Darkness Before Dawn (32 page)

“I just couldn’t do it,” he says, laughing at his own inside joke. “I wanted to. God, did I want to! I wanted to know what it tasted like. I had to know. I had to know why they wanted us so badly. Why they needed our blood. Why we had to be scared every night!”

He slams his foot into the wall, and I see bits of the ceiling flake off and fall down on him. It’s as if his sanity is currency, and once he runs out, he has to destroy something to get it back.

The shock of seeing my brother like this is unbearable. A part of me always thought he might’ve been alive. But why is he like
this?
Losing his grip on reality, rambling and repeating himself, twitching like he has some neurological disease.

And then I realize what’s happened to him. I’m not sure when, or for how long he’s been suffering this way. But there’s no question
why
he has rows of fangs, why his eyes are blackened, why he’s a stranger in his own body, why he disarmed Michael so easily.

The Thirst.

“You couldn’t feed on humans, could you?” I ask.

“Never. I never did, Dawn. I want you to know that. I never did. All those vampires, for all those years, I stalked them on the outside. Killing and drinking them. I didn’t want to do that either; I wanted to stop. But it was too late. It’s all I can think about. It’s all-consuming. But it’ll end tonight. It’ll end very, very soon. When Victor comes for you.”

My eyes go wide. I’m the bait. No, he can’t be that cruel, to use me in that way.

“I’ve been watching you,” he says, answering me before I can ask. “Someone had to, after Mom and Dad died. I’ve been protecting you. That vampire at Dawson Elementary. He wanted your blood. I wouldn’t let him have it. Or any of the others. When they got too close, I took care of them.”

By ripping out their throats.

“Only one is left. Old Family Victor. And when he comes here, I’m going to kill him. Then I’m going to drink his blood. And I’ll be cured, Dawn. I’ll become human, and then we can be a family again. I can get my job back at the Works, and I can come home every night and we can watch TV together, and we can—”

“That won’t cure you, Brady. There’s no cure for what you have.”

“No! He told me! He said it would cure me.”

“Who told you that?”

“Sin!”

“Sin?” His favorite creation. His perfection.

My brother nods. “He slit his wrist and bled onto the ground. His blood is like gold. It costs him so much to give away even a little to another. So he has to be very select in who he turns. He has to turn the right people for his army. Because of him, I can walk in the sun. But because I feed off of vampires, I’ve become this! I … I thought that Sin would hate me for that. I had taken his gift of day walking and become a monster. But he didn’t hate me. He gave me a special mission. He told me … he told me that Victor wanted to hurt you. He said I could protect you by killing him, and then drink his Old Family blood. And it would cure me.”

Sin. He took Brady and now he’s trying to take Victor. Only he won’t do it himself. He must not be as strong as his half brother. Letting Victor kill his father, then letting this perverted version of my once-loved brother kill Victor. Is that Sin’s weakness? Does his ability to walk in the sun come at the cost of the strength and speed gifted to every other vampire? He may have power that exceeds humans’, but he could still be weaker than other vamps.

“Sin lied to you,” I say. “There’s no cure for the Thirst! He’s just using you as a pawn in his game.”

“No!” He digs his nails into the wall, brings them down, scoring it, paper and plaster crumbling onto the floor. He makes fists and pounds the wall like an upset child. “He told me the truth! He had to; it’s the final escape from this … this torture!”

Oh, Brady. The only reason you’re like this is because you couldn’t harm another human, couldn’t drink their blood. If you had taken their lives, you would’ve saved your own sanity.

My heart is heavy with sadness. But it’s heavier with the guilt I’ll soon have to swallow. Because there’s no cure for the Thirst, except the stake.

“
Victor’s
no good,” he snarls. “He’s using you. My precious little sister. So innocent. So naive. No one’s good enough for you.”

“I’m not a little girl anymore!”

Though to him, I am. To Brady, who heard my screams as he fought, I must still be trapped, still need his protection. Has he played that night out over and over again in this room? Has he found a way to change things? Has he found a way to be redeemed? That’s why the final confrontation has to be here. Victor, not Sin, will be the vampire who stole his life eight years ago, but this time Brady will win. In his mind, when he drinks Victor’s blood, he’ll be cured.

