Lover Unbound

Chapter Seventeen

V watched Jane go into the bathroom. As she pivoted to put her change of clothes down on the counter, the profile of her body was an elegant S curve that he needed to get his hands on. His mouth over. His body into.

The door shut and the shower started and he cursed. God… her hand had felt so good, taken him higher than any full-on sex had lately. But it had been onesided. There had been no scent of arousal from her at all. To her it had been a biological function to explore. Nothing more.

If he was honest with himself, he'd thought that maybe seeing him orgasm would turn her on-which was nuts, given what was doing below his waist. No one in their right mind would think, Oh, yeah, check out the one-balled wonder. Yum.

Which was why he always kept his pants on when he had sex.

As he listened to the shower run, his arousal softened and his fangs retracted back up into his jaw. Funny, when she'd been handling him, he'd surprised himself. He'd wanted to bite her-not to feed because he was hungry, but because he wanted her taste in his mouth and the mark of his teeth on her neck. Which was pretty fucking out of character. Typically he bit females only because he had to, and when he did, he never particularly liked it.

With her? He couldn't wait to pierce a vein and suck what ran through her heart right down into his gut.

When the shower stopped, all he could think about was being in that bathroom with her. He could just imagine her all naked and wet and pink from the heat. Man, he wanted to know what the back of her neck looked like. And the stretch of skin between her shoulder blades. And the hollow at the base of her spine. He wanted to run his mouth from her collarbone to her navel… then have a go between her thighs.

Shit, he was getting hard again. And that was pretty damn useless. She'd satisfied her curiosity with his body, so she wouldn't be up for throwing him a bone and relieving him again. And even if she was attracted to him, she already had someone, didn't she. With a nasty growl he pictured that dark-haired doctor type who was waiting for her back in her real life. The guy was of her kind and no doubt wholly masculine as well.

The very idea of that bastard treating her right, not just during the day but between the sheets at night, made his chest sting.

Shit.

V put his arm over his eyes and wondered exactly when he'd had a personality transplant. Theoretically Jane had operated on his heart, not his head, but he hadn't been right since he'd been on her table. Thing was, he just couldn't help but want her to see him as a mate-although that was an impossibility for a whole host of reasons: He was a vampire who was a freak… and he was going to become the Primale in a matter of days.

He thought about what was waiting for him on the Other Side, and even though he didn't want to go into the past, he couldn't stop himself. He went back to what had been done to him, recalling what had set the wheels in motion for the mauling that had left him half a male.

It was perhaps a week after his father burned his books that Vishous was caught coming out from behind the screen that hid the cave paintings. His undoing was the diary of the warrior Darius. He'd avoided his precious possession for days and days, but eventually he'd given in. His hands had craved the weight of the binding, his eyes the sight of the words, his mind the images it gave him, his heart the connection he found with the writer.

He was too alone to resist.

It was a kitchen whore who saw him, and they both froze when she did. He didn't know her name, but she had the same face that all females had in the camp: hard eyes, lined skin, and a slash of a mouth. There were bite marks layered on her neck from males feeding from her, and her shift was dirty and frayed at the hem. In one hand she had a rough-hewn shovel, and behind her she was dragging a wheelbarrow with a broken wheel. She'd obviously drawn the short straw and been forced to tend to the privy pits.

Her eyes shifted down to V's hand as if she were measuring a weapon.

V deliberately made a fist with the thing. " 'Twould be a shame should you say a thing, would it not."

She paled and scurried off, dropping the shovel as she ran.

News of what had happened between him and the other pretrans had been all around the camp, and if it made them fear him, that was all to the good. To protect his only book he wasn't above threatening anyone, even females, and he was unashamed by this. His father's law held that no one was safe in the camp: V was quite confident that female would use what she'd seen to her own benefit if she could. That was the way.

Vishous left the cave through one of the tunnels that had been bored out of the mountain, and emerged in a thicket of brambles. The winter was coming upon them all fast, the cold making the air dense as bone. Up ahead he heard the stream rushing and wanted a drink, but he stayed hidden as he scrambled up the pine covered incline. He always kept away from the water for a distance after he came out, not just because it was what he'd been taught to do upon penalty of punishment, but because in his pretrans state he was no match for what might come at him, be it vampire, human, or animal.

