It was strange; she hadn't had a lot of contact with the Brother, but whenever their paths had crossed, he'd always been particularly... well, kind. Which was why she always avoided him. She dealt much better with toughness than she did with anything tender.
Frankly he made her jumpy.
As she stayed quiet, his face tightened as if she'd disappointed him but he didn't blame her for the shortfall. "Okay," he said. "I won't pry."
Jesus, she was a bitch. "No, it's all right. You just really don't want me to answer that right now."
"Fair enough." His eyes narrowed on the weight room door and she got the distinct impression he was trapped outside of it as much as she was, shut down by the male who was suffering on the other side. "So you called up to the kitchen to get me?"
She took out the key John had used to let them into the guy's former house. "Just wanted to give this back to you and tell you there was a problem."
The Brother's emotional grid went black and vacant, everything lights-out. "What kind of problem?"
"One of your sliding glass doors is broken. It's going to need a couple of sheets of plywood to cover it up. We were able to reengage the security alarm so the motion detectors inside are on, but you've got a hell of a draft. I'll be happy to fix it today."
Assuming John either finished off the rest of the exercise machines, ran out of running shoes, or fell over in a dead heap.
"Which..." Tohr cleared his throat. "Which door?"
"The one in John Matthew's room."
The Brother frowned. "Was it broken when you got there?"
"No... it just spontaneously busted."
"Glass doesn't do that without a good reason."
And hadn't she given John Matthew one. "True enough."
Tohr stared at her and she looked right back at him and the silence grew thick as mud. The thing was, though, as nice a guy and as good a soldier as the Brother was, she had nothing to share with him.
"Who do I talk to about getting some plywood," she prompted.
"Don't worry about it. And thanks for letting me know."
As the Brother turned and walked back into the office, she felt like hell--which she supposed was yet another connection she had with John Matthew. Except instead of setting a land/speed record, she just wanted to take a knife and cut her inner forearms to release the pressure.
God, she was such a crybaby emo sometimes, she truly was. But those cilices of hers not only kept her symphath side in check, they helped her dim down the things she didn't want to feel.
Which was abooooooout ninety-nine percent of emotion, thank you very much.
Ten minutes later, Blaylock ducked his head out of the door. His eyes were locked on the floor and his emotions were in an upheaval, which made sense. No one liked to see a buddy self-destruct, and having to conversate with the person who'd sent the poor bastard into a free fall wasn't exactly a happy-happy.
"Listen, John's gone into the locker room to take a shower. I got him to quit the Running Man impression, but he's... He needs a little more time, I think."
"Okay. I'll keep waiting for him here in the hall."
Blaylock nodded and then there was this awkward pause. "I'm going to go work out now."
After the door eased shut, she picked her jacket and her weapons up and wandered down toward the locker room. The office was empty, which meant Tohr had gone along his merry way, no doubt to set up some Tim the Tool Man Taylor time with a doggen.
And the resonant quiet told her there was no one in any of the classrooms, gym, or clinic.
Sliding down the wall, she let her ass bottom out on the floor and hung her arms off her knees. Letting her head fall back, she closed her eyes.
God, she was exhausted....
"John's still in there?"
Xhex snapped awake, her gun pointed right up at Blaylock's chest. As the guy leaped back, she immediately flipped on the safety and lowered the muzzle.
"Sorry, old habits die hard."
"Ah, yeah." The guy motioned his white towel toward the locker room. "Is John still in there? It's been over an hour."
She flipped her wrist up and looked at the watch she'd snagged.
"Christ."
Xhex got to her feet and cracked the door. The sound of the shower running wasn't much of a relief. "Is there any other way out?"
"Just through the weight room--which opens only into this hall."
"Okay, I'm going to go talk to him," she said, praying it was the right thing to do.
"Good. I'll finish my workout. Call me if you need me."
She pushed through the door, and inside, the place was standard-issue, all banks of beige metal lockers separated by wooden benches. Following the sound of falling water to the right, she passed by a bay of urinals, stalls, and sinks that seemed lonely without a bunch of sweaty, naked, towel- snapping males putting them to use.
She found John in an open area with dozens of showerheads and tile on every square inch of the floors, walls, and ceiling. He was in his T-shirt and running shorts and was sitting against the wall, his arms hanging off his knees, his head down, the water rushing over his huge shoulders and torso.
Her first thought was that she had been outside in exactly the same position.
Her second was that she was surprised he could stand being so still. His emotional grid was not the only thing lit up; that shadow behind it was likewise afire with anguish. It was as if the two parts of him were both in a kind of mourning no doubt because he'd suffered or been witness to too many cruel losses in this life... and perhaps another. And where all that put him emotionally terrified her. The dense black void created in him was so powerful, it warped the superstructure of his psyche... taking him where she had been in that f**king OR.
Taking him to the pinpoint of madness.
Stepping over the tiled lip in the floor, her skin goose bumped at the chill in the air that came from his feelings... and the reality that she'd done it again. This was Murhder, only worse.
Jesus Christ, she was a f**king black widow when it came to males of worth.
"John?"
He didn't look up, although she wasn't sure whether he was even aware she was in front of him. He was back in the past, sucked in and held in the vise of memory....
Frowning, she found her eyes following the path of the water that rivered its way out from under him and traveled across the tilted tile plane... to the drain.
The drain.
Something with that drain. Something to do with... Lash?
Within the embrace of the solitude and against the backdrop of the quiet sound of the water's spray, she unleashed her bad side for a good purpose: In a great rush, her symphath instincts dove into John, penetrating through his physical territory and going deep into his mind and his recollections.
As he lifted his head and looked up at her in shock, everything went red and two-dimensional, the tile becoming a blush pink, John's dark, damp hair changing to the color of blood, the water twinkling like rose champagne.
The images she got were drawn with a quill of terror and shame: a dark stairway in an apartment building not unlike the one he'd taken her to; him a small pretrans being forced by a fetid human male...
Oh. God.
No.
Xhex's knees gave out and she wobbled--then just let herself go to the ground, landing on the slick tile so hard her bones rattled and her teeth clapped together.
No... not John, she thought. Not when he was defenseless and innocent and so very alone. Not when he was lost in the human world, scrounging to survive.
Not him. Not like that.
With her symphath side out and her eyes undoubtedly glowing red, they sat there staring at each other. He knew she'd read him and he hated her knowledge with such a fury she wisely kept any sorrow or commiseration to herself. He didn't appear to resent that she'd invaded him, though. It was more like he wished like f**k he didn't have that to share with anybody.
"What does Lash have to do with it," she said roughly. "Because he's all over your mind."
John's eyes shifted to the drain in the center and she got the impression he was seeing blood pooling around the stainless-steel cap. Lash's.
Xhex narrowed her eyes, the backstory becoming pretty damned guess-able: Lash had found out about John's secret. Somehow. And she didn't need her symphath side to tell her what the f**ker would have done with information like that.
A baseball announcer would seek less of an audience.
As John's stare came back to her, she felt a shattering communion with him. No barriers, no worries about being vulnerable. Even though they were both fully clothed, each was naked before the other.