"I was thinking," she says. "You know how people used to take trips together? Like to wonderful destinations, beautiful cities, tropical islands?"
"You mean like honeymoons?"
She squirms. "Yeah, sort of. Or just vacations. And they would spend the whole day, or all night, just—enjoying each other. Relaxing. Making love. Eating delicious food."
"Sounds awesome." My heart sinks, because I can't give that to her. I'm a vampire warrior. I have to be watchful, available, constantly ready to defend the wall against the hordes. I can't take her on a trip deep into the Safe Zone, to an area where there's a beach, or a bed and breakfast, or some historic site to tour.
She props herself on her elbow, examining my face, and with her usual acuity divines exactly what I'm thinking. "I'm not saying I want that. I just—maybe, when we get back, Captain Markham would give us a couple days to ourselves. We could stay in our rooms and—"
"Relax?" I waggle my eyebrows at her, and she grins.
"Exactly."
"That's a tempting scenario, Trouble. When we get back, I might have to help clear out the area by the wall, since they'll have been short-handed without me, and without—" I nearly spit his name— "without Charon. But after that, I'll talk to Markham. We'll see what he says."
Finley gives a delighted little wriggle. "Perfect."
"We should get dressed," I tell her. "Unless you'd like to be an exhibitionist a little longer and dance naked for me while I'm on watch duty."
"I'd love to, but being naked in this place for longer than a few minutes makes me feel a little too vulnerable." She starts pulling on her clothes again, and I do the same, with her help.
I want to ask her what happened with Reuel. What exactly happened with Reuel. How far he went, how much he touched her, and where. But then I would feel compelled to tell her about what Dr. Corbin did to me, and I'm not ready for that. Every time the memory rises in my mind, I mentally turn away, hating the sense of helplessness attached to it. For that space of minutes, I wasn't Atlan the vampire warrior, dancing to hard rock through hordes of zombies, showing off my swordplay to the watchers on the wall. I wasn't Finley's partner and lover, the one who can defend her when she's in trouble and give her pleasure when she isn't.
I wasn't Atlan Echo anymore.
I was someone else, someone whose name I buried with my parents. Someone weak, who failed at every job he took on—sometimes because of anti-vampire prejudice, and sometimes because I just wasn't any good, at anything.
Someone who had to drop out of college because he had tumors in his brain.
Someone who threw himself into a desperate whirlwind of pleasure until he couldn't hide the symptoms of the cancer anymore.
Someone who beat his head against the wall because of excruciating headaches, who screamed at his parents because he wasn't supposed to be suffering blurred vision, slurred speech, loss of mobility, and confusion in his twenties, for god's sake.
Today, for a little while, Dr. Corbin took away my new, powerful self. Turned me back into the person I hated, weak and choiceless.
For that, I can never forgive her.
14
Finley
Atlan's face has darkened so much that it scares me. I hitch my bra strap into place and kneel beside him, cupping his cheek with my hand. "Hey. You look sad. Is it because of Darius? Were you close? I mean, I know he's not dead, but he's—messed up. It could have been you." I shudder. "That's a scary thought."
"No, I didn't know him well." Atlan ducks away from my hand and rises, crossing the room under the pretense of checking the exit. But the door is obviously secure—he's doing it to get away from me.
I stand up. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No—god no." He shakes his head, but he won't look at me.
"What is it then? Your mood changed, and that's not like you, Atlan. Me, sure—I have mood changes sometimes, when I—"
When I remember something horrible from my past.
Like deaths of my former team, of the incident with the man, when I sucked him off for Heath's cigarettes. Or the memory of Charon, biting my breasts in the dark.
Maybe Reuel did more to Atlan than threaten to cut his dick off, or maybe someone else did. Physical, mental, sexual, or emotional torture—whatever it was, they hurt the man I love.
I approach Atlan, but I don't touch him. I know from experience that being touched while you're in the throes or aftershocks of a flashback is not helpful.
