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somebody. You really do. Post-traumatic stress can do terrible things to a person if they
don t get help. You know that better than anyone. I know it from firsthand experience.
You ve been tortured. Just because you don t have scars doesn t mean you don t have
scars.
I watched him fight to pull himself back together, saw the pleasant mask slide into
place. In a minute, two at the most, he looked like his old self. It was a good act. Anyone
who hadn t seen him break down would never guess there was anything wrong.
You can have the day pass. I ll take care of the paperwork. It ll be ready for you in a
half hour. He stood, the usual signal that it was time to go. I rose but didn t move toward
the door.
I meant what I said. You need to get help. I know you don t want anyone here to know,
but if you go somewhere else
Word can still get around, he said sourly. People talk. Oh, they don t use names. But
it always gets around. It s too juicy not to.
Not if you make them take binding oaths. My voice was cold, hard.
His eyebrows rose high enough to disappear beneath his hair. Obviously, I d surprised
him. Maybe it was that I cared enough to suggest it. Or maybe it was the whole binding
oath thing. Most people aren t willing to take a true binding. It impinges too much on
their free will. And it s not an easy thing to do. Only a top-flight magical practitioner or a
true-believer cleric can pull it off. But if you can get it done, they are completely reliable.
I ll think about it. I hoped he would. But I wasn t sure.
He gestured toward the door with one hand. I was being dismissed.
I felt bad, but I couldn t think of anything more I could do for him. So I left.
6
It took me an hour to leave Birchwoods. Thanks to Jeff s orders to the staff, I was able to
get my keys, cell phone, and some of my personal belongings. I made a few calls,
making arrangements, and decided to change into real clothes. I was almost deliriously
happy not to be wearing gray. Stupid, I know, but still true.
Most important, I needed to eat or, rather, drink. Oooooh, baby. I was overdue and it
was starting to show. Thus far I ve avoided actual uncooked blood, even animal. The
longer I can keep it that way, the better, as far as I m concerned. I mean, ewwww. And
even if I eventually have to do the animal blood thing for nutritional reasons, that s as far
as it will go. I am never going to taste human blood. Period. End of story.
Of course nobody else seems to believe that. They tell me that once I taste human
blood, I ll turn into a full vampire. And everyone seems to believe that someday I ll
succumb. I refuse to. I am not a fucking bat and I have no intention of becoming one.
Still, temptation is definitely something to be avoided.
On the plus side, the chef here has taught me that it s possible to have shakes that
actually taste like what they were in the solid stage. I asked him to put together some
recipes. It ll be worth the money. We ve been experimenting with baby food in hopes that
I can eventually work my way up to solids.
For the moment, I asked for a repeat of the waffle shake, with an additional protein
component of some kind to get my day started on the right nutritional footing. They said it
would take a few minutes to put together, so I took my time picking what I wanted to wear
from among the extremely limited choices available to me at the moment. In the end I
decided on my favorite pair of faded blue jeans and a polo in a shade of blue. My hair is
naturally silver blond and while my eyes are gray rather than blue, the shirt was in one of
the few colors that didn t look odd with my new complexion I decided to bring along a
long-sleeved denim jacket and hat for practical reasons. Slathering on heavy-duty
sunscreen works for a while, but when it wears off I can wind up with second- and third-
degree burns in no time. They don t scar, but they re painful as hell. So like it or loathe it, I
cover as much skin as I can during daylight hours.
I wished I had my weapons. Any weapons. But I hadn t brought any with me to the
wake, so I didn t have any at Birchwoods. Unless Bruno had hidden a couple in my car
when he d brought it over, I was going to have to do without.
I took a couple extra minutes to do my makeup. My friend Dawna did some extensive
online shopping in the short period between my being bitten and her becoming disabled
trying to find colors that don t make me look like a clown. I ended up with a really
minimalist palette that leans toward stark, cool colors. It s made me understand the
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