“He won’t come,” I say. “Victor doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Of course I do.”

I jerk my head around.

Victor’s standing in the doorway. I instantly regret seeing him. Brady would never kill me, but it’s too dangerous for Victor to be here. Brady is beyond reason, and he thinks Victor’s blood offers an escape from his torment.

“I had a feeling Father’s other son would be creating havoc tonight,” he says to me, not even acknowledging Brady. “Richard, Faith, and I came to the city as soon as the sun set, trying to figure out where he would strike.”

“It’s Sin. He’s a Day Walker.”

“That explains why he feels like a ghost. Vampires can usually sense when another one is near, but when I met him”—he shakes his head—“I couldn’t read him. I didn’t give him much thought because I had other things on my mind.”

“Why would your father not embrace him?”

“He must have feared his power.”

“It’s my power you need to fear!” Brady shouts.

“Victor, this is my brother. Brady.”

“Not anymore.” And with that regretful phrase, Victor pronounces my brother’s death sentence.

“I wish you didn’t have to do this,” I say, speaking to them both, although I know there’s no salvation for Brady.

“Don’t worry,” Brady says. “It’ll all be over very soon.”

“You have no idea who I am.” Victor’s fists curl, his forearms surprisingly large for his slender body.

“Old Family, always thinking you’re the best.”

“I’m so sorry, Dawn.” Victor pulls out a metal stake from behind his back.

“Me too,” Brady says, opening his gaping jaw, revealing the razor-wire fangs.

Victor makes the first move, kicking a chair so hard it flies at Brady, who smashes it with his fists. But it was just a distraction, and Victor is on him. I expect the sound of metal piercing flesh and bone, for Brady’s eyes to go wide, and then years of torment to end violently, tragically. But all I hear is the clash of bodies, no one gaining the advantage over the other. It’s fast and brutal. It isn’t like Victor’s fight with his father, which seemed oddly beautiful, a choreographed ballet of blurred motions, as if they’d been dueling for a hundred years and now it was displayed. In front of me is the raw, animalistic need for one to destroy the other.

And me, scared, backed against the wall. I want to help, but I’d just get in the way.

One of their ribs cracks; I can hear it echo in the small apartment. One of them gasps as all the air leaves him.

Victor sinks his stake into Brady’s thigh, but it doesn’t even faze him. Victor extracts it and tries to slam it into his opponent’s heart, but Brady dodges somehow, then locks Victor’s arm under his own.

With strength I didn’t think possible, my brother lifts Victor up and throws him, like he would an oversize pillow, through our living room wall into the neighboring apartment. Wood and plaster rain down as Victor slides across the floor.

“Stop it, Brady!” I shout, but I might as well be on the moon.

Brady reaches down and picks up Victor’s stake, which has fallen to the floor. He stalks over to the Old Family vampire and brings the stake down toward Victor’s heart.

Victor reacts just in time, deflecting the blow. The metal penetrates his chest, but is off the mark. The vampire’s heart still beats.

Brady, ripping the stake out, cocks his head back, revealing the rows of deadly fangs. I force myself to my feet, wave off the dizziness from whatever Brady injected into me, and rush across the room as my brother, whose screams haunted me for eight years, clamps down on Victor’s shoulder, his grotesque fangs cleanly piercing the skin, blood spurting in a sickening arch.

“Brady, no!” I slam into him, wrap my arms around him, struggle to pull him—

With one arm, he flings me away as though I’m nothing. I hit the floor hard, am disoriented, but I can see Victor’s eyes. He’s tired, worn-out, on the verge of surrendering.

Look at me, Victor. You have to fight.

Brady’s teeth grind into his shoulder, and Victor is beyond feeling pain. He’s slipping away.

“Victor!” I shout, all the emotions I’ve ever felt for him coming up in this singular moment.

He closes his eyes, and when they open, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in him. An all-consuming rage has taken over. He grits his teeth, his fangs longer than before. He grips Brady by the shoulders and pushes him away, tearing his own shoulder flesh as Brady refuses to release him.

Victor punches him across the face so hard one of Brady’s many fangs flies out, covered in the blood that was once Victor’s. The Old Family vampire delivers another well-timed strike to his opponent’s jaw, and then sends Brady flying with a kick. My brother crashes through the coffee table in front of me. His mouth is dripping with red. He shakes his head and stands up just in time for Victor to jump on him, stake at the ready, placed right above Brady’s heart.

