David’s eyes narrowed. “You’d do that—for her?”
“Of course I would, David.” I touched my chest. “I have no reason in this entire world not to.”
“Not even the fact that she’s my ex?”
My face folded awkwardly with a half frown
, half smile. “I’m just not that kind of person.”
“He knows that,” Jase said simply.
He stood up really slowly and looked me over, resting a closed fist just under his nose, then nodded. “What if it doesn’t work?”
“We won’t stop trying until it does.” I smiled. “But I think it will.”
“I’ll come with you to get her,” Jason said. “You’ll need me to get in her head and keep her calm so we can transport her.”
David didn’t even look back at Jason. I could tell, anyone could tell, that he hated Jason more than ever right now. But I knew, deep inside, he didn’t blame his brother. He blamed Drake. “We leave at first light,” he said. “And not a second later.”
Jason nodded. “I’ll start packing. Ara?”
“Mm?”
“Rain-check on that picnic?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “That’s fine.”
***
Words from that little chat with David replayed in my head while I tried to sleep
; entering with one meaning, leaving with a completely different one. I knew there was no renewing our relationship and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want the David I knew before to be with that sad, sorry little version of me. It was set for failure from day one: he was too ‘controlling’ and I was too … easily led. But the way he looked at me tonight—with that tiny hint of undeniable love in his eyes—somehow diluted the anger I felt toward him and deposited a quick flicker of a thought that maybe we hadn’t lost in love just yet. I couldn't say I wanted that at all, really, but my mind was starting to convince other parts of me, and just as soon as that old feeling of love slipped in and brightened my eyes, so too did the voice of Lilith—warning me that I had to be with Jason. Only trouble was, I loved him—loved Jason enough to worry that, if I was having second thoughts about David, what would that mean for him? He deserved a girl that loved him like the flower loves the sun. Cliché, I know, but he shone so bright in my world that I couldn't let him become the day behind my eyes, seen only when the cloud—David—wasn’t around. He deserved so much better than that. And I decided then that until my heart and mind were in sync again, it was time to back away slightly.
I rolled my covers back with one arm and wriggled out of bed, feet landing first, arms pushing me onto my side so I could roll up gracefully without pulling a muscle in my bulbous tummy. These thoughts and feelings did no good bouncing around in my head all night
, so loud I couldn't sleep; the time had come to talk to Jason about it. If he knew how I felt, he could do with it what he wanted. Something told me, though, that he wouldn't pick up his pride and sense of self-preservation at the door and leave me to wallow in my own confusion; he’d stick around and make it hard for me to decide.
I hesitated by my door, gripping the handle, and took a long breath, readying myself for those green eyes and that sweet smile to muddle my clarity up again.
“Quaid,” I said, opening my door. But Falcon, surprisingly, looked up instead. I stopped mid-step, not sure I should go on.
“Everything okay?” he asked, bookmarking his page.
“Uh, yeah.” I closed my door behind me. “I can’t sleep.”
His lips meshed tightly and he looked from me to Jason’s bedroom door. “He’s awake.”
“How’d you know that’s where I was headed?” I said, shrinking a little.
He shrugged and crossed an ankle over his knee, going back to his book as if I’d not even disturbed him. I took that as silent approval, no matter how strange it seemed, and walked sideways, spine to the wall, in case Falcon grabbed me and hauled me into my own room again. Even as I rapped my knuckles lightly on Jase’s door, I never took eyes off my guard.
“I could hear you tossing and turning from here,” Jase said, opening his door.
I turned around then and gave him an awkward grin, baring all my front teeth in a cheesy attempt to say sorry.
He laughed. “Come in. I’ll get changed and we’ll go down to the lab.”
“The lab?”
He shut the door behind him and appeared across the room at his drawers. “You’ve been thinking about this breakthrough. I know it’s keeping you up.”
The lids of my eyes came closer together as the muscles twitched in confusion. “Jase, I wasn’t—”
“I know,” he said simply. “But I’m not ready to talk about all that right now, Ara. You’re not telling me anything I haven’t already heard in your thoughts a million times.”
The narrowed slits of my eyes angled to the ground. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Matters of the heart take time to figure out, sweet girl. And I…” He stopped with his hands on the top of the oak chest, his head lowered.
“You?” I prompted.
“He’s changed. He’s not the man he used to be.”
“Who?”
“My brother.” He turned and looked at me then. “The man I thought I knew … you don’t need me to protect you from him anymore—he’s proven that. And so have you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He drummed his fingertips on the wood. “You don’t take shit from him like you used to. And he … well, let’s just say I’m not so scared anymore that he’ll hurt you.”
“And what changed that?”
He turned to his drawers again. “The way he’s been since … everything. I gotta say, Ara—” He flashed me a guarded grin before looking away again. “I expected him to beat you after he found out about you and I—at the very least.”
“So did I.” I rubbed my head, taking a seat on the edge of his bed.
“I know you’re confused about things again, pretty girl, and I know talking them through helps, but…” He bowed his head in sorrow. “For the sake of my own salvation, I just can’t do that tonight.”
“Okay,” I said, offering a sympathetic smile, despite him not looking at me. “Get dressed then and we’ll go see about this breakthrough.”
“I am sorry, Ara,” he said.
Our gazes locked from across the room for a long moment, time moving on without us.
“I don’t expect you to be my go-to guy, Jase—”
“But I don’t mind, I—”
“Yes, but that wasn’t what I came here for. I…” I let my shoulders drop, not realising how high they were until my stomach hurt from holding my breath. “I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t quite—”
“On the same page as me?” he suggested. “Romantically speaking.”
