He couldn't keep her from the life that waited her outside, as much as it killed him to walk her to the compound's elevator and ride the long distance up to the Order's fleet garage above.
They paused together as they stepped out of the elevator. Rio held out the keys to one of his cars. Not one of the sports coupes with the barely legal engines, but a nice, safe Volvo sedan. Hell, he would have put her in an armored tank if he had one to give her. He clicked the remote lock entry button and the Volvo five vehicles back responded with a little chirp.
"You call me every hour and let me know you're okay," he said, putting the keys and her cell phone in her hand. "The encrypted number I programmed into your phone comes directly to me. I want to hear from you every hour, just so I know everything's good."
"You want me to risk getting a ticket for operating a motor vehicle while talking on a cell phone?" She smiled and arched a brow at him. "Maybe you want to plug me with a GPS chip before I go too?"
"The car's already equipped with GPS," he said, glad she was keeping it light, especially since he was feeling anything but. "If you wait here for a second, I'm sure Gideon or Niko could come up with something for you as well."
Dylan's quiet laugh was a bit hollow. She reached up and smoothed her fingers into the hair at his nape. "It's killing me to leave you too, you know. I miss you already."
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "I know. We'll figure this out, work it all out somehow. But I wasn't joking about having you call me every hour from the road. I want to know where you are, and that you make it back safely."
"I'll be fine." She shook her head and smiled up at him. "I'll call you when I get to the hospital."
"Okay," he said, knowing he was being unreasonable. Concerned over nothing. Just making one weak excuse after another to cover for the deep need he had to hold her close and keep her there. He released her and took a step back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose jeans. "Okay. Call me when you get there."
Dylan came up on her toes and kissed him again. When she tried to pull away, he couldn't resist wrapping his arms around her one more time.
"Ah, hell," he swore harshly under his breath. "Get out of here before I take you back to my quarters and shackle you to the bedpost."
"That could be interesting."
"Remind me later," he said, "when you come back."
She nodded. "I have to go."
"Yeah."
"I love you," she said, and pressed a tender kiss to his cheek. "I'll call you."
"I'll be waiting."
Rio stood there, fists thrust deep into his pockets as he watched her head for the car. She climbed in and started it up, then slowly rolled the car out of its parking space in the hangar. She gave him a little wave, too smart to slide the window down and give him more time to try to talk her out of leaving.
He hit the button on the hangar's automatic door, and had to shield his eyes from the light pink wash of dawn that filtered in through the estate's surrounding thicket of trees. Dylan drove out into the daylight. Rio wanted to wait until the taillights turned the bend in the property's long drive, but the glare of UV rays was too much for him to take, even for his late-generation Breed eyes.
He punched the keypad again and the wide door closed.
When he got off the elevator back down in the compound, Nikolai was coming up the corridor from the weapons range like hell on wheels. Rio could practically see steam pouring out of the vampire's ears, he was so furious.
"What's going on?" he asked, meeting the cold blue eyes.
"I just got f**ked," Niko replied, and evidently not in a good way.
"By who?"
"Starkn," he hissed. "Turns out the Director of the region's Enforcement Agency was just blowing a lot of smoke up our asses. When Chase and I met with the guy last night and told him that we suspect these are targeted hits, he assured us he would put the word out to all the known Gen Ones in the population. Well, guess what he didn't do."
Rio scoffed. "Put the word out to all the known Gen Ones in the population."
"Right," Niko said. "My Gen One contact, Sergei Yakut, says he hasn't heard shit out of the Agency in Montreal where he's living now, and neither have any of the other first generation inpiduals he knows. To top it off, this morning we got word out of Denver of another killing. Another Gen One beheading, Rio. This shit is getting critical fast. Something big is going down."
"You think Starkn could have a hand in it somehow?"
Nikolai's shrewd blue eyes were icy with suspicion. "Yeah, I do. My gut is telling me the son of a bitch is dirty."
Rio nodded, glad for the distraction that could take him away from feeling sorry for himself over missing Dylan and put him back into the Order's business. His business, his world.
When Niko headed off for the tech lab, Rio fell in alongside him, just like old times.
It took about five hours to make the drive from Boston into Manhattan, which put Dylan at the hospital around one in the afternoon. She'd called Rio from the car as she waited for the parking attendant, assured him that she was safe and sound, then she headed into the lobby to grab an elevator to the cancer ward.
God, to think this could be one of the last days her mom might spend in this place. One of the last days she'd be sick. Dylan wanted that so badly, she was almost giddy with the thought as she stepped off at the tenth floor and walked through the swinging double doors that led to her mother's wing.
The nurses on duty were dealing with some kind of printer malfunction, so she just walked past the station without stopping to ask for an update or any news on the biopsy. Dylan paused outside her mom's room door, about to hit the hand sanitizer when she saw that a nurse was just coming out. The woman was carrying an armful of half-empty IV bags. When she saw Dylan, she gave a little nod and a rather sad-looking smile.