Authors: Melody Johnson
“Stay down and shut up while I figure out what to do with you.” I shook my head. “Jesus.”
She listened to me and remained on the ground. I took a deep breath. She didn’t look well, not that any vampire looked well before feeding, but Ronnie looked especially sickly. The word “deteriorating” came to mind. I wondered how long she could remain in the safe room, surrounded by silver, and not die.
“Hello?” I heard Walker bellow again, and this time, I also heard the accompanying snap of him loading the sawed-off shotgun.
Ronnie perked up, hearing his voice.
“Sit,” I hissed, “and shut up.”
Before Ronnie got any brave ideas, I shut the door and locked her in the basement. Who could have guessed that I’d use the safe room to protect a vampire against a night blood? The silver might burn her skin, but I had no illusions that whatever Walker would do when he saw Ronnie would be much worse and more permanent than silver exposure.
I turned on the steps to face Walker. Dread, like warm milk, soured in my mouth.
* * * *
I raised my hands and spoke before walking up the steps. I knew how trigger-happy Walker could be when provoked.
“It’s just me. It’s DiRocco. I’m coming up from the basement steps.”
Sure enough, Walker turned the corner as I spoke, shotgun in hand and aimed at me.
I stopped cold, my hands already raised.
Walker dropped the gun. “Fuck, Cassidy. What the hell? What happened to your head? Are you all right?”
I touched my forehead, surprised. I’d forgotten about the goose egg. “I’m fine. Just leftover injuries from last night.”
Walker leaned closer, his eyes narrowed. “That swelling looks pretty fresh.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted.
He crossed his arms. “Why was the door wide open?”
“When I got here the entire house was empty. Where is everyone?” I asked, avoiding his question.
Walker shrugged. “The last I saw, everyone was here this morning, taking shelter in the basement. No one seemed real inclined to leave the safe room after last night.”
I raised my eyebrows. They’d obviously left the safe room. “Where were you? Why didn’t you answer my calls?”
Walker leaned casually against the doorframe, but I noticed that he hadn’t holstered the shotgun. “Some of us have lives to live, cases to solve, people to find. While you were playing night blood to Dominic, Officer Montgomery died and Agent Rowens isn’t far behind.”
“Rowens survived?” I whispered
Walker nodded. “He tied a belt around his shoulder in a tourniquet before passing out.”
“Oh, thank God,” I muttered. “Does he remember anything from last night? Has he said anything about—”
“He hasn’t regained consciousness yet,” Walker said, cutting me off. “He’s just barely hanging on.”
“Oh.” I bobbed my head, half nodding and half thinking. Hopefully he wouldn’t remember the details from his attack. Even if he did, no one would believe him, and the truth would only haunt him or drive him crazy for the rest of his life—if the vampires didn’t silence him first.
“What are the police saying about the scene?” I asked. “Do they have any leads?”
“With Riley and Rowens hit, it’s personal,” Walker said. “No one knows we were at the scene yet, but they’re questioning my absence from the search when they found Colin.”
“They found Colin?” Relief made my voice tremble.
Walker nodded. “But we have another problem.”
You have no idea,
I thought. “Something worse than Nathan?”
He heaved a lengthy sigh. “Now we can’t find Colin’s father. Logan hasn’t been answering his phone, he never stopped at the precinct this afternoon, and he still hasn’t been reunited with Colin. I came back here for him, but—” Walker looked around, at a loss. “I’m guessing he’s not here.”
“No one’s here but me. When was the last time you saw him?”
“He was here this morning along with everyone else.”
“
Everyone
else?” I asked. “Ronnie was here this morning, too?”
“Yeah; Ronnie, Logan, Keagan, Theresa, and Jeremy. They were all here.”
“And Ronnie was OK this morning?” I asked. If Ronnie had been here and human this morning, how had she been attacked, bitten, and transformed in less than twelve hours? According to Dominic, the transformation took no less than three nights. And where the hell was everyone else now if they had been here with her this morning?
Something thick and rotten settled in my gut.
