by D.J. Bodden
CHAPTER 17
Jonas blinked. His head hurt, and there was blood all over him… lots of it. Eve was there, standing a few feet away, looking at him warily. He tried to speak, but his chest felt heavy. All that came out was a wet gurgle.
“You drank too much blood, it’s gone into your lungs.”
Jonas strained, trying to push the blood out so he could breathe.
“Stop that!” Eve said. “It’s perfectly normal. You actually don’t need your lungs anymore. They’re just for making noise or storage space.”
Jonas still felt panicked, but he forced himself to stop. He trusted Eve, insofar as he trusted anyone these days. She was the only person who hadn’t deserted him lately.
Who did I kill? He sent her.
“Nobody, but you would have,” she said. “You were hurt when I got here, close to going on a feeding spree. I brought you blood.”
Jonas looked down and saw the empty blood packs. They’d been ripped open, probably with his teeth. At least his fangs had retracted. He’d really thought he’d killed someone, and would have, if not for Eve. He still hurt, but the urgency of the pain was gone, except for a sharp, ringing headache.
Why does my head hurt?
“Because you tried to bite me while I was feeding you,” Eve said, crossing her arms. “Which is ridiculous, because you already had six pints in you. That’s half an adult male’s blood supply – more than a human could spare without dying.”
Jonas could see there was blood on her, too. He’d been a messy eater. Sorry, he sent. He leaned his head back against the wall. How did you know I was… how did you even find me? I didn’t think you were real.
“I noticed,” she said. “Phillip sent one of the twins to get me.”
Jonas felt a wave of relief wash over him. Phillip hadn’t abandoned him after all.
“He told me you were pretty banged up, and that your house had been broken into… again. Any idea who did this to you? And where’s your mother?”
Jonas started to answer, then paused. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. A lot had happened, and he couldn’t talk. In the week since he’d last seen Eve, he’d discovered Edwards was a hunter, faced down Phillip Macready, and recovered his father’s journal — he’d hidden it somewhere safe, since his apartment had already been broken into. On top of that, he’d lost his mother, confronted a specter, found out Fangston was demon-possessed, had the stuffing beaten out of him, and came seriously close to having his neighbors for dinner. It was a lot of information to impart, and Eve needed to leave before one of the demon’s minions noticed she was gone… if they hadn’t already.
He balled up the memories as best he could, and gently pushed them toward Eve. She raised an eyebrow. “What are you—?”
She could have blocked the thoughts, but she didn’t. The memory package, as Jonas thought of it, brushed her mind and started to merge with it, first a trickle, then a flood — a week of events in a few seconds. Stray thoughts flowed back to Jonas along the connection — the Director telling everyone training was cancelled and confining them to their living quarters, right about the time Jonas was being kicked unconscious. More importantly, he felt how disappointed she’d been that she wouldn’t get to see him, and how she’d spent all week thinking about the journal and what might be in it.
The flow suddenly intensified. Weeks turned into years – snapshots – moments of intense emotion. His dad, calming him after his first nightmare. The first time she rode a bike without training wheels. Unwrapping his MP3 player for Christmas. The first crush she’d had in grade school. Holding Amelia’s hand while walking home from school. Successes and failures, love, hate, fears, and hopes. It was more open than they’d ever been with a friend, more intimate than a kiss, over in a heartbeat. The connection ended gently, like twined fingers slipping apart.
Jonas sent, It’s like we’ve known each other—
“—for sixteen years,” Eve said, touching her fingers to her lips. She looked at Jonas and blushed. “I should—”
I didn’t mean to… you have—
“Blood all over me, I know,” she said, having seen it through his eyes. She looked down at her arms and sighed.
There’s a bathroom—
“I know where it is.” She blushed again and left the room.
Without thinking, Jonas lurched to his feet and followed her. She glanced up at him in the mirror while scrubbing the blood from her hands and forearms. “They’re going to keep beating you.”
Maybe so. He shrugged. But I can’t give them the journal. Eve reached for a towel and Jonas stepped in to wash his hands.
“I know,” she said, handing him the towel. They were very close. Their eyes locked for an interval of words that didn’t need to be spoken. He brushed a strand of hair from her face. She kissed him.