“I’ll see if we can get a house call,” Angel said. Then she went off to send a message.

The doctor arrived a little after 1am. Angel’s phone buzzed.

Tempest turned to Rangan. “Time for you to hide.”

He nodded, slipped away to his room, closed the door.

He heard a bolt thrown in the main room. The sound of the heavy outer door opening and closing. Voices. Greetings.

Wait.

He knew that voice.

Shock shot through him.

More words were exchanged.

He was certain.

He acted on impulse, pulling open the door to his room, stepping into the hallway, striding down it into the main room.

The doctor was there, crouched over Cheyenne, in jeans, a sweatshirt, long blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail.

“Melanie,” Rangan said.

She looked up, surprise registering on her face. “Rangan?”

“What the hell?” Tempest said.

“Uhh, you two know each other?” Angel asked.

Cheyenne groaned.

Melanie looked back down at her patient.

“Later,” she said, glancing back at Rangan. Then she turned her attention back to her duties.

Two hours later Cheyenne’s right arm was in a cast, and Cheyenne was recovering from the intense agony of resetting the arm. Melanie announced she’d done all she could.

“The humerus is back in alignment. The bone growth accelerator will help. But you really need an X-ray, at least. And the intense shoulder pain…” She shook her head. “That worries me. Nothing’s broken. Maybe ligament damage. There’s only so much I can do here.”

Cheyenne nodded. “Thanks, doc. Check’s in the mail.”

Melanie snorted and gave a small smile at that.

“Thank you,” Angel said, sincerely.

Melanie smiled back. “Can’t have my friends going to jail.”

She turned to Rangan. “Can we talk somewhere?”

In his tiny cubicle of a room, with the door closed, Rangan was suddenly aware of being alone with her, of her long, honey-blonde hair, of the fine details of her face, of the lilt of her voice, of her smell.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said quietly.

He wanted to kiss her, to reach forward, and run his fingers through her hair, and pull her close. He’d felt so alone. Even in the midst of these women. He wasn’t one of them. He didn’t even know their names.

She brought her hand up with something in it. A pen. A slip of paper. She turned, held the paper against the wall, wrote something on it. He studied her profile, wanted to brush her hair back away from her face.

Then she turned back to him, held the slip of paper out for Rangan to take.

He took it, opened it. There was a net address on it.

“People have been looking for you,” she whispered. “No one knew if…”

He nodded, swallowing hard.

“Yeah. Oscar…”

Melanie nodded too.