“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 reflexes. 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?”

I shook my head, guilt for being alive cascading through me when Jenks and two men set Peter gently on the ground apart from everyone. Jenks crouched to close his eyes and the other two men backed away, frightened and respectful. The woman’s face blanked. “I wasn’t here, okay?” she said. “You bandaged your own damn leg. I don’t want to be subpoenaed. I wasn’t here.”

“You got it.”

And she was gone, the purple lab coat flapping about her calves as she lost herself in the crush of growing turmoil surrounding the single spot of stillness that was Peter, alone on the pavement, broken and bloody.