wasn't complaining. I was too busy fighting off the urge to start screaming, Make it stop, make it stop.
Lillian made Richard move, so she could kneel by my injured hand. Micah cupped my face so I couldn't see the needle. He knew how I felt about them. I let him do it, but I wasn't sure that I'd have cared tonight. I felt the pressure of the needle, then it was as if she shot hot water directly into my veins. I could feel it spreading liquid through my body. It was the oddest sensation. I'd never had anything that I could trace through my veins like that. My upper body flushed with heat. Then it was hard to concentrate, and I was dizzy. Even lying flat, I was dizzy. I started to ask if something was wrong, then the pain just washed away. The drugs bathed the inside of my upper body in hot water, and the pain just washed away.
Lillian leaned over me. "How do you feel, Anita?"
I managed a smile, and knew it was probably goofy. "Doesn't hurt now."
"Good," she said, smiling. She looked at Richard. "I think you need to go back to your date, Richard."
He shook his head. "I'm staying here."
"You're Clark Kent tonight, Ulfric, not Superman. You have to go back to your date and pretend you're a mild-mannered science teacher. I'll take care of Anita."
Richard glanced at us all. "Are they staying?"
"One of them will be," Lillian said, "but they aren't hiding what they are, Ulfric. The price of hiding is that you must stay hidden. Now, go back before the woman starts to look for you."
He started to argue.
"Don't make me be cruel about this, Ulfric," Lillian said.
"Go," I said, and my voice sounded strange. "Go, Richard, go."
He gave me a look that was full of such conflict, even pain. But tonight I didn't have any time for anyone's pain but mine.
"I'm sorry," he said. I wasn't sure what he was sorry about. That he had to go? That he had another date? That he was still hiding in his Clark Kent disguise? Or, maybe, that it was his cross embedded in my hand. The cross I'd given him for Christmas once. Yeah, that might need a sorry.