I watch the scene unfold. Seconds pass, but they might as well be years. Eight years. Alone in that closet. Scared to come out. Scared to help. Scared to do anything but cry.

Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl.

I couldn’t have saved you then, Brady. But I can save you now.

I crawl over to Victor, who can’t overcome Brady’s strength alone. Each has his hands wrapped around the stake, one pressing down, the other pushing up, the tip resting just on the surface of the skin, not yet piercing it.

I put my hands over Victor’s. I feel his blood rushing through them, thumping with his heart. I afford Brady only one look, because it’s all I can endure—knowing what I have to do. His black eyes see the betrayal. But can he understand that I’m doing this for him? Somewhere deep inside his infected brain, is there a part that says,
Please, Dawn, end this agony?

The only reason he has the Thirst is because he could never harm a human. He hates what he’s become—the shattered mirror in my apartment makes sense now. And with that thought racing through my mind, I shed one final tear for him, for my parents, for this unfair world.

“I love you, Brady,” I whisper, with tears in my eyes. “Don’t be afraid of the dark.”

Then I press down with all my weight. It’s quick. He doesn’t even scream. He simply stops struggling. Then goes still. Forever.

Leaning over, I press a kiss to his forehead and pray that he’s now at peace.

I know my struggles aren’t over. My hands are covered in blood. Victor’s blood, still pouring from his shoulder. And worse, escaping from his chest.

He’s moved away from Brady, and his eyes have returned to the ones that enter my dreams. Only now they’re sad.

“Victor,” I say. He doesn’t respond, just stares off into the night, his back resting against the couch. “Victor.”

“I’m so sorry, Dawn.” His voice is weak. He pulls his hand away from his chest and the blood flows out. I rush over to him, kneel down, and put my palm over his chest. The blood is warm, and I can feel his heart slowing, sputtering, struggling.

“Victor … why won’t the bleeding stop?”

“I’ll be fine. The wound in my heart is deep, but it’ll heal. In time.”

“How much time?” I know vampires can heal in a matter of minutes, maybe an hour if the damage is severe. But if his heart has been punctured, what then? Even with the stake removed, it still bleeds.

“Don’t worry....”

“Victor! How long!”

“A day. Maybe more.” As he says it he coughs and grits his teeth, pure agony resonating through him.

“We don’t have that long,” I say. “Sin might still be out there; he might be looking for us. He might be looking for you.”

“Then let him find me. At least I’ll have … these last moments with you.”

“Don’t say that. Come on, we can get you out of here.”

I try to lift him up, but he weighs too much, and I know that we’ll never get him to a safe place fast enough.

“I wish this could’ve ended differently,” Victor says.

“It isn’t your fault.”

“It’s always been my fault. Everything around you. I created this.”

He’s losing his grip on the world. His head moves lazily in circles.

“Victor, you have to drink from me. My blood can heal you.” I move forward, working my dress down so my neck is exposed clearly.

“No! I won’t do that to you, Dawn.”

“You’ll … you’ll die. If Sin doesn’t find you, the sun will.”

“Better me than you. I need too much blood to heal this wound. And the only way to save you… You’d hate being a vampire.”

It won’t end here. Not like this. I grab a piece of sharpened wood, splintered off of the table when Brady shattered it. I press it against my neck. I don’t know where the artery is, but if I can get it deep enough at all…

“Don’t,” he says, trying to swat my makeshift instrument away, but he’s so weak now he can barely lift his arm.

“Victor, I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go. Not because you’re important to the city, but because you’re important to me.”

“Dawn…” He breathes my name like a soliloquy.

“Take my blood.”

“I won’t be able to stop. To save you, I’d have to turn you.”

“You aren’t a monster, Victor. I trust you.”

I put down the stake, lean in, and nestle my face against Victor’s good shoulder, placing the throbbing pulse in my neck within easy reach of his fangs. “It’s okay,” I whisper into his ear. “I love you.”

He cups my face and turns me toward him. I look into his eyes as he kisses me, and then close my own. It’s the sweetest kiss I’ve ever known, made better by the struggle that brought us here.