A Girl in the Shadows

Chapter Seventeen

"Tali! Ta-li!" Kai said in her singsong voice, skipping into the room. "Look who I brought!"

I wasn't expecting to see the man following her. Perhaps it was because he looked different with his hair back, or the tattoos snaking their way up his arms, or how much skinnier he seemed. Maybe it was all of those things, coupled with the hooded trench coat that didn't fit his personality at all. The waterlogged Slayer in front of me was a mere shadow of the boy in the NYU sweatshirt riding a skateboard down the street all those years ago.

"Hey there," I said to him.

"Good to see you, Talls," he said.

I went to the edge of the bed and extended my arms. I waited for the nerves and the floods of memories, but they weren't present. Hugging Ace didn't feel the same. There was so much less of him. It felt good, though. It was nice for things to be different. I held him a little tighter, his soaked jacket now bleeding into my sweatshirt. Just being back with him was enough to send my body into shivers, but when I backed away, I realized it was not me who was shaking. It was Ace.

"You alright?" I asked him.

"Yeah, yeah...it's cold in here."

"Kai, snag some towels from the bathroom and turn down the thermostat, would you?" I asked.

Kai happily obliged, turning the knob down on the wall and skipping to the bathroom, then back to us with her hands full of mismatched towels. She twirled and jumped while she dried her puff of hair.

"Look at us! The Three Amigos!" she said, clapping her hands. "We finally got the band back together!"

"Settle down, Kai," I said in between laughs.

"I can't! I just can't. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to see you again? And now the three of us are all here and we can all go back together and—"

"She get's it, Kai!" Ace said, putting up one of his shaky hands. He reached towards me. I backed away. "Still jumpy, huh? She said she wanted me to check you."

"I'm fine."

"You didn't change your bandages today, did you?" Kai asked.

"You mean a task I'm perfectly capable of doing? No, I haven't done that yet."

"You look like shit, Talls," Ace said.

"Thanks for the complement," I said.

"Listen." He put his hands up. "If you don't want help from a doctor—"

"You're not a doctor, Ace. You were a med student in the nineties. Stop kidding yourself," I said. I watched as his demeanor changed, only for a second. Nice going, fool. Ruin your chances with the one person here who can actually save your sorry ass. "I'm sorry, I—"

"I had to do a ton of shit to get my promotion. That included a bunch of training, because if my guys get hurt on the street, I'm the one who treats them," he said. "I see bullet wounds at least once a month. Stab wounds almost every week."

I laid down and lifted the sweatshirt. "My apologies."

Ace washed up, Kai handed him the kit from her backpack, and there was nothing but silence. I was getting sleepy. Ace started peeling away at the bandages on my abdomen. You're so pathetic. I looked over at Kai. She smiled and reached for my hand. Hold your ground. I took her hand. Pain was coursing through my body. I could feel the blood seeping onto my stomach.

"Shit, that's in real deep," Ace said as he pressed down. I squeezed Kai's hand far too tight. Ace put tugged on my sweatshirt. "All done. Change that more than once a day next time. What else you got?"

"Sore and tired. That's all," I said.

"She lost a lot of blood. Like, a lot," Kai said.

"Here, sit up, Talls," Ace said. I listened. His fingers danced over all the objects in the kit before he opened an extra compartment in the top of it. It contained various syringes of blood. He picked one out and uncovered the needle. "Give me your arm."

"You've lost your damn mind. What the hell is that?" I asked.

"Blood and painkillers. You want it or not?" he said.

I slowly reached my arm out. His hands were steady as he took it, lifted up the sleeve, and revealed the disaster that was my arm. My recent cuts were highly visible, the skin on my arm looking like paper put through a shredder. I but my lip and turned my head to the side. Ace was too busy glaring at Kai.

"I...I didn't know what to say," she said, her voice quivering.

Ace steadied his hand, gave me the injection, then finally looked up. "You up for drinks?"

"Drinks?" Yes, idiot. The last time I checked you had excellent hearing. "Yes...that would be great."

"Um, hello?" Kai said. "There's hunters and a missing vampire girl and Hiatus is really sick. We're super short on time here, and you guys are gonna go out drinking?"

"Yup," Ace said, packing up the kit.

"And what am I supposed to do?" Kai asked.

"You can play detective," I said. Her eyes lit up. "Wait here for Tristan to get back. Talk with him. Find out as much as you can about Molly. It'll better help us understand how to reach her."

She clapped her hands. "Yes! I can do that."

"Great. I need a beer. Let's go, Talls," Ace said.

"There's a bar in walking distance. Follow me," I said.

We went out the door and down the hall. The pain meds kicked in as soon as the elevator doors opened in the lobby. As the night grew later, the crowds of freshman going out for the evening packed the chairs near the front desk, along with the entry doors. I pushed past them. And went out to the covered walkway.

"We'll take the back way," I said over the pounding rain. "I hope you don't care about getting wet."

"Oh please, a little rain never hurt anybody," he said, grinning. "Let's go."

As we went around the courtyard, the increasingly present campus officers seemed to skim over us. The sweatshirt was a genius idea. My accomplice in the trench coat and with his face covered, not so much. I lowered my soaked hood. Water droplets dripped down my face as we rounded the corner of Cove Street.

Watched Ace, walking with his head held high and his hands in his pockets. Hey. I turned away. Hey, Tali. My feet sank into a puddle at the intersection. Tell him Molly's been in her room this whole time. The crosswalk sign lit up green and we crossed. The neon sign of The Cove came into view. Tell him he came all the way out here for nothing.

"This brings you back, doesn't it?" Ace said.

"It really does." Tell him. "Those nights." Tell him. "Those nights when—" You tell him the truth of there will be hell to pay, I can promise you that! "Be quiet! I'm trying to talk!"

Ace stopped dead in his tracks. "You haven't changed a bit."

"That's where you're wrong. I've grown far stronger."

"Okay, if you say so." He started walking again, faster this time. I caught up to him. "So, what have you been up to all this time? I've been kicking ass and getting all the chicks a guy could imagine, especially since I moved up." I shielded my eyes. The car behind us was going way too slow. "Kai has to sleep with three other girls. I've got my own room." It was a black and white SUV. One I'd seen before. "They literally line up at my door, and hot ones, too. Are you even listening, Talls?"

"Yes yes, you love screwing women. I get it. Now pay attention. Don't look behind you."

"Because?"

"Because that SUV behind us is one of the campus security cars. We're being followed."