Unsurprisingly, it was Theo who challenged me. ‘I thought you were concerned about me, my Moth.’
‘Of course I am,’ I snapped. ‘I’m freaking
out
– about everything – which is why I need to be with my sisters. You know that’s the truth.’
I wasn’t going to back down, not this time. Something about seeing my dad hooked up to all those machines, and then seeing Theo standing beside him like the Angel-of-freaking-Death, had shaken me to my core. I had to get away from all of this. I needed to; if only for one night. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about what had just happened to Theo, either. Of course I cared. But he would heal just fine – and Dad might not. I’d promised to call Caitlín as soon as I could, and I intended to keep that promise. I even said I’d go over to the house if I could manage it.
Theo grabbed my hand. ‘You would really leave me while I am injured, little one?’
I hardened my heart. ‘You have Holly and the others. You don’t need me.’
‘I always need you.’
‘That’s what you always say, and it’s never true. Not really. You need your Family – but maybe I need mine too. My human family.’
He winced as Holly helped him onto the back of her bike. ‘We do not have time to debate this now, Marie. Go. Do what you must.’
I didn’t wait around for him to change his mind. I didn’t give Holly or Castel any time to think about what had just happened – what I’d risked by disobeying Theo so publicly. He could have refused me. He could have made an example of me, but instead he’d let me go.
My whole body vibrated with excitement as I made plans. Maybe I could just stop by my place and pack a bag, head straight to my sisters’ house and spend time with them. Hear more about the surgeon’s prognosis. Apparently it was fifty-fifty, and those odds had scared Caitlín more than anything else. That’s what she’d told me back at the hospital.
Dad was sick, and my little sister needed me. Theo, on the other hand, was not exactly in mortal danger.
I
moved
.
I ran all the way back to my apartment.
As I reached the building, I smiled to myself. Running made me feel better. Maybe I should do more of it. The whole breathing thing simply wasn’t an issue. For a moment, I began to entertain fantasies of entering a marathon – while I could still live my life in daylight, of course. I could break all kinds of records! I’d be considered some kind of a prodigy: a miracle of nature! There was the small matter of the fact I’d be cheating, but didn’t I deserve a little fun? And there were probably night marathons too. I should look into it . . .
I screeched to a halt and cursed (loudly) when I realized that there was someone familiar leaning against the exterior wall of my building. I stared at him. Why couldn’t anything ever be simple? It would have been so awesome to have some time off from the World of Crazy.
‘One night,’ I said to Jace. ‘That’s all I wanted!’
He grinned. ‘With me? Well . . . you only had to ask.’
Why did he always have such a pervy answer for everything?
I folded my arms across my chest. ‘You know what I mean. I just wanted some time off, that’s all! Some time with my family. I could put my feet up, drink some coffee, maybe even have a
Buffy
DVD marathon.’
Jace made a face. ‘
Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
You’re into that crap?’
‘Sure, why not? Buffy’s cool.’
‘She’d kick your ass.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I replied, unable to keep the wistful look off my face. ‘I’d probably
let
her win.’
‘Riiight,’ he said. ‘Sure you would.’
I pouted. ‘The world needs Buffy. She has to save the world. And . . . stuff.’
‘Whenever I watched it,’ Jace said, ‘she mostly seemed interested in her love life. She was this badass hunter, but she was still just a girl.’
‘Hey!’ I shoved him in the chest. ‘That’s my heroine you’re talking about.’
‘Only you would have your mortal enemy as a role model,’ he said, half laughing and shaking his head. ‘I can’t figure you out.’
‘Good,’ I said, as I let us both into the building. ‘I wouldn’t want to make things easy for you.’
‘Good,’ he countered. ‘I love a challenge.’ He flashed me a wicked grin and headed up the stairs before I could think of a snappy comeback.
Why me?
We sat at the kitchen table in my apartment, and I brought Jace up to speed on everything that had happened since we last spoke. Much as I was worried about Caitlín – and my dad – I was also dealing with everything that had happened since Nicole’s death. It felt good to share the load, even though I felt guilty that I still wasn’t sharing it with Theo. And then I felt doubly guilty because I was so relieved that my Maker was out of action while he recovered from being shot.
