Page 20 of For Love and Blood and Fury

Outside of her enclosure, no one spared a glance her way. There was no sign of Marisol either. She set out on her mission.

The stink of death was heavy behind one of the closed curtains in the emergency room. She hated the smell. Hated how easy it was to choke on. Using the senses that still responded to her, she wheeled carefully around the circular maze of identical looking stalls. Little prisons just like hers.

Rolling past anyone who smelled sick, Elena hunted for a healthy person who’d suffered an unfortunate accident. While she did, she kept one eye trained on the doors leading out of the ER. If she got the chance to bolt, she’d take it.

Heart attack, stroke, sepsis, aneurysm.

Elena kept herself calm, even as a swell of anxiety crested in her chest. What if she couldn’t get herself out? What if she was sitting like a lame duck when her attacker found her? Or worse, what if she could never fully regain her memories? If she couldn’t regain her strength? She couldn’t think of a worse fate than being trapped with humans for the rest of her endless life.

Focusing on something more useful than panic, Elena stopped in front of a closed curtain. She didn’t smell illness, and there was little movement. It was easy to extend her influence, to soothe the sleeping male and ensure he didn’t rouse at her presence.

Ready to feign confusion if a human discovered her incursion, Elena slipped inside the man’s stall. He was heavily sedated, although Elena couldn’t tell why. He did not appear to have any injuries. She rolled to the side of his bed and detected the scent of intoxicants. Many intoxicants.

A polluted blood supply wasn’t optimal. At her full strength, she could easily filter out the mind-altering substances, but likethis… She couldn’t be sure. Would she be making herself more vulnerable?

She eyed her supply options. His neck and arms would be too visible to the hospital staff. The brachial artery—a source deep in the upper arm that would quickly deliver a lot of blood—could suit her purposes.

Extending her fangs, she couldn’t bring herself to lift the sleeve of his T-shirt. He was dead asleep; there was no risk he’d wake and let out a blood-curdling scream. Even without her influence, the drugs in his system were a strong anesthetic.

But still, Elena couldn’t bring herself to take from him. She remembered enough to be sure that she shouldn’t take without consent. That she wouldn’t.

Disgusted with herself, Elena turned away. She wanted more than anything to fucking remember. Pressing her fingers to the source of the pain in her hip, she imagined shrapnel and glass. What had she been impaled with? What had it done to her brain?

She forced herself back to her task. There was really only one option. Before anyone transferred her to some new hell and away from Marisol, she would need to drink from her. If she couldn’t heal her with her undisciplined magic, she might restore her strength with blood.

Wheeling herself back to the corridor, she scanned the massive circular desk at the center of the room. No sign of Marisol. Anxiety flared anew.

Had she gotten fired for fighting to keep Elena under her care? Something like nausea returned to her gut. If she left, Elena would have no one. No way out.

“I’m looking for my nurse,” Elena said to a man behind a computer monitor. Her influence followed her words like burgeoning tendrils on a vine.

Instead of ignoring her, which Elena was sure had been his desire, he barked, “What do you need?”

Elena resisted the urge to shift into compulsion. She didn’t have time to deal with the aftermath. She upped the influence instead, infusing into the nurse a critical sense of urgency. “I need Marisol Lopez,” she said, voice soft and velvety and loaded with the unspokennow.

He resisted. But only for a moment. When he picked up a telephone, she relaxed into her chair, tired from an exertion that should be as effortless as breathing.

A second later, his voice crackled over the PA system. “Lopez, your patient in two needs a bedpan. STAT.”

Elena closed her eyes against the indignation.Well, I should have been more specific with my intentions.

Chapter Thirteen

Marisol tuckeda strand of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear and pulled open the curtain. “I can’t be around you.”

Elena, if that was her real name, was already back in bed. Hair nearly black and tossed to one side in increasingly unruly waves, she was hard to look at. Just the sight of her made Marisol question what she knew about the world. About herself.

“Why? Haven’t you sworn an oath to help the sick?” Elena’s dark eyes laid her bare with nothing but a flutter of her lashes. “I’m all kinds of hurt.”

Marisol crossed her arms over her chest as if the gesture might act as a shield. “I’m kind of going through my own problems.”

“Oh, come on,” Elena’s smile was as dangerous as her eyes. “You’ve been a witch all this time and didn’t know it. It’s not like it’s going to change.”

She tried to hold strong to something inside of herself, though she wasn’t sure what. There was something about Elena’s proximity that made her feel reckless. Impaired her judgment.

“What do you want?”

“Try again?” Elena’s eyes bled with innocence, but Marisol couldn’t let herself believe it. “If you could just unscramble my egg”—she pointed to her head—“I can get my people to come get me.” Her eyes drifted away, unfocused. “I’m so very sure that I have people. A family. People who are wondering where I am,” she pressed with a true desperation Marisol felt like goosebumps on her skin.

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