Rare Kinds

Chapter Five

"Pull it out," Nick said guardedly, his hands were shaking.

He had done everything else as the man requested. He had helped him to the room in the back of the shop, laid him upon the cot, propping him up against the wall, and had even offered to call the authorities. What had the man said? Forget it. What can they do? Well, they could have gone after the girl for a start, but the dark man just laughed at him, albeit weakly, and Nick felt stupid for even saying it. They should have at least called an ambulance or gone to the hospital themselves, but no, the man would have none of that.

Poisoned bolt through the shoulder? No problem. Seriously? Nick thought. This guy was insane. If he had had any strength left he would have dragged the guy to the free clinic and left his ass there while he found somewhere to hide. He had said all this to him and the man just laughed again. Nick had not been joking. Now the man wanted him simply pull out the bolt like it was easy—just a splinter in his finger. Nick couldn't wrap his head around that statement.

"Pull it out?" This time it was a question.

"Yes," the man said firmly, before closing his eyes to the pain, his breath hissing as it left his lips.

Nick took another moment to stare blankly at the wound in the man's shoulder, weighing his options.

"Well," he said finally, on the verge of hysterical laughter, "If I'm going to maim you and possibly kill you at your request, I might as well know your name."

"It's Lent," he said with a fleeting and forced smile. "Do it now."

"Okay, Lent, but I'm pretty sure pulling it out is the last thing I should do." But as he said this, he willed his trembling fingers to wrap around the part of the bolt that was visible, closed his eyes and tugged with all his strength. Lent shouted and then started muttering under his breath, probably a prayer, but it was apparently all for naught because the bolt wouldn't budge.

"Try again," Lent said, but seemed like a man on the verge of changing his mind. His face was twisted in pain and sweat broke out all over his body.

Nick's fingers were starting to feel numb and he shook his head, still unwilling to open his eyes. His heart pounded inside his chest as a wave of nausea hit him. He had to let go and back away a bit just to regain control over himself.

"I don't think I can do this." He peeked over at him and took a shuddering breath.

"You'll do it," Lent said through clenched teeth, "You don't have to enjoy it."

There wasn't really any chance of that.

Nick peeked over at him, steeled his nerves and decided to try another tactic.

"Sorry," he whispered to him as he placed a socked foot on Lent's chest and once again wrapped his fingers around the bolt. "You know, just in case this kills you."

Lent screamed this time, throwing his head back hard against the wall as Nick pulled and twisted on the bolt. It started to slip free and Nick closed his eyes tightly again, feeling blood between his fingers, and fought the urge to gag but redoubled his efforts. He wanted to get it right this time because then it would be over and he could concentrate on getting the memory out of his brain forever.

Nick pushed at Lent's chest with his foot and all at once the bolt slipped out, he fell backward with the thing in his hands, and Lent let out a sickening groan. But when he looked up at him, the man seemed almost teary with relief.

"Don't tell me you're all better now," Nick muttered under his breath.

"No, still in pain," he said. "But it's out now."

Now what? Should he leave? What was the appropriate etiquette? Nick was no doctor and he had surpassed all that was required of him as a Good Samaritan. What he really wanted to do was get the hell out of there, but the one place he wanted to go the girl with the crossbow knew about, and frankly, getting shot with a crossbow looked painful. Home was out of the question.

He looked down at his hands. Lent's blood was all over them, under his nails, in between his fingers. So dark and thick. It had an inky quality, a sort of pitch black and shiny. Nick imagined it as the same quality of the man's eyes, which were so dark all he saw was his own reflection, and behind that, a deep endless void.

"Got a sink?"

Lent nodded softly, seeming to be unable to move any more than that, or offer any words of direction, but there was a narrow door that led off the small room they were in and Nick tried that first. As luck would have it, after struggling with the doorknob with his elbows—he had no wish to smear Lent's blood all over everything—the door swung open revealing a cramped bathroom with a toilet, sink across from it, and a medicine cabinet above that.

After he washed his hands, he opened the medicine cabinet expecting to see the usual staples of such cabinets. Indeed there were some ordinary things such as a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss, but that only took up the bottom shelf. The upper shelves were filled with tiny glass vials with no labels, just various levels of liquids in them, and at the end of one row he noticed a giant bottle of aspirin and let out a startled laugh. He closed the cabinet and stared at it, willing it to be more useful, but when he opened it again it was exactly the same. He closed it and backed away slowly, grabbing the washcloth on the edge of the sink as he went.

