Ready Or Not

Teo Iliescu & Lydia Barrach Are Dead

It was Officer Scar’s turn to smirk (I know. Delgado. But Scar is so much more fun). “Neat trick, huh? You’ll figure it out, newbie. Give it time.”

Dammit. Nice try.

“Lydia?” I asked, suddenly impatient again.

“This way.”

Daniel took my elbow and steered me towards the front of the building. His grip was tight. So much for playful, inquisitive Daniel. Lydia and I were in so much trouble.

**Daniel**

Theo wrenched himself free of my grip as soon as he saw Lydia sitting in a crappy plastic chair, rubbing the heels of her hands against her tired eyes and running her nails along her bottom lip the way she does as she waited for us. Signs of worry. I had some serious words for both of them, but I let them have their moment.

Theo crouched in front of her and her head fell forward, resting briefly on his shoulder before she pulled him to his feet and gave me a lopsided half-smile.

“Just take me home. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

I sighed.

Theo gave me a warning look. That was rich; which one of us had just spent the last several hours keeping him and his best friend out of jail? Which one of us had every right to "talk about it right now"? But I’d seen Lydia’s face when they’d come downstairs from my room. I’d taken note of her silence during the ride to the station. I wasn’t ignorant to the way she leaned just a little too heavily on the table in front of her and held back from even so much as an eye roll or a scoff while she was questioned. Something had happened.

Still- they had to know how close they’d come to being thrown in a cell. They had to know how close Lydia still was to imprisonment.

“We won’t talk about it right now,” I acquiesced, “but I have more than a few things to say, and you will listen.”

“Dan-” Theo started.

I cut him off. “Relax, Teodoro. We’ll take her home first.”

I had been genuinely worried, at first, that Theo was going to be taken from me again. I knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight-literally- but still, underneath the calm exterior I’d maintained during not one but two interrogations, I’d been bordering on panic. I was not eager to repeat our forced separation any time soon. If my heart still worked, it would have been beating like a trapped hummingbird. But as time went on and the questions steered more and more towards my oldest sister, it became increasingly obvious that for whatever reason, the police believed Theo to be, if not quite innocent (they figured he knew Lydia was feeding on her victim- he told them they were right, but he’d heard her give consent, and Lydia most certainly had left her alive. Everyone knew a male vampire had been seen in the act of actually killing the poor thing), then at least not truly guilty of any criminal act. I started to relax.

I still wanted the reassurance of Theo’s presence. Still itched to hold him tight against me. My relief only extended so far. My man was free, even if he was definitely on V.V.’s radar. He wasn't going anywhere right now, and we would get to share a bed that night.

But I was fairly convinced that they weren’t done investigating Lydia. She had been careless. One of her meals had shown up at the hospital, still bleeding rather freely. Her impressions were one of three close matches to the bite. Victim wasn't interested in pursuing it; seemed to very clearly remember giving consent to somebody. Lucky break or they'd have had more than enough to haul her back to a cell right then and there.