At the beginning of every night, the pretrans tried to fill their empty bellies at the stream, and his ears picked up the sounds of the other pretrans who were fishing. The boys had longregated at the wide section of the stream, where the water formed a still pool off to one side. He avoided them, choosing a spot farther upriver.

From out of a leather pouch he took a length of finespun thread that had a crude hook and a flashing weight of silver tied on the end. He cast his meager tackle into the rushing water and felt the string go tight. As he sat down on a rock, he wound the string around a shaft of wood and held the thing between his palms.

The waiting was neither here nor there, neither burden nor pleasure, and when he heard an argument downriver, he had no interest. Skirmishes were also the way of the camp, and he knew what the fight amongst the other pretrans was about. Just because you pulled a fish from the water did not mean you could keep it.

He was staring into the rushing current when the oddest sensation touched the back of his neck-as if he'd been tapped upon the nape.

He leaped up, dropping his line on the ground, but there was no one behind him. He sniffed the air, probed the trees with his eyes. Nothing.

As he bent down to retrieve his line, the stick flipped out of his reach and off the bank, a fish having taken the bait. V lunged for it, but could only watch the crude handle skip into the stream. With a lunge, he ran after it, jumping from rock to rock, tracking it farther and farther downstream.

Whereupon he met up with another.

The pretrans he'd beaten with his book was coming up the stream with a trout in his hand, one that, given his rapacious satisfaction, had no doubt been stolen from another. As he saw V, the bobbing stick with V's catch on it went by him and he stopped. With a shout of triumph, he shoved the kicking fish in his pocket and went after what was V's-even though it took him in the direction of his pursers.

Perhaps because of V's reputation, the other boys got out of the way as he went after the pretrans, the group abandoning the chase and becoming cantering spectators.

The pretrans was faster than V, moving recklessly from stone to stone, whereas V was more careful. The leather soles on his coarse boots were wet, and the moss growing on the backs of the rocks was slick as pig fat. Even though his prey was pulling ahead, he held back to ensure his footing.

Just as the stream widened into the pool the others had been fishing in, the pretrans leaped onto the flat face of a stone and got within reach of V's hooked fish. Except as he stretched out to grab the stick, his balance shifted… and his foot popped out from under him.

With the slow, graceful tumble of a feather, he fell headfirst into the rushing stream. The crack of his temple on a rock inches below the surface was loud as an ax striking hardwood, and as his body went limp, the stick and the line spirited along.

As V came up to the boy, he remembered the vision he'd had. Clearly it had been wrong. The pretrans did not die on top of the mountain with the sun upon his face and the wind in his hair. He died here and now in the arms of the river.

It was a bit of a relief.

Vishous watched as the body was pulled into the dark, still pool by the current. Just before sinking below the surface, it rolled over so it was faceup.

As bubbles breached unmoving lips and rose to the surface to catch the moonlight, V marveled at death. All was so calm after it came. Whatever screaming or yelling or action that caused the soul its release unto the Fade, what followed was like the dense quiet of falling snow.

Without thinking, he reached down into the frigid water with his right hand.

All at once a glow suffused the pool, emanating from his palm… and the pretrans's face was illuminated as surely as if the sun shone upon it. V gasped. It was the vision realized, exactly as he had foreseen it: the haze that had muddled the clarity was in fact the water, and the boy's hair waved to and fro not from wind, but from the currents deep in the pool.

"What do you do unto the water?" a voice said.

V looked up. The other boys stood lined up on the curving bank of the river, staring at him.

V snatched his hand from the water and put it around his back so no one would see it. Upon its removal, the glow in the pool faded, the dead pretrans left to the black depths as if he'd been buried.

V rose to his feet and stared at what he knew now were not only his competitors for scarce food and comforts, but now his enemies. The cohesion between the gathered boys as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder told him that however contentious they were within the camp's dry womb, they had been bonded over one like mind.

He was an outcast.

V blinked and thought about what had come next. Funny, the turn in the road you anticipated was never the one with the black ice on it. He'd assumed that the other pretrans would drive him out of the camp, that one by one they would go through their change, then gang up on him. But fate liked surprises, didn't it.

He rolled on his side and became determined to get some sleep. Except as the door to the bathroom opened, he had to crack an eyelid. Jane had changed into a white button-down shirt and a pair of loose black yoga sweats. Her face was flushed from the heat of her shower, her hair spiky and damp. She looked amazing.

