BULLET, CHAPTER 28

[a_sporking_rat]

BULLET, CHAPTER 28

Anita exits the hospital room with Nicky and finds that Graham has been on guard duty outside her door. Graham is a werewolf that really really wants to have sex with Anita but she doesn't want to fuck him. My guess is that this is because while he has a "tall, Nordic father" he is half-Japanese on his mother's side and has "the little uptilt at the edges of his eyes and the straight black hair" that is "cut a little too long through the bangs."

Graham says he can't believe he missed last night, since it would have been a chance for him to get with Anita because "you fucked people that you've never touched." Anita asks Nicky if Graham knows everything that happens last night, Nicky nods, Anita tells Graham to guard this door and if anything happens to Nathaniel she'll kill him. Graham asks "What'd I say to piss you off?" and Anita says the fact he has to ask is why she doesn't fuck him. In a normal series, I'd say him not understanding that sex under the influence of the ardeur is rape is what the problem is, but since it wasn't treated like that here at all through Anita's eyes, then I don't know what he said that was so wrong either.

According to Nicky, it's because "she feels bad about Noel and Haven being dead." Oh, so her issue was that what caused the orgy to happen was a terrible thing, and if Graham does indeed know why it started than that is pretty shitty of him. Okay, that I can actually get behind. Graham tells her that "people are on rotating shifts" in the infirmary so she can find someone else there to take her place bunking with Nathaniel. For some reason, this prompts Anita to throw open her mental doors in order to find out who is close by among the people she's metaphysically connected to. I guess she's looking for someone to hang with Nathaniel, but...didn't Graham just say to check the infirmary? Maybe she wants someone she knows she can trust, which is understandable, but do note that she didn't do the same for Claudia.

She feels Nicky first because he's right next to her, she feels Jean-Claude and knows that he is coming this way and "he felt my urgency and my confusion" confusion about what? She feels sorrow from Jason and wonders why. Probably because this is a hell of a thing to happen while JJ is here? Since they don't see each other that often? Or god forbid, JJ might have been raped during the orgy? She feels that Damian is still awake, and concludes from that that all of the vampires that woke early today are going to continue to be awake...which is an odd conclusion to make based on Damian, since Damian is a daywalker to begin with. She feels Crispin and Domino, and then can tell that there are more tigers here too. These new tigers "flared brighter in my head. They shouldn't have been brighter on my metaphysical radar than the shapeshifters I was closest to." Oh god, does this mean that these tigers end up being her special pre-destined mates like Micah with his Nimir-Raj being meant for her Nimir-Ra crap? I hate that shit.

She doesn't feel Richard at the Circus at all, so she starts dialing his number to tell him about the assassin because "Richard was the least capable of the three of us to watch for this kind of danger." HE HAS SUPER SENSES! "He was still too trusting, and too tied to trying to be "normal" ". Yeah, I can see just how trusting he is from how he told Jean-Claude about how suspicious he was of him when Raina gave him to him.

Stephen comes down the hallway, and while dialing Anita has time to give us a paragraph about how he shares an apartment with Vivian but that during the day he often spends the day here at the Circus "being snack food for vampires among other things." But...how can he be food for VAMPIRES during the DAY? And what he's wearing and how he's wearing his hair and that "he wasn't on my food list" because he is "cute enough but just not that kind of friend." I like how the fact he's with Vivian isn't mentioned at all as a reason for him not being on her sex schedule.

Stephen asks Anita what's wrong just as the phone goes to voice mail and Anita leaves Richard a message telling him about the assassins and to come to the Circus and "call me back, damn it." The fact she ends it with 'damn it' just cracks me up because it's so...needlessly dramatic.

Graham advises her to text him instead. Anita responds with "What?" and Graham repeats to text him because "some people check their texts a lot more than they do their voice mail." Anita hands the phone to Graham and asks him to do it for her since she can't text. I feel bad sneering at this, because it took me forever to bother to learn to text and I still don't do it almost at all, but that's because I don't enjoy it. I have no use for it. Anita, on the other hand, has a damn good reason to learn how. Case in point, this scenario. Graham doesn't know how to spell 'assassins', so Stephen, whom we are reminded has cornflower-blue eyes, does it. Because Anita not liking him means Graham is dumb and useless, I guess, despite this being a pretty good idea on his part.

