She’d closed her eyes and covered them for the blast itself to avoid having them boiled too badly, and when she opened them, the whole room was black with ash. Black walls, charred beds, ash all over the floor. It looked like a dragon had breathed fire across the room.

Nita healed her burst eardrums, and sound flooded back into the world. The fire alarm rang tinnily, and the faint sounds of screams from outside echoed through the room like the voices of ghosts.

Her mother was gone.

Chunks of cooked flesh were spattered across the room, charred beyond all recognition. A few pieces of a spinal column lay on the floor, and one of her mother’s boots was still mostly intact, though the leg it had been attached to was gone.

There was nothing else.

She let out a shuddering breath, stumbled to her feet, and took a tentative step forward, needing to see, to make sure that her mother was gone.

But not even bones, only ashes remained when Nita rose. Not even her mother could put herself back together after being blown to literal smithereens.

Nita’s mother was dead. And she was never, ever going to hurt Nita again.

Nita let out a long breath. She’d expected to feel relieved, but she didn’t. Just vaguely satisfied, like she’d finally completed a long overdue task.

She walked slowly across the room, kicking a fragment of skull out of her way, and left through the shattered hole where the door used to be, down the blackened hallway, its walls on fire, and to the stairwell.

Her mother would never control Nita’s life again.

Forty-One

NITA SPENT the next three days at the hospital by Kovit’s bedside.

Kovit had a room to himself in the far corner of the hospital. Normally, hospital rooms were shared, but because of Kovit’s notoriety in the news, other patients’ misgivings, and the fact that he unconsciously fed on the pain of everyone around him, the hospital had agreed to give him his own room.

A policeman stood outside the door, and Nita wasn’t sure if it was to make sure Kovit didn’t escape or protect him from the zealots, reporters, and curious bystanders who kept trying to swing by his room. Either way, while Kovit was unconscious and helpless, it was a boon to have the police presence—it saved Nita a lot of effort.

When he’d come out of surgery, Nita had asked the doctor his prognosis.

“It’s too early to tell. Honestly, I never thought he’d survive the surgery. He shouldn’t have.” The doctor had frowned softly. “I’ve never worked on a zannie before, though. Do they have healing skills like vampires?”