"Listen, John's gone into the locker room to take a shower. I got him to quit the Running Man impression, but he's. . . He needs a little more time, I think. "
"Okay. I'll keep waiting for him here in the hall. "
Blaylock nodded and then there was this awkward pause. "I'm going to go work out now. "
After the door eased shut, she picked her jacket and her weapons up and wandered down toward the locker room. The office was empty, which meant Tohr had gone along his merry way, no doubt to set up some Tim the Tool Man Taylor time with a doggen.
And the resonant quiet told her there was no one in any of the classrooms, gym, or clinic.
Sliding down the wall, she let her ass bottom out on the floor and hung her arms off her knees. Letting her head fall back, she closed her eyes.
God, she was exhausted. . . .
"John's still in there?"
Xhex snapped awake, her gun pointed right up at Blaylock's chest. As the guy leaped back, she immediately flipped on the safety and lowered the muzzle.
"Sorry, old habits die hard. "
"Ah, yeah. " The guy motioned his white towel toward the locker room. "Is John still in there? It's been over an hour. "
She flipped her wrist up and looked at the watch she'd snagged.
"Christ. "
Xhex got to her feet and cracked the door. The sound of the shower running wasn't much of a relief. "Is there any other way out?"
"Just through the weight room--which opens only into this hall. "
"Okay, I'm going to go talk to him," she said, praying it was the right thing to do.
"Good. I'll finish my workout. Call me if you need me. "
She pushed through the door, and inside, the place was standard-issue, all banks of beige metal lockers separated by wooden benches. Following the sound of falling water to the right, she passed by a bay of urinals, stalls, and sinks that seemed lonely without a bunch of sweaty, naked, towel- snapping males putting them to use.
She found John in an open area with dozens of showerheads and tile on every square inch of the floors, walls, and ceiling. He was in his T-shirt and running shorts and was sitting against the wall, his arms hanging off his knees, his head down, the water rushing over his huge shoulders and torso.
Her first thought was that she had been outside in exactly the same position.
Her second was that she was surprised he could stand being so still. His emotional grid was not the only thing lit up; that shadow behind it was likewise afire with anguish. It was as if the two parts of him were both in a kind of mourning no doubt because he'd suffered or been witness to too many cruel losses in this life. . . and perhaps another. And where all that put him
emotionally terrified her. The dense black void created in him was so powerful, it warped the superstructure of his psyche. . . taking him where she had been in that fucking OR.
Taking him to the pinpoint of madness.
Stepping over the tiled lip in the floor, her skin goose bumped at the chill in the air that came from his feelings. . . and the reality that she'd done it again. This was Murhder, only worse.
Jesus Christ, she was a fucking black widow when it came to males of worth.
"John?"
He didn't look up, although she wasn't sure whether he was even aware she was in front of him. He was back in the past, sucked in and held in the vise of memory. . . .
Frowning, she found her eyes following the path of the water that rivered its way out from under him and traveled across the tilted tile plane. . . to the drain.
The drain.
Something with that drain. Something to do with. . . Lash?