"I'm sure Marita's cooking will help you in that regard," Emilena remarked over her shoulder to Vergil; she was first out of the car and already bee-lining for the door.
The inhabitants of the apartment were no doubt surprised when Emilena was the first person to march through their door. Wasting no time with pleasantries, she opened their cupboards and began eating whatever she felt like, trying to keep herself from passing out.
Lily, still in the car with Marita, took a deep breath. "I'll talk to you about it later..." she told Marita. "Let's just get inside and recover from tonight."
She walked into the house at roughly the same time Emilena had finished her meal. "You," Emilena jabbed her finger at Lily as soon as she saw her. "Medical. Now."
Lily sighed. "Let's get some privacy." She led Emilena into the back of the apartment, Marita's computer room. "This is going to make you feel sleepy," she warned. "Your body is running almost entirely on adrenaline, and once I level that out..."
"Hold it," Emilena said hastily, glancing around the guest room. "I'm not sleeping with the others." After rummaging through Marita's boxes and locating a superheating conductor plate, she climbed out onto the balcony, hoisted herself onto the next floor down and burnt a small hole in the sliding glass window.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lily hissed, precariously following her patient into the uninhabited apartment. The lack of living materials beyond standard furniture indicated this apartment wasn't currently rented out. Emilena had already stumbled into the shower, quickly turning the water to maximum heat and rinsing her entire body of as much of the grime, blood and filth as possible. She sighed as the scorching water rolled down her fur and numbed her nerves.
"Hellooo?" Lily tapped her foot impatiently. "Emilena, you can do this after I've healed you and gone back to the others! I'm really not interested in your crap right now!"
Emilena poked her head out. "Jesus, what the hell's eating you?"
"I hired you to locate and rescue Ejlert, not drop off the face of the Earth and mess around with Vergil!" Lily ripped the curtain aside and wrenched the shower off. "Get on the bed;" she ordered, jabbing her finger, "you get bare minimum heals because I don't feel like looking as if I went through a wood chipper. Not for you."
"Hey, I was following the best lead I had!" exclaimed Emilena angrily, crossing to the bedroom and flopping onto the bed. "You said Vergil was trying to relocate Kalis, right? That means my best chance at reaching Kalis was Vergil! And still is, by the way, why else would I be wasting my time with these--"
"--No!" Lily shouted, face turning red, "There's tailing someone for info, and then there's raiding their cars and getting someone killed, drugging them on a cruise ship for shits and giggles, and then acting like a prick after they rescue you!"
"Hey, nobody rescued me back there!" Emilena sat up angrily. "Not Tony, not Vergil! I saved my own hide from that mafia dungeon!"
"Yeah?" Lily glowered. "What about the time before that?"
Emilena grew silent. Lily pushed the vulpine onto her back and leaned in close.
"Back in Lanthae, you told me that you had a life debt to me," she muttered darkly, face millimeters away from Emilena's. "Well, I don't think you're pulling your weight. As of right now, you better stop all the attitude, stop horsing around because you like pissing people off, and start focusing on the thing I hired you for." Her hand shot out around Emilena's neck and she sucked the remaining energy out of her body. Emilena gasped but she literally couldn't even lift a muscle.
"If Ejlert dies because of your actions," Lily threatened at barely a whisper, "I'll kill you myself." With a flash, Lily stemmed Emilena's bleeding and reset the sprain in her ankle, but offered no recovery beyond that. Leaving the fox gasping for breath on the bed, Lily crossed to the apartment door, unlocked it, and returned upstairs.
As she approached Marita's door, she regarded her new open wounds, hidden under her layers of clothing. Why didn't they feel like they were healing...?
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Flora tiptoed into the kitchen. "Wh-where's Emi?" she asked nervously.