TWENTY - FIVE

Down in the training center at the compound, Butch kind of wanted to hate the surgeon out of loyalty to V. Especially given the guy's Chippendale, half-naked routine with that towel.

God, the idea that piece of meat had been near Payne all undressed? Wicked bad idea on so many levels.

It would have been different if he'd been built like a chess player, for instance. As it was, Butch felt like John Cena had been macking on V's little sister. How the hell was a surgeon built like that?

Still, there were two things that saved the guy: The bastard had put on the fresh scrubs Butch had given him - so no more ladies' night. And, as they'd sat down in front of the Dell in the exam room, the guy seemed honestly concerned about Payne and her welfare.

Not that they were getting anywhere on that front. The pair of them were staring at the computer screen like two dogs watching Animal Planet: very focused, but incapable of turning up the volume or changing the channel.

Ordinarily? Butch would phone or text Vishous. But that was not going to happen, given the showdown that was going on up at the Pit.

God, he hoped V and Jane got their act back together.

"So now what," the surgeon asked.

Butch shook himself back into focus and put his palm on the mouse. "We pray I pull the security files out of my ass. That's what."

"And you were bitching about my towel."

Butch cracked a smile. "Smart-ass."

As if on cue, the two of them leaned in closer to the screen - like that was somehow going to magically help the mouse find the stuff they were looking for.

"I suck at this shit," the surgeon muttered with disgust. "I'm better with my hands."

"Me, too."

"Go to the start menu."

"I'm going, going...."

"Shit," they said together as they got a load of all the files or programs or whatever it was.

Naturally, there was nothing named "Security," "Cameras," or "Click here, dummy, to find what you two losers are looking for."

"Wait, would it be under 'videos'?" the surgeon said.

"Good idea."

They both inched even closer, until the tips of their noses were all but polishing the damn monitor.

"Can I help you guys?"

Butch snapped his head around. "Thank God, Jane. Listen, we need to find the security camera's digital files - " He stopped himself. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine."

Uh-huh, right. Standing in the doorway, she wasn't fine. Not even close to fine. To the point where he knew not to ask where V was - or expect the brother to show up anytime soon.

"Hey, Doc," Butch said, as he casually got to his feet, "can I talk to you a sec?"

"Ah - "

He cut off the protest she was about to put up. "Thanks. Just outside in the corridor. Manello, you try and find your way around the comp."

"I'll get right on that," the guy said drily.

When he and Jane were outside the room, Butch dropped his  voice. "What's going on? And yes, it's none of my business. But I want to know anyway."

After a moment, Jane crossed her arms over her white coat and just stared ahead. But not to shut him out, it seemed. More like she was replaying something in her mind.

"Talk to me," he murmured.

"You know why he went for Manny, right?"

"Not the particulars. But ... I can guess." The female had been looking pretty suicidal, frankly.

"As a doctor, I get pulled in different directions. If you can extrapolate ..."

Oh, God, it was worse than he'd thought. "I can. Shit."

"That's not all," she continued. "When I went up to pack, I found a set of his leathers in the back of the closet. There's black wax all over them. Along with blood and ..." She took a shuddering breath. "Something else."

"Christ," Butch groaned.

As Jane went silent, he knew she didn't want to put him in the middle and wasn't going to ask out loud. But she was good like that.

Fucking hell ... so much for honoring V's stay-out-of-it demand. Except he just couldn't watch the two of them fall apart.

"He didn't cheat on you," he said. "That night, a week ago? He let himself get beaten, Jane. By lessers. I found him surrounded by three of them and they were whipping him raw with chains."

She let out a gasp, which she covered with her hands. "Oh ... God ..."

"I don't know what you found of his, but he wasn't with anyone else. He told me himself."

"But what about the wax? And the ..."

"Did it ever occur to you he might have done it himself."

Jane was momentarily speechless. "No. Although why couldn't he just say so."

Wasn't that the theme song of the night. "No guy wants to admit to his wife he was jacking off alone. It's too pathetic - and he probably thought it was cheating in a way. He's that devoted to you."

As tears speared into Jane's forest green eyes, Butch was momentarily nonplussed. The good doctor was as buttoned up as her hellren - and that reserved strength was why she was so damned useful as a doctor. It didn't mean that she was without feelings, though, and here they were.

"Jane ... don't cry."