“I don’t know if Ronnie was technically, ‘OK’, but she was making pancakes this morning, like she always does,” Walker narrowed his eyes. “What’s with the twenty questions, DiRocco?”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and made a split second decision. I didn’t know whether or not I’d be able to justify my decision later, but I knew how Walker felt about vampires. He wouldn’t see Ronnie. He would only see a target. “When I came home, the house was empty.”
Walker frowned. “Ronnie wasn’t here?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“That’s not like her.”
“No, it’s not.”
He pursed his lips. “You should’ve been here today.”
I blinked, thrown by his flat, angry tone. “Excuse me?”
“I needed you here with Keagan and Ronnie. He’s pretty good with my weapons, but he’s still just a kid, and God love her, but Ronnie can’t protect herself. She’d die of fright before the vampires even touched her.”
“I don’t see how that’s my—”
“While I was protecting us from the FBI, I needed you here, protecting my home,” Walker said, his voice hard.
“Why am I getting the impression that you’re pissed at
me
?”
“There’s that dead-on-target gut of yours again, DiRocco, never failing to point you in the right direction,” Walker said, but his tone was ugly. He’d never spoken to me like that before.
“What the hell’s your problem?” I asked, his anger sparking mine.
“You lied to me,” He snapped. “I thought you came here for me, but you came here for Dominic.”
I stilled, the validity in that statement far closer to the truth than I cared to admit. “That’s not true. I came here for you.”
Walker shook his head. “When it came down to choose between me or him last night, you chose him.”
“We were two night bloods against three vampires. I chose to survive.”
And I don’t need to apologize for that,
I thought, Rene’s advice ringing true in my heart. “And between the two of us, you’re the liar.”
Walker’s face flushed a bright red. “I’ve never lied to you. Ever.”
“We talked on the phone for weeks—three whole weeks—and not once did you mention that you were having seizures,” I said, squeezing my hands into fists.
“I’m fine,” he said tersely.
“Then I guess we differ on the definition of ‘fine.’” I said, forcing a calm I didn’t feel. “You were admitted into the hospital. Your skull was fractured, and you’ve been suffering for weeks. That’s not ‘fine,’ Walker.”
He just stared at me.
“I could have been here for you,” I said, not knowing what more I could say to make him see reason.
Walker’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t want you here for that.”
We were still an arms-length apart, but it may as well have been miles. “Then why did you even invite me here?” I asked, beyond exasperated.
He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter now. I was wrong about us,” he said. “I’ll help you contain or kill Nathan—I’ll help you in whatever you need to stop the murders—but I think we should keep things professional between us from now on. Once Nathan is stopped, you should return to the city.”
A horrible, chilling wave of inevitability soaked over my anger. I laughed, partially in denial and partially fed up. “I thought you wanted me to live here in your house with all the other night bloods. I thought the city wasn’t safe.”
“It’s not,” he said. “But I don’t want you living here anymore.”
“So we’re done.” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that?”
He nodded.
I needed to swallow before I could talk, and I realized with startling horror that I might cry. “I thought something wonderful was growing between us. I thought—”
“I thought the same thing, but it’s just not there.”
I stared at him, incredulous. “It’s just not there,” I repeated numbly. “When we were kissing in Ronnie’s old house, was it not there?”
“Cassidy, that’s not—”
“Or when you felt me up on my desk at
The Sun Accord
, was it not there, either?”
Walker rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not—”
“Because as I recall, it certainly
was
there,” I interrupted. “That was never our problem. Our problem isn’t about you and me. Your problem is with me and Dominic.”
Walker snapped his mouth shut and glared at me.
“You’re pissed because I spent the night in Bex’s coven with Dominic,” I said, plowing ahead over his telling silence. “You think I chose him over you, but it’s not like that.”
Walker crossed his arms. “Are you or aren’t you his willing night blood?”
“I didn’t choose this arrangement,” I blurted. “Nathan was missing, and Dominic offered me a deal. If I mended ties between him and Bex as his night blood, he would help me find Nathan. I needed him, Walker, and I’d do anything for Nathan. My back was up against the wall.”
Walker stared at me, and for once, I couldn’t read the intent behind his stoney expression. I held my breath against the silence.
Finally, he whispered, “You said you came here to visit me, but really, you came here for Dominic, hoping he’d help you find Nathan.”
