“No, I mean … you told me how everyone treats Mirko. I would be in the same world in the same way he is, but it would be worse, right? Because I’m a girl.” She shakes her head slowly. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want that.”
I can’t believe this. “So, you’d rather die?”
She winces.
“Slatki,” Mirko growls. “In the hall.”
“Please, Kaitlynn. Think about this. It doesn’t have to be all bad. You can live.”
“Now,” Mirko demands.
I rise and storm out into the hall.
Once the door clicks behind us, Mirko lays into me. “How could you be so selfish? This is her life, her decision, and it’s not one she should take lightly.”
“Heck, yeah, I’m gonna be selfish. When it comes to Kaitlynn living or dying, I will always be selfish! I would die for her. All I’m asking is that she live.”
“You could die tomorrow and then where would that leave Kaitlynn? She has to have more of a reason to do this than because it’s what you want.”
“It’s more than what I want. It’s what I need. Nothing matters to me anymore if Kaitlynn’s not a part of my life. And the fact that she’ll still be alive should be enough of a reason to do it. And that’s partly why I’m so pissed. I didn’t get a choice into this life, but if came down to living or dying, I’d suck it up. She can’t give up. It’s not our way. We fight to survive, no matter how slim the chances are or how bleak the future is. We fight.”
Mirko clenches his jaw.
I don’t care. He matters to me, but right now, he’s trying to talk me out of fighting for Kaitlynn. This conversation might be one of those I’ll regret later, but I’m pissed. Beyond angry. We have a real chance at saving Kaitlynn and we need to do everything in our power to do so. Her not wanting to accept the help is not an option for me.
“I know you’re mad at me,” Mirko says, “but I’m not backing down. It’s her choice. Her future. She should be able to make the decision with all the facts. You’re being irrational and insensitive to her.”
“Irrational? Not at all. Insensitive? Why, because I want her to live? Because I’m not ready to see her die? Uh-uh, we’ve found a way to save her. She needs to take it.”
Mirko shakes his head. “Stay out here until you calm down. She needs a moment to think about this without you breathing down her neck.”
“Whatever.” I glare at the back of his head when he walks back inside.
How dare he kick me out of my best friend’s room?
On her deathbed?
I spin on my heel and punch the wall. Aggression consumes me, which isn’t like me at all.
Jaren comes out into the hall. “Probably not your best idea.” He nods toward the dent. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”
I glance down at my hand expecting to see torn knuckles, scraped skin at the very least, but my hand’s unmarred. It doesn’t hurt, either. Not sure if that’s a sign of my skin’s strength or the adrenaline pumping through my angry veins.
I’m boiling, but every time I try to talk myself into calming down, I circle back to the same point that riles me up again. This is Kaitlynn.
“Yeah. Have ’em bill me.” I turn my back to him and walk away. He most likely came out into the hall because it’s an opportunity to tell me what I want to hear, that he thinks Kaitlynn should turn. But his motives are impure—he’d only say it because he wants me to give him another chance. He should tell me that because he thinks that’s truly what Kaitlynn should do.
And because I’ll question his intent, I won’t let him speak to me. It’ll only make me madder. Especially because Mirko and I are fighting.
This all went downhill way too fast.
Is this what Lijepa meant when she said my Pijawikan side would change me? That I’ll be more aggressive, more selfish?
Am I already losing my humanity?
It’s times like this I feel it slipping.
I need fresh air, so I smack the button to call the elevator. It shows it’s on the main floor.
I’m too keyed up to wait so I take the stairs. I go faster and faster down each flight, trying to burn off some of my frustration.
When I finally reach the ground floor, I figure I might be able to talk to someone without biting their head off. Progress, but I still need the air.
The drop in temperature when I step outside is exactly what I need. The cold breeze hits my face, sinking into my veins and chilling the anger in my blood.
When I’m calm enough to speak rationally, I call my dad.
“Brooke?”
“Yeah, hi, Dad.” I bet the “dad” part throws him a little. I’ve only ever addressed him as “father.”
“Hello.”
“Listen, I’ve never had a dad. I’ve always hated that you weren’t around, and I promised myself if I ever found you, I wouldn’t ask for anything more from you than for you to want me as your daughter. And I’m so glad that you’ve given me that, but I have to ask you for something else.”
“Brooke? What’s going on?”
“Kaitlynn is sick. She might die. I talked to Mirko about turning her into a Zao Duh, but he said our biggest obstacle is finding a Pijawika to give us the blood. And since you’re really the only one who doesn’t want to kill me, I kind of need your blood. Please.” I throw the plea in for good measure.
He’s quiet.
Please say yes.
“This is a bit unexpected. Brooke, you have to understand I am not unwilling to help you save your friend, but I have not turned a Zao Duh in centuries. I am careful about the people I turn because once someone is turned, I am responsible for them for a long time, you see.”
“I haven’t asked you for anything since you’ve come around. You missed over sixteen years of my life. You haven’t even been here for even one percent of my life. And I will never ask you for another thing as long as I live if you’ll just give me this one thing. She’s a good person, Dad. I can’t bear it if she dies.” I suck a deep breath of cold air into my lungs. “Please,” I beg, letting all my desperation and hopelessness come out in that one word.