"I just don't know how we're going to get through this. I really don't. He's upset. I'm upset. And then there's Payne." Abruptly, she put her hand on his arm and squeezed. "Can you please ... can you help him. With what he needs. Maybe it's the crack in the ice that will help us."

As the two of them stared at each other, he wondered if they were really on the same level. But how could he bring that up judiciously: So do you want me to work him over instead of the lessers?

What if they weren't on the same page. And she was already tearing up.

"I can't do it," Jane said roughly. "And not just because we've got issues at the moment. I just don't have it in me. He trusts you - I trust you ... and he needs it. I'm worried that if he doesn't break through this wall he's got going on that he and I aren't going to make it - or worse. Take him to the Commodore, please."

Well, that settled one issue.

He cleared his throat. "I've been thinking the same thing, frankly. And, actually, I just ... offered it to him."

"Thank you." She cursed and wiped her eyes. "You know him as well as I do. He needs to get unfrozen - somehow, some way."

"Yeah." Butch reached out and stroked her cheek. "And I'll take care of him. You don't worry about it."

She put her hand on his. "Thank you."

They embraced for a moment, and as they did, he thought there was nothing he wouldn't do to keep Jane and V together.

"Where is he now?" he asked.

"I have no idea. He gave me a bag and I just packed it and left. I didn't see him in the Pit, but then I wasn't looking for him."

"I'm on it. Will you help Manello?"

When she nodded, he gave her a lingering squeeze and then took off, hitting the underground tunnel and rocketing down to the last stop in the thing: the Pit.

With no idea what he was walking into, he put in the pass code and stuck his head in through the reinforced door. No smoke, so  nothing was on fire. No screaming. No scent of anything but the fresh bread his Marissa had baked earlier.

"V? You here?" No answer.

God, it was too fucking quiet.

Down the hall, he found V and Jane's room empty and in a mess. The closet door was open and there were things gone from the hangers, but that was not what really got his attention.

He went over to the leathers and picked them up. Nice Catholic boy like him didn't know much about BDSM, but it looked like he was going to be learning firsthand.

Taking out his cell phone, he hit V, but didn't expect an answer. He guessed GPS was going to have to come in handy once again.

"Seems like old times."

Manny focused on the computer screen as he spoke. Hard to say what was the most awkward part of sitting next to his former colleague. With so much to choose from, the silence between them was an Easter-egg hunt for three-year-olds, everything badly hidden, ready to be found and captured.

"Why do you want to review the digital files?" she asked.

"You'll see when we get there."

Jane had no problem locating the right program, and a moment later the live image of Payne's room came up on the screen. Wait, the bed was empty ... except for a duffel bag.

"Wrong one. Here it is," Jane murmured.

And there she was. His Payne. Lying against the pillows, the tail end of her braid in her hands, her eyes locked on the bathroom as if maybe she were imagining him still in the shower.

Damn ... she was beautiful.

"You think," Jane said softly.

Okay, now would be a great time for his mouth to stop working independently.

He cleared his throat. "Can we go back about a half hour?"

"No problem."

The image reversed, the little counter in the lower right-hand corner draining down in milliseconds.

As he saw himself checking her over in that towel, it was too frickin' obvious that they were attracted to each other. Oh, God ... that fucking hard-on so gave him another reason not to look at Jane.

"Wait ..." He sat forward. "Slow down. Here it is."

He watched himself back into the bath in a rush....

"Holy ... crap," Jane breathed.

And there it was: Payne up on her knees at the bottom of the bed, her body long and lean and balanced perfectly as her eyes focused on the bathroom door.

"Is she glowing?"

"Yeah," he murmured, "she is."

"Hold on...." Jane hit forward, running the images in proper order. "You're testing her sensations here?"

"Nothing. She felt nothing. And yet - go back again ... thanks." He pointed at Payne's legs. "Here, though, she clearly has muscle control."

"This isn't logical." Jane played and replayed the file. "But she did it ... oh, my God ... she does it. It's a miracle."

Sure the fuck looked like one. Except ... "What's the impetus," he muttered.

"Maybe it's you."

"No way. My operation clearly didn't do the ticket or she would have been kneeling before tonight. Your own exams showed she remained paralyzed."

"I'm not talking about your scalpel."

Jane reversed the file back to the moment Payne rose up, and froze the frame. "It's you."

