Through the windows she could see him disappear into the forest at a jog, his shotgun aimed in front of him. Ruby slumped against the wall and sucked in a deep breath. And another. Praying he’d come back to her was all she had left.
She went through the hall to close the lounge door against all the coppery blood, and froze. The closet opened, blocking out the light seeping through the wolf-shaped hole in the front door.
A man stepped out, his eyes yellow, his skin hanging in strands and part of his left cheek was missing, highlighting the white bone beneath.
Her hands shook and she realized they were empty. She’d left the gun in the kitchen. Shit.
The creature’s grating groan startled her into action. She turned as it lunged forward. As the light hit its skin, it sizzled and the smell made her gag. Darting to the side, she dodged its skeletal hand. Her shoes, damp from the morning dew on the grass, skidded on the shiny blood covered floor. Her stomach heaved, but she fought the urge to puke. Catching the doorframe for balance, she pulled herself through to the kitchen.
A loud thud told her the infected hadn’t been so lucky. She grabbed the gun, hiked it up on her shoulder and aimed it at the thing flailing on the floor. It seemed to have lost a few fingers in the fall. When she spotted them squirming next to the doorway, she swallowed back bile.
Shoot it. Do it now.
Jeremy’s demanding tone popped into her head. She pulled the trigger and the force of the shot knocked her back a few steps. Her shoulder ached, and her ears rang, but she didn’t stop to worry about that. She spun around and sprinted out the door.
***
A shot rang out just as Jeremy was twenty feet into the forest. The sound came from her grandma’s house. His chest constricted and the muscles in his legs seized for a second.
Red.
Adrenaline pumped through his body and gave him the strength he needed to move. Turning, he bolted back in the direction of the cottage.
The forest had grown quiet, and he couldn’t help freak out that the wolf had returned, but in fucking daylight? Shit, he shouldn’t have left her, he shouldn’t have—
Ruby burst out of the back door and ran down the path with the gun gripped tightly to her chest. He let out a sigh of relief, and as he cleared the forest into the meadow around her grandma’s cottage, her gaze met his.
That’s when they both heard the growl. One second he was running, the next he was eating dirt. The body slam didn’t register, and he wondered what the fuck he’d tripped over, until she screamed.
The pain came fast, like broken glass splinters had been lodged in his ankle. But it wasn’t glass, and he was being pulled deeper into the shadows of the forest. He kicked back at the fucker, and when his boot connected with the wolf’s face it let go with a snarl.
Jeremy tried to get up, but the wolf was faster. It was in a crouch before he could get his legs under him. Fuck, he was next, and he couldn’t get her away. In a last ditch attempt he scrambled to find his gun.
A shot rang in his ears, and the wolf let out a whine. It backed into the thicket of bushes just as his hand closed around the metal barrel. He swung the gun around and aimed it at the clearing, but the sounds of the wolf were getting farther away.
“Jer, your leg.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but he heard the panic.
He looked down his body and saw his denims covered in blood. The sharp pains hadn’t faded, but adrenaline was nothing if not a painkiller. Then it sunk in. Fuck. He was infected.
Wasn’t Karma a bitch?
Chapter Six
The house was quiet when they returned. Ruby helped Jeremy into the kitchen, trailing blood all over the hall, but that was the least of her worries. Seeing him there, in the jaws of the wolf was her nightmare. Only worse. This was real life and she had almost lost the only thing she had left to live for. The only man she would ever love.
He lowered himself into a chair with a grunt, and she went to the cupboard under the sink, pulled the first aid box out and readied herself to get to work. But she knew the truth, knew it with all her heart. Didn’t mean she was going to accept it.
“Red, don’t. Cleaning the wound won’t stop it. I’m infected.”
She refused to meet his gaze as she fished a dishtowel out of the drawer and a bowl. Filling it with warm water, she brought the supplies to the floor and left them next to his feet. Oh God it was horrific. His skin was torn beneath his jeans. Fighting back the bubble of hysteria, she carefully rolled up the denim.
Cuts, she told herself. Only cuts. She needed to clean them and treat him and he’d be fine.
“Red, listen to me.”
Ruby took the dishtowel, wet the corner then began to clean the wound. He hissed at the pain and she wished she could spare him that, but she had to get it clean. Had to get…
Her vision blurred and she swiped at her eyes. Jeremy tilted her face up and cupped her cheeks in his dirty hands. “No,” she whispered, not wanting to hear the horrid truth.
The pain in his expression mirrored her own. “You have to leave here. You have to get out.”
“No!” She got to her feet. “I’m not leaving you. Never again.”
“Red, it’s over. I don’t want you around when I have to—”.
“The sun. You’re in the sun,” she cut in, not willing to hear the rest.
“I’m changing, I can feel it. The sun will start to burn me soon.”
She shook her head. “I can’t let you die.”
He pulled her close and she twisted, slid onto his lap, tight against his chest.