I nodded.
“I appreciate that, Ara
—more than you know.”
I nodded again, and the smile I held became a forced one, locked in place by his intense stare. I knew he was in my head, reading all the thoughts he didn’t want to hear me say, but I let him in there, because if I couldn't at least be sure about what I wanted, I
could
be honest. And as he turned away and started fussing about in his drawers, I knew that was enough. At least for now. If it were me and I couldn't have what I desired most, I’d be happy for a bit just knowing where I stood. It hurt my heart in the deepest, most breaking way to be brutally honest with him, knowing it hurt him so bad, but that also clearly meant it was the right thing to do.
I laid back, watching him, trying not to see him as a living, feeling being
—trying not to pity him. My stupid heart always mixed things up, and pity could easily be mistaken for love. But this little lamb was finally waking up to that, and I just let it be pity for a second, acknowledging that I loved him but that, perhaps, it wasn't the love I always thought it was. Or perhaps it was just changing.
And in trying to move my thoughts away from my problems, I switched focus and took a good look at the space around me, imagining, since this was the room right beside mine, how it would look as a nursery. It was set out much the same as his room downstairs
; the exception being that, where there once was a secret dividing wall, there was now another window, a bathroom and a sitting area. But everything else was the same: the position of his bed to the left of the door, the mess of papers on the oak table, and the stack of books by the windowsill. And I couldn't help but think that if I removed all those books, the window nook would make a nice place to sit and feed my baby late at night. We could watch the stars together.
“You sure you wanna go out in your PJ’s?” Jase asked, rousing my mind as it positioned a crib by the window, instantly rethinking that since it was too close to the fire.
“I’m not too fussed,” I said, looking over at the vampire standing there in nothing but a pair of briefs. “No one will be up at this hour anyway.”
He slipped his jeans on, pulling them up around his waist
with a jump and buttoned them, grabbing a shirt off the top of his drawers. “Okay then. Let’s go.”
“You’re ready already?”
“Yup,” he said, his head poking out through the hole in his shirt. He bent down and grabbed his shoes, scooping the keys up off his table before opening the door. “Come on.”
***
The hum of bubbling beakers and the whir of expensive machinery made the lab seem alive, buzzing sort of, like there was a team of scientists pondering over the tests and experiments through the night. I half expected to see a dozen men in white lab coats look up and send a polite nod our way as we walked in and locked the door behind us, but only darkness, interrupted by flickering green or red indicators on things around the room gave us any attention.
“So, what I’m about to show you might be a bit disturbing.”
“O … kay. Maybe I should leave.”
He laughed breathily, sending a sweet smile my way. “It involves looking at dead bodies.”
All blood immediately drained from my face. “Let me rephrase that. I’m definitely leaving.”
“Come on. You can handle it. You’re a vampire.” He took my hand and led me into the morgue, where he closed the door, positioned me in the centre of the room and grabbed his tablet off the counter. “Now, being that time changes the state of a dead body, I’ve documented these findings in a slideshow.”
“Oh, a
slideshow
,” I said, patting my chest. “That’s not the same as looking at an
actual
dead body.”
“Well, this is the first part. Next, I’ll be bringing out Exhibit A, whose insides have some fascinating things to show you,” he teased.
“Argh.”
With a small chuckle, he went on, showing me the first image on the tablet. “So, I performed these tests on three vampires, using a human as the control, measuring the time of death against the signs and symptoms of the vampire bodies and the human one.”
“And?”
“And, after injecting the vampires with Mike’s venom and watching them die, their bodies simply went flaccid and stayed that way.”
“So?”
“So, in humans, a process known as rigor mortis begins a few hours after death, setting in to the greater extremities completely by around four hours, then continu
ing to stiffen the body for up to twelve more hours, gradually dissipating until roughly forty-eight to sixty hours after death. But in these guys…” He tapped the screen. “Nothing. And you won’t believe what happened to them after three days.”
“I’m sure I will once you’ve shown me icky pictures.”
He laughed again. “Well, first of all, what I want you to see is what happened to those injected with
your
venom.”
“Okay. Why? What happened to them then?”
He showed me the screen. “Human exhibit on the right; vampire killed with your venom on the left. This is both bodies at three hours after death.” He swiped sideways on the screen and another image came up. “Six hours, and finally, twelve.”
“They look the same.”
“Yes, now look at the bodies killed with Mike’s venom.”
At two, four, six and twelve hours, when compared to the human, Mike’s kills hadn’t changed at all. They were just dead, floppy specimens. “Gross.”
“Yes.” He laughed. “Then, and I won’t
show
you this, but those bodies began to liquefy.”
“What’d you mean by liqu
efy?”
“Well, what happens to liquid if you freeze it?” He motioned to the morgue’s freezer.
“It becomes ice.”
“Yep. Unless the cells were once immortal. Then, they act like
vodka. They don’t freeze and, unlike a human body, they turn to liquid—even the bones—and leave a right bloody mess for me to have to mop up.”
I covered my slowly opening mouth, drawing a breath to force down the inching heat of vomit.
“The difference, I found,” he continued, “between yours and Mike’s venom, is that yours doesn’t just kill. It will do so eventually, after about thirty seconds, give or take, based on the size of the specimen, but overall your venom quite simply slows the regeneration of the cells, stopping the process that essentially makes us immortal.”