Lost Angeles (31 page)

There are tears in Lore’s eyes now, glittering along her lashes, and I’m suddenly rocketed back to a similar face but a different vigil.

Elizabeth lasted three days. Three days of her fragile human body trying to make the turn. Three days of human blood oozing out her every pore because I’d pumped her full of mine and it was trying hard to claim her.

I believed she would make it. That first day, she brimmed over with ferocity, thrashing on the smeared linen and snarling at anyone who came near her. I tasted hope, a single sip from a cup that was dashed from my hand by the second night. Her fangs remained stunted bits of ivory in pale pink gums. When I brought her a tumbler of blood, the merest sip caused her stomach to clench. I watched her grow pale and weak, not voicing my worst fears until that third moonrise. That’s when Elizabeth had turned those blue eyes upon me, eyes that were too tired to cry, and asked me to send for Cas.

I have exactly zero desire to watch that particular shit show again, to see someone else fighting for a life that they’re not ever going to get back. Lore might be ready to face it, but I am not. Except when she turns those heartbreakingly-blue eyes toward me, I find that I’m powerless to save myself, mostly because I can’t deny her a single thing in this universe, not if I have it in my power to make it happen. There’s a heavy ache in my chest, one I don’t acknowledge often, but for once in my life I just let it hit me.

In the meantime, Asher’s doing a good job hiding his concern. He speaks to Jess in an undertone, asks how she’s feeling, fields the weak answers. After changing out the IV bags, he wipes her face clean with a series of damp cloths, betraying himself when he flings them into the garbage with more force than necessary. It looks as if he’s about to reach for her hand, but then pats her on the arm instead. I step closer to Lore, but she doesn’t move. Her gaze is trained upon Jess, and she doesn’t so much as flinch when the baby vamp in question bucks up off the gurney and lets loose with a scream to rival any wraith ever depicted in folklore.

God’s honest truth, this is anyone’s horror story, right here.

Brushing a hand across Jess’s forehead, Asher speaks softly to her until the convulsion ends and her body wilts back to the blood-sodden bed. Like a passing contraction, we’re all standing here watching the soon-to-be stillbirth of one of the could-have-been undead. My hand finds its way to the back of Lore’s neck, and I squeeze a little, kneading the warm flesh. Her concern is written across every clenched muscle in her body.

Asher makes his way back toward us, leaving the land of the lost. “How did you do it?”

It’s exactly the sort of tone he’s always used when dealing with me: the annoyed older brother voice, the pissed-off vampire hunter voice, the stick-up-the-ass do-gooder voice. But when I glance at him, he’s not looking at me. Nope, those hard brown irises are trained on Lore. Every protective instinct I have flares, my hackles rising right along with the hairs on my arms. Lore must feel the tension in my fingers because she very slowly turns her head so that she can look first to me, then to Asher.

“This exact thing happened to you, Lore. They grabbed you and tried to turn you. Except you didn’t turn, and you
didn’t die
.” Asher’s voice breaks and desperation bleeds through. “How did you survive that? What did Cas do?”

My girl just shakes her head, those fair brows drawing together in confusion. “I don’t know.”

Asher approaches her, one hand unconsciously curling into a fist. He’s in full intimidation mode, and it’s obvious to me that Fuzzy Bunny’s not even sure why.

Hell, I’m not even sure why. “What are you talking about, Asher?”

He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t even acknowledge that I spoke. He takes one more step, and that’s one step too close. The hand I had at Lore’s neck slides down her back, fingers clamping around her waist and pulling her behind me. Doesn’t really matter, because Vampire Hunter could take me out in two seconds flat. Lore’s not safe here, and I shouldn’t have let her come, but there’s no going back now.

So much for the bromance.

“You want answers?” he asks. “I’ve got them. But I need answers, too.”

All the color drains from Lore’s face. “What do you mean?”

“You came to LA looking for Reille, right?” Asher snaps out. “And now you’re looking for Cas?”

