Her voice dropped to a whisper and what she'd really wanted to ask came barreling out. "Why did you stay? In the OR, back then." She dropped her eyes from his, focusing on the red blotches that marked the tissue she'd just used. "You stayed and you... you just seemed to get it."
In the silence that followed, she realized she knew the context of his life so very well: who he lived with, what he did in the field, how he fought, where he spent his time. But she knew none of his specifics. His background was a black hole.
And for some unknown reason, she needed illumination on it.
Fuck that, she knew exactly why: In that incandescent horror she'd faced in the OR, the only thing that had tethered her to the earth had been him and it was strange, but she felt welded to him on some core level now. He had seen her at her absolute worst, at her weakest and most insane, and he hadn't looked away. He hadn't left and he hadn't judged and he hadn't been burned.
It was as if in the heat of her meltdown they had been melded together.
This was more than emotion. It was a matter of soul.
"What the hell happened to you, John. In your past."
His brows drew tight and his arms crossed over his chest as if now he was the one trying to figure out how to express himself. What was more, his emotional grid suddenly lit up with all kinds of dark things and she got the impression he was thinking of bolting.
"Look, I don't want to pressure you." Shit. Fuck. "And if you want to deny that you've had anything but complete hunky-dory in your life, I will totally accept it and move on. But I just... Most people would have at least flinched. Hell, even Doc Jane came in with a tread-carefully on her puss after I lost it. You, though? You just hung in there." She stared into his hard, closed face. "I looked into your eyes, John, and there was more than hypothetical understanding in them."
After a long pause, he flipped to a new page on the pad and wrote quickly. When he flashed what he'd written, she could see his point, but she wanted to curse:
Tell me what they did in the OR. Tell me what was wrong with you first.
Ah, yes, classic tit for tat.
It only took Lash about an hour to get himself, the whore, and the Mercedes from the farmhouse back to the ranch in town. He was in raw survival mode, moving fast and decisively, making only one stop on the way.
And that was at a cabin out in the woods where he picked up some mission-critical shit.
When he pulled into the ranch's garage, he waited until the door was shut before getting out and dragging the prostitute from the backseat. As he carried her squirming body in through the kitchen, he threw up a good dose of what he'd imprisoned Xhex with.
The magical barrier was not for Plastic Fantastic, however.
The Omega knew where his lessers were on this side. Could sense them as echoes of his own existence. And along those lines, slayers could tweak to their fellow members.
So the only chance Lash had at keeping hidden was to in effect imprison himself. Mr. D hadn't known that Xhex was up in that bedroom-- his say-what? confusion had been obvious every time he'd been told to leave food there.
Of course, the big question was whether the masking would keep the Omega at bay. And for how long.
Lash threw the whore into the bathroom with all the care and concern he'd show toward a cheap duffel bag full of dirty laundry. As she landed hard in the tub and moaned against the duct tape over her mouth, he went back out to the car.
Unpacking took about twenty minutes and he put the shit in the basement on the concrete floor: seven sawed-off shotguns. A Hannaford plastic shopping bag full of cash. Three pounds of C4 plastic explosives. Two remote detonators. A hand grenade. Four auto loaders. Ammo. Ammo. Ammo.
As he came up the stairs and shut off the cellar light, he went to the back door, opened it, and put his hand out. The cool air of the night infiltrated the shield just fine, but his palm sensed the restriction. It was strong... but needed to be stronger.
Hellllllllllllo, 'hood rat.
Lash shut the door, dead-bolted it, and stalked to the bathroom.
He was all business as he took out his knife, sliced the bindings that held her wrists behind her back and--
She flailed around until he punched her in the head, knocking her out cold. Slice. Slice. Slice. He made three deep cuts in her wrists and in her neck and then sat back to watch the blood drain out of her in a sluggish ooze.
"Come on... bleed, bitch, bleed."
As he checked his watch, he thought maybe he should have kept her compos mentis, because that would have ensured a higher pulse rate and blood pressure. And shortened this do-nothing wait while she drained out.
Watching the process, he had no idea how dry she had to be, but the red pool beneath her was rising, her pink basque staining dark.
His foot was going a mile a minute as time droned on... and then he noticed that her skin was not just pale but gray and the blood wasn't really getting any higher on the walls of the tub. Calling it done, he cut open her basque, exposing a truly awful set of implants, and stabbed open her chest, the blade of his knife going right through her sternum.
The next cut he made was in his own flesh.
Holding his wrist over the gaping hole he'd made, he watched black drops free-fall into her motionless heart. Again, he wasn't sure how much he should be giving her, and tried to err on the side of overdoing it. Then it was a case of summoning energy into his palm, his will forcing air molecules to start spinning in a tornadic circle until they became a unit of kinetic power that he could control.
Lash looked down at the whore, her body all defiled, her makeup smudged on her cheeks, her ratty hair more fright wig than anything you'd expect to see on the street.
He needed this to work. Already, with nothing more than the barrier spell in place and this little fireball in his hand, he could feel his strength ebbing.
This had to f**king work.
He cast the blast into her chest cavity and her dead limbs flopped like fish tails against the sides of the tub. As the flash of light lit off and then dispersed, he waited... praying to--
The gasp she let out was god-awful. And also a godsend.
He was fascinated as her heart began to pump and his black blood was absorbed into the raw meat of her rib cage, the reanimation causing his c**k to twitch in excitement. This was power, he thought. Fuck the shit money could buy.
He really was a god, just like his father.
Lash sat on his heels and watched the color return to her skin. As life came back to her, her hands curled against the edge of the tub and the withered muscles of her thighs twitched.
The next step was something he didn't fully understand but wasn't going to question. When she looked as if she was firmly back on the side of the living, he reached in with his bare hand and ripped that heart of hers right out of her chest.
More gasping. More choking. Blah, blah, blah.
He was fascinated with what he'd accomplished, especially as he put his palm over her sternum and commanded her flesh to reknit itself: What do you know, her very skin and bone followed his will and she was once more as she had been.
Except better. Because she was useful to him now.
He reached to the side and cranked on the shower, the spray hitting her body and face, her eyes blinking against the cold rain, her hands batting at it pitifully.
How long did he wait now? he wondered. How long until he could see if he was one step closer to what was really going to sustain him?
As a wave of exhaustion crept up his spine and fogged out his brain, he slumped against the cupboards that ran under the sink. Kicking the door shut, he balanced his forearms on his knees and played witness to the whore flailing around.
So weak.
So f**king weak.
It should have been his Xhex. He should have done this to her and not some random, skank-ass human.
Putting his hands to his face, he hung his head as his elation washed out of him. This was not how it was supposed to be. This was not what he'd planned.
On the run. Hunted. Scrambling in the world.
What the hell was he going to do without his father.
Chapter Twenty-eight
While John waited for Xhex to respond to his question, he focused on the words he'd written, tracing them with his pen, darkening them as he passed over them again.
He probably shouldn't be making demands given the shape she was in, but he needed something back from her. If he was going to expose his blanket chest of not-so-hot, he couldn't be the only one getting that kind of naked.
He also really wanted to know what was doing with her, and she was the only one who was going to tell him.
As the silence droned on, all he could think of was... shit, she was shutting the door on him. Again. On one level it so wasn't a surprise and therefore shouldn't have mattered. God knew he'd been on the receiving end of her rejections plenty of times.