Back in the room with Lent, he stared down at him, holding the cloth limply in his hand at his side.

"Not dead yet?"

Lent made no comment. In fact he made no moves whatsoever. Nick stared at Lent's chest with wide eyes, noticing its lack of gentle rise and fall. Was he dead? Now he really should leave, he thought, but was torn between flight and the urge to make sure, and he stood there for several seconds observing the dark man's ashen skin and blank eyes. Eventually he tentatively reached out and felt for a pulse in his neck and waited. Then he leaned closer, pressing his ear to the man's chest. The beats of his heart were incredibly slow, but they were there.

It was really impossible, he thought, as he stepped back, unsure of what to do next. He settled on trying to remove Lent's pullover and when he got that off, cleaned his wound as best as he could with the washcloth.

Truthfully, he couldn't really explain what he felt at the moment. Nick almost felt like he had just fallen into another world. It wasn't as if his life had been very normal before this night, or indeed before Roger showed up, but things did seem to get weirder afterward.

No, no. It had been the bookstore. The moment he had noticed the place things had begun to change. It seemed stupid really, so stupid that he laughed, but the laughter sounded so wrong to his ears, so completely hollow that he stopped abruptly. (He had little practice with laughing anyway, and wasn't quite sure how it was done or when it was appropriate.) He had laughed more tonight than he had in his entire life, but whatever it was for, it didn't help because none of the recent events made any sense, and he was letting his paranoia try to make sense of it, he reasoned.

The bookstore was just a bookstore, but the girl with the crossbow—a crossbow? Seriously?—he just couldn't explain away. And there was another thing: as soon as he had entered the shop—of course he was too preoccupied with the bolt flying through the air to really notice, not to mention the bleeding man from whom he had to pull the bolt—but he hadn't had any hallucinations. It was as if entering the door numbed him, subdued his broken mind enough to react to what was happening.

He stared at the man in front of him, looking into his blank but oddly black eyes. It was as if he was looking into a void and seeing his face reflected back at him; the thought gave him chills. Nick then looked to Lent's pointed ears. How in hell could he explain those away? And the man had taken a poisoned bolt to the shoulder—admittedly he didn't know how potent the poison was—but Lent had remained remarkably calm aside from the screaming. He was certainly calm now, Nick thought, shooting the man beside him a look. Lent didn't respond.

Then Nick thought about Roger—how his brilliant green eyes seemed to glow out at him in the night. His teeth too, he was shocked to finally realize, were pointed. All of them. He remembered him, tall and slender and all limbs. He remembered seeing him crouched on that branch of the tree outside of his apartment window. It was a tree whose limbs bowed terribly under the weight of two birds, but Roger balanced on it like a cat. One night he saw him, definitely saw him, clutch like a spider outside his window.

Despite Roger's assurance that he wasn't dangerous, Nick found the man intensely frightening, extremely puzzling, and the fact that all of these put together with long limbs, razor sharp looking teeth and impossibly green and glowing eyes made him incredibly attractive… as a point of curiosity… (even if that was the puzzling bit) and someone whom one wouldn't normally want peering into their window every night. Shouldn't, anyway, he told himself.

And the magic paper; what had that been about?

And the girl? Well, Roger was gone so she was taking his post? And she had watched him every day and night since, only to try and kill him by pulling a crossbow out of a bag that looked as if it would bulge if she stuck a ring of keys in it.

His mind was indeed at a point at which he could either accept these things as unusual but natural as he had seen the proof of their existence or he could collapse into hysterics.

All in all, Nick thought, he'd rather just have the hallucinations back.

He peered at the wound he had just cleaned, and it didn't really look all that bad. It had stopped oozing blood which was a plus, he supposed, and so he rummaged through the small dresser next to the cot, found a white cotton t-shirt and tore it into strips, binding it around Lent's shoulder.

After that he was once again at a loss of what to do. As the man was asleep or on his deathbed—he did not know which—he didn't want to just sit there beside him and watch. He was anxious, and although he was extremely exhausted—he had not slept in days, weeks he felt—he couldn't stop fidgeting.

Lent didn't seem like he would be snapping awake anytime soon, so to pass the time Nick decided to poke around the place.

It wasn't really in his nature to do these things, but in his desire to keep his mind off what was actually going on, occupying his time was a far better option. Also, a quick perusal could possibly answer some questions.

Nick cast a quick look at the seemingly comatose figure of Lent on the cot and then left the room.

