Lash would later reflect that you never knew who you were going to cross tracks with. You just never knew how a simple decision to go left or right at a corner would change things. a Sometimes the choices didn't matter. Others... took you into unexpected places.

At the current moment, however, he had yet to come to that realization. He was just out in farm country, driving along, thinking about the time.

Just a little past one.

"How much longer?"

Lash glanced across the interior of the Mercedes. The prostitute he'd picked up in an alley downtown was sufficiently good- looking and had enough silicon in her to do porn, but Plastic Fantastic's drug habit had left her bony and twitchy.

Desperate, too. So strung out it had taken only a hundred-dollar bill to get her into the AMG on the way to a "party."

"Not far," he replied, refocusing on the road ahead.

He was disappointed as shit. When he'd played this out in his head, Xhex was bound and gagged in the backseat--much more romantic. Instead, he was stuck with this nasty 'hood rat. But he couldn't fight the reality he was in: he needed to feed and his father was expecting some business to be done and finding Xhex was going to require more time than there was to spare.

Among the worst of the concessions was that this bitch riding shotgun was a human: Far less useful than a female vampire, but he was hoping her ovaries worked in his favor when it came to sucking her blood.

More to the point, he hadn't been able to find one of his kind in a skirt.

"You know," she said with a slur, "I used to model."

"Really."

"Down in Manhattan. But you know, those bastards... they don't really care about you. They just want to use you, you know."

Right. First, she needed to forget she'd ever heard the phrase you know. And second, like she was doing so much better on her own up in Caldwell?

"I like your car."

"Thanks," he muttered.

She leaned over, her breasts bunching up over the pink basque she had on. The thing had grease smudges from dirty hands on the sides, like she hadn't washed it for a couple of days, and she smelled like fake cherries, BO and crack smoke.

"You know, I like you...."

Her hand went to his thigh and then her head went down into his lap. When he felt her rooting around for his zipper, he grabbed a hunk of bleached-blond tangle and yanked her back up.

She didn't even notice the pain.

"Let's not start this now," he said. "We're almost there."

The woman licked her lips. "Sure. Okay."

The shorn fields on either side of the road were washed in moonlight and the clapboard houses that dotted the scruffy patches glowed white. Most places had a porch light on and that was it. Around here, anything after midnight was waaaaaaay past bedtime for these folks.

Which was part of the reason it made sense to have an outpost here in the land of hot apple pie and American flags.

Five minutes later, they pulled up to the farmhouse and parked close to the front door.

"No one else is here," she said. "We the first ones?"

"Yeah." He reached forward to turn off the engine. "Let's--"

The clicking sound next to his ear had him freezing.

The prostitute's voice was no longer fuzzy. "Get out of the car, motherfucker."

Lash swiveled his head around, and all but French-kissed the muzzle of a nine-millimeter. On the other end of the weapon, the whore's hands were stone steady and her eyes burned with the kind of canny smarts he had to respect.

Surprise, surprise, he thought.

"Get. Out," she snapped.

He smiled slowly. "You ever shot that thing before?"

"Loads." She didn't blink. "And I don't have a problem with blood."

"Ah. Well, good for you."

"Get out--"

"So what's the plan here. Order me from the car. Shoot me in the head and leave me for dead. Take the Mercedes, my watch, and my wallet?"

"And what's in your trunk."

"You need a spare tire? You know, you can buy one at any Firestone or Goodyear outlet. Just FYI."

"You think I don't know who you are?"

Oh, he was quite fucking sure she hadn't a clue. "Why don't you tell me."

"I've seen this car. I've seen you. I've bought your drugs."

"A customer. How sweet."

"Get. Out."

When he didn't move, she shifted the gun an inch to the side and pulled the trigger. As the bullet blew out the window behind him, he got pissed. It was one thing to play around. Another to cause property damage.

As she shifted the business end of the nine back between his eyes, he dematerialized.

Taking form around the other side of the car, he watched as she flipped out in her seat, looking all around, her frizzy hair flying this way and that.

Ready to teach her a thing or two about plans, he ripped open her door, and dragged her out by the arm. Getting control of the gun and her was the work of a moment, just a snatch and grab. And then he was tucking the nine into his belt at the small of his back and cranking her into a choke hold against his chest.

