But Michael … Michael worried me. I could only hope that he wouldn’t play the hero.

I knew Richard probably would.

I kept my attention focused on them, at least part of the time, as I raced across to the wrecked truck.

There were men down, four or five of them. Two were dead. I could tell that at a glance; they’d been thrown clear of the rolling truck, and the damage was done. I left them and went for the others who were still moving, however weakly.

One had a badly broken arm, and a gushing scalp wound, but he was awake and more or less focused. He reached up and caught a fistful of my yellow raincoat. “Get them out of here,” he said. “Goddamn water vampires were on us. Couldn’t get anywhere safe. Get my men out of here.”

I blinked. It was the human resistance leader of Morganville, Captain Obvious. He’d taken over the role of vampire-hating rebel leader when the last Captain Obvious had been killed, and he was good at it because he’d served his country sometime, somewhere, in some branch. Not a Marine, I thought; a Marine would have been a better driver, and a Marine wouldn’t be lying there with a busted arm and expecting someone else to save his men.

“Wait one,” I said, and left him to move to the next man. Broken legs, two of them. His face was in the water, and I propped him up against the wreckage to make sure he continued to breathe. He was coughing and starting to scream as I moved on.

Richard and I got to the third one at the same time. I wasn’t surprised to see him, but I was annoyed. “I told you to stay in the—”

“And I don’t listen,” he interrupted me. “Technically, I’m your boss, and don’t give me chain-of-command crap right now. This man has serious injuries.”

“They all do,” I said. “And there’s no room for them in the car. Take the cruiser and go. Send back adequate transportation.”

“You really think I’m going to leave you out here, alone? You really believe that? Hannah?”

I looked up, and found him watching me with that strange mix of vulnerability and frustration that I’d come to know over the past few months. We’d been at this relationship a while. It had started in a frenzy of frustration and need, not love maybe but something close. It could have been love, in time, but there was just something not quite clicking between us. Some hidden switch that didn’t trip.

I wished it was different. I wanted to be in love. He was worth it. Hell, I was worth it, too.

But it just wasn’t the way it was going to be, and deep down I think we both knew it.

“Richard,” I said, in my best commanding officer voice, “we do not have time for this. Take the cruiser and get us help, now. Go.”

He wasn’t used to taking orders, particularly; that’s what happens when you grow up in the richest, most powerful human family in Morganville. He still thought of me as a girl from the wrong side of town, not somebody who’d been to hell, kicked ass, and come home alive.