by Jax Garren
“I should be in charge of CoVIn’s army. We’re doomed,” Alex muttered.
Nikolai shot him a death look, but Winnie patted her husband on the chest. “Stand down.”
“How does he give up power while looking like he’s still in charge?” Rhiannon asked with a scowl. “I hate that I find it sexy. It’s horrible. He’s a dick.”
Winnie snorted. “He’s an annoying brat, but an annoying brat who has never been beaten, and everyone knows it so…”
Behind them, Miguel ordered a few more people up onto the roof. Including Alex. As he continued giving militia-type orders, Javier turned to his sister. “I need to get ahold of Emma, and I’m wondering if Cash can get through to her.” He sighed. “But I also need to set up a makeshift lab. Could you look for somebody who…” He rubbed his head. “There’s nobody here who can—”
“Actually,” Juliana cut in, “one of my employees was a lab tech at the heart hospital. I can get him.”
“Why did he come here?” Javier asked before he’d really thought about how that sounded.
Juliana raised a haughty eyebrow. “We pay better.”
Rhiannon rolled her eyes at Javier, and his face heated. “Yeah. Okay. I’m going to go talk to Cash. Rhi, can you work with, uh…?”
“Trey,” Julianna supplied.
Rhiannon shot Javier a worried look, reminding him that he’d admitted to being exposed. He licked his lips. “We’re going to need a quarantine to separate people with suspected exposure. The more separate rooms we can make, the better. It seems to take at least a few hours to run through someone’s system, unless they die from the wound, at which point it’s almost immediate.”
Juliana nodded. “We have locked rooms. Plenty.”
Javier nodded and hustled up the stairs after Cash.
On the roof, the November breeze cooled his heating skin. Javier closed his eyes and tried to let it cool the fear and anger building inside him. He had no interest in talking to Emma right now, in hearing her excuses for why she’d run, followed by her excuses for why she wouldn’t come back. The airport was shut down, but that wouldn’t stop her and Dez’rae from hitting the highway. They could be halfway to San Antonio by now.
Across the rooftop, Cash grunted in frustration. “You have a rifle.”
“Mm-hm,” Alex said blandly. Then held out the rifle, offering to switch weapons. “Or maybe I’m a better shot than you. I could give you some lessons…”
“Fucker.” But Cash was smiling.
Javier jogged their way and looked down the lip of the roof. Below, a few downed zombies had crumpled on the street and down alleys—death all around them. But for the most part, the streets were quiet and clear.
Cash nodded at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be curing them, doc?”
“I need Emma.”
He just laughed. “We’re all stressed. You can try to bone your sire after this is over, for now—”
“No, I don’t…” Javier ground out. “I need Dez’rae—she’s the witch who started this spell—and Emma’s on the run with her. I need her to bring Dezi back if we’re going to have any hope of fixing this in time.”
Cash looked him up and down. “In time for what?”
Javier turned around and lifted his shirt. He’d seen it already at the hospital, thin, black lines beginning to snake their way around a wound in the center of his back.
“Fuuuuuuck us,” Cash muttered. But his voice remained steady as he looked Javier in the eye. “You have a new branch of science to invent, doc. How you going to do that as a zombie? Emma doesn’t know, does she?”
“I texted. She won’t talk to me.”
Cash frowned at him. “Texted her? Why are you texting her?”
Frustrated anger made him near shout, “Because I need her to come back before this”—he pointed to his back—“gets to here.” He pointed at his head. “Before this”—he pointed at the street—“is what the rest of the city looks like.”
Cash continued to look at him like somehow he was the one who’d lost his mind, not the woman who’d deserted them, dragging their only hope at recovery with her. “You clearly don’t know jack shit about your sire.” He pulled out his phone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Emma’s not going to read a text—not when she’s stressed. You gotta call her.” He scrolled through contacts and hit one.
