“Now, I heard a little something in your lungs, and your ears and vocal cords are severely irritated. Usually, I would do a chest X-ray or run some tests, but unless your condition happens to worsen, I think you’re already on your way to getting better.” Her eyes slid toward the doorway, and I knew she was thinking about Mr. Magical Healing Capabilities and what he’d done for me.
“If you do start to develop more symptoms, visit the office. I’d like to do some bloodwork on you anyway.” She glanced toward the door. “My phone number will be in the email I send you.”
“Thank you,” I told her. “I still don’t feel great, but I’m getting slowly better.”
“I didn’t hear anything alarming, but I know you’ve been ill. You need time and rest. I’ve only had to prescribe antibiotics a couple times. Your cells are pretty miraculous on their own.”
How did she know?
“I just sent the email. Do you have any questions for me before I leave?”
I shook my head, wondering now if everyone knew about everything.
“If you think of anything, you have my information,” she said as she packed her things up. Once she had a bag over a shoulder and the other in her hand, she gave me another one of her smiles. “It’s been a while since I’ve been the new kid, but I know it’s unreal. I didn’t know my parents. I had no idea about any of this. My only gifts are that I have better-than-average hearing and I won’t need glasses until I’m a very old woman; I thought I was normal until Robert came into my life and told me otherwise.” Kindness radiated from her. “You’re going to be fine. Let me know if I can help somehow. Robert is in India right now, but when he gets back, I’m sure he’ll drop by.”
I wanted to ask who Robert was, since everyone seemed to think I knew a lot more than I did, but I kept my mouth closed and pretended. I was good at pretending. I probably wouldn’t be here by the time whoever Robert was got back.
“Thank you so much. I appreciate you coming to check on me,” I told her.
She gave me another smile before walking out of the room, saying something I couldn’t hear to Alexander, and then disappearing down the hallway toward the front staircase.
That went better than I’d expected.
I was still sitting on the end of the bed when Crabby-Ass came to the doorway, hands buried into the pockets of his pants. His face was smooth and almost impassive. What had I done now to aggravate him? Breathe wrong?
“I’ll pay you back for the visit,” I jumped right into telling him, trying to keep my voice and heart rate steady.
He didn’t say a word; he just looked at me with that perfect face and its perfect bone structure and skin.
I hated that we were back to this bullshit.
He wasn’t a total dickhead. I could try. I should try to mend what had happened, even if I’d had nothing to do with it. Not in an effort to stay but because he had gone above and beyond for me, over and over again.
It was the least I could do.
Linking my fingers together, I squeezed them between my thighs. “Did I do something? Can I help you somehow? I don’t need to know what’s happened, but if there’s something I can do, all you have to do is tell me,” I said carefully. Trying. I had to know I was trying, so did he.
But it was in vain, like just about every effort in my life turned out to be.
“No,” he said, totally serious. “I’ve got shit to do now.”
I kept my mouth shut as he turned on his heel and disappeared too, leaving me there. Alone.
It wasn’t my business. I didn’t totally understand everything that had happened that had led him to my house, but he seemed to. His grandmother had tried to find me, and I’d been found. Maybe once I left, I could send him a postcard to let him know I was still alive, so she would know. If I ever got my life together and managed to have a child, maybe I could let them know that too so they could keep their Atraxian family tree going.
But he or she would more than likely have too much human blood at that point, from what Alex had said.
Or I’d be smart and disappear into the wind. I could live even more under the radar. Move to the last place anyone would ever look, again. There were plenty of them.
It would probably be for the best to just hide.
Everything that made me Gracie Castro was gone now, and maybe there wasn’t a point in holding on to that identity anymore. It was only in my heart after all.
The reality of it fucking depressed me though.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Fuckkk!
My eyes popped wide open. I screeched even before I noticed there was a face hovering above mine. That there were glowing eyes in the dark staring at me.
I didn’t even realize I was swinging until fingers wrapped around my fist and pushed it back toward my chest.
It was fucking Alex. It was fucking Alex, my brain processed. I just about wheezed.
He was crouched beside me on the floor, clutching the blanket directly under my chin. I couldn’t have been asleep that long because I didn’t feel too groggy. My shoulder didn’t feel like it was about to fall off either, not like that morning.
“What the hell?” I gasped, blinking into the darkness. “What are you doing?” My heart was about to burst out of my damn chest from him scaring the hell out of me like that cat in Alice in Wonderland. “Fucking fuck.”
Even in the dark, I could tell he leaned to the side a moment before the lamp on the nightstand turned on, giving me a decent view of him. He was fully dressed in those deceptively normal clothes that almost made me forget what he was. Who he was.
I hadn’t seen him in hours. I’d stayed upstairs practically the whole day, only sneaking down after listening long enough to make sure he wasn’t in the kitchen. He hadn’t been in the house, period, I’d discovered after creeping around. I’d had a feeling he was gone, and I’d been right. So was Selene.
“What are you doing on the floor?” the man known to the world as The Defender asked in a growl as he dropped into another crouch.
I licked my lips and set my palms on the floor, pushing myself up to a sitting position. “Sleeping,” I told him, sounding annoyed because I was. What did it look like? I was trying my best not to bother him, so why did he have to come in here and wake me up? I’d closed the door.
“Why are you on the floor?” he asked again, like I hadn’t heard him the first time.
A sudden reminder of everything that had transpired between us filled my head, and that same sadness and anger mixture made my throat tighter than it already was. “Because I’m sleeping on it. That’s why my eyes were closed.” Real mature, Gracie.
His gaze narrowed. “You want to sleep on the floor?”
I rubbed at my eyes, annoyed. So damn annoyed. “Do you need something?” He’d barely talked to me all day. I wasn’t sure what he could have possibly suddenly wanted while I was dead asleep, but all right. Maybe it was something really important.
Or maybe he was telling me to get the hell out already.
“You’re still sick,” he said, his gaze moving from my face down to my lap where the blanket was bunched. A little knot formed between his brows. “Why’d you want to sleep on the floor?”