Page 32 of Map of Pain
Nick staredblankly, unable to keep up. Luka paused mid-gesture, seeming to realize Nick was lost. His expression softened as he grabbed his notebook from the counter, scrawling quickly before turning the notebooktoward Nick:‘It looksreallygood. I can see your whole face now.’
Nick’s hand roseunconsciouslyto touch his jaw, fingertips tracing the exposed skin. The compliment landedwarmlyin his chest, simple and genuine.
“Thanks,”Nick managed.“Had to get rid of all the... tangles.”
Luka nodded, understanding flickering across his features. He wrote:‘Hungry? I can make eggs.’
The mention of food sparked a hollow ache in Nick’s gut. The protein bars earlier had been the first real sustenance he’d had in days, and his bodysuddenlyremembered what actual hunger felt like.
“You cook?”
Luka’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he nodded. He pantomimed cracking eggs, then pointed to himself and made an elaborate chef’s kiss gesture that was so theatrical it was impossible not to find charming.
A laugh bubbled up Nick’s throat, startling them both. The sound was still rusty, unfamiliar, but real in way that made hismind hum with satisfaction—this was what it had been waiting for, this moment of simple human connection.
“Okay,”Nick said.“Show me what you’ve got, chef.”
Chapter fourteen
A looming porcelain maw...
Nick
Nick settled onto the edge of the bed, the mattress soft beneath him after days on thin hospital foam. His stomach felt uncomfortably full—he’d wolfed down the eggs, unused to proper food after weeks of protein bars and whatever scraps he could scavenge. Under normal circumstances, the warmth and fullness would have lulled him straight to sleep.
But sleep was never just sleep anymore.
His fingers traced the edge of the notebook Lukaleft beside the pillow. The vampire’s neat handwriting outlined their plan for when night returned—they would try to reach the neutral hunters in Peoria. Hide him there until... what? Until the Society stopped hunting him? Until he figured out what came next?
Neutral hunters. Led by someone named Haley and her vampire husband. The idea felt wrong, like betrayal.
His training stirred, sharp and dismissive:Cowards and traitors,secretlybetraying humanity while they pretend to have principles.
Nick rubbed his thumb over the blocky handwriting, trying to push the thought away. Shaw insisted there were more neutral hunters in Illinois than Society operatives. Hunters who only went after“destructive monsters,”whatever that meant.
“The humans are delusional,”Shaw’s voice echoed in his memory.“They think they can coexist with monsters. They don’t understand that every vampire is just waiting for the right moment to turn them all into walking, obedient blood bags.”
Nick’s chest tightened as the familiar rhetoric crashed through his defenses. How many times had he heard variations of that speech? How many times had he believed it without question? Shaw, Henderson, Owen: all three shaped him into their weapon, each playing their part in his reconstruction.
He forced himself to focus on the present—the soft bed, the afternoon light filtering through curtains, the distant sound of Luka moving around somewhere else in the safe house. His arm throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. The antibiotics from Jae helped, but the infection wasn’tcompletelygone.
Nick wanted to ask Luka to take it away again. The vampire’s strange ability had given him the first real peace he’d felt in months. But asking felt like betraying the hunter in him, like admitting weakness to an enemy.
So he stayed silent, gritting his teeth against the pain and trying to find a comfortable position on the bed.
Just rest,he told himself.Don’t think. Don’t plan. Just rest.
But his mind wouldn’t quiet. Every shadow in the room looked like a threat. Every sound from elsewhere in the house made his muscles tense for flight. The neutral hunters in Peoria were strangers. What if they decided he was too dangerous? What if they turned him over to the Society for some twisted sense of justice?
What if Shaw was right about everything?
Of course Shaw was right.The tactical part of his mind grew louder, more insistent.The Society saved you when you were nothing but a blood bag.
The walls of the bedroom seemed to expand around him, the space too vast, too exposed. His muscles tensed with the instinctive need to make himself smaller, to find a corner, a crevice, anything that would contain him.
Safety meant confinement. Protection meant walls. Freedom meant danger.
You’re vulnerable here. Exposed. Anyone could get to you.
