"So what about Red?" Aram asked, moving into Drex's old seat.
"What about Red?" I asked him.
"Why isn't she healing? Who would have done this to her? And why?"
"Fuck if I know," I admitted, hating the words even as they came out, but there was no way around them anymore. I'd consulted all my books. I couldn't find a single reason a demon would be suffering this long. Or would lose their minds at all. "You got any insight?" I asked, looking at Bael since he'd been in hell most recently.
"You know how it is down there. Different crews. We don't usually attack each other, but shit happens."
"She had no crew," Aram told him. "We're her crew."
That was both true... and not.
We were her crew on Earth after we'd all somehow gotten ourselves sucked up here and stuck. Before then, none of us had really known one another.
"We're her crew now. We weren't always her crew," I reminded them. "She was under Marceaus," I clarified, looking back at Bael.
"Marceaus?" Bael asked, brows drawing together.
"Yes. Why? What aren't you saying?" I demanded.
"Marceaus is a legend."
"Why does that sound past tense?" Seven asked.
"Because no one has seen Marceaus in a generation," Bael said. "Lucifer himself has been pissed since he had disappeared. Marceaus was one of his favorites. One of the most ruthless bastards anyone had ever met."
My gaze slid to Ly, seeing reflected what I already had swirling through my mind.
"Marceaus has to be here," Aram said.
"Yeah, that's what everyone is thinking now," Ly agreed. Then, he looked at me. "How much older is Marceaus than you?"
"A lot," I confirmed.
"Could he know something?" Aram asked.
"We'd have to find him and ask," Seven concluded. "What do you think?" he asked, looking at me.
"I think it's a big fucking world," I told him. "I think that if he came up here a generation ago, he could have acclimated just about anywhere."
"We could put some feelers out," Aram said, hopeful, not anywhere near ready to give up on healing his friend.
"Yeah," I agreed, if for no other reason, than to get some of them out of the way. "You, Seven, and Bael should head out after you've packed and put a plan together."
"You want us to put the plan together?" Seven clarified, looking confused. And why shouldn't he? I'd never let them lead up missions without any direction before.
"Yeah. Stay out of trouble with the law. Stay away from any unfriendly supernaturals. And keep in touch."
The men shared a look. Aram was anxious. Seven was determined to prove he could handle it. And Bael, well, Bael was his usual closed-down mask.
"Do you really think he would give a shit about Red after all this time?" Ly asked, getting an elbow from Lenore who may have loved him as he was, but never stopped trying to remind him to be a little kinder.
"I don't know. She talked about him all the time like they had a close mentor/mentee relationship." That she clearly wanted to mean more. "Women of our kind aren't common, so he would have taken extra time with her. Hopefully, it was enough that he would at least offer some insights if he has any."
"We should have told them to pick up Daemon on their way," Ly suggested.
"He's a liability on the road without the rest of us around to rein him in," I said, shrugging. "If he ends up liking the club, we can sic him on Drex most nights."
"I thought you weren't a fan of the club," Ly said, brow raising.
"I'm not. But we have bigger problems right now."
"Problems like the nurse?" he pressed.
"Yes, her starving to death would be inconvenient at best."
"Yeah, that must be the problem," Ly agreed, shaking his head, grabbing Lenore, and making their way out of the room.
"What?" I asked as Minos gave me a long, hard look.
"I... you know what? Nothing," he said, shrugging, and going off to his room to blast his sad music, like usual.
Another day went by that Josephine didn't eat.
But on the third night, I snuck into Red's room, hiding in the dark of her closet, waiting to see if what Lenore said was true, that she found a couple minutes a night to come in and care for her patient still.
I'd just about given up.
It was that moment just before dawn when the sky was still dark, but you could hear some birds already waking up for their morning.
It was probably the one part of the day when none of us were awake, too late for the others, and a little bit too early for me.
That was when the door lock disengaged, then the door cracked open.
Her head appeared, looking around first, then rushing out, giving the food on the plate outside the bathroom door one mournful look before she got to Red, feeling for a temperature, checking the wounds, forcing her medicine down her throat, and then rolling her onto her other side.