“Why? Why is it too hard to read a couple lines to save lives? She keeps saying she cares, but now that I actually need her, she’s ghosting me.”
“Because for her it is too hard—particularly when she’s stressed. She’s got that thing where the letters flip around. She can’t read.” He rolled his eyes. “And I don’t think she knows how to get her phone to read them to her—which would help, but we’re old.”
“Letters flip…” That jarred Javier out of his snowballing frustration. Was Cash saying… “She’s dyslexic?” He started scanning back through their interactions, trying to look for clues. Then he remembered at CoVIn, the day she’d signed his form without looking at it. She’d also seemed awfully proud of herself for filling out paperwork to get him an apartment. He’d been insulted because filling out a few pages hadn’t seemed like a big deal. But if he was understanding Cash right and she was functionally illiterate… that actually had been a big deal.
Cash shrugged. “I don’t know what you call it. But I’ve met other people like her. They say the letters don’t stay still. From the way Em’s described it, it sounds like the fact that she can read anything at all means she’s more patient than I’ll ever be. But don’t expect her to read in an emergency. You have to call.” He refocused as the sound on the line changed. “Em? Hey, Em? Your baby bat needs you. Where are you?”
Javier huffed. “I don’t—”
Cash put his hand, smelling of gun smoke, over Javier’s mouth. “We’re at Scarlet. Bring Dez’rae, I think that’s her name… Well how sure are you she didn’t? Willing to bet a zombie apocalypse on it?… Uh-huh. How about this?”
Faster than Javier could register, Cash lifted Javier’s shirt and took a photo of his back.
Panic filled him at the thought of more people knowing what was happening to him. “Don’t send that.”
“Too late,” Cash mouthed at him, then said back into the phone, sounding as frustrated as Javier had ever heard him,. “No, I’m sending you photos of the other Mexican vampire in CoVIn. Of course it’s fucking Javier. Now you have a choice: get Dezi here or run out on your fledgling again. What’re you going to do this time?” He hung up. “She’ll be here.” The words were more confident than his tone.
Javier stared at the ground, trying to breathe. “No, she won’t. But thanks for trying. I’m going to see what Rhi and I can come up with.”
Cash nodded, something too much like pity in his face. “I’m going shoot zombies.” He turned back to the roof and motioned at Alex. “Gimme.”
With a solemn chuckle, Alex handed the rifle over. “Not going to help.”
Javier headed back to the door with the feeling that Cash had already given up on him. As he opened the door to head back down, Cash yelled, “Hey!”
Javier turned back.
“Lemme know when you need someone to keep Rhi safe.” From you… was the unspoken end to that sentence.
Javier nodded, swallowing thickly. “Thanks.”
“But if you can manage it, I’d rather you and Witchy Girl be geniuses who don’t need me.” He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Not a fan of playing target practice on friends.”
Javier frowned, trying to decipher what was so odd about that statement.
Friends. Cash didn’t use the word lightly. What was funny was that Javier would’ve said they weren’t, but then he thought over the last few days, from fighting zombies together to sharing Emma’s friendship to that odd encounter in the CoVIn hospital with the queen. Hell, maybe they were friends. Except Rhiannon…
No, his sister’s choices weren’t hi
s to police. She was a grown woman, and Cash treated her with respect—or significantly more than he gave most people, anyway. Maybe it was time Javier accepted that as good enough. He might not have another chance. He nodded to Cash. “Thanks.”
Chapter Nineteen
The image of those lines crawling across her fledgling’s back made Emma want to vomit, and yet she couldn’t seem to pull her eyes off the black streak just touching the bottom of Javier’s tattoo. He’d gotten that to prove he had control of his life, and now something evil was about to take it over for good. Of all the shit she’d seen in her long life, that dark encroachment seemed the vilest.
She and Dezi had ended up in a roach motel, where the beaten woman lay stretched out on the bed, a wet and dubiously clean washrag across her forehead.
“What is it?” Dezi asked.
