Page 34 of Vital Signs

"Misha?" His voice had gone soft, vulnerable in ways I'd never heard before.

"Yeah?"

"Don't let me down easy later. When this goes to shit. When I disappoint you." His eyes held mine, unflinching despite the chemical haze. "Just... be cruel about it. I'd rather have your cruelty than anyone else's kindness."

The request broke something in my chest. Or maybe fixed it. I couldn't tell anymore.

"I promise," I said, and meant it.

Only then did I start the van.

The drive to the clinic should have been tense. Should have been about planning, strategy, the risks we were about to take.

Instead, it was about the way Hunter's hand kept drifting to my thigh. Light touches, barely there, like he couldn't help himself. The fentanyl made him tactile, made him need contact, made him brave enough to reach for what he wanted.

I didn't stop him.

"Tell me about Paris," he said, words still honey-slow. "About Roche."

"Roche collected people," I said, eyes on the dark road. "Beautiful people. Unique people. He'd keep us in his studio, photograph us, study us. And then he'd start the preservation process while we were still alive."

Hunter's hand stilled on my thigh. "What does that mean?"

"He'd inject embalming compounds. Slowly. Over weeks. Documenting every stage." My hands tightened on the wheel. "He made me learn. Made me practice on the others. Said I had steady hands, an eye for beauty, the perfect temperament for the work."

"Jesus Christ."

"He was preparing me to be his protégé. To continue his art after he was gone." I could still hear Roche's voice, soft and cultured, explaining how to find the femoral artery. "I learned anatomy by watching people die. Learned chemistry by mixing the compounds that killed them."

"How did you get out?"

"Xander and Ash." I turned onto the access road that would take us to the clinic's back entrance. "They found me before Roche could finish the process. Before I became another piece in his collection."

Hunter was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Do you ever miss it?"

The question should have shocked me. Should have offended me. Instead, it was relief. Like someone finally asking the question I'd been too afraid to ask myself.

"Sometimes," I admitted. "Not the dying. Not the fear. But the control. The way Roche made everything so simple. You were either art or you were the artist. Either the canvas or the one who created beauty from suffering."

"And now?"

"Now I don't know which one I am." I pulled into the clinic parking lot, killed the headlights. "Maybe both."

Hunter's hand found mine in the darkness. "Good. I don't trust simple people. They don't understand how complicated wanting can be."

I turned to look at him. The parking lot lights cast shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp bones, the dark eyes, the mouth I wanted to kiss until neither of us could breathe.

"I wanted you from the moment I saw you fight," I admitted. The darkness made me brave. Or maybe it was the way Hunter had just stripped himself bare, chemically and emotionally. "Not in spite of the violence. Because of it. Because you used your medical knowledge to hurt people, and you were good at it, and you didn't pretend it was anything other than what it was."

"Survival," Hunter said.

"Survival," I agreed. "But you made it beautiful. The way you moved, the precision, the control. You turned degradation into performance. That's art, Hunter. Dark, fucked-up art, but art nonetheless."

He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Is that what Roche taught you? To see beauty in suffering?"

"Yes."

"And you hate him for it."