Twice Cursed (44 page)

Horns blared as Lily skidded into the
street, breathless, with Jack on her heels. They swerved to avoid
hitting her, but no one stopped, not with a large grey wolf
menacing on the grassy shoulder. Jack lunged, sending a blue ford
sliding across the wet pavement.

Tires screeched, filling the air with
the scent of burning rubber and the sound of metal crashing against
a utility pole. A man was thrown from the vehicle, and Lily ran
towards the steaming wreck, but Jack’s teeth sunk into her leg and
she screamed, hitting the pavement as he dragged her back toward
the shoulder. People shouted from the other side of the road, some
with cell phones in hand. Whether they were calling the police or
filming the horrific seen, she didn’t know. Either way, this place
would be crawling with cops or television crews soon
enough.

A black SUV skidded to a stop in the
middle of the mess. Two men got out and grabbed Lily by her arms,
shoving her into the backseat. Pain shot through her leg along with
the warm, wet feel of blood slick on her skin. Fast and furious,
they climbed in after her and took off, tires squealing on the
pavement behind.

Jack howled once, and Lily watched as
he raced across the road toward the woods. She turned from the
window as the man next to her uncapped a syringe. “For the pain,”
he said, and stuck the needle in her thigh before she could
protest. “Relax. It’s only Demerol. You’ll feel better in a
moment.”

In seconds, she couldn’t focus, and
her eyelids were weighted down. Dizziness hit, making the interior
of the car swim, and then everything went black.

***

“
Welcome back,” Edwards’s
smooth voice echoed in her ears before she could even open her
eyes. Lily struggled to get her lids up, but they were so
heavy.

“
Give it a moment, my dear.
I’m afraid you were given quite a large dose of Demerol. In fact, I
had to take measures against my own men for causing you such
distress.” He sighed. “However, your constitution reminds me of my
own. Sturdy and hard hitting,” he said, with a prophetic
undertone.

Lily swallowed, and tried to move. She
was lying down on a bed, that much registered, and her leg throbbed
as she shifted position, but the pain was dull. She forced her eyes
open, blinking to clear her vision. She was in a hospital room of
sorts, and Edward sat in a chair to the right of her
bed.

“
Where am I?”

“
You’re in my lab,” he
answered matter-of-factly.

“
Your lab?”

He nodded, pushing himself up from his
chair. “Yes. There is a lot you don’t know about me, but I’d like
to share my story with you, if you’re not in too much of a hurry,”
he said with a husky chuckle.

Parr walked toward the foot of her
bed, then hesitated. “On second thought, why don’t you tell me what
you know about yourself, first?”

“
Excuse me?”

He gestured with his hand, circling it
encouragingly. “I want to know all about you, Lily. This past month
has been interesting, to say the least, but this past week has
proved most enlightening. I want to know what you know about your
family history, where you came from.”

Lily shook her head, perplexed.
“Edward, I don’t understand what you’re driving at. I’m a
twenty-six year old orphan. Both my parents died in a car crash
when I was ten.”

He nodded. “Yes, yes. This I already
know. What I’m looking for is the extent of your knowledge
regarding your parents.”

Lily looked at him again. What was he
driving at? “Edward, my parents? Really? They were just regular
people.”

His eyes hardened, and the thin line
of his lips made the planes of his cheeks sharp and ugly. Annoyed,
he pushed away from her bed, and she watched as he drew a deep
breath before turning back around, his practiced veneer back in its
place.

He smoothed the front of his navy
double-breasted suit, his fingers following the lines of the tone
on tone pin-striping. “I’m sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to confuse
or frighten you. Perhaps you don’t know more than what you’ve
already told me. Pity, really.”

“
Edward, I’m not afraid of
you,” she said, fixing him with a cold stare. “I never have been,
nor will I ever be. As to being confused, this whole business is
what’s confusing.” She gestured toward him and the room.

