Nick. “Where’s the guy who hit us?” I said, scanning the faces and not seeing him.

“He’s fine apart from a damaged knee,” she said as she finished and I pulled my hands close to inspect the little crescent moons from my nails cutting my palms. “It might need surgery at some point, but he’ll live.” Her deeply brown eyes flicked to my dental-floss stitches. “Your gnomon is with him,” she finished, and I blinked. Gnomon? What in hell was that?

“She’s keeping him occupied until the I.S. gets here to take his statement,” she added, and my eyes widened. The woman meant Ivy. She thought I was Ivy’s scion, and gnomon was the flipside of the relationship. It made sense—a gnomon was the thingy on a sundial that casts a shadow. I was about to tell her Ivy wasn’t my gnomon, then didn’t. I didn’t care what she thought.

“The I.S.?” I said with a sigh, starting to worry now that it looked like I was going to survive. Motions quick, she fixed a big bandage over each palm. I hadn’t forgotten about the I.S., but if Nick’s truck wasn’t burning before they arrived, it was going to be a lot harder to get rid of that defunct statue.

Her attention followed mine to the truck, her shoulders stiffening when Jenks and two men pulled Peter’s broken body out. I expected her to get angry they were moving him, surprised that she was messing with the living and not him, obviously the worse off—until she leaned close with her little penlight and flashed it in my eyes, saying, “You cried for Peter. No one ever cries for us.”

I pulled out of her grip, shocked. “You know…”

She moved, and I panicked. With vampire quickness she was atop me, knees to either side of my thighs, pinning me against the barrier. Her one hand was behind my neck holding me unmoving, the other held that light as if it was a dagger pointed at my eye. She was inches away, her closeness going unnoticed or considered okay by way of her official-looking lab coat.

“I’m here because DeLavine told me to come. He wanted to make sure you survived.”

I took a breath, then another. She was so close, I could see the soft imperfections in her cheek and neck where she had been professionally stitched. I didn’t move, wishing I wasn’t so damn interesting to the undead. What in hell was their problem?

“I’d tell him to leave you alone,” she said, her breath lost in the wind, “because I think you’d kill him if he tried to hunt you, but it would make him interested, not simply—concerned.”

“Thanks,” I said, heart pounding. God help me, I would never understand vampires.

Slowly she lowered the penlight and got off. “Good re-flexes. No head trauma. Your lungs sound clear. Don’t let them cart you off to Emergency. You don’t need it, and it will only jack up your insurance,” she said, switching from scary-ass vampire to professional health provider in seconds. “I’m done here. You want a pain amulet?”