Behind the counter in the main shop area was where he found a large leather bound book covered with a gold eagle, with large lion paws locking it shut. Trying to pry it open with the letter opener he found on the counter proved fruitless, and he soon gave up and put it back where he found it.

He walked the shelves, perusing the titles of the books shelved there and didn't recognize any of them. Nick soon grew anxious again; the shop front was obviously useless.

Walking back sullenly toward the counter he spotted a trap door in the floor and as this intrigued him, he bent down and swung it open. A rush of humid, sticky air hit his face, and from somewhere below, beyond the wooden stairs that led downward, bright light was shining and a soothing white noise of electric humming met his ears.

Nick walked down, fully expecting a stock room piled with books, which would have been logical, but instead was faced with a large room with only one book in plain sight which was sitting on a desk that shared a wall with the stairs. In the center of the room was a tacky teal plastic lawn chair, reclined to its lowest setting, and what surrounded that was a circle of UV lamps. He stared at this for some time, not understanding the purpose of it all. Then he turned his attention to the three doors, occupying one wall each, but when he tried the knobs he found they were locked from the other side.

On the third door he tried knocking and jumped back when he heard a knock from the other side of the door. He tentatively pressed his ear against the door and called, "Who's there?" and a second later heard his own voice call from the other side, "Who's there?"

Nick decided it was best to leave the doors to themselves.

He instead walked to the desk that shared the wall with the stairs, noting the scattered pages all over its surface, and the open book that lay on top. It was a paper on the corner of the desk that caught his attention because it had his name written at the top. He snatched it up, his eyes widening as they scanned through the notes written there.

Then he picked up another. The next one was a transcript of a session he had had with Fairheim, with the tags Fairheim and Chesley at the beginning of every other line. Then he found on the floor near the metal folding chair that was pushed under the desk, his folder that had been stolen from his psychiatrist's office.

It was then that he dropped the file and backed into the corner, preparing for hysterics, but a panel hidden in the wall swung out and hit him in the face.

All rationalizations fled as he looked inside. On the wooden shelves within was a dusty frame of him with his parents that had been sitting in the top dresser drawer in his apartment. There was an old white sock of his that he had been sure the dryer had taken to another dimension, a cufflink that he realized he had worn the night he had officially met Roger, an empty whiskey glass, a used paper napkin with a noticeable ring in its center and other objects that his eyes passed by quickly because something startling caught his eye.

A bottle of his antipsychotic medication was on the bottom shelf. Nick stopped perusing and began to hyperventilate instead.

-------------------

They had been deposited on the north-eastern rocky shore of the mainland. After climbing up the cliff face and walking across yellow grasslands and struggling through a dense forest, they had at last reached the city of Grey.

It was everything the name implied. The sky above was grey, the stone buildings were grey, the mud and stone streets were grey, the uniforms the guards at the gate wore were grey and when Mohan and Roger approached the guards, they found that their mood was also grey. They looked the two up and down and grunted as if that was all they could come up with. When Mohan asked if they minded if they entered the city the guards merely shrugged and pointedly looked away.

Something funny was going on, Mohan thought, but he didn't bring it up aloud. In fact, during their journey to Grey, Mohan and Roger had not exchanged more than three or four words. Roger, he assumed, was still boiling about their argument last night, and Mohan kept silent because he had no wish to unearth the issue. He had made it perfectly clear that it was over and would not entertain any more of the vampire's nonsense.

But now, in this city, feeling strangely about it as he did at the moment, he had wanted to say something. Maybe it was the color of everything that was infecting him, making his mood as grey as all that stood before them. That or he was feeling guilty. Mohan really wasn't as angry as he was the night before and, casting a furtive glance at his shivering companion, he realized he did feel marginally responsible. He told himself it was because it was blisteringly cold, and he had not let them stop to rest since they had set off from the shore. Mohan's sadistic self had chosen not to rest deliberately. Let the vampire freeze a little bit, show him the humility that he seemed to lack, but now, feeling a bit grey and starved for conversation, he did feel guilty.

"What do you say?" Mohan asked tentatively as they walked along the main grey street. "A warm fire and a hot drink?"

Roger growled at him, his teeth chattering in an almost comical way, making the effect of the growl less fierce than it was meant to come across.

Roger was looking a little wind blown. His hair was all over the place, his face pink with the chill of the air, but his eyes burned with silent rage at him, so Mohan dispensed with conversation, it clearly wasn't a good idea at the moment, and walked further into the city, scanning signs on either side of the street. There had to be an inn somewhere.