He smiled at her bravado. “I’ve always
admired your fire, and I’m glad to hear you’re not intimidated by
me. It makes what I am about to reveal all the easier, and yes,
this nasty business is confusing. However, all will be made
clear.”

Edward walked to the desk against the
far wall and picked up the phone. “Have someone bring in a fresh
set of clothes and toiletries. Ms. Saburi is awake.”

“
Edward…”

He held up his hand. “You have been
severely inconvenienced and abused by my people, all for an end
that could have been settled with a simple conversation. The least
I can do is try to make you as comfortable as possible. You’re
usually such a pretty, little thing,” he said, his eyes sweeping
her filthy clothes and hair.

At the look Lily shot him, he
chuckled. “That’s not to say, dangerous and clever. It’s just I
hate seeing you there bedraggled and dirty. I’ve had my nurses see
to your wounds. They have been thoroughly cleaned, and I hope you
won’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of injecting you with an
agent to prevent Jack’s bite from turning you. I do apologize for
his rashness, but it was understandable given the
circumstances.”

Lily’s eyes widened. She didn’t know
which of his words to choke on first.

“
Don’t look so shocked, my
dear. I have the utmost respect for you. As to the agent in
question, well, I’ve my own set of researchers working for me here.
Dr. Volkmann is a brilliant man, but he’s not the only game in
town—but I’ll stop there as I’m getting ahead of
myself.”

There was a knock on the
door.

“
Ah. Come in,” he said with
a magnanimous smile.

A nurse walked in carrying a clean set
of clothing and a travel bag. She nodded once to Edward and then
put the items on one of the chairs across from the bed.

Edward smiled warmly, and swept his
arm toward the door on the adjacent wall. “There’s a full bathroom,
complete with shower. It may be hospital grade, but it will do.
Please…” he said, offering his hand to help her out of the
bed.

Both irked and uneasy, Lily raised one
hand. “I appreciate the chivalry Edward, but I’m capable of taking
myself to the bathroom.”

He lifted an eyebrow, watching her
carefully. “Very well, but I’ll send the nurse back in just in case
you need help.”

Edward swept out of the room, and Lily
swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “Help me. Yeah right. More
likely to avoid my escape.”

She stepped her feet onto the cold
linoleum and shivered. At least she wasn’t in one of those stupid
hospital gowns. One of her pant legs was gone, and she could see
the doctor’s handiwork. “I guess Jack’s bite is as bad as his bark,
and he’s going to need one of those teeth when I cut his balls
off,” she mumbled to herself, as she examined the wound. The
stiches were tiny and precise, but there had to be one hundred of
them holding her skin together.

The nurse came in and immediately
hooked her arm under Lily’s shoulder to help her to the bathroom.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll help you as much as I can. I used to
work for Dr. V before Mr. Parr blackmailed me into working for him.
My son was a vampire junkie, addicted to the rush that comes from
them feeding on you. Edward threatened to expose the taboo and have
us shunned, if I didn’t leave the Compound and come here.” Her
voice barely rose above a whisper.

“
Can you reach Sean or
Mitch?” Lily asked, her eyes searching the woman’s
face.”

She shook her head. “I’m watched too
closely. But rest assured, you won’t be given any more drugs. I’ll
see to that. I’ve been ordered to give you another dose of Demerol
if you don’t cooperate.”

Lily sucked in a breath.

The nurse patted her arm. “Don’t
worry. The only thing I’m going to give you is a shot of B12. It’ll
help you get your energy back. You’re going to need your wits about
you. Trust me.”

Lily threw her arms around the woman’s
neck.

“
Thank you.”

The nurse put her finger to her lips.
“Just pretend to sleep and they’ll leave you alone.” She smiled.
“Now let’s get you cleaned up.”