“I want you to leave,” he said. “You need to get out of here before I…”
“No. Please, Jeremy. No. Tell me there’s another way. Tell me this doesn’t have to be the end.” The dam burst, even though she knew it was over. He wouldn’t want to be a monster, and he wouldn’t want to ask her to take his life.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out so he shut it again. Her heart sped, slamming against her ribs and her breaths came in gasps.
“Is there another way?” she pressed, trying to keep the tears at bay.
“I swore to myself I’d never lie to you again if I could help it.” He paused, squeezing his eyes shut. “But telling you the truth now would hurt you.”
Her vision blurred. “There’s no…” Just like he’d told her last night. This was the end.
He nodded. “But I’m still me. I still have time.”
“For?” she asked, unable to bat away the last pathetic shred of hope.
The serious look in his eyes, the regretful expression, made her want to cuddle up to him and tell him he was wrong. “To end this myself.”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry, for everything. I wish I could have told you it all. I wish it didn’t have to end without you knowing the truth.” The regret and self-loathing in his eyes resonated with her, soul-deep.
“So tell me now. Please, tell me it all now.” The longer he kept talking, the longer she had with him. “I’ll disappear, they won’t find me, and I’ll swear I didn’t know a thing. Nothing will happen to me, Jer.”
“I can’t risk you like that.”
Jeremy’s eyes filled with moisture, a first for him which proved how pathetic it was to hope. She was glad at the end he was finally showing her warmth, finally cracking the icy wall around him.
“I would never put your life in danger that way,” he said.
She rose from his lap and paced the kitchen. If she thought walking away from him before had been bad, this was worse. “If you die, my life doesn’t matter.” He opened his mouth to interrupt her but she raised a palm to stop him. “I’d rather know the real you, and face any consequences than have you die and not know the truth. Tell me.”
The silence that followed made her want to scream, but she waited.
Eventually his head dropped and his shoulders slumped in defeat. She held onto the countertop, preparing herself for what would come next.
He sucked in a huge breath. “Once upon a time in a land far, far away…”
“Be serious, Jer.”
His eyes were haunted with sadness. “I need to do it this way, please.” She nodded, and he went on. “There was a crazy scientist who thought he could save the world. The man was an expert on the biggest killer of all, a disease every historian on the planet thought had been destroyed hundreds of years ago. It had taken as many children as adults far and wide.”
Ruby wondered why he needed to tell her this like it was a fairytale, then she realized he was talking about his father. Trying to pretend it wasn’t a story that happened to him. Her heart ached, but she tightened her grip on the counter and forced herself to listen. Besides, she knew the part about the disease breaking out, and a mutated version of what happened before being the reason. What she didn’t know was how Jeremy was involved.
“When the disease first returned after lying dormant for centuries, the man’s wife, a nurse, was one of the first to be infected. She had a wound on her hand. There was an accident in the trauma unit – we still don’t know for sure what happened, but somehow an infected patient’s blood seeped into her wound. It doesn’t just spread through saliva. Like many things, blood can be the carrier. She hadn’t realized the patient had the disease, how could she? Nobody knew. This patient was one of the first to catch it. Up until a few years ago everyone assumed it had been neutralized. The scientist soon realized something was wrong when his wife’s flesh started to decay.”
He paused to take a breath and she lost the battle to fight back her tears.
“Don’t cry, Red. You’ve shed enough tears for me.”
Swiping away the moisture on her cheeks, she offered him a weak smile.
“The man was an expert on contagious diseases. He worked day and night, teaching his son about the science behind the disease, telling him they would be the men who would go down in history for finding a cure. What he didn’t tell the son was that he, the scientist, was infecting animals with the disease in a small shack in the woods.”
The way he spoke, with such distaste, confused her. “I would have done the same.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Jeremy, your dad was losing your mom to an old disease that wasn’t even documented. He was desperate, willing to try anything to save her.”
Shaking his head, he spoke through his teeth. “You may change your mind about that.”
Ruby doubted it, but she waited for him to go on.
“The rate the man and his son progressed was phenomenal. One year later they thought they had a cure, but the father insisted they had to wait before they gave it to the wife. This was when the disease still worked at a slow pace, taking its time to kill its victims, eating them from the outside in.” Jeremy grimaced. “The son didn’t understand what he meant, but his father disappeared for the weekend, telling the son not to worry, that he would be back soon. The son’s mother died that night.”
Moisture shimmered in his eyes. She crossed the room, unable to keep her distance, took his hand and squeezed.
“Weeks passed and the father never returned. Soon after, the government broke into his home, stripped all their research away and left the son without an explanation. Six months later, the story hit the news about a similar disease that rotted people, but which worked at a much quicker pace and also turned the victims into mindless monsters.”
“The government officials who raided the son’s house pulled him out of University and took him to their secret headquarters. He was questioned about the supposed cure, his father and their research, and it all clicked into place for the son. He realized that his father had tested the cure and something had happened to cause the disease to mutate, turning everyone who was infected into monsters. He begged the officials to let him help end the crisis and find a way to stop it.”
