by Robin Hale
Oh god.
Oh god, she was bleeding. What the hell had happened there?
After one more repetition of the video, the news station returned to a view of the anchors. “As you can see, it seems the Silhouette was interrupted in a heist at the maritime museum. Museum officials have assured us that nothing has been taken. The police are on the scene but so far no arrests have been made. If you have seen the Silhouette, please call the dedicated Silhouette tip line for the Opal City PD displayed along the bottom of your screen. Do not approach her, she is presumed armed and extremely dangerous.”
I snorted derisively and felt more than saw Kevin’s surprised look move from the screen to my face.
“She’s never once injured a guard, a police officer, or anyone else. Dozens of heists. Dozens, and she’s never displayed a weapon. Never so much as brandished a knife at anyone. Extremely dangerous,” I scoffed. “The utter nerve.” I could feel fear prickling at the back of my mind, bubbling up like the coffee percolating into the pot in front of me. My irritation, my frustration was a desperate cover for it. Even I could tell that.
If I didn’t focus on the idiocy of the report I would fall apart in worry for her.
For the damned Silhouette. I didn’t even know her name!
How badly was she bleeding? It had looked like an astonishing amount of blood, but the video quality had been low and in the uneven lighting it was impossible to tell for certain. I tried not to think of the arteries in that part of the body, how near to the surface they were, how little time it would take the Silhouette’s panicked heart to pump all of her blood from her body as her muscles, her organs suffocated in the attendant trauma.
“Fawn.” Kevin’s voice was sharp, breaking through the macabre imaginings that were taking over my conscious thought. “Put it down, Molly,” he said more gently.
I looked down at my hands in surprise, seeing that I had cracked the glass mug I’d brought with me from my office, grasp clenched too tightly against the delicate rim of the dish. I forced my fingers to relax and dropped the shards to the countertop. Automatically, my eyes swept over my fingers, searching for tiny splinters of glass that might have gotten lodged in the flesh there, waiting to tear apart the skin, the blood vessels. But there was nothing. Just a cracked mug that was easily swept into the trash.
“I should…I have work to do.” I stammered, avoiding Kevin’s curious gaze.
“Yeah, okay, Molly,” he agreed amiably. “I’ll just handle those audits myself. Take it easy, all right?”
I nodded and rushed out of the break room — back to my desk and the system access I would need in order to do what had to be done.
BEING the official tactical support for Captain Colossal had a number of perks, not least of which was the access I was granted to public records and police files without the cumbersome restrictions of making a formal inquiry. Those things took time, left too many trails that could be traced back, and ultimately would’ve left the Silhouette just as vulnerable as I was, if anyone were to look into my searches.
At the end of it, it was the ‘Dangerous Brains’ board that led me to her.
Since the night I first met her, surprising her in Professor Robinson’s office at the university, I’d tracked every theft, every sighting, every known associate of the Silhouette. I’d mapped all of them. I’d met with every surprising resident of a luxury retirement center, collected names and histories and added them to my mind map. I’d checked census records, IRS filings, and even police tips that were never actually investigated.
And they all led me to one place: one older, stately apartment building. Neither luxury nor run down. Old enough that it was built to last, but well maintained even through the city’s many changes. They’d led me to that address and I had spent an hour poring over every deed, rental agreement, and legally acknowledged resident in the building, setting aside those names I knew I could dismiss, until I had only one left.
Lana Blake. It had to be her. There was no photo identification of Ms. Blake on record. She’d never filed for a passport, never acquired a regular driver’s license. The motorcycle she rode, she rode without proper certification.
But it simply had to be her.
It’d taken surprisingly little to charm my way past the doorman. “Dr. Molly Fawn, here to see Lana Blake on behalf of Captain Colossal,” I’d said, smiling up at the older gentleman in the security booth.
He hadn’t even asked for identification. He was happy to simply wave me through to the bank of elevators with an indication toward the right floor. I’d frowned at that. It hardly seemed worthwhile to even have a doorman if they weren’t going to ask for ID from a random person who wandered in off the street.
