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The following evening, Marissa eed from the basement rooms of Safe Place and tried to pretend that her world hadn&039;t crashed and burned
"Mastimon wants to talk to you," a little voice said
Marissa turned around and saw the young with the leg cast Forcing a sot eye to eye with the stuffed tiger "Does he?"
"Yes He says that you are not to be sad, because he is here to protect us And he wants to hug you"
Marissa took the ratty toy and cradled it tight to her neck "He is both fierce and kind"
"True And you should keep hi&039;s expression was all business "I have to help mahmen prepare First Meal"
"I&039;ll be careful of hi her half-pint crutches into the floor
As Marissa held on to the tiger, she thought about what it had been like to pack up her few things and leave the Pit the night before Butch had tried to talk her out of going, but the decision he&039;d made was in his eyes, so the words he&039;d spoken had made no difference
The reality was, her love had not cured his death wish or his risk-taking personality And as painful as the separation was, if she stayed with hi for the call to coic, that he had turned into soht about it, the more she didn&039;t trust him to keep safe Not after his suicide atteression he&039;d volunteered for And the transition he&039;d put hi of lessers Yes, the outcoood: All she had to go on was a consistent pattern of self-abuse that she knew daed by
She loved him too much to watch him kill himself
As tears came to her eyes, she wiped them away and stared into space After a while, soh the back of herherself to stand up, she was momentarily lost She literally couldn&039;t re or why she was in the hall In the end, she headed for her office because there was always so about being a former cop was you never lost your idiot radar
Butch paused in the alley next to ZeroSuency exit, was that half-pint, Euro-trash, flash-in-the-pan blond kid who&039;d made such a stink at the waitress last week Next to hiarettes
Although why they were s it up out here in the cold didn&039;tback and watched Which of course gave hiot quiet, all he could see was Marissa getting into Fritz&039;s Mercedes and that S600 disappearing through the gates
With a curse, Butch rubbed the center of his chest and hoped like hell he found a lesser He needed to fight soe off this perma¡ªache Like now
From off Trade Street, a car turned into the alley and came forward at a fast clip As it flew past and stopped short at the club&039;s side door, the black Infiniti was spinning enough chrome to qualify as a frickin&039; disco ball And what do you know, Little Blond Dickhead sauntered over like this was an arranged um-flapped and pal, but he was da cookie recipes
When the Infiniti reversed it out, Butch stepped fro if his hunch was correct: Assuoing to deal that shit inside? The Reverend hates freelancers"
The little blond guy wheeled around, all righteous pissed "Who the fuck are¡ª" His words dried up "Wait, I&039;ve seen you before except"
"Yeah, I got my chassis overhauled I run better now Lot better So what are you¡ª" Butch froze as he felt his instincts fire up
Lessen Close by Shit
"Boys," he said calmly "You need to take off now And you can&039;t reenter through that door"
Dickhead&039;s attitude came back online "Who do you think you are?"
"Trust roove on Now"
"Fuck you, we can stand out here all night if we¡ª" The punk froze, then blanched as a sweet smell rode down to them on a breeze "Oh, my God"
Hmmm, so Little Blond Dickhead was a pre-trans, not huone, kid"
The pair took off, but they weren&039;t fast enough: A trio of lessers appeared at the open end of the alley, blocking their way
Great Just terrific
Butch activated his neatch, sending out a beacon and coordinates Within e reed on," Butch muttered "I&039;ll sweep up"
The two nodded their heads as the lessers closed in
Rehvenge stood up from his desk and pulled on his sable coat "Gotta bounce, Xhex Princeps Council , so I don&039;t need the car, and I hope to be back in an hour But before I go, what&039;s the status of that newest OD?"
"Off to the Saint Francis ER He&039;s probably going to live"
"And that rogue dealer?"
Xhex opened his door for hi him to leave "Still haven&039;t found him"
Rehv cursed, reached for his cane, and headed over to her "I a," she ht you were doith it"
He pegged her with a hard stare "Don&039;t fuck around with me"
"I&039; we can Do you think I like calling nine-one-one for these fools?"
