sweater. She shoved her
feet into boots.
“I'll
drive you both.” Jasper stood up, hands in his pockets. He knew his voice was
harsh.
Sienna
shook her head. “You don't have to.”
He sighed
and followed her and Linda out of her apartment. “I know I don’t have to. I
want to.” He sent a meaningful look at her back, where it did no good at all.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to relax.
After
locking her door, she turned to him and searched his face. God only knew what
she saw there now , but she nodded
shortly.
“Okay.
But you have to give me a ride back home after. I don't know how long I'll
stay.”
He tried
a smile and his face didn’t crack. Apparently unresolved sexual frustration
wasn’t fatal. “Of course.” His eyes strayed to her
breasts, lovingly outlined by the soft fabric of her sweater. If he’d been
human, he’d be sweating by now.
“It's
already getting late.” Sienna looked like she wanted to argue, but he stared
her down.
Linda
looked from Sienna to him and back again. “It's not that late, it’s only eight
o'clock. We need to go .” She wrung her hands.
Half an
hour later Jasper pulled up in front of the hospital. Linda jumped out. Sienna
made to follow her, but Jasper tugged on her sleeve. “I'm going to park. I'll
see you inside.”
She
frowned at him. “You don't—”
“I know.
I'm coming in anyway.” He had a bad feeling about Dillon's injuries. His
talents didn’t lie in telling the future, but he had a finely honed gut
instinct that was rarely wrong, especially not after the years he'd spent
honing his skills on Dekcol . Thank you, Alucard , he thought bitterly.
She
sighed and pulled away. “Fine. I don't know where they
have him, though.”
“I'll
find you,” he promised. She nodded sharply and strode away. He watched her go
inside, fighting against the sudden unease he felt at letting her go off on her
own. She can take care of herself , he told himself sternly as he drove
away.
Ten
minutes later he slipped into the room where they'd put Dillon after patching
him up. The boy was pale, his blood loss clearly apparent. John and Linda stood
by the bed near an older lady who was sitting down. She looked up as he came
into the room.
“Who are
you?” Her tone was faintly hostile.
Jasper
smiled reassuringly. “I'm Jasper, a friend of Sienna's.”
The woman
looked at Sienna who was leaning against the wall near the window. The shades
were drawn, but Jasper didn't need to see outside to know that the moon had
risen.
Sienna
nodded. “ It's okay, Mrs. Gilbert. He's the one who
helped after the incident in the forest.”
The
woman's face softened. “Oh. Nice to meet you, Jasper.”
Jasper
inclined his head. “You too.” He glanced at Sienna.
“What happened?”
She
sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “No one really knows. They found him on
the ground outside their house like this. The doctors gave him a transfusion.
Now they're just waiting for him to wake up.”
Jasper
frowned as the instinct that had been nagging at him solidified into certainty.
Dillon had been fed upon, he was sure of it. He strode over to the bed and
touched a finger to Dillon's hand while the others looked on curiously. It was
cool, but there was no sense of coercion lingering on the boy's skin. If there had been– He shook his head. The revenants usually
didn't bother with mind games since they lacked the self-discipline for it, but
there was always a possibility. Happily, Dillon hadn’t been tampered with.
Jasper would've sensed it the moment he touched him.
“I think
he'll be okay,” he said, standing up straight. Sienna was eyeing his hands.
Dillon's mother looked relieved and Linda and John went back to staring at
Dillon.
“And who
are you to make such a statement? Are you a doctor?”
Jasper
froze and looked toward the door. Could it be? He knew that voice. An older
woman stood in the entrance wearing a doctor's jacket. She’d slung her
stethoscope around her
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