"What... what--"

"You told me to get out of the car," he said into her ear. "So I did." Her slender body was all kinds of leaf-in-the-wind weak, nothing but a shimmer in her cheapo whore clothes. Compared to the physical battles with Xhex, this was a single breath versus a hurricane gale. What a bore.

"Let's go inside," he murmured, lowering his mouth to her throat and running a fang up her jugular. "The other partygoer should be waiting for us."

As she shrank away from him, her face turned around and he smiled, flashing his hardware. Her scream flushed an owl from its perch overhead, and to make sure she cut the Hitchcocking, he slapped his free palm over her piehole and forced her to the front door.

Inside, the place smelled like death, thanks to the induction the night before and all the blood in the buckets. There was an advantage to the residual, however. As he willed the lights on and the chick got a look-see at the dining room, she went rigid with terror and then passed the fuck out.

Damn good of her. Made getting her on the table and tied up splayed wide easy.

After catching his breath, he took the buckets into the kitchen, rinsed them out in the sink, cleaned up the knives, and wished like hell Mr. D was still around to take care of the shit work.

He was just putting the spray nozzle back where it belonged when it dawned on him the lesser they'd done the night before was nowhere to be seen.

Taking the buckets into the dining room, he set them out under the whore's wrists and ankles and then did a quick double-check of the downstairs. When all he got was a whole lot of not-there, he jogged up to the second floor.

The closet door in the bedroom was open and there was a hanger on the bed like a shirt had been macked. Shower in the bath had fresh water dripping down its side walls.

What the fuck?

How in the hell did that guy take off? There hadn't been a car, so the only other option was walking out the lane. And then hitching a ride. Or hot- wiring one of these farmers' trucks.

Lash went downstairs and found that the whore had come around and was fighting against the gag in her mouth, her eyes bugging as she writhed on the table.

"Won't be long," he told her, glancing down at her spindly legs. She had tattoos on both, but they were a hot mess with no theme at all, just random blotches--some of which you could maybe identify, others of which were ruined either by bad reinking or scars.

Lot of butterflies done in neon, he supposed. Maybe that had been the plan at first.

He paced around, going out to the kitchen and then coming back through the dining room and heading down the hall again. The sharp sound of stilettos knocking against the table and the squeak of bare skin faded into the distance as he wondered where the hell the new recruit was and why his father was late.

Half an hour later he still had a whole lot of nothing doing and he sent a mental ping to the other side.

His father did not answer.

Lash went upstairs and shut the door, thinking that maybe he wasn't concentrating properly because he was pissed off and frustrated. Sitting on the bed, he put his hands on his knees and calmed himself. When his heartbeat was slow and steady, he took a deep breath, pinged again... and got nothing.

Maybe something had happened to the Omega?

In a rush of emotion, he decided to go over to Dhunhd himself.

His molecules scrambled well enough, but when he tried to re- form on the other plane of existence, he was blocked. Shut out. Denied.

It was like hitting a solid wall, and as he bounced back to the crappy bedroom in the farmhouse, his body absorbed the shock on a wave of nausea.

What. The. Fuck--

As his cell phone went off, he snatched it out of his suit coat pocket and frowned when he saw the number.

"Hello?" he said.

The giggle that came through was boyish. "Hi ya, asswipe. It's your new boss. Guess who just got promoted? By the way, your daddy says not to bother him anymore. Bad move asking about the ladies--you should know your father better than that. Oh, and I'm supposed to kill you now. See you soon!"

The new recruit started laughing, that sound punching through the connection, drilling into Lash's head as the call was ended.

By the other party.

She was not pregnant. At least, not that Doc Jane knew.

But courtesy of that happy little pause in panic-ville, Xhex didn't remember anything of the trip to the compound. The idea that there was even a chance she could have been...

After all, she hadn't been wearing her cilices--and their purpose was to kill the symphath tendencies in her, including ovulation.

What would she have done?

Okay, moot point there, and she needed to cut that shit right out. God knew she had enough to worry about in the "actually happening" category.

Breathing deep, she inhaled John's scent and concentrated on the strong, steady beat of his heart under her ear. It wasn't long before sleep took her hard, the combination of exhaustion, postfeeding loginess, and the need to peace out of life for a while carrying her into a deep, dreamless state in the back of the SUV.

She woke up to the sensation of being lifted and her eyes opened.

