"You know what?" I mutter, swatting aside a pile of bandages. "I’m not even going to ask where we’re going anymore."
A simple anything would do at this point. A hoodie. A paramedic’s spare uniform. Hell, I’d even take a crusty pair of sweatpants with a questionable stain, if it meant not sitting here half-naked in Cassian’s blood-slick jacket.
But no. Of course not. That would be too easy. Too merciful.
Because apparently, my life has turned into one long cosmic joke.
The drawers and cabinets rattle open as we swerve again, clattering their contents at my feet. I dig through them like a desperate raccoon. Gauze. Gloves. A cracked defibrillator pad. More gauze. A moldy-looking blanket.
And then—
Bright.
Obnoxiously bright.
Blinding neon-orange scrubs.
I freeze. Stare. Blink.
They stare back, practically humming with fluorescent energy like they’re powered by radioactive shame.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Because that’s it. That’s all there is. In the entire damn ambulance.
No shirts. No pants. No modesty-saving miracle. Just a prison-orange uniform that screams escaped convict trying not to die of exposure.
A laugh explodes just behind my shoulder.
“Oh, please wear that,” Talon wheezes, barely holding it together. “Please. I swear I’ll actually behave if you do.”
“He won’t,” Cassian says from the wheel.
“No, he won’t.” Nathaniel doesn’t lift his head from his hands, agreeing.
And they’re both right. Talon wouldn’t know how to behave if someone stapled a code of conduct to his forehead. But right now, it’s not about them.
It’s aboutdignity.
And the fact that I have none left.
Because my choices are:
One, stay in the jacket, leaving a trail of literal crime evidence on every surface I touch.
Two, be absolutely naked.
Or three, put on these scrubs and look like I just fled a correctional facility.
Neither is ideal. But at least one option involves pants.
So I grab the scrubs. There’s no ceremony to it, just the slow, reluctant motion of someone whose soul has just given up.
“Turn around, Talon,” I mutter, already peeling off the disgusting jacket.
Of course he doesn’t. He was a menace when I was incorporeal, and something tells me that was just the warm-up act. Now that I have a real, touchable, mockable body? He’s probably about to show me his true colors now. A cross between a fuckboy, a psycho and an unhinged trickster hyena.
“Talon.”
