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Two other humans from Black’s team stood with them, the same two who’d been acting as prison guards to Dex until we could get him back to San Francisco.

All five of them looked annoyed, and frustrated.

The two guards looked faintly relieved when they saw Black approaching.

“Sir,” the tall, blond one said. “These two wanted to go inside. You told us only one visitor at a time, and that vampire––”

“It’s all right,” Black cut in, waving off the other’s concerns. “We’re all going in.”

He glared pointedly at Jem.

The green-eyed seer blinked at him, bewildered, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

When Jem looked at me, arching an eyebrow in an unspoken question, I gave him an exaggerated eyeroll, and motioned with my head towards Black, making it clear he was being an idiot. I elbowed him and Black elbowed me back, exuding annoyance.

“I saw that,” he grumbled.

“You were meant to,” I retorted. Without waiting for Black to answer, I turned back to Jem. “Did you eat your cake? Because it doesn’t look like you ate your cake.”

Jem scowled, but walked over to a table in an alcove and picked up a lime green ceramic plate with his cake on it. The front had an image of what looked like a burning bird to me, like some kind of phoenix only nearly black in color, with red streaks.

“You told us to come up here,” he grumbled. “So Kiko and I grabbed our cakes and came up here.”

For some reason, this made me laugh, too.

I was pretty sure we all had the same contact high now.

The guards were opening the door.

Once they had the suite open, Black wheeled in the cart with our cake, and me, Jem, Kiko, and Jax followed them inside.

“Eat your cake,” I told Jem.

His scowl deepened, but he stuck his hand in the cake he carried, and brought a fistful to his lips. I laughed, watching him cram it in his mouth without losing a single crumb. He began chewing energetically, and immediately I saw his pupils begin to dilate.

Another laugh burst out of me.

We were inside the room.

We’d made it this far, at least.

Two couches filled most of the common area by a flatscreen television and an adobe-style fireplace. On one couch, Nick sat alone, his mouth set in a frown. He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs as he looked over at us in irritation.

A square, sunset-orange plate with a square cake sat on the glass table in front of him.

Dexter sat directly across from Nick on the opposite couch.

A second cake, on a longer, oval-shaped, sunrise-pink plate, sat on the glass table nearer to the muscular Marine.

I was still looking at their two faces, trying to comprehend the expressions there, when Black’s voice boomed out.

“Eat. Your. Goddamned. Cakes.” Black spoke in short bursts, through half-clenched teeth. “Right. The. Fuck. Now.”

Dexter frowned at his boss.

Nick scowled at him, too.

In the end, the vampire caved first.