“They’re just scratches,” I said. It was true that the claw marks hurt, but they’d all stopped bleeding very quickly, and I didn’t think they required stitches. I would have Lily take a look at them tomorrow, after I’d gotten some sleep and she’d finished meeting with Maven and her mother. “They look a lot worse than they are.”
Katia let out a dubious grunt, but dropped the subject. Then she gave me a serious look and said, “Lex . . . thank you.”
“For what?”
“For coming to get me.”
I looked over in surprise. “Um, first of all, you saved my life just the night before, and secondly, it was my fault you were at Simon’s place to begin with. If you hadn’t been there, they would have taken me.”
“And I would have happily paid that price, for Valerya’s child,” she said primly.
It hit me then, really for the first time: I was Katia’s Charlie.
I had never really thought about it that way before, and I felt tears well in my eyes. “Katia . . .”
But I choked on whatever I might have said. She gave me a small smile and a nod, then turned and said very loudly, “Lex, look! Is that . . . a mailman?”
“That’s not funny,” Tobias said without opening his eyes. But I could tell he was fighting a smile.
Chapter 48
I told Tobias he could take the Jeep on to my house, but he insisted he was happy to keep napping while I went into the hospital to check on John. Apparently werewolves didn’t mind the cold.
I walked Katia into the ER first, to make sure she actually signed in. The intake nurse dropped her eyes when she saw Katia’s face, and I knew I’d made the right call to bring her in despite her protests.
When they came to get her for the exam, Katia gave my hand an awkward pat and told me to go see John. “Fine,” I said, standing up, “but no lying to me about how bad your injuries are later.”
Katia just raised her eyebrows in a way that said I promise nothing.
I knew BCH pretty well, after so many years of sustaining minor injuries while working for Maven, plus visiting various family members. I stopped at the intensive care unit first, but they told me John had been moved to a regular room, and he would likely be discharged that afternoon.
That thought cheered me as I made my way through the hospital to the correct wing. When I approached the room, I could hear talking and laughing, and I recognized Sashi’s voice. I quickened my step, pushing the door open gently.
John was sitting up in bed, smiling. His color looked miles better than it had the night before, and although he was leaning his head back on pillows, he seemed to be lucid and alert. I felt my chest loosen.
“Lex!” he called as I walked in. “Welcome to the party. We’ve been shushed twice.”
There was a guffaw from a strange man sitting on the glider chair in the corner. Sashi, who had been sitting on a folding chair pulled up to the bed, rolled her eyes and stood up. My friend was in her late thirties, with glossy, dark hair and a mild British accent. Her mother had emigrated from India to England, then from England to America, when Sashi was a little girl.
“Ignore him,” she said, coming toward me with a smile. “They gave him more Vicodin than he strictly needs at this point, but he didn’t want me to say anything.”
“To protect her cover,” John announced, still too loudly.
Sashi sighed and gave me a hug. I held on to her for an extra moment. “Thank you so much for coming,” I said into her hair. “I can’t tell you how . . . well. Thank you.”
“Of course. You were right to call,” she said as she pulled back. Her voice was light, but I understood her meaning and fought to keep my expression neutral. If Sashi hadn’t gotten there in time . . .
Sashi held me at arm’s length for a moment, inspecting my face. “What?” I asked, touching my cheek. “It’s nothing, just a bruise.”
“Not that,” Sashi replied, shaking her head a little. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She stepped back and held out her arm to the stranger. He was tall and handsome, in a cheerful, open way, like a great bartender or maybe a therapist. “I’d like you to meet my husband, Will.”
“Husband?” I echoed as the man came over and held out his right hand to shake. His left arm, I realized, ended just below the elbow; he had pinned up the sleeve so it wouldn’t flop around. “You got married and I wasn’t invited?”
Sashi threw back her head and laughed. “It was a quickie Vegas thing,” she assured me. “We only invited Grace, and she didn’t want . . . Well. You know how kids are.”
“Get this, Lex,” John said, with great animation. He had lifted his head to see me better. “Will is Grace’s father! That’s why Sashi didn’t want to marry me! She was still hung up on this dude!”
“John!” Sashi hissed at him, but he looked comically smug, like he’d just been found innocent of a crime.
I couldn’t help it; I cracked up. It felt good to laugh, even if my voice had an edge of exhaustion. To my surprise, Will joined in the laughter. He gave off kind of a calming, easygoing vibe, not unlike John—at least, when he wasn’t high on painkillers. I entertained myself for a moment with the thought that Sashi had a type.
“I’m glad you’re doing so well,” I told my brother-in-law.
John shrugged, smiling. “Eh. I was too good for her anyway.”
