“Me, too,” he mumbled into my shoulder, then pulled back. “Areyou okay?” he asked, then, worried.
I tried my best smile. “I’ll be fine, Nono.”
“Befine,” he repeated, blue eyes narrowing. “What does that mean?”
“My knee needs surgery,” I told him, hoping I’d be able to keep going before he blew up.
“Surgery?!What do you meansurgery?!”
No such luck.
“It’ll be okay,” I reassured him. “They’re just giving me a couple days to recover before they do it. But it’s pretty routine.”
It wasn’t, exactly. What the nurse had said was that they were bringing in an orthopedic surgeon from Charlottesville who did emergency knee surgeries for car accidents and that sort of thing all the time. I was paraphrasing that toroutine.
“What happened?” Noah demanded, still staring at me with some amount of skepticism. “Why are you even here?”
I sighed. “Nono, don’t freak out…”
He totally freaked out.
I’d managedto convince Lulu to take Noah back to Charlottesville around dinnertime, which left me with both Elliot, who was refusing to leave my side now that he’d gotten here, and Hart, who definitely looked the worse for wear, as well as Taavi, who was monitoring Hart like a very annoyed guard dog. I didn’t blame him. I hadn’t known that elves could actually physicallygetany paler than they already were naturally, but Hart’s bordering-on-ivory skin tone waswhite. Like bone-china white.
He was also still attached to an IV and was seriously pissed off about having to wear the little hospital gown we were both sporting, although Taavi had brought him sweatpants. I was not allowed to put on pants, because I’d have to take off the massive thing holding my leg completely immobile to do it.
“So what the fuck happened to Seth’s pathetic excuse for a father?” Elliot asked, once Noah and Lulu had left and Hart had begged Taavi to go pick up Thai food for all of us so that he and I didn’t have to suffer through yet another hospital meal. Taavi had insisted on getting permission from the doctors first—and thank God they’d given it, because I didn’t think I could actually choke down enough of the shit that passed for food here to meet my daily caloric intake requirements.
Hart shot him a look. “You know damn fucking well I’m not supposed to talk about ongoing federal cases.”
“Fuck that,” was Elliot’s response. “At least tell me if the shithead’s in jail right now.”
Another sigh. “Yes.”
“Here?” Elliot demanded.
Hart glared.
“Look, the asshats here tried to kill us once. Forgive me if I’m not terribly inclined to trust them to not accidentally let out the murderous werewolf.” Elliot wasn’t being unreasonable.
“Fine, dickhead. And he’s not staying here for long.”
“I don’t like it,” Elliot told him.
“He’s under federal guard,” Hart replied. “Because I don’t trust these fuckheads as far as I can throw them, either, and right now, that’s not very fucking far.” Among Hart’s collection of injuries was some tendon damage to one shoulder from somebody-or-other’s teeth. He was expected to make a full recovery, but for now, the arm was in a hinged brace and sling.
“As long as he’s not going to break out or be broken out,” Elliot replied, his voice tense. “When are they moving him? I don’t want him within a hundred miles of Seth.”
I didn’t particularly want him within a hundred miles of me, either. Or a thousand, but I didn’t think restraining orders reached that far.
Hart grunted. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
Elliot scowled.
“And you know you’re not going to get it out of me,” the elf remarked.
“Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try,” Elliot retorted. “At least tell me the fuckhead’s in pain.”
Hart smirked. “Oh, he’s in pain. Not just from you, either,” he remarked.
