Angel yanked his hand from mine. The thread snapped away, severing our connection, and the pain vanished so abruptly I gasped. A phantom of the ache lingered where the thread had been, as though I could easily reconnect if we touched again.
The nurse rushed out, returning with a colleague who cornered me with more gauze. “I’m fine,” I insisted, waving them off. “Take care of him.”
But the original nurse had already returned to Angel’s side. The new one frowned at my nosebleed, now slowing. “Most people don’t gush blood like this.”
“It’s just a migraine,” I deflected, though my skull throbbed in warning.
The door slammed open. Ezra stalked in, Bobby and Wade on his heels. “What the fuck?” he demanded.
Angel flinched, his shoulders tightening as the nurse worked.
Ezra’s gaze zeroed in on the wound and the faint, rune-like pattern of scar tissue already forming where the burn had been. His snarl was lethal. “Is that a rune burned into his fucking hand?”
“It was an accident,” I said.
“He’s healing,” the nurse tending Angel informed him. “I’ve barely gotten most of the necrotic flesh off, but it’s healing. He’ll be fine.”
“I’ll shift as soon as I eat,” Angel said, voice thin and strained.
I kept my head back, trying to ease the flow of blood, and closed my eyes to the assault of lights and my teammates’ accusations. It was my fault, after all.
“An accident?” Ezra’s snarl cut through the antiseptic hospital air, and I snapped my eyes open at his tone. He took a step toward me, fists clenched at his side. “You branded him like fucking livestock.”
“I didn’t mean to!” The words tore out of me, too loud for the sterile room. Blood dripped down my chin as my head throbbed. “You think I wanted to hurt him?”
The few seconds of the event replayed in my mind like a nightmare. The rune blasting to life on Angel’s skin without any real conscious thought on my part. That my magic was willing to use him, hurt him, without more than half a thought, terrified me. Okay, so I stopped a car from squashing us into variant paste, but could it have been done a better way? It might only be a burned hand this time, but what about the next time? The thought made me sick, and I stood up, bracing myself as the room wobbled.
Bobby wedged himself between us, palms raised. “Cool it, Z. I don’t think Jude did anything on purpose.”
“And that makes it better?” Ezra demanded. “Every time he’s with us on a callout, everything goes to shit. Crosses the Veil by accident, marked by some shadow freak, an entire building gets pulled through to another realm, and it’s okay? Okay for him to use Angel as a puppet?”
“I didn’t!” I protested. “I created a shield. Something threw a fucking car at us.”
“There’s no way that burn was from a shield alone.”
Angel remained silent, eyes closed, head leaning back, jaw clenched. The nurse finished bandaging his hand, and he sucked in slow breaths as if to manage the pain. I hated that he still hurt.
“There were trolls in the garage,” Wade said. “The survivors they rescued corroborate the car.” He flicked through his phone, reading a report as he lifted the screen to show the rest of us. “It was actually their car. They’d gone to the garage to try to get it back.”
Bobby groaned. “Which made them a target, and the fucking car a missile.”
Ezra growled in fury. “Doesn’t excuse using people as magical batteries.”
“I should have let us get crushed by a flying car? What the hell?” I demanded.
“You shouldn’t have been there at all.” He took a deliberate step forward, his shadow swallowing mine where I slumped in the plastic chair. “Shouldn’t be on our team at all. We’ve had a no-spook policy for a reason. That Angel can’t see it…”
“I didn’t ask for this power. Didn’t ask for the fucking transfer! I was happy in Homicide, being normal. Not this,” I waved my hands around, “insanity.”
“Bullshit! You love the attention. You just can’t control your fucking power. I hope you’re happy. Using Angel like he’s a fucking 9-volt battery.”
“Happy?” I choked out. “To wake up in a hospital after being attacked by zombie kids? To be branded government property? Stripped of a job I loved and thrown on a team of ungrateful SOBs who spend all their time treating me like I’m a fucking delicate flower without a brain in my head? After a decade of proving how capable I was, I get relegated to the bottom rung of the supernatural barrel with an ability I wouldn’t have asked for if you’d put a gun to my skull.” My hands shook, and blood dripped on the floor. Fucking nosebleed. “I’ve lived part of that story already. Next step’s a cell beside a graveyard with a leash and a demand to control the already departed. And I swear, I’ll take the long walk off a short pier first.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you talked Angel into binding with you?” Ezra snarled. “Save us the trouble by taking that last step.”
The door burst open.
Sergeant Hanna stood framed in the doorway with her wild blond curls backlit by the hallway fluorescents like some avenging angel. The crisp lines of her sweater dress were rumpled from the long shift, but the SED badge at her throat gleamed with surgical brightness.