“I meant physically,” I told him.
“Yeah, I know you did.”
Sashi rolled her eyes again, but now she was laughing too. Will smiled at her, and the look she gave him back was something else. Simple, pure love.
Now that I knew, I could see Grace in Will’s posture, his movement. There were about a dozen questions I wanted to ask Sashi, but I was just too exhausted at the moment. For now, she looked happy, and John seemed comfortable and mostly healthy, and that was all I cared about.
“Lex,” Sashi said, pushing her hair behind her ears, “I want to hear the whole story, if you’re allowed to tell it, but could we take a walk first? There’s something I need to ask you.”
“Well . . .” I eyed John, then Will.
John flapped a hand at me. “Oh, we’re cool. Will’s cool.”
The corners of Will’s mouth twitched, but he looked at me and said very solemnly, “I’m cool.”
“Okay then.” I turned to Sashi and gestured to the door. “After you.”
We ambled down the long hallway toward the cafeteria, where Sashi could get a cup of coffee. I had already had plenty—we’d stopped on the way back from Cheyenne—and suspected that more might actually make me start to vibrate.
“What did you want to ask me?” I asked after a group of gossiping nurses had passed us.
“First,” she began, “did you do something to John?”
“Uh, yeah.” I fingered the bandage on the base of my thumb. I’d had to apply a fresh one from the first aid kit. “I sort of . . . bled into his wound.” It sounded so gross out loud.
Sashi stumbled and almost went down, but I caught her arm. “Sorry, sorry,” she exclaimed. “I’m just . . . why on earth would you do that?”
I explained about the boundary magic in my blood, and how I was willing to try anything when I knew I was going to lose him.
Sashi nodded thoughtfully. “I see. I felt something strange in his bloodstream, but I couldn’t seem to get at it, which usually only happens with others in the Old World. That explains it.”
We turned into the cafeteria, and she looked sideways at me. “Just out of curiosity . . . now that John knows about the Old World, have you told him you can talk to Sam?”
I shook my head. “She asked me not to. She wants him to be able to move on, and she doesn’t think he could if he knew.” I shrugged. “It must be tempting for Sam to use our connection to interfere with John’s parenting, but she knows it would be an abuse of our magic.” I didn’t say, “And that’s not allowed.” I may not have understood the strange powers that restricted Sam’s communication, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t want me telling others about them.
“That sounds complicated for you,” Sashi observed.
“Sashi . . . when is family not complicated?”
She sighed. “Quite. And I’m afraid that leads me right into my next question. I need a favor.”
“Anything,” I said immediately. Sashi had saved John’s life, not to mention Simon’s, and plenty of other people’s. “Name it.”
She held up a cautionary hand. “Hold on now, this is big. I want you to ask Maven if I can move to Boulder, at least temporarily.”
We were almost to the coffee machines, but I stopped walking and turned to stare at her. “Seriously? I mean, I’d love to have you here, but you and John spent all that time doing long distance. Now you’re ready to move here?”
Sashi pushed the hair behind her ears again. “It’s not just for me, although this row between Grace and me has hurt, and I’d like to repair it.”
Oh, right. I’d momentarily forgotten that Will was Grace’s father. I blamed the comprehensive exhaustion. “Will.”
She nodded. “He wants to get to know his daughter, and she has three more years here at CU.” She turned to grab a cup and began filling it with light roast.
“How does Grace feel about that?” I asked.
“Right now, she’s resistant. She doesn’t understand why she hasn’t heard from this man in nearly twenty years, why I never told him I was pregnant.”
“You never told him?” I hadn’t meant to say it, at least not in that tone, but it was too late to take it back.
Sashi winced. “I was only twenty when I got pregnant, and Will . . . Will was a different person. It’s not really something I’m able to talk about, but he went away, for a very long time, and I didn’t have the means to find him. Even when I did, I wasn’t sure I could trust him. So I chose to do things myself.”
“Okay,” I said. I couldn’t help but wonder what she meant by “went away.” Will hadn’t struck me as a former soldier, or an undercover cop. I wondered if Sashi was talking about prison. He hadn’t seemed the type for that either, but the only other thing I could think of was witness protection, and that seemed sort of implausible.
At any rate, I could be as curious as I wanted, but I wasn’t going to push her.
“Anyway, we’d like to spend the next few years in Boulder,” Sashi went on. “We both want to show Gracie how important she is to us, and we can only do that by being here.”
I nodded. “I’ll talk to Maven, but you should know she’s not very happy with me right now.”
Sashi smiled, squeezing my arm. “I have complete faith that you’ll do your best. That’s all I’m asking.”