Forgotten, drifting through the streets, Bella drove us back. Even the Axiom gunships that tore past overhead, glittering in their corporate colors, paid our panel van no mind as we merged into the mass of late-night commuters. Rain began to drum against the roof. No one said a word. Vsevolod's eyes wouldn't stop flicking to me.

  I didn't bother meeting his gaze. The elven woman was thin and pale, her brown eyes hazed over with a pallid dullness. Each cut was swiftly disinfected and bandaged in a flurry of motion as I worked, ignoring the scent of burnt metal that clung to my body. I mused.

  It felt like an eternity for us to pull into the alley behind Zion's Kitchen. An ambulance was already waiting, doors open. The crew inside dropped out as soon as the back door opened, transferring the elven woman onto a gurney before any of us had even moved to get out of the way. She was bundled into the back, and they tore away into the foggy rain with lights and sirens.

  The Selector stood at the back door, face creased into an easy smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Come, my friends. Let us reason out how things went and where we stand." He pulled the door open as he spoke, gesturing inside.

  "Yes, sir," I said, throwing my medical kit over one shoulder and marching inside. The kitchen was dark now, one man sleeping in a chair in the corner while the next day's stew bubbled on the stoves, filling the air with a waltz of spices and cooking meat. Arthur's staff rang off the tile with each step he took. Slowly, I settled down at the seat I had taken only an hour earlier. The seat creaked under my weight. Bella settled in the one next to me, one leg over the other casually, throwing her weapon on the table.

  The Selector sat at the head, folding his hands together as Vsevolod and Arthur sat down. "I would like to know why Axiom Dynamics sent twenty men to secure the motel after you left. And why they killed every man who had fled from you all like they had the plague?" He said, letting his smile drop.

  "The decker they had trawling The Grid spiked Sawbones here. Had him in a Lockout. Then Vidr's cybermantle squirted a datapacket at him. Next thing I know, he flatlines." Vsevolod said coolly, gaze no longer flitting to me. "Before he went out, whatever got sent to him spread to everything in the subnet. Even the damn coffeemaker."

  "Every human in the building died as though cursed by a hex." Arthur emphasized . "But the orcs did not. Nor did Eloise." He mused aloud. I blinked at hearing the patient's name, hidden behind my helmet's faceplate.

  "The decker was digging deep. Wanted everything, even the keys to my apartment. He tread into my cybermantle's quarantine files." I couldn't help but feel my heart begin beating faster, even if the words came out in a cold monotone.

  "But what is in those files to bring out Axiom. That is what I and I must understand." The Selector said, head tilting to the side as he thought. "For now, good job. We have discovered something and completed the gig, my friends. I and I will leave it at that for tonight. Vsevolod, Vidr, Arthur. I would like you three to reconvene with me after a few days' rest and day work. We shall dig into what our scaled bredda has hiding in him." The Selector reasoned with an explosive breath out.

  "Of course, sir. Sawbones, just be careful digging into any subnets. I'll send a counter-daemon in a text to you. Inject it into anything you've linked to lately. Just to be safe." Vsevolod stated, running a hand over his pale scalp.

  "I will see if I can decipher this hex that seemed to follow in its wake. Find its caster. If there is one." Arthur agreed, then yawned. "In the meantime, I will retire. I have classes to teach in the morning." He stood, stretching until his back crackled. Then took his staff and left. Vsevolod left without another word.

  "I'll take my leave. Get out of this armor." I said, standing. The Selector nodded.

  "Get some rest, Vidr." His smile had warmth again, reaching his eyes. I turned and slipped into the bathroom. I stared at the revenant in the mirror. Soot and dust dulled the iconography of Charon's Gate. A smeared round spread across the right side of my chest. The round I had taken had glanced off the curve of my breastplate and up off the gorget of my armor before it could cut open my neck.

  I ignored the throbbing pain in my chest, reaching up. The world went silent and dark as the helmet disconnected from the connection prongs that studded the bridge of my snout like a piercing. The blued platinum glittered in the light of the humming incandescent bar over the mirror.

  But my eyes were focused on the shape behind me. The door was closing again, and Bella's snout was peering around my shoulder to look at my face in the mirror. She frowned softly when she met my eyes in the mirror. "I thought... I'd come help you out of that. Since..." she trailed off, suddenly uncertain. I blinked.

  "If you want. It can be a bit of a pain to get off alone." I admitted, even knowing full well I'd done it myself more times than I could count. She nodded, slipping in and running her claws along my sides slowly. Velcro tore apart loudly in the quiet room, accompanied by the clicks and pops of buckles and magnets separating. When she pulled the tail bags away, her hands lingered. I could see her considering teasing me again in the mirror, but she just finished pulling the bags away and setting them on the pile.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "You'd be a real bastard in a game of strip poker." She tried. I gave a snort as I worked at the vambraces on my forearms.

  "So I've been told." I agreed. She lingered as I knelt and began working off the thigh and lower leg plating of the armor. "Would you mind grabbing my clothes from the duffel bag. Left it on the table outside."

  "Yeah, of course. Just a sec." She slipped out. With a sudden breath out, I realized I had been holding it. I shook my head, unzipping the front of my bodysuit, peeling it back from the scales to look at my chest. A path of dented scales followed the bullet's path, still gleaming on the chest plate of my combat armor on the floor.