Of course, I wasn’t exactly unknown to the general population. I’d been featured in enough stories about the Captain that he’d probably just recognized me. Probably.
I pondered the issue as I waited in the elevator, counting the floors as it rose. My palms were sweaty around the handle of the basket I held in my hands, and I felt suddenly, desperately foolish for having brought it. It’d seemed perfectly sensible when I was packing it. It had felt obvious that I should bring my medical kit, that I might need to insert surgical stitches to help close a wound, or that I might need any number of common numbing and antibacterial agents to help the Sil — Lana avoid infection and hopefully find rest. By that point, tossing in a bottle of wine and my favorite feel-good film had felt more like I was planning to help Jade recover from surgery than visiting the master thief I was sort-of-possibly dating after she’d been shot during a heist.
I should’ve left the basket at home.
If I had any sense, I would’ve stayed at the lab, gone over the audits like Kevin had requested, and tried rewriting my profile on HiCutie instead of indulging in my adolescent crush on a wanted criminal.
Obviously, I had taken leave of my senses and I raised my fist to knock on the door of one Lana Blake, presumed to be the secret identity of the Silhouette, to put the final nail in that coffin.
“Fucking hell.” There was a muffled voice beyond the door and I bit down hard on my lower lip to stifle a hysterical peal of laughter. “Wait a damn minute!” A pause. “Izzy, if you forgot your key I’m going to skin you.”
Izzy, presumably, referred to Isobel Verdera, proprietor of a high-end consignment shop downtown. She’d never been directly connected to the Silhouette, but the general shape of the data I had gathered suggested there ought to be a connection there.
I found myself hoping that it was a professional one and that ‘Izzy’ was not in possession of a key to Lana’s apartment because they were lovers. I really didn’t think I could withstand the humiliation of finding that my little crush was entirely one-sided. All in my head.
The door swung open, revealing the Silhouette, sour-faced, only half-dressed, and eyes widening in what was every surprise I would ever manage to pull on her.
“Hi,” I breathed, smiling hopefully despite the embarrassment that threatened to overtake me. Lana was barely dressed, a loose tank top covered her upper body, a pair of black, bikini-style panties the only other article of clothing she wore. Her makeup was scrubbed off, her hair tied haphazardly away from her face. She looked gorgeous. Statuesque. Somehow just as powerful as I’d ever seen her, even with the vulnerability implied by the lack of her suit and goggles. My stare dropped to the edge of an adhesive bandage at her hip and I tore my eyes away. Not yet, Fawn. Not yet. I lifted the basket as I gave in to the urge to justify my presence on her doorstep. “May I come in?”
There was a heartbeat, two, and I was terrified that she would slam the door in my face. That she would tell me to leave, that I wasn’t welcome there. That she might, in her hurry to vacate her compromised home, get herself arrested or worse in her injured state.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, she jerked backward from the doorway, gesturing behind her even as she closed her parted lips in a snap of teeth.
“Thank you.�
� I hoped the pounding of my heart wouldn’t be audible to her — it seemed like all I could hear. I walked into the open living room of the apartment and was a little thunderstruck. It was a gorgeous place. Unabashedly dated architecture with surprisingly beautiful oil paintings on the walls — originals, it would seem, not prints — and just a few decorative objects adorning tables and shelves. It was calming. Soothing. A place that seemed purposeful just by existing. It rather reminded me of my grandmother’s home and how it had felt to visit as a child, getting the sense that the person who had decorated it knew exactly what she was doing.
“What are you doing here, Fawn?” Lana asked. She fixed me with an intense stare, pinning me to the floor like a cobra snaring a field mouse. In one hand, she held a heavy-bottomed whiskey glass, half full of amber liquid.
“I saw the news,” I admitted. “I thought you might need help.”
The smile that pulled at Lana’s lips wasn’t affectionate or fond, or any of the other things I’d come to expect from her as she teased and flirted. It was somehow…sad. Dark. Self-deprecating.