At last, after they had passed grey building after grey building there hung a sign with a mug of beer and a bed on it. Mohan swung open the door and ushered Roger inside. After a negotiation with the tender of the bar, they had a room with a roaring fire, two large bottles of strong smelling spirits and two mostly clean glasses.

The room at least wasn't all grey, but that was thanks to the orange glow of the fire. There was one window that showed through its filmy panes the grey streets and grey buildings across from the inn. Pedestrians dressed in grey went about their grey business and Mohan found it all so depressing that he drew the grey curtains closed and poured himself a drink.

The alcohol was at least a familiar amber color and it tasted pleasingly like burning as he gulped it down. He then looked over at Roger who was standing with his back to him, his front toward the fire in the hearth.

"You could try it," Mohan suggested, speaking of the alcohol, and he sat down on the edge of the grey bed across the room. "It helps a lot."

"You realize, no doubt," Roger began in an icy tone that seemed to mirror his condition, "That I don't drink spirits."

Mohan knew this, but had been at a loss of what to say. He was offering just to be polite, trying to initiate conversation, but hadn't noticed how stupid he was being. He shrugged, drank down the glass in his hand and poured himself another.

The surest way to warm Roger up would be to offer him blood, but that was pretty dangerous considering Roger wasn't allowed to feed off the general public, especially in the Master's territory. Mohan could offer himself, but the thought of Roger sinking his teeth into him called up memories of seeing the vampire sinking his teeth into that man's thigh; his hands had been like chalk spiders crawling up the man's waist. Although he had witnessed that years ago, the memory of it was so frightening and crystal clear, not to mention nightmare inducing, that he had to struggle to push that thought away as quickly as it came.

But then he had another thought.

"Would a glass of…?" then he trailed away when Roger turned around and stared at him, his eyes calculating.

"That's not a good idea," Roger said seriously, clearly getting his meaning, but he stalked toward Mohan nonetheless, and sat beside him on the narrow grey bed.

Mohan pulled his knife from its sheath with shaky grip on its hilt, he pointed to the second mostly clean glass next to his own on the side table.

"Straight in there," he said in a low voice, stabbing the air above the glass for emphasis. "Your teeth are going nowhere near me."

"No," Roger said seriously, and reached for the glass.

It seemed to buzz in Roger's hands as he held it. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe this wasn't something Mohan would have done without a drink or two.

"I would not let you suffer that," the vampire finished in a knowing voice. Even there lay a measure of doubt.

Roger would know, Mohan thought, what his biting did to people. Mohan didn't quite understand it himself, but the act itself usually ended in… well, he didn't want to discuss it.

Blushing furiously, he rolled up a sleeve, which was unfortunately the wrong one, because all at once Roger grabbed his arm and peered intently at the freshly healed bite he had given himself the night before. Mohan jerked away, determined not to speak about it, and sliced.

Once the flow of blood started, all questions died on Roger's lips as he watched, transfixed as the liquid dripped steadily into the glass.

Mohan broke out into a sweat, using all of his strength to control himself, gritting his teeth. He couldn't even look at his own blood. The beast was raging in him. Strip it all away, it hissed. Mohan had to look away, his sharp teeth biting into his lip and drawing blood.

Roger seemed to be salivating. The groan that passed his lips betrayed his longing and Mohan winced. Yes, this had probably been a bad idea.

He handed Roger the knife once the glass was full and bound his arm, going for the bottle again. He took sneaking looks at Roger from over the bottle; drinking helped put things into perspective. All he was doing was helping out a friend, right? Nothing unusual about that. But as he watched Roger's tongue greedily lick the inside of the short glass clean, and then the knife, all with this intensely pleased expression on his face, he couldn't watch any more. In Roger's bloodlust he saw himself, the thing inside him, all teeth and claws and calling for blood.

But Roger drank it down like a drug.

Maybe it was the way Roger's tongue ran over his pointed teeth, or the way his eyes closed in ecstasy… it was all too similar to the look he had seen on Roger's face as his teeth were buried in that man's thigh so long ago. Mohan shuddered.

Then he lapsed into an awkward silence when Roger finished with his blood and they both stared at each other. The bottle lay empty in Mohan's lap but the contents of it, which were dubiously safe inside Mohan's stomach, churned uncomfortably.

"Warm?" Mohan said, his voice a bit uncertain to his ears. He was breathing heavily, hunched over on the bed and clutching his arm.