Manny stared at the image, and tried to see something other than the obvious: Sure as hell, it seemed that as Payne had looked at him, the glow in her had gotten brighter and she was able to move.

Jane forwarded the file frame by frame. As soon as he came out of the bathroom and she was lying back, the glow was gone ... and she had no feeling.

"This makes no sense," he muttered.

"Actually, I think it does. It's her mother."

"Who?"

"God where to start with that." Jane indicated her own body. "I'm what I am because of the Scribe Virgin."

"Who?" Manny shook his head. "I don't understand any of this."

Jane smiled a little bit. "You don't have to. It's happening. You just need to stay with Payne and ... see how she changes."

Manny resumed staring at the monitor. Well, shit, it seemed like that Goateed Hater had made the right call. Somehow, the motherfucker had known this was what would happen. Or maybe the guy had merely hoped. Either way, it looked like Manny was a kind of medicine for that extraordinary creature lying on that bed.

So damn right he was going to hang in.

But he wasn't fooling himself. This wasn't going to be about love or even sex; it was about getting her up and moving so she could live her life again - no matter what it took. And he knew he wasn't going to be allowed to stay with her at the end of it. They were going to discard him like an empty orange bottle from the pharmacy - and yeah, sure, she might get attached to him, but she was a virgin who didn't know any better.

And she had a brother who was going to force her to make the right choices.

As for him? He wasn't going to remember any of this, was he.

Gradually, he became aware of Jane's stare on his profile. "What," he said without taking his eyes off the screen.

"I've never seen you like this about a female."

"I've never met anyone like her before." He put up his palm to stop any conversating. "And you can save the don't-go-there. I know what's coming at the end of this."

Hell, maybe those bastards were going to kill him and roll him into the river. Make it look like an accident.

"I wasn't going to say that, actually." Jane shifted in her seat. "And believe me ... I know how you feel."

He glanced over at her. "Yeah?"

"It's how I was when I first met Vishous." Her eyes watered, but she cleared her throat. "Back to you and Payne - "

"What's going on, Jane. Talk to me."

"Nothing's going - "

"Bullshit - and right back at you. I've never seen you like this before. You look ruined."

She drew in a great breath. "Marital problems. Plain and not so simple."

Clearly, she didn't want to go into it. "Okay. Well, I'm here for you ... for as long as I'm allowed to be."

He rubbed his face. It was a total waste of time to worry about how long this was going to last, how much time he had. But he couldn't help it. Losing Payne was going to kill him even though he barely knew her.

Wait a minute. Jane had been human. And she was here. Maybe there was -

What. The. Fuck.

"Jane ... ?" he said weakly as he looked at his old friend. "What ..."

Words deserted him at that point. She was sitting in the same chair, in the same position, wearing the same clothes ... except he could see the wall behind her ... and the steel cabinets ... and the door across the way. And not "see" as in on the far side of her shoulders. He was looking through her.

"Oh. Sorry."

Right before his eyes, she went from translucent to ... back to normal.

Manny jumped out of his chair and pinwheeled back until the examination table bit into his ass and stopped him.

"You need to talk to me," he said hoarsely. "Jesus ... Christ ..."

As he grabbed for the cross that hung around his neck, Jane's head dropped and one of her hands tucked some of her short hair behind her ear. "Oh, Manny ... there's a lot you don't know."

"So ... tell me." When she didn't reply, the screaming in his head got way too loud. "You'd better fucking tell me, because I'm really done with feeling like a lunatic."

There was a long silence. "I died, Manny, but not in that car wreck. That was staged."

Manny's lungs got tight. "How."

"A gunshot. I was shot. I ... died in Vishous's arms."

Okay, he so could not breathe over here. "Who did it?"

"His enemies."

Manny rubbed his crucifix, and the Catholic in him suddenly believed in the saints as so much more than examples of good behavior.

"I'm not who you once knew, Manny. On so many levels." There was such sadness in her voice. "I'm not even actually alive. That was  why I didn't come back to see you. It wasn't about the vampire/human thing ... it's because I am not really here anymore."

Manny blinked. Like a cow. A number of times.

Well ... the good news in all this, he supposed, was that finding out his former trauma surgeon was a ghost? Barely a blip on his radar. His mind had been blown too many times to count, and like a joint that had been dislocated, it had total and complete freedom of movement.

Of course, its functionality was fucked.

But who was counting.