“Can I offer you a drink, darling?” Lana purred, waving her whiskey glass at me in a half-hearted gesture. She seemed remarkably calm about my presence in her home — or perhaps she simply knew there was nothing she could do about it in her current condition. She took a single step toward the open liquor cabinet and then pain exploded across her face in a wave, knee and hip buckling under the motion.
The basket fell from my hands in a clatter as I lunged forward, catching Lana beneath her arms, bracing her ribcage, avoiding the line of bandages that crossed over her hip. “Whoa, easy,” I said gently, med-school reflexes kicking in, and the only thing that was on my mind right then was getting a look at whatever was beneath that bandage. I needed to help Lana off her feet and somewhere comfortable so that she could recover.
Well, perhaps not the only thing.
The world froze, Lana leaning on me and looking like she hated it, like she was only doing it because she could not physically hold herself up any longer. My hands were pressed tight against her body, a thin tank top — bunching and shifting and offering a tantalizing peek at the soft skin beneath — the only thing between my hands and the silky heat of her. I couldn’t look away from her eyes. Couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Not that close, not in such a precarious position. And I knew I should move. I should get her arm over my shoulders, my arm around her waist, should half carry her to her couch, or bed, or wherever she was planning to stay until the wound closed enough that she wouldn’t reopen it by walking.
But the moment felt fragile, like I might shatter it if I moved the wrong way or spoke too loudly.
“Come on, doc,” Lana said dryly. Her eyes, those impossibly pretty hazel eyes, had gone distant. They’d shuttered as I’d watched. Frustration and confusion and turmoil suddenly disappeared like she’d dropped a curtain in front of it. “Why are you here?”
I swallowed reflexively and prayed my voice wouldn’t crack when I answered. “You’re hurt.”
That familiar quirk of her brow let me know precisely how little she believed me. “So if Sergeant Cinders sprained her ankle, you’d show up on her doorstep with —” She looked over at the now-spilled basket I’d brought with me like an idiot. “Takeout and a film?”
Heat flooded my face. She wasn’t wrong. Of course I wouldn’t track down where Cinders lived, and if I did I would be the first one to hand that information over to Captain Colossal and the police. I certainly wouldn’t use it to come help her.
“No,” I admitted.
The hand that Lana had braced on my shoulder eased its iron grip as the panic of nearly falling passed, and I felt the featherlight touch of her thumb tracing the side of my neck. There was no resisting the shiver that followed.
“Then why, darling?”
Logically, academically, I knew that no matter how fiercely my face heated under those hazel eyes, no matter how thoroughly I wore the evidence of my embarrassment, I wouldn’t actually have a stroke. At the moment, however, curling up on the floor and dying seemed like a tempting alternative to the conversation I was having.
“You saved me.” The words caught on my lips. I’d never been smooth, never been the sort of person who could charm anyone into or out of anything, and it was painfully obvious with every awkward syllable. “You…you helped me.”
Lana — Silhouette’s — eyes flickered. She looked resigned, somehow. Disappointed but not surprised. “Ah,” she said, taking more of her weight onto her good leg. “Quid pro quo, then.” She looked like she understood that. Like it made sense to her, even if she obviously didn’t like it.
The fact that she didn’t like it, that she might have preferred I stood there in her apartment for another reason — it fluttered through me at an alarming pace. What did she want from me? What could I have?
“No,” I broke in, trying to keep that expression from darkening any further. “Not like that.” I shifted, risking the fragile balance of the moment in order to urge Lana’s arm over my shoulder, to wrap my arm around her waist, clear of her bandaged hip. I took a calming breath, tasting her on the air even as I felt the impossible heat of her body pressed against mine. “I…don’t like the idea of you being hurt and alone.” The admission ripped from my throat like a fish hook, barbed and dangerous and aching as it tore free.
