She shook her head. "No. No hospitals. I'm fine."
"I can carry you to the car if you like."
"Not necessary." She reached around and pressed her hand to the back of her head and winced. "Yeah,
that's going to leave a mark. Ouch."
When she pulled her hand away, it had blood on it. She looked down at it, then looked up at Quinn with a smirk. "Still hungry?"
"I'll be in the car."
He left the house before she could witness his fangs lengthen painfully in his mouth again.
The odds of letting Quinn out of her sight before she had her hands on the Eye were slim to none. She'd tested the waters with him a bit. It seemed as if a little sugar helped the medicine go down. If she wanted something from him, she had to be nice or, at the very least, not a total bitch. The Boss said he'd be in
Vegas tomorrow. Time was precious. She could feel the grains of sand slipping through the hourglass already. There was no room for mistakes.
Quinn had been keeping quiet on the drive. She tried to make conversation with him a couple of times to try out her sugar/medicine theory during the two-hour drive toPhoenix , but he answered in monotone one-word answers, which was fun only for a little while.
"Are we almost there?" she asked.
"Yes."
"What did Barkley want to tell you about Vegas?"
"Nothing."
"Is he still in werewolf form?"
"No."
Like that.
So, instead, she checked for text messages on her cell phone. Zero. Her voice mail. Zero. Oddly enough, that was the sum total of her friends at the moment, since she rarely stayed in one place long enough to make any.
After that, she looked out the window as the brightArizona afternoon turned to dusk and the stolen truck sped closer to their next destination.
She turned to face Quinn, resting her throbbing head against the headrest of the car seat, and pretended to be asleep. Every now and then she'd open her eyes wide enough to peer at him through her dark lashes.
She'd called him handsome by mistake. She covered it up pretty well, though. Luckily, he'd laughed it off. When he'd brought her down to the ground after she'd nearly passed out, he did it so gently. And feeling his hand against her forehead was so soothing. All she'd wanted to do at that moment had been to grab him and pull him down on top of her and kiss him.
Luckily for everyone involved, the massive head injury had prevented that.
Talk about embarrassing.
Maybe it was the fact that he was so completely different from her. Maybe that was the reason she had this major thing for him. Still. After all these years. She hated the fact that she still wanted him. It made her furious with herself. But she couldn't deny that she was hopelessly attracted to him.
She needed this job over with ASAP.
Even the fact that he was a vampire didn't bother her as much as she would have thought. She'd met her share of vamps. Everyone from the dark and dangerous types to the meek and nerdy ones. Gorgeous
European vampires with long dark hair and pitch-black eyes, and the blond ones with freckles and bad breath.
They'd been so romanticized in media—television, movies, books—but she'd never been uncontrollably attracted to one before. After all, the whole drinking-blood thing was a little outside of her comfort zone,
especially with the memory of her lastvampiric run-in with Nicolai. That bite had hurt like hell. There was absolutely nothing sexy or romantic about it. It was just another way to kill somebody—a vicious, animalistic way.
Quinn said he'd never bitten anybody. Did she believe him?
She studied his handsome but slightly gaunt face. He'd look better with a little color. Maybe a few more pounds. He was starving himself because he hated what he was and what that meant. If he'd accept it, he might be happy. He could cover up his self-hatred all he wanted with jokes and quips, but she could see through it. Why else would he want to make a wish to be human?
That wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change his past. It wouldn't make him any happier. Why couldn't he see that?
They enteredPhoenix in silence a little after eight p.m. and found theSleepytime Inn. Quinn parked the stolen truck and went into the office to get two rooms.
Lenny said he was in room three which was just to the right of the office. She got out of the car and walked to it, keeping an eye on Quinn in the windowed office.
She knocked but there was no answer.
She eased her cell phone out of her pocket and speed dialed Lenny's number. It rang.
And then went immediately to voicemail.
"Lenny, I'm at the motel. Where the hell are you?" She hung up.
Just terrific.
Quinn emerged from the office with two keys and saw her to her motel room.
He eyed her with concern. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
"I will be. Eventually. I think I'll have a shower."
He frowned, nodded, and then turned away from her. "I'll be back in a half hour to check on you."
"Wait a minute—"
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm just going to my own room for a bit. Why,
don't you trust me?"
"Not even remotely."
His serious expression turned amused. "Well, I can stay and help you with the shower, if you'd like."
She'd roll her eyes if she didn't expect it to hurt. "A half an hour. I swear I will hunt your ass down if you take off on me."