Roger nodded, his face flushed slightly, and he moved a bit closer, sliding an arm around Mohan's shoulders. Mohan jerked at the sudden contact and moved back, but could only move so far until his back was against the headboard.

"You can't be serious," he protested as Roger wrapped his fingers around his wrist and tore the bandage off his arm.

"Just a bit more," Roger whispered hoarsely. His pupils were dilated; his breath hot and quick in Mohan's face. "You won't even feel it."

"No."

"The wound is open, won't need to use my teeth." That was hardly a reassurance. Then Roger's thumb swiped over Mohan's bottom lip and he froze; Mohan had bitten himself. The blood was still wet, smearing his chin a little, and he raised his hand to wipe off the rest as Roger stuck his blood-covered thumb in his mouth.

"No," Mohan said again but he couldn't seem to move from Roger's grasp, even as Roger lowered his lips to the open wound on his arm, he just sat there and watched as if he were a third party, too terrified to do anything about it. He couldn't even bring conviction to the word "no" at this point. It fell out of his mouth like something dead and landed somewhere where it would be forgotten.

Roger paused and looked up at him. His normally bright green eyes were so dark, and he was inches from the wound, his lips quivering slightly as he spoke, "Do you know what you taste like?"

Mohan did indeed, but saying so or not wouldn't help guide this conversation to somewhere safe. Roger's other hand was on his thigh, snaking upwards, leaving a trail of burning flesh in its wake.

"You could say yes." His tongue darted out, licking the path that a single droplet of blood had made down Mohan's arm. The flow was already slowing, the wound closing together. Roger closed his eyes to savor the taste. "You will eventually say yes."

Mohan was beginning to get why people signed up for this sort of thing, and deep within the beast inside was enjoying this. An aching groan passed his lips before he could stop it and he squeezed his eyes shut in shame. With every little lick the need to get away was becoming less important. What would it matter anyway? Take it. Just take it all. But just as he was beginning to relax, Roger's breath ghosted over his ear, his side pressed close against him. Mohan's eyes shot open.

"I'm freezing because of you," Roger growled, snapping Mohan out of his hesitantly pleasant thoughts. The hand on his thigh squeezed with a little too much force, blunt nails biting into his flesh through his trousers. Mohan jumped, the sweat on his skin turning cold as Roger continued, "Haven't seen the sun in two days."

"I don't feel sorry for you." Mohan shoved his face away from his ear. He couldn't believe he had sat there and let Roger tongue his arm. Embarrassed he turned away and wrapped his arm up again. "Stay by the fire if you're so cold."

Just when Mohan thought he couldn't be any angrier, Roger laughed at him and got up slowly, as if all of this hadn't really affected him.

Mohan dropped the empty bottle on the floor and lay down, willing his heart to stop hammering in his chest. Roger was still standing over him, looking down with a frightening determination lighting his eyes. Then all at once it dissolved as Mohan continued to glare up at him, and Roger blinked, turning away to walk to the fire.

"That wasn't a good idea."

"Obviously," Mohan whispered, unable to take his wide eyes from Roger's back.

"You could have the decency to stop bleeding." Roger sighed heavily, gripping the dusty grey mantle above the fireplace.

"It'll be over in a second," Mohan said, pulling a blanket over his head. "Just stay away from me."

Roger exhaled audibly and Mohan heard his footsteps as he walked to the door. "I've got to get out of here."

When the door shut Mohan fell asleep, spurred by the warmness of the alcohol clouding his head and warming his belly. He was too tired to do anything else, and too weirded out by the situation to find words to comment on it. Sleep was by far a better idea, and they could get on with the job in the morning, find this Laët person, and put this whole weird night behind them.

--------------------

Roger had taken one last longing look at the fire before he closed the door quietly and exited the place.

The cold made him irritable and Mohan's offering had the opposite effect of what his friend had intended. Roger hadn't expected it either, but the small amount of blood did little but whet his appetite. The blood had been cooling already in the glass, but once it had touched his lips it worked on him, in those few seconds, like a drug. Once the blood was gone, Roger was nearly overcome with the urge to latch onto Mohan's arm and have the rest. And for those few moments, he had not cared that Mohan was his friend, or that he had only, foolishly, tried to help.

Roger marveled at his own stupidity. Mohan was off-limits, he had said so himself, and he had broken his own rule. The taste of it, the feel of it pumping through the body under his fingertips, was like a surge of power. He could feel the burning electricity of it in his veins, lighting him up with energy. Roger felt powerful and he felt a compulsion to prove it. If Mohan had been anyone else, Roger didn't think he would have waited for him to consent. The feeling of invincibility wouldn't last very long; he had taken so very little.