He took a deep breath and tried to chill his temper Man, it had been a bad week at the club Both of them were on short fuses, and the rest of the staff at ZeroSu themselves in the bathroom from the tension
"Sorry," he said "I&039;m wound"
She ran a hand over her man&039;s haircut "Yeahon your end?"
He didn&039;t expect her to answer But she did "You hear about the human? O&039;Neal?"
"Yeah One of us Who&039;d&039;ve thought, huh" Rehv had yet to see the guy up close and personal, but Vishous had called with a heads-up on the one down
Rehv honestly wished the cop well He liked that big-moutheddays with Marissa had co, it really did, even though linking up with her would have been a really bad idea
"Is it true?" Xhex asked "About hient"
The oddest expression filtered through Xhex&039;s features sadness? Yeah, looked like it
He frowned "I didn&039;t know you were that into him"
Instantly, she was back to herself, eyes sharp, face showing nothing but hard-ass "Just because I liked banging him doesn&039;t mean I wanted him as a mate"
"Fine, sure Whatever"
Her upper lip peeled off her fangs "Do I look like the type who needs a oing soft violates the natural world order Besides, you&039;re the only one I can feed from, so I need you unattached" He passed by her "I&039;ll see you in two hours, tops"
"Rehvenge" When he glanced back, she said, "I need you to stay single, too"
Their stares locked God, they were quite a pair, weren&039;t they Two liars living arass
"Don&039;t worry," hea shellan Marissa was a flavor I wanted to taste Never would have worked out long term"
After Xhex nodded, as if they&039;d resealed their deal, Rehv left
As he walked through the VIP section, he stuck to the shadows He didn&039;t like to be seen with his cane, and if he had to use it, he wanted people to think it was a vanity thing, so he tried not to rely on it toohis lack of balance
He got to the side door, worked soic with the alarm syste he¡ª
Holy Christ! There was a frickin&039; melee in the alley Lessers Brothers Two civilians crouched and quivering in thebad Butch O&039;Neal
As the door clicked shut behind Rehv, he widened his stance and wondered why the hell the security cameras hadn&039;t¡ªoh, mhis They were surrounded byon the sideline, he watched the fight, listening to the dull thuds of bodies hitting bodies, hearing the grunts and the shifting ofwith the baby powder sweetness of the slayers
Damn, he wanted to play, too And he couldn&039;t see why he shouldn&039;t
When a lesser stuainst the bricks, and s into a pair of pale eyes It had been so long since Rehv had killed so and the flip side of hi out of life was sooing to feed his beast Right here Right now
In spite of the dopamine in his syste, riding the crest of his aggression, suffusing his vision with the color red Baring his fangs in a save in to his sinister half with the ecstatic pleasure of an addict long deprived
With invisible hands, he tunneled into the lesser&039;s brain, rooted around, and triggered all kinds of funlids off soda bottles, and what bubbled out debilitated his prey, scra the lesser so badly it was rendered defenseless God, such ugliness inside the bastard&039;s head¡ªthis particular slayer had had a real sadistic streak, and as every single one of his nasty deeds and dirty abuses clouded hishis hands to his ears and falling to the ground
Rehv brought up his cane and whipped off its outer casing, revealing a lethal length of steel, the blade red as his two-dirabbed his arlared at the guy "Fuck that, this is my kill¡ª"
"No, it isn&039;t" Butch went down to his knees beside the lesser and
Rehv clamped his mouth shut and stared with fascination as Butch leaned over and started to suck so out of the slayer Except there wasn&039;t tiunning for Butch, and Rehv had to leap back as Rhage took the thing down in a tackle
Rehv heard more footsteps and faced off at yet another lesser Good This one he would handle, he thought with a hard grin
Man, syht, they really did And he was no exception to his nature
Mr X pounded down the alley where the braas happening Though he couldn&039;t see or hear anything, he sensed the buffering around the scene, so he knew this was the right place