"I-I'm fine," I stuttered through clenched teeth.

It didn't fool Deacon. He worriedly hovered over me, doubly hesitant to touch me now despite clearly wanting to make sure I was okay.

"Messed up my shoulder somehow," I explained, trying not to grimace. "Must have twisted my arm wrong or something. Is there a toilet somewhere I could sort myself out a bit? Splash some water on my face?"

"Yeah… this way."

He led me back towards the main entrance, beside which I finally spotted the single door in the place that wasn't protected by a bar counter. He pushed the door open to admit me into a spacious, well-kept bathroom setup with two dozen stalls or so.

"Want me to help? I don't have any training or anything, but I do have some hands-on experience with injuries. Hard not to, around mercs." His tone was joking, but still laced with tension.

"Thanks, really, but I'll be fine." I motioned towards the stalls. "I'm just going to dip into one of these, check out my shoulder, and I'll be out before you know it."

"Well… if you're sure."

I nodded. My date for the night reluctantly sighed, went to rake his fingers through his hair, remembered he was wearing a wig, and sent me an awkward smile before shuffling out.

I almost collapsed into a stall, my mind struggling to form words and send them Amelia's way.

"K-K-K-Keep an e-eye on the mercs, will y-y-y-you?" My mental voice kept glitching. Apparently, my attention was far too frayed to communicate properly without using my lips.

That's the first time that's ever happened, though. Uuuugh, need the pain to stop.

I fumbled at one of the pockets on the right side of my body using my left hand. Genius levels of thinking ahead, that. Fucking up my right arm when my right-handed self had stashed everything important on that side of my body. But I somehow managed to dig out a MaxDoc and hit myself with that sweet, sweet dose of pain-relieving inhalant.

Well. Not sweet. Anything but sweet. Or pleasant. Still, I'd have done a thousand of them just for the instant wave of relief that swamped through me.

The pain was suddenly distant. Manageable. Even my fingers and arm were more responsive, though I knew that was more due to the suddenly blurred physical limits of my body rather than to any healing.

MaxDocs weren't great for actual healing. Sure, they could boost the process a little, but mostly they were made of painkillers, steroids, and antibiotics. So, while my arm was starting to feel a ton better, I knew I needed to be careful with how I used it if I didn't want to just make things worse.

Thanks to Yuri, though, the little inhalers were way better than what you could typically get your hands on commercially. That meant the healing factor was ever so slightly boosted. It would get me back to a point where I'd be ready for more action, without busting myself up too badly if I stressed my arm again.

Hopefully.

"Could you repeat that?" I asked Amelia breathily, now that I was more or less back to full mental capacity.

"Repeat what?! How badly did you fuck yourself up? No, wait, you gave me access to your physical status here, so…"

She trailed off, clearly looking something up on her scroll.

"Um… Everything past the point when I asked you to keep an eye on Rafe and Oliwia?"

"Fucking fuckity fuck, Adrian. You almost tore your right shoulder apart!" she hissed angrily. "How the fuck are you still functional?"

"Eh… I've felt worse." I wasn't even lying. Sure, the pain was bad, but it wasn't completely debilitating. I'd been able to keep up chatter with Deacon, and even got myself to the toilet just fine.

"Yeah, right. You've felt worse? When?!"

"When your father made me run that maze."

That made her clam up quickly. She was probably remembering that she had been the one administering that particular test.

I'd never told her that I was partially awake and aware of everything when she was hooking me into the machines, and that I'd heard her apology. Even back then, knowing nothing about me, Amelia had been covering for me. If she hadn't deceived her father by telling him I hadn't unlocked my Shadow Runner package yet, I'd probably be dead, via a much harder torture maze.

"I… erm, yeah. Sorry about that."

"We run into stuff like this way too often." I sighed. "Still, let me repeat myself: none of the things your father did to me are your fault. You're not him. You're way cuddlier, for one thing. Don't think I'd want to taste the back of his throat either."

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Amelia flushed. "ANYWAY! Those two are still in the bar. Probably making out. I swear, how have they not kicked them out yet?! They're going way too far. I haven't caught anyone else acting as degenerate as them through your webcam eye thingies."

"Webcam eye thingies?"

"Oh come on, it's weird that I can have this good a feed directly from your eyes! We made those eyes way too high quality."

"Humble bragging now, are we? But you're not wrong."

I chuckled as Amelia preened, letting her words distract me from the horribleness that was my shoulder and my upcoming tasks.

I had absolutely nothing against Deacon, obviously. But the fact that I was going to have to force myself to smile and dance some more with my bummed shoulder made me want to sob in a corner of the bathroom.

Still, I got out of my safe and remarkably clean stall, splashed my eyes with water, cleaned that off as well as I could with faux paper towels, and then marched out to meet my fate.

"Thanks for waiting for me." I greeted my date with a small smile, fixing the façade in place as firmly as I could.

That kind of thing had gotten both much harder and much easier since I was Stalker-ified, ironically. Past all the murder and hiding impulses, I had a much greater control of my body. A… sense of my muscles, if that was the right way to describe all these new instincts. Made it easier to screw my face up into something pleasant and keep it that way.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, still with that worried look in his eyes. "You look a little pale."