She glanced over at him briefly, a quick cursory review that told him she assumed he was asleep; then she went over and sat in the chair in the corner. As she drew her legs up, she wrapped her arms around her knees and lowered her chin. She seemed so fragile that way, just a twist of flesh and bone within the embrace of the chair.

He shut his eye and felt wretched. His conscience, which had been all but unplugged for centuries, was awake and aching: He couldn't pretend he wasn't going to be fully healed in another six hours. Which meant her purpose was over and he was going to have to let her go when the sun went down tonight.

Except what about the vision he'd had of her? The one of her standing in the doorway of light? Ah, hell, maybe he'd just been hallucinating…

V frowned as he caught a scent in the room. What the hell?

Inhaling deeply, he hardened in a rush, his cock thickening, growing heavy on his belly. He looked across the room at Jane. Her eyes were closed, her mouth a little open, her brows down… and she was aroused. She might not have felt entirely comfortable with it, but she was definitely aroused. Was she thinking of him? Or the human male?

V reached out with his mind with no real hope of getting into her head. When his visions had dried up, so too had the running tickertape of other people's thoughts, the one that could be forced on him or picked up at his will-

The vision in her mind was of him.

Oh, fuck, yeah. It was so totally him: He was arching on the bed, his stomach muscles tightening, his hips pushing up as she worked his sex with her palm. This was right before he came, when he'd removed his gloved hand from what was doing below his cock and made a grab for the duvet.

His surgeon wanted him even though he was partially ruined and not her kind and holding her against her will. And she was aching. She was aching for him.

V smiled as his fangs punched out into his mouth. Well, wasn't this the time to be a humanitarian. And relieve some of her suffering…

Shitkickers planted in a wide stance, fists curled at his side, Phury stood over the lesser he'd just knocked stupid with a nasty shot to the temple. The bastard was lying facedown in a dirty slush pile, its arms and legs flopped to the side, its leather jacket torn up the back from the fighting.

Phury took a deep breath. There was a gentlemanly way to kill your enemy. In the midst of war, there was an honorable manner to bring death upon even those you hated.

He looked up and down the alley and sniffed the air. No humans. No other lessers. And none of his brothers.

He bent down to the slayer. Yeah, when you took out your enemies, there was a certain standard of conduct to be upheld.

This was not going to be it.

Phury picked the lesser up by its leather belt and its pale hair and swung the thing headfirst into a brick building like a battering ram. A muffled, meaty thunch lit out as the frontal lobe shattered and the spinal column pierced through the back of the skull.

But the thing was not dead. To kill a slayer you needed to stab him in the chest. If left as it was now, the bastard would just be in a perpetual rotting state until the Omega eventually came back for the body.

Phury dragged the thing by an arm behind a Dumpster and took out a dagger. He didn't use it the weapon to stab the slayer back to its master. His anger, that emotion he didn't like to feel, that force that he didn't permit to attach to people or events, had started to roar. And its impulse was undeniable.

The cruelty of his actions stained his conscience. Even though his victim was an amoral killer who had been about to take out two civilian vampires twenty minutes ago, what Phury was doing was still wrong. The civilians had been saved. The enemy was incapacitated. The end should be brought cleanly.

He didn't stop himself.

As the lesser howled in pain, Phury stuck with what he was doing to the thing, his hands and blade moving swiftly through skin and vitals that smelled like baby powder. Black, glossy blood ran onto the pavement and covered Phury's arms and oiled up his shitkickers and splashed onto his leathers.

As he kept going, the slayer became a StairMaster for his fury and his self-hatred, an object to work out the feelings. Naturally his actions made him think even less of himself, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His blood was propane and his emotions were flame and the combustion was inescapable now that it had been ignited.

Focused on his gruesome project, he didn't hear the other lesser come up from behind. He caught the whiff of baby powder right before the thing struck, and just barely wheeled out of the way of the baseball bat that was aimed for his skull.

His rage shifted from the incapacitated slayer to the one that was up on its feet, and with his warrior DNA screaming in his veins, he attacked. Leading with his black dagger, he ducked low and came up for the abdomen.

