Possession (Fallen Angels #5)(45)
Author: J.R. Ward

And then she was gone.

Duke took some deep breaths and pulled it together. A moment later, he went to look at his watch—and was reminded that his Rolex had disappeared. Taking his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans, he checked the time that way.

Damn it. Too early to leave so he had to go back in and face the music.

And gee, what do you know. Big Rob, Silent Tom, and Ivan were still kibitzing, now by Alex’s door.

Duke headed in the opposite direction, back to the interrogation room. Which proved to be a dumb idea. As he went over to that far corner and started to reattach the wires to the monitoring units, the three of them took the opportunity to line up like they were at a zoo and had taken an interest in one of the tigers.

“Don’t ask,” Duke said. “Not one of you ask a single frickin’ thing.”

When he finally had to turn back around to them, he thought, Fucking hell, even Silent Tom, who never took much of an interest in anything, was focused on him.

“She’s not from here,” one of the three—not Tom—said.

Done with his little tech job, Duke pushed his way through the other bouncers. With any luck, there’d be a couple of stragglers in the bar area who he could muscle out the front door—preferably when it was closed and locked.

One thing he was not going to do was discuss with the old ladies on his tail the woman, the hookup, or any future plans.

Out in the club proper, he was bummed. The lights had been cranked up, the chaos of a busy night showing in all the wet places on the floor, and the cockeyed furniture, and the dropped napkins—and the condom wrappers.

How romantic.

As he started to do a sweep, the brigade of boots following behind him proved that gossip wasn’t just for sixteen-year-old girls with Hello Kitty fetishes. Apparently, yoked-up muscleheads could be into it, too.

Duke spun around. “No. No. And no.”

One for each of the nosy bastards.

“You were out of sight for a while,” Big Rob drawled. “So there was a ‘yes’ in there somewhere.”

So not doing this.

As he turned away, Ivan said, “Come on, man, it’s just, you haven’t—”

The voice that cut the guy off wasn’t one he recognized. Then again, Silent Tom hadn’t gotten his nickname for no good reason: “Okay, boys, let’s back off.”

That was all it took.

Maybe the other two hadn’t ever heard him speak either, and were too shocked to keep bloodhounding their other colleague.

Whatever it was, Duke thanked God as he was left in peace—

Stopping in his tracks, he realized … his woman had never given him her name.

At least he had those digits, though.

Chapter Nineteen

When Jim came awake in a hospital bed, all he could think was, Maybe it had been a dream. Maybe … the whole thing, from meeting Nigel and the other archangels, to the Devina nightmare, to the game itself … had just been a product of the electrocution at the job site.

A fiction created by an overload of neurological stimulation.

And assuming that were true? Well, then, Adrian was fiction, and so was Eddie and the fact that the guy had died. There were also no souls to be saved. No Heaven and Hell, either—at least not that he had to be concerned with.

He had nothing to worry about other than simple problems like paying monthly bills and whether his truck was running sound under the hood.

Shiiiiiiit, whoever didn’t think normal was bliss? Hadn’t lived very hard.

Closing his eyes, he reached over his head and pulled himself into a glorious, full-body stretch, the relief pouring through him. He was free for the first time in his adult life. Free of his shady work as a member of XOps. No longer the puppet of a cruel mastermind. And not now or ever a “savior” tasked with rescuing humanity from a bored Creator and a super-bitch demon—

“You’re finally awake.”

Jim jacked up off the pillows.

Across the room, sitting in a chair, Sissy Barten was alive and well.

Which meant they were both dead. And his reality hadn’t really changed.

“Fuck,” he breathed, easing back down and shutting his eyes again. Wonder how many hours he’d been out? Hard to know. Felt like a while.

“Are you okay?”

Bringing his hands to his face, he rubbed, hard—at least until every pain receptor in his entire body told him to CUT THAT OUT RIGHT THIS SECOND.

Ah, yes. His face had in fact gone through the windshield.

And that meant his truck was wrapped around a tree, his head had sustained a trauma, and his leg was f**ked-up. It also meant that somewhere, at this very moment, if not sooner, a police officer was running the plates on the F-150 and discovering that the vehicle was registered to a dead man … who looked exactly like Jim.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” With a groan, he sat up, swung his legs around, and saw, oh, joy, that he had a cast on his left calf.

Nothing he could do about that at the moment.

Redirecting, he started to go to work on the inside of his arm, taking out the IV with practiced efficiency. “Come on—”

As alarms started going off behind the bed, Sissy shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m not going anywhere. The doctor came in with the nurse. You’ve got a concussion and…”

Jim let her keep talking as he got on his feet and tested out his left leg. Sore. Very sore. But thanks to the cast, it held his weight well enough that he could hobble around and look for some clothes. Rifling through the mostly empty closet, all he could think of was the last time he’d done this, in this hospital. That nurse had been a battle-ax, but—

Sissy stepped in front of him. “Get back in that bed. You’re not leaving.”

“Oh, really.” He leaned down so they were eye-to-eye. “Let me clue you in on something. I don’t actually exist in this world, and I’ve learned from experience, you can’t have a foot in both places. It f**ks with their heads.”

“Your leg is broken.”

“Doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Then why are you limping.”

“I’m not.”

She glared right into his face. “Do you know the definition of the word?”

“Do you know how fast we gotta get going here?”

Moving around her, he started opening drawers in a shallow, fake-wood cabinet. Nothing. No pants, shirt, boots. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve had much worse and lived.”

“Except for that one time when you died, right.” Sissy went back and sat in the chair. “Whatever, I’m staying. Where you go off to is your problem, not mine.”