"She is not there!"
Tohr's face was twisted into a facsimile of its features, and as a hand clamped on his throat, Lassiter had a moment of clarity. The Brother could kill him, right here, right now.
Maybe that was how he ended up in the In Between again. Couple of head shots, then maybe a snapped neck, and poof! You failed. Hello, infinite nothingness.
Funny, he'd never even considered going back. Probably should have.
"You'd better open your fucking mouth, angel," Tohr growled.
Lassiter traced that face again, measured the power in that body, took the temperature of the rage. "You love her too much. "
"She is my shellan - "
"Was. Goddamn you, was. "
There was a heartbeat of silence. Then a crack, and a light show, and a lot of pain. As well as a little wobble of the knees - not that he'd have admitted that.
The bastard had coldcocked him.
Lassiter shoved the guy off him, spit blood out on the carpet, and thought about hitting back. Fuck the fighting, though. If the Maker was going to reclaim him, then the Be All and End All was going to have to come get him; Tohr was not going to be airmailing him in.
Time to get the hell out of this room.
As he headed for the door, the muttered cursing from behind him was easily ignored. Especially given that he was wondering whether one of his eyes was hanging by its optic nerve.
"Lassiter. Fuck, Lassiter - I'm sorry. "
The angel wheeled around. "You want to know what the problem is?" He pointed right into the guy's puss. "You are the problem. I'm sorry you lost your female. Sorry you're still suicidal. Sorry that you have nothing to get out of bed for - or get into bed for. I'm sorry that you've got a boil on your ass and a toothache and goddamn fucking swimmer's ear. You are alive. She is not. And your hanging on to the past is putting you both in an In Between. "
Catching his flow, he marched up to the cocksucker. "You want the fine print? Well, here it goddamn is. She is fading out - not heading for the Fade. And you are the reason it's happening. This" - he motioned around the male's stringy body and his bandaged foot and hand - "is why she's there. And the longer you hold on to her, and your old life, and everything you lost, the less of a chance she has of getting free. You are in charge here, not her, not me - so how about you punch yourself again next time, asshole. "
Tohr dragged a shaking hand down his face, like he was trying to sand off his features. And then he clasped the front of his muscle shirt - right over his heart. "I can't just stop. . . because her body did. "
"But you're acting like it happened yesterday, and I've got no sense this is going to change. " Lassiter went over to the bed where the mating gown was laid out. Fisting the satin, he dragged the thing off by the thick skirt and shook it. "This is not her. Your anger is not her. Your dreams, your fucking pain. . . none of it is her. She is gone. "
"I know that," Tohr shot back. "Do you think I don't know that?"
Lassiter shoved the gown forward, the satin falling like a rain of blood. "Then say it!"
Silence.
"Say it, Tohr. Let me hear it. "
"She is. . . "
"Say it. "
"She is. . . "
When nothing came back at him, he shook his head and tossed the gown on the bed. Muttering under his breath, he went for the door again. "This is going nowhere. Unfortunately, the same is true for her. "
Chapter Seventeen
As dawn grew near, Xhex wrapped up her first night back in her old boots. The pace of the hours had been good, the Ping-Pong nature of dealing with a fuckload of people in an enclosed space with alcohol in the mix making the time pass fast enough. It was also good to be Alex Hess, head of security, once again - her own female, even if the name she used among the humans was fake.
And it was frickin' fantastic not having the Brotherhood breathing down her back.
What was not so hot was the fact that everything felt flat, like life had been bulldozed in preparation for the paving trucks to come.