The doctor might not pierce ears for a living, but he could take it up as a side job and make a mint.
He gave me a brace for my ankle, offered a crutch, which I refused, and then sent me back to the narrow dressing room to change into my clothes that stank of smoke.
When I came out, Hado and Abbi were gone, leaving just me and Lu and the doctor.
“Ready?” Lu asked.
“No, I’m not ready. Have you let the doctor look at you?”
Lu started toward the door. “I’m not the one who was hurt.”
“Lula.”
There were a lot of ways I could say her name. A lot of ways I had said it over the years. Most of them were in longing. Sometimes frustration. Only so very occasionally in reproach.
She stopped, turned, and crossed her arms over her chest. The raised eyebrow added to her message of general displeasure.
“You’re injured,” I went on. “You hit your head in the rollover. You were bleeding. There’s another pain we should ask for his help with.”
“A doctor,” she stated.
“Yes, a doctor.”
“You know how many doctors I’ve let treat me in all these years?”
“Yes.” It was damn few. Most didn’t even know what she was, much less how to care for her.
“No. I’ll heal. Faster than you.”
I knew how this argument would end—she’d walk out of here and endure the pain from her head injury and her hunger for blood. This was her choice. I couldn’t force her to let the doctor look at her, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t ask for some support.
“Do you carry any blood here, Doc?” I asked.
“That’s an unusual request,” he said, like it really wasn’t all that unusual. “What type of blood?”
“I’m not sure it matters. Maybe doesn’t even have to be human. Maybe you have animal blood? Or could point us toward a butcher shop where we could get something fresh?”
Lu hadn’t moved, but everything about her was different. She was the love of my life, a clever, determined, strong woman. But she was something else too, something that wasn’t human.
I was reminded of that in moments like this.
She looked like a predator, a bird of prey that could see the beating heart of a rabbit ten miles off and had already sharpened her claws for the kill.
“I have blood in the cooler,” Dr. Ladd said, like this was the most normal conversation to have with a patient. Maybe it was for the kinds of patients he welcomed through his doors. Even monsters needed a few stitches or a bullet removed now and then.
“I don’t keep much on hand,” he went on, walking toward Lu, toward the door, as if she wasn’t anything to be afraid of. “O negative. One bag is all I can spare. Will that hold you?”
Lu didn’t even seem to be aware he was talking, her gaze on me alone.
“Yes,” I said. “That will help, thank you. We have cash.”
“We’ll settle the bill. I’m not concerned. Wait here a moment.”
Lu shifted to the side slightly so he could leave the room. She held my gaze.
“We’re a team,” I reminded her. “You wouldn’t have let me leave without the ankle brace or the earring, which, I have to say, I still can’t believe you talked me into getting my ear pierced.”
Her breathing was shallow and fast, eyes unblinking, every one of her senses tracking the kill.
