24

I PUSHED THROUGH the kneeling people, not even seeing who was there, to fall to my knees beside him. He looked up at me, lavender eyes wide. Jason was holding his hand. Lisandro was putting pressure on the wound in his shoulder. I touched my shoulder, where it hurt exactly where his wound was, but I'd felt pain when Richard and Jean-Claude had been hurt and that had been worse. This wasn't bad. I'd seen him survive worse. I knew that, but I still needed to touch him. I was crying and hadn't meant to, but Jason was crying, too, so I didn't feel so bad.

I touched Nathaniel's face and he smiled at me. My hearing was coming back in pieces. I heard yelling. "He's gone! He's gone!" I turned to find Jesse and Kelly kneeling on either side of Noel. I could feel their energy, their lions reaching out. "Go," Nathaniel said, "help Noel."

I laid my hand over his heart, as if I needed to feel the thick beat of it before I left him, and then I moved the few feet to Noel. It was Kelly who was yelling at Jesse, "He's gone! It's too late!" She was cradling her arm.

I looked down at Noel, and the moment I saw him I knew she was right. Brains don't belong on the outside. I stared down at the inside of his head spilling out into the floor. He'd been getting his master's in literature. All that studying, all that effort, was leaking out of his broken head and spreading in a thick, bloody mass on the floor. Even a powerful wereanimal couldn't have healed that. Almost everything else, but not this.

Truth was there, his hair black from the shower. "He was hiding in the hallway. We were running for the sound of fighting, and then he darted out. He tackled Nathaniel, saved him. We would all have been too late."

I knelt beside the body, because that's what it was now. It wasn't Noel anymore, it was his body, and that was it. There'd be no miracle to save him this time.

I heard yelling from the far side of the room. I said, "Claudia?"

"She'll live," Wicked said. He'd come back from that direction. "And looks like so will your Rex."

I stared up at him and Truth. "What?" I asked.

"He's healing the damage. The doctor thinks he'll pull through," Wicked said.

Jesse said, "Haven is just that strong."

I shook my head and stood up from Noel's body. I walked toward the guards clustered around Haven. Wicked and Truth trailed me. I wasn't sure if they were trying to keep me safe, or if they'd try and stop me. Dr. Lillian, our main medic, was kneeling over Haven. She must have come while I was in the shower. But it was a distant thought; I didn't really care when she'd come or how she'd known we needed her.

I moved up through the guards. I heard myself say, "It's okay, Lillian, you don't have to do anything for him."

"He's more badly hurt than Claudia. I need to stabilize him," she said.

"Will he live?" I asked.

"I think so."

"No," I said.

Lillian looked up at me, and I saw something in her face, her eyes. "Anita, you don't have to do this."

I nodded. "Yes, I do."

She tried to stop me, and I said, "Get her out of here. Let her save someone else."

Hands pulled her away. Haven looked up at me, his eyes terribly, amazingly blue against the blood on his lower mouth. Fresh blood poured out of his mouth as he tried to say something.

I aimed the .357 at his face. He stared up at me with those eyes. His voice was thick with things that shouldn't be in a living person's throat. He coughed, spraying blood, and said, "I'll heal."

I shook my head. "No, you won't."

"Did I kill your leopard?" he asked.

"Did you aim for him?" I asked.

He smiled, his teeth red with his own blood. "Yes."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you love them all more than you love me." He coughed so hard that something thick and meaty fell onto the floor as if he'd coughed up some lung. Anyone who could heal from this much silver damage was so very powerful.

"Good-bye, Haven."

He snarled up at me and started to shapeshift. His power washed over my skin in a wash of electric heat. My lioness snarled. His blue eyes filled with lion amber. I pulled the trigger. The amber slid away and I pulled the trigger the second time, staring into the same blue eyes I'd watched in bed above me more than once. The second shot made it impossible to look into his eyes. I dropped to my knees and put the barrel against his face for the third shot. At such close range, it blew the back of his head out. Like Noel, just like Noel. I was left blinking blood and thicker things out of my eyes. Too close. Blowback, it was blowback.

I dry-fired twice before I realized the revolver was empty. I got to my feet and let the empty gun fall to the floor. Without bullets it was just a heavy rock, and that wouldn't help me against anyone in this room.

Everyone moved out of my way. No one tried to touch me, or comfort me, or talk to me. They just moved and watched me. I walked back to Nathaniel. Micah was there now, holding his hand. Nathaniel smiled up at me. I smiled back.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you, too," I said.

Micah took my hand, but I shook my head and got to my feet. I told him, "Stay with Nathaniel."

"He didn't leave you a choice," Micah said.

I nodded. "I know." Then I started walking back toward the hallway. I just kept walking. I had a vague idea I needed to clean up again. I kept walking. Jason was in the hallway with J.J. She stared at me with wide eyes. Jason tried to get her back in his bedroom, away from all the blood and death.

I walked until I found the new showers that Jean-Claude had put in when we realized just how many people were living in the underground of the Circus. It was a big open shower like at a gym. I turned on the nearest shower head and stepped under it. I hadn't taken off any clothes, that seemed wrong, but I just grabbed for the soap in the wall dispensers. I washed Nathaniel's blood off my hands. I washed Haven's blood out of my hair and off my face. Noel's blood had soaked into my jeans from the knee down and was all over my shoes. I couldn't get it out. I took off the jogging shoes and threw them across the room. I took off the pants and tried to scrub the knees clean.

"Anita, Anita."

I kept scrubbing at my jeans. "I can't get it out. I can't get the blood out."

"Anita!" Richard grabbed my arms, turned me to look at him while the water poured down my face and onto the front of his body. He was tall enough that the water didn't touch higher than his chest. His brown eyes held pity, sorrow, things I couldn't decipher.

I held the jeans up to him. "I can't get the blood out."

He took the jeans out of my hands. "It's okay," he said.

I shook my head. "It's not."

He drew me in against his chest while the water beat on my back. "No, it's not. I'm so sorry, Anita, so sorry."

I was stiff in his arms, and he just kept holding me tight and close, and gradually my arms unclenched and I wrapped them around his waist. I buried my face against the wet T-shirt and the muscled strength of his chest. He was just the right height so that my ear was against his chest. I held on to him, listening to the thick, strong beat of his heart.

He stroked my hair and murmured, "I'm here, I'm here. I'm so sorry, but I'm here."

I managed to say, "I'm glad you're here." And then I was crying. I cried until my legs fell out from under me and he had to catch me. He lifted me up into his arms, holding me close, putting his face against mine and whispering, "I'm here, I'm here." And sometimes, that's all you can say. Sometimes that's all the comfort you have to offer and all you can expect.

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