I touched her face. She was clammy to the touch. 'Bea, can you hear me?'

She blinked at me, gave a small nod, and said, 'Yes.' Her voice was hoarse.

'When did you eat last?'

She couldn't remember.

'How much water have you had?'

She hadn't had any today. Someone went to fetch her water, and another officer went for a candy machine. I knelt on one knee on the floor in front of her and let her hold my hand. I'd have said I was holding hers, but she seemed to need the touch.

We got some water into her, Gonzales holding the cup between sips. A candy bar put some color back into her cheeks. 'I'm sorry,' she said, in a small, hoarse voice.

'You have to take care of yourself better than this, Bea,' I said.

'I just want to spend as much time with them as I can.'

'Them?' I asked.

'Rush and Micah.'

Rush I understood. 'Micah will be back.'

'But the two of them together, I won't get to see that much longer,' and she began to cry.

I patted her hand, and glared up at Gonzales. He gave me a what-did-I-do? look. When Bea seemed well enough to sit safely without falling over, I left the officer with the water by her side and walked Gonzales a little way from her. Nicky and Domino trailed after us.

'How long have you been here with her?' I asked.

'Only a couple of hours,' he said. 'I didn't know she hadn't eaten or drunk something.'

'Has Micah had anything?'

'I don't know, he's in with Rush.'

'Shit,' I said.

I turned to the cops in the hallway. 'Guys, really appreciate you being here like this.'

They all made noncommittal gestures of support.

'But can you guys keep checking and making sure the family keeps hydrated and a little food in them?'

They looked at one another. It turned out that most of them had only just cycled back through to hospital duty, so they hadn't known. 'Sorry, Marshal, we'll look after Mrs Callahan better from now on.'

I didn't correct him that it was Mrs Morgan, but part of me wondered if the kids had hyphenated names. Probably not, or the secret would have been out years ago, but all the same they were a unit, a couple that happened to be three instead of two. I had a moment to wonder how Jean-Claude, Micah, Nathaniel, and I would handle a commitment ceremony. For that matter, would Jean-Claude want to involve Asher? Did I want Nicky involved? It all seemed too complicated now, which meant that something about the last few minutes had hit an issue for me. I didn't know exactly what issue had been hit, but it was something, because I was feeling less friendly about the whole idea of commitment anything.

I let the negative emotions sort of wash over me but didn't let them stick. I just let them go. I'd figure out what was bugging me later; right now I wanted to see Micah and make sure he was okay. All right, as okay as he could be under the circumstances. My head was already starting to ache from whatever emotional land mine the last few minutes had hit, but I'd learned that I didn't have to know exactly what was bothering me. I just had to acknowledge the problem, keep moving, and not act on the irrational impulses. Edward had saved me earlier when I would have taken out my issues on Nicky and Dev; now I had to save myself.

I took a few deep breaths, and it was a mistake, because I could smell the sweet-and-sour smell of something rotting, and I knew it was Micah's dad. The smell was almost too close to the smell of the corpses earlier. It was like some awful preview. And just like that, I wasn't okay.

'Bathroom, nearest,' I said.

Gonzales pointed down the hallway. 'Go right.'

I'd have liked to be cool, but I started running, not like running-for-my-life fast, but I really wanted to get to the bathroom before I threw up. Nicky and Domino jogged behind me, and I felt stupid having them trail me. In that moment I just wanted to be alone.

I found the bathroom, slammed into the door to push it open, and ran for a stall. I started throwing up before I got to my knees and had just enough awareness left to keep my hair back with one hand.

I felt someone behind me. 'It's me,' Nicky said. Though for once if the bad guys had wanted to get me, doing it while I was being violently ill was a good moment to choose. Nicky held my hair for me so I could use both hands to prop myself up. Meat does not throw up well. If I'd known it was going to be important, I'd have had the soup, or maybe just coffee, yeah, just coffee would have been great.

I knelt there, my forearms propped on the toilet, head hanging down, while Nicky held my hair in one hand and put the other on my forehead. His hand felt cool, and I knew it wasn't. He ran hotter than human-normal like most lycanthropes. The fact that his hand felt that cool meant that maybe I was sicker than I thought.

'Here are some paper towels; it might help,' Domino said.

I thought he meant Clean up, and was about to protest that I hadn't made a mess, but then Nicky's hand left my forehead and put something cold against the back of my neck. It was a shock to the system, but it felt good. Cool was better.

'Sorry,' I managed to say.

'For what?' Domino asked, but Nicky didn't ask. He knew, partly because he was my Bride, but partly because he understood how much I hated weakness of any kind.

I started fumbling at the toilet paper roll.

Nicky leaned over to help.

'I got it,' I said, and realized I'd snapped at him. 'I'm sorry.' I got some of the paper to finally come off the damn roll and wiped at my mouth.

'Do you want me to leave?'

'No.' I said it automatically and then a tiny part of me wondered if it was true. Hadn't I thought I'd like to be alone just seconds before I came in here?

Nicky let go of my hair and started to move out of the stall.

I reached back and grabbed his pants leg. 'Please,' I said, 'just give me a minute. I didn't mean to snap. I don't want you to go. Thank you for taking care of me.'

'You're saying all the right things, but I can feel what you're actually feeling, remember? You're irritated, angry even.'

'But not at you,' I said, with my hand still wrapped in the loose edge of his jeans. He had to get loose fit a lot, because the muscles of his thighs didn't fit in some of the tight jeans.

'Just because you're not angry at me doesn't mean you won't aim it at me.' There was a tone in his voice that I couldn't quite figure out, but it wasn't a good one.

'Please,' I said again, 'don't let your issues and mine do something bad. I just need to figure out what the hell is going on in my head.'

'Okay,' but he sounded cautious, as if he didn't trust ... me. He was this big, physical guy, tougher and better than most of the guards, physically stronger than I would ever be, but in that moment I realized something I hadn't before. If I had been abusive to him, as my Bride he couldn't have done anything about it. Brides were pretty much helpless to say no to their masters. He even had to keep me happy, because if I was unhappy it made him unhappy. I wondered how close to the dynamics with his mother our relationship was, and then wished I hadn't thought of it. It was all too Freudian and weird. Why was I overthinking this? What the hell was wrong with me? And then I realized, this was what I used to do. I used to overthink relationships and poke them with a stick until they broke, and then I'd be able to say, See, see, I knew it. Fuck, what about this case, the last few minutes, had set me back to such old shitty habits?

I threw the toilet paper in the toilet and flushed away my lunch, and then I let go of Nicky's pants leg and held my hand up to him. I didn't need the help to stand, but it was a way of apologizing and letting him know how much I'd appreciated the help in these last few minutes, how much I appreciated him.

He looked down at me, his face arrogant, unreadable; the one blue eye staring down at me was harsh and unfriendly. I wasn't the only one who'd had old issues hit in the last few minutes.