Page 14 of Demon Hunter

Matt’s mouth opens on a wheeze, and his eyes widen, but he doesn’t look as surprised as I thought. Probably because Marc already calmed his heart rate while the doctor was talking to him, so it’s not that big a jump.

“He can only do little things while you’re here, or the norms will get suspicious,” Ian continues. “We gotta get you out.”

“Did he fuck with my head?” Matt narrows his eyes at Marc, who’s been unusually quiet. “Are you fucking with my mind?”

Marc sniffs. “I doubt you’d notice any difference if I did. But no, I’ve resisted the urge to look into your sordid little mind.”

“The doctors say you had no head trauma, so there was no reason for Marc to go near your brain,” Gabe says, but it’s not hard to hear the doubting note… or to see Connor’s glare. They accept the need for what Marc’s doing, and I think they’re even grateful to him—in their way—but it’s a hard thing to swallow.

Matt doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he lets it go. “Can I have more water?”

I rush to grab the cup and position the straw at his lips. This close, he looks even worse, his skin gray under the mottled bruising, the lines around his eyes etched deep. He needs to rest.

He needs to get out of here so Marc can finish healing him.

Once he’s had a few sips, I take the cup away but stay beside him. “Better?”

He huffs. “That’s a relative kind of question. I know the doc said I’m on good painkillers, but even my hair hurts.”

“Push the butt—” Gabe starts to say, but Marc cuts in.

“Donotpush that button. I can deaden your pain receptors for the time being. I didn’t want to before because if you’d woken completely pain-free, the doctors would have been suspicious.”

Connor and Gabe exchange another glance. “The less pain he appears to have, the more likely the doctors are to agree to a transfer,” Connor says reluctantly. “But I don’t like the idea of him having sensory loss.”

“Lucky for you, it’s my decision to make,” Matt snipes. His gaze goes to Marc. “You’re saying you can reduce the pain without the brain-fog effect the morphine would give me?”

Marc nods.

“Do it, then. I need a clear head while I think about all this.”

A second later, his face relaxes, the lines of tension releasing. “Whoa, that’s good shit.” He starts to sit up, but I put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“No pain doesn’t mean you’re better,” I remind him. “There’s still a lot that needs to heal.”

“Plus if you start moving around, the staff is going to wonder what the fuck is going on,” Ian adds. “Just lie there and pretend everything hurts, like you used to when we were kids and you wanted to get out of a test.”

Matt rolls his eyes. “That was you, not me.”

“It was you,” Gabe says dryly. “Many times.”

“You’re misremembering. But we’re way off-topic. What’s the goal, to transfer me to a Collective medical facility?” He sounds doubting, and I know why. The Collective has an assortment of clinics that we run ourselves, but nothing equipped to help him recover from this kind of trauma.

Connor shakes his head. “No. We don’t think it’s a good idea for the Collective as a whole to know what Marc’s capable of.” His voice is stiff. “The education program he and Ian started is working, but reminding everyone of exactly how much power he has might cause a setback.”

“I’ve been creating a medical center,” I interject. This was a conversation that got very heated yesterday, ending with Ian and Connor yelling at each other, and we don’t need that now. “An exclusive private hospital with top-shelf facilities. It’s looking pretty solid already, and in a couple of days, when the doctors here see how well you’re progressing, we’ll convince them to let us move you there.”

He blinks. “I don’t get it. You’re going to move me to a medical center that doesn’t exist? How will I finish recovering?”

The concern that maybe he has head trauma after all makes me frown. Maybe I should convince him to let Marc have a look in his brain.

I barely restrain my shudder at the thought.

“Connect the dots faster, Matty,” Ian says. “Marc’s been healing you, but he has to go super slow to keep the staff here from getting suspicious. So if we get you out of here…”

Matt visibly makes the correct leap of logic, and he looks at Marc again. “You can do that? Heal me that fast?”

“The second we have you on the helicopter, you’ll be completely healed,” the demon replies in a bored tone.

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