"What did they do to you?" I keep my voice steady and warm. "Whatever it was, you can tell me. It helps to have someone carry it with you." A throb of guilt in my heart, because I haven't told him everything in my past, either. Definitely not the cigarette thing.
Atlan's bare back is toward me—shoulder blades overlaid with smooth muscle, and the groove of his spine running down to his tapered waist. Even in the odd half-light of the lab and its stark shadows, he is power and beauty in a way that makes my soul ache with delight. But he's hurting, and it pains me more sharply than I ever thought another person's pain could.
"There's a way I want you to see me," he says slowly, carefully. "A way I want to see myself. Someone damaged that today, and it bothers me worse than it should." His words come faster, spilling out recklessly now that he has started to talk. "It was a small thing, really. It's dumb. Nothing happened. I shouldn't let it bother me, or spoil this moment with you."
"It's okay. You're not spoiling anything. We live in kind of a horrible world, in case you hadn't noticed." I'm rewarded with a chopped half-laugh from him, so I continue. "We've got to be able to talk about the awful things, not just the nice ones." I haul in a deep breath, preparing to tear back the layers and bare myself to him. Nothing held back this time. All of the dark crawling things in my soul unearthed to his view. "Like Charon tearing me up and drinking from me. And Reuel kissing me, and attacking me. I've made it through the apocalypse without being raped so far, but that lucky streak almost ended today."
Atlan's back stiffens, his hands curled at his sides.
"What did he do, exactly? If you can tell me."
"He stuck his tongue down my throat—it was forked, and gross—then he slammed me to the floor, chased me around, cut my arm. Scraped up my collarbones."
"I forgot to fix those," Atlan says, turning. "Let me heal them."
"They're already scabbed over," I tell him gently. "They weren't bad. Now tell me, please—what happened to you?"
He sinks onto one of the few remaining chairs with a sigh. "Compared to what you've been through, it's nothing."
"It's not nothing. Don't compare your trauma to someone else's. Give yourself a break, Atlan. You have every right to feel this as deeply as you do."
He looks up at me then, the sweep of his dark hair half-hiding his blue eyes. Under the short beard that's growing in, his mouth is grim. "Dr. Corbin almost raped me."
Of all the things I expected, that wasn't—that's— "How?" I whisper.
"She used Reuel's toxin. It paralyzed me, but it also gave me a hard-on, which she was about to use when Chandra jumped in from the ducts."
I can't move, or breathe. I only stare at him.
"When they first tied me up, Corbin kept touching me, calling me these pet names. After I tried to break free, she came in and saw how torn up my hands were, and she paralyzed me so I couldn't attack her while she was bandaging them. And then she started kissing me, and—" He shakes his head. "I felt—completely powerless. It was bad, Finley. Is that how women feel all the time? So—vulnerable?"
"Not all of us, and not all the time. But—yeah, too often. Especially now that civilized behavior has kind of taken a back seat to whatever people happen to crave in the moment."
There's an ache in his eyes as he asks, tentatively, "Did I ever make you feel that way? Powerless?"
"Only a tiny bit, that one time when you drank from my neck. But you realized it right away and backed off. And Atlan, I know you would never hurt me." It strikes me again,
how wretched my life could have been, how much of a miracle it is that fate brought me to him, and put me in his care. I slide into his arms, resting my head against his chest. He closes his arms around me with a grip that must hurt his wounded hands, but he doesn't ease the pressure for a long time.
"I thought he might kill you, Finley," he says brokenly into my hair. "After I was taken and strung up—that's all I thought about for hours. Whether you were gone, or alive, or in pain. I decided that if you were dead, I wouldn't care about living anymore."
"You lived without me before. You could do it again."
"Maybe. But my life is so much richer, and more fun, and more terrifying, with you in it." He kisses my hair.
"More terrifying, huh?"
"Definitely."
It's heaven just to stand against him, skin to skin. But I think I should probably find something more to wear than jeans and a bra, so after indulging myself for a minute, I move away and hunt around the lab. Finally I'm rewarded with a folded lab coat tucked into a drawer. I take it out, and as the creases fall away, I notice brown stains over the breast and stomach. But it smells clean. It will have to do.
