Page 25

I couldn’t wait for work to be over. Working a short shift, especially in the morning, usually went by pretty fast for me. But after Kroven had texted me went I first got to work that Exo and Wallace weren’t going to be in Piper until around dinner time, it meant we could have our lunch date uninterrupted and without distraction.

This morning I’d had breakfast with Thayer, who was in between sleeping schedules. I had no idea how the hell he maintained it. They worked him pretty hard down at Downpour over on the Orb-centric side of town. At least he had a hefty paycheck to make it all worth it. Over the spread of scrambled eggs and sausages I’d made this morning, I’d told Thayer that I was falling pretty hard for Kroven. He was elated for me, but said that I owed him a “third wheel date” with all three of us so he could properly sus him out. It warmed my soul knowing that Thayer cared that much about me.

A weird uproar from outside made me stand up from my chair at the nurse’s station on the Orb wing and stare at Babs, who was with me today monitoring and taking care of the handful of sangamar patients we had today. We’d been getting a few more of them here and there braving the storm of protestors, enough to split patients between the two of us, but not enough to last all day, hence the short shift.

I followed Babs to the other side of the wall so we could peer out of the floor to ceiling windows that adorned most of the Orb wing. The protestors were pointing in our direction at one of the traffic cops that was keeping an eye on them. Babs and I gasped as one of the protestors pushed the officer. Not enough to make him fall to the pavement, but enough to piss him off. He was yelling in their faces and squawking into his walkie.

“What is with them today?” Babs commented, shaking her head and moving back to the nurse’s station. We were giving our current patients some alone time to enjoy their consumption in solitude before we checked that they were finished. It was a stark contrast to the times I’d spent with Kroven in his room. My heart and dick lurched at the memory and only made me more eager to get this work shift over with.

“I don’t know,” I shook my head. “I’ll feel a lot better about everything when Mr. Watson gets here.”

I’d briefed Babs on what I had learned through Kroven. Exo and Wallace were touching down in Piper this evening and their plan was to come straight here to see the conditions of the blood center. The protestors never left until it was pretty dark, so they’d get a front row look at the hatred wafting off them like the cretins they were.

Even though I got off work around noon, I’d told Kroven to tell them I promised to be their liaison once they were heading to the blood center. I wanted to be there to see their faces when they saw the large group of protestors and how wrong they’d been in taking so long to see it for themselves and not take action until they did. I’d have some down time before I’d have to head over, which gave Kroven and I plenty of time to bask in the beauty of our lunch date.

Babs and I checked on our patients and got back into the swing of work. We still had six patients between us before the end of my shift in two hours, so we didn’t exactly have to rush to get things done, which was a nice change of pace from the hysteria I’d experienced working in both wings yesterday.

I was just finishing up on my second to last sangamar when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and spread a smile at the screen just reading Kroven’s name.

Not long now, blomsjett.

I quickly messaged back with my heart in my fingers.

I know! Start thinking about where we should go for lunch.

We’ll figure it out. I could get full on that beautiful smile alone.

I huffed with a smile, feeling like a giddy idiot. God, I was down bad. Something so simple as being complimented sent my heart to Saturn and back again. It floored me that Kroven hadn’t been with a human before because he was evidently a fucking pro at it. I was glad I was his first and that he was my first Orb. We’d get to experience so much together.

That was that, then. I’d decided. I was in love with Kroven. And I made a mental promise to myself that I was going to plan out this elaborate date to tell him. I could’ve easily used the impending lunch date, but I needed it to be perfect. Being in love wasn’t something I was used to. I’d thought I’d been in love with an ex-boyfriend in the past, but thank goodness I’d had the good sense to not tell him, when I’d caught him at his apartment with his dick inside my dentist. I’d already been scared that he wouldn’t say it back to me, and then he’d decided for me that he didn’t feel the same way. Then I’d had to get a new dentist and deal with a break-up. Honestly, dealing with finding a new dentist had been more trouble than moving on from that loser.

With Kroven, I didn’t fear the rejection I normally would have. I was excited to tell him, elated to share in the moment with him because I could feel that he felt the same way about me. I just knew it. That’s why I needed everything to be perfect when I told him. It’d be a moment I’d cherish for the rest of my life.

I sent him another text.

You’re the cutest. I’m rather attached to yours too, handsome.

“Someone’s in love.”

I turned my head to the sangamar I was just wrapping up with, a lovely woman named Marquinn that I’d helped in the past. She was eyeing me with a knowing smirk paired with her freshly visible eyes.

“I haven’t seen a look like that since I was much younger.”

I nodded. “Yeah. He’s pretty great.”

“Good for you, dear. Ahh, to be young.”

A protest bubbled on my tongue to tell her that there’s no way she was older than the person on the other end of my text message when I heard it. At first, it sounded like the protestors had just gotten louder. I slide my phone back into my pocket as Marquinn stood to drape her purse over her shoulder, giving me wide eyes the length of state lines. I knew through Kroven that a sangamar could hear slightly better than a human.

The look on her face chilled my veins and made me want to hide in the corner.

“Marquinn, what is it?”

“They’re here.”

I was about to ask her what the hell she was talking about, but the sound of shattered glass and an uproar of chanting hatred ripped through the air like a pressure cooker. Marquinn screamed and I ran out of the room I’d assigned for her, feeling her presence anxiously waiting behind me.

The protestors were in the lobby area of the Orb wing, that much I could hear. Glass was shattering and things were getting thrown around with nothing but the swiveling double doors separating them from us. I turned back to Marquinn.

“Run to the other side of the center.”

She shook her head. “We’re not allowed over there!”

“It’s a hell of a lot safer than here right now! You’ll be fine, just go!”

Thinking I might be right, Marquinn ran off out of view just as Babs and the sangamar man she’d been helping were coming out of one of the rooms behind me.

“What the hell is—”

Her question got swallowed by the clamorous sound of the protestors pushing through the double doors no more than twenty feet from me. The faces that I could read were twisted in vigorous anger, irate that we were there helping Orbs, chanting that damned Orb-omination as they did so. I was frozen in place, not knowing what they were going to do.

Once I saw one of them lighting a homemade Molotov cocktail, I knew we were in trouble. I craned my neck to Babs and the sangamar as they both screamed.

“Run!” I begged them as I made a run for them, hoping to get away.

But unfortunately, I wasn’t that lucky.

“I don’t think so.”

The voice came from behind as the back of my collar was pulled hard enough to choke me, throwing me off balance as I fell to the floor. My head sank hard into the tiled floor as my entire awareness blurred and my ears started to ring really loud. I tasted blood in my mouth as I faintly heard what sounded like Babs yelling after me.

Feet started kicking me as I smelled the beginnings of the fire, from more than one Molotov cocktail if I had to guess. I saw through a forest of limbs as people started to deliberately trample me. Someone reared back their foot and it smacked right into the center of my face, causing me to knock my head back on the tile once more.

Black swirled at the edges of my vision like a vignette, and screams filled my muffled ears as the darkness claimed me.