Emma looked up at the girl, protectiveness curling around her as too-old memories assaulted her of bad men and the women who’d protected her—or at least rallied around her afterward.
She didn’t want to believe Dez was guilty. “Did you do this, Dez’rae?”
“Do what?”
“Curse johns, turning them into zombies?” She sat beside her, careful not to jostle the bed too much. “I wouldn’t blame you. One of them killed your sister. He deserved something evil happening in return.”
Dez’s jaw hardened as she looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, miss.”
“Emma. Please call me Emma.” Her eyes traveled back to the photo Cash had sent. That boy knew just how to get her attention. “We’re not that different, you and me.”
Dez just snorted. “You’ve got power I haven’t ever come close to.”
Emma looked at her. “I think you got power too. Maybe enough power to end the world. You can’t tell me that’s small.”
The girl pushed herself painfully up, the rage on her face breaking into tears as her accent got thicker. “Yeah? Still ain’t enough power to get my ass into college. To keep my family fed. Keep my sister… Jaz… to keep Jaz alive. How come you think I can end the world when I can’t do such a simple…” Her hands went over her face as she started crying in earnest.
Emma’s heart cracked at the desperate sorrow in her voice. Honestly, there were days she thought the world ending wouldn’t make anything worse. So many people wore two faces, one they showed the glossy top level of the world—the executives, the lawyers, their pretty wives and well-bred children—and the one they showed everyone else. The nobodies. The ones they could grind up and spit out through whorehouses and factories, days breaking their backs in the hot sun picking food they’d never eat, or risking their lives and sanity in a foreign desert with a gun and a uniform. The last might get lip-service respect, but that seemed poor comfort to a kid with his legs blown off and a lifetime of nightmares who needed a whore just to have someone to hold him.
But then she looked at Javier’s image, with the darkness curving around him. She honestly couldn’t give much of a shit about the fate of the world. But she cared about him.
Thoughts crowded her mind of his hopeful brown eyes and his stern manner. The way he expected so much of himself and so little of others. How careful he was. Even when he pissed her off—and boy, could he piss her off—he wasn’t careless with her. A part of her that still wanted to believe in wonderful things thought, maybe, they could do each other a lot of good.
What if that’s what love was? Somebody worth changing for? No, not just changing. Too many girls changed too much to please men who didn’t deserve it.
Somebody worth building a better life for, something a little safer, a little kinder, a little more hopeful that you could enjoy together.
But how did you do that when the world was so crazy?
She rubbed her face, trying to cut through the fear and frustration to get to some step she could make. First thing, she couldn’t run away and pretend there was anything noble about it. Hand trembling, she turned the photo so Dezi could see.
She snarled. “Who’s that?”
“Javier.”
Dezi’s laugh was so dark. “And here I’d thought he might be one of the few good ones.”
“What?” Emma asked, taken aback by the assumption.
“He got the disease, miss. Did you ask him which girl gave it to him?”
Anger flushed through her, sympathy giving way to frustration that Dezi couldn’t see what was happening. “I don’t know how you’ve been passing this around, but look.” She zoomed in on his back, where the darkness had surrounded several scrapes across his skin. “These are coming from scratches—scratches he got protecting your ass from zombie Charming.”
Dezi stilled like that possibility hadn’t even occurred to her.
“How do you think you got to the hospital?”
“Dr. Reyes carried me. I remember that.”
“And do you remember him rolling around on the damn floor of that broken strip mall, trying to keep you away from Charming?” Rabies—he’d said it was carried like rabies, which came from bites. Or just saliva. “He offered your former boss his back to keep you out of range. And look where that got him.”
Dezi turned away like she didn’t want to see.
“You know the second round of people to get hurt are always the ones trying to help. After the shit hits the fan from evil men doing evil things? The next casualties are the people willing to risk their asses to make life better. And that’s him. That’s Javi. And don’t you dare—don’t you ever fucking dare accuse him of being something other than the good man he is.”