Stephen sends the text and then asks Anita what's going on with this whole assassins thing. He also asks what I want to know: How does she know they're even in town? Anita says she doesn't have time to explain (does saying "Remember that werelion Pride that kidnapped me not too long ago? Their leader was offered a contract on my, Jean-Claude, and Richard, and he turned it down but was forced to warn me about it because I rolled him when we first met" take that long?) and has to find Richard. Stephen says that "I'm supposed to be your replacement for Nathaniel's healing, but if you need me..." and Anita "started to dismiss him" because "I didn't think of him as a fighter" just as "someone who helped me do my hair and makeup for Jean-Claude's fancy events" but then remembers that "the first time I'd met him he'd waded into a giant snake gone amok in the Circus." Waded into? That makes it sound like the snake was made of Jell-O or something. "He was about my size, as delicate in his own way as Vivian, but he was also a werewolf and that meant something." Too bad that being a therian can't also 'mean something' for Nathaniel and every other werecreature that acts like a baby kitten supposedly because of, not in spite of, their beasts.

Even so, Anita decides that Stephen should still stay with Nathaniel and she'll be the one to retrieve Richard and "after that we'll have a meeting or something." Yes, a meeting with the tigers, remember? Remember, Anita? REMEMBER? Anita heads down the hallway and Nicky follows her and she decides to let him because "he might be creepily overattached to me" which you do nothing but encourage and enjoy "but his fighting skills were excellent and the only thing that kept his killing in check was my conscience." Oh, so he must have zero urge to kill at all then. "He didn't seem to have one of his own." Probably because YOU ATE IT. She also shockingly recalls she has "clients to see in the afternoon" at her job but that since "all it would take was one of the assassins signing up as a client and they'd get to be alone with me" she'll need guards with her. At work? Yeah, just see how that goes over with Bert....oh wait, I forgot, Anita gets to do whatever the fuck she likes at work. Including Nathaniel on the floor.

She keeps feeling "a small screaming part of me" saying that "Richard is in danger" and she reminds herself that "if he was really hurt I'd know it" like with Nathaniel. Anita decides to call Jamil or Shang-Da, since they're respectively his Skoll and Hati...it shocks me she does not tell the reader that Skoll and Hati mean primary and secondary enforcers. Wow. She usually over-defines everything. Nicky, meanwhile, is on the phone to Bobby Lee, telling him about the assassins and Anita thinks "he was right. I should have told our men first." THE WERERATS ARE NOT YOUR MEN YOU @&#%#%^%^##!!!

Jamil picks up, Anita tells him that he's got to get Richard back to the Circus now. He says "That's going to be a problem" and she turns to see that Jamil himself is coming down the hallway with Shang-Da. Anita asks why they aren't with Richard. Richard, it turns out, is on a date and his bodyguards don't follow him on dates. Yeah, I can see how that might be awkward to explain. Anita decides to "worry about it [the date] later" and tells them what's going on. Jamil curses and says that "If he's with the doc, he won't answer his phone" and despite saying she'd worry about the date later (as if she has any right to! they're still not back together!) Anita wants to ask if Richard is dating a doctor. Eh, I bet it turns out that this "lunch date" is just with Dr. Lillian over therian matters, not, as I'm sure Anita would say, a date-date,

Shang-Da says to just use her telepathic link to contact Richard and she says that she'll try but "he's been keeping me out the last few months." Good for him, I'd hate to have ANITA of all people rooting around in my head and able to shoot thoughts in there. Shang-Da suggests that "maybe you both quit trying." Wow, suggesting that Richard AND Anita are to blame for their problems is about the close as we're ever going to get the to fact that it's actually all Anita, I bet. Way to go Shang-Da!

Anita decides she'll argue that after Richard is safe, feels JC coming towards her, harrumphs about JC doesn't shut her out, and then "opened that link between Richard and me. Shang-Da was right; I'd stopped trying a while back. It was just easier that way." HAHAHAH ARE YOU SERIOUS? SHE'S ADMITTING THIS? SCORE TWO FOR SHANG-DA NOW!

Anita smells the environment of wolves--or, more properly, the environment of SOME wolves but not of many others--and she can then see Richard behind the wheel of his truck. He glances up, he knows she sees him, she loses focus and has to fight to see him again, and knows that he's close to his house by the trees near the road. She sees him looking at her again, and the road through his eyes. He pushes her out a little because he says it's hard to drive with her doing that. That makes sense. Anita tells him there's a contract killer out for him, her, and JC. He says "the council works fast" and Anita says it doesn't matter who ordered it (since it might not be the council, I think a LOT of people would want these three dead, if only because JC and Richard being killed means Anita is probably dead for sure) and that "we stay underground until we have a plan." Richard says "I can't hide forever." She didn't say forever, she said until there was a plan! Stop being stupid just so Anita can seem right! Anita says "Just for now" because she's "had enough emergencies for one day." Goddamn, I'm actually on Anita's side here. She even says please!