  Bella came in, this time not even blinking at me as I kept working the suit off. She held the clothes under one arm, letting her eyes run across my scales. "Didn't expect a show." She teased.

  I tilted my head, watching her in the mirror. "I wasn't exactly expecting to give one?" I asked.

  "I can leave these here, if you want." She at least looked away after meeting my eyes.

  "I can't say I really care." I sighed. "At least the person looking at me isn't my coworker."

  She returned to watching idly, holding out the clothes once I finished getting out of the bodysuit. I pulled them on easily with a soft sigh of relief. "Though I hoping you'd do a quick once-over with me. Want to make sure I don't need to go to the hospital or something. Dad'd be " She hissed.

  "Back at the Hearth. You wouldn't be walking, talking, and evidently enjoying the view if you were that hurt." I snorted. She laughed a bit.

  We reached the Hearth quickly, each in our own cars. The streets were practically empty now, as the moon rose high overhead. Dropping off my weapons and armor, I slung the medical kit over my shoulder and headed to her room. Her floor of the Hearth was dryer and cooler than my own, with less trees and more succulents in the planter boxes that lined the causeway.

  The windows to her apartment were blocked with drawn curtains, the number 508 stamped on the front of the door. I knocked idly. The door unlocked and popped open, Bella leaning around it. She'd ditched her close-fitting clothes for an oversized shirt and little else. She smiled and moved aside to let me in.

  It was cool inside. Cooler than I felt particularly comfortable. A sluggishness was already worming through my body. I pushed it aside as Bella sat on her bed in the corner. It was dim, with dull amber lights running throughout. Her bed was piled with stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows.

  I knelt, ignoring the flash of heat that ran through my stomach as I saw she was wearing the oversized shirt. Pushing the warmth down, I unzipped the bag and let it fall open, pulling on a fresh set of gloves. I was thankful there wasn't much see through the white plumage that ran along the insides of her thighs, no doubt flowing up her belly and chest. I instead focused on the brilliant scarlet feathers, edged in warm browns and blacks, around the outsides of her legs, running my palm scanner along them. Nothing of note was highlighted. Her heart rate pulsed in my view. One hundred and three beats per minute.

  I ran the scanner up along her belly and chest, hovering a few inches from her body. Three sharp red contusions lit up. One lower abdominal, near her waist. One just below the sternum, deep in the flesh, and one over the fourth rib on her right. A duller ring lit up around her throat in the shape of an orc's meaty hand. Just above it was the port of a biomonitor. "Well. You are definitively hurt." I announced, breaking the silence. I regretted the reflexive flick of my secondary tongue. The room smelled like her. Warm, earthy, with something sweet to it all. It had taken on a slightly sharper tone than I remembered from her car.

  I let my cybernetic arm fall away, shifting to be on my other knee. I brought up my organic hand and slowly reached towards her. "Let's find how just how badly. Have you been struggling to breathe at all?" I asked, eyeing the deeper bruise below her sternum. A tightness ran through the scales of my arm in the overly dry room. I ignored it. "And may I use the biomonitor to track your metrics?"

  She went to speak, but hissed instead as my gloved hand ran over the bruise near her hip. I palpated it idly, glancing up to meet her eyes, glinting like sapphires. I bit my tongue before I said a word about them. I thought. I looked back down to watch her breathe as they started up again. She was blissfully warm underclaw as I felt the extent of the bruise. Nothing concerning.

  "It does hurt a little." She admitted softly. She tilted her head to the side in silent assent to my second question. I pulled a cable from the base of my skull, then froze.

  "I can't, I forgot. Apologies. I'll have to use my other hand." I shook my head to myself, repositioning my cybernetic hand to rest against her side, seeing her heart rate had spiked to one hundred and twelve. She leaned into the touch.

  I moved my organic hand up to her sternum, checking much more deeply. The blunt force of the bullet had traveled through her ballistic plate vest. Likely a straight-on hit. I hummed idly, feeling the extent of the wound. I ran my palm scanner over it again to refresh the decaying AR halo around the wound. "No internal bleeding. Just deep muscle bruising. Likely in the diaphragm." I tittered thoughtfully. I moved both hands to the highlighted rib, focusing on the scan highlight.

  Bella flinched when I felt it more firmly. Finally, with a few different angles, a hairline crack appeared in flashing amber. "Cracked rib," I explained in apology. She gave a soft chirrup of acceptance. Somehow, the room didn't feel quite as cold. Lastly, I ran the backs of my claws around her neck to ensure the damage was nothing more than a bruise. I'd come to stand in the progression up her body. I could feel her every half-breath against my wrist. Each one was quick and sharp.

  She grabbed my wrist when I began pulling it away, slowly resting her chin in my palm. "Is that all, Vidr?" she asked, a stuttering, vibrating purring running into my hand. My hand fell away slowly. Bella stood, slowly lacing her arms around my neck, her warmth blooming against my chest, like I was lying in the sun. My hands hovered on either side of her. Her heart rate flashed in time with each beat. One hundred and twenty-two beats per minute.

  "In my professional medical opinion, you should have at least three days of bed rest, with no activity," I said flatly. Even if I felt that warmth start to claw at the edges of my thoughts with another flick of my secondary tongue.

  Bella huffed, rolling her eyes. She gave a last squeeze of my body before falling back onto her bed, immediately regretting the sudden jarring with a bitten-down whimper. "You're.... no fun," she complained playfully.

  "As I said, take me to dinner first," I replied coolly.