At least he couldn’t go after a certain young hunter for a while.
Speaking of Jace, I told him about the fight with ‘Subject Ten’ and what I’d found so far on Dr Stark and Nemesis. ‘Just give me the Cliffs Notes version,’ he’d said, but it took a long time to get through it all.
I told him about my dad, too, but I didn’t want to dwell on that. Not considering how he’d lost his own father so recently.
We were onto our second cup of coffee, and I was already contemplating making a new pot when Jace tapped his own empty mug on the table next to my laptop. ‘Tell me more about this mysterious Nemesis Project.’ He swung his chair around and then straddled it, leaning against the chair’s back.
I sighed and pulled my own chair around beside his so that we could both see the laptop screen. I jiggled the cordless mouse, quickly locating the information on Dr Stark and accessing the hidden database. I’d half expected the portal to have disappeared, maybe even switched servers, but it appeared that we were in luck.
We went through it all, and I had to admit it was such a relief to have someone know everything that I did. Especially in light of what I’d just been through with my dad. Especially with the way Theo had freaked me out, made me doubt myself, and even
compelled
one of my sisters. I hadn’t forgotten that. I wondered if I ever would.
‘So this girl, this Subject Ten . . . you think she’s a dhampir?’ Jace asked.
‘I don’t know anything for sure,’ I said, even though it seemed like the only logical conclusion I could draw right now. ‘But I do know this: we have a dead Elder. Not just a Master vampire, in charge of a city, but an Elder who oversees all the Masters and all the vampires in a state. Nicole was powerful. Whoever ended her existence must have had good reason – it wasn’t a random killing.’
‘Unless your Maker was the real target.’
I squirmed over that for a moment, because of course I’d wondered the same thing. But my gut said something different. ‘Let’s assume Nicole was the mark, at least for now.’
‘But if we think the shooter might have been this girl you tussled with, what was her motivation? And why would she be implicating
me
?’
‘I don’t know for sure that it was her, although it’s pretty likely.’ I took a slug of cold coffee and grimaced. ‘She could be an assassin, I guess. Although that won’t help us to figure out motivation. Maybe someone hired her.’
‘Not just some
one
,’ Jace said. ‘Maybe a whole group of someones. Like the United Vampire Alliance?’
I shook my head. ‘No way. That’s run by vamps.’
‘Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t take out vampires who would stand in the way of them declaring their existence to the world, though. Isn’t that their agenda? Look at what Kyle did to your Maker.’
Neither of us mentioned Jace’s dad’s role in that particular mess. I quickly moved on. ‘It’s a good theory, but I know for a fact that Nicole supported the UVA. Or, if not the organization, at least she agreed with their principles.’
Thinking back to that debate between her and Theo on the street, just before she’d been dusted, made my stomach hurt. Nicole had seemed positive about the idea of bringing vampires out into the open. Could that have anything to do with this?
Jace rubbed a hand across his face. ‘Really? Well, OK then. At least that rules them out. I guess that leaves us with the Nemesis Project – whatever that actually is.’
I pointed at my laptop screen. ‘This stuff I accessed via Quinn describes what looks like a large-scale operation. There are definite ties to vampires – and not in a good way. We’re talking about something run by scientists.’
‘Dr Stark.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We at least have enough information to go digging. I haven’t even gone through half this stuff yet.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll help with that.’
‘Cool.’ I tried to stay cool myself, thinking about how Jace and I really were working together this time. Like a team! Of course, he would always have to be
my
sidekick. No way was he the boss of me.
‘But if we’re looking at an entire organization,’ my sidekick asked, ‘where does that girl come into it? Do
dhampires
actually exist? Is she part of Nemesis? Did they send her out to kill Nicole, target Theo, and then murder Quinn? And again,’ he said, ‘what do
I
have to do with any of this? Where the hell are the connections?’
My shoulders slumped. This was enough to fry my brain. ‘I don’t know. It’s like we have all the pieces of the puzzle – everything is there, but I’m not sure how it fits together. For all we know, you were just a convenient person to frame. They knew Quinn, and that would have led them to you and your father.’
