Rio glanced at Dylan, watching as she began putting her clothes back on. He didn't want to say good-bye to her, but bringing her back to the compound with him didn't seem like the kindest thing for him to do either. He'd already dragged her far enough into his problems tonight, first by drinking from her, then by seducing her. If he brought her back with him now, what might he be tempted to do for an encore?
But yet there was a part of him that wanted to hold her close, despite the knowledge that she could - and should - do better than him. He had so little to offer Dylan, yet that didn't keep him from wishing he could give her the world.
"Just call me when you get here," he told Niko. "I'll be waiting for you."
Chapter Twenty-seven
Dylan finished getting dressed while Rio made his plans with Nikolai on the phone. He was going back to Boston tonight. From the sound of it, he'd be taking off as soon as the other warriors came to get him. Twenty minutes, he'd said. Not long at all.
And no mention whatsoever of where that left the two of them now.
Dylan tried not to let that sting, but it did. She wanted some indication that what happened between them tonight had meant something to him too. But he was silent behind her in the little back room of the church as he snapped his cell phone closed and started putting his clothes on.
"Are Nancy and the others all right?"
"Yes," he said from somewhere behind her. "They're all fine. Niko and Kade didn't harm them, and the process of erasing their memories is painless."
"That's good." She leaned over the two half-melted candles and blew them out. In the darkness, she found the courage to ask him the question that had been hanging between them all night. "So, what now, Rio? When are you going to scrub my memory?"
She didn't hear him move, but she felt the stir in the air as he drew up to her back and his strong, warm hands came to rest softly on her shoulders. "I don't want to do that, Dylan. For your sake - maybe for my own too - I should erase myself from your memory, but I don't want that. I don't think I could."
Dylan shut her eyes, holding the tender words close. "Then...where do we go from here?"
Slowly, he turned her around to face him. He kissed her sweetly, then rested his forehead against hers. "I don't know. I only know that I'm not ready to say good-bye to you right now."
"Your friends are going to be here soon."
"Yes."
"Don't go with them."
He tilted his chin down and pressed his lips to the top of her head. "I have to."
In her heart, even before he said it, Dylan knew he had to go back. His world was with the Order. And regardless of the birthmark that granted her a special place among the Breed, Dylan had to remain with her mom.
She burrowed her cheek into Rio's chest, listening to the solid beat of his heart. She wasn't sure she could let go of him, now that she had her arms wrapped around him. "Will you come with me, back to the hospital? I want to check in on her one more time tonight."
"Of course," Rio said, disengaging from her and taking her hand in his.
They left their makeshift haven in the empty church and walked hand in hand back to the hospital complex. Visiting hours had ended some time ago, but the guard at the front desk seemed used to making exceptions for family members heading up to the cancer ward. He waved Dylan and Rio through, and they took the elevator up to the tenth floor.
Rio waited outside the room as Dylan put her gloves on and opened the door. Her mother was asleep, so Dylan took a seat in the chair beside the bed and just sat there quietly watching her breathe.
There was so much she wanted to tell her - not the least of which being the fact that she had met an extraordinary man. She wanted to tell her mother that she was falling in love. That she was excited and scared and filled with a desperate kind of hope for all that might await in her future with the man standing right outside the hospital room.
She wanted her mom to know that she was falling head over heels in love with Eleuterio de la Noche Atanacio...a man like no other she'd ever known before.
But Dylan couldn't say any of those things. They were secrets she had to keep, for now, certainly. Maybe forever.
She reached out and stroked her mom's hair, carefully pulled the thin blanket up under her delicate chin. How she wished her mother could have known one true, profound love in her lifetime. It seemed so unfair that she'd made so many bad choices, loved too many bad men, when she deserved someone decent and kind.
"Oh, Mommy," Dylan whispered quietly. "This is so damn unfair."
Tears welled up and flooded over. Maybe she'd saved a lifetime of crying in preparation of this moment, but there was no stopping them now. Dylan wiped at her tears but they kept coming, too many for her to sweep away with her latex-covered hands. She got up and went around to grab a tissue from the box on her mother's wheeled bed tray. As she dabbed at her eyes, she noticed a ribboned package sitting on a table at the other side of the small room. She walked over and saw that it was chocolates. The box was unopened, and from the look of it, expensive. Curious, Dylan picked up the tiny white card tucked under the silk grosgrain bow.
It read: To Sharon. Come back to me soon. Yours, G. F.
Dylan mulled over the initials and realized it had to be the runaway shelter's owner, Mr. Fasso. Gordon, her mother had called him. He must have come to visit her sometime after Dylan had left. And the message on the card sounded a bit more intimate than your basic boss-to-employee, get-well sentiment...