He didn't make it. The lesser clipped him in the shoulder with the bat, then laid in a solid backswing to Phury's good leg, catching the side of his knee. As he crumpled, he concentrated on keeping hold of his dagger, but the slayer was all José Conseco with that aluminum number. Another swing and the blade went flying away, twirling end over point, then dancing away across a stretch of wet pavement.

The lesser jumped on Phury's chest and held him down by the throat, squeezing with a one-handed grip that was strong as wire cable. Phury clapped a palm on the thing's thick wrist as his windpipe compressed, but then suddenly he had issues other than hypoxia to worry about. The slayer switched his grip on the bat, choking up until he was holding it in the middle. With deadly focus he lifted his arm high and brought the butt of the bat down square on Phury's face.

The pain was a bomb burst in his cheek and eye, its white-hot shrapnel ricocheting throughout his whole body.

And it was… curiously good. It overrode everything. All he knew was the heart-freezing impact and the electric throbbing that came right afterward.

He liked it.

Through the one eye that was still working right, he saw the lesser lift the bat up again, piston-style. Phury didn't even brace himself. He just watched the kinetics at work, knowing that the muscles that were coordinating to elevate that piece of polished metal were going to tighten up and bring that thing back down on his face again.

Death blow time, he thought dimly. His orbital bone was already shattered, in all likelihood, or at the very least fractured. One more belt and it wasn't going to protect his gray matter anymore.

An image of the drawing he'd done of Bella came to him, and he saw what he had put to paper: her sitting at the dining room table turned toward his twin, the love between them as tangible and beautiful as silken cloth, as strong and enduring as tempered steel.

He said an ancient prayer for them and their young in the Old Language, one that wished them all to be well until he met them in the Fade at some far, far future point. Until we live anew, was the way it ended.

Phury let go of the slayer's wrist and repeated the phrase over and over again, dimly wondering which one of the four words would be his last.

Except there was no impact. The lesser disappeared from atop him, just popped off his chest like a puppet whose strings had been pulled.

Phury lay there, barely breathing, as a series of grunts echoed in the alley, and then a bright flash of light went off. With his endorphins kicking in, he had a nice, spacey high that made him glow with what felt like health, but was really evidence he was in deep shit.

Had the death blow already happened? Had that first one been enough to leave his brain hemorrhaging?

Whatever. It felt good. The whole thing felt good, and he wondered whether this was what sex was like. The afterwards, that was. Nothing but peaceful relaxation.

He thought about Zsadist coming up to him in the midst of that party months ago, a duffel bag in his hand and a hellacious demand in his eyes. Phury had been sickened at what his twin had needed, but he'd nonetheless gone with Z to the gym and hit the male over and over and over again.

That hadn't been the first time Zsadist had needed that kind of release.

Phury had always hated giving his twin the beatings he'd demanded, had never understood the why of the masochistic drive, but he got it now. This was fantastic. Nothing mattered. It was as if real life were a distant thunderstorm that would never reach him because he'd gotten out of its path.

Rhage's deep voice came from a distance as well. "Phury? I've called for pickup. You need to go to Havers's."

When Phury tried to talk, his jaw refused to do its job, sure as someone had glued it in place. Clearly, the swelling was setting in already, and he settled for shaking his head.

Rhage's face came into his lopsided vision. "Havers will-"

Phury shook his head again. Bella would be at the clinic tonight dealing with the baby issue. If she was on the verge of miscarrying, he didn't want to tip her over the edge by showing up as an emergency case.

"No… Havers…"he said hoarsely.

"My brother, what you've got going on is more than first aid can handle." Rhage's model-perfect face was a mask of deliberate calm. Which meant the guy was really worried.

"Home."

Rhage cursed, but before he could push for the Havers trip again, a car turned into the alley, its headlights flashing.

"Shit." Rhage flipped into action, hefting Phury up off the pavement and hustling behind the Dumpster.

Which brought them right next to the desecrated lesser.

"What the fuck?" Rhage breathed while a Lexus with chromed-out twenty-fours eased by them, rap thumping.

When it had passed, Rhage's brilliant teal eyes narrowed. "Did you do that?"

"Bad… fight…'s'all," Phury whispered. "Get me home."

As he closed his eye, he realized he'd learned something tonight. Pain was good, and if garnered under the right circumstances, it was less shameful than heroin. Easier to get, too, as it could be a legitimate by-product of his job.

How perfect.