The hot water was delicious, and Lily
scrubbed and sudseds, trying to wash away everything that had
happened over the last twenty-four hours. She rinsed her hair and
her body, stepping out onto the plain cotton mat the nurse had set
out for her. The woman had left two white towels on the sink, and
Lily quickly dried off, wrapping her body in one towel and her
clean hair in the other.

She sat on the closed toilet seat and
shut her eyes. Concentrating, she sifted through the familiar
traces deep in her psyche, completely skipping the ones that led to
Sean, Mitch and Rissa. She ignored Jack’s trace, squelching the
urge to send him a mental bitch slap. She went further in, and
beneath Rissa’s trace, a faint line glowed at the back of her
mind.

She had only used it once or twice
while testing Stephanie’s abilities. Her chest filled at the
thought of how powerful a psychic the little girl truly was, and
how easily she accepted it. She was unafraid, most of the time,
anyway.

The day she and Jack had left for New
York, Stephanie had tried to tell Sean that something bad was
coming. She knew. She had seen it already, and Lily was just as
guilty as Sean and Rissa for dismissing her fears out of hand,
chalking it up to a bad dream. Certainly something none of them
would ever do again.

Lily would bet odds that Stephanie
already communicated with her little brother, though he wasn’t due
to be born for another couple of months. The best thing Rissa did,
though, was keep her daughter’s talent a family secret. Lord knows
what Parr would do if he caught wind of it, and what Jack knew of
her only scratched the surface. Thank God.

Lily reigned her thoughts
back in, and picked up the thread, giving the little girl a little
mental tug.
“Stephie?”

She could feel the child’s
sleep mottled answer.
“Lily? Is that you?
Are you home?”

Lily smiled.
“It’s me, baby. But no, I’m not home…or at least
I don’t think so. I’m a little lost, and I need your help to figure
out how to get home. You’re the only one who can help me, but you
cannot talk to mommy or Mitch about it with your mind. You can tell
mommy and Mitch everything I say with your words, but I’m the only
one you can talk to with your mind. Do you understand?”

Lily waited, feeling the little girl
trying to wrap her head around what she’d just told her.

“
Lily, are you in
trouble?”

Lily took a deep breath,
couching her words very carefully. The last thing she wanted was to
scare a four year old.
“Yes, sweetheart. I
am. Uncle Sean can’t find me with his mind, and whenever I try to
reach him, I get a bad pain in my head. You’re the only one I can
talk to without feeling hurt. I need for you to wake up mommy and
Mitch, and then we’re going to play telephone? Okay?”

“
Okay. I like that game. We
play it in school sometimes. I’ll be right back.”

Lily’s shoulders slumped in relief.
Mitch knew Maine like the back of his hand. From the outskirts of
Bradford Dairy they would be able to track her scent, and Rissa
would make sure Stephie kept the trace open between them. Now all
she had to do was wait and stay alive. She looked up at the
ceiling, praying silently Sean did the same.

Chapter
Eighteen

***

Dressed, Lily brushed her hair out,
letting it hang loose across her shoulders and back. After having
it in a braid for so long, the idea of pulling it tight again made
her head throb even more than her possible concussion. She opened
the bathroom door, only to find Parr sitting in the chair near the
bed opposite her.

“
You look refreshed, and
I’m glad to see the clothing suits you,” he said with an
appreciative gaze.

“
Jeans and a tee shirt, how
can you go wrong with that?” Lily answered with a shrug. She still
couldn’t get a handle on his generous benefactor bit. What was he
after, besides Sean’s status?

“
Please, have a seat. I
would very much like to continue our conversation.” He got up and
moved two chairs toward a window that overlooked the
woods.

Outdoor flood lights illuminated the
area, and Parr pulled up the blinds, giving Lily a full view of the
barbed wire fence surrounding the perimeter of wherever they were.
Passive aggressive. The man dripped with courtesy, yet showed her
the fence in case she got any bright ideas.

Lily sat down, careful not to jar her
leg. “So what is it you wanted to tell me, Edward?”