Page 14 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

"You're beautiful when you're cruel," he said, words honey-slow. Each syllable came out thick. "Makes me want to see how far you'll go."

I untied the tourniquet and pressed a piece of cotton to the injection site. Our faces were inches apart; his pupils constricted to tiny points. "How far do you think I'll go?"

"All the way." His tongue darted out to wet his lips, the movement clumsy but deliberate. "You want something from me. Something more than just... this." He gestured vaguely between us. "You want me to want you more than I want this." He tapped the syringe. "Good luck with that."

The honesty was brutal.

"We shouldn't be doing this," Hunter said, but the words came out wrong. Too loose.

"Scared?" I challenged.

"Of you?" He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Yeah. You just proved you'll do whatever it takes to get what you want. Including manipulating me while I'm vulnerable."

"And you're still here."

"That's what scares me most." He turned his head to look at me, pupils still pinpoints of black in dark brown eyes. "I know you're dangerous. Know you're using me. And I'm still here. Still letting you." His words slurred slightly at the edges. "What does that make me?"

I should start the van. Drive to the clinic. Get this done while he was functional.

Instead, I stayed exactly where I was, inches from him, close enough to see his pulse beating slowly and steadily in his throat.

"You don't look scared," I said.

"I am." His hand drifted up, fingers grazing my jaw in a touch so light I might have imagined it. "But fear's just another kind of want, isn't it?"

His thumb traced my lower lip, clumsy but deliberate.

I caught his wrist and held it. His pulse beat rabbit-fast despite the depressants in his system.

"What do you want, Hunter?"

The question came out rougher than I intended, loaded with everything we weren't saying.

"Everything." The word was barely a whisper, his eyes never leaving mine.

"I want you to want me more than I want this.

" He gestured vaguely at his arm, at the fresh injection site.

"I want to be your addiction instead of.

.." He laughed, bitter and chemical-soft. "But that's not how it works, is it?"

"No," I agreed. Because honesty deserved honesty, even when it hurt. "That's not how it works."

His face did something complicated. Pain and acceptance and a desperate kind of hope that made my chest tighten.

"But I could want you anyway," he said. "Even knowing I'll always need this more. Even knowing you'll never own me the way the drugs do. I could still want you."

The admission cost him. I could see it in the way his jaw worked, the way his eyes went bright with something that might have been tears if he were sober enough to cry.

"You said I was beautiful when I was cruel." I leaned closer, close enough that our breaths mixed in the small space between us. "Was that the fentanyl talking?"

"No." His free hand found my face, palm warm against my cheek. The touch was unpracticed, made clumsy by chemicals, but achingly genuine. "That was me. Real me. The part that knows we're the same kind of broken."

"We're not the same."

"No?" His smile was sharp despite the soft edges the drug gave him. "You just got off on having total control over whether I suffered or found relief. You made me beg. You made me tell you about Tyler just to prove you could. That's not normal, Misha. That's not healthy."

"And you loved every second of it."

"Yeah." No shame in the admission. No apology. "Because I'm fucked up too. Because part of me wants someone to have that kind of power over me. Because trusting you with the needle means trusting you with everything."

The weight of that settled between us, heavy and terrifying and perfect.

I pulled his hand away from my face, but didn't let go. Just held it, studying the scarred knuckles, the track marks, the evidence of everything he'd survived.

"I'm not a good person, Hunter."

"Neither am I." He squeezed my fingers. "Maybe that's the point."

The van's heater hummed. Outside, the truck stop carried on, oblivious to the shift happening in this small space.

"We should go," I said finally, not moving.

"Yeah." He didn't move either.

"The clinic—"

"I know."

But neither of us reached for our seatbelts. Neither of us broke eye contact. Neither of us wanted to end this moment, this honesty, this recognition of what we were to each other.

"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."

"Yes."

"But you can't stop seeing it that way. Can't stop finding things beautiful that shouldn't be."

"No."

His hand squeezed my thigh. "Good. I don't want you to."

"Is this wanting?" I asked. "Or is it the drugs talking?"

"Both," he said simply. "But the drugs just make me brave enough to say it out loud."

His thumb stroked across my knuckles, a small gesture that sent heat straight through me.

"When this is over," I said carefully, "when you're sober again—"

"I'll still want you." His certainty was absolute despite the chemical haze. "The drugs don't create feelings, Misha. They just strip away the reasons you hide them."

I wanted to believe him. Wanted to trust that this wasn't just the fentanyl making him pliant and honest and willing to see me as something other than broken.

But I'd learned the hard way that wanting something didn't make it real.

"Come on," I said, pulling my hand away. "We have a break-in to commit."

His smile was knowing. "Running away?"

"Strategic retreat."

"Same thing."

"Probably." I grabbed the cloning device from the glove box. "But we're doing it anyway."

Because breaking into clinics was safer than letting myself hope.

Hunter got out of the van, movements still slightly loose but functional. The fentanyl had done its job—taken away the withdrawal, made him steady enough for what came next.

But it had also stripped away his defenses. Made him soft and honest and dangerously willing to show me all the parts of himself he usually kept hidden.

And God help me, I wanted every single one of them.

"You're going to ruin me," he said, and it wasn't quite a question.

"Probably."

"And I'm going to let you."

"I know."

"Then let's go destroy Wright's world."