As Jane sat in the chair across from her patient's bed, her head was down and her eyes were closed. She couldn't stop thinking about what she had done to him… and what he had done as a result. She saw him just as he climaxed, his head kicked back, his fangs gleaming, his erection jerking in her grip, while his breath went in on a gasp and came out on a groan.

She shifted around, feeling hot. And not because the radiator had kicked on.

God, she couldn't stop herself from replaying the scene over and over again, and it got so bad, she had to part her mouth for breath. At one point during the continuous loop she felt a brief sting in her head, like her neck had settled into a bad position, but then she dozed off.

Naturally, her subconscious took over where memory left off.

The dream started when something touched her shoulder, something warm and heavy. She was eased by the feel of it, by the way it slowly went down her arm and over her wrist and to her hand. Her fingers were gathered in a grip and squeezed, then splayed out for a kiss placed on the center of her palm. She felt the soft lips, warm breath, and the velvet brush of… a goatee.

There was a pause, as if permission had been asked.

She knew exactly who she was dreaming about. And she knew exactly what was going to happen in the fantasy if she allowed things to continue.

"Yes," she whispered in her sleep.

Her patient's hands went to her calves and eased her legs off the chair, then something broad and warm moved in, going between her thighs, splaying them wide. His hips and… oh, God, she felt his erection at her core, the rigid length pressing in through the soft pants she had on. The collar of her shirt was dragged aside and his mouth found her neck, his lips latching onto her skin and sucking while his arousal started on a rhythmic push and retreat. A hand found her breast then skirted down to her stomach. Down to her hip. Down farther, replacing the erection.

As Jane cried out and arched, two sharp points ran up the column of her neck to the base of her jaw. Fangs.

Fear flooded her veins. And so did a blast of high-octane sex.

Before she could sort out the two extremes, his mouth left her neck and found her breast through the shirt. As he sucked at her he went after her core, rubbing what was ready for him, hungry for him. She opened her mouth to pant, and something was pushed into it… a thumb. She latched on desperately, nursing him while she imagined what else of his could be between her lips.

He was the master of all of it, the driver, the one operating the machinery. He knew exactly what he was doing to her as his fingers used the soft sweats and her wet panties to push her right up to the cliff.

A voice in her head-his-said, "Come for me, Jane-"

From out of nowhere brilliant light hit her face, and she sprang upright, throwing her arms out to shove the patient away.

Except he wasn't anywhere near her. He was in bed. Asleep.

And as for the light, it came from the hall. Red Sox had opened the bedroom door.

"Sorry to wake you guys," he said. "We have a situation."

As the patient sat up, he glanced at Jane. The moment their eyes met, she flushed and looked away.

"Who?" the patient asked.

"Phury." Red Sox nodded over to the chair. "We need a doctor. Like, ASAP."

Jane cleared her throat. "Why are you looking at-"

"We need you."

Her first thought was, the hell she was getting in deeper with them. But then the physician in her spoke up. "What's going on?"

"Real uglysitch. Run-in with a baseball bat. Can you come with me?"

Her patient's voice got there first, the dead-on growl drawing one hell of a line in the sane: "If she goes anywhere, I'm coming, too. And how bad is it?"

"He got clocked in the face. Bad. Refuses to go to Havers. Said Bella's there about the young, and he doesn't want to upset her by showing up messy."

"Goddamn brother just has to be a hero." V looked at Jane. "Will you help us?"

After a moment, she rubbed her face. Goddamn it. "Yeah. I will."

As John lowered the muzzle of the Glock he'd been given, he stared down the range at a target fifty feet away. Slipping the safety back into place, he was utterly speechless.

"Jesus," Blay said.

In total disbelief, John hit a yellow button to his left and the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper whizzed up to him like a dog being called home. In the center, clustered like a daisy, were six perfect shots. Holy shit. After having sucked at everything he'd been taught so far when it came to fighting, he finally excelled at something.

Well, didn't this make him forget about his headache.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and Wrath's voice was proud. "You did good, son. Real good."

John reached out and undipped the target.

"All right," Wrath said. "That's it for today. Check your weapons, boys."

"Yo, Qhuinn," Blay called out. "You see this?"

Qhuinn gave his gun to one of the doggen and came over. "Whoa. That's some real Dirty Harry shit right there."

