“No pulse, no respiration, no response to stimuli. Liver temps.”
Trina winced when she thought about the thermometer piercing flesh that wasn’t, in fact, dead.
“So explain to me how they got up and walked,” the captain said.
“We have it on camera, sir,” Trina chimed in, drawing his jowly glare. “We’re thinking that there must have been some sort of drug involved. Something that lowered their heartrates and their body temperatures and made them seem dead.”
He grunted. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Do you have any better theories?” she countered. Respectfully – she hoped.
His brows dropped low over his eyes and he exhaled in an unhappy rush. He didn’t reprimand her, though; swiveled his chair back toward the computer and sighed. “Fuck it. Whatever it is, we need it cleared up before the press conference.”
“Press conference?” Trina and Harvey asked at the same time. Trina glanced over and saw her own mounting panic reflected in the ME’s eyes.
“Yeah,” Captain Abbot said with another angry grunt. When he got worked up, the man sounded like a water buffalo. “The commissioner wants to ‘get in front of the panic.’ Whatever the fuck that means. Goddamn mayor’s gonna be there and everything.”
“The mayor?” Trina asked. “Really?”
“The asshole himself.”
Trina swapped another look with Harvey.
“Will you need us there?” Harvey asked.
“Nah.” The captain waved at them, his usual dismissal. “But figure this shit out, yeah?”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused, and escaped out into the bullpen.
Where Trina saw that a bright-haired visitor awaited her at her desk, spinning slow circles in her swivel chair, pale eyes tracking across the crowded, chaotic room.
Damn it. She’d told Sasha to wait outside.
“Trina,” Harvey started, voice tired, and then she caught sight of Sasha. “Hey, isn’t that the guy you and Webb brought to the morgue last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Right,” Harvey said, her calm deliberate. “And he is?”
“It’s a very long story.”
“Cliff’s Notes, then.”
On his next spin, Sasha spotted Trina standing outside the captain’s door and smiled wide enough to show the too-sharp points of his canines. Beside her, Harvey jerked a little; just a quick movement that she immediately smoothed away. Whether she’d reacted to seeing his fangs, or was simply struck by the combination of almost-glowing blue eyes and his completely guileless face, Trina didn’t know. It was all rather shocking.
She said, “Let’s just say that he’s a very close friend of the family I’ve just met recently.”
“Right,” Harvey said flatly.
“On my Russian side.”
And when Harvey said, “Ah,” she sounded like that made at least a little sense. No one ever questioned anything that happened on Trina’s Russian side.
Trina took a shallow, bracing breath and walked toward her desk, not surprised, but dismayed, when Harvey stayed glued to her side.
When they reached him, Sasha turned his smile on the doctor and said, “Good morning, Doctor Harvey.”
Harvey blinked, face blanking over with surprise. “Oh. Um. Good morning.”
“Harvey, this is Sasha.”
“Yes, we met last night,” Sasha said, with all the brightness of the irrepressible little sunbeam he was.
His cheer was the reason Trina managed to keep her tone light when she said, “Sasha, I thought we talked about you waiting outside.”
“We did, yes,” he said, his attention coming back to her. “But Nik said I was supposed to stay with you.”
“And what Nik says trumps whatever I say?”
“I’m sorry, yes,” he said, and didn’t sound sorry in the least.
She sighed. “Fine. I could use your help anyway.”
He looked delighted by the prospect.
Harvey, caught between an admirable state of composure and a full-on freakout, said, “Trina, where is Lanny? Really?”
“It’s actually part of that whole long story.”
Harvey looked a little hurt, but nodded. “You know I’m gonna want a real explanation at some point, right?”
“Christine,” Trina started, and the doctor stopped her with a raised hand.
“A man walked out of my morgue. A dead guy got up off my table. I think I’m owed the truth.”
Trina opened her mouth…but then nodded. Harvey was right. If their roles had been reversed, she would have been demanding answers. “You’ll get one, I promise.” She gave Sasha a little wave and he sprang to his feet, hair bouncing. “Let’s just say the truth is a lot more X-Files than you probably think.”
Harvey’s eyes popped wide.
Trina gave her an apologetic smile and headed for the door, Sasha trailing after her.
He caught up to her easily out on the sidewalk, falling into step alongside. “Are you going to tell her about Lanny?” he asked, curious rather than judgmental. She had a feeling Nikita would already be lecturing her.
“That wasn’t my original plan, no. But she’s one of the good ones. I don’t like lying to her.”
Sasha nodded sagely. “That’s what made Nikita such a terrible Chekist. The lying ate him up from the inside out.”
“Does it still?” She thought about a life spent more or less on the run, just the two of them keeping to themselves, forming no outside attachments, keeping their powers hidden away like contraband so as not to draw attention. In that scenario, the lying never really stopped – even if killing wasn’t in the job description anymore.
Sasha sent her a quick, sad smile. “That’s the problem, though. If you pretend to be something for long enough, it usually sticks.”
*
It was easier being indoors, Lanny realized as he and Nikita walked down the street. His senses were no less finely-tuned, but in a bar, or the apartment, he could sit still and catalogue the sights, the scents, the sounds; could ground himself and take the time to pick apart all the subtle differences and scent markers he’d never noticed before. When he was human.
(Thinking of himself as not human wasn’t going to start feeling normal anytime soon.)
But outside, moving, the hypersensitivity felt like an assault. He tried breathing through his mouth, but he could taste scents too. And a blaring, air raid siren part of his brain was telling him he was surrounded by threats…and by prey. His body wanted blood, and it was all around him.
Sweat gathered at his temples, under his arms, in the small of his back. He could hear his breath rasping in and out of his mouth and knew he had to look like a drunk or a psycho; he swore he could feel his eyes pinging side to side as he scanned the sidewalk, the street, the windows up above.
“It gets easier,” Nikita said calmly beside him. “It’s normal after a while, and you can control yourself.”
“I can control myself,” Lanny said, without much heat because he was breathing too hard.
“Alright. What are you thinking about right now? What do you want to do?”
A simple question in theory. But he wanted so much.
He wanted to go across the street and pick a fight with the douchebag in the ugly hat over there because aggression was like a living thing inside him, and that guy needed a good ass-beating, it looked like. He wanted to turn and deck Nikita just for being an asshole.
Wanted to find Trina and tell her that he was whole now, healed, that he wasn’t going to die, and then lay her out on the bed and shred her clothes with his teeth.
And deeper, more primal than those things, throbbing relentlessly inside him like a fresh bruise, was a hunger that had nothing to do with a full belly.
When he didn’t respond, Nikita said, almost kindly, “We’ll get some blood. Don’t worry.”