Read Online Vicious Grace by M. L. N. Hanover - Free Book Online Page A

hand.
    “Like dreaming,” she said. “I didn’t have the sense of being ridden or out of control. But my logic and reality sort of fell out from under me. Jayné was Jayné, but she was also . . . an outsider? Foreign? Something like that.”
    “A threat,” Chogyi Jake said.
    “Yes, definitely. And one that I recognized,” she said, then frowned and looked down.
    “What is it?” Aubrey asked. Kim looked up at him. I couldn’t read her expression.
    “I can remember it from other perspectives,” she said. “The shift nurse at the station? If I think about it, I know what we looked like through her eyes, Jayné and I both. The big guy who started the trouble? I remember Jayné bumping into me as if I had been him. I can remember it from any perspective until she woke me up.”
    “Even Jayné’s?” Aubrey asked.
    “No. Not hers.”
    “Okay,” I said. “So what does that mean?”
    “It means we don’t know what we’re dealing with,” Ex said.
    The big debate after lunch was how—and whether—to go back for the car. On the one hand, we didn’t know what was going on at the hospital or how far out the danger extended. On the other, it was a rental and it had Kim’s parking permit and some of Ex’s stuff in it. There was the option of hiring a tow truck, but sending a civilian to spring a trap meant for us had some ethical problems.
    Once we agreed to go back, there was the question of whether I should go on the return trip because Eric’s wards and protections would help fight off any assaults or stay behind out of fear that they might be drawing some kind of spiritual attention. In the end, Aubrey and I went for the car, the others staying at the café drinking the muddy coffee and eating baklava. The walk back was shorter than I’d expected. Escaping from Grace into the still-unknown streets of Chicago had given every block an exaggerated distance. I was surprised by how quickly the hospital’s awkward, looming bulk came into view. I kept scanning the other people on the sidewalks, waiting for them to start moving together or breathing in sync.
    A taxi driver to our right leaned hard on his horn, shouting obscenities at the truck that had cut him off. The air smelled of exhaust. Grace Memorial loomed across the street, hundreds of windows catching the light like an insect’s compound eye as we walked briskly past it toward the parking structure. A little shiver crawled up my spine, and I walked faster.
    Aubrey walked with his hands in his pockets and his brow in furrows. I’d seen him like this before—worried, but trying not to talk about it for fear of worrying me. It was a deeply ineffective strategy.
    “Spit it out,” I said. We were stopped at a traffic light, waiting for the signal to cross.
    “It’s nothing. I just wish I’d known Eric better,” he said. “I worked with him on and off for years, and I always . . . I don’t know. Respected his boundaries? Gave him his space? I never pushed to find out things he didn’t want to tell me about. He would have known what this was. Just from what we’ve got now, he’d have known. And I don’t.”
    “Neither does anyone else.”
    “Yeah,” Aubrey said with a rueful smile. “But I’m not responsible for them.”
    “It’ll be fine. We’ll be careful,” I said. And then, “How are you doing with seeing Kim again?”
    “Fine. She’s . . . just the same.”
    “No return of old feelings? Regret about signing the divorce papers?”
    Aubrey’s eyebrows rose, and a small, amused smile tweaked the corners of his mouth.
    “How are you doing seeing Kim again?” he said.
    “Standard insecurity,” I said.
    “You could stop that.”
    “Nope. Don’t think I can. I’m aiming for having a good sense of humor about it.”
    He leaned in, his fingers twining around mine.
    “Jayné,” he said. “You’re great. And I love you. And if you and I weren’t together, I still wouldn’t be with Kim. I think she’s a good person. I enjoy