John folded up the paper and put it in the back of his jeans. As he returned the weapon to the cart, he tried to figure out how to identify it again so he could use it at the next practice. Ah… although the serial numbers had been filed off, there was a faint mark on the barrel, a scratch. He could totally find his gun again.

"Move out," Wrath said as he propped his huge body against the door. "Bus is waiting."

When John looked up from returning the gun, Lash was standing right behind him, all menace and loom. In a smooth move the guy leaned in and put his Glock down with the muzzle aimed at John's chest. To make the point, he lingered with his forefinger on the trigger for a moment.

Blay and Qhuinn fell in tight, blocking the way. The move in was all done real casual, like they were just randomly hanging around, but the message was clear. With a shrug, Lash lifted his hand free of the Glock and clipped Blay shoulder to shoulder as he headed for the door.

"Asshole," Qhuinn muttered.

The three buds left for the locker room, where they picked up their books and headed out together. Because John was going to use the tunnel to head back to the mansion, they stopped at the door to Tohr's old office.

As the other trainees walked by, Qhuinn kept his voice low. "We have to go out tonight. I can't wait." He grimaced and shifted his stance like there was sandpaper in his pants. "I'm half-batshit for a female, if you know what I mean?"

Blay flushed a little. "I'm… ah, yeah, I could deal with some action. John?"

Pumped from his success on the range, John nodded.

"Good." Blay jacked up his jeans. "We got to hit ZeroSum."

Qhuinn frowned. "How about Screamer's?"

"No, I want ZeroSum."

"Fine. And we can go in my car." Qhuinn glanced over. "John, why don't you get on the bus and go to Blay's?"

Shouldn't I change?

"You can borrow some of his clothes. You have to look good for ZeroSum."

Lash came out of nowhere, like a sucker punch. "So you're going downtown, John? Maybe I'll see you there, buddy."

With a nasty-ass grin, he sauntered off, his body to be coiled, his muscular shoulders rolling like he was headed into a fight. Or wanted to be.

"Sounds like you want a date, Lash," Qhuinn barked. "Good deal, 'cause you keep that shit up, you're going to get fucked, buddy."

Lash stopped and glanced back, the lights from overhead pouring down over him. "Hey, Qhuinn, tell your father I said hi. He always did like me better than you. Then again, I match."

Lash tapped beside his eye with his middle finger and kept going.

In his wake, Qhuinn's face closed up, just went straight to statue.

Blay put his hand on the back of the guy's neck. "Listen, give us forty-five minutes at my house, k? Then you come pick us up."

Qhuinn didn't respond right away, and when he finally did his voice was low. "Yeah. No problem. Will you excuse me for a sec?"

Qhuinn dropped his books and walked back to the locker room. As the door eased shut, John signed, Lash's and Qhuinn's families are tight?

"The two of them are first cousins. Their fathers are brothers."

John frowned. What's up with Lash pointing to his eye?

"Don't worry about-"

John gripped the guy's forearm. Tell me.

Blay rubbed his red hair like he was trying to rustle up a response. "Okay… it's like… Qhuinn's dad is a big deal in the glymera, right? And so's his mom. And the glymera doesn't do defects."

This was said as if it explained everything. I don't get it. What's wrong with his eye?

"One's blue. One's green. Because they aren't the same color, Qhuinn's never going to get mated… and, you know, his father's been embarrassed by him all his life. Not a good sitch, and that's why we're always at my house. He needs to get away from his parents." Blay looked at the locker room door as if he could see through it to his friend. "The only reason they haven't kicked him out is because they were hoping the transition might clear it up. That's why he got to use someone like Marna. She has very good blood, and I think the plan was that it would help."

It didn't.

"Nope. They're probably going to ask him to leave at some point. I've already got a room ready for him, but I doubt he'd use it. Lot of pride. Rightfully so."

John had a horrible thought. How did he get the bruise? The one on his face after his transition?

At that moment the locker room door opened and Qhuinn came out with a solid smile in place. "Shall we, gentlemen?" As he picked up his books, his bravado was back. "Let's bounce before the good ones are taken at the club."

Blay clapped the guy on the shoulder. "Lead on, maestro."

As they headed for the underground parking lot, Qhuinn was in front, Blay behind, John in the middle.

As Qhuinn disappeared up the bus's steps, John tapped Blay on the shoulder.

It was his father, wasn't it?

Blay hesitated. Then nodded once.