Page 41 of These White Lies

With a groan, Elizabeth’s eyes drift shut. Alarmed, I take an immediate step forward.

The nurse gives me a reassuring smile. “She’s fine. The pain medication and the other medicine they gave her are going tomake her sleepy. Best thing is to rest. Your body needs it.” The last is directed at Elizabeth, who has opened her eyes again. “Are you in any pain?”

“Not really,” Elizabeth admits. “It feels weirdly numb.”

“That’s going to wear off. When it does, just push the call button. The doctor left prescriptions for you for pain medication and an antibiotic cream.”

After she’s gone again, I pull the chair closer to Elizabeth’s bed and lower myself into it. She eyes me warily for a minute, like she wants to argue but thinks better of it.

Closing her eyes again, she says, “On duty?”

“Yep.”

“At some point you’ll have to sleep, too.”

Later. Once I know you’re safe.

“I’m sorry I took off like that.”

I shrug even though she can’t see me, because now isn’t the time to lecture her on the protocols again—though the time will come, and I will usemuchstronger language than I did before.

“Protection takes getting used to.”

She lets out a slow breath. “Especially when you’ve never had it before.”

A few minutes later, Elizabeth is sound asleep, and the door is opening slowly. Instantly alert, I don’t relax until I recognize my sister entering the room.

“You weren’t answering your texts.” She looks curiously at Elizabeth’s sleeping form in the bed.

“Keep your voice down,” I whisper. “She just fell asleep.”

Sera looks at me with a weird expression and then extends a small bag toward me. “Here are the clothes.”

“Thanks. Any news on the plate?”

Sera shifts on her feet, looking restless. “Stolen plates off a Honda Accord in Alpharetta.”

I frown. It didn’t make sense. Leaving Keith at her house and hacking into the power grid to take down her neighbors’ security cameras required skill, and tonight they were clearly amateurs.

“Do you need anything else?” Sera fidgets, and it hits me.

“I’m sorry, Ser. I should have had someone else bring me the clothes.”

“No problem,” she says, but the way she’s picking at her fingers tells me there is one.

After the weeks she spent in the hospital last year following her attack, Sera had understandably developed an aversion to hospitals. “Callum and Rhodes are still out in the field, and Finn had a date, so Theo is going to be your backup in the waiting room.”

I gape at her. “Finn does not have a date.”

Her face relaxes for the first time since she entered the room. “It’s a setup from his sister. Some friend of hers is in town, and she coerced him into taking her out.”

I bite my lip trying to imagine Finn making small talk. “By the way,” Sera continues. “Vincent says he wants a full report on what’s going on here.” She glances at Elizabeth.

“Understood. Tell him I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

She nods. “We’re working up a background on her. It will be ready by morning. Anything else before I go?”

I shake my head, and once I’m alone, I try to make myself comfortable in the chair. Elizabeth wakes once, and after the nurse gives her a pain pill she’s out again. She doesn’t stir until the nurse comes in early the next morning to draw some blood and check her vitals.