John was carrying her through some kind of parking area that, given the cavelike walls and ceiling, had to be underground. A massive steel door was opened by Vishous, who seemed to be in a surprising mood to help, and on the far side... was a nightmare.

The long, anonymous hall had pale tile on the floor, concrete-block walls, and a low ceiling that had fluorescent box lights in it.

The past slid into place, the filter of prior experience replacing what was actually occurring with a remembered nightmare. In John's arms, her body went from weak to manic and she started to fight the hold on her, battling to get free. The commotion was instantaneous, people rushing toward her, a loud sound like a siren blaring--

As it dimly occurred to her that her jaw hurt, she realized she was yelling.

And then suddenly all she saw was John's face.

He'd somehow managed to turn her around in his arms and they were nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye, his hands digging into her sides and her hips. With the sight of that institutional corridor replaced with his blue stare, the grab of the past was broken and she was caught by him.

He didn't say a thing. Just stayed still and let her look at him.

It was exactly what she needed. She locked onto his eyes and used them to turn her brain off.

When he nodded, she nodded back to him and he started moving forward again. From time to time, his stare flicked away from hers to check where they were going, but it always returned.

It always came back.

There were voices, a number of them, and a lot of doors opening and shutting, and then a whole lot of pale green tile: She was in an examination room, with a multilight chandelier above her and all kinds of medical supplies in glass-front cabinets everywhere she looked.

As John put her on the table, she lost control of her reins again. Her lungs refused to do their job, as if the air were poisoned, and her eyes bounced around, hitting all kinds of panic triggers like equipment, and instruments, and the table... the table.

"Okay, we're losing her again." Doc Jane's tone was relentlessly level. "John, get in there."

John's face came back in close and Xhex held on to his eyes.

"Xhex?" Doc Jane's voice came from over on the left. "I'm going to give you a sedative--"

"No drugs!" The answer leaped out of her mouth. "I'd rather be terrified... than helpless...."

Her breath was painfully short, and each impotent draw of her rib cage convinced her as nothing else could that life was about suffering more than it was about joy. There had been too many of these moments, too many times the pain and fear took over, too many dark shadows that didn't just lurk, but sucked out all the illumination from the night in which she existed.

"Let me go... let me go away...." When John's eyes went wide, she realized that she'd found one of his knives, unsheathed it, and was trying to put it in his palm. "Please let me go... I don't want to be here anymore... put me out forever, please...."

Lot of frozen bodies around her and the lack of movement refocused her a little. Rhage and Mary were in the corner. Rehv was there. Vishous and Zsadist. No one was speaking or budging an inch.

John took the dagger from her hand and the removal was what made her cry. Because he wasn't going to use it. Not on her. Not now... not ever.

And she lacked the strength to do it herself.

All at once, a tremendous emotion boiled in her gut, and as it expanded and pressure grew inside her body, she looked around frantically as shelves started to rattle and the computer over in the corner began to bounce on the desk.

John was on it, though. And he was on it fast. He started to sign with the same kind of urgency she was feeling, and a moment later, everyone left.

Except for him.

Trying desperately not to explode, she looked down at her hands. They were shaking so badly, they were like the wings of a fly... and it was when she was staring at them that she hit bottom.

The scream pealed out of her and the sound was utterly foreign, all high-pitched and horrified.

John stood his ground. Even when she screamed again.

He wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't rattled. He was just... there.

Grabbing the sheet that circled her, she tightened it around her body, very aware she was breaking down, that the fissure had been tapped by that trip down the hall and now she had splintered. In fact, she felt as though there were two of her in the room, the mad one on the table screaming her head off and crying bloody tears... and a calm, sane one in the far corner, watching herself and John.

Would the two parts of her cleave together again? Or would she be ever thus, wrenched asunder?

Her mind chose the observer persona over the hysterical one and she retreated into that soundless place where she witnessed herself sob to the point of asphyxiation. The streaks of blood that ran down her paper white cheeks didn't disgust her and nor did the crazy, wide eyes or epileptic thrashing of her arms and legs.

She felt sorry for the female who had been driven to such straits. Who had kept herself apart from all emotions.

The female had been born under a curse. The female had done evil and had evil done unto her. The female had hardened herself, her mind and her emotions becoming steel.

The female had been wrong about that locking down, that self- containment.

It was not a case of strength, as she had always told herself.

It was strictly survival... and she simply couldn't keep it up any longer.