He starts to take the last turn on the route to his home, and then swiftly gets his comeuppance for not immediately obeying Anita--he sees a flash in the trees, the windshield cracks, Anita screams "Gun!" which I think he would figure out by a bullet hitting the windshield and then a second shot hits Richard and she's thrown out of his head and falls to her knees in the hallway with Nicky holding her. Her shoulder and half her chest are numb, and she gasps "Shot" and realizes by the fact she can barely breathe that Richard's lung has been hit, though his heart is still beating. "We were falling, and there was no air."

Great. This means there's probably going to be a healing orgy again, isn't there?

Comments

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Graham is a werewolf that really really wants to have sex with Anita but she doesn't want to fuck him.
In light of a previous poster's comments, my guess here is that Graham might be willing to have sexy times near JC (if not with JC because, although a rare beast, purely hetero characters do occasionally exist within these books) but Anita nipped that in the bud with her unspoken "JC doesn't get to feed the lust unless I'm involved or doing the sexing" thing. Which is too bad because Graham would get his awesome orgasms and JC would get snacks without having to get messy himself.

Anita asks Nicky if Graham knows everything that happens last night, Nicky nods, Anita tells Graham to guard this door and if anything happens to Nathaniel she'll kill him.
a.) I'm not sure why Graham should actively care that two spineless, unmemorable members of the harem and the one man with his balls still attached in St. Louis died. From his perspective, they're probably even less than acquaintances. I mean, has he even met any of those three lions?
b.) I'm not even convinced that Anita genuinely cares.
c.) And I fail to see how Graham's lack of sympathy for the dead would somehow translate into him being bad at his job. Guarding shit and giving a damn about others are two mutually exclusive skill sets.
d.) While I agree that people should have a choice in their sexual partners, Graham is the only character in this entire series that I can remember giving informed and unequivocal consent to being magically roofied and taken advantage of while he was still in full possession of all of his faculties, not being coerced, and not under anyone's control. He's LITERALLY the only man, woman, or child who has ever consented to the whole Anita shebang and she is not only completely uninterested in him, she's scornful of his interest too.
e.) The Anita & Graham interaction is reverse slut-shaming.
f.) Yeah, Anita wants willing, consent, adult partners who are equals in the relationship, sane, and capable of making their own, informed decisions. Really. Ignore my laughter.

Maybe she wants someone she knows she can trust, which is understandable, but do note that she didn't do the same for Claudia.
Claudia may have saved Anita's life multiple times and protected her from Haven, among others, but she sexed Micah up (or at least slept with him naked! And non-sexually!) so she's dead to Anita now.

She feels sorrow from Jason and wonders why.
JJ probably took a good, hard look around and decided that she did not need this kind of crap, drama, and crime in her life and dumped Jason. No matter how handsome he is and how much she likes him, he comes with too much baggage, especially for something that's supposed to be casual. Additionally, she's served her purpose in the plot (To highlight how Anita has the prettiest, bestest, most specialest dancers in the whole, wide world without Anita having to do it herself. That way Anita could concentrate on being smug and sexist.) and has to go now.

Additionally, Jason didn't even have the bad taste to join a triumverate with Anita and yet she has access to his thoughts and feelings. I know that Anita doesn't even acknowledge that the word "violation" exists but yeah. That's what that is. Poor... everyone.

Except Anita. Of course.

...which is an odd conclusion to make based on Damian, since Damian is a daywalker to begin with.
Logic is NOT Anita's friend. see the entirety of this series.

She doesn't feel Richard at the Circus at all,
...So, potentially, Anita could know where Richard is at every moment of every day? And, by extension, she would have the same information regarding anyone else that she was "connected" to?
...
...
I pity them all so, so much.

"He was still too trusting, and too tied to trying to be "normal"."
This is why Richard deserves to get with Joyce Summers. Sure, her one kid is a gleeful and remorseless serial killer and the other is a potentially toxic ball of glowing green energy capable of destroying all of the worlds simultaneously when the stars are aligned just right, but Joyce herself is pretty damn normal, despite her problems with obliviousness and alcohol.

[a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com]

D) ANITAVERSE REALLY IS BIZARROVERSE, I SWEAR.

so she's dead to Anita now.
Hence why this is the last book she's appeared in to date. I expect this conflates with Darla leaving (maybe LKH thinks Darla made eyes at Jon?)

Jason is her Wolf to Call, so i expect that's why she gets to read his mind/feelings.

I pity them all so, so much.
SRSLY WHAT A CREEPY THOUGHT UGH