurt the man and the police were called - "
"You disarmed a human?"
Payne glared at her twin. "When you remove a gun from someone, that is what it is called, is it not."
Vishous's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. It is."
"I could not scrub Manuel's memories because he would not have been able to field the questions put to him from the police. And I am here ... because I wanted to see him home safely."
In the silence that followed, she realized she had just backed herself into a corner. By having to protect Manuel, she had just proven her twin's point that the male she wanted could not take care of her. Oh, but what did it matter. Given that she was prepared to obey the king, there was no future for her and Manuel anyway.
When Vishous went to open his mouth, she moaned and put her hands to her ears. "If you have any compassion at all, you will leave me to mourn here alone. I cannot listen to all the reasons I must needs separate myself from him - I know them all. Please. Just go."
Closing her eyes, she turned away and prayed to their mother above that he would do as she asked -
The hand on her shoulder was weighty and warm. "Payne. Payne, look at me."
With no energy left to fight, she dropped her arms and met his grim eyes.
"Answer me one thing," her twin said.
"What."
"Do you love the bas - him.
Do you love him?"
Payne looked back through the glass at the human on the bed. "Yes. I am in love with him. And if you try to dissuade me by the fact that I have not lived yet enough to judge, I say unto you ... f**k off. I need not know the world to realize my heart's desire."
There was a long silence. "What did Wrath say?"
"The same thing you would. That I must erase myself from his memory and never, ever see him again."
When her brother did not say anything further, she shook her head. "Why are you still here, Vishous. Are you trying to think of what to say to get me to go home? Let me save you the effort - when dawn comes, I shall go - and I shall abide by the rules, but not because it is good for you or the king or myself. It is because it's safest for him - he does not need enemies such as yourself and the Brotherhood to torture him just because I feel as I do. So it will be done just as you wish. Except" - at this, she glared at him - "I will not scrub him. His mind is too valuable to waste - and it cannot withstand another episode. I shall keep him safe by ne'er coming here again, but I will not condemn him to a life of dementia. That is not going to happen - he has done nothing but help me. He deserves better than to be used and discarded."
Payne returned her eyes to the glass.
And after a long while of silence, she assumed that her twin had left. So she nearly screamed when he stepped in front of her and blocked the view of Manuel.