‘But then why kill Quinn? Were they done with him, so they just tossed him aside?’ Jace looked just as frustrated as I felt.
I tapped the table absent-mindedly. ‘I know this gives us even more questions, but I’m still not sure I believe that Subject Ten is . . . what I think she might be. I’ll have to speak to Theo about it.’
But I didn’t know whether I
should
speak to Theo. Not because I wanted to run around playing hero and deal with this on my own, and not because I wanted to do my usual thing where I kicked against authority – just because I could. Honestly, I simply didn’t know that I could
trust
Theo right now. He was acting super-weird, and everyone else was so damn respectful of him they didn’t dare question him. He’d been effectively alone since Kyle’s betrayal, after fifty years of so-called friendship, even though Holly was doing her best to insinuate herself as his new Enforcer. There were other vampires in Boston, sure, but they weren’t people that Theo felt close to. He was, at heart, a loner. Running a Family didn’t come naturally to him.
Jace nudged me. ‘What are you thinking about? You were miles away just then.’
‘Sorry. I keep trying to make sense of this and all I seem to do is go round in circles.’ I thought for a moment, clutching at all available straws. ‘Hey, do you think maybe your dad knew about the Nemesis Project?’
‘Why would he?’ The defensive tone didn’t escape me, but I ploughed on regardless. Silly me. ‘Well, he was good friends with Quinn, right?’
‘And that means they told each other everything? Had sleepovers? Maybe held hands when they went out on hunts together?’
The mood in the room had shifted so fast, my head was practically spinning.
‘Jace,’ I said, trying not to let my irritation show. ‘I was just asking.’
‘Well, don’t. I don’t want to talk about my father. You, of all people, should understand that. It’s not like
your
dad’s a prince among men.’
It felt like he’d slapped me. ‘Thanks a lot. My dad’s just had major heart surgery and you’re being mean about him.’
‘I’ve never heard you say a good word about him,’ Jace said, pushing his chair away from the table.
I bit my tongue before I could say something nasty about his dad in return, but Jace could see it written all over my face anyway.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. My dad isn’t worth defending, right? You think I don’t know what kind of a man he was? I had enough bruises over the years to figure it out. But . . .’ His voice trailed off.
‘What?’ I tried to keep my tone neutral. After all, who was I to judge?
‘He wasn’t always like that. I’m not saying it makes it right, because it absolutely doesn’t. But he did used to be a better person. He changed after Mom died.’
I thought about my own father, and the way he’d changed after
my
mom’s death. Jace and I had so much in common, although my dad was just a cop with a drink problem – a problem that had existed long before Mom got sick, I should point out – whereas Thomas Murdoch was a vampire hunter, and I still wasn’t entirely sure how his wife had died. Of course, thinking that made me remember the photos I’d snatched from Quinn’s place. Was now the right time to show Jace?
Yeah,
right
.
Jace leaned against the edge of the table, and I listened to his heartbeat. Not in an I-want-to-eat-him kind of way, but more just for comfort. I know that’s weird, but there was something soothing about the steady rhythm of his heart.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked. ‘With me, I mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, surprising me. ‘Maybe. Sometimes.’
‘Well, that’s specific,’ I said with a tiny smile.
He stared at me for a beat, then grinned back. ‘I can’t believe this.’
‘What?’ I said, still smiling. Things were OK again and we were having a moment. I
loved
that we were having a moment.
‘My only real friend in the world at the moment is a vampire.’ He shook his head.
The smile dropped off my face like a stone. ‘Right,’ I said stiffly. ‘Because I’m a monster, and you can’t possibly be friends with a monster.’ Yep, I thought bitterly. We sure are having a ‘moment’ here. I was such an idiot. When would I learn not to be so hopeful? It was the way I’d always been, but I seemed to be getting worse. My heart dipped somewhere down into my stomach.
Jace had taken a step toward me. ‘Hey, I didn’t mean—’
‘I know what you meant,’ I said, my voice cold. ‘It must be so hard for you, having to be friends with someone – oh, I’m sorry, some
thing
– like me. How disgusting. I’m not even a real person, am I?’