Her normally open expression shifts to suspicion. “Yeah.”

“I know what happened,” he mutters. “I don’t know
why
, but I know
what
.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was there.” Guilt is painted across Asher’s face, clear as day. “At the vamp facility. I came for you and Reille, but they were keeping you in separate rooms,
different
rooms than our intelligence led us to believe.” He tears his hand through the dark bristle on top of his head. “It was all a setup, I think. I had three men with me, and none of them made it out. It shouldn’t have gone to shit the way it did. If that asshole hadn’t betrayed us—” Then he cuts himself off, shaking his head. “It’s my fault you were stuck there. That they tortured you like that.”

“You left me there?” Lore asks, the icy chill of her fingers creeping along my wrist to my hand. When I turn to look at her, she’s pale as death. “To
die
?”

“That’s the point. You
didn’t
die. You
survived.
”

When Asher takes another step toward her, I’m there between him and her, growling into his face. “Step off, Reece.”

Except he reaches around me to grasp a fistful of Lore’s shirt. “I need to know how you did it—”

My arm flashes out reflexively, my open palm catching him at the shoulder and shoving him backward. Lore’s chest thuds against my side, a startled cry escaping her as Asher’s grip pulls her against me before he finally lets go. Without warning, all the fury drains from Asher’s body, his spine returning to that dejected slouch. He retreats a few feet, eyes flashing toward the two-way glass before they seek out Lore.

“Jess saved my life last night,” he says. “I owe her. So I need to know how you fought the change when they tried to turn you. And I need to know what Cas Declan did… to bring you back.”

Since Asher pulled back the curtain around Jess, I’ve been in a stomach-dropping nightmare I can’t escape. I close my eyes and know exactly what it feels like
.
The way the blood pushes out of your skin. The clammy-wet of the sheets underneath. The way the pain comes in waves, tearing through every muscle like it’s changing them one at a time.

There’s a sound like rushing water in my ears, and I feel sick. Shaky. I can’t move, because if I do, something’s going to break loose inside me. Something I might never put back together. On top of all that, I’m assaulted by sterility: bleach, iodine, alcohol, antibacterial cleaners. The overwhelming smell of blood brings the bile up my throat, and I’m hard-pressed to gulp it back down.

How did you survive?

“You asshole.” Xaine lunges, fist raised, but Asher’s faster with a gun, drawing a modified Glock that hums with a UV charge. Only then does Xaine step back, spitting mad. “You’ve been holding out on us the entire time.”

A muscle twitches in Asher’s cheek. He lowers the gun as I pull Xaine backwards, twisting my hands in the fabric of his shirt. My vampire protector curls his lip, flashing fangs, but he allows me to hold him, even going so far as to reach back and catch my wrist.

“Why didn’t you say anything at the police station?” It’s the first question that presents itself in the aftermath of Asher’s revelation.

He shifts, glancing away as if he can’t bear to look at me. “I wasn’t at the precinct for you… not originally. They called me because Xaine had been brought in for questioning in a murder investigation. I showed up because I’ve wanted to pin X’s ass to a wall ever since he put my sister
through
one.”

“Then why talk to me at all?” I ask.

“I was supposed to get you out, and I didn’t. You’ve been on my conscience for a year. Then I realized you’d survived just to end up in Xaine’s back pocket. Needless to say, I don’t exactly trust him to mind his manners. But you looked fine, and I told myself that you made it out, that you were moving on.” Asher pauses before asking, “But you haven’t moved on, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.” I touch Xaine, because I need to touch Xaine. I’m ice cold, but I doubt he notices. He keeps his hand clamped around mine, his body between mine and Asher’s. “And you can grill me all you want, but I barely know what happened. The memories are just… dreams I can’t remember.”

“Doesn’t keep her from staying up all night, just to avoid sleeping,” Xaine says, laying on the guilt trip. “Or waking up in a sweat, or nearly falling off the bed. So be a prince and tell us what you know so my girl can start the healing process, huh?”