“But when the son and the officials did find a way, they realized that the situation wasn’t completely contained. The son searched through his father’s notes until he found scribbles about an outside lab deep in the woods, about a mile along the river. He came to the forest and found more papers, more research, and the son figured out that his last experiment with the wolf was what had started it all. The scientist’s search for a cure had backfired. The scientist had been directly responsible for the disease mutating and turning people into monsters. ”
Three years and he’d never said a word to her about his past. She knew his mother had died, just not how, and thought his father lived in the city. She should be angry at the amount of lies he had told. But part of Ruby knew he would have been honest with her if he could, and part of her knew the kind, caring man who made love to her so tenderly and with a hunger that defied reason would be ashamed of his father. Ashamed of himself for helping.
Although that was ridiculous. “Jeremy, you both did everything you could to help. Your father made mistakes, sure, but not intentionally.” She stroked his face and looked deep into his eyes. “Neither of you did anything most people wouldn’t do if they could.”
She’d do anything to save him.
Jeremy swallowed, and averted his gaze. She wanted to climb onto his lap, to rub away the tension straining his jaw, help him to find peace with himself and his father, but she didn’t. In the time since he’d started speaking, his face had paled further, his eyes turned a shade lighter, and her heart cracked open as cold reality dawned. She was really losing him.
Out of nowhere he smiled up at her and his eyes darkened back to their usual black. “When the son moved to the forest to hunt the wolf, he had to pretend to be a woodcutter. The government swore him to secrecy, and the son didn’t ever think that would be a problem. But the woman of his dreams skipped up the path carrying a basket of cakes for her grandma, her red cloak blowing in the wind with her red and gold curls, and the son knew he was in trouble.”
She returned his smile, unable to help herself. He squeezed her hand.
“But as the son fell deeply in love, the secrets he had to keep and lies he had to tell her cut him up inside.” He paused, looked down at their joined hands and whispered. “I thought if I could keep my emotions in check, I could keep distance between us. I’m sorry for that. I should have shown you how much I cared about you every day.”
Ruby gently tilted his chin with her free hand. “I always knew, Jer. Deep down I knew.”
Half his mouth tilted in a sad half-smile, and he switched back to his gloomy story. “When she left him, the son believed it was for the best, that she’d move on to a new life, even if the thought almost killed him.”
She leaned over, intent on kissing away his sorrow, but he shook his head. Her heart sank.
“The son never thought he’d see his love again, and when he did, nothing mattered more to him than her safety. He would have died countless deaths, challenged monsters, and taken on the government to tell her the truth, keep her alive and safe with him. And when the other half of him found it in herself to forgive him, the man spent the most wonderful night of his life making love to the woman who owned him, heart and soul.”
Tears streamed freely down her cheeks. “The story isn’t finished. All fairy tales have happily ever after’s.”
Jeremy raised a hand weakly to cup her cheek, used his thumb to stall her tears. “Not this one, Red. I’m sorry.”
Shaking her head, she refused to believe it. “Don’t you have access to a lab? Isn’t there something we can try? I know the new cure kills those the wolf infected, but there must be something.”
“Sweetheart, there isn’t any time. I have to end this now.”
She dropped his hand and backed up to the sink. “Don’t you dare give up on me now. I’ll end it if I need to, but don’t give up on us. Fight.”
She glared at his shuttered expression, refusing to back down.
Jeremy nodded.
***
This was wrong. He should end this now and save her the pain of having to do it, but he couldn’t deny h
er this. Jeremy took a mental inventory of himself. His arms and legs were too heavy, the cuts on his ankle hurt, but he still had his mind. Could still think like himself.
The change hadn’t progressed too far, but further and quicker than what had been documented previously. Perhaps it was because he shared the same DNA as his mother. After all, it was her blood they’d used to create the epidemic in the first place. It made sense it would accelerate his change. But how long did he have? A few hours, a day?
Keeping his distance from her was mandatory, just in case he snapped. “Red, go get the gun and wait in the hall. I had a secret lab installed in the house. We can access it through the coat closet. Use the panel, the code is the same as the one for the shutters. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Why do I need a gun?” she asked, though he’d thought having a secret lab might distract her from that.
“In case I go too far. In case you need to act quickly.”
Her face paled, but she nodded and left the room. He didn’t want it to come to that. He’d end it himself, but he had to show her he was willing to try. Prove that he loved her, even though he knew what happened next.
Jeremy managed to haul himself to his feet. A sharp ache shot up from his ankle but he ignored it. Tentatively, he pulled off his jacket. His arms were almost gray now. Shit, it was definitely spreading faster than normal. He quickly tied a bandage around the bite marks. If he could keep trying long enough to let her know he wasn’t going to give up, keep his mind until it was time to end it himself, then she wouldn’t feel like he’d failed her. He wanted her to go on believing in them, believing he loved her right to the end. If there was another life after this one, he’d love her in that too.
Until Red, he hadn’t believed in soul mates. Ironic that he should find his and not be allowed to spend his life with her. Then again, it was what he deserved. Creating the cause wasn’t all on his father. The man had been small minded and set in his ways. If not for Jeremy’s mixture, his father would never have been able to start the epidemic. That was all on Jeremy.
Once Upon a Twist Page 12