Scratch that.
There was not a great escape. A grate one, though, definitely existed.
“I’ll sit here,” he murmured as he went over, put the seat down, and parked it on the toilet.
He turned and faced the wall, and tried not to picture what she was doing as he heard the water begin to fall. She would start with the shirt, he imagined, the loose one he had found in the back of the car he’d stolen and put on her. He’d had a choice between that and a Domino’s polo that was stained with sauce, like the guy who either had owned the car or stolen it had worked there.
And she was taking it off.
“Am I losing my mind, or is this hot water?” she said.
Lucan smiled to himself. “It’s hot.”
“How?”
“Gas line into hot water heaters.”
“I’m just curious, but what is this place? A school that closed down or something?”
“Something like that.” And then he changed the subject. “I’m not going to do anything inappropriate, you know. Just thought I’d throw that out there.”
“Do you think I’d be locked in here with you if I thought there’d be a problem?”
Her voice was easy and calm, and he wasn’t sure whether she was so confident because she had a better opinion of him than she should or because she was very capable of handling herself. More likely the latter.
Had she taken the cut t-shirt off? That fleece? God . . . if he hadn’t come into that apartment when he had? Well, that just didn’t bear thinking of, did it.
Lucan knew she’d gotten under the water when she sighed and the pattern of rain was interrupted. And he really tried not to imagine what she looked like, naked, glistening . . . soap dripping off her— They didn’t have any soap, he realized. No, wait. They did.
Leaning to the side, he took a bar off a divot in the sink’s shoulder and held it out straight without turning his head. “Couldn’t tell you what kind this is, but it’ll have to do.”
“Thanks. I’m not picky.”
As she took the bar from him, his peripheral vision picked up on all kinds of skin, gorgeous skin. And even still, as he re-angled himself so he was staring at the wall by the toilet at a point-blank range, he had an impression of what her spine looked like as it plugged into her— “This isn’t half bad,” she said with a sigh.
Actually, it was. He shouldn’t be thinking about things involving . . .
“Will you relax,” she said through the spray. “You would have done something already, if you were going to—and besides, I’m not that special.”
“Huh?” He went to look at her and stopped himself. “What did you say, I mean.”
“That’s why I’m not worried about being in here with you. You had your chances to be a problem—and I was out of it, too. And besides, I’m not a beauty queen. I’m just a woman.”
Lucan didn’t respond to that. How could he tell her that she was so much more than special— Wait, what was he thinking here?
“How did you end up in the business?” he blurted. So he could get out of his own head.
“How did you,” she countered as the smell of cedar bloomed in the humid air.
“Touché.”
The sound of the water was variable, and he imagined she was running that bar over herself. He’d never particularly loved any kind of soap, but he could get used to the smell of this particular bar in his nose.
“I was drafted into the business,” he muttered.
“How? By who?”
“Long story. Now it’s your turn.”
“What, like this is strip poker, but without the cards and the clothes?” There was a pause. Then she laughed. “Guess I already lost part of that one. The strip part, that is.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
After a moment, she said, “I don’t know. Everyone has to be somewhere doing something.”
There was resignation in her voice. And as the water was cut off, the dripping was loud.
“Here,” he said as he pulled his sweatshirt off. “Use this as a towel.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
Lucan stretched his arm out again. And when she took what he offered, he realized he’d just screwed himself.
Her scent was going to be on the sweatshirt, and he couldn’t afford to have that smell in anyone else’s nose. To vampires, humans were easy to pick up on—and the other species was most definitely unwelcome in the prison camp.
Plus the Executioner liked fresh meat for his trophy wall.
“Let’s get you back in bed,” he heard himself say. “Quickly.”
José went back to the trap house as soon as he’d logged enough sleep to be competent to drive without endangering public safety. As his unmarked rolled to a stop, he looked through the foggy car window at the facade of the walk-up. It was so cold that his breath and his hot coffee had sweated everything up, but he couldn’t say that he needed a big visual refresher course on what the place looked like.
He’d been staring at it in his mind all night while he hadn’t been sleeping.
Opening his door, he got out. The air was straight-up November, about thirty-five degrees, with a bite of humidity that in a month would mean snow was coming. As it was, there was a drizzle hovering just below the cloud cover. He didn’t think it was going to turn into a full-on rain, but what the hell did he know.
As he walked across the road, he stopped in the middle and looked down. A compelling sense of loss made it impossible to keep going, and as that headache from the night before came back with a vengeance, he decided it was a good goddamn thing he was retiring.
He was wearing out, the chassis of focus and determination that he’d built his professional life on top of now rickety and unreliable from mental fatigue.