Atlan curls his lip at my new outfit. "You look like one of them."
"Would you rather I parade around in my underwear in front of Reuel?"
"No," he growls.
"Well then."
He comes near, ducks his head, and sniffs the sweep of my neck, from my shoulder up to the corner of my jaw. The brush of his hair, the scent of him, the light graze of his lips—desire slithers low in my stomach again.
"Atlan," I breathe. "What are you doing?"
"May I?" he whispers.
"Of course." I almost forgot about his need for blood.
"Where do you want it?" he asks, kissing along my collarbone, little dabs of his wet tongue tending to the scratches there.
"You—you can bite my neck. From behind, like you did on the day you fought the Horde. I liked it then."
"As you wish." He circles me, his movements graceful as a panther's. His fighting style is more of a dance than anything else, especially when he has music. I wonder what it would be like to actually dance with him.
"You like music, don't you?" I lean back into his hard, warm body, tilting my head aside and brushing the hair away from my neck, exposing it to him.
"I do. I listen to it almost every night at home. And out in the killing fields, of course. Ben used to love finding new battle music for me." His voice deepens with sorrow.
"There's no music here," I murmur, as his fangs pierce my skin. His lips close over the bite, suction and soft pressure. "No art, no movies or TV or books. No stories and songs. No beauty. It's no wonder everyone in here has forgotten how to be human. All they think about is science, and not the good kind—the creepy, crazy kind."
Atlan's low chuckle reverberates through his chest into my back, and a thrill races along my spine. If we weren't here, if he weren't wounded, I'd totally try to seduce him again. But I don't know much about his sexual stamina yet, how quickly he recovers. And I've already pushed the bounds of what's appropriate way too far today. Oral sex in a prison cell? A quickie while our allies are nearly in the same room? Who am I?
Atlan has been drinking a long time, so I reach up to touch his cheek. "Just so you know, my blood-pressure bracelet has been damaged. It won't tell you when you should stop."
Immediately the fangs in my neck withdraw, followed by the slow ministrations of Atlan's tongue. "Are you all right?" he asks between licks.
"Of course."
"You should have warned me sooner about the bracelet. What if I took too much?"
"You didn't. I can kind of gauge it by now."
"I hate that I have to hurt you when I do this," he says.
"I'm fine, really. You're so gentle I barely feel it."
"Normal relationships wouldn't involve this kind of repeated wounding."
"I prefer this to other kinds of wounds." My heart rate doubles in speed, and perspiration breaks out on my forehead and chest as I consider telling him about Heath, and the man with the cigarettes.
"What is it?" Atlan moves in front of me, anxiety in his eyes. "Your heartbeat just accelerated. Did I take too much? Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. Chill." I lean over, my hands on my thighs, breathing deep. "I just—there's something else I want to tell you, from my past, and I'm having trouble with it." I don't have to tell him, but I need to. I need him to know—I can't explain why. "You're going to judge me."
"Judge you? Finley, I'm a vampire. We don't judge." He's smiling, but his voice carries an undercurrent of sharp concern.
"Remember the one time we were talking, and then I got up and ran into the bathroom and started puking?"
"Yeah." He cocks an eyebrow.
"I was remembering something bad that I did—I want to say that Heath made me do it, but he didn't, not exactly." The story dribbles out of me in sour, ugly phrases—I'm shaking all over, but letting it out is freeing somehow, cleansing. I've never told anyone what happened that day. Heath and I never spoke about it again. Maybe he was ashamed. Maybe he was too busy savoring his cigarettes to notice how many times I vomited that evening. I did it for him, and he never even thanked me.
When I finish the story, Atlan reaches for me, pain and pity in his eyes, and I go to him. Usually I can't be touched when I'm trapped in this memory, but the curse of that shameful secret broke with the telling of it, and now I'm free. He and I are wounded, inside and out, but together we heal. We press love into the bleeding gashes, soothe the inflamed scars with acceptance and understanding.
