I press one hand to my side and hold my other out to them. “Hand me some gauze will you? It’ll hold me over until I’m home. We’re leaving.”
The EMT looks between me and Maris as they hand me the gauze I’ve asked for. I make a show of using it to pack my wound and then hold out another hand. “Tape.”
“Julian…” Maris clears her throat. “Maybe they should take a closer look.”
I lift my head from where I’m taping my side and give her a reassuring smile. “I spent a lot of years studying the body to know when one is in trouble and trust me, I’m fine. Let’s go home.”
I don’t miss the way her cheeks go pink or the pleased way she looks at me when I say “home.”
“Okay, let's go home,” Maris agrees. I hand the tape back to the EMT with a murmur of thanks and lead Maris through the crowd and out the door. I’m not sure who gets more attention—us or the woman they’re dragging away in cuffs, but if I had to bet, I’d say it was us.
Twenty-Five
MARIS
Aria just stabbed Julian trying to stab me.
That fuckingbitch.
And today of all days, when we have a major story to break and hopefully getting this vampire nonsense out of everyone’s mind.
“Let’s go home.”
Those three words give me some semblance of peace, at least enough to stay in control of myself and not launch myself into the group of officers wrestling with Aria’s drunk ass.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Julian for the millionth time as we walk up the hill towards my house. Of course, I didn’t drive. He said he didn’t either, so now here we are hobbling up the hill with me doing my best to support him. I’m not doing badly. I could do better if I wasn’t in heels.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I really think you should get it checked out.”
“I’m a doctor. Who else is going to check it out?”
He’s got me there so I sigh and nod. “That’s true, but you just taped it over, that can’t be safe.”
“Medics do it all the time. Sometimes we have to do it in the ER. Sometimes we even use glue.”
I don’t know anything about what medics do or what happens in ERs so I stay silent the rest of the way up to my house. It’s only when we reach the top of the hill and we’re standing in front of both of our houses that I realize maybe he didn’t mean Vesper House.
“Do you…want me to help you over to yours?” I ask. I don’t know why I feel nervous about going into someone else’s space. Maybe because I haven’t in a long time. It’s just a house, Maris. One that you’ve been in a hundred times before when things were normal, but still…there’s the weight of not knowing what to do in someone else’s home.
I know how to act in town and at work. I close myself down, keep others out. The newspaper is different because they’re loyal. I’m safe there. Will I be safe at Julian’s? I am next door to his place but Julian keeps walking up to mine. Our roles reverse in his march forward, he’s practically holding me up while he walks up the sidewalk to my gate.
“No, of course not. That’s not a home.”
That’s not a home.
I don’t say anything, just follow him and slip back under his arm to open the gate and then the door once we’ve made it up the porch. Vesper House is cool and calm, a quiet refuge after the day I’ve had. I feel like I can finally breathe.
I take in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I’ll go get the supplies we have here, or do you want me to go next door for yours?”
Julian shakes his head and points upstairs. “I left a salve in your room. In your nightstand drawer.”
“Okay.” I motion for him to go into the living room. “Go ahead and get comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
I take the stairs two at a time, I’m going so fast that I nearly trip at the top but manage to catch myself on the banister.
“Maris? Are you all right?”