“Oh.” Lana’s eyes widened. Her lips, no longer so perfectly painted, parted in just the barest hint of surprise. I waited, but she didn’t say anything else. She didn’t offer me a lifeline, or understanding. Didn’t let me down easy, but also didn’t meet me in the abyss I’d flung myself into.
It was fine. I would be fine.
“Where’s your bedroom?” I asked, trying to get a hint of the doctor back into my voice. Trying to find a role where I felt comfortable in my skin when there was so much of hers on display.
“Hmm, moving awfully quick there, darling. Not that I’m complaining.” The quirk of her mouth was a tease, and she relented after a second. “Just through there.” She gestured with her glass, not dropped in the stumble. It just figured that would be the thing she’d manage to hold onto.
I looked over my shoulder at the doorway she’d indicated and nodded. “Okay, we’re going to get you off your feet, and then I’m going to take a look at that wound.”
Lana’s mouth opened, a wry cast to her expression, but she snapped her teeth shut once more and simply nodded.
THE TRIP into the bedroom was fraught with stumbling, cursing, bleeding, and more pauses than I would have expected, but we made it. I leaned my charge against the wall as I smoothed out the covers on her bed, making sure that we had a reasonably consistent surface to work on. I didn’t want something bunched beneath her if I had to place stitches, making things even less comfortable than they had to be. I also needed to fidget with something. I needed a minute to re-center myself in her space, to get my mind back in working order.
Her bedroom smelled so strongly of her that I could already feel heat building, low and insistent behind my navel. Just from the scent. Just from knowing that I was moments from laying her out on her bed and getting her out of those briefs…even if it was purely for her health.
“Okay,” I breathed and held my arm out again, providing a stable base for Lana to hop those last few feet from the doorway and lie down in the softness of her comforter.
“I’m going to take these off so I can get at the wound, but I’ll get a towel or something so you can cover up.” I turned from the bed immediately, not wanting to catch the glint in Lana’s eyes. Instead, I stalked off toward a narrow hall that I was sure would lead to a bathroom or a linen closet or something likely to have a stack of clean towels in it. I was not disappointed.
Walking back to that bed was almost worse than just staying there. I had a chance to see her staged like a painting, long pale limbs artfully arranged even with the pain she must have been in. Her hair was falling from its hasty bun to cascade around her sho
ulders, at odds with the careful way her hazel eyes tracked me. She was so…guileless, like that. Not innocent and trusting, never those, but not even remotely trying to hide what she was. She was a predator. That was the only way to describe it.
She tracked me like prey, like she could see the fluttering of my pulse in my throat, like she knew the way my legs quaked just slightly when I met her eyes.
“You know,” she drawled, mercifully dialing down the heat on that penetrating stare of hers. “I’d rather assumed ‘doctor’ was due to a PhD. Computer science or bio engineering or something.”
I approached, lifting the towel as an offering and laying it carefully over her hips and legs.
“Does this mean you’re an MD, or are we just playing doctor?” Lana’s tease was like a physical caress and I flushed beneath the words.
“There’s more than half an engineering degree in there, but I’m an MD.” The words came out clipped, colder than I had intended. I just needed to get through this without making a complete fool of myself. Lana’s health was the priority. Checking for infection, making sure her wound was properly closed — that was what mattered. Not getting her out of her panties.
“Lucky for me.” Lana’s grin was wolfish.
“I’m going to take these off now, okay?” I looked up at her face again, waiting for the small nod before I eased my fingers beneath the waistband of those distractingly small bikini briefs. It was nothing. I’d done the same thing a thousand times in school, often to very attractive women, and I’d never once struggled with my ability to remain professional. My oaths were sacred and I wouldn’t have done anything to make a patient uncomfortable.
But there was something different about being in the Silhouette’s bedroom, something that made it hard to feel like a doctor. Like a healer.
I shook my head and coughed to cover the sudden dryness of my throat. I eased the briefs down Lana’s legs methodically, carefully. Perfectly aware of the movements that would keep her hip still and prevent her stabilizing muscles from activating and pulling at the wound beneath her bandages.
