Page 76 of Almost Midnight

Nick remembered people carrying him across a dry field choked with weeds and littered with old cans and plastic bottles. He remembered their grubby faces, dark clothing, and worried eyes staring down at him. He remembered Wynter then, and the tears filling her beautiful eyes. The memory both alarmed him and confused him, until he slowly realized he could smell them all around him still.

He was still with them.

They were in this very room, or had been.

Most of them weren’t there now, he realized a few seconds later, but he could still smell their scents in the air.

He could smell their blood.

Gaos.

What had they done?

Why had they come here?

They would all get arrested now.

They were harboring a fugitive, a dangerous, non-human criminal.

“Everyone’s fine,” a soft voice said.

Nick jumped, startled. Fear and adrenaline must be running through him at higher levels than usual. It continued to vibrate his skin now, even as he struggled to speak, to answer that quiet voice.

“Where are we?” he tried to ask. “What happened?”

What came out didn’t sound like words. His throat and lips emitted garbled, throaty, thick, croaking sounds, like metal scraping over rusted metal.

A light hand pressed gently on his shoulder, and Nick realized he’d been trying to rise. The fingers were small, but warm, reassuring, and not the ones he’d expected to feel.

They weren’t the ones he’d wanted to feel particularly, either, but they were welcome.

He wanted to ask where she was.

Why wasn’t she here? Where the fuck was she?

She wouldn’t have left him.

Had something happened to her? Who had her?

Why would she have left him?

“Ms. James went to get you more blood,” the same voice explained quietly. “We couldn’t really spare much more, between us, and you don’t control yourself well when you’re this out of it. We needed to find synthetics with healing properties, and she had a lead on how.”

Nick blinked.

The words penetrated slowly, until he finally understood.

Immediately, shame slid through him, and a feeling of worry.

Gods. He’d hurt them. He’dattackedthem––

The small hand slid from his shoulder down to his bicep, and Nick realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. She rested her fingers gently on the arm that didn’t have the ragged cut down the middle of it. His hand was still cut, and part of his wrist, so he couldn’t help but wince, but her fingers weren’t anywhere near the injured parts of him.

It was just fear. Irrational, animalistic fear.

Nick felt the warmth in those fingers, the reassurance.

“No, it’s okay,” the same quiet voice said, even more gently. “You were hurt really bad, Nick. And we need you to get better. We all discussed it, and it just seemed better for some of us to go buy a few bags of the fortified artificial stuff, since you’ve already gotten a lot of seer and human blood in you. Mal went with her, so she’s okay. Mr. Morley went, too.”

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