A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(47)

“Yes, if you’re healed by Celestial energy it doesn’t scar,” I said. I started to reach my hands toward each other like normal, but the arm protested. If there was another angel anytime soon, I’d need to remember to ask for extra healing for the arm. I moved the uninjured arm across my body again. Moving my hand on the injured side tugged at the scratches so the pain was sharper. I wasn’t sure what fumbling at the buttons moved in my arm that made it hurt so much, but again small movements matter if you’re hurt.

“Here, I’ll help you,” he said, and just reached out to do the same thing I’d asked him to do earlier. It was like he hadn’t heard me ask, too lost in peering at my wound through the medical dressing. How had he done that?

“How did you see through the bandages?” I asked, while he focused just as completely on the buttons on my shirt as he had on everything else. When he didn’t answer right away, I let him finish the task before I repeated my question.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t think about you being injured and the difficulty of taking the shirt off.” He took the shoulder of my shirt down so I could more easily slide my arm out of the sleeve.

“Thanks, okay, I appreciate the help now.”

He actually stepped behind me, helping me pull my injured arm out of the other sleeve. He held it up in gloved hands and started letting it fold down into the paper bag. I could have shoved it in the bag, but I couldn’t have made it look neat with just one hand like that.

He sealed the bag, then got a marker out of his pocket and wrote on the bag, so it would go with all the rest of the evidence from the hospital. “Please initial here, Detective,” he said, holding it out to me and putting his palm underneath the plastic so I had a surface to write on. The shirt was lower than the plastic top, so we weren’t pressing on the evidence. It was neatly done.

“How did you see my wound?” I asked again.

“I have a very specialized type of remote viewing, except instead of being able to see something hundreds of miles away I see through things that are directly around me even if they’re hidden from my physical sight.”

“Like my wounds.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Or a clue that’s hidden under a stain,” I said, making a logic leap.

He smiled at me as happy as I’d ever seen him. “Exactly.”

“No wonder the ME values you, you’re perfect for the job.”

He grinned and it transformed his face so that he was . . . pretty. I’d have never said that to his face, but he was just so delicate that handsome seemed the wrong word.

“Everyone covered in there? Lieutenant wanted to check what was taking so long,” Lila said. She did hesitate, to give us time to yell stop. Ravensong would have come on in, assuming she’d warned us enough. It was a co-ed locker room, but we all tried to warn anyone who was shy.

Both Adam and I looked toward the door as she opened it; he still had that great smile on his face. Lila stopped and looked at us as the door swung shut behind her. There was an expression on her face I couldn’t quite read.

Adam said, “Are you unhappy with us?”

She shook her head, ponytail bouncing. “No, why do you ask?”

“I’m not always great with reading people’s faces, so sometimes I just ask,” he said.

“I couldn’t decipher her expression either,” I said, “and I am good at reading people.”

Adam looked over his shoulder at me. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No, I’m being honest.”

“The expression is me finding two handsome men in the locker room, but I’m at work so I can’t be unprofessional,” Lila said.

“You’re just being polite,” Adam said.

“No, I’m not,” she said, and I realized what the look had meant at the door now. She’d seen Adam’s smile and seen him in a new light just like I had, except it might have meant more to her than it had to me. I wasn’t sure, but I was betting she saw him as attractive now. Would it change things between them? Probably not, but then again you never knew with women, or Heaven help us, men either. A small change in perspective can translate to something larger, or it can just sink back into business as usual.

Adam frowned at her. “I know what I look like and I know what Havoc looks like, especially with him shirtless.”

“Havoc is my friend and the fact that he looks good out of his clothes isn’t something that a friend remarks on,” Lila said.

Adam did that frown that made me want to smooth his brow again. “I don’t understand the difference when it’s just words.”

“I know you don’t,” she said, but she wasn’t irritated with him like normal, almost patient especially for Lila. She wasn’t incredibly patient with anyone. She wasn’t cruel, but she wasn’t always kind either.

I turned to open my locker and give them what privacy I could, though Lila wouldn’t need privacy from just me if she was intent on moving forward with something, but I thought Adam might be a little shy with me watching. I shouldn’t have worried about it.

“I wish I could read your face,” Adam said.

“I wish you could, too,” she said.

I looked at the clothes folded in my locker; neither of them really matched the dress slacks I was wearing, but I finally chose the black one because I’d bought it most recently. The other one was a tank top that I’d had forever and cut the sleeves off and it was too revealing even with the jacket over it.