We wait up together for the rest of the night, without disturbing the others, and we talk again, like we did in the abandoned hotel a few days ago. At least I think it has been a few days—it's weird how being underground messes with your sense of time. Now that Reuel broke my bracelet, I have no way of telling time at all.
"How will we know when to wake the others?" I ask Atlan. "They'll need time to prepare before we meet Reuel and his crew."
"I think Sergeant Perez set an alarm on her watch," he says. "She still has it."
Sure enough, some time later a sharp beeping echoes through the lab, and a few minutes later Perez emerges from the bigger closet. She goes immediately to the bathroom and comes back with wet hair slicked into a crisp bun.
Chandra slouches out of her closet for a turn in the bathroom, then sits yawning on the edge of a table, her long black-and-blue braid draped over one shoulder. "You guys have fun?" she says, with a wink at me.
I blush and smirk. "You know it."
"Good for you. Gettin' some before we all get shot up and turned into monsters."
Atlan's face stiffens, and my fingers tighten on his arm.
"What?" Chandra shrugs. "You know it's gonna happen. I'm just stating the obvious." She flips a knife in the air and catches it. "You got a plan, Sergeant?"
Sergeant Perez steps forward, her eyes meeting mine. "Actually I do. But it will require sacrifice."
15
Finley
When we entered this bunker, I expected us to collect some half-starved researchers and their materials and then immediately trek back across the Hordelands to the wall. I definitely didn't expect to be in a standoff like this—Atlan, Chandra, Sergeant Perez and I against Reuel, Dr. Corbin, the other two doctors, and several lab technicians and research assistants.
They're all armed, and Darius sits on his haunches beside Reuel, licking his triangular teeth. I'm not sure why he's taking their side. Atlan told me that yesterday Darius seemed eager to get revenge for what had been done to him; but the minute he saw Reuel, his attitude changed. He became docile, subservient. A weapon in the hand of the monster prince.
Reuel's crew could capture us again, easily. Right now.
My tentative connection with Reuel, his vulnerability with me yesterday—those are the only reasons he's even talking to us, willing to negotiate. Sergeant Perez warned me that I need
to feed that connection, to foster it, for the good of the whole team. She said it firmly, quietly, but without apology—a commander giving orders that are unpleasant, but necessary.
Reuel's face brightens at the sight of me, and I move forward, offering my hand. He takes it, and I squeeze his fingers lightly.
"Were you able to sleep?" His question is stiff, unwieldy, as if he's not used to caring about someone else's wellbeing.
"Yes, thank you." I smile broadly at him, a reward for his thoughtfulness.
He fixes me with a look so intense it singes my very soul, and his voice drops to a whisper. "Are you scared of me right now?"
"No." My own voice comes out a little breathless. There are so many eyes in this room, so many motives and emotions and variables. A powder keg waiting for a match, and I need to be the water that drenches any sparks. "No, I'm not scared of you, Reuel. I trust that you're trying to be a better person. That's what we're working toward here, right? Achieving goals without doing terrible things to each other."
"Ah, attempting the impossible," he says, smirking. "My favorite pastime. Well, one of my favorites." His gaze dips to my mouth, then to the lab coat I wear. He traces a talon from the notch between my collarbones down into the groove of my cleavage, showing through the V neck of the coat. "This looks good on you. But I imagine anything would, really."
My stomach twisting, I manage a "thank you," and with another light squeeze of his hand, I let go and step back toward my group. I risk a quick look at Atlan; he stands with a smile frozen onto his face. I know it must have taken all his will power not to growl, not to challenge Reuel or attack him for daring to touch me. But he knows as well as I do that this must be endured. It's part of the plan.
"With your permission, I will speak for my team," Perez says to Reuel, stepping forward.
Reuel's eyes leave my face for a few seconds, and he nods to her in acknowledgement. "Speak." And then his gaze returns to me, a magnetic stare that makes me flustered and panicky inside.
Captured by the Chimera Zombie-Master Page 10