Dez’rae finally turned to look at her, eyes haunted. “I can’t. If it gets out what I did…”
“He doesn’t want revenge. He just wants to fix it.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know how to fix it, and that’s the truth.”
“Just tell him and his sister—she’s a powerful witch—what you did. Together, the three of y’all can figure it out. Three plenty-smart, powerful people—you can solve this.” Emma swallowed, trying to figure out how to convince her. “I don’t care about the world—it can rot far as I’m concerned. But I care about him. You don’t need to do it for the world. Do it for a guy who tried to help. A guy who grew up in your neighborhood and got out.”
Dezi watched her for a moment, eyes turning soft. “You love him?”
Emma looked away, unsure how to answer that. “I’m not sure I got love in me.”
The young woman straightened up even further, and her eyes looked so old. “Emma,” she said, startling Emma with the use of her name, “how can you keep telling us, your Empower girls, that we’ve got a future, despite the things we’ve been through—despite the things we’ve done—if you don’t believe you’ve got one?”
“Because it’s different. You’re young.”
“No, it’s not. You’re a vampire. You’ve got forever to fix something we’ve only got a few decades—if we’re lucky—to fix.” She looked away, then looked back. “I’ll go. But on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell me you’re not going to be a whore anymore.”
“I’m not—”
“No, I told you. You still think you are.” She swallowed. “You gave me a chance to get out. I went back for Jaz and I failed her—I failed her, and I got so angry the only thing I could see was revenge. Honestly, I don’t care about the world. I don’t even care about the doctor—maybe he’s better than most, but he’s still just another guy, far as I’m concerned. But you helped me out, and I’m returning the favor. I’ll do this for you. But only if you can tell me you’ll do your level best to make it worth my time.”
Tears squeezed out of Emma’s eyes as she tried to sort through the mess inside. But Dez had said something really smart, something she hadn’t thought too much about before. How could she ask other girls to believe in the future if she didn’t? And how could anyone make good choices, choices that would propel them into a beautiful life, i
f they didn’t think they had a future?
She cleared her throat. “I’m a baker.”
Dez blinked. “A… baker?”
Emma wiped her nose and nodded and stood up. “I’m a baker. I put ingredients together and make amazing things—you probably saw some of them at Empower. I’d drop cookies and stuff off sometimes.” She reached for Dez’rae, who took her hand and slowly stood up. “You gonna make it okay?”
The girl’s face scrunched in pain, but she forced it to clear and nodded. “Yeah. I can make it.”
“Okay, good.” They made a careful path to the parking lot. “Who are you?”
Dezi blew out a breath. “A vet tech, I guess? I don’t think I can keep that job now.”
“That was not the question you asked me. What do you do? Other than cast spells with the potential to end humanity in a zombie apocalypse, I mean.” She helped Dezi into her old red truck that they’d picked up on the way to the motel.
Dezi stared at her lap as Emma walked around, so quiet Emma thought she wouldn’t answer. Emma started the engine, feeling the irony of driving to Scarlet at the beginning of Armageddon—she might die in a whorehouse just as she’d decided she wasn’t a whore.
“An accountant.” Dezi was so quiet Emma could barely hear it.
“An… an accountant? Like math?” That sounded like the single most horrifying job possible.
Dezi rolled her eyes. “I’m good at it. I know nobody’d trust me to do that, but I used to keep Charming’s books. And then at the vet office, the accountant let me help sometimes—taught me how to be professional about it.” She blew out a calm breath like just the thought of all those confusing columns of numbers relaxed her. “In accounting, everything adds up. You put the numbers in right, and everything’s clean and has a place. Everything fits. I like that.”
Emma stayed quiet for a moment, pondering over a thought that terrified her down to her toes, as she pushed the truck as fast as it would go. “I can’t read.”
“Huh?” Dez said. “What do you mean you can’t read?”