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When he got to his room, he opened the door and walked into a jungle. There were clothes draped on every conceivable surface—the dresser, the wing chair, the bed, the plasma-screen TV. Kind of like his closet had thrown up all over everything. Empty bottles of Jack cluttered up the two side tables by the headboard, and the dead soldiers spread out from there, clustering on the floor and nesting in the twisted sheets and duvet.

Fritz and his cleaning crew hadn’t been let in for two weeks, and at the rate things were going, they were going to need a backhoe when he finally threw the doors open to them.

Undressing, he let his leathers and shirt fall where they did, but his jacket he was careful with. At least until he took his weapons out—then he dumped the thing on the corner of the bed. In the bathroom, he double-checked his two blades and then he swiftly cleaned his guns with the kit that he just left out by the second sink.

Yeah, he’d let his standards slide lower than even frat-boy levels, but his weapons were different. Utility had to be maintained.

His shower was quick, and as he worked the soap over his chest and abs, he thought back to the time when even the brush of warm water over his cock was enough to make him hard. No more. He hadn’t had an erection . . . since the last time he’d been with Xhex.

He just didn’t have the interest—even in his dreams, which was a new one. Hell, before his transition, when he wasn’t supposed to have any awareness of his sexuality, his subconscious had kicked up all sorts of hot and heavy. And those sex-fests had been so real, so detailed, it was as if they were memory and not REM-induced fabrications.

Now? All that played on his internal screen was Blair Witch Project chase scenes where he was running in a jerky panic but didn’t know what was after him . . . or whether he would ever get to safety.

When he came out of the bathroom, he found a tray with a roast beef sandwich and a big-as-your-head wedge of carrot cake on it. Nothing to drink, but Qhuinn knew that he was taking his liquid refreshment from Mr. Daniel alone.

John ate standing up in front of the bureau, naked as the day he was born, and when the food hit his stomach, it sucked the energy from him, draining everything from his head. Wiping his mouth with the linen napkin, he put the tray out in the hall and then headed for the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth only from habit.

Lights off in the bath. Lights off in the room.

Him and the Jack sitting on the bed.

As exhausted as he was, he was not looking forward to lying down. There was an inverse relationship between his energy level and the distance between his ears and the floor: Even though he was cross-eyed, the second his head hit the pillow, his thoughts were going to start spinning and he was going to end up wide awake and staring at the ceiling, counting hours and aches.

He polished off what was in his glass and propped his elbows on his knees. Within moments, his head was bobbing, his lids slamming down. When he started to list to the side, he let himself go even though he was unsure which direction he was going in, toward the pillows or the wadded-up duvet.

Pillows.

Shifting his feet up on the bed, he dragged the covers over his hips and had a moment of blissful collapse. Maybe tonight the cycle would break. Maybe this glorious sinking relief would suck him down into the black hole he was hoping for. Maybe he’d . . .

His eyes popped open and he stared into the thick darkness.

Nope. He was exhausted to the point of being jittery, not just wide awake . . . but goosed-in-the-ass alert. As he rubbed his face, he figured this contradictory state of things was the cognitive equivalent to bumblebees being able to fly: Physicists maintained it wasn’t possible, and yet it happened all the time.

Rolling over onto his back, he crossed his arms over his chest and yawned so hard his jaw cracked. Tough to know whether to turn on the light.