How could he have lost control so easily? He had fed the night before; shouldn't that have been enough? But the girl hadn't lasted long, he couldn't concentrate. He had been thinking about Nicholas. Usually he abandoned himself; it was so easy to disconnect when he fed. The taste and pleasure of it wiped away all thought and all he was and everything that was happening was gone. It had been blissful. Roger doubted that it would be again anytime soon.

Angry with himself and fighting his bloodlust, he wandered the streets of Grey trying to remember what it was they were supposed to be looking for. They shouldn't even be here for one, he growled inside his head, kicking loose stones as he walked. The Master had taken them off the one mission he had cared about in a long time.

Roger once again, with a scowl he could not keep off his face, thought about Maria. How would she observe Nicholas? If she knew, and he suspected that she did, how much working him out was to him she wouldn't be taking the job seriously.

He hoped Lent had been right in suggesting she would be hopelessly miserable about it. That was the only comfort he had at the moment—that and that Nicholas was far away from this place, thankfully unaware of anything other than his own world. He wouldn't remain so, if the Master had his way. And Maria, what was stopping her from merely bashing Nicholas over the head with her crossbow and dragging him to the Master with that horrid little smug smile on her face? Angry, he spat on the ground beside him.

Roger looked around at the houses and businesses which were crammed so close together that one would be pressed to cram a fingernail in between. There were few alleyways, and those looked dark and unwise to venture in.

In a couple there were men huddled around in circles, and one or two cleaning their teeth or fingernails with knives; not the kind from whom the ordinary traveler should ask directions. He supposed a vampire walking up to them to ask something that daft would illicit a violent response but still Roger sparked up when he passed them, his head turning to look right at their eyes, his own twinkling menacingly. These alley men were itching the pick a fight, and so was he, and if Mohan had been walking with him Roger might not have seriously entertained the idea.

Mohan. His face colored with shame when he thought about him, and he walked on. There was no need to cause him any more distress; Roger had certainly played his part in that a little too successfully recently.

Very well, he thought, but if anyone were to openly ask for a beating he wouldn't refuse them. He kept to the road, and became vaguely aware after a while that he was being followed. A wry smile curled his lips, but he didn't dare look behind him just yet.

---------------

Nick was sprawled out on the floor in the corner of the bookstore basement. The open panel was behind his head and the papers he had strewn all around him. The book that was lying on the desk was in his hands, but try as he might, he couldn't read what was written within. They looked like words he should recognize, but when he tried to comprehend them they didn't make any sense. It was almost like the book, he suddenly thought, wasn't letting him. He set it aside and tried in vain to calm himself.

It was perfectly plain that something was wrong here. Roger, the bookstore, the girl and the man, Lent, were all connected. They were all watching him. This was not paranoia, he told his inner voice, and trying to rationalize all this was going to make his head explode. Why were they doing this? What was the reason?

This could be a dream, he thought, a very elaborate, mind-fucking dream in which his paranoia had devised something genuinely sick to scare him. That thought didn't hold much comfort, or weight for that matter; it was all too real.

As he ascended the stairs, fully intent on getting the hell out of there, he stopped once he remembered once again that Lent was in that room, injured and possibly comatose (who knew, Nick certainly didn't) and that there was a girl out there somewhere with a bolt with their names on it.

Instead he decided there were questions he needed answers to, and as Lent was injured he didn't feel too apprehensive in being demanding. After all, it was his life they were fucking with, and it had gone on marginally well before they started poking in on him, stealing his files, spying on him every day and night, not mention trying to murder him with a crossbow.

When he walked into the room where he had left Lent, Nick found he was awake and pulling off the makeshift bandage from his shoulder. He was so taken aback that he temporarily forgot why he had come into this room.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm getting rid of this. How else is the poison going to get out of my body?" Lent muttered tersely without looking at him. Once he had removed the bandage he finally met Nick's confused gaze. "You've been poking in things you shouldn't."

"That's what I was going to say," Nick pointed out, but with less conviction than he had intended. His eyes went to Lent's wound, which was still angry and red, but was now seeping a deep purple substance, so thick that it oozed slowly down his bare chest. Nick felt a bit sick. "That can't be normal."

"Do me a favor," Lent began, jerking his head in the direction of the bathroom, "Green bottle. Go get it."