He’s so indignant it makes me smile the tiniest bit, despite the gravity of our situation. The Angry Doctor Phil routine is kind of adorable.

“I’ll tell her whatever she wants to know.” Asher’s jaw tightens, and his chin tilts up with resolve. “Once she gives me the answers I need.”

“I don’t have the answers you need,” I tell him. “Don’t you think that I’d do everything in my power to save Jess? I don’t know anything.”

“You do know.” It’s a statement of fact, or at least the facts as Asher knows them. “You know they tried to turn you. We figured that much out, but there’s a gap. I found Reille and extracted her, but we were forced to leave you behind. We just couldn’t stay any longer. After that, there was no communication with the inside.”

“Why don’t you ask Cas?” I say. “He’s the one who knows everything. He was
there
! I remember him.”

The look Asher gives me is strange, like he’s trying to piece things together, too. “No, Lore, Cas wasn’t there.”

“I remember him,” I insist, pressing my fingers to my temple, trying to drum up the memories of his face. “I do. I know he was there.”

“Your brain scrambled the timeline.” Asher’s expression goes sympathetic. “We got word a few days later that you—” He hesitates before admitting, “that you’d died.”

I can only blink at him, struggling to keep a lid on my disbelief, but Xaine has no such compunction.

“What are you trying to say here?”

“You know Cas, Xaine,” Asher says. “He was pissed as hell that Lore got left behind, but he wasn’t about to let the bastards donate her body to science.”

“No, of course not,” Xaine snorts. “Not when he could do it himself, right?”

Ignoring the jibe, Asher returns his attention to me. “You were transported to CasDec Medical on February tenth of last year after being reported missing by your adoptive parents three weeks prior. You were brought in via
body bag
from an unspecified location. You were dropped at the facility as a research specimen, Lore. A
cadaver
.”

My stomach drops, and for a long moment I think I might be sick. It’s the worst sort of fiction, the kind that asks you to suspend belief just a little too much. The sort where you’re sitting, and frowning, and thinking—

This has gone too far to be real.

But Asher’s not done, not by a long shot.

“There’s a gap,” he reiterates. “I know what happened before and I know what happened after. I just need to know what happened
during
, because that’s the part that could save Jess.”

Swallowing hard, I look toward the room where my friend is dying. Women don’t make the turn; we’re told that all the time, and it’s not a warning to be trifled with. It’s the world’s most relevant PSA, just in case someone was seriously considering it.

“I told you before, I only have the one distinct memory, and it’s of Caspian Declan. Just his face, his eyes, looking at me. I don’t know what happened at CasDec, Asher. I would tell you if I did.” I can feel my tone flattening out, the ragged edges becoming sharp as a razor. “I remember being grabbed by Silver Teeth, but there’s nothing except tiny flashes until I woke up in the mental facility back home.”

On the East Coast, three thousand miles from Los Angeles, CasDec Medical, or any viable memory of the weeks between January and March.

“No one at CasDec will talk to me, and the man in charge is on a different continent at the moment.” Asher crosses his arms over his chest. “What information I have, I had to get by other means, and it all equates to a whole lot of not much.”

A familiar story. The last few months have been nothing but a whole lot of
not much
. If I want to help Jess, I’m going to need to remember what happened in the glaring blank spot between
then
and
now
. More than ever, I’m convinced that my hunch back at the house was spot-on.

“I don’t have your answers, Ash,” I say, falling into a comfortable half-version of his name. “But I know who might. We need to track down Benicio.”

“What for?” Xaine barks out, his every muscle immediately tensed, coiled, ready to spring. “Look, I don’t understand what the hell’s going on here, but I’m not sure what
he
has to do with any of it.”

“Because if anyone would know what’s going on inside your head,” Asher says slowly and right over the top of him, “it would be the sin-eater who’s been using it as his personal playground.”