Reborn: Apocalypse Tyrant Endlessly Pampers Her Sickly Lover novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Buyer

Veda woke on the sofa with Tobias's head on her shoulder and grey light in the window.

The far light was gone.

A black shape sat on the water instead, low and long, with a lamp at each end.

It was a ship, and it was closer than it had been in the night.

Tobias breathed against her neck in short, wet pulls.

She lay still and counted them, the way she had once counted breaths for a living.

Fourteen to the minute, and a rattle at the end of each.

The lock clicked.

She had the fire extinguisher off the floor before the door was fully open.

Celia slipped in with a canvas bag held against her chest.

Behind her stood the lifeguard guard, the one who had turned on Damon at the hearing, with a ring of keys in his fist.

"Put that down," Celia whispered. "Please. We have about ten minutes."

"Damon has the pharmacy," Veda said.

"Damon has the pharmacy ring. I have a vial in my coat I never put in the count."

Celia knelt by the sofa and drew the dose with fingers that shook only a little.

She did not wake him fully.

Tobias flinched at the needle and murmured something, and then he was asleep again.

Celia turned to the thigh and cut the towel strips away.

"Two stitches," she said. "It'll hurt."

"Do it."

It did hurt.

Veda looked at the ceiling and did not make a sound.

"Why now?" she said through her teeth. "Why are you out?"

Celia pulled the thread tight.

"Because he's selling them," she said.

"Selling who?"

"My patients. The comfort list. Forty people." Her voice cracked on the number. "There's a trader on that ship. Damon has been talking to him on the radio for three nights."

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