Page 13 of Don't Bite the Botanist
“Well, fuck you too, Ethan,” she shot back, all pretenses of little miss sunshine washed away by the venom soaking her voice. She stood up and stalked over to the side of his bed. “What kind of sexist, antiquated, bullshit response is that?”
As much as he wanted to shout back that it was a logic-based response and there was no need to get pissy, the fire in her eyes was doing something to a certain part of his anatomy. She might be all ‘look on the bright side’ with everyone else, but there was fight in her. She was a woman who’d been through some shit and came out swinging.
Maybe…
“Okay, say I believe you,” he offered, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “I mean, you’ve certainly got the attitude for it, after all. But what are you doing here, then? If you’re a hunter, why aren’t you out there, you know, hunting?”
She huffed and took a step back, but only a small one. “I was sent to check on you,” she replied stiffly, appearing only slightly mollified by his retraction. “My, um, organization that hunts vampires has been monitoring your progress after the attack. In case you woke up.”
“Your organization?” He narrowed his eyes on her. “You belong to an organization that hunts vampires?”
She retrieved the chair she’d been sitting in and dragged it closer to Ethan’s bed. “That’s what I said. Did the attack damage your hearing?” She dropped into her seat and studied him carefully.
“My hearing is just fine,” he snapped. “But what you’re saying sounds like the plot of a bad movie. Next you’ll tell me the government knows all about vampires, and it’s a huge conspiracy to cover it up.”
Tressa looked thoughtful for a second, tapping a slender finger on the arm of the chair. “No, I don’t believe any of the world governments are aware of the existence of vamps. If they are, they’re keeping it to themselves. We have a guy who monitors that kind of thing.”
He blinked. “You have a guy?”
“Of course we do. How else would we keep track of everything?”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he had another latte. Or seven. Three-month coma fatigue was not something cured by a single shot of espresso even when he wasn’t struggling to wrap his brain around a substantial change to his world order.
“You’re telling me you have a tech guy who spends his time in front of a large bank of computers and is somehow the best hacker ever?”
Tressa shrugged. “I won’t tell him you said that, but yes. Baylin is pretty skilled with a keyboard.”
“Okay, but you see how that’s not helping with the whole bad movie plot, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Cora would love you.”
“Who’s Cora?”
Tressa waved a hand. “Never mind. Cheesy film plot or not, it’s true. There’s a whole group of us who hunt vampires. They’re… They’re my family.”
Something about the way Tressa said “family” hit Ethan like anelbow to the solar plexus.
“That sounds nice, I guess,” he replied quietly. “Kind of like a whole Supernatural thing. The family business, yeah?”
Tressa cocked her head. “You make a lot of TV references for a scientist.”
“Now who’s being judgmental?”
“I… You’re right.”
And there was the fish mouth again.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly.
Ethan laughed. “It’s fine. I tend to hit the gym late at night. Re-runs are the only thing playing to keep me entertained on the treadmill.”
“Fair enough.”
“Yup.”
They stared awkwardly at each other for a moment.
“So, you’re really a hunter?” he asked, trying to make his brain accept the notion. His mind was currently warring between disbelief that she was telling the truth and disbelief that he’d gotten so lucky. It had only started to dawn on him that he had no skills or connections to aid him with tracking down the monster. And then suddenly the answer to his dilemma walked into his hospital room wearing a tiny skirt and a heart-stopping smile? Maybe the universe was finally offering him a break.