How he could even spot that with the interplay of light and shadow inside the cavernous bar, I didn't know, but I did find his concern touching.

Now if only I was genuinely interested in him, and there for a date instead of homicide planning, I wouldn't need to feel so guilty…

"I'm fine, promise!" I pushed myself a little, using my busted right arm to grab his hand and tug him back in the direction of the dance floor.

At the same time, I fired off another message to Amelia. "Can you maybe keep an eye on the smooching duo a bit longer? I'm going to need all my attention not to be wincing constantly."

"Sure… but what you need is to lie down and take care of that arm for a bit, not more dancing. Especially not with hot guys checking out your ass."

"I do not have an ass to check out," I snickered. "Too much childhood starvation. Also, you dressed me up in an outfit thicker than a wall. No way to spot anything under all this fur."

"Sure, sure, keep telling yourself that… Anyway, yeah, I'll be your oversight. I'll let ya know if they start moving."

I thanked Amelia, then turned my attention back to Deacon. I was stuck between trying to at least make this one date enjoyable, and struggling to figure out how to let him down gently when it was time to pack up and leave.

I didn't have nearly as much time to do that as I would have liked, even if the dancing was an exercise in pain endurance.

"The two are on the move," Amelia hissed in my ear. "Both the tracker and the few glimpses I caught of them confirm this. I think they're moving towards the exit now."

My heart rate picked up.

I licked my lips, noting that Deacon tracked the motion with a little too much forced casualness. Then I leaned forward to whisper-shout at him over the music. "Mind if we move towards the toilets again?"

He shook his head with a smile and started pushing his way through the crowd. I managed to catch a glimpse of the duo as we went. They were making their way through the bar very slowly, pausing frequently to chat with people or to grab 'one last drink' for the fourth time.

Anyway, we made it to the toilet well before they got anywhere near the exit.

I hadn't noticed it before in the haze of pain, but the soundproofing in the bathroom was pretty good. It almost fully blocked out the sound of music and people, dropping us into what was nearly overwhelming quiet after all the noise.

"So…" I started awkwardly, eyes trailing all over the place. "I-I think I should head out for the day. It's not too bad anymore, but my shoulder's really giving me trouble. Plus I have some stuff I need to handle tomorrow…"

It was getting pretty late. The party had started around eight, and it was well into the night at that point.

Still, it struck me as funny that I was lying on two fronts. I needed to do something much sooner than tomorrow, and my shoulder was absolutely killing me.

"Oh! Yeah, makes sense. Don't let me keep you," Deacon insisted, with a smile that was only slightly strained. "Ah… what are the chances I'm going to see you again, though?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Then decided to just rip off the band-aid.

"Not great. It's not because of anything you did!" I hurried to add, catching his expression. "I… well. You've noticed my arm problems, with the whole touch thing. And — and I'm going to be honest, those are much newer than I let on. Like, not-even-a-month-since-I-got-them new. I'm not dealing as well as I would like."

He eyed my arms as a pained grimace snuck over his face. "That why your shoulder is acting up too? Not used to them yet?"

"Yeah," It wasn't even really a lie. "I'm… having a ton of trouble with it all, really. Not in a particularly good spot mentally or physically. Probably shouldn't have said yes to a date at all, but I was… curious. And I have to say, I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would."

The smile that stretched across my face was genuine. Deacon really was great company.

I kind of wished I could stay in contact as friends, but… yeah. Not dragging him into my mess. Or letting him find out exactly on what grounds our acquaintance had started.

"That's a point in my favor, at least." He smiled, and while it was a sad expression, it wasn't distraught, angry, or one of the other emotions I'd been worried I'd provoke. "In that case, when you're feeling better and thinking about dating again, think of me? Can't say I won't find someone in the meantime," he teased, sending me a wink. "But I'll think about you. Sometimes."

He laughed as he pulled out his scroll. A second later, my eyes pinged with a new contact getting added to my list.

"There. You have my number now. Don't need to give me yours! Just… you know, this way, there's no pressure on your end. If you want to, just ring me up and we'll hang. See you sometimes, okay? Don't be a stranger just because you told me no. I'll still slip you a few free drinks if you visit."

I laughed helplessly and barely stopped myself from making promises I had no intention to keep. After hesitating just a moment, I leaned up and planted a quick kiss on his cheek.

Then I hurried out of the bathroom with my face burning. I did not look behind me or pay attention to Amelia's mix of laughter, teasing, and griping as I exited the bar.

The chill air of the night in our fair city slapped me in the face so hard, I shivered. I was still sweaty and too warm, from both the bar in general and all the embarrassment.

I didn't have time to feel twisted up about manipulating kind bartenders or to grumble about the temperature, though. Instead, my eyes immediately got busy scanning any and all vehicles in the area.

The duo was on the way. Their net addiction meant I knew exactly what vehicles both of them had.

Tracking down their car would make things much, much easier.

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