I sighed. “I came here for you, too. You make it sound so cut and dry, but it’s complicated. I needed Dominic’s help to find Nathan, yes, but I wanted to see you, too.”
“You should have asked for
my
help to find Nathan, but you only ever think to ask for Dominic’s help. I can’t abide anyone who sees the vampires as anything but creatures to put down.”
“Life isn’t black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. Everything in life, even the vampires, are shades of gray. Just because I ask Dominic for his help doesn’t mean I don’t want your help, too.”
“You’re either with me or against me, and if you’re with Dominic, you sure as hell are not with me.”
I shook my head. “Don’t give me an ultimatum, Walker. I need all the help can get to save Nathan, and Dominic can—”
Walker raised his hand, refusing to listen. “It’s how I feel in my bones, and I can’t bend. Not on this. As far as I’m concerned, you made your choice quite clear last night.”
I held his gaze, and an impenetrable wall of pride fused between us. “If you let me leave on these terms, I’m not coming back, not for the night bloods, not for a story, not for anything.”
He didn’t even hesitate before saying, “Good. That’s exactly what I want, too.”
Walker about-faced before I could respond and left the house, slamming the door firmly between us with a finality that staked my heart.
* * * *
Ronnie was trembling and moaning incoherently when I returned for her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to leave you down here so long.”
She looked up at my voice—her face burned, blistered, and pinched with pain—but she didn’t focus on me. She looked behind me.
“Ronnie?” I asked, wondering if she was going into shock. Could vampires go into shock?
“Ian?” she whispered between cracked lips.
I shook my head. “He left. I wasn’t sure how he’d react. Maybe you should drink and heal and look a little, um—” I struggled for the words. “Less grotesque” came to mind as I stared at her mottled red complexion, jerky bird-like twitches, and boney skeletal structure. “—more human before you break it to him.”
Ronnie nodded and then started sobbing again.
I sighed, feeling horrible. Maybe Walker was right. Maybe if I’d been here, Ronnie wouldn’t have been attacked and transformed. I didn’t have much experience with newly transformed vampires, but she seemed especially pathetic compared to Dominic, Bex, and Rene.
I walked toward Ronnie slowly. “If I let you drink from me, will you promise not to attack? You can take a few swallows to heal yourself, but I’ll spray you with the silver again if you go beserk.”
Ronnie met my eyes, tears still flowing down her cheeks. She swallowed. “I’ll try. Your blood, it’s like—” Ronnie got a faraway look in her eyes, the way someone might try to describe heaven.
“Like cinnamon?” I asked dryly. “Like if you were to drink it too deeply and too quickly, it might burn?”
Ronnie’s gaze widened. “Yes. It’s exactly like that. And I’d want to burn.”
I nodded. “I’ve heard that a time or two.”
“But night blood weakens vampires, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s still food, and by the look of it, you’re starving. Any blood, even night blood, is probably better than no blood at all.” There was no helping it. Ronnie’s transformation was partially my fault, and she was still Ronnie, for heaven’s sake. I couldn’t let her fry all night in the safe room. “Let’s go into the kitchen. Maybe if we’re over the sink, we’ll make less of a mess.”
Ronnie didn’t have the strength to stand on her own, so I slung her arm over my shoulders and helped her up the steps. She was nothing but skin and bones, thank God, because with my hip clicking and scraping, I had trouble climbing the steps on my own, let alone supporting another person. Luckily, Ronnie wasn’t dead weight, and once we were out of the basement and away from the silver, she regained some of her strength.
Under the kitchen’s unforgiving overhead light, Ronnie looked exceptionally fried. The shine of blisters pocked her skin. Knowing this was a stupid idea and resigning myself to doing it anyway, I leaned against the sink and offered her my wrist.
A rattling growl vibrated from her chest as she stared at my upturned veins.
She shook her head. “I won’t be able to stop once I start drinking,” she said, her voice grave. “It’s like my thoughts and actions are separate. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can hear your heart beating. I can feel the pressure of your blood pulse through your veins like a vise around my own throat, and the inevitability of my need is like I’ve already hurt you. And that part of me doesn’t care. I’ll do anything for just one drop, but one drop won’t be enough.”