“Brooke … I will see what I can do. Let me talk to Emerik. We have to go to this meeting with the Commission, so it may not be until afterward.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I hop up and down on the sidewalk and kiss my phone.
If we were speaking to one another in person rather than via phone, I would plant a million kisses on his cheeks. I don’t care that we were never close before, I love my dad.
He laughs into the phone. “All right. We must leave now. I will talk to you about this later.”
That dampens some of my giddiness. This meeting is serious, and none of us are certain of its outcome. “Okay. Good luck.” I mean it. I don’t want to find him and then have to face losing him. Nor do I want to stand before the Commission myself.
But Kaitlynn’s my focus now.
I’ve got the Pijawikan blood; that’s one hurdle crossed. The next is convincing Kaitlynn to turn, and then getting Mirko and my dad to help me with the rest. We don’t have much time. Rorik said he bought Kaitlynn time because he recognized the symptoms of meningitis, but during her last check from the doctor, he said if the antibiotics don’t make progress soon, Kaitlynn’s organs might start failing. Once that happens, there’s pretty much nothing else they can do for her. So we have—
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out.
David.
“Geez, what’s taking so long?”
“You need to listen to me closely.” It isn’t David. The man’s voice is deep and gravelly, like a chain smoker’s.
“Who is this?”
“What’s important is for you to listen to me. You need to run. Stay away from our politics. Stay away from the Commission. Run and hide, and never be found. David is a sacrifice to show you how serious this is. You have to leave, or another one of your friends will be next.”
“Who—”
The line goes dead.<
br />
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Brooke
I don’t stop to consider if anyone is watching me before I flex my Nestati.
I blink.
I’m outside David’s house.
I pull his front door open so hard one of the hinges howls as it tears from its wood frame.
“David!” I scream as I run through their family room. I barrel down the hall and burst into David’s room.
Empty.
I swivel on my heel and whisk down the hall into the kitchen. I try to stop, but my feet can’t get traction.
I slide across the linoleum.
In blood.
David’s sprawled on the floor in a pool of his own blood, which is spreading fast. His throat is slit all the way to his trachea.
The bloody knife lays on the floor, glinting up at me.
His eyes are open, but they’re empty.
Lifeless.
“Nooooo!” I wail. Something deep and powerful inside me snaps. My whole body fills with unadulterated rage.
My skin’s on fire. No, it’s under my skin.
Maybe it’s the horror of the torn flesh, the sinew and bone.
Or maybe it’s simply the loss of another innocent life on my account.
Bang!
My head snaps up when the back screen door slaps closed.
I run toward it, slipping in David’s blood for a few steps until my feet find purchase. I sprint, bypassing the door altogether by flexing my Nestati again.
Once outside, I spot a man running into the woods.
I flex again and land at the tree line.
I needed to go past it.
The man runs through the trees.
I chase him, trying to flex enough to land on top and tackle the bastard to the ground, but I keep coming up short.
I’m too weak—my blood buzz spent.
I pull out my phone and autodial Mirko. I run as fast as I can, holding the phone to my ear.
He better have that thing on.
“Slat—”
“David’s dead. I’m chasing his killer right now. We’re in the woods behind David’s, heading toward the railroad tracks!”
“I’m on my way. Keep him in your sights, but do not approach him,” Mirko growls.
I jam my phone in my pocket, not even ending the call.
I’m going to do a lot more than approach this guy.
He’s fast, definitely a Zao Duh or Pijawika. Most likely a Pijawika.
Mirko’s fast, but that’s because he’s Mirko, and luckily for me, Mirko is the one I race when I train.
My lungs burn from the cold and a stitch roars up in my side, stabbing me on each inhale. I push harder. The guy took David’s life.
He murdered him.
With a weapon.
Pijawikas aren’t supposed to use weapons. It’s cheating. It makes the already horrendous crime more violent.
I’m determined to make him pay.
Fury bubbles inside me so fierce, I can’t think of anything else, but the way I push my body clears my head some.
The guy mentioned the Commission. Told me to run and hide.
Why does he care if I stay or if I run?
Could my father have something to do with it after all?
Did he send him as a last resort to keep me from testifying?
I don’t want to believe that.
But why David? How did David get into this guy’s crosshairs?
I somehow run harder when the guy gets farther away. My heartbeat sounds in my ears. I’m not stopping until I have my hands around his throat.
I flex again to gain some ground, but it takes too much strength and actually costs me a few steps.
What’s the benefit of being so strong if I can’t use my powers when I need them?
I recall flexing in Garwin’s foyer when the Commissioners called me, back at school when my father came and I went to grab Mirko, and flexing as far as from the hospital to David’s. I couldn’t really expect Mirko’s blood to last longer than that.
My focus wanes and slows me down, so I push all thoughts aside and fix my full attention to the murder in front of me.
He isn’t getting tired, but no matter how bad my side hurts, I won’t allow myself to, either.
Grinding and shrieking sounds in the distance.
We’re approaching the train tracks. Sounds like a train’s approaching us.
The guy shoots out of the trees and a couple seconds later, I’m out of the forest and running through the dead grass, then up the gravel hill alongside the tracks.
He speeds alongside the train. It must be going at least seventy miles an hour, and the guy is barely a bit slower, maybe sixty-five.
He reaches a train car shaped like a big, black gas tank, a metal ladder welded to the side. He latches onto a rung and jumps.
I struggle to speed up to reach the car, but I’m already at my max speed. The car beside me doesn’t have anything to grasp, but the one behind it is another tank.
I slow slightly until the tank is beside me and I keep pace with it for a couple of steps before lunging onto the ladder.
I wrap my fingers tight around the metal in fear that I’ll slip and fall under the train’s heavy wheels.
“Brooke!”
I arch my head back at the same time Mirko clears the trees.
Whoa. He’s fast.
But not fast enough. The murder’s still ahead of us.
I take a deep, aching breath and scramble up the ladder to the top of the tank. It has a circular railing, so I climb over it and run to the front of the car, readying myself to jump.
I hesitate, gauging the distance, not sure how far I need to jump while the train is in motion.
The guy’s now five or six cars ahead.
I vault in the air and hope the next car will catch my fall. I land the same time I hear a heavy ding against the car I vacated. Mirko is on the train.
I don’t stop and wait for him.
I scramble to my feet and run, swinging my arms at my sides and pushing so hard, spittle flies out of my mouth with every exhale.
I jump the next car and slide a little when I land. My arms shoot out to balance and I take off again, jumping the next car with precision, and the next car and the next car until the guy is only one ahead of me.
I allow myself one last flex, and I flex so hard a tooth groans like it might snap.
I arrive on the same car as David’s murderer. I plummet into the air and land on his back, pushing him down onto the cold, hard steel.
I don’t spare him any time. I clock him in the side of the face.
“Who sent you?” I scream and punch with the other hand.
“What’s your name?” I punch again and again, never letting up.
“Brooke! Stop!” Mirko hollers behind me.
Bone snaps and still I land blow after blow.
Blood spurts into my face when his nose breaks, but I slam my fist down again.
“Who sent you?” I sock him in the eye, shattering his socket, and still I don’t stop.
Mirko tackles me from behind and rolls me off the guy. “He can’t answer you when you do that.”
I push him off and scramble back to the guy, throwing one leg over him.
His hands are free, but instead of fighting back, he reaches into his pocket, and then brings his hand up.
He places something in his mouth and slams his broken jaw up with his palm, crunching whatever he put between his teeth.
“What is that?” I growl, reaching my hands to his face and trying to dig his lips open with my fingers.
“It’s a suicide pill,” Mirko says from beside me.
I jerk my hands away. “A what?”
“A cyanide pill. We’re not going to get anything out of him.” He sounds defeated.
I scrutinize the guy’s face and slap it. “Who sent you?”
He doesn’t answer. He only stares up at me through his swollen and bloody face like he can’t breathe.
He sputters and gurgles.
Strange noises bubble up as he chokes.
I stand and kick him in the side. “Who sent you, damn it?”
Mirko pulls me away. “He’s dying.”
“You son of a bitch!” I yell.
He does not get to kill David and go out like this. “Who sent you?” I scream and kick him so hard, a rib gives under my foot.
He feels it too because he gurgles louder.
His face turns purple. His eyes widen, and then he’s out.
He still wheezes, so he must be unconscious.
“Why would he do that?” I ask Mirko, stunned.
“So we can’t interrogate him.” He looks down at the piece of trash. “That was the worst interrogation I’ve ever seen. What were you thinking, Slatki? Even if he wanted to answer you, he couldn’t with the way you pummeled him like that.”
“He killed David!” I yell and point at the dying man. I glance down at him again. His face is a mean red and his mouth starts to foam.
Such an ugly sight.
Good. He better be suffering.
His legs jerk and the rest of his body follows suit.
“What the …?” I step back. We’re on a speeding train and I don’t want one of his wild arms or legs to knock me off.
“He’s seizing.” Mirko pulls me back a little more.
The guy’s rigid body flops and flails on top of the train car as it speeds through the cold Virginia air.
When he finally settles, I can’t speak.
David is dead.
The guy who killed him is dead.
But I don’t feel better about anything.
I’m not appeased.
I’m cheated. David is still dead, we don’t know who ordered it, and I just saw a man die—pretty much at my hand. Although he deserved it, I have no doubt his face will haunt me in my sleep.
My humanity?
It’s gone.
The old Brooke would’ve fallen to her knees on David’s bloody floor and wept. She would’ve held his hand and rocked back and forth as she cried.
Not this Brooke, though.
This Brooke tasted revenge.
Her vision turned red with the scent of blood and she sought to spill even more of it.
And she did.
She’d shattered bone, tore skin, and caused a man to kill himself.
